(September 10th, 2017, 10:19)JR4 Wrote: The Mausoleum of Maussoloss was built.. somewhere.
Maybe by Coeurva in a city he planted since our last map trade? Especially if he'd been saving a great person for a few turns, this feels like it would make some kind of sense....
Quote:Annoyingly, Joey is claiming the disputed grass tile next turn. We can`t do much about it.
That is rather frustrating, but fortunately the percentages will stay very close: State of Zijin managed to pop borders to 4th ring within the last couple of turns, which is what let him briefly make significant headway with similar culture per turn, but Oghul Qaimish will now have done so as well (this turn -- T135). I'm curious about the other (and more important) grassland tile just east of that one too though. GJ will have a sizable advantage there, but how sizable? I think we're actually gaining ground on that tile right now, due in large part to Borte.
Oh, also: GJ teched Aesthetics recently. This suggests to me we should be planning a military solution to the State of Zijin problem. Is there a plan for that in train? If you'd like suggestions, a review of our current military would be helpful (might be useful anyway really...).
It`s been a great turn for us! Take a look at this: Couerva is piling on. Poor Dark Savant, it looks like he`s on his way out here. Especially as we`re planning to capture a city from him. Vulcania now has Walls, unfortunately. Any attack on that city will lead to casualties. We still have enough military to take it though. We are now in Hereditary Rule and Vassalage, those civics are going to help us out enormously. Also, we got two free Buddhism spreads this turn! Especially Shkodai needs the border pop to keep hold of its seafood. The Missionary from Borte tried to spread the faith to Toregene. It... succeded! So that`s three spreads in all. Muqa`s Shrine is getting better by the turn.
Joey now has a sentry Chariot in State of Zijin, so a sneak attack will be hard to achieve. But certainly not impossible. He didn`t have any units on the dangerous tiles right next to the city. I`m very interested in hearing any plans of a military solution. We`d probably have to get peace from Dark Savant first, but getting rid of SoZ would help shorten our front nicely. (I forgot tot check the culture on the tile E of the tile we just lost, will do it next turn).
Research was set to Machinery, at max science we can 3 turn it. We`re now making +162 gold per turn without any Wealth builds. Our economy is nicely consolidated.
Graphs and demos: Gavagai and Joey are spending quite a few EPs on us, we`re ahead of them both thanks to our numerous Courthouses. I decided to try to keep research visibility for a bit longer, taking EPs off Dark Savant for now.
On a non-civ related note: The second Monday in September (every four years) is the time for the Norwegian parliamentary election. It`s probably going down to the wire, different polls predict very different outcomes. I`m going to hang out with some friends this evening (watching the election), so if Dark Savant doesn`t play in the next hour or so I won`t get to the turn until tomorrow.
EDIT: And then Dark Savant suddenly logs in. I might get to it before I`m leaving.
As Dark Savant played quickly, I just managed to sneak in a turn before heading out. Dark Savant played a short turn, without whipping anything. Has he given up? Well, no, it turns out that I somehow managed to miss some very essential information from the Event Log. First, Joey built the Temple of Artemis in his city NW of the capital. Secondly, and much more importantly - Dark Savant started a Golden Age 2 turns ago. Where he swapped to Caste System. Maybe that`s why Couerva attacked him. It probably would have been more prudent to stay in Slavery as he was in a hot war back then. Oh well, he`s in a world of trouble now. The only thing that can save Vulcania now is an extra unit being built or shipped in next turn (barring horrible rng). We`ve got everything lined up now. Note to self - double check the Event Log on every turn.
The cultural expansion of one of Dark Savant`s cities stole our pigs away from Bayan Khutugh! I didn`t see that coming.. State of Zijin is making a ton of culture, the grass tile just E of the tile we lost a couple of turns is now under his control. 38-61 % in his favor.
D-mishi started a Longbow that can be whipped next turn (or the turn thereafter). Oghul Qaimish is growing at max speed. It has a few spare happiness now. Muqa also started a Longbow that can go to one of the front cities in the north.
Joey double moved Dark Savant, so they must have signed peace. Well, we still have Couerva as a war ally. I`m really looking forward to t137 where we will finally see some action.
Graphs and demos: We`re pretty average just about everywhere. Note that Joey lost a few units (or whipped away enough population to show up on the power graph). I`d like to improve our crop yield a bit to catch up with the contenders but that`s not going to be easy. We need more land.
Aha! Dark Savant starting a golden age on the same turn MoM completes, along with a big score increase on Civstats at the start of that turn leads me to believe he's the one who built it. (Especially since his refusal to trade maps means we don't have eyes on all his mainland cities.)
Speaking of Dark Savant: Some testing suggests that (assuming I'm right about the promos available on our units) you're right that he needs another unit or very good luck for Vulcania to survive an attack, though we'll likely lose multiple units. I don't have a combat calculator, so I'm doing this by guesswork and tests, but conservative player that I am, my tactical plan would look something like this:
1) If there is a third unit (or somhow a castle) in Vulcania, ABORT (what to do with the boats and units next is an interesting question) - otherwise...
2) Declare War!
3) Move (only) the boat with the Swords to the tile NW of Vulcania.
4) Promote 3-xp Sword to Combat 1 (the archer should be defending) and attack with it. If it fails to damage the archer, ABORT (maybe cover the galley and sword with a trireme and offer peace). Otherwise...
5) Promote the 5-xp Sword to CR1-CR2 (Spear should be defending) and attack with it. If the combat log shows that the spear and archer combined have taken no more than two total hits, ABORT. Otherwise...
6) Move (only) the boat with the Axes to the tile NW of Vulcania.
7) With the long-since-promoted C1 Axe highlighted, if the Archer is defending OR the Spear has taken at least two hits per the combat log, attack! Otherwise, promote the other Axe to CR1 and attack with that! If the Archer still has more than about 1 strength AND the Spearman has more than about 2.5 strength, ABORT; if the Archer still has more than about 2 strength and the Spearman has more than about 1.8 strength, ABORT; otherwise...
8) Select the remaining Axe. If the top defender is the Spear OR the Archer is by far the strongest remaining defender, attack!
9) Select one of the Archers (WITHOUT moving their Galley). If our Archer has worse than about 10% odds OR there are still two defenders left and our Archer has worse than about 30% odds OR there are two defenders left and we can't attack this turn except with our Archers, who show odds worse than about 50%, ABORT; otherwise, move the Archers' boat into attack position and attack with an Archer!
10) If we have an unmoved Axe and it's getting odds of about 30% or more against the last defender, attack with it!
11) If both defenders are still alive OR our last archer isn't getting odds as high as about 30%, ABORT. Otherwise, attack!
Errr, this isn't actually very conservative though, apart from the beginning. That's kind of intentional, but might be a mistake. Like any of these things.
That was a silly exercise on which I sh
ouldn't have wasted time, but ... eh, I get obsessed with this stuff sometimes (and always think it's going to be less complex and time-consuming than it is). Other than that ... broadly speaking, we would need more cats, more wellies, more Keshiks, and more galleys on the western sea (or even more Cats and swords in place of the galleys to make up for the reduced element of surprise) if we want to hit State of Zijin soon. It looks to me like he's going to have LBs in the near future, so....
Finally, it is time for WAR! The Galley loaded with Swords entered the tile next to Vulcania, which still only had two units.
C1 Sword vs CG1 Archer 22% - Loss. The Archer was severely wounded and had less than 1 strength left.
CR2 Sword vs Shock Spear 31 % - WIN! The Sword got 4 XP and now has 9XP.
C1 Axe vs Spear 99 % - Flawless WIN!
The capture yielded 70 gold. And take a look at that haul. Not bad, not bad at all! We`re not losing the city any time soon unless Dark Savant has a ton of units to spare. Note that the tiles on the eastern side is still under Ethiopian control. Anyway, I didn`t offer peace. Thoughts on that? Maybe we can try to extort some money from him. Joey and Dark Savant signed peace, as expected. But Couerva took another city off Ethiopia.
D-mishi whipped a Longbow. We could build another one right after, to be on the safe side. Gavagai has a couple of X-bows in Babukhan so we need to be careful. The Peace Treaty is soon up. Our sentry Keshiks checked for units near State of Zijin, nothing found. (SoZ has a Worker on the city tile).
Our island cities are making a few units now, 3 complete eot. We need to dissuade an all-in attack by Dark Savant. Oljei Baajii could whip a Longbow next turn so I don`t think it`s in any danger. All in all - a very good turn for us. It`s much more fun to take a city than to lose one!
Graphs and demos:According to the demo screen we`re probably in 6th place overall. That`s okay but if we want to get higher than that we have to plan for getting more land.
I forgot to mention that we got a trade offer from Joey, (the one that I was stuck with for several minutes), where he offered Open Borders and fish for fish. I declined again. It`s not a good deal for us, but maybe it`s a veiled threat. Who knows. We`re thinking about a military solution on our SW front so if he wants to be hostile then we can return the favor..
