[Spoilers] Adrien and Mardoc relax and play civ

[AdrienIer]

Velociraptor is as close to him as it is to us, he should have realized he had a shot at it too. It's so far away from Jowy's centers of production, it's really untenable against anyone with half an army.

Looking at civstats I wouldn't say his position on the scoreboard is really that weak, he's just in the traffic having about the same number of points as Grimace Dreylin and Whosit. Only Wetbandit is really ahead. Admittedly he should have used our war to race ahead, peacefully settle all the land and take over the island but he's not doing that bad.

[Mardoc]

Only keeping up with the bottom half of the scoreboard, with both of his neighbors distracted and with such good early-game traits? I mean, yeah, I know I'm grading on a curve here, but that seems pretty bad to me.

[AdrienIer]

Yeah he didn't do well but he's still competing for 3rd place. Anyway I don't really care except for the part where he's not strong enough to help us (and himself) by destroying Jowy or putting an end to our misery.

[Mardoc]

Ah, ok. Yeah, at this point I see only two likely possibilities for us to leave the game:
a) Jowy finally puts together a deathstack, catapults and all. Maybe 50 units worth would be enough? We can't stop that, just whip our cities for units and kill part of it then die.
b) Wetbandit, our closest overseas neighbor and the apparent winningest of them all, shows up one day with a stack of galleys or galleons loaded with a medieval military (knights + support units). In this case, maybe Jowy vultures off a bit of us, but honestly in this scenario, I don't see any reason for Wetbandit to stop with us. We'd be a great bridgehead to go on and take over this *entire* backward continent.

Edit: Of course there's always c) I make another blunder that kills half our military for no particular gain, then Jowy finishes us off without a deathstack

[AdrienIer]

Nah you were the one to kill his deathstack remember ?

[Mardoc]

Yeah, and then I sacrificed the survivors to fail to reconquer Velociraptor . We're just now recovering from that.

Then maybe IW ?

I'm not really sure. I feel like swords won't make much difference to us, we're not likely to be assaulting cities anytime soon. One possibility is to try to keep going on the economic line and grab Code of Laws. Or else Metal Casting - forges would help keep up with Jowy's production (or rather, not fall behind too fast). Biggest problem with either of those is that they require buildings to get the benefits, and we'll be unlocking lighthouses and markets right beforehand (plus, ahem, stables). I guess we could go with Calendar for our silks. Or monarchy for the wines at the barb city + HR.

Or, well, I guess we could come full circle to IW. It's something we've got to figure out before we build any medieval units, and it doesn't require any buildings itself. A couple swords would make any counterattacking we do possible.

I guess all in all I come back to 'wait and see'. Sailing will be quick, but Currency won't be. Maybe by then the situation will have changed enough that none of the above make sense, or maybe we won't survive long enough to care.

[Mardoc]

I've had another crazy-optimistic thought:



Worth paying the ~60 hammers for a settler? Very much a crumple-zone type of city, but it might possibly pay for itself before it dies. Or if Jowy continues detente, it might push his borders back a couple tiles and give us a little more breathing room.

[AdrienIer]

How many units would we be sending to defend that city ? It's really risky.

[Mardoc]

How many units would we be sending to defend that city ? It's really risky.

Somewhere between one and all of them? I don't see much purpose in more than one unit as garrison, anywhere anymore. I'm aiming for defense to become a mobile stack of cats + hitters that hits Jowy wherever he chooses to invade. Now that both of us have Construction, we probably can't just fortify somewhere and wait to be hit. Instead, we take advantage of the defender's mobility advantage and be sure to be the side who gets to deal collateral damage.

So realistically the city's purpose is to build units and control tiles, making sure Jowy's stack moves slowly and is seen in time for us to bring up our stack. And maybe to die as a crumple zone. My main debate is: a) can we get enough units built from the city to pay for the settler and b) does founding it cause Jowy to invade us sooner?

[AdrienIer]

Ok I get your point. I'm still not sure if it's worth it (still not sure as in I don't know, not as I'm against it).

You said earlier that we had OB with someone but no TRs, did you trade maps with him ?