[SPOILERS] The Wild Card

[Jowy]

Got unlucky with the map, that happens sometimes.
We might need archery if the city falls and he has even more axes on the way. Let's keep an eye on that.
Hopefully we'll get peace whether we defend or lose that city. If we lose the city but get peace, we should secure that other copper.
After that, just keep playing as usual and hope we'll get a peaceful game where we can catch up while the others fight

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, I was just thinking, not picking up archery was our mistake .
Even if we'd had archery last turn, we could have gotten an archer completed before that second axe attacks.
Or, if we'd settled on the desert hill, we'd have gotten an axe chopped out before he arrived. Ain't hindsight lovely.

I think we have to consider that city plant a mistake, since 2 axes is not an unreasonable move by him, it's probably worth it to have an easy neighbour for the future. Either we should have skipped/delayed OR and gotten an archer/chariot out or settled the more conservative spot. Damn mapmaker tempting us with that beautiful wheat!

Anyway, back to the problem at hand, our fast workers have a cunning plan ...

This turn: 6/15 into a scout
-dtay attacks, we lose an axe
Next turn 25/15 into scout(chop)
-dtay attacks, we kill one of his axes, lose either axe or scout, depending on who defends
Third tun: another chop 29/25 into archer. Archery can just be researched last turn.

So, the plan assumes that we win at least 1 of the axe defending combats, 55% chance of that happening, not great, but better than nothing.

Probably we should configure our other cities to get out some copper units while we still have access in case that fails, do you think spears or axes are more important there?

[Jowy]

EDIT: Re-did this part of the post. Here's everything loud and clear :P
- Bad luck with map. Aggressive neighbor with monument+barracks hybrid gets copper in capital, while our source is halfway to his capital.
- City plant was right move in long term.
- Not getting archery when we saw his copper was our big mistake.

I should have played more turns. Maybe I would have realized that we could get archery so fast and maybe pre-chop some forests in The Turtle in case dtay does attack. Sorry

Checked out your plan, if you have the numbers correct it should work. Well, when I say that, I mean theoretically it should work We have to get one lucky win to survive.

Axes or spears? Don't know. Axes maybe. So if he attacks with a stack of axes, we can defend with archers and attack out with axes. A spear on the other hand could protect our workers from chariot harass. One of both?

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, we should have went archery instead of agriculture when we saw his borders, or I should have kept the scout over there to watch and we probably would have had time to pick it up when we saw his axe.

Current situation:


Going for a second axe in Jetboy, I think I'd prefer some offensive possibilities and chariots are still defensible with our own chariots/archers. Feel free to change it if you want.

If he moves his front axe SE, then we can't get our second chop in and maybe we should save the first for a proper unit, but then our axe will be up to 10% fortify which is a 50/50 roll for him.

[The Black Sword]

Not looking good:


Needed 1 more hit! Of course now he'll promo heal to ~2.6 health with a 20% city attack.

His scout is also a problem, who's stopping us getting our next chop in time. I think we need to kill the scout, we can then decide either to defend or retreat. We would definitely lose the 5% fortify bonus, but that only changes his odds from 65% -> 68%(a bit weird that another 5% is then a massive jump to 50/50). I can't see the city holding without us getting an archer in there.

Also, more bad news:

[Jowy]

Damn so close Do what you gotta do.

[The Black Sword]

The axe killed the scout, but took a hit(4.5s), so up to 73% chance to die, plus whatever terrible odds our new scout has. Back to .

[The Black Sword]

That's that, and I got all excited when I saw no score decrease on civstats.

I offered him a 10t peace treaty, not sure if he accepts. If he does, what do you think about using that as cover, sending another settler over there with appropriate backup? I really don't want to settle the other copper site.

Overview:


Need to find something for all these workers to do, and the forests are mostly chopped.

Jetboy:

Can be 2 pop whipped in 3 turns, need to figure out where to put that settler. We'll have a lot of overflow and the 2 chops coming in afterwards.

Dr. Tachyon:

Granary will be chopped next turn and it can start to grow on the cottage, thinking overflow into archer.

[Jowy]

Back to the normal for me, playing catch up An 18-player game has the potential to be all kinds of crazy, I say we do our best with what we've got and wait for an opportunity. If nothing else, it would be satisfying just to be an important part of the game and perhaps one day get revenge on our aggressive neighbor. I like the idea of re-settling The Turtle, but not so sure about the execution. It's a really cheeky move, but the problem lies in whether it will be an useful city for us and if we can even defend it. Right now all we have for defense are archers. He could keep our tiles pillaged and copper unusable even if we can hold out in the city. We could have horses, but even then a single spear can do the trick for him. If you are confident that he can't raze or choke the city, then we could go for it. Otherwise it seems we must grab the other copper, and likely concede those NW lands to him. If he doesn't accept peace, then we need to get some archers up right now. If he does, then we need to be ready when that window ends.

[The Black Sword]

Yeah, lets do our best and try to make sure dtay isn't rewarded for his actions here with an easy conquest later.

Unfortunately, he hasn't accepted peace, which I guess means he wants to settle there first himself. So, that spot is out until we get chariots. What about settling the cows/Ivory/fish/clams first, then get chariot(s) out to scout either copper spot and make a decision?

That's clearly our next best spot, best resources, Ivory for happy, 4 first ring forests and we already have hammers into a missionary in Jetboy. It also times really well for our workers to set up.

With regards to the two copper spots; I don't see the southern one as particularly more defendable than the other, except for the fact that we know he doesn't have units there right now. If we do settle in the south, on the copper is the best bet?


Getting units out: Jetboy's first chop can go into the archer, grow to size 7 and keep the settler on 48/100 to triple whip it.

Power graph, that I assume still has to correct for our losses: