[SPOILERS] - social distancing with pindicator

[Old Harry]

Turn 192

We're set up to hit the northern stack with 12 cats, 23 knights, 6 numidian cav, 5 LB, 4 pikes and 2 swords. Dance Floor is empty as is Beilsarius down south so we're expecting two city captures/razes this turn.

[Commodore]

What is your current XP civic situation? I imagine you're in Vassalage? Maces vs. knights is an interesting question. I imagine once gunpowder comes online for pinch you'll be swapping back to knights?

[pindicator]

I briefly looked at that with a combat calc earlier. I think at full health the mace performed better but at 50hp the knight did.

[scooter]

Maces are also cheaper and much easier to get into double-whip range, so if the performance is close at all, it makes sense in a pre-Pinch world.

[NobleHelium]

Not sure why you guys are talking about Pinch like it's half a dozen turns away. We will have Gunpowder for all battles after the one next turn, so it's not like the units we're building now would be fighting before we get Gunpowder.

[Old Harry]

I should have been setting up cats, maces and knights so they could be whipped in quick succession, but unfortunately I'm a bit too used to RtR whipping and didn't think about it. So as it is we'll have a few maces and pikes in the south to stop mjmd progressing too quickly. Meanwhile the knights up north should stop him in his tracks and then manouver to help out in the south once the north is secure.

Per hammer against rifles the maces just win IMO, but with mixed stacks, distant battlefronts and a limited time to respond this fight slightly favours knights. Certainly the highly promoted knights that pindi has cultivated.  

[NobleHelium]

Old Harry - 6:35 PM
Heh, if I run the chariot into Cairo's lands do you think Mjmd will declare war to attack?
NobleHelium - 6:36 PM
no
zero chance he would do that
and he wouldn't even know where we went
Old Harry - 6:36 PM
He might not realise the war message is about hitting Cairo...
pindicator - 6:36 PM
If he did he'd sign peace right after and Cairo would let him
NobleHelium - 6:36 PM
oh i see
well then he would ask for a reload
Old Harry - 6:37 PM
You guys are no fun at all.
pindicator - 6:37 PM
Haha
NobleHelium - 6:37 PM
you realize my name is NoFunHelium

[Old Harry]

Turn 193-4

Mjmd was doing some interesting anti-cat tactics last turn, setting up a Civ6 carpet of doom with each mini-stack covered by two rifles.

After a little simming we decided we could get a decent hammer exchange and lost 3 knights, 2 numids and a pike to clear out two of his stacks (2 rifles, 3 welly, 1 knight and 2 cats). The numids didn't get a hit in between them but a knight won at 8%, so it all evens out.


Clearing the second stack got us a GG and gave a bunch of our knights a promotion to be able to take pinch next turn, so we're feeling confident up north now.


Down south Crook was a goner, so we put everything into Klamath. By the time his rifles get to the gates we should have a lot of knights streaming in, but they could be too late...


On his turn Mjmd burned Crook and Curry, but then he offered white peace. Either he just wanted to slow us down a bit or we scared him with our precision strike up north. Anyway, we bit his hand off and the game is who can resettle the contested land first. Hopefully he won't play a double turn because we'll have a settler in place next turn.


And we have ten turns to concentrate on this. Taj due eot198.

[pindicator]

I took a look after Old Harry and did a couple things.



Noble had the idea that we might trap the knights that were on the ruins of Crook if we could pillage the road. However, we only had 1 knight that could pillage, so we couldn't do that plan. But we did make 17g off of a mine that won't be worked again for a long time.

I also moved our GG west. Considering peace has happened, I think we want to settle him at King Montival and be a step closer to a Commando Factory. That may be how this game is won, after all.

As far as resettling, OH has 5 settlers queued up. I think in the east:




The light blue circle should be settled. It will be hard for him to hit this city on the first turn of a war, and could buy time as a crumple zone. The blue circle I am less sure about. Until it pops borders it would be easy for him to hit it on the first turn of any conflict and so probably we should just let it be open. Or have it as a last city settled.

Down in the south I agree with the signs OH put in place.




Perhaps the northern most C (to the left as this screenshot is angled) by Yamhill can go 1 tile to the south. Either this city or Yamhill becomes a filler city without a dedicated food after this one is settled. The settler coming out of Klamath is going to settle the spot west of the Copper next turn. The greedy part of me wants to move this city 1N so we can fit 2 in the south, but Mjmd will come back again so it's better to just have this city on the hill in a defensive position.

Down in the far south we probably resettle Curry, as that is our only Furs.

With our golden age due in 5 turns, we have shifted over to Banking next. Merc may not seem like the right play, but half the other teams are in it now. I went through our cities and compared what the loss would be for only having internal routes and found it would only be 58 commerce. Probably less than that, as Multnomah being at size 12 is making a fourth 3-commerce route. As Noble keeps stressing to me, we need to grow Columbia to get a 4c route. But Cothons probably have to do with that as well.



I realize I broke my streak of doing PRO v FIN. That makes me sad. But then again, I think i proved my point that PRO is super strong in this version. After seeing late game trade routes here, I think it's still strong late game even in the 1.4.5 version. New cities are only having internal routes, and they are starting with 11c free. That's pretty strong.

[pindicator]

Also, Mjmd teched Nationalsim a couple turns ago. And last turn he teched Music. He appears to be going for Cavalry. So we should expect another war in 10t.