[pb40 spoiler] Götterdämmerung: Destruction Is The Masses' Entertainment

[OT4E]

RFS is FIN and he didnt overexpand so I guess his expenses are one level lower than ours.

It can happen that we steal wheat from his city now. It was one of the latest SHs btw. May be wonders were banned and we didint know? Need to find out a way to make those GP points work... It is not easy for a city with no food.

I agree that IW is now more important than Maths. Lets go for it.

[Commodore]

That was a crazy-late Stonehenge. What wonder next?

[Coeurva]

The Pyramids (T135).

Serious answer: since s_t seems to pursue the Gardens, and we can't prevent that if he doesn't dawdle, our next wonder will probably be whatever we conquer, if anything.



This detachment (2 Shock axes, 1 CG1 archer, the latter making the intent obvious, but I doubt it wasn't) is what will defend our new city and shoo away that impi. Settler gets 2-whipped in Munsal on T88 (1 chop, but it's worth it). Dream site is marked (claims all the resources including seafood) but all others are fine by me. Capital is building an axe so that we can 2-whip a forum off two mines 2t after finishing Currency, then build workers while unhappiness cools down.

Note 90% research. This is because we can't afford 100% with unit/civic costs still increasing, and we need to chip some beakers into Sailing right after Curr to finish the tech (we have 79b invested already) and meet schedule for X9, the Arctic island. 75b is at least evenly divisble by 5, which is nice for the prereq bonus, so the beaker lost to rounding if any doesn't concern me much.


Good news: we're #2 in soldiers!

Bad news: this doesn't matter much compared to #1. Charriu has to be attacking someone within a few turns; this isn't a newbie typically overbuilding defense. Here's the clues if soldier count isn't already: His dedlurker is a Deity SP player (=> Classical rush habit) and their neighbour has 5 cities defended by axemen on T90. They have a Classical tech, but no economy at all, and are whipping off food tiles but increasing their MFG. This is either an axe rush with Maths, or a horcher rush, and the Mongols are going to fall if they ignore this; my hope is that, if so, Charriu falls right after that before he acquires an economy. To praetorians.

If we are the target instead, I'm going to add an archer to Schilda next turn, then a spear, and then Schilda finishes another archer 4t from now. That's an absurd garrison of 6 units for a size1 city that autorazes, but I'd rather not lose the game to shallow_thought because this guy sends 12 axes at us before IW. Or chariots. If this game delays Henge to T85, why not also have a chariot rush on T90.

I've sent copper/copper to RFS-81; I don't even care if he accepts it or not, I just hope that he sees the writing on the wall; we are not his enemy unless he collapses anyway. Also found that MSci settled his X8 and offered us fish/fish or equivalent (I declined because he has the smallest army by a good margin, so what do I care).

Edit: Stonehenge currently sucks at claiming tiles. Charriu still controls the contested second-ring tiles even when they show 84% our culture (such as the one east of the lake); maybe it'll change eot.

[OT4E]

It always take 1 turn to get tile after you gain over 50% of culture, no worries. Charriu might be heading for superdeath too. May be it is not overbuilding defense but we cant be sure what is in his mind. May be he sees Zulu as thr main threat and intends to stop it. Going for us cant bring him much except that gold city without food. Or does he seriously thinks he can advance further?

Good that you have taken care about the defense.

[OT4E]

I entered the game and received this:

[OT4E]

Also I think you have missed this:

[Coeurva]

I haven't missed anything, Charriu played after us this turn and that's when he moved these units (besides the archers). He's not going to break Schilda if that is all he has, and now I know how Krill felt in PB37. Charriu might not even know that the city will autoraze.

superdeath probably war-peaced us to settle his own city first. Bad timing for us due to Charriu, and what sucks even more is that Charriu will declare war before him because the offer is no longer active, and no way superdeath takes peace once that happens. So, dogpile on the #2 soldiers score (!) because we can actually play the game at hand and they like shallow_thought better. Lol. Each of our archers in Schilda gets a defense bonus of +105% vs. his swords *before* fortification; but why not throw away 230h to remove our 200h. Henge doesn't count because it does nothing to Charriu, not even threaten any important tiles.

I whipped Venusberg for an axe. If he attacks, same goes for all our cities and we swap research to Iron Working, fuck Currency. He wants to play Duel League? He can play Duel League.

[OT4E]

I fear he can take it. He has 4 swords which have something about >50% against archers, so only if you return 4th archer you can have a chance to hold it but result will depend on pure luck.

Also the tile between mine and lake will remain under his control, it now shows something like 78 to 21 in his favor.

I dont know what is the problem with superdeath. You can reoffer him peace before Charriu declare or not offer and show that we dont worry about Charriu by continue going further to the east. Losing SH city will reveal that not everything goes well though.

[Coeurva]

Swords have 50% against cities, which effectively annuls the archer 50% city defense bonus. Archers get +30% against swords (I was mistaken and thought 40%), +25% hill defense, +20% culture defense, +20% CG1 / Drill1. That's 95% to their base combat strength, so coinflip combat odds sounds about right.

Charriu played after us, so we play first next turn, put 2 more archers into the city (yeah, we have them); he declares war, combat-roads, and moves next to the city. Then we add another two axes and archer first half of T88; only then can he attack.

That is, attack into our five archers, two axes, and a spear. Even if Charriu adds 2 chariots or similar, he pretty much needs to win every combat at coinflip odds or worse. That's simply an insane gamble, no bones about it. Of course, Charriu only sees less than half our forces; maybe he'll call it off if we visibly reinforce and attack Mongolia instead. Maybe.

Yes, I can reoffer peace to superdeath before Charriu declares, but superdeath is not going to play before Charriu due to timezones. Charriu will declare, and then superdeath will decline the re-offer with delight, if my read of him is correct. We really can't afford to walk these axes eastward now, because they'll counter-attack what will be left of Charriu's units in a few turns.

I'm going to play now.

[OT4E]

If you can add 2 axes the city is safe for sure. Archers by themselves dont have good odds against swords.

Archer in the city on hill has +100%, culture defense and +30% against swords are eliminated by 50% bonus against cities for swords so basically it is 7.2 vs 6.0+ fortify, promotions and drill.

Dont put everything on table to punish Charriu. We are making good game and we will win whether he attacks or not. Go ahead with Currency and later we will deal with him or whoever we consider worth attacking.