AT loves it when a plan comes together!! [Spoilers]

[MindyMcCready]

Ok, so Horizon is somewhat better defended than the best case scenario. Still should be easy to hit with a rough hammer exchange. Either Jowy's still not promoting his units or these are all fresh tenderfoots from builder cities. Did he not get a GG from the Battle of the Fork?

Assuming the garrison is unchanged, will you have the catapult collateral or bring down the culture? I'm kindof glad that you have the cat in there. Still maces first looks pretty good against those unpromoted units.

Can we rename the city to "Jowy's folly". Just kidding. But seriously, as long as he keeps defending with elephants (when we have no real mobility) against our maces and trading hammers while losing cities,...maybe its a good name after all.

Jowy's totally on the ropes. We just need to keep up the pressure. Can I request teching HBR and Guilds as soon as possible. I'd bet my bottom dollar that Eden Prime is empty right now.

[MindyMcCready]

PS: I wouldn't want to push on Cornflakes pigs resources. Let's not poke the hornet's nest right now. I can see that you're building barracks. That's good. Wow, thank goodness for Azza.

AAAHHHHHH! I just noticed that Cornfalkes has the road there leading to Mindy's Moai. Red Alert! Red Alert! Can we get someone to cut those roads? He shouldn't care since he's moved his settler.

SoZ. If we're fast enough it shouldn't affect us too much. We'll only spend maybe 3 turns on the Rannoch/Eden Prime fork. And the galleys will only be in his territory 1 turn before we have some kind of result. If we successfully land Citadel, Horizon and Eden Prime we can say mission accomplished for 10 turns or so. Where did he build SoZ anyway?

Scouts are just as good as spies and less threatening and don't get nabbed/eliminated. Its also a good deterrant to let your opponent know that you're watching them.

[AutomatedTeller]

scouts for cornflakes is fine - for jowy, not so great.

So, weariness:

In IV, you get weariness by fighting in other people's land or by taking cities (I think there are others, though I'm not sure). And, by land, i mean places where they have cultural dominance - in other words, even after we take Horizon, any battles there will cause us weariness. Taking cities is a big one.

So far, we've gotten no weariness from Jowy and I'm guessing he's got a couple of unhappy faces. That's going to change, and quickly - I think there's a chance we get an unhappy face in our big cities from taking Horizon (bunch of battles and taking a city). that's why I want to be careful about warring with Jowy - we really want to make them surgical strikes, or the weariness will kill us.

That road? Not very dangerous. He has engineering, so could end up in that tile anyway with slow movers. It does allow him to get horse units right next to Quincy, so yeah - we should probably kill it.

[MindyMcCready]

"From CivStats, it looks like Cornflakes finally broke through on one of Azza's cities. Azza lost a lot of score and cornflakes gained a lot of score."

Wow. So Cornflakes did this with the army that we *don't* see. We're second in power but at half of our neighbours level. Man, he could so support simultaneous fronts and take cities. But its costing him. He's way behind city count compared to Commodore. I guess he intends to fix that with his army.

Not much that we can do about this unless we call off the war with Jowy and redeploy everything. Which we shouldn't. All we can do is cross our fingers and hope to recitify the situation in the future before or immediately after Azza bites the bullet.

[AutomatedTeller]

We are, in fact, teching Guilds. Building cash (we should get a GS in 5 turns, which goes to an academy, in the cap, so we can turn on the afterburners). Maybe we should tech HBR first? Guilds will help a lot - I'm starting to build workshops for NYPD Blue, as well.

Thinking about Jowy's weariness - losing a stack like that, he's probably hurting right now - 2 or 3 unhappy faces in his larger cities - if we take Horizon, he loses a happy, so maybe he thinks he has to hold on to it.

I think you are right - his game has collapsed. His weariness won' get worse, but we are threatening 2 happy sources for him (even if he doesn't know about one of them)

[MindyMcCready]

I think that HBR first is the way to go.

It's cheaper so we'll get there fast enough to contribute to the immediate military objectives. HA with flanking have a 50% chance of surviving against those elephants while softening them up and hurting his cats (but we'd need a stable of course). Also we don't really have the workers available to make enough workshops for that to be much of a short-term factor. Boy would workshops looks sweet in V though. I think that that city is our answer to Cornflakes' massive military. I stil recommend the GG Medic III, but if we land another GG then maybe plant it in V.

Maybe we want to tech HBR then save cash for post-Academy research? Nevermind, you said that already. But I really would want HBR yesterday.

Hadn't factored in stealing Jowy's happiness. BONUS!

Once we take Horizon, we could consider offering peace for Noveria. We probably should keep pushing forward, but its an option if his defenses become more prickly. I'd imagine that that's the only city that he'd even consider giving up.

[MindyMcCready]

The answer to that is that I hope to suck one of Jowy's elephants out to kill this great unit. It is, in fact, bait. and in no way does it reflect a mis-click on the part of the person wielding the mouse. No sirree - all part of the plan, in fact. *sigh*

Haha, don't sweat it. We can build those off the line at NYPD Blue. All part of the even hammer exchange.

[AutomatedTeller]

I doubt he'll give up Noveria - it's A) next to his cap and B) has 2 luxes in it. I don't even want to offer for it if we think there is a chance we can get it (and I do)

btw - as I think about it, I think cornflakes isn't attacking us in part because of his weariness with azza - if he hits us, it just gets worse.

I would be pretty happy if Jowy attacked that CG III LB, cause his elephant couldn't get back. But that's not going to happen...

Apparently, btw, weariness in a tile is adjusted by your culture in that tile... so as we add culture to horizon, fighting there will hurt less.

I'm also preparing to cut any roads that are still in Jowy's territory, to keep from being 1 turned by suicide cats/elephants.

[MindyMcCready]

I doubt he'll give up Noveria - it's A) next to his cap and B) has 2 luxes in it. I don't even want to offer for it if we think there is a chance we can get it (and I do)

Ok and alright. So you're still leaning towards sooner with 1 galley rather than later with 2/3? I'm good either way because I think that it'll divert troops from Eden Prime; a tastier prize. Might want to see if you can time a unit for pickup from BJ for some fast reinforcements. You might have talked about this already. Don't remember.

btw - as I think about it, I think cornflakes isn't attacking us in part because of his weariness with azza - if he hits us, it just gets worse.

Good point. Thank gawd for Azza.

I would be pretty happy if Jowy attacked that CG III LB, cause his elephant couldn't get back. But that's not going to happen...

Never underestimate Jowy.

I'm also preparing to cut any roads that are still in Jowy's territory, to keep from being 1 turned by suicide cats/elephants.

Great. A good calling for those chariots. Take one for the team.


CAUTION: All this talk about mountain peaks and visibility got me thinking. Jowy's going to see us coming with that mountain visibility. That's going to allow him to defend both Citadel and Novaria. So I'm not sure that we going to be effective down there with 1 boat and 2 troops.

Might want to double check via worldbuilder whether he'll see us coming or not. If he can see us an extra turn early, maybe just whip out another galley and fake him out while sending the troops towards Horizon and Eden Prime. Or possibly just drop them off in BJ and wait for further opportunities.

[AutomatedTeller]

he will not see us.

Visibllty rules are basically: You can see the next tile from flat. you can see two tiles from hills, except over hills. You can see two tiles from mountains, even over hills). With Optics (which we have) you can see two tiles over water.

Jowy can see our borders - he cannot see into them, though.

And yes - I'm moving another mace over there and another LB - actually, i may delay the attack by an additional turn - we can get a GIII LB, instead of a CG II LB, in there, and the G3 LB is better on attack. then we can go back and pick up the CG II LB and another mace (which will be shock instead of CII cause I'm an idiot)

the nice thing about a 1 galley attack on Noveria is that it's easy to abort without Jowy even knowing it was there. By now, the trireme is just part of his life down there. For him to reinforce Noveria with anything that could hold off a mace and a LB is kind of nuts. I'm completely sure we can take it, short of him getting feudalism out of nowhere.