[PB37 SPOILER] Coeurva, Bacchus -- Cyrus of Carthage

[Bacchus]

I wonder actually, are there even any circumstances where one would accept a peace like that? Only if there is some sort of mutual threat, right, otherwise you always reject and have the guy invest in countermeasures, as opposed to economy.

Actually, because 200 will be all his gold, I would rather ask for 21-25gpt. Just to suggest that we really mean that sum.

[Coeurva]

If Krill takes peace for 25 gpt, we'll just look dumb with our 10 swords, no target and no real compensation (25gpt is nothing impressive at this point) while he gets 10t to actually reinforce his cities. If he doesn't, no difference. I say, demand 90gpt plus all his treasury or bust is what we should do here. Six cities on that sea would be worth far more to Krill, actually. We already have our "countermeasures" in place and Krill doesn't actually know about them -- he wouldn't have declared if he expected 10 swords to sit 1t from Mandrake, which just makes him look like the aggressor to all the world while removing any doubt that a would-be attacker might have had. He declared because he expects us to be building them shortly and wants us to call it off by showing this. We will not conform to his expectations. Catching him on this aggressive play and striking sooner than he expects might make all the difference. I know, this is getting psychological again when I'd rather not...

Let's see how far we can go here.

I think I've read about someone accepting a high gpt tribute for not getting attacked (likely devoured) by GermanJoey in some Pitboss, in a cavalry-vs-longbows scenario or similar iirc, so that Joey could focus on an actual threat (Gavagai?). As you can see, I've mostly forgotten about that.

EDIT: Do we send a private message to Krill about anything? The turn split is obvious here, so I guess there's no need.

[Coeurva]

Bless this mess.

Could count as a good opportunity to kill Yuri, but I'm not sure if either of us wanted to add dtay to our neighbours, and this might just be a diversion to him while he prepares for land war with the real target. Shows that Overlook Hotel could be difficult to hold against Yuri and dtay, though.

I'm only disappointed that dtay seems to be barely reporting at all, he's been playing such a strong game here (well, surprise).

[Bacchus]

The latest news is exactly why I'm ok with taking a medium-sized tribute from Krill, we do have alternate use for swords -- barb city, Savant's cities in the bay. Not as good as an attack against Krill, but still quite useful, especially now that Savant will be distracted north-westwards. Maybe 30-35gpt? Taking a third of Krill's economy is pretty severe, I wouldn't even say that 25 is "nothing much".

I do think that the attack will come quicker than Krill expects, and has reasonable good chances. But then chances against Savant are also great, and if you look at it as a package -- Savant's cities + ~300 gold from Krill, speeding up Feudalism, it starts looking pretty good.

No need to send Krill a message.

[Coeurva]

Well, Savant has signed peace with dtay at once, blink and you'd have missed the war. (The city of Wildabar was taken.) There's no other city that dtay can attack, besides Vertigo on the mainland, so that makes sense. It's possible that dtay wanted another springboard into Mongolia.

Didn't see your post in time... Sent around the following deals: iron & crab (mutual) to Gavagai (hope he doesn't think we mean Mongolia and gets disappointed); Open Borders to Donovan; 199g, 92gpt to Krill for peace. Since that offer could also be seen as "we demand a concession in gold; name the price", he might give us another offer next turn, or just gear up for war (which is what he'd have done in radio silence as well). Once we see it, we can better gauge his will to pay tribute.

But I think we simply cannot allow Mandrake to stand; come galleons, it forks as many as three of our prospective cities: Chehalis, Maud, and the X17 island that I've decided not to settle now -- doesn't kick Krill's chariot from its vantage point, which was the main point, and eats resources by demanding a garrison. That settler is heading inland and can take one of the filler spots (which one?) -- alternatively, we use our one remaining galley in the west to grab another island (only has bananas first-ring, so nobody else will want to take it, I think most people -- except Savant! -- still lack Calendar)

Besides, we've been reacting to Krill's moves at every point he's come into our view, and his GNP is very good but his power and food are lacking, so even inducing him to whip defenses will help us here, just by delaying his path to Astro.

Yeah if Krill just went and gave us 25gpt, that would be great, but the "tribute" comes with the less transparent cost of allowing him to settle and keep at least three cities close to us. In that light, I think it is indeed nothing much. We'd pretty much pay that in maintenance for settling three cities, so at best we break even on this deal, compared to everyone who isn't Krill.

Whatever the case, we kill Krill's observer exactly on the turn that we begin our 2t stage, with a move I think he won't be expecting; while he'll know where the attack will occur, he won't know the force that takes it. I've thought about a feint at Foxglove, but it makes no sense to feint a city that we're actually going to (have to) attack right after anyway.


Maud's micro is a bit awkward because we need to have two triremes on T129, but I think it'll work out. -228 / +100 gpt at 0% sci without wealth builds (I'm trying to get these three forges up before we build wealth again). I've considered not to finish Priesthood this turn and saving up some more, but it might be useful to have our score jump up a bit. The overflow will pretty much complete Monarchy as well, so 6t to Feudalism from T126 seems reasonable to expect (the rest of Monarchy should come from our ~20bpt while saving gold).

326 would have been #3 food. 323 would have been #5. Savant must have Priesthood or some such selected as well, he was at 403 GNP (us 401) at the beginning of the turn.

EDIT: I also think we should be expecting Krill to art-bomb us. Because he's a real hooligan.

[Bacchus]

Maybe we should kill the chariot quicker, if we can? It kinda gives another explanation for why we are not signing peace (founding the city there would have supported it further, but I agree that it needlessly increases our exposure).

I would settle the lighthousable lake filler north of Lifeblood.

BTW, another reason for the narrowness of the window for an attack against Krill -- he isn't yet in Theocracy, after that we will always be fighting uphill against an extra promotion. Yuck.

[Coeurva]

We could kill the chariot with the unpromoted sword (80% odds) currently inside Madeleine Springs, but it alerts Krill to one of our galleys' locations. If we use Hebona, not only will we use a less suspicious spear (and too prompt a response might also arouse suspicion that we already have our army ready on T127), we'll remain completely invisible throughout, which really just befits the name.

...whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the [map] ...

Although it's actually named differently right now, as are and will be all our ships, because I figured that if we're going to have to wage full war against Krill, I might as well have fun yelling at him incoherently in Italian, to avenge that he has been misspelling my username from T0. I'm pretty sure those are all Shakespeare quotes as well. (One of them actually is.)

Besides, if Krill moves a unit out from his cities to replace the observer at once, that's one less unit for garrison; this only works if we kill on T128.

Lifeblood filler looks good, nice horse tile as well. I'm only concerned about not having enough food for the workshops, but I think we can mostly halt growth at Lifeblood after the GA anyway, unless we plan to build Moai there. (We'll look for stone<->marble trades once the NEpic finishes in 8t; I think Gavagai only has stone, so he's a natural fit there)

[Bacchus]

Gates and alleys makes for a good cockney rendering of galleys. Load them uncles on the gates and serve Krill a good right read.

EDIT: Yeah, better kill the chariot with a spear, and not have a sword show up in the combat log, if Hebona is the only one that can do it, no probs.

[Bacchus]

I'm thinking about that promoted axe, and generally that he will have spare garrisons from his earlier war, not unlike we have sitting in Zodiac. And once he sees our sword attacks, he is likely going to whip axes again. It may be worth actually bringing a couple of shock chariots. Or at least make provision as to how we can add them to the attacking force reasonably quickly. Amphibious Numids also an option.

[Coeurva]

One Shock chariot will form part of the initial attack (instead of the unpromoted sword). Whether we attack amphibiously or land the forces first (will have to see), it can either provide cover or kill off a final remaining axe to conserve swords.

Numids are probably better than Shock chariots for the second wave -- the latter will just draw archers and such as top defenders. Our own Shock chariot gets 10% odds on Krill's C1 chariot amphibiously, for instance. The beauty of RtR swords lies in that they don't have truly awful match-ups against Classical units. Promoted Numids appear somewhat similar to me, actually. If Krill just has axes/spears, Shock is actually better (more flexible when attacking, and defensively valuable) than Amphibious on the Numids (or the swords, for that matter -- Shock + C1 beats axes more soundly than CR2, doesn't it?).

Depending on whether Hemlock is well-defended, Hebona can ferry over a few units to Foxglove quickly if we can capture it. Foxglove should be a tenable defensive position, halfway in between our Heroic Epic cities.

If we can get a fast Great General (26/60 XP currently), we can settle him in Vermin for 8XP units in Vassalage, to counteract Krill's Theocracy. This might include CG3 or Guerilla 3 (?) longbows, against which Krill will hopefully have a hard time if we can't force a peace from him. In fact, the Statue of Zeus suffers from ToA Syndrome and only provides +3XP to units built in the same city, not empire-wide -- and Animal Farm is quite distant. Alas, Donovan cannot say the same about it.

I'm less concerned about Krill's current garrisons than about our production base being a dozen tiles from most targets. Because we've been slacking on chess analogies: If, in a strange variant, you gave me two knights along with my king and yourself only the eight pawns, but also the power to put three pawns anywhere in your half of the board on each of your turns, I'm pretty sure I'd lose. For the same reason, Krill's current position appears somewhat shaky. Even if he whips units at home right now, they'll take 4-5t to arrive -- unless he can galley-chain them, which is always possible, but his current settling spree might have left the galleys out of position, and galley chaining sacrifices greater numbers of reinforcements for effective reinforcement range.

About the filler city, there's one argument for settling closer to the capital instead: If we go for Caste System and abandon all of Rhapsody's food-neutral (or worse) hammer tiles in favour of scientists during the Golden Age, a city to take the mines, copper, and iron intermittently would come in handy. The problem is that the inland filler site has no food (although a nice river to farm and watermill), while the shore fillers only bring in about a half-dozen useful new land tiles combined.

Finally, we might want to bring a Medic unit over (we still have one such axe in Lifeblood, or we can promote a different unit already on the frontlines later).

EDIT: You called it -- Mongolia has lost another city on this turn of Gavagai's attack, probably the one east of Denizli.