[SPOILERS] The Chemistry of Victory - Mardoc plays Mehmed of Sumer

[Commodore]

Giant sticks are all you need if the other guy ignores collateral.

[Mardoc]

Yeah. Just need him to stay dumb for a little tiny bit longer.

Hoping to get another turn of total ignorance for Jowy so he burns a turn in revolt, but I'm gambling - he could spot a Knight this turn if he moves the WC in the right direction. Closing borders next turn or the turn after, depending on what his WC does IBT. Whipped 7 Knights this turn, 3 more in queues not whipping until I get control of vision, and of course 7 more go into queues next turn and whip the turn after. Then I'll have to slow down, but 17 Knights is enough to start with, I think. Especially when I'm not worried about Jowy's production nearly as much as I am worried about his tech.

Founded my first New World colony. Only costs 9 gpt maintenance, which means it pays for itself with its 10 commerce on founding - and the boosted trade routes probably pay for increased number of cities maintenance elsewhere. Still, Ziggurat is almost certainly the 2nd building here, only a granary is higher priority.

My fogreading skillz were l33t, sheep + floodplains ought to be a pretty decent city. Haven't picked out a good 2nd spot yet, though. I'm hoping that barb city is only defended by warriors so I can clear it out and get some scouting done - or else claim it as my own despite the missing coastal access. Depends on what it's got.



Engineering is currently due in 3, although that may fall off with the second round of whips. I hope for it then, though, because that would speed the war itself.

Meanwhile TheStick is up to 15 cities to my 12, and someone, probably Bob, built Sistene. Here's hoping he tries for culture and distracts TheStick from me or from REXing.

[Mardoc]

Damn, gamble didn't pay off. Hi there. We're, um, conducting totally peaceful drills, um...testing a new plowing technology with all these horses and sticks.



So...straightforward or maskirovka? Straightforward would be to simply close borders with Jowy, denying him any more information but making it clear I'm coming for him. Nice side effect of possibly subtracting some trade to slow his tech.

I decided to try for maskirovka, moving my knights north first, pretending that I'm trying to snipe something from Bob. And...I think as soon as I finish Engineering is the right time to close borders with Bob and reoffer them for no payment - maybe with a passle of Knights visibly on his border. Suggest tensions with Bob, maybe accomplish something I want anyway

Why? Well, I'm not going to move up the timetable, I want at least one more knight from each Bob-border city, which requires two more turns (one to start, one to whip, knight ready turn after). But, well, that means Engineering is the limiting factor - it'll cut significant time from the stack's movement toward Jowy, so I can't close borders yet. Also, I want my workers on Jowy's border to accomplish a little more - got a couple chops and a road to emplace, and I don't have sufficient guards for them at the moment. And...Jowy's researching Metal Casting!?! Um...I'm not even going to see Maces? Maybe the risk here is that he whips his cities too much, rather than that he techs something that can beat me.

Dunno, this is again a risk and if Jowy sees through it I'll have given him extra info for nothing. Although he did spend the turn for Bureaucracy rather than starting to whip things, so he's not yet panicked. Also there's the risk of pissing off Bob by threatening him; I think he won't take it personally as long as I don't actually declare war, but you never know.



In other news: Oooh! We can beat this!



Just need to decide if we're going to keep it or burn it and replace it somewhere - probably 1S to get Great Lighthouse trade here. But starting with 4 pop would let us get a granary and Zig up almost immediately...and pigs in culture would mean it can have a lot of food surplus almost immediately, to help produce workers/settlers for claiming more land. Gotta mull it over. I think I'm leaning toward 'keep', though; without seafood it's not a wonderful port anyway, and with population to burn, it'll be my first stood-up city. Will cost some GNP both short term and long term, but that's probably worth it to jumpstart my claim over here in the New World.

Maaaybe I see another turn today. Hope so!

[Mardoc]

In three turns, this:


Will hit this:


Plus 2-3 Knights from closer cities who may finish in time. So far it looks promising. Gotta hope Jowy doesn't panic until it's too late so I can capture his population intact.

He's managed to cut down Metal Casting to only one turn remaining, so I can't afford to wait; he'll have Machinery soon thereafter and Maces won't be quite as simple to cut through.

[Commodore]

[Mardoc]

That's basically the goal, yeah. Only I want to accomplish the rout entirely, not get stuck at the gates of Mordor.

2 turns. 19 Knights will participate, with a few more and some cats and Trebs following behind. I'm sticking a longbow in each of the Bob-border cities for security, as well.

Somehow Jowy's managed to recover his tech rate to an amazing degree, he's got Machinery due in three. Fortunately he should be down by at least two cities and a bunch of trade routes by the time he can actually build any But I think I'll be needing those reinforcements. His empire is just too big to finish off before he can whip some maces and maybe other medieval stuff.

[Mardoc]

So here's how I envision the next few turns going. I'm feeling impatient to see if I'm right, and turns aren't coming fast enough for me.

IBT: Jowy takes Machinery down to 2 turns.

Plan for this turn: Advance Knights and galley with Knights on it to staging tiles. Close borders with Jowy, and turn the EP emphasis over to Stick and Bob; I need just a trickle into Jowy to keep city visibility, any more is a waste.

Also, I ought to capture a barb city and do more exploration of the New World. Need to find a couple more good city sites ASAP.

IBT: Jowy gets Machinery down to 1 turn ETA.

Plan for next turn: Kill anything of Jowy's within reach of my Knights, one at a time. This is likely to include his northern city, some workers and worker guards, and about half his current military. Granted, axes won't make a serious difference in the remaining war, but they could still be useful for him if he either combines them with serious cats or finds the cash to turn them into Maces, so they've got to go. Should have the nice side-effect of putting 2 XP on a bunch of my Knights - I'm going to try to use mainly 0 XP knights for this. Getting up to Combat I takes knights over a jump point for a lot of my potential battles. Spear full fortified in a 50% city is 11, mace unfortified in a 40% city is 11.2 - these are the defenders I'm most worried about. Getting Knights to 11, and ideally also Shock, turns those from iffy odds to pretty good odds real quick. Plus adding a promo to my knights lets me heal and keep moving.

Then, advance the rest of the stack southward. If I counted right, my healthy unused knights ought to get in range to take his next city, which is currently guarded by a warrior. I'll have to pick between bringing along wounded Knights and trusting in blitz, or giving them time to heal and therefore probably fight Maces. Realistically I think I ought to try to bring most along, I'd rather have a 7/10 health Knight fight an axe than a 10/10 health Knight fight a mace. And most of my survivors ought to have a promo to use for healing.

Also, galley lands knights in range of his capital (currently defended by one WC). I only give this a 50% chance of being enough, but if it works I get his cap mostly intact. And deprive him of his best research center while he's still behind on military tech.

IBT: Jowy finishes Machinery, unless his north is a larger fraction of his wealth than I think. Might be able to get a mace or two by axe auto-upgrades, but not many.

T3: I take his 2nd northern city, and maaybe his capital, depending on how well he reinforces it - if he starts reinforcing it upon closed borders I probably don't get it until my main stack makes it south. If he waits until actual war, then it's probably mine. Advance the stack another big chunk south.

Beyond that, I don't know what'll happen. A lot depends on how much Jowy can mobilize and how much damage my stack took in that initial blitz. A lot more depends on whether anyone's willing to gift him metal - I'll take his iron on the 2nd or 3rd turn of the war, and his copper about the same time. Realistically TheStick *should* gift metal to Jowy, but if I'm lucky neither of them realizes it's needed until it gives Jowy a turn of no modern units available to build.

I do intend to sacrifice knights ruthlessly for cities, the important thing is taking away his ability to produce. Most of his cities are 40% defense, which makes a Mace have middling odds on a Knight - but I'd much rather take a 30% shot at a mace and clean up afterward than have to face two maces.

I currently have in production just a couple Knights, but about a half-dozen Trebs and a couple Longbows. It seems likely that I can get into his southern core and start forking before he assembles a critical mass of maces. But it also seems that I won't manage to take him out entirely in blitz-mode because he'll make it to Maces. At some point I'll likely need siege.

Why Trebs? It's a theory that Knights will let me rule the countryside with or without collateral. If I need help cracking anything, it's a city, and trebs are designed for that. I'll probably mix in some cats as well, just in case I'm wrong.

[Mardoc]

Staged and ready. Now as long as Sian doesn't hold the save a long time again, the first few turns of war will be over the weekend and hence decently documented.

Closed borders with Jowy this turn. Maybe he realizes what's about to happen, maybe he thinks optimistically and tries to wait the two more turns for Maces. But this is gonna be fun!

[Mardoc]

Ok, closing borders turned out to be a rather big hint. Technically...technically this is a defensive war


He also seems to have whipped a bunch of spears. I can handle that, Knights still get odds on them and at least the pop isn't spent on something nasty. I still don't see any cats?


Of course I went ahead with the attack. He'd used his GG for his spears, whipping a new one, and otherwise did things to make it more painful than expected.



Ended up losing six Knights, and on top had to use nine just to kill the survivors. Worse than expected, which meant I lose a turn on the blitz. Can't advance with the leftovers this turn, there were only two and he could protect the next city by the simple expedient of three bodies. Going to have to wait til next turn for that. Course, once I promo-heal I've still got a pretty big stack here, and I killed about 40% of his army this turn.




But Zanarkand is a pretty nice prize. Zig and Granary and pop mean that it'll likely contribute troops to the conquest of the rest of Egypt, even. And it'll be profitable probably immediately after revolt.



Commodore, here's your tech screen. I haven't spent any time analyzing it, but I'm pretty sure it shows that Stick is still winning .


Here's the battlefield for the next dozenish turns. I think I'll manage. Especially if he keeps whipping spears I completed three more Knights and two Trebs this turn, so my army's almost back to what it was at the start of the turn. Jowy's still got a lot of pop to turn into units, but if they're spears and maces I think I can handle them.

Culture suggests he's also got a city to the west of Zanarkand, I'll investigate next turn and probably take it the turn after.

[Mardoc]

NP, go for the jugular :P I needed you to be a friend in order to have a chance to win this game.

Maybe you should have acted like a friend, then?

- Killed my settler
- Threatened my workers
- Bullied me out of settling in the Zanarkand region.
- (as a result of above, blew up trade routes multiple times)

Set against that:
- Half a dozen turns of profitable trade
- Sheep for sheep trade

Those aren't the actions of a friend! Those are the actions of an opportunistic violent jerk. Putin, not the pope. Ok, sure, not Hitler either, but 'friend'?

No, be violent toward me and I'll want revenge all game. Be vulnerable, and I'll go from 'wanting' to 'taking'.