[SPOILERS] naufragar and Rusten get nickel-and-dimed

[naufragar]

Checked the Foreign Advisor for horse, and here's what I found:


No horse, unless I missed it. The Zulan mod changed this screen a bit, right? I was curious how Superdeath was still able to, you know, have an empire after I cut his ivory. I was cranky to see that Cairo was selling him a lux. (For 4gpt. Holy smokes what a bargain.) And I was even more cranky to see that boak was giving an ivory away. These two extra luxuries are, in my opinion, what's enabled Superdeath to keep whipping and have cities at sizes 3 and 4. He'd be far worse off without them. I can't really be that angry at Cairo or boak for this. Cairo wants to make money and he thinks Superdeath is no longer going to be a threat, so why not? I'm very surprised that Cairo is valuing 4gpt higher than Superdeath's eastern cities, but I don't know how serious his war with MSCC is. No power dips or war weariness for either yet. I also can't be (rationally) angry at boak. It's obviously in his best interest to have the powers on the big continent fighting each other for as long as possible.



He explored to the end of the continent. Samurai production seems to have slowed; they aren't cheap. But I still need to focus on military despite desperately wanting to settle new cities. By the by, boak/GKC has stone. I'm sure they'll land Pyramids, which ain't great.

No new troops in SD's capital. He undoubtedly knows he has time before the treb gets down and bombards his defenses. Damn, but this assault is taking too long. We might have to worry about SD's cap getting another border pop at this rate. Also, all our City Raider samurai died in the counterattack. (Makes sense. Combat samurai could defend themselves.) Things are getting tighter. Those free luxuries are keeping Superdeath far more alive than I'd like.

[naufragar]

The treb finally caught up to the stack. 6 more turns until we attack.


Superdeath's cap hasn't gained any new units in two turns. That's very concerning. What's he building and where is he putting it, if not his capital? Be wary. Edit: The axes stay with the main stack but don't attach unless we're guaranteed to take the cap. They need to defend the stack from a counter attack. Even if SD doesn't have horses, he could park axes somewhere to try to kill our damaged samurai.

Our newest settler is on the move:


I'm pretty sure building a settler for this spot was a mistake. It represents the loss of two samurai. The settler could have been a samurai itself and I'm going to have to take a samurai from somewhere to defend it. In exchange we'll settle a bunch of jungle tiles with Calendar luxuries that we won't be able to improve for 40+ turns.

Note that Superdeath is active in this area. He's chopped a forest. I'd feel no end of stupid if I planted a city down here, and he just took it with 4 or so axes. (I dug out the best pic I had from turn 106 to show the forest.)


I'm not sure I can plant it. Going for ivory would contribute to the war effort.

[Rusten]

We went to war to claim land, didn't we? Settling that city is the same as taking a size 2 city at the cost of 1 samurai. I don't see it is a mistake. You can irrigate both the sugar and banana for 4 food before calendar. In my mind SD is broken to the point where no real counterattacks are really possible, but if you feel differently about it you may settle elsewhere.

It's your call, but don't come crying to me when MS settles it and refuses to trade you sugar. It's an amazing spot long term.

edit: Just for the record you should second-guess everything I suggest as I'm just spectating from afar. You'll have a better idea of what's going on in the game. But big picture-wise, which is what I tend to look at, that city is very important.

[naufragar]

In my mind SD is broken to the point where no real counterattacks are really possible.

But therein lies the rub. We need 6 more turns to bombard his cultural defenses down to 10%, during which Superdeath can reinforce. From there we get ~88% odds on his defenders. To account for bad luck, let's say 80%. We should expect to lose 1 samurai for every 4 units of his. Pajarocu is our closest city and it takes 5 turns for a samurai from there to attack the cap, 7+ turns from the other cities. Even if we immediately whip at size 4 every time a city gets there, we still need to grow to 4. Our cities are lucky if they have a +5 food surplus at size 2 and +6 at size three. We have some more samurai in queues and in transit, but as a rule of thumb, we should expect it to take 10 turns to replace a dead samurai counting production & travel. Superdeath has 6 cities. In the ten turns it takes us to replace a samurai, can he replace four archers? Almost certainly. I was in high spirits when I saw that Superdeath has pretty much only been 1-pop whipping. Those 1-pop whips are murder on your happiness quota. My high spirits took a nose dive when I noticed he was getting free luxuries. I was still in this depressed mood when thinking about the sugar city. I mentioned back in the turn 101 review that there would be a tipping point. Either we lose enough samurai to attrition that we can't kill him faster than we lose units or vice versa. And while, maybe, maybe attrition favors us over time, we still have to contend with the uncertainties of war.

I'm still at war because I think we can win, but it feels like we're on the knife's edge. I'm pleased that I haven't seen reinforcements for his capital, but we need to truly break him. Until Superdeath's dead, we don't have a long-term. I trust your instincts, so I'll scout out the sugar. I can't settle it until a samurai gets there and that samurai is 5 turns away. But I'll settle it. Perhaps we can even have taken the capital by then, and I'll be more sanguine.

[Rusten]

You can probably settle it with just the spear. You'll have vision thanks to the hill and/or peak and can decide otherwise if you see something. Simply reinforce with a later samurai. I think you don't need to settle on a hill at this stage of the game/war. I'd probably go 1E of sugar for the 1st ring forest to chop for a barracks, granary or emergency defender. It will be a watermill heaven.
Spices can be picked up by a filler later that also shares wheat with SD's capital.

I'm not sure if the workers are available and nearby to chop+irrigate the sugar though.

[naufragar]

Okey doke.

I'm not sure if the workers are available and nearby to chop+irrigate the sugar though.

One of the workers by Scylla's needs to go road to speed up reinforcement from Lander. Other than that, they can work around the new city. One of the benefits of having no pop.

[naufragar]

This is, if you'll pardon my language, some bullshit. Only so many tiles that could have spawned. Pretty sure they were all but one closer to MSCC and Superdeath. And on one of the few turns a samurai isn't around.   Oh well. We lose a spear. I've whipped another. A samurai gets down in time. P.S. What should I be doing with plains river tiles? A worker had to hide from the axe for a turn, so it through a turn into a farm.

Opened the turn up to this.


I was instantly afraid we had just lost our stack. Not the case. Guess Superdeath is trying to tempt us with peace and planting cities and growing pop. But why would we want that?   Refused and started thinking.



After all my talk about how precious each samurai is, I think I pull the trigger next turn. He added an archer and took away his horse. (Which made me incredibly suspicious. This is what he did last time he prepared a counter offensive.)

Here are the troops.


I worry I'll fall for the same trick I did last time. Attack, get injured, get mopped up. I'll have to think about it.

[Rusten]

SD kept sending peace treaties to Commodore in PB41 for no reason so I wouldn't read too much into it.
I wonder what the reload request is about. I just hope it's not combat related, because those should very rarely be given. You essentially get a freeroll on killing a unit or not if you can just take it back.

Attacking looks very close, I can't comment on that without running sims. Looks like a yes with no reinforcements, but that's almost too good to be true. You heal up very quickly with the GG medic and promotions.

edit: missed your question first time around. Plains river should generally be workshopped for later if you have to spend a turn on it, but in Scylla you could argue for a cottage -- it's one of very few commerce cities we have.

[naufragar]

Attacking looks very close, I can't comment on that without running sims. Looks like a yes with no reinforcements, but that's almost too good to be true. You heal up very quickly with the GG medic and promotions.

With no reinforcements, we should be able to take the city with normal luck if we send the axes in. If we send the axes in, however, our trebuchet and wounded samurai would have no protection and we know there's at least one horse archer lurking around. The argument for attacking is that the sooner we attack, the less fortification the new units have. Plus, you know, six fewer turns for Superdeath to whip stuff. If I do attack, I think it's correct to attack with the flat land samurai sooner. (After the two Combat 3s.) If he kills a lone samurai, fine. We'd rather one more defender going ahead of the treb.

If we don't crack the city in one strike, we should expect SD to turn on auto-promote again, which will heal his units up. This time, most of our samurai won't be able to promote. They'll get stuck at 8-9xp. Still, a great general Medic means we actually heal faster than him.

All in all, I agree that the opportunity of knocking out his cap is too good if he doesn't reinforce next turn. Almost hoping he does so I don't have to pull that trigger.

[naufragar]

Actually, if we promote the treb to barrage and just attack, our odds are just about as good as if we bombarded the defenses for 5 turns. We have another treb already on the way down, about 4-5 turns away. Maybe trading the treb for the capital is appealing. I'll think on it more in the morning.