[SPOILERS] Yuris125 tries to win a game of Civ5 before it fades away

[SadGit]

In all fairness this must be some of the worst terain for catapults. In drips and drabs they would allways be terrible but with the many swamps they are near useless. They do however soak up some damage.

Why are you roading the terrain btw?

[yuris125]

Mostly to make it easier for reinforcements to get there but I will need to connect the city to my road network in any case when it's back in my hands

The forest next to the city is roaded by Nic, not by me. I'm roading the marsh 2NE of Tombouctu and the forested hill to the north of the city, where the almost-off-screen Archer is

[yuris125]

Nothing died this turn




Nic started razing the city, but I think it's too late. I should be able to capture it before it burns

Hopefully next turn. Gold situation is now just as bad as happiness situation, I need the gold from capturing the city!

Interestingly, Nic is building a fort inside his territory




Going to take 9 more turns though - don't think he has enough time for this either

I moved my Scout on the desert hill NE after taking a look here. Gives an extra target to shoot from Tombouctu, and I don't think Nic can reach it in any other way. If he wants to use Tombouctu's shots on Scout instead of the wounded Bowman, he can feel free to do so

HAK's attack seems to be going less well - that's a lot of wounded unit, and Nic's city at full health...

[yuris125]

Nic did finish off my wounded Bowman. Was hard to expect anything else. Nevertheless, I didn't have much difficulty recapturing Tombouctu




Wish I could show you advanced tactics, but the truth is, I just had too much units, and the terrain is so rough that there's not even a tricky move+shoot to pull. It was simply shoot-shoot-shoot-shoot-shoot-shoot-capture with Spear

HAK accepted this turn the luxury trade I offered a few turns ago. So I was actually at 0 happiness while attacking, and taking the city dropped me back to -4. Pity no one seems to want to trade for my luxuries... Ichabod has some spares, but doesn't lack any I have. But I have a couple of Colosseums finishing, and Meritocracy is not far away. So it will be fine

Onto the next target, which may not roll over and die quite that easily




3 tiles between lakes highlighted in red are the bottleneck, and they're going to be a big problem. The southernmost tile is a roaded flatland, at least I can move + shoot there. But the other two tiles, and almost all northern terrain, are all hills. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to negotiate it just yet - didn't have any moves left this turn, so didn't really think about it. Will hopefully come up with some kind of plan by the next turn

By the way, Nic seems to have gone overboard with forts, don't you think?

Meanwhile, HAK got the first damage on the city in his attack, and Nic also has a lot of redlined units in the area




I actually risked leaving the Scout where he is this turn. Could draw some fire away from HAK's units, could kill a redlined unit next turn.... Probably won't do anything, but who knows. I will be attacking HAK after finishing the war vs Nic, but for now I'd rather he continued his war and diverted at least some of Nic's attention

Finally in foreign news, wanted to show you this latest Pindicator's city. Seems to summarise the current game state quite well

[yuris125]

What's going on now is a lot of unit shuffling and nothing very exciting. This is where I was at the start of this turn




Nic moved some Bowmen towards the city and tried to shoot my Scout. 2 Bowmen shots ended up not being enough though - the Scout survived at 3hp

I've been thinking about the plan of the attack. There's no way I can get through the 3-tile bottleneck on direct line from Toumbouctu to Harar. That's just too easy to defend, units will be under fire all the time, and Nic has the road for easy reinforcements. I think pretty much the only way I have to attack is from the north, where I can build a decent front and connect it with the units at Tombouctu. The amount of hills is depressing - but that's what I have to work with

So after a fair amount of unit shuffling, here's where I finished the turn




I'm basically positioning as many Bowmen as possible in the hills, and in 2-3 turns should be in position to start the attack. I can't wait too long - Nic has 6 turns left to finish those forts, and once they're finished - a unit in a fort in a jungle is not easy to dislodge, not at all.....

Also note that lonely Bowman I have to the east of Harar - he tried to sneak in through the marshes from Jenne. Instead he found an extra Bowman Nic had there. Maybe this lonely Bowman can be used as bait to draw Nic's units out of the city.... jungles and marshes make shots at that Bowman awkward, and he's quite well positioned to keep an eye on Nic's road to the south. Don't know if I can take advantage of it, but it could well happen

Bonus thoughts: remember that Great Engineer I was going to get from the Pyramids? It's now due to be born in 6 turns. I've been thinking what to do with him, and I think I'll try for Notre Dame. I'm 2 turns away from Metal Casting and then would need 12 to research Physics, so it's not that far away. And I foresee happiness to remain a major problem. Especially if I intend to catch up with Ichabod, who currently has 2.5 times my crop yield - and I just can't increase mine, because it would cause me to grow into unhappiness again! So that's a tentative plan - I definitely will go for Physics after Metal Casting, then will see if ND is still avaialble

[T-hawk]

a unit in a fort in a jungle is not easy to dislodge, not at all.....

I thought a fort replaces the jungle, though I could be wrong. Anyway the terrain bonus is the same 25% for a hill as for jungle.

Great Engineer for Notre Dame sounds like a pretty good plan. Just make sure you can defend its city!

[yuris125]

The game is showing the tile on which the fort is being constructed as a jungle. And it's saying the Worker is building a fort, not removing the jungle. I just assumed the defensive bonus would stack - but don't really know, can't say I ever built a fort Getting rid of Nic's units is hard in any case, as he's also getting +20% bonus from Ethiopia's UA against me. And I was wondering why my estimates for how much damage his Bowmen would do were always off...

[yuris125]

Didn't get a chance to report yesterday, but I pretty much kept moving west with the units to form a proper attack along the whole front




I actually made a tactical mistake here - I moved the Horseman on the forested hill, using 3 of his 4 movement points, not realising that he wouldn't be able to go back because I needed that tile for a Bowman. After he saw Nic's Bowmen, all he could do was move to the west and hope Nic doesn't have enough arrows to kill him

In the meantime, in the east Nic moved two Bowmen to attack my Bowman in the swamp




Have to admit, Nic turned out to have a lot more units than I thought. His two Bowmen also did more damage than I expected - this was when I realised he was getting 20% bonus against me from Ethiopian UA. I thought maybe I could sacrifice my Bowman to move in with he Spearman and kill one of his - his units are worth more than mine because mine are so easy to replace with Holy Warriors. Then I realised that the roaded tile in front of Harar was a marsh as well, and would eat all my movement points. Good thing I realised it now and not when trying to take the city. So in the end I just moved out with the wounded Bowman and took a shot with the one on the jungle near Tombouctu (because there was no reason not to take that shot)

Which brings us to today's turn. The turn of the grand moving in




I think I should be in good shape, despite Nic having the first shot. You can also see that I decided to faith-buy a Swordsman in Tombouctu - I think I have enough archers by now, and having a backup melee unit would be useful

But this may be the decisive battle - if not of the game, then at least of my fight to get into competitive position and play the rest of the game out as a duel against Ichabod

[T-hawk]

You actually look like an AI trying to fight against a human player -- you've got a carpet of units and serious numerical superiority but keep getting stuck on the tactical maneuvering where you just can't get them all to bear without tripping over yourself.

[yuris125]

Well.. yes. But I blame the mapmaker. Just look at all those forested hills