[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Old Harry]

Facing the Welly stack our knights can get odds in every fight. Just.

- C2 10/10 Knight vs C2 7/7 Welly - 63%
- C2 9.9/10 Knight vs C2F 5.8/7 (83HP) Welly - 53%
- C1 10/10 Knight vs C1 6.8/7 (91HP) Welly - 67
- C1 10/10 Knight vs C2F 4.6/7 (65HP) Welly - 75
- green 10/10 Knight vs C2F 3.0/7 (42HP) Welly - 97%
- C2 HA vs C2F 1.7/7 (24HP) Welly - 99%
- C1 HA
- green HA
- C2 6.0/10 Knight

So we have two spare HAs to clean up battles we lose. One could even take the fight against the 3.0/7 Welly at 85% to save the knight. Then we can cover the stack with a 9.3/10 and a 10/10 Knight and a C1 and C2 HA.

Unfortunately the C2 Welly Mardoc has in reserve gets odds on anything we have. After that he can hit our stack with a Catapult, a Horse Archer, 2 Axes, a Chariot and if he's really keen 3 Longbows. I can't imagine he'll attack out with the LB's, but you never know...

Assuming we lose two battles we'll have 7 knights (5 injured) and 5 HA on THHill. The HA's should get odds on everything, and the Knights might not take too much damage... Anyway, this is probably all academic as we need to kill that stack whatever happens.

[Old Harry]

Anyone around for a battle?

[Fintourist]

Update: God, our RNG sucks so hard at the moment..

[Old Harry]

Turn 138

And so it came to pass that we were kicked in the ass.

- C2 Knight vs C2 Welly - 63%...
Fintourist: today is our day!
LOSS with only one hit
Fintourist: oh god, why is this happening..
- C2 9.9/10 Knight vs C2F 5.8/7 (83HP) Welly - 53%... LOSS but so close - down to 7HP


The next move may not have been optimal - our Knight only got 38% so we sent in a HA so that the remaining battles would all have odds.
- C2 HA vs C1 6.8/7 Welly 9%... LOSS BY 1HP - perhaps we should have used the Knight...


C1 Knight vs 5.6/7 C2 Welly 81%... WIN (down to 8.1/10)
C1 Knight vs 4.6/7 C2 F Welly 74%... LOSS (down to 9HP)
Green Knight vs C2 F 3/7 Welly 96%... WIN (one hit)
Green HA vs C2 F GG 1.7/7 Welly 97%... WIN (no hits)
Sentry HA vs 0.6 Welly 99%... WIN no hits
6.0/10 C2 Knight vs 0.5/7 Welly 99%... WIN no hits

That leaves all our Knights with a promotion to take and we sent in the spare units we had to cover them. Unfortunately Mardoc's Welly will get about 63% against our top defender, but after that, even with the Catapult, we should get good odds on all the visible units. The Cat stack also began it's approach. Mardoc has a HA, a Chariot, an Axe and two Longbows that could hit the Cat stack. I should perhaps have added the Axe from Broccoli (as the chariot is the only unit that can hit that city this turn) but I was in a bit of a rush. Our crappy luck is annoying but we're still in a decent position to take the rest of Mardoc's stuff. It'll just take a little while .


BGN is being a pain. We're debating killing the chariot and HA next turn. The newly captured cities are pretty vulnerable to them if we don't...


Down south our galley moved in to be ready to hit Communist next turn and... Eh? What gives? That bit of tundra blocking the route came as a nasty surprise, as did the city which gives him visibility on our Galley. If the units had a movement point left they could unload and fork the two cities, but no such luck. Next turn should they unload onto the highlighted Deer tile or onto the tile NW of the Galley for the 2-city fork?


Anyway Mardoc made his moves in the time it took me to write this up. I wonder what he did...

[Fintourist]

OH might do a proper report, but let's clarify a little:

We lost 3 out of 4 knight fights where we had odds (63, 53, 81 & 75 % IIRC) and one sacrificial HA. This lead to a situation where we only managed to kill 5 of Mardoc's 6 WEs. The last one was allowed to walk away with 1 HP..

Overall we are about 4/5 knights behind the expected outcome due to weak RNG luck. We can still keep fighting and push forward (unless Mardoc trusted that his luck continues and destroyed our stack by winning a large number of <10 % fights...), but these losses kind of snowball in the same way as everything else in civ. They make our advancement slower, force us to build more units that don't have much experience, allow Mardoc build more units --> we keep losing more units than we would have if the last couple of fights had went somewhat according to odds or if we even had been the lucky ones..

Anyways, big picture is that our things are still looking good even though dtay seems to be doing a lot better with his CH conquest and we are not becoming immediately such a runaway as I hoped in my wildest dreams. We just need to keep our heads cool, not be scared of further loss-streaks, keep analyzing and making good decisions, grind Mardoc down semi-efficiently and continuously improve our position. OH, please execute..

[Fintourist]

Ha! Nice timings with our posts..

[Old Harry]

We're also going to have to look out for war weariness due to losing more fights than planned. Luckily our happy trades over the last few turns have given us a decent margin.

[TheHumanHydra]

I'd kill BGN's units, and I'd fork the two cities.

[Old Harry]

Turn 139 sneak preview

I had a quick look around. Mardoc is building a lot of Longbows and a few Wellys. This is pretty good for us as our catapults trundle towards his capital. He didn't hit our stack of Knights with the Welly, so we'll have our stack defenders in place this turn.


For killing BGN's units I think we need to wait for him to play before declaring - am I right?

I feel a whipping spree could be handy, but I'm not sure which of these are going too far:
- 3-pop whip Butterscotch's Bank for an earlier growth and the banking bonus next turn?
- Whip the Knight in Daisy for overflow into the next Knight?
- 2-pop whip Lucky's Longbow?
- 2-pop whip SA in Marmalade - it could overflow into a second galley to knobble Dtay's gains in CH-land?
Also should we build a Bank or Knight in Gertie and a Forge or Knight in Nina?


Demos and power (since I forgot them last turn)

[Fintourist]

Just quickly about BGN, still couple of hours before I actually get home.

- We definitely have the right for the first half, the last turn went like this:

1. We started playing our turn and moved relevant units in the west
2. BGN played
3. We ended turn

If BGN would be allowed to play first his HA would be in position to raze/capture Aspargus through a double move, which definitely is not ok.

My intuition what to do is this:

1. Move our unit that is on BGN's chariot so that it does not teleport in an annoying way
2. Declare war
3. Kill BGN's chariot with Pike
4. Cover the cities that BGN's HA can threaten (do not kill it with the nearby spear because the spear will get killed by Azza's units and that might make Azza start moving more aggressively)
5. Offer peace to BGN along with maybe 15 gold or something (as an apology).

I would say that we need to do this ASAP unless you want to risk BGN moving into a more annoying position (or are 100 % sure that we can cover everything). If he would double-move and attack Aspargus it's probably a reload-case and I doubt that BGN would do it if he is aware of the issues around turn split --> HA is probably not a huge worry.