[SPOILERS] Dhalphir PB13

[Dhalphir]

Zerus is dead. Plako razed it with that chariot and moved the second one up too. That one from the south is hiding in the fog tile next to the horses. I proposed peace in exchange for my world map, so we'll see if he bites. I can't imagine he wants to romp around in my territory for turns upon turns given that he already invested quite a bit and settled suboptimally to get a city that close to me. He may be happy with slowing us down and then backing off.




Whipped the archer in Shakuras. I don't want to, but I have no choice. That gives Shakuras an archer and three warriors, and it can't be hit until after next turn, so I will get a fortify bonus. Shakuras is in serious trouble developmentally though - it now has three whip unhappy faces, and the first one wears off in nine turns. It's stuck at size 2 for the conceivable future. I may grow it into unhappiness to whip some settlers or something.




Horses are finished, and I directed the half-complete chop at Antioch into a chariot and then will whip an archer turn after next. It might be overkill, but I don't intend to lose any more cities.




Some good news though, the settler in Aiur finished and I sent him down south to found the southern silver/horses city. It won't be that strong, but it's worth founding and it will at least keep me at 4 cities. Plako must have invested a bit in the chariots to bring them over to me, so I might even not be that far behind him on a fifth city, who knows.




Summary of our position as i see it - not awful. Losing Zerus sucks, it was our bridge to the east, but after plako settled our spot, it has no function beyond a few hammers and stealing a rice from Shakuras. With Zerus gone, Shakuras can keep it's rice and given that I don't want to grow that city for a while, Aiur can take its pigs back and pump out settlers to catch up.

We'll get our new south city founded soon. There's also a grass hill in the fog on an island to the west of Aiur - if that's more than just a two tile island, I might be able to take a leaf out of plako's PB2 book and beeline for island settlement.

[classical_hero]

Hopefully you have some iron nearby and thus you can build spears to get rid of chariots and then take his city which is in your area. ALso you will have swords needed to take over the city, which is a in a nice location for you.

[Dhalphir]

yeah, I'm crossing my fingers super hard for iron. If i don't have it...well, plako has my only copper, so I'm going to have to start scouting the water to the south and west of me to figure out if there's some iron or copper on islands somewhere.

[Dhalphir]

I really have no solid idea on what to do to defend against these chariots.



I assume both will move one square onto the pig pasture and the rice farm and pillage. That will cripple Shakuras and hurt Aiur badly. I don't have the units to fight on open ground. I've whipped a chariot at the swap penalty in Aiur - I didn't feel I had a choice, and I'll probably whip an archer after the overflow too.

I have a chariot that has been chopped out of antioch, and two more chops that will finish in three turns to go into another chariot. The problem is that plako's chariots are C1, mine will not be, so I can't face them 1 for 1 unless I want to take low odds.

It might be an early exit for me - if Plako pillages me into the stone age then I really have no ability at all to remain relevant in the game, and I hope he finishes me off if that is the case.

[Dhalphir]

Plako pillaged me right in my defenseless face. I'll offer peace for world map again, maybe he'll take it this time now that he has definitely crippled me.




I moved a warrior to protect the pigs - if he attacks it, the chariot in Aiur will be able to finish him off. I put the chariot from Antioch on the hill to block his path to Antioch. Last thing I want is the cows or horses pillaged too.

I'm not going to whip any more units. If he accepts peace, I don't need them, and if he's going to continue to pillage, a few more units won't make a difference. I need workers so that if he lets me rest in peace I can reconnect these resources quicker.

Net recap - Shakuras is crippled, all my cities are struggling under whip unhappiness, and I have a lot of pillaged food.

One piece of good news - iron popped within Antioch's borders. Set a warrior to mining it immediately, hopefully in 4-5 turns we can get some spears out. That's a long time for chariots running around uncontested though.

[Dhalphir]

I saw plako finish his turn, so I logged in to get a picture of what he did.

His chariot is sitting on my pigs. I can't allow that to be pillaged too. I have two chariots in range and an archer due to finish soon-ish in the capital. His chariots are C1, so I don't get even a coinflip on them with my chariots, but who knows, I might get lucky.

Here's a picture of the tactical situation. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I might just throw both chariots at his and hope that my archer in the capital finishes in time to hold off the other chariots.




tentative plan next turn
1. throw both chariots at him, starting with the one coming from the north, and finishing up with the one from the capital.
assuming that plako's chariot dies there...
2. Finish the archer in 2 turns and use the surviving chariot to defend the capital until then.
if I don't die yet
3. Hope I can survive until spears.

If anyone has any better advice I would LOVE to hear it.

If I get horrendously unlucky in step 1 and both chariots die to plako's, the game is over. My archer won't finish in time, and the capital will be razed. At that point, plako has beaten me and the game is probably very very unbalanced given the extra land and space plako will have. I will watch his thread with interest after that.

That's the worst case, but plan for the worst and hope for the best, I always say. Worst case scenario - I've learned a valuable pair of lessons from this experience.

1) Give chariots a lot more respect than you do vs the AI
2) You NEED archery a lot sooner than turn 65, and you need horses/copper/iron shortly after that.

[classical_hero]

What are the odds of the chariot being defeated? Are they 50/50, or in his favour? Well since he is on your pigs, you should try and defeat the chariots. Also once you are done with the mine, make sure you secure it with a spear or two, so that Plako can't pillage the mine. Just exactly what was the city order of plantation? What you should be doing on cities that aren't building archers, you should be building warriors, since they become spears and as soon as possible, whip out the spears in the cities. I see that you are chopping a worker up north, for the moment you should be focusing on getting the mine out and then spears. While normally you don't chop units, but in this case you need them fast. Once you feel safe military, then you can start to expand a bit, to bring up your economy back from the dead. I hope this helps.

Just what is the tech order you have done? You should be right now at 100% money to save up to upgrade some warriors to spears.

[Dhalphir]

His favour, since his chariots have Combat 1. I think it's somewhere around 30%. Not impossible for the first chariot to win, and I'll jump with joy if it does, but unlikely.

the tech order so far (since I took over)

iron working for a few turns, continuing with serdoa's plan

Archery when I saw plako's spiking power

back to Iron Working

now i have taken sailing so I can expand westward to the islands if plako denies me any further mainland settling.

[flugauto]

I moved a warrior to protect the pigs

What happened to the warrior?

One piece of good news - iron popped within Antioch's borders. Set a warrior to mining it immediately

I would buy a dozen of those warriors.

[Dhalphir]

the warrior got nailed by the chariot, no damage taken. I didn't expect him to win, but I had hoped he would scratch the chariot to tip the chariot vs chariot odds more in my favour.