Well, we still have a few turns to make the final decision on whether to attack Greece or not. If we can get rid of State of Zijin I`m willing to accept quite a few casualties but we have to be fairly sure of success before moving in. You`re certainly right that the sentry Keshik can be sacrificed to get a full picture of the units we`re up against on t148 if we decide to attack. The sentry Keshik N of Oghul Qaimsih will move south to the sheep (and probably stay there) next turn to check for reinforcements. I don`t like sending Joey a fish for fish deal, as it would limit the number of targets we can hit.
The real trouble is the Knights that surely will pour in towards State of Zijin over the coming turns. Our stack will be very vulnerable outside of SoZ, standing on flatland. If Joey has a sizable Knight force he could flank away our Catapults and we just cannot attack without Catapults. Sigh, I`m still in doubt whether to press forward or not.
Oh, I forgot to post the graphs and demos for t144.
(September 18th, 2017, 09:32)JR4 Wrote: The sentry Keshik N of Oghul Qaimsih will move south to the sheep (and probably stay there) next turn to check for reinforcements.
I was actually suggesting moving it beyond the sheep (to the plains tile SW of the sheep, just north of the silver) if it looks safe to do so. If there are any tiles it can see from the sheep but not from the plains tile, it can always move back and forth to and from the sheep on T146 and T147. I can hear an argument for delaying the move to the plains tile until T147, but I'd prefer to just move it down there right away. (Another reasonable alternative is to move the sentry to the sheep this turn, then move it to the plains next turn, since at that point it will be able to retreat back to the sheep if it sees anything fishy.)
This positioning gives us visibility on one extra tile, but is actually even more important because it enables us to play it safe on Turn 148 if we're planning to attack: Declare war, move the sentry Keshik 1S to the silver and check for a counter-stack. If an overwhelming counter-force isn't visible, move the Sentry Keshik 1SE back toward Seven Mysteries, whence it can see all the other tiles from which GJ could stage Knights for hitting our slow-mover stack if we move it in.
...unless he's within a turn of Engineering by then. If that happens, and the power graphs suggests he's built a sizable force of knights, I think the attack is just off, without the need to send in a sentry. And ... it's by no means beyond the realm of possibility. Of course, in that case we would still have to prepare a defense.....
On the positive(?) side: RtR nerfed flanking damage, and some testing indicates it's been nerfed almost to irrelevance. GJ won't be able to flank our cats away; he would need enough Knights to destroy the whole stack outright to kill them all. That's by no means impossible though: Only our top few units would have odds on his Knights, and he could potentially produce a lot of them and get them into position. The decision to attack or not is going to be complex to say the least.
According to Civstats, Joey whipped another 7 cities this turn. It really looks to me as he`s telling us that if we`re coming for State of Zijin, then he`ll be ready to respond accordingly. I assume he saw the power graph showing a big jump for us. You know what - I feel that our chances of getting a positive outcome are diminishing by the turn so I`m actually suggesting abandoning the plan already. (I`ll still play the turn before making the final decision). Building a lot of Knights is still fine, we`ll need them to be a flexible fast mover force that can go to either front quickly.
I'm not surprised by all those whips. (I counted 8 actually.) By my count, we would be whipping 8 cities for knights of our own this turn if there's no change in plan, plus three more for Galleys. If we're abandoning the attack plan now, at a minimum we should put off whipping those Galleys in favor of starting e.g. more Cats, LBs, or (Keshiks that will turn into) Knights, and arguably some of the population we're planning to whip into Knights should be saved in that case too - though if GJ comes after us, we'll need all the Knights we can muster - so it would be best to make the decision before committing to all of those whips this turn. That doesn't mean we can't continue with the plan while awaiting further information of course.
I'm pretty sure what GJ wants to do with all those Knights he's whipping is to take over China. He's worried that we might try to attack him from the north while he's occupied down there, but China is what he wants. If you offered him fish-for-fish right now, especially if we do whip a lot, it is very, very likely he would offer it back. We would need another plan to put our units to use in that case.
(The new plan doesn't have to be as ridiculously detailed as the one I posted above; it just needs to be something for our Knights to do given peace with our land neighbors.)
If we do whip all these knights, and they just stand around looking at the border (or if GermanJoey attacks and we have to defend, but that's kind of obvious) then we're basically buying Krill time to prepare to claim a larger share of China, which doesn't improve our position directly, though it would keep us stay in the game longer than a failed attack (and probably longer than letting GJ take Chinese cities without making gains of our own at the same time).
Agh, and it's half past 4AM here. Wellllll... Have a great afternoon!
Our sentries discovered that Joey is about to bring a third Longbow to State of Zijin. As he`s getting Guilds eot, I`m sad to say that the attack is off. He just saw it coming a million miles away and I don`t think we should try to go all-in as our chances are rather low of making a breakthrough. I offered Joey a fish-for-fish deal.
D-mishi expanded borders and actually claimed some seafood from Babukhan! Well, we`re not keeping hold of those tiles forever but the temporary added vision is nice. Bayan Khutugh is reclaiming its pigs next turn! That`s going to help out the city massively. We only did a couple of whips this turn as some Knights still will finish and we really need to get our economy back running. Having a lot of half-built Knights could be an advantage if we need more troops urgently.
Note that Dark Savant is teching Optics now. Perhaps we should follow him there. We can`t afford being at a disadvantage at the seas if a naval invasion is to have any chance of success. Also, we need to be wary of the threat of a revenge attack by Ethiopia. It`s not out of the question that Dark Savant sees us as his weakest target now.. I think going Compass - Optics next is our safest path right now. Going for Calendar or Banking would be extremely nice but I`m not sure if we can afford that. Engineering is another alternative, giving us access to Pikes and making the logistics easier.
Just out of curiosity, what does Gavagai have in Babukhan apart from that Crossbow?
Let's hope I'm right that GJ wants to turn his attention south here. We should be able to at least put up a credible defense, whereas China should have no answer to a well-planned knight-based attack. Plus Krill doesn't seem to have anything ready to hit China from the other side, whereas if GJ breaks our defenses, he can expect dtay to claim a significant share of the spoils, including our shrine.
The thing about falling behind is that we've been behind in land area for a long time, and this is just the natural result. Arguably, we were going to be behind in land area since the beginning of the game due to a combination of neighbor luck and the shape of the map. (There just wasn't as much land realistically accessible to us as there was to the average player, although we obviously could have done better with the islands in the west.)
(September 19th, 2017, 12:11)RefSteel Wrote: Just out of curiosity, what does Gavagai have in Babukhan apart from that Crossbow?
Quickly now, I`ll just answer this before going to bed. (It`s been a long day). He`s got 5 units in Babukhan as of this turn, 2 X-bows (Both CG1 iirc), 2 C1 Axes and a CG Archer.
If we can get as good naval units as Gavagai I`m all for making an attempt to reclaim Babukhan. I`ll comment on the current situation in more detail tomorrow. Let`s hope Joey offers the fish-for-fish deal back. Then we`ll have some options..
