[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[TheHumanHydra]

I'd still raze the shrine to deny it to Krovice.

Yeah, it certainly has value. Are you willing to sacrifice ~9 cuirs, commando knight and 4 Galleons for that (I don't remember the exact amount of troops, but the cost would be something like that)?

Yes! Not if the odds are low or if we think we'll reliably get another chance with equal or greater odds later, but if the attack stands a good chance of success now and we think it'll be one of our last chances, then yes.

We have four Frigates and four Galleons in the area, dtay will have six Frigates + whatever he builds this turn + next turn in nearby cities. I'd guess we'll lose three of our Frigates and one or two Galleons, probably killing three of his.

I'll sim the number of Cuirs we'll lose once dtay has played, it may be that our chances of breaking through aren't great, in which case we'll call the attack off and all our units will survive.

I agree.

If Krovice strike out southwards I think our best option is to give dtay peace and let him concentrate on fighting Krovice to a standstill (although I'm not sure how well that would work). If they go for the core of dtaynia then grabbing as many cities as we can down south totally gets my vote, once we've built enough Grenadiers, etc, to hold them.

I agree.

[Old Harry]

Turn 175 preamble

dtay is still keen on peace and he's vacated Pindi's continent - as far as I can see there are now two rifles, a spear, an Archer and a Cavalry left. In his whole empire he has 15 Cav and 29 Rifles that we can see and is now saving cash on Steel. We should watch out for the great general he just generated too.

Just checked in-game - the commando strike could be on t175. I should have thought to have the Knight in position to do it a turn earlier .

And as if by magic, dtay now has two Cavalry in Wilfork. They are probably just passing through so I'll keep an eye out to see if that changes, but the plan is probably off. So I think we try to farm some more XP from his Frigates then as Fintourist said use our commando units to capture the under-defended southern cities.


BGN is looking too trusting to be planning something himself . We'll uncover a lot more of his territory in the next few turns, so he shouldn't be able to surprise us with a 20 cav invasion force in three turns...


Anyway, we have another tech decision to make once Oxford finishes - do we get RP-Rifling for +1 hammer mines, Cavalry and draftable Rifles or do we get Constitution-Democracy for Representation + Statue of Liberty (there was another Great Engineer spawned this turn, so there could be a lot of competition, but we'll be building it in a golden age...) after Democracy we could get Corporation for +1 Trade Route per city and Wall St or get Rifling for defence. We have four turns to decide, but right now I'm feeling secure enough in our navy to go the economic route. Anyone disagree?

[Old Harry]

Turn 175

Attacking Azza - the five cats reduce the city to 30% (24% for gunpowder units that can ignore walls)


- C2 Cuir vs C1 spear 87%... WIN (3 hits)
- C2 Cuir vs C1 spear 87%... WIN (5 hits )
- Cuir vs Axe 96%... WIN (4 hits)
At this point I stopped. There are three Axes left and by promoting the Musket to C1 he *should* kill all of them if they attack, then between our injured Cuirs and Catapults the Archers won't do much. Our GG medic and another couple of Cuirs are on their way, but this is going to be painful.

I may have slightly overbuilt Frigates - at least they'll carry on being useful for us for a while. We've still got 12 in build queues, but with almost all our cities set to max food we'll only finish two of them in the next ten turns. Perhaps they'll queue upgrade to Destroyers eventually...


People who could contest Statue of Liberty are probably able to research Constitution already. Those include:
- Krovice (in a very hot war)
- dtay (similar)
- Cheater Hater (doesn't have Printing Press)
- Mackoti (being eaten by TBS and doesn't have Printing Press)
- Nakor (doesn't have Printing Press)
- WilliamLP (has gunpowder and PP but not Astronomy, 305 in the bank)
- TBS (doesn't have Printing Press)
- Yuris (doesn't have Printing Press)
- GermanJojo (fighting Gawdzak/Bacchus)
- Gawdzak (Bacchus - fighting Jojo)
- BGN (researching Rifling, doesn't have Chemistry, 1744 gold in the bank)

So BGN and William are the only likely competition. BGN will probably want to get Chemistry before going economic and his empire is spread over two or three different continents so SoL isn't that great for him. Given dtay's newly troubled state I set our espionage on William - it'll take us three turns to get research visibility on him. Is that pointless? It'll be handy to get Demos on him at least - we'll have them next turn.

I watched Krill take Willow Lake and Prarie Village - they are playing after us (and were waiting for me to finish), which we should bear in mind.


Demos and power - at what point do we need to worry about Krovice?

[TheHumanHydra]

Better to have overbuilt them than the inverse. I'm glad you acted decisively.

TBS is eating mackoti? Do report! (If you have time.)

Krovice - surely they're not a threat with all those frigates - only to our expansion. I wish we could raze that shrine. I fear we might lose dtay's southwest to them.

[Old Harry]

Mack took over from Bacchus (I think) just as TBS declared.

Since Krovice are observing the turn split with us I think they're expecting competition for their gains, which makes me worry too...

[Grimace]

Better to have overbuilt them than the inverse. I'm glad you acted decisively.

There are a few units that it never hurts to invest heavily in. Frigates are certainly one of them. Having a dominant navy when you're basically on your own continent is crucial.

As far as Azza, you'll be able to bombard again next turn, won't you? Bringing the additional defense down further? Shouldn't that help follow up attacks?

[Old Harry]

It will, but with only three hitters it'll be a drawn-out process - two more will arrive in a couple of turns, but the majority of our army is hanging out on the east coast...

[Old Harry]

Turn 176

dtay offered peace again and adopted Nationhood - with a turn of anarchy . I'm slightly inclined to accept now and let him fight Krovice, but looking at how their forces are arrayed here I think Krovice need us to keep the pressure on... Their artist bomb made a lot less of an impression than I'd assumed it would!


We moved our boats so that 9 Frigates and three Galleons can pretend to threaten dtay's northern cities while our really good units head back south to get us the former CH cities that we really want. If dtay's frigate stack (7 here + one in Bell Preston) heads towards our coastline we can attempt to kill them with 3 C2 Frigates and 7 green Frigates (if needed).


Then we killed one more Axe in Azza's last city. This is going to take forever . We're sorry Azza... It's been nearly 50 turns of just pressing enter now.


Finally it doesn't look like BGN is planning anything. The scout will check the south coast, the galleon will check the north.


Demos and Power, now including WilliamLP.

[Old Harry]

Naval plans.

Next turn the northern boats (7 Frigates and 3 Galleons) will move to threaten Mayo and Ryan, then move further on to threaten more cities. Hopefully this will draw dtay's stack of Cav away from Bell Preston. It looks like Krovice detonated a second artist bomb in Willow Lake, but it's still vulnerable to 2-movers.


Down south we're planning (at some unknown point in the future) to use a fort as a base for a raid on Ravnica (red line) which is then a base for commando raids on Theros, Zendicar and Wright (blue lines). We *should* have three commando Knights/Cuirs/Cav at that point. If those cities are empty or very lightly defended we can take them and the culture will fall away allowing a 2-mover to take Shandalar if empty or lightly defended (yellow line). Zendicar and Wright are both vulnerable to a counter attack from Tarkir (which currently has a lot more in it than that sign indicates), so we may have to burn them.

If we have enough units to take Lorwyn and Mercadia on the first turn that's nice too, but they shouldn't be too hard to mop up if not.

Essentially if dtay and Krovice trade heavy blows then this could be easy... But it's always possible that dtay knows we got Mil Sci for the Commandos.

So what have I missed?

[Old Harry]

Oh, and I got around to that map stitch: