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

[Krill]

One of these days Regna is going to find itself outside of revolt. That was a C1/CR3 sword that died defending the city for Chumchu.

At some point players might cotton onto the fact that if you can't get good units into cities you have to abandon them...that's why I left Sweet Water and Regna empty.

[Krill]

Regna fell again. I've picked up the winning sword, but dumped the other two sowrds (C4) onto the hill adjacent to Regna. That way if Chumchu tries to attack them, even with Xbows, the swords will have odds from the forest hill and not lose to the CR promotion of swords that I think are still on the boats floating around in the FoW. C4 Sword has 115% bonus, if attacked by a C1/Shock Xbow off a boat (best case for Chumchu) that drops to a mere 90%, or 6.6 v 11.4 in my favour. Maybe Chumchu hits my two galleons here, but that's abotu the extent of what he can do in this theatre now I believe, as I can stop him returning those boats to port and stop them threatening me, forcing them towards DS and make him deal with them.




9 units threaten MS and Chehalis. I arguably should have moved the scouting galleon to cover the stack, but we'll see how that goes. Theoretically, I could raze one of those cities but I'm not sure. If Chumchu wants to evacuate Mandrake though, he can move 12 units onto galleons. Look:







He has 12 land units in Mandrake. If he moves his galleons 3S, he can load every single unit onto the galleons except the chariot, and retreat the galleons back to Chehalis and unload them. Chehalis would be impregnable, Mandrake falls back to me and I offer straight peace. Will he do this? Fuck no. Should he do this? It's irrelevant, neither of us can win now. Will it save him more losses? Well, I think I'm winning the war tactically, and strategically, the only hope to win is via frigates, and that's not a certainty that he gets there first (I need to be about 5 turns behind and then I just whip C2 frigates everywhere and we repeat the same battles). So arguably just keeping peace is worthwhile, I have no reason to attack his coastal cities, not like I can hold them. Does it allow him to focus on dealing with DS and dtay? Definitely. So if the threat from dtay and DS is that great, maybe retreating the land units and offering a diplomatic solution is actually worth while.





The problem is I have 5 maces about to smack SG and then I'm going to blockade Zodiac Spire immediately afterwards. The mace, unpromoted, has 31% odds on the axe and higher against the archer. And all of them can take C2 Amphib. (two 13XP, two 12XP, one 8XP). I've had that chariot guarding that route towards Overlook Hotel (original gold city) since before the war.

[Krill]

Interesting turn and I hope to post a few screenshots later, just logged in to look around.

Joey has a horde of knights in Anchorage, and if he invaded could likely take a few cities before emergency whips kicked in. This is not good given the first city to fall would be AF but he offered fish for fish two turns ago so I read that as confirmation, I don't fuck with him, he leaves me alone.

Joey knows that I'll not be a dick to him if he leaves me alone, so I have a measure of confidence in that offer.

Chumchu left everything alone, so I'm in position of phase 2 of cleaning him out. Couer kept on moving units to retake Sweet Water and Regna, so I've lost, what 3 galleons and 2 swords to kill 1 Lbow, 2NC, 5 swords, 5 galleons, 4 galleys and 4 triremes, plus isolated Mandrake. That's not counting the loss of Mandrakes garrison, 2 Lbow, 2 swords and 5 axes that killed 3 cats and a sword builds themselves.

[Krill]

Going say it now: Boudicca is fun but if you can't build an economy you are fucked.

I'm top GNP because of the shrine and wonder culture, but AGG helps. I wonder if CHM is OP, but frankly it's great that compete with mid and late game spi, early game agg, exp/pro/imp...and I'm fighting, I'm going to love CHM.

Rushing HE would have been smarter if I had been able the go straight onto HA. But tech was slow the game because of the start, Ventessel fucked expansion for me. I think the strategy holds as viable if it's tied together with Oracle. Definitely viable for SPI but I figure if you want to gamble on barbs and getting a unit to 10XP someone like Bismarck could probably crush out the wonders and manage expansion brilliantly and throw people that expect you to rush Henge.

If OH starts that new game with a randomised map I'd be keeping this in mind.

Also, Zulu are getting nerfed hard.

[darrelljs]

How much material loss are you willing to trade off for one turn, i.e. land and then attack (with the risk of reinforcements) vs. amphibious attack?

Darrell

[Krill]

C2/Amphib/CR2 Mace 9.6 v 8.7 G1 Lbow, 62.5%, Loss, Lbow 16hp remaining, GG generated for Chumchu
C2/Amphib/CR1 Mace 9.6 v 6.0 Archer, 94%, Win, 10hp remaining (jesus)
C2/Amphib/CR1 Mace 9.6 v 6.0 Archer, 94%, Win, 40hp remaining (and promotion)
C2/Amphib/CR2 Mace 9.6 v 5.0 Axe, 99.0%, Win 44hp remaining
12/13XP unpromoted mace v 16hp Lbow, Win, 81hp remaining, capture Swallow's Gyve and 103 gold.

   

Pillage the whaling boats at Zodiac Spire and blockade boats.

That was a bad run of luck for me, I think in the worst 20% of outcomes. Losing a 13XP mace hurts but that's why I built them.

   

But I still hold, this is a better marble city than the one I got shafted with.

In this case, I have odds without landing, so why waste the turn?

Well, I picked the one leader that can do this, then spent hte past 150 turns building a civ that can just one shot coastal cities, so I suppose if I don't value being able to do that I'm a rather stupid person.

[Krill]

Well this is interesting.

Gavagai declared war on me, but has moved nothing into position which is a threat. He might have meant this when he sent the banana? So what does he want, becaiuse he isn't showing aggression. Does he want me to play along with something?

Obvious thought: this is misdirection, so he intends to attack someone else, and from position of galleons, it looks like he is about to attack dtay?

   

[Krill]

Stream of consciousness now.

Gav is not being hostile. If this assumption is correct, then he is using the war Dec to cover aggression against another player, dtay, DS, or JR4. If he is not attacking dtay, then dtay is open to sideswipe Gav or try and bulldoze Chumchu/Couer. I do not have perfect information so should be wary.

Joey has 3 units on my border and a lot of units that once healed would be difficult to stop. I think Joey has city visibility on me, and if Joey thinks I will fall to Gav he will want his share. But if he has close to perfect map information will be figure out that I am not being invaded? He does not have complete map info, he can't see Gavs units but he can see my total lack of response to the war Dec plus lack of unit moves so he might figure out something is weird.

Does that stop him attacking me though? I don't think it does. Does the previous, fish for fish deal do that? Not in writing but it was very recent, less than 10 turns ago, so it would make future diplo, in other games difficult to trust, but again does Joey think that?

I left an unguarded settler adjacent to a knight. Joey's response will determine my actions. I am building cats but really need hitters to hold at AF. I would need lots of hitters. I think that would mean bringing some units back but whips would not hold AF. In fact I see well over 20 knights, so potentially he main defense is the threat of coastal raiding but that, at most, buys me a window to build a defensive army and Gav to achieve his aims and reposition to and provide a potential counter threat. So watch this space.

Chumchu unloaded a bunch of units but is still building galleons. I'm consolidating galleons to block Mandrake from being reinforced but I don't have the units to retake mandrake and hold against Joey so that's a decision I don't want to make.

What do I need to do? I need to keep peace with Joey but don't want to appear threatening. If I can do that then I can throw units at Mandrake, capture, reposition and offer peace to Chumchu. Then try to reset everything. If Gav does go to war with dtay, Joey might have the option to move north against JR4, but he needs to reposition an army, don't know if he would want to do that, OTOH JR4 has no navy so if Joey gets galleons that would be a quicker conquest than against me.

Hmmm, watch this space.

[Krill]

Gav positioned units to hit dtay this turn. Joey reordered fish for fish so I'm throwing everything at mandrake. Engineering eot, then HBR whilst saving gold, then saving gold longer. Probably beelining Chemistry but need to consider Merc and pre GA revolts, and the second shrine. I can only ensure 4th in this game by staying up in tech and power and not being digestible. A good second shrine is worth over 50gpt, and it only delays the second GA.

7 swords, 9 maces and all but two maces are 5 promo. Whip a bunch of things over the next few turns, looking at 30 unit stack being landed by t160. Then offer peace after retaking Mandrake and plan for the next GA and if I can spread the second religion.

[Krill]

3 maces from Swallows Gyve
3 axes from Foxglove
2 swords, 1Lbow already on boats
5 swords, 1 pike from Bracken
1 mace, 1 cat on boats
4 maces, 5 cats at Hemlock
1 Lbow, 1 Xbow from Hemlock
1 Lbow from new city