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

[Fintourist]

This might also mean that we need to try to kill suttree's stack with our bowmen..

EDIT: Or we soften suttree's stack by attacking with one bowman from the jungle. If it does enough damage to chariot/axe/whoever-defending 2 bowmen in Jamestown should be enough.

[Old Harry]

Options
1 - Trust TBS
2 - attack the chariot with a bowman from the forest tile, hoping to do a bit of damage, move spear onto workers
3 - move the spear onto workers, leaving Axe+spear+chariot to attack two bowmen
4 - declare/offer peace to TBS - I wouldn't accept this without checking what is happening in game so probably not a good move

I don't have the odds calculator here, but I think the Axe is 5.5 vs 6.6 so shouldn't win, then the chariot is 4.4 vs 4.8 so shouldn't win, but will be closer, while the spear gets a chance against a damaged unit with a bonus of 110%.

Why can't it ever be simple? I think option 2 gives the best chances. TBS didn't play yet this turn. If he plays and moves the chariot away before we end turn that's fine, if he's waiting for us to end turn before logging in that's worrying... We shouldn't hold the turn for Suttree though. Hmmm.

Edit: You beat me to the suggestion - the chariot defends and we have 25%ish odds attacking with the bowman... Viqsi will then defend the axe and spear while the other bow defends the chariot. Do we have another bowman in Hastings? Would that be foolhardy?

[Fintourist]

Yeah, this was just a stupid mistake from us and now we have to deal with it.. I think I want to sim out our odds when it comes to clearing the whole stack of suttree. If our first roll is good, that might be the best option. We have 5 bowmen + a warrior to do the job. The most likely outcome should be losing the first 2 battles, but then killing those 3 units.

I don't have time to test this just yet, but suttree always plays so late that I think we can still take some time. Of course it would be nice if TBS just moves his chariot away, but we can't count on that.

[Old Harry]

I downloaded the combat calculator again.

A CI bowman vs a CI chariot has 26% odds, and an 86% chance of making 2 hits (66 HP remaining), which gives our defending bowmen in Jamestown >97% chances. Even if we only hit it once the chariot then only gets 10% odds against Jamestown. The chariot will be left with:
100 HP 3.48%
83 HP 10.07%
66 HP 15.19%
49 HP 16.79%
32 HP 15.42%
15 HP 12.51%
Dead 26.55%

I don't like attacking with a second bowman - if the chariot is unscratched we may have to, but it leaves the two axes on the jungle vulnerable unless you get the bowman from Hastings to cover - at which point the chariot can hit Hastings.

Assuming we get two hits on the chariot the next bowman attacks the axe at 38%. The axe will be left with:
100 HP (2%)
81 HP (6%)
62 HP (11%)
43 HP (14%)
24 HP (14%)
4 HP (13%)
Dead (38%)

Then a bowman from Jamestown probably gets a shot at the spear - 76% battle
Then a bowman from Jamestown probably cleans up the injured chariot (44% if one hit, 72% if two, 92% if three hits on chariot already)
Then a bowman from Hastings probably cleans up the injured axe (60% if one hit, 90% if two hits on axe already)

The problem is if the chariot or axe emerge unscathed or with only one hit from the initial battles... So lets throw one bowman from the jungle at them and see what happens.

Edit: Except the chariot and axe don't have CI, so our odds are slightly better

[Fintourist]

I actually ran the sim... 20 times..
However, we are talking about different odds here. None of suttree's units is promoted. So at least I got 33 % odds against chariot and ~43 % odds against the axe. I used C1 Bowmen. Any idea where the difference comes?

Ok, here are the results of my sim:

3x C1 Bowman, 2x no-useful promo Bowman, 1x C1 Warrior
vs.
Axe, Chariot & Spear

We cleaned the stack 20 out of 20 times..

Our losses:
0 Bowman - 5 times
1 Bowmen - 6 times
2 Bowmen - 6 times
3 Bowmen - 3 times

My feeling is that these results are a bit on the lucky side, but 20 runs is already something..

Of course it's possible that we get terrible rolls and we don't manage it. Especially if we lose 3 first fights and one of those rolls is totally terrible.. However I think our odds of cleaning that stack are well above 90 % and more likely above 95 %.

Should I go and smash the first bowman in?

[TheHumanHydra]

Yes. Don't move the spear out till we know the results of this/these battles.

Sorry I couldn't chat last night; it was night-time in this part of the world! I will be out for the next two hours (almost exactly), but can chat after that if you haven't done all this by then.

[Fintourist]

Yes. Don't move the spear out till we know the results of this/these battles.

Sorry I couldn't chat last night; it was night-time in this part of the world! I will be out for the next two hours (almost exactly), but can chat after that if you haven't done all this by then.

No problem! You're just unlucky to have 2 Europeans in your team! But no worries, here is what happened (did not notice your post before we were already in-game):

We chatted a bit with Harry about our sims and decided that at least attacking with the first bowman is the way to go.

So it was time for Merovech (C1 Bowman) to show whether he can hit suttrees horses (Chariot)

33 % odds... And WIN!

At this point it was pretty clear to us that we will try to destroy suttree's whole stack

Next it was Ceiliazul's time to prove what he is made of.. C1 Bowman vs Axe..

43 % odds... WIN!

How about TheStick.. He has the easiest job against a spearman, but can he deliver..

79 % odds..

And !

So what did we learn.. It's useless to sim, because we win every battle anyways.. Odds of us winning every one of those 6 battles during this turn where a bit above 6 %.. So not impossible, but we should have probably lost at least 1, more likely 2 units..

So here is the final event log and the screenshot of the former battle theater:



Did I mention that we also got a GG And that we haven't lost a single battle in this game yet.. AGG & Bowmen help, but today fortuna was on our side as well.. Now we just have to get rid of the lonely Chariot currently E of Dunkirk and maybe we can start focusing even more on our economy..

Krill is protecting our workers from Jowy/TBS Chariot.
BrickAstley is being annoying as always and is threatening suttree's worker SE of Hastings.
Endor completes a spear so that suttree's chariot cannot threaten us..

Btw Hydra, what do you think would be the best use of our GG. We had several ideas when we chatted with Harry, but are still undecided..
- Settle in Dunkirk or some other city, which is capable of production
- Some kind of Super Medic?
- Attach it to a warrior in Hastings, upgrade it to an additional axe, and attack suttree more or less immediately (Harry promised to analyze suttree's power graph so that we have an idea, what military he has left. This turn he lost 30k power if I remember unit values correctly..)

Fintourist out. To get a life.

[Old Harry]

Just quickly,
- I think Suttree was on about 115 000 soldier points (extrapolating from graphs)
- we just killed 30 000 leaving 85 000
- His techs should be around 24 000 (I believe he's got Maths but not Iron Working and I'm guessing he hasn't got archery as we haven't seen any archers yet)
- I'd guess he has two barracks for 6 000
- his pop is probably less than 10 for 5 000 points
Which leaves 50 000 worth of soldiers - that's eight Axes. Or seven Axes, a chariot and a spear. Or six axes, a chariot and four warriors. So if YuriMack is leaving him alone (and we should check the foreign adviser every turn to be sure) he can leave a warrior in each of his four cities and send six axes at us. In reality I think he needs to keep two or three axes down south, so we're probably only facing three or four axes (less if he's got archery/archers).

We have two shock axes, four bowmen, two spears, a warrior and a great general nearby. Do we want a fight?

(Although our luck has to run out, our army isn't really big enough to kill five axes, and warfare this early on is generally frowned upon, so maybe not?)

Edit: 50 000 sounds like a lot, is there anything else I could have missed?

[Fintourist]

Or six axes, a chariot and four warriors.

Well, I think that might be close to reality. The thing is that out in the open battleground, we might be able to take his whole army out with our eastern forces. But approaching with a 1-mover stack and attacking units behind cultural bonuses.. I don't know.. We have now nice triple-promo axes and double-promoted bowmen (+GG) so we could certainly give him a headache, and maybe even take a city, I would bet that at least half of those units are in the south. But that might still be too greedy. Or maybe not..

Well, consolidating our gains and using those units for securing the rest of the "river valley" is not a terrible idea either.. I would imagine that suttree's motivation to attack again is pretty low in the short-term..

Anyways, we have contact with yurimack, which means that we'll get the notification if YM decides to attack suttree.. If that happens, we should be opportunistic.

It's a pity that the jungle tile SE of horses is not a hill. Now would be a great time to take control of it.. Because it's flat, suttree can attack it from the city (which we can't see), which means that occupying it is not that valuable, and probably only increases suttree's willingness to produce more units..

...

EDIT: We have 5 Bowmen

EDIT2: If I had to bet I would say that suttree has max those units you counted, maybe a bit less.

[Old Harry]

EDIT: We have 5 Bowmen

You wanna leave a city undefended? :P