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

[naufragar]

What are the current defenses in Draft Dodger, and what will it be if the 3N1W and 2N2E stacks link up?

There's a Combat 2 samurai and a Combat 1 spear there now, and that's all they'll get. It was almost certainly a mistake to build the barracks. I had the choice to 1-turn the barracks or 2-turn the spear, and between you and me, I'm not expecting either to complete. I'm sort of taking Rusten's advice to take a step back for the sake of my sanity. For example, I haven't really thought out a plan on how or when to advance on the cap. Right now, all my focus is on how to get our samurai into Draft Dodger. If we can hold DD and have a barracks, we can reclaim the tiles north of the city, which means we can reinforce.

But no way in a million years should I have been thinking of benefits 11 turns distant rather than 2.

Edit: Didn't answer the question entirely. There will be 7 samurai, one treb outside the city. All the samurai will have Combat 1, Formation. One of the samurai is only at 7/8 health.

That signature, btw.    Thanks.

[Cornflakes]

Didn’t you capture Draft Dodger? I thought captured cities would never revolt away (unlike Civ 6)

[RefSteel]

Didn’t you capture Draft Dodger? I thought captured cities would never revolt away (unlike Civ 6)

Sort of! Captured cities can still go into revolt, meaning they refuse to produce anything and temporarily removing their cultural borders. Unlike self-planted cities swamped in enemy culture though, they will never "flip" to the control of the player who conquered them. (They can still flip to a third party if the cultural pressure lines up that way though.)

[naufragar]

Didn’t you capture Draft Dodger? I thought captured cities would never revolt away (unlike Civ 6)

Sort of!  Captured cities can still go into revolt, meaning they refuse to produce anything and temporarily removing their cultural borders.  Unlike self-planted cities swamped in enemy culture though, they will never "flip" to the control of the player who conquered them.  (They can still flip to a third party if the cultural pressure lines up that way though.)

Guys, I hadn't even thought about losing the city! Glad to know that's not an option. I was primarily worried about the garrison taking damage while acting as riot police. I still have a lot to learn about this game...


The men affix bayonets and begin their charge to bring relief to Draft Dodger.


If I weren't learning some emotional distance, this would be absolutely terrifying. I have no idea what Superdeath can bring to bear. Any one of those samurai can beat a Combat 3 Shock horse, which *should* be the nastiest thing he's got, even with his two Great Generals. As always, the problem isn't the one on one fights, but the fact that 14 horse archers can almost certainly wipe this stack out. I thought for a second about moving Draft Dodger's samurai out to support the stack. That still might have been the right call. We don't care too much if many of these samurai die. The point of this stack is not to stay intact to march on the capital. The objective is to hold Draft Dodger long enough to pop borders so we can once again transport troops down to the front. (For the record, time is not on our side. Beside the usual defender's advantages, every turn bring Superdeath closer to hwachas and I'm not applying enough pressure to force him to whip off his cottages.) That spear is not actually going to come down from Scylla's, I don't think. It's a hedge.

Superdeath can reinforce from his islands:


I had three choices. I could attack and kill one and pray that the trireme had enough hp to survive a counter attack. I could fortify (wait) in place and expect to be safe. The trouble is there would be ~30% chance two galleys could take a trireme. (I'm just eyeballing those numbers, please don't make me do the math.) So I retreated. Next turn I bring a galley with a samurai down. I'm toying with the idea of bringing the galley (unloaded) back with the trireme. Should be safeish, but I might still want a galley up north.

Domestically, I've taken New Viron off samurai duty to get a forge. It was time. Blood's House (that filler island city) whipped its lighthouse, so it's almost ready to start being useful. Boak/GeneralKilCavalry accepted our gems for silk trade and since we still have 4 domestic routes after Currency, I offered Open Borders. When I said "I'd rather see Magic Science's troops dance on my grave than show an ounce of kindness to b/GKC," what I meant was "I can't wait for mutually beneficial trade."   For the record, this now makes markets +3 happiness buildings for us.

Techwise, Calendar is off the table with our recent military misfortunes, so I plan to go Polytheism-->Monotheism-->Monarchy, popping a golden age at Monotheism for a Buddism & Org. Rel swap (don't want Hinduism since Superdeath founded it. He hasn't converted but I still worry about fighting our brothers and sisters in faith.). Hopefully that golden age carries us to Hereditary Rule. I haven't turned tech on, since I wanted feedback on the plan before. Construction is always another option. It's just we've got this Scientist who's burning a hole in my pocket. (Also a settler. Feels terrible to have units like these sitting around.)

[Rusten]

Your proposed tech path seems fine to me. Launching a GA with so little population hurts, but there's not much else to do. Imagine if that was a pyramids GE instead. Stupid game.

[Rusten]

Although you could argue that calendar gives more happiness than HR. We've got incense for sure, and surely we have to assume we can grab at least sugar too.

[naufragar]

Although you could argue that calendar gives more happiness than HR. We've got incense for sure, and surely we have to assume we can grab at least sugar too.

Hmm. That's a good point, and I do plan to settle for one of Superdeath's elephants by hook or by crook, and that city will want a banana plantation. I guess we've got some time before that choice and we can make the decision based on how the war's going at that point. (I assume you're talking about Calendar vs. Monarchy, but still keeping Polytheism and Monotheism.)

[Rusten]

I would think it's better to get calendar early than to tech poly and monotheism, even if that means adding a turn of anarchy later. We need the happiness right now, not organized religion, unless things have changed significantly since I last logged in.

To put it more clearly, why bother with poly-mono if you're delaying monarchy anyway? They're pretty useless.

[naufragar]

Religious culture and happy aren't insignificant, and eventually we will want to put up some buildings in our war-torn hellscape.

I think we're something like 18 turns from grabbing incense with our cultural borders, which isn't too bad I guess. We'll know more about how likely we are to grab sugar very soon. (If Superdeath loses 10 horse archers, say, even if he butchers our samurai we can maybe salvage a little by planting  for the sugar.)

I'm fine with going for Calendar first. Perhaps that has a side benefit of giving us more pop for the golden age.

I would think it's better to get calendar early than to tech poly and monotheism, even if that means adding a turn of anarchy later

I assume that regardless of our next tech, we don't pop a golden age until we need to swap civics, right? So we should be able to dodge any anarchy.

[naufragar]

First things first. Superdeath didn't attack our reinforcements.


I hadn't expected this, so I didn't know what to do. I thought long and hard about moving onto the hill 1E of Draft Dodger to begin the march on the capital. After all, if he didn't swing on flat land, was he going to swing when the troops were on a hill? I decided to play cautiously. We've moved to Draft Dodger (so revolt risk when down to zero   ) we'll heal up the wounded samurai next turn. The galley you see only has one samurai in it. Next turn he lands on the banana. The turn after that, the garrison moves out of Draft Dodger and the tile 1NE of DD gets 3 samurai and a spear. Then we march on the cap. There's a tension between caution and haste here because I don't want to get blown up, but since Superdeath just recaptured his cap, his defenses will be mostly horse archers, which we slaughter when attacking in a city. He could pull his archers from his islands and 5 turns is enough time to get some real defenders. Still, a tension.

It was a day for diplomacy. In response, to my open borders offer, I got this:


No, I will not be giving you circumnavigation.

Also this:


I don't care at all about horse, but if Mr. Cairo wants to build walls, I'm happy to show that I'm a friend.

He also wanted another world map trade (this time legal     ).


I accepted the trade. We got nothing noticeable out of it. Neither did he, I think. Later in the turn, I gave him our map again, since I found two iceball MSCC cities way in the north. Just so you know what you're up against, Mr. Cairo.

He reconquered the city Magic took from him and in the process got a Great General.


I wish him the joy of it.

Seventeen turns away from incense.


Research set on Calendar. Although I did whip off a gems mine to get a samurai, because I'm an idiot. We get it back next turn. I've put Lander (future Moai) on a market. Who knows if I finish it. I really wasn't playing this turn well. I should have kept building samurai, but I want happy. I want at least one real city. Oh well.