[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[TheHumanHydra]

Outside chance m_h might be preparing to come for us while we're "distracted."

Yeah, bring up that chariot. Warrior on cows can be MP.

Looking forward to seeing what happens - you'll post another troop strength comparison when he shows up?

[Old Harry]

Hmmm, I wonder - m_h didn't get any classical techs recently, so anything he's built would have to be axes...

Anyway I finished up the turn. Moved the chariot to 1W of Hastings, moved Flug SW, so he can threaten the worker next turn if we want, offered a map trade to mostly_harmless and finished up the worker moves on the borders.

It looks like wine is the only thing we can trade for our spare silver, so how about asking dtay or someone else for gpt instead?

[Old Harry]

Turn 114 prologue

mostly_harmless went for the map trade, looks like YuriMack expanded brilliantly at the start, while Suttree didn't and m_h went the wrong way...


Suttree moved his stack in. There are four catapults, two spears and twelve axes (two are combat one). We have two axes due to complete this turn on top of the six we already have, two spears, two chariots and six bowmen can all reach Hastings before the stack.


So we can either
a. put three shock axes on the 2/4 jungle and chop the 3/4 jungle, sacrificing the worker to get a shot at them on the flat
b. chop both jungles to see if he'll split up his stack to keep all three workers
c. chop the southern jungle (sacrificing two workers) and put our stack on the northern one
d. ragequit

In the first two cases I think we move the three bowmen in Jamestown to the cot 2/4 sign, then into the city next turn, in the third case they can join the stack on the northern jungle. In the first case the axe that finishes in Jamestown this turn can hit the stack.

I haven't simmed it, I'll have a try now, but I think we need to keep our stack hidden on the other side of Hastings. Delenda est Suttree!

[Old Harry]

Simming the battle

The combat sandbox

I think we should do this (2 spears in Hastings, three bowmen and two workers NE of hastings, 2 axes and a bowman SE of hastings, 5 axes, 2 chariots and a bowman W of Hastings)


Then Suttree has odds of 1.5% to attack our forest stack, so unless he wants to lose ~4-5 axes and leave another two behind he'll move to the flat land (you can test it out here):


Then turn two starts like this (note the two extra axes available, who I've given shock as a matter of course):


Then after a fight that looks something like this Suttree runs away. I think we lose two fights, and if we save CII promotions we can heal victorious units. It would be nice not to lose to the cats, but that'll just be random.


Having had a play I'm not sure we need to upgrade the warrior for 80 gold, or bring every bowman from Jamestown, and there might even be an argument for going straight to super-medic with the chariot. What do you think?

Alternatively, we just let him move to whichever jungle he likes and take the shot - Hastings has got so many units in that the cats don't do any good at all and he'll win approx one battle...

[TheHumanHydra]

Interesting ... how long do we have to think about it before we have to play?

Also screw you for bringing 12 axes, suttree. His persistence is enough to make we want to not care about the future and just annihilate him (okay, not quite enough).

[Fintourist]

So it begins..

Thanks for the sims and overview! My workday will end at ~4 PM Finnish time and I would greatly appreciate it if we could wait until then before commiting to a plan! It's a big turn and if I have some time to think about this it would be great!

I'm initially liking something involving sacrificing 1 worker, and roading the tile NE of Hastings for flexibility, upgrading the GG anyways and so on. Nut I don't want our stack W of Hastings because suttree can then just move N and the stack will be out of reach. Afterwards he can move to the tile S of Jamestown, because preventing that is difficult without givinig him an open shot.

Ichabod offered this:



This is something I don't like however:



This is simply a free city raze for dtay if he wants. We have 2 bowmen in Isandlwana, but now it's already too late to bring one to France for defense. We should probably do it anyways so that this won't happen again.

Oh well, most likely that galley is empty and dtay is friendly. for open borders btw!

Talk you later! Let's hope this suttree situation can be solved now!

[TheHumanHydra]

I think that is 9 am where I am. Do you guys want to arrange a chat? I'm going to bed now, but I'll check here first thing in the morning.

[Fintourist]

Chat sounds great, if Harry has time. I have couple of ideas that I would like to discuss with you.

I think our situation looks fine. 12 axes, 4 cats + 2 speasr is not something that you want to see at your borders and if our opponents would know this their threads should be full of dancing bananas... But we will manage unless our RNG luck is a disaster.

Interesting times..

[Old Harry]

Hey guys, chat at 2pm/4pm/9am sounds good - can you play the turn Fintourist? I'll be at work and so probably not able to...

Wish I'd spotted that dtay galley, I think we shouldn't cancel the whale deal this turn and just accept the unhappy face in Cannae for a turn. Note there is another galley here. I hope it's just bringing reinforcements for Milos. Presumably he didn't drop off a settler last turn because he'd have settled this turn.


I've done the obvious worker stuff. At Light Brigade Worker I should probably chop, then one of the workers on the floodplain farm can move down to road the dye SE of that city next turn while the other could chop the other jungle or build a road on the floodplain.

Things to do:
- Whip Jamestown
- Whip Hastings
- I don't think we need any more units, so what should we build in Dunkirk? Settler for the river valley or wealth?
- Should we complete CoL this turn or next?
- Whip France
- Move Bowman towards France
- Threaten Suttree's chopping worker
- Move Axe from Dunkirk towards Hastings (and warrior back to Dunkirk?)
- Chop forest by Konigg
- Move units at Suttree front

There is another cat coming up towards Madrid, so Suttree may be planning to bombard down before attacking Hastings...

Demos

[Fintourist]

Would 5 PM Finnish time be ok (GMT +2)? I'm finishing the work at 4 PM, so at that time point I would be at front of the computer and available to make moves.