Cornflakes Goes Classical ... or Quantum?!

[Magic Science]

- EP Vision (counterable but only at the cost of slowing down the research of my rivals)

What do you mean? How do you have Espionage supremacy all of a sudden?

[T-hawk]

He means if he's giving up on tech, he may as well put some commerce into the EP slider.

[Cornflakes]

- EP Vision (counterable but only at the cost of slowing down the research of my rivals)

What do you mean? How do you have Espionage supremacy all of a sudden?

   

He means if he's giving up on tech, he may as well put some commerce into the EP slider.

Exactly. And because the investment in EP causes a significant reduction in EP costs, the cost of getting EP vision on the 2nd and then 3rd player is much cheaper. I was already down to 82% costs and achieved total vision on Commodore after just running the slider for 2 turns (100%/60%). I put EP into Yuri this turn will have full vision after just 1 more turn breakeven. I should achieve full vision on Scooter 2 turns later.

Here is what I see in Commodore's land:

   

I'm getting vision on his stack thanks to a sentry knight under my mace. Tin has a very small garrison with no pikes. Grieg doesn't have a pike to transfer. It's just possible that I might have an opportunity to strike at Tin with my mounted stack. I've staged. Commodore has 8HA in range to cover and I'm considering options to try and draw them away to the south.

Meanwhile Scooter is in the process of militarizing:

   

I added those bars for scale to show how my power spike from Guilds + 11 knights compares to Scooter's power spike. I know that the first part of his buildup was HA because I had a sentry chariot running around his land, but that spike up ... he may have reached Guilds 2 turns after me. He's had Feudalism for a while (turn of anarchy into HR) and he's been top GNP since Commodore joined the war against me and so it makes sense. Will Scooter throw his weight on my side? Or is his Iron/Horse merely encouragement for me to stay at war?

Commodore is saving gold while putting Rep beakers in to Feudalism (showing 22 turns or about 40 bpt passive) with close to 200g banked. I have at least 5 more turns and quite possibly 10 more turns of Guilds advantage. I don't think Commodore can afford to drop military builds and run Wealth to get there quicker. As soon as I get through another war/peace cycle with Yuri in 4 turns I'll be able to handle his stack on defense without my current mounted division, and can send them on a mission into his backlines.

[Cornflakes]

I'm seriously considering dumping my mounted stack into Commodore's territory in range of Tin next turn, if his main army stays put. My mounted stack would be out of range of any of his catapults and pikes, his stack definitely can't threaten me anywhere in 1 turn, and he can't both cover Tin with his HA and move his stack into a position that threatens me in a timeframe that I can't respond to. I sent this to Scooter on my turn:

   

Suggesting imminent action and that he has an opening to attack at Commodore's cows (north side of the jungle belt) while I go in near my gems.

[Cornflakes]

   

Commodore moved his stack, and took out my Mace/Knight pair much easier than I anticipated. Down to 2HP with just a single HA sacrifice I was hoping to draw off a couple HA there, but didn't happen unfortunately. I left a couple more maces dangling for an exchange in hopes that I can draw a couple more and leave me an opening for Tchaikovsky next turn.

And it seems Scooter may just be toying with me:

   

He knocked out another Yuri city on the first turn of this war (2/3 of elimination).

[Cornflakes]

Massive developments over the last 2-3 turns Yuri was eliminated by Scooter in a 3-turn blitz with Knights/HA. When Scooter declared and razed Yuri's 2nd city on the first turn, I offered Commodore a 4-turn countdown to war and since he had more gold in the bank than the target turn number I clarified with the specific gold amount (134) for my target turn. Commodore mirrored back (3), which I mirrored to him. Then I opened the turn to ...

   

Yikes! That was quick. And just like that, Yuri's empire evaporated from the map ... leaving a huge sucking sound as a vacuum of power emerges in the northeast. I continued the countdown, but also immediately staged my units in preparation to cut the countdown short on the following turn. Only to open the following turn and find the Commodore skipped the countdown and offered immediate war:

   

Accepted! Commodore and I each have more power than Scooter, and his army is off in the east. This is the best opening that we are going to get.

   

I sent Commodore a proposed battle plan in a trade deal:
- Commodore's side: Rice + (2 gold), trying to signify that his responsibility is the two border cities with Rice resource
- My side: Ivory + Gold, trying to signify that I intend to bypass the front city and immediately march my full strength to Amigos.

Between us we need to raze 3 cities. My army is more powerful than Commodore's, both in numbers and quality (knights and maces vs. HA and crossbows). Therefore my army is more fit to wade 5 turns deep into Scooter's culture.

We have 10 turns of peace to eliminate Scooter and then take up defensive positions, and then plan our futures.

[Cornflakes]

It’s kind of funny that I only had city vision on Yuri for a single turn, and it was the exact turn that Scooter turned up with his Knight/HA stack. Part of me wishes that I’d invested that into Scooter so I’d have vision going into this war … instead of that 200 EP/commerce going up in smoke and vanishing. But the 1 turn warning did allow me to position the workers that I needed to road and invade 1 turn earlier in sync with Commodore.

[Cornflakes]

Scooter attacked out at me, killing 10 knights at the cost of 3 knights and 5 catapults (annoyingly he had 3 knights that won with only 5hp remaining, surviving at just 0.5/10 strength).

   

I was originally planning on bypassing the front city and leaving it for Commodore as I explained already. However lacking vision on Commodore's stack location I couldn't risk his army targeting Meals first and thus letting Scooter's damaged army survive and heal. Therefore I had no choice but to attack.

   

After carefully picking my way through attackers I was able to massage the combat order to get my longbows to target his pikemen I was perhaps mildly lucky overall but most of the combats that I won were >70% and many were 85%+

In the end it all came down to one remaining redlined pikeman on my side vs. one near-death Knights defending, and ... ...

   

   

   

Turns out Commodore's stack was next to the city so I could have proceeded forward. But I think it will turn out OK as-is. He can kill Meals and then we can advance on Amigos together.