[SPOILER] PB37: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most aggressive of them all?

[Nekira Sudacne]

Mostly I was thinking figure out if it was axes ir chariots incoming, but if its impractical it is impractical

[Krill]

Thing is, agg axes beat both so why worry. The rest is just tactics but on home turf and with combat workers which I'll have, the rest is just numbers and who has more on the right tiles on the right turns.

[Nekira Sudacne]

*thinks*

If you had kept pushing for oracle after the initial axe showing, you could have landed it and had horse archers to deal with this attack. but that's only with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. you had no way to know the attack would be this delayed. but if it was too risky then, it's insanity now. the time to worry about Oracle has passed. Too many hammers needed for Military. if Axes are what it's called for, then Axes it shall be. I would suggest maybe squeezing in one chariot on general principles if you can.

[Krill]

There would be other downsides, but basically yes, I could have rushed Oracle. If I had not explored with that quechua I would not have seen the axe and may have gotten the third city and Oracle. But HA are not a panacea. I need numbers and HA are expensive.

Analysing Ventessels play and looking at the available responses is critical in evaluating what the right moves were. And criticing his play shows what other options would have been better. News flash, he had lots of options that would have been better than one pop whipping an army from two cities.

[Krill]

Regarding chariots, I have been neglecting updates. The reason for that is I've had a flair up from a back injury and I've been off work as I can't sit for short periods of time (never mind longer periods), and writing reports hasn't been something I've felt up to. I'll try to do a quick one, mostly pictures though.

And then I just saw the photobucket killed third party hosting, so maybe not. Fucking retards. That's killed everything for my threads like how dropbox murdered older threads months ago...

[Thoth]

I've had a flair up from a back injury

 I've felt your pain.  You have my sympathies.

[Krill]

   

Two Barbs threatening Room 101, hopefully they attack the axe and push it up to 6XP (it is unpromoted at present). Barbs are attracted to empty cities, so it's easy to drag them around to kill zones, but I need to improve this copepr and get it hooked up


   

2 spears will defend against 7 chariots fine. 8 chariots are a bit iffy, 9 I don't think the sears win and 10 chariot I ould expect to break through. The axe has no hope of winning on defense unless it has formation, but should have odds on attack. If chariots come down from the north, that's easy to attack out and neuter a single chariot if I need to. If he attacks from the east I have longer to build and redeploy reinforcements. I am considering saving gold to upgrade quechua at this point, due to the risk of a large chariot stack being able to force its way past AF and threaten other cities (5 chariots I can kill before they do anything, 7 chariots is iffy, 10 chariots I can't stop wandering past but can thin numbers).


   

Finishing Quechua this turn (I need numbers for fogbusting as well as city happy and emergency spear upgrades). Next turn I can either one pop whip the chariot and then roll overflow hammers and the chop into a granary for another one pop whip, or put hammers into a granary and then double whip. I have a forest being chopped as well (my worker micro has been bad, but in this instance I've had to pay the price for flexibility due to Ventessel). And actually have the city working the copper, not the oasis. I am considering building Oracle here, CML is taking hits, so I may have the opportunity. The forests make it possible.


   

Either one po whip the worker, or the spear, but I want to be at size 3 for that so grow. worker is 11/60, workboat is for the whales or exploration


   

Improving the corn then decide on what to whip later, but I don't want to deforest the plains tile as that stops 12 Monkeys being forked with AF and WP.

[Krill]

   

Ventessel still has 2 cities and I expect his cities to be unhappy at size 3 at this point. He has built a granary in his capital and kept on whipping it at size 4, planted his second city for the furs. The power sike occured after he got AH so I exect that to be mainly chariots. Which is both good and bad: he won't take cities but he will be a [pain in the arse to nail down. If he covers the chariots with the axe pair (and a spear, but in this case it doesn't matter) I need to have number of axes equal to his axes and then my spears get odds on everything. If he comes in with split stacks, then I need enough units to keep AF safe, and then start whittling away his stack with axes and spears. Numbers wise, 3 chariots will not break through a spear in AF, so if he had a stack of 10 chariots, I would need 3 spears to keep AF safe (because he couldn't kill all three spears, and then they would heal, promote heal further then smack the remaining units). Against 10 chariots I would realistically want to attack out ASA, so I would perhaps need something like 2 sears to attack his chariots, 2 spears to leave in the city and then minimum 2 axes to also hit his stack. As you can see I don't quite have those numbers


   

Demo's aren't bad. Could be better, but with Ventessel sitting there not much more I can do.

[Krill]

I've had a flair up from a back injury

 I've felt your pain.  You have my sympathies.

Last Friday was horrible, but that just happened. Got better over the weekend, go back to work this week and it just got worse. Shit happens. Thanks for caring

[Krill]

The tl;dr of Ventessels plan is quite simple: he is whipping chariots. His attack plan involves, right now, something like 68K worth of solder points. 18K in tech, 6K in pop, 12K in axes 2K in a barracks (actually, does he have a barracks in the second city? I think not looking at culture borders but I could be wrong, he could have built the barracks before I figured out where he planted). Should check culture graphs next turn. That's still only 7, maximum 8 chariots and no sears, and he whipped that hard he must have 2 warriors for mp duty. If he runs those chariots down to the desert hill in a few turns, then I may well have enough units to just smack him in the nose and stop the attack dead. If he came right now, end of this turn with 8 chariots on the desert hill that's still only 7 chariots to attack spears. What if he whipped a further 2 chariots this turn, and 2 more after that? Push himself to 12 chariots? Well I'd have 5 turns of production available. That would be a further 3 axes or spears on my part just from AF. The axe in R101 moves up, puts me at 7 units, add in the chariot (not that the chariot does anything in this instance but forces Ventessel to keep axes out or with spear cover). So I could have 4-5 attacks out (against a chariot attack, not combined arms) leaving 2-3 units in the city. Enough gold and quechua to upgrade 2 units as well, moves that top being able to wipe out half his stack if he delays a pure chariot rush.

What happens if he moves in slowly with chariots under axe/spear cover? Well if he moved in now, he would need to move adjacent to the city to attack. Which means I'd have three turns of production minimum, which would be again 2 quechua upgrades and a further axe pair, the R101 axe would be south of AF so not available to defend but would provide cover for a counter attack. So that's 7 units AGG units with 40% culture to defend against 10 units? And every unit that defended would be able to promote heal?! Yes, any attack on AF is suicide. I think the worst that can happen is Ventessel ends up pillaging the copper, silver and plains hill mine, but he would take loses for that. Minimum losses of 2 chariots, potentially more just to do that. There are a few tactics he could try to implement, but what he would basically be doing is forcing me to attack at over 70% odds rather than defend at over 90%.

At this point, I just want the attack over and done with. I don't see how it works anymore.