[SPOILERS PB71]Krill: By the numbers, when the walls fell (on everyone else)

[Krill]

T82: Bing declined the ceasefire, did not reply with any offer, then promptly lost a worker and bowman.

I wouldn't have attacked the worker/bowman pair if we had had a ceasefire.

[Krill]

Idle observation on how to telegraph a Mids build: Pindicator has a size 7 capital (grew @6 T74, @7 t82, need 18 food over 8 turns size 6 works pig plains sheep for 7fpt, then works an engineer and three plains lumber mills to generate 2fpt and the rest is explained by overflow), is not increasing in power, is not settling new cities, has no more infrastructure to build and is probably working an engineer (I would be, so I expect him to).

I don't see how he is doing anything except build Mids in his capital given teh continued slow growth and no wayy to quickly grow due to lack of two food tiles. He is probably the only other player who could build it, even without the IND production bonuis on Mids and no stone (the forge would be doing some heavy lifting). He would have started before size 6 so realistically could complete this at any point now.

Dealing with samurai built with Mids enabled Police State and forges would be quite a task, easily double whipped units that would have to be countered with catapults and tactical positioning with interesting terrain? That sounds like a fun brawl to watch, and the GE points from MIds would speed up the Machinery bulb.

However, Pin built a barracks somewhere between T75 and T77 so it is unlikely he is building Mids in his capital (You don't build a barracks and then don't build units, he is just not building units that fast and probably not building any units anywhere except his capital, leaving his two new cities to focus on getting the granary and forges up, third city with te excess food continues to whip settlers but is recovering from the barb incursion enforced whips and, because I hope Pin wants to be funny, is building Collosus in Staunton to try and culturally overpower Rhubarb.

[Krill]

Only downhill from here:

[greenline]

Do you see yourself as the main target Pin would be after if he had Police State / Samurais up and running?

[Krill]

I'll answer in two parts, the first focusing on Japan, the second on PIndicator.

Japan

Japan was rebuilt prior to PB45 so it is not fair to compare earlier games (not that there are many).

Japan is, in my opinion, quite a challenging civ to play. Most players looked at the new samurai needing only Machinery and thought it was OP and rushing to Machinery would win games, but they always failed to grasp the effects of a true rush to Machinery via a GE bulb if the player also went to Oracle MC. There simply was not enough hammers around to build samuarai, and the true rush meant there were minimal units already constructed to form a stack, and then use the new Samurai as nut crackers. Even barracks were usually lacking. PB45 is, in my opinion, a really good example how samurai contributed to a loss. The UB comes a bit later (usually but doesn't have to) but requires considerable skill to predict whether to prioritise naval or land units from coastal cities.

Japan only really scales due to flexibility with some land units promotions, but 2XP is 2XP. Otherwise it essentially does nothing. OTOH, once everyone has court house and xbows Sumeria is not much different and the same applies to all civs apart from England (Ottoman are food limited, not happy limited, Netherlands does nothing in this game, MOgolia gives extra XP like Japan and Babylon is basically finished already)

I believe a major issue with saumarai is the issues around 2 pop whipping them. Without a forge a player has to scrape together 10 hammers and then whip, regrow and find another 10 hammers. It is harder to just stack whips to rush them out (ie not regrowing until after the units are out) and so if neither a forge nor PS is present, a player will not get them in sufficient numbers to beat a well prepared defender, but if both forges and PS are present, then there are significant overflow hammers available and that translates into extra support units (trebuchet are not cheap, Xbows are also needed to protect what should be city attackers, HA necessary to split defenders). If a player only has to defend a front city, and is only approached with a mainly samuarai stack, then so long as the defender has catapults they have a straightforward effective defence. Add in the other stuff and it gets far harder.

Pindicator (and the PB71 map specifically)

Pindicator is currently at 5 cities (just double whipped his front city so maybe this was for a settler for city 6), but he has forges down (yay IND) in at least his three earliest cities. Thoth is settling towards him (will take the sugar valley when he players T85) but that leaves nothing but desert between them. The far east is nothing but hills until you get to the great coastal valley (The anti-California, so to speak). He has some decent resources for low pop cities but will struggle to scale much past size 6-8, so double whips are solid for him, maybe even an occasional triple whip. This means you could build up pop, whip out samurai, then has to wait 15-20 turns to regrow and build more significant forces.

His problem is I don't think he has HBR, I don't think he has IW (needs for Xbows if not Samurai), and has quite low power. So if he doesn't get PS, then he will struggle to put together much of a stack (any new cities will not contribute, his fifth city to the east is has just popped borders to hook the sheep and can't add much in terms of units. So if he wants to attack me, he really, really needs to land Mids to grab PS, but even then I doubt he puts together much of a stack.

But if he were to do this, the only player he neighbours is me, or rather, I'm the only one he could annoy with slow movers. Thoth is a long way away. Commodore is theoretically a neighbour if Commodore has grown north in the fog and I've missed him.

Pin could push his GE forward if he worked scientists, but probably doesn't want to do that. I doubt he is building Mids in his capital after reviewing the screenshots, but I believe he should be trying, and is just waiting for the GE to land naturally. I think he may choose to bulb Machinery and then try to bully me, but that realistically I have twice his power right now and it doesn't look like I'm losing any units so he may be sceptical of my war with Bing in terms of hammers invested. He may focus on watermills and windmills and consider the opportunity for growth to his east

The defence against Pindicator is relatively straightforward, just need a few decent vultures and archers in Rhubarb, and two or three WE to stop him getting any ideas with Xbows. Clear out the jungle around Cherry, and then rely on catapults and HA to clear out any stacks. The city locations gives vision without the need for sentries with culture. Ultimately Xbows are the answer but I can make lower tech work unless and until Pin tries to use small stacks of 2-3 G2 Xbows to hold the hills, and eventually gets HA and tries to run them over hills. But that costs hammers and gold for limited benefit (a player needs to use the small stacks to distract and split off units and then use a stack to hammer to intended target city, and Rhubarb is easy to approach and then bomb down, but I will always get an opportunity to attack out. PRO Xbows can be a pain but Pin needs to find a way to get teh second promotion, which he cannot do with a Machinery bulb unless he also gets Compass (for the UB) and then he can only build 2 promo units out of his front city. So even that route doesn't really work.

I suspect that a Machinery bulb is partly there for defence rather than attack and we revert to a slow grinding game, which I both want and enjoy.

tl;dr Pin needs more hammers and more tech than he has available to present as a threat by himself, but I am the only target he has. I'm just a really bad target for him even if the map indicates my citiews would fit well with his.

[Krill]

Yuri has Construction. That he was the only player with Maths and then also got Construction shows just how awful the tech pace is in this game.

Thoth revolted to HR, so he is not going for Mids. Unless Commodore builds them I don't think there is actual competition? Commodore just settled his seventh city so he could now trigger the Stables quuest but he needs to do it in the next few turns.

I'm probably going to save gold until the Stables event is finished, maybe even until Mids lands, unless I get really paranoid about Pindicator and want to rush Construction. but even then I'd save gold for two turns.

[Krill]

Turn 86 report

[Krill]

I have to ask what Bing is thinking by moving his spear away from the worker...? He offers a straight trade, or an unpromoted chariot for a worker, and I can delete teh chariot afterwards?




This is irrational, the only reason I didn't take it was because I could only consider this an overture for peace, or Bing is just...bad?

I offered straight peace again, it's the third time, and I wouldn't have offered it, but he has resettled Akkad now and I do not think it is spamming him to send it after these developments. If he decliens though...just what is he thinking?

[greenline]

I take this as a sign civac is not dedlurking his thread this game

[Krill]

Bing set up his thread and there are 5 posts in it, last post on 9/5/23 so unless they are doing a lot of discussion vie Discord, or another forum, and Bing is taking screenshots, he has no support. No one is logging in but Bing.