[PB25-SPOILERS] The Lunacy of the Reign of HAK Continues

[HitAnyKey]

Here's the requested F1 screen. This is still before doing any Drafts. Trying to decide now which 3 cities to draft:

[MindyMcCready]

Some comments on the F1:
1. McD changed away from a Granary?
2. Rolling Eyes is S3 and building a cat. Is there any key infrastructure (Granary, LH, Forge, Rathus) that would be better for this city?
3. I'm still concerned about holding Battle island. MC's no longer trying to avoid war with Tasunke,...so there's little stopping him from landing next to Thebes. I would like to draft there if possible.
4. Looks like you've secured the SE island from threats. Good job! Not sure if you still want Grumpy on a 21T knight or not.

12T for the Globe and 3T for Heroic Epic. Things are looking pretty good.

[HitAnyKey]

Some comments on the F1:
1. McD changed away from a Granary?
2. Rolling Eyes is S3 and building a cat. Is there any key infrastructure (Granary, LH, Forge, Rathus) that would be better for this city?
3. I'm still concerned about holding Battle island. MC's no longer trying to avoid war with Tasunke,...so there's little stopping him from landing next to Thebes. I would like to draft there if possible.
4. Looks like you've secured the SE island from threats. Good job! Not sure if you still want Grumpy on a 21T knight or not.

12T for the Globe and 3T for Heroic Epic. Things are looking pretty good.

1. Popeyes made a Missionary for me and I spread it to McD. Want McD to make one now to spread it further. It's mostly working food tiles anyway for a bit so it's not like it would even finish the granary particularly fast (ie. it'd likely grow 2-3 more times before finishing the granary even). As soon as it finishes the Missionary it'll go back to the Granary.
2. That was an unfinished Cat from awhile ago. Want to finish it before the handful of hammers I put into it degrade away as being wasted.
3. I'll draft there next turn. Did a Musket in Wendy's this turn. And did Sore & Frantic this turn to get 2 more muskets into Sore to protect that choke a bit better as well.
4. Since I had already started that Knight a little while ago, just continuing to put hammers into it. Couldn't decide on an Infra choice for this turn yet. At some point it'll also take the WS back from Belligerent to speed up production of stuff.

[HitAnyKey]

So I realized I didn't post some info for you lurkers, since it was only in our chats. Over the past two turns I've had a few naval skirmishes with Commodore around that SE island after my 5 Caravels returned back there, and I completed the builds of Caravels out of Belligerent & Grumpy that were sitting in the queue with 1T to go.
First there was last turn. He had 2 C1 Caravels sitting on Grumpy's Crabs. I hit it first at 27.2% odds, and lost my first Caravel. Next up was another 27.2% odds fight that I actually won. Then was time to hit that first wounded Caravel again at 51.2% odds, and I lost again. So the cleanup at 86.5% odds was then successful. Traded 2 unpromoted Caravels to sink 2 C2 Caravels.
I covered the wounded victors with healthy ones. Then this turn, Comm tried to hit one of those with his C2 Caravel that was sitting on Sore's Crabs. He had 67.6% odds to sink mine and he lost!
For my turn, he had his last C1 Caravel heading back towards his waters. It was within range of the Caravel I had in Belligerent & one of the other healthy ones I had by Grumpy. Figured I'd lose with the one from Belligerent as it was another 27.2% odds fight...and low and behold I won that one too. So moved up a couple caravels to cover him, since Commodore had moved his two C1 Galleys southward. If I had left that wounded Caravel by himself, he might have tried to sink it with his Galleys. But now it has cover, so I believe he'll turn his Galleys back around.

So I have at least for now regained naval supremacy in the SE waters.

[MindyMcCready]

So I realized I didn't post some info for you lurkers, since it was only in our chats. Over the past two turns I've had a few naval skirmishes with Commodore around that SE island after my 5 Caravels returned back there, and I completed the builds of Caravels out of Belligerent & Grumpy that were sitting in the queue with 1T to go.
First there was last turn. He had 2 C1 Caravels sitting on Grumpy's Crabs. I hit it first at 27.2% odds, and lost my first Caravel. Next up was another 27.2% odds fight that I actually won. Then was time to hit that first wounded Caravel again at 51.2% odds, and I lost again. So the cleanup at 86.5% odds was then successful. Traded 2 unpromoted Caravels to sink 2 C2 Caravels.
I covered the wounded victors with healthy ones. Then this turn, Comm tried to hit one of those with his C2 Caravel that was sitting on Sore's Crabs. He had 67.6% odds to sink mine and he lost!
For my turn, he had his last C1 Caravel heading back towards his waters. It was within range of the Caravel I had in Belligerent & one of the other healthy ones I had by Grumpy. Figured I'd lose with the one from Belligerent as it was another 27.2% odds fight...and low and behold I won that one too. So moved up a couple caravels to cover him, since Commodore had moved his two C1 Galleys southward. If I had left that wounded Caravel by himself, he might have tried to sink it with his Galleys. But now it has cover, so I believe he'll turn his Galleys back around.

So I have at least for now regained naval supremacy in the SE waters.

Congrats!

Also in our chat:
1. We're positioning to see if we can raze Dragon Judge. We don't have much mobile over that way, 1 Knight and 3HA, but those units will be 2S of Dragon Judge next turn. MC's got only 1 CB in there so we're hopeful.

2. We're 6T away at break-even from Cuirassiers so hopefully we'll have a decent number of them in time for MC's next attempt to smash our choke points. We have 7 Knights currently and 6 more (at least) will be build over the next 3-4 turns.

Aside from the obviousness of MC attacking us, his lack of 2-movers or 2-movers being built suggests that he's not intent on changing tactics any time soon. Hopefully, we'll get to surprise him with a dozen and a half of cuirassiers while he's stuck in our culture.

3. We're going to keep up appearances supporting Tasunke even though it sure looks like he was trying to seal us off. Despite the mutual need/benefit of an alliance he continues to send out bad vibes.

4. HAK and I discussed moving our cats away from the Gav front towards MC. We're a little undecided. Gav's got 50+ units and is whipping hard while we have 41 or so units including the 14 catapults. On the plus side we've only got 2 cities to defend, can draft at least a few muskets, and we're still getting the Chitzen Itza bonus. Travel time is 9T and may be relavant to the MC front. We're moving in that direction but not yet certain if we'll cross the waters.

[MindyMcCready]

Is that Retep drafting? I'm hoping yes.

If so the game has changed pretty drastically in my mind.
1. Retep drafting means that he no longer has a snowball's chances in hell at defending from MC. Still not great, but we won't have to position our entire army on MC's border to contain him.
2. We've gained control of the southern waters. For the first time in the game, it's viable to hit Gavagai by the water and force him to spread out his military. We need to keep this control. We'll also need some galleys or better yet trade for some galleons.
3. MC's chances of breaking our chokes are diminishing. Last turn, I misread the situation by staying that MC's closing the gap but that was before a round of drafting. So we've maintained a power advantage despite MC's building military pretty much everywhere and us holding back some Knights builds. With only 6T until Cuirassiers + a new war with Tasunke, he might be too late.

So the high level plan for the coming turns:
1. Get Cuirassiers and hope to catch MC's stack in our territory.
2. Once we have Cuirassiers and Knights upgraded, turn our research power into EPs against Tasunke. The goal is to steal Astronomy and with the NH's 25% EP boost it might be almost as good as researching. About the time that we land Cuirassier's we'll have almost 2000EPs on Tas. I'm guessing that we'd need another 6T or so before we could steal Astronomy. My back-of-the-envelope suggested about 4600 EP to steal,...we'll probably make 500EPs per turn if we 'tech' EPs.
3. We'll need to make sure that we have enough spies on the Tas tech steal city.
4. If we haven't moved before hand, we use galleons + Cuirassiers to get the rest of Gavagai. We could be tech ready for this in as few as 12T. A few more turns to get into position.

[HitAnyKey]

1. Retep drafting means that he no longer has a snowball's chances in hell at defending from MC. Still not great, but we won't have to position our entire army on MC's border to contain him.
2. We've gained control of the southern waters. For the first time in the game, it's viable to hit Gavagai by the water and force him to spread out his military. We need to keep this control. We'll also need some galleys or better yet trade for some galleons.

Quick reply on these two points.
1. I'll doublecheck next time I log in to see if he is in Nationalism. If he is, then yes they are likely drafts.
2. I've had a Galley sitting in Grumpy for a little while now. Plan was to send it with two Macemen to try to raze Tacape (from the boat) if/when it only has the Archer in it. He keeps leaving that city with just an Archer pretty often. I haven't SIM'd the attack from the boat, but will before I do it. But I think two Macemen (or maybe even use a Musket now that I have a couple on the island) might be able to kill the Archer and allow the city to be razed.

[MindyMcCready]

2. I've had a Galley sitting in Grumpy for a little while now. Plan was to send it with two Macemen to try to raze Tacape (from the boat) if/when it only has the Archer in it. He keeps leaving that city with just an Archer pretty often. I haven't SIM'd the attack from the boat, but will before I do it. But I think two Macemen (or maybe even use a Musket now that I have a couple on the island) might be able to kill the Archer and allow the city to be razed.

I don't have a good pic of the area so I might be missing some points.

A drafted mace won't have great odds on an archer after the amphibious penalty (28% with no hill and CG1D1). Gav's also in slavery and will see your slow moving galley coming in time to whip/reinforce.

A C2 Cuiarssier is a whole different story. Better still next promo would be amphi and then there's nothing that Gavagai has that could stop a C2-Amphi Cuirassier. Running in with 3 galleys and 6 Cuirassiers,...now that could raze multiple cities. Possibly keep them if we can reinforce with muskets.

That will be a little risky, given the proximity of MC.

[MindyMcCready]

1. McD changed away from a Granary?

1. Popeyes made a Missionary for me and I spread it to McD. Want McD to make one now to spread it further. It's mostly working food tiles anyway for a bit so it's not like it would even finish the granary particularly fast (ie. it'd likely grow 2-3 more times before finishing the granary even). As soon as it finishes the Missionary it'll go back to the Granary.

So what's the cost-benefit here?
Missionary =40H
Benefits - target city gains 25% hammers on infrastructure buids? So this really depends on which city you're targetting. We also gain culture but that's virtually valueless given caste + merc.
-Despite the pain it causes me, we've agreed that the Prophet probably won't make a shrine.
Five Guys makes 10H but already has the religion. Same with Popeyes. Any other city on this landmass has less hammers so you're capped out at 2HPT at best.
So 14T to build and 20T to recover the hammers needed for the missionary.

The granary in McD was partially complete in MCD and needed 45H from the looks of things. So about the same completion time, which is nice for comparison.
So about 14T to complete. McD is making +7F at S2. So let's say it grows to S4 by the time that you finish the granary.
S4 to S5 requires 28F. The granary saves you 14F immediately.
Growth would put us at 14F and requiring 30F for S6. With +7F we'll grow again in 3T and save 15F at that point.
Growth to S7 requires 32F will probably happen in another 3-4T again saving 16F.

Missionary: Recover 40H in 20T after build (+travel)
Granary: 29F in (est) 5T after build. About 45F after less than 10T.
There are second order effects to this as well (getting next tile sooner) which I'm not going to try to quantify but are positive towards the granary's rate of return. There's also the benefit of having another city at S7 draft size which could be invaluable on a hot front.

I like missionaries+OR,..but not nearly as much as a granary in a small city. A Rathus will also far exceed the ROR of a missionary.

[MindyMcCready]

2. I've had a Galley sitting in Grumpy for a little while now. Plan was to send it with two Macemen to try to raze Tacape,...

I don't have a good pic of the area so I might be missing some points.

Boy, did I ever understate that one!

Um, yeah, if we can hit that city with zero notice,...and we can draft 3 muskets from the SE island.

Build a second galley and we can keep that city. 4T!