[Spoilers] Hashoosh, Gaz and the crew - The CANZAC Alliance sail the high seas

[Hashoosh]

Posted in the replacement thread, you up for bringing a noob aboard the flyin dutchman?

P.s., where are you backpacking?

[Gazglum]

Posted in the replacement thread, you up for bringing a noob aboard the flyin dutchman?

P.s., where are you backpacking?

Welcome aboard Captain.

[Gazglum]

I'm backpacking in ENgland, Iceland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Germany, Austria, Poland, Greece, Turkey and Hungary. Maybe odd detours elsewhere. Middle class Aussie mid-twenties rite of passage stuff. I'll talk more abotu that in the other thread.

Thanks for stepping in Hashoosh. I'll discuss the game with you more in a bit - we have a week or so before I'm out. And I'll do a proper update later, have to run now.

But with the HMS Pinafore we're up to 11 cities, and I've surpassed Whosit in score.

[Gazglum]

Turn 87

Not many turns left at the helm now, and I'm starting to think that the storm might break just about the time I retire belowdeck. Time for a proper overview.

The New World

I chatted with Q awhile about this one. He convinced me that my initial settling plan was megalomaniacal and foolish. The canal would be closer to Dhalpir than to me, and open to being boated from his side. Plus, I don't really envision needing a canal myself to fight him any time soon. And the resources on Dhalpir's side of the divide - the fish and the sheep - I wouldn't even be able to hold peacefully because he could settle adjacent to them and get them in his first cross.

Q suggested settling further down in the southern penninsula, perhaps north or south of the cows, but that would make supply lines impossibly stretched. So in the end I've been kind of half hearted and cautious, despite all my huff abotu risk taking last post. I founded the HMS Pinafore on the desert my side of the divide. That is low food - it only really has the crabs and a shared floodplain. But it is hopefully much more defensible and a fair division of the continent. I've claimed slightly more land perhaps, but Dhalpir has slightly better resources.

It also neutralises the canal, as neither of us could now build a city there. Hopefully that will keep our border comfortable, so Hashoosh doesn't inherit a lovely two-front war. I don't have the resources to defend the New World with more than a colonial garrison.


The Valley of the Argonauts



Await not in quiet the coming of the horses, the marching feet, the armed host upon the land. Slip away. Turn your back. You will meet in battle anyway. O holy Salamis, you will be the death of many a woman's son between the seedtime and the harvest of the grain. - The Oracle

This is why I can't divert resources to the New World. Yuri is serious about war. I'm checking his build-up each turn with my chariot and he's doing nothing but filling up on elephants and catapults. He's now got the biggest military in the world.

If he ferries all that over to the New World he can demolish my little cities there. I would like to stop that with triremes, but since his lucky win against my ship that becomes a very dicey prospect. I'd need 3 triremes to be sure of taking his one out and having defence against a counterattack. He'd also need to build more galleys or keep ferrying troops east, and at the moment he's showing no sign of doing that.

So I think he plans the frontal assault, and I can't stop that. He'll position his troops one tile south of Milton Keynes, then road the floodplain and hit it in one turn - bombarding the walls and then coming in with elephants and catapults. I can get a turn's warning, because he needs to move out of his city first, but I can't do anything to stop that.

The Argo's culture just reached its next ring, so I'll win back the north tile fairly quickly now, but probably not for 10 turns at least and Yuri's not waiting around for that.

As of the end of this turn I have 6 vultures, 2 spearmen, 1 chariot and 6 catapults in this theatre. This turn Yuri has 5 elephants and 6 catapults. I might need to sim this. I have 2 options:

STUFF THE ARGO FULL OF BODIES
This forces Yuri to take it in one turn, to avoid the counterattack. But with enough bombardment and first strike capability, he could shred my army. Even if he just ignores the walls and suicides 6 catapults in, his elephants would clean up. I might be able to hold, but if I didn't then he takes out my whole army, heals up, then rolls over the rest of my land.

SPLIT MY ARMY
I'm doing this for now - 3 vultures and 2 spearmen fortified in the city, 3 vultures and 5 catapults on the cows behind. He still has to do some damage to get into the city, and then I can counterattack. BUT this relies on me having cultural control over the ruins of the Argo to road it and counterattack the bulk of his stack. Right now The Argo is 53% Sumerian and 46% English, and that's with the city's own culture, so I don't know who will control that tile if it burns.

But even if I don't counterattack his force immediately, keeping a reserve of catapults and troops would stop him from coming any further south. I'm almost gauranteed to lose the Argo, but he probably can't make further gains.


I don't really know what is best. I might try to sim this, but I've never done that before. At least I will know when he moves exactly what force composition he will have, so I can decide then whether I should fill the city or abandon it.

Given that, I should fill it now for fortification bonus, and I can always pull out if I think its needed. I'll leave the catapults in the rear either way.

I'm sorry, this is way too much detail and I'm probably making the pro's smack their foreheads at my tactical errors. But I've never had to fight a human like this, its tough.

Finally: The Great Merchant!

Glum error #4132 - I've let the Colossus and Great Lighthouse build up too many GPP points, and I can't get an academy scientist our shrine prophet out before a Great Merchant is born in 8 turns. What the hell do I do with him?

Here is the relevant bulb list from Civ Fanatics, with moderny techs cut:

Great Merchant:
Currency
Banking
Metal Casting
Code of Laws
Mining
The Wheel
Alphabet (BTS)
Pottery
Sailing
Paper
Monarchy
Civil Service
Guilds

Based on that, he will offer me Alphabet > MOnarchy > Civil Service > Guilds. I'll have civil service by then (done in 2-3 turns), and could just about have alphabet and monarchy too. I could slow research machinery and feudalism then use him to bulb Guilds? But with Yuri's mass elephant stack, knights aren't going to work as a surprise attack. I might be better off running a trade mission to Ilios?

Having gone through it all carefully, I can now see at least 2 mistakes I made playing the turn just before. It's hard to be good at this game.

Captain Hashoosh, Mate Q, we face difficult decisions. Any advice appreciated.

[Gazglum]

If I switch to caste system and run artists in The Argo I might be able to get that tile back. I would have been able to if I'd thought of it 5 turns ago. Now it's dicey. If that worked though, then Yuri is stuck until knights at least.

[Old Harry]

You'll keep the city tile if the culture of your next city extends that far. If yuris puts in enough culture at eot to swing the ratio in his favour I *think* you get a turn of grace before he gets it. (I know you do in pitboss anyway).

Building a sim is absolutely the best thing you can do - be sure to tick "random seed on reload" and run it a few times to account for the randomness. Also you can flip between sides by turning debug tools on and pressing alt-z (did you tell me that Q? It's been very useful!)

[Hashoosh]

Is there a link to the version of RBmod you guys are using? I looked at the post in the IT thread but I'm not sure if that's the correct one.

[Qgqqqqq]

Definitely a trade mission beats bulbing. It just depends on whether we can afford to do so - in terms of safety - or not. Can you run any specialists in that city to increase the odds of a scientist? Have you considered a GA?

Definitely any catapults should stay outside the city, if at all possible. I would assume that the city tile will flip - if not immediately - if it burns, which is annoying, but at least that makes it more difficult for him to take out the catapults, especially if you road the jungle hill and protect them with a spear or two.
If worst comes to worst, you should consider out and out abandoning the city with all but a token defence. If you cannot stop him winning there, then you should most certainly not fight there, as he has the advantages in logistics and catapults. Instead, withdraw the bulk of your force, most importantly and catapults, so that you can stop him making any further gains. I'm not saying you should do this, but if your judgement is that your position there is untenable, then it may be worth retreating - especially if it is enough to satisfy him, and he realises he can't accomplish anything further.

Building a sim is absolutely the best thing you can do - be sure to tick "random seed on reload" and run it a few times to account for the randomness. Also you can flip between sides by turning debug tools on and pressing alt-z (did you tell me that Q? It's been very useful!)

Not many people have much experience with debug here so probably

[Gazglum]

Yuri's army at lunch:



ANyone remember Moving Pictures, a Discworld book by Terry Pratchett? It has a subplot about 1000 elephants. It feels appropriate about now.

What did I learn today? I learned that spearmen are terrible at this stage of the game. This will be useful to me in later lives, less so now.

I did the sim, and it says we be f*^ed rather worse than I thought. I think a lot of that is because of the upgrades elephants get. Yuri hasn't upgraded yet, but one of them is on anti-melle (meaning he has stables) and the others all glow blue. I think it's wise to assume that all elephants (8 at last count, I think) will have strength + shock if needed.

My 3 spearmen are pretty useless, so I'm glad I only built a few. I hadn't realised that catapults are immune to other collateral damage. But they are, so no matter how much I damage the war elephants, any attacking spearmen then are faced with full strength catapults, which they can beat only about 1/4 of the time. So my spearmen go on garrison duty, and I have to rely on vultures.

Good news is that vultures with strength can beat bombarded, upgraded war elephants most of the time. The bad news is that more than half of my vultures are rookies. This is a big error I've made this game, a rookie mistake if you will, and it came from the sense of urgency I've had about Yuri the whole game. He could have attacked at an advantage at any point, so I've been churning out troops instead of waiting for the barracks to build in the capital or The Argo. We're now at the point where I would have been better off to delay for the barracks, but I'm honestly surprised that Yuri hasn't dropped the hammer yet.

I actually think I've played this pretty correctly on a tactical level - vultures + catapults is the best counter to War Elephants short of other war elephants, and 2 vultures are better than 1 war elephant (about cost equivalent). I just don't have a big enough army to really beat Yuri.

Anyway, same plan as before. I've accepted that The Argo is going down, but I think I can make it costly enough for Yuri that the whole thing will have been a wash for him. Doesn't help me much though. I've filled the Argo's garrison with infantry, and when the time comes I'll decide how many to pull back for a counterattack. I have 2 workers ready to combat road towards Yuri's stack. He hasn't moved on me yet.

In other news: Everybody Loves Glum!

- Whosit offered me Open Borders, which I took. Great GNP improvement, but sadly I quickly ran out of Whosit cities to trade with.

- Grumpy Ilios gave me a spare spices. Gee, that will help stop the English. Just kidding, its a nice gesture. I wish he'd take Yuri's presumably laxly guarded western empire though.

- I asked Ilios for open borders too, as he just got alphabet. If he turns me down for some reason, I'll give him a clam for them.

And Yuri gets Civil Service at the end of this turn, I get it at the end of next turn. We're still humming along fine, we're just not in a position to catch the others. As long as I don't mess up and let him wipe my stack and heal up, I should be able to keep Yuri in the hinterlands.

Thanks for the help, Q, Hashoosh and Harry, you guys have been great the last week.

[Qgqqqqq]

Does Yuri have machinery?