[SPOILERS] Team BASTARD settles on deer.

[Mardoc]

I guess I'm thinking Currency, because I don't think we've the hammers for both cats and HA and expansion, and if I have to drop one, HA makes sense to drop. Probably HBR right after Currency, though.

Thought about this en route to work. Definitely leaning the other direction now. I'll list the pieces that lead to that conclusion.

We've only got six, maybe eight more cities to settle peacefully. It feels like a lot of land, now, but realistically it won't take all that long. The southern cities mostly lean on the sea, too, so I won't need to boost the worker population much. Heck, aside from the resources and the forests, there's not much we can improve to the south. We need, therefore...eight settlers, three-four workers, some garritroopers, and eight workboats to totally finish the south up to where we've explored. We've got six cities to produce that, five of which are already basically done with their own mandatory infrastructure. I think it should take 20 turns, max, and that's while distracted.

We've got a pretty good position, GNP-wise. Possibly too good, I might be doing too much focus on commerce and not enough on hammers. But regardless, we're something like 8th in GNP demos, and these new cities...well, working a handful of resource tiles and the rest Fin coast ought to make them pretty profitable. On top, we're about to double our trade routes with the offshore city, and whenever we get around to pushing out a Great Prophet, another significant gold boost expected from that. So pushing for our second trade route unlock isn't terribly urgent.

We've got to take Azza fairly seriously, as well. Extending our front with him past where it is now, is a bad idea. Letting him hold that Dentist city long enough to claim his first ring, is a bad idea. Fighting him on even terms is a very bad idea.

I think we may be ahead on tech, which would give us a window. Cats are darn good, HA are pretty good, and Elephants - they're only sorta countered by spears; I think Shock WElephants would have about even odds, even assuming no catapult bombardment first. With those tools, I'd feel comfortable at least with sniping the two most irritating cities from Azza. Depending on how that goes, maybe push further. A second capital and that double-pigs city might even bring us back into the pack on expansion. He's not got a lot of defensive depth, nor probably all that much actual production.

Wait and see on that, though. All we really need is to push ourselves firmly ahead of him. 1-2 cities would do that, take it from 6-6 to 8-4 (or more realistically, 12-12 to 14-10). We get an edge, and keep the pressure on, and we'll make him crack eventually. I honestly think we've already got that edge by the combination of our raze and his 'tactical' city plant, but the key is keeping the pressure on.

Short term goals: I'm thinking HBR research after Construction while we build some cats - 3-4 is enough to get started with. Next time peace is up, we take the Dentist city and whatever garrison is there. Its location means we ought to be able to get a first strike with cats, and that means victory. Unless we start by taking out Azza's stack in our land, then push on to the Dentist city. After that...well, it depends. I hate his northern city, but it's well garrisoned and not all that productive for him. And cats do absolutely need the initiative. Depends in large part how much army Azza builds and where he stashes it.

Mid term, mix in HA and elephants and more cats, and look for opportunities. Too early to say what those will be.

[Mardoc]

Still thinking about this game. So let's apply that to something actually useful: planning.

For an appetiser, let's think on city founding order. Well, first is the offshore one, then crabs/sheep; already have these in motion, with worker support and everything. Both will pay back pretty quick since their food sources are first ring (except the sheep, which is already inside culture). That seems like a good principle to follow for now; although Buddhism's natural spread rate is pretty darn good, we're still talking about 11 turns minimum to pop borders where needed.

That means...next up are the deer/sheep and fish/deer/sheep. Probably deer/sheep first, since I've got workers at Orange who'll need to back away from Azza soon, while fish/deer/sheep is most likely to need the crab/sheep workers to get itself started. But both of those have all their food first-ring, and a lot of food, so they're both high priority.

After that, things get less urgent, because the city sites aren't as awesome. I guess the next two should probably be silverice peninsula, for the happiness resources. I'm not really sure which should come first. The deer/silver/whales site is better, probably; two happiness instead of one and the deer is first-ring. But it's further away, so it requires more worker turns to get started. Fish/crabs/silver is better in itself, and also half its BFC is already inside culture, but until its border pops, it's darn near worthless. Some grass forests and a lake are not very awesome. Unless...maybe we give up a smidge of its long-term potential and shuffle it 1 SW. That would shuffle the crabs to the ice peninsula city, and make the lake to the north permanently Orange rather than lighthouseable. In return, we get the food and silver both first-ring, and can share the sheep. I think that's worth doing; it lets the city pay for itself much sooner, and lets us rely on natural Buddhism. Which, then, means going straight north to south, since the two sites become more equivalent.

That only leaves the Icecrab peninsula, which is easy. Crabs first, then the marble/fish.

And after that, well, it's a problem that can wait for more information and further developments. Even what I've listed out so far could go very wrong due to enemy action.

[Mardoc]

Hmm. I think Azza's going to have reason to be annoyed with sunrise . I seem to have focused a lot more here when PB17 was down. And that ought to carry through for a while.

I'm sticking with peaceful expansion for the moment, because it looks like Azza's not got anything new in the 'sharp pointy things' department.



Which looks something like this. 2 workers roading to southern dots, 2 workers on the Azza border in our 6 remaining turns of peace, the others scattered doing odds and ends.



FC should finish its settler at EOT; Troubleshooter's got 2-3 more turns, and Infrared is soon to join the club. That'll be 3/8 of our remaining peaceful expansion prospects .

The eastern pair are going onto barracks after their libraries, to grow with. They'll be producing either settlers or workers, depending on how well I manage our current worker herd. But I'm sure they'll be able to use the culture and will be prime unit-building locales.

Yellow just whipped in a granary; lighthouse next, and then it'll be ready to contribute to the rest of the empire. I'm thinking this may be the best place to put up a temple and run a priest: nothing urgently needs built here except workers/settlers/troops for the empire, and it's got the food to manage it. Not sure if the temple gets whipped or slowbuilt, though; probably slowbuilt in between foodhammer units.

Only one thing in the event log: Boldly declared war on Dhalphir. I think they're on different continents, though, and neither has much Power, so I'm guessing this is mainly for scout-passage.

[Mardoc]

Hey, thanks Boldly! That's an extra 12 commerce for the simple act of hitting Accept. Also this should make it easy to scout his coastline and spread Buddhism thataway.

Does make the offshore settlement less urgent . If it weren't already en route I'd consider switching the founding order up, but as it is, at least it's still a city with food and lots of coast and no worker needs.



Here's what our scouting chariot has found recently. There's some potential down here still, but I still think we need to solve our Azza problem first. It may be worth abandoning the marble dot in favor of a later city somewhere like 1W of the chariot. It's our last priority in the current dotmap anyway, so I won't think too much on the subject just yet.

[Mardoc]

I'm debating timing here. 5 turns left of guaranteed peace. I absolutely need to get at least a pair of cats built, in case Azza decides to be aggressive. But is that enough to be pushing offense? No - but maybe we're not far off from 'enough'. To go on offense - probably 4-5 cats instead of 2, and about three more hitters. Call it a one or two pop whip from each city.

Those southern cities are going to be really nice. Average of 2 food sources/city. I don't want to delay them; they'll pay back their investment very quickly.

On the other hand, we need to keep pressure on Azza if we want him to keep making mistakes. And we need to exploit the mistake of leaving half his army on our border in range of cats, before he realizes it's a mistake and fixes it. And convincing Azza to resume military building now, with ancient units, could be a very good thing; keep FinHarry from sniping his cities and have him spend on low quality stuff.

I don't know how to weight the priorities here. I'm leaning toward a smallish offense, aim for the Dentist city only, this time. But try to delay until it grows so we can keep it. The goal here would be to push Azza off-balance, but at low cost. Ideally it results in another temper-tantrum foolish thing that we can exploit next campaign - but even if not, it still ought to result in destroying 175 hammers of units and 100 of settler spend, at a cost of 50-130 hammers in units (1-2 cats and 0-3 hitters).

Fundamentally, it comes down to...I don't know of many successful fast wars. Those that do work, rely on surprise and 2-movers, or navies - or total hammer/tech dominance. But the more common result is what I did in PBEM54: initial success followed by stalemate followed by overinvestment and loss. I know Azza won't be surprised, not anymore. The method that I've seen work consistently is the Krill/plako approach of ruthless continued pressure over eons. Take small cheap advantages any chance you get, continue growing, and sooner or later a final push seems cheap. It's against my instincts, but it's what I think we need to do here.

Basically it's humility. Don't think the war will go according to your plans. Instead, make it go according to your opponent's mistakes. And since Azza's recently made a big mistake, it's our clear duty to let the war follow that direction for now

[Mardoc]

And with four turns left, the decision is pretty much made for me.



Six units - and Buddhism. 310 hammers worth of targets, as long as we move in the next 9 turns, before the borders pop. If we delay, then it's a sizable forking threat.

Potentially 100 hammers of profit, too, if the city grows. It needs 22 food for that, which is 11 turns of an unimproved tile or any turn now if he shared the pork. Will keep an eye on it

I still used Troubleshooter to whip the settler, and FC is finishing its workboat, but after that I'll go for a military sprint from our cities. That'll leave all the new cities on civilian duties, since we're not up against a wall - Yellow will finish its lighthouse and start growing, the two new western cities granaries and lighthouses. Wait and see when and where we can afford more settlers; the workers are already preparing the ground.

Three cats are already queued and will get whipped over the next three turns, so we just need to add in 3-4 hitters on top. Probably can do that with overflow and with Troubleshooter/FC's help. Two possibilities: it could be that ten units is pretty much all of Azza's power. That's about all we have, and the Power graph shows us tied. That would mean after Dental Plan, he's naked behind, and maybe we can push on to Boo-urns at least. Or, if not, we're still going to have a substantial army in being, which we can use to hold the line while expanding behind.

We will take the forest tile briefly in three turns when Orange's borders pop; library still outdoes Buddhism. So I'm planning the staging tile to be 1NW of Orange. That lets us hit the city in one turn (thanks to Construction for negating the river) without amphibious penalties, and I think out of sight. We'd probably not go in immediately after the treaty expires, the timing isn't quite right for that, but it's be five or six turns from now.

I expect we'll lose probably two cats and one other unit to get it done. I ought to sim it, though, to be sure. If I'm right, that means 310 hammers of Azza-stuff destroyed at a cost of 135 Spanish hammers, and we might gain 100 hammers worth of city on top. I still can't believe he's handing us this opportunity on a platter...

That staging tile also lets us move the stack to either Orange or Red if we have to defend first. I wouldn't think he'd advance like that...but Azza hasn't been very predictable so far. He does that, and the hammer exchange will be further in our favor; might not even lose any cats attacking unfortified axes on flatland.

We're on HBR for now; probably Currency next, assuming we don't want Swords for anything. I hate to give up the commerce, but we do need to win this war.

Edit: Ok, to be fair, at the time Azza made the decision, we didn't have construction. It's an expensive tech, too, with expensive prereqs. If we hadn't gotten cats now, then we'd miss the window of vulnerability, and that really would be a fortress. I guess it might not have been a horrible choice with the info he had.

[Mardoc]

Yay for a new city! Double-yay for a new city that will just run on autopilot!



Boo for the barbs! Boo for the luckiest axe you ever did see. But Yay that he's Azza's problem?



Boo for Azza finally finding horses. This is the Nothing At All garrison, Dental Plan has the same units as last turn.

We've got four axes and an archer gathered up to be hitters; half on the hill pretending to be zone defense, half behind. Add in the three cats in queues, and Troubleshooter's axe, and we ought to be good for Act I Scene I at least. Probably add in the 2nd archers from Orange and Red, too, just in case any arabian units get lucky.

This turn Orange's borders pop, going from 8 to 10 culture. Which reminds me, I'm not actually sure on the mechanics of culture - do we get 2 culture in the 2nd ring when that happens, or does it require one more turn?

Azza's city ought to be up to 2 culture now, which means we're not getting the forest this turn anyway, but the culture mechanics confusion means we might get it next turn, or it might take three turns.

[Mardoc]

And there it is, on cue. 25% spanish means popping borders must put one culture in each tile on the new ring. So the current culture ratio is 3:1, next turn it'll be 4:3, and the turn after 5:5, then three turns from now we get the tile at 6:7.

Also, Dental Plan grew, so we can keep it when we attack.

Currently have four axes, an archer, and a cat gathered, ready to pounce. Will finish two more cats at EOT, and an axe next turn and the turn after. That's a bit light for a guaranteed kill, but I think adding in the extra archers will suffice for the guarantee.

All that said, it's still decently likely that Azza does something between now and then to completely disarrange our plans. So...wait and see. His Power graph has been approximately flat lately, at least.

Otherwise, we just keep on keeping on.

[Mardoc]

Ah, excellent, Orange got Buddhism, that'll help it take the forest tile sooner...


Err...33%? I've got to be missing something, last turn it was 25%. Can't have gone from 1:3 to much of anything I can think of that would be 33%. Well, I mean, 2:4 would be, but I'm sure we put at least 2 culture in if not three. I'll give it another turn or two to see if we figure out what's going on and if we've got a chance to take it, then we're changing the plan from staging 1N of the hill instead of 1E. That requires us to attack across the river, but still lets us 1-turn it from the fog.


In happier news, Green was founded, with plenty of support. Already has a food to work, a chop coming in next turn to finish the granary before we half-fill the food box, and a workboat from FC which completes this turn and should arrive before we need a second tile to work. *That* is a proper way to establish a new city



And in scouting news, apparently I don't understand religion spread rules either . I'd have sworn that Lamar couldn't get Buddhism until we defogged it, which we only did this turn. Maybe it's just the route that needs defogged, and we got lucky IBT - we did have scouted up to the coast next to LV last turn. Or, maybe the rules are just different than I thought.

Still, good to see the spread. Means we know of 8 cities for sure with Buddhism already; definitely shouldn't delay on getting that shrine up to start collecting.

[Mardoc]

Ok, I have a theory that could explain what's actually going on, culture-wise.

Maybe there's special behavior at border pops. At 10 culture, each 2nd ring tile gets a courtesy 1 culture, just enough to claim land if unclaimed. After that, culture in the tile = city culture - 10. So when we went from 10 to 12 last turn, we went from tile culture of 1 to 2, as we paid for the courtesy culture; that would imply going from 10 to 11 would have ben no change. Meanwhile Azza went from 3 to 4. 1:3 to 2:4 would be 25% then 33%

If I'm right, then next turn when Orange goes to 15 culture, the tile will go to 5, and Azza's city will also go to 5, and we'll have 50% ownership; it'll depend on tie resolution but I think it'll still be Arabian. Then in two turns we get the tile. And keep it for 5-6 turns until Dental Plan gets its first relevant post-border pop culture boost of 20 extra in the 1st ring. So it's a good thing we don't intend to wait six turns before moving.

Wait and see what happens next turn. There's still hope for the original plan.

Meanwhile I'm debating what else makes sense to do. Suppose Azza stays put, and we annihilate half his army. Then what?

He'll still have 2 axes/2 spears/1 chariot in that annoying northern city, but other than that, I suspect no more than 1 unit/city.

We'd have...probably 5 axes/1 archer/2-3 redlined cats in the Dental City, 2 archers in Red behind walls, and otherwise about 1 unit/city. How aggressive do we choose to be? From Dental Plan to Boo-urns is 3 turns for a 1-mover stack. Same from Azza's northern city to Red. What I *want* is to push on and take Boo-urns. Is that realistic? Three turns isn't enough for Azza to get more than probably 3 units to garrison.

On the other hand, if our army's headed east, it's not available to stop any push from the north. Three turns isn't enough for us to accumulate much ourselves, on the other hand. Walls in Red could mean it wouldn't need much to hold; on the other hand, if Azza wanted to retake Dental Plan he probably could, if we don't guard it. But then, would that be so bad? We really only want the city if we can get food for it.

Huh, just counted tiles - interesting thing to note. Azza *could*, in fact, get his northern army to Boo-urns in three turns, arriving in time to matter. Plausibly, Boo-urns itself could add two more to that, plus its garrison. That means we should only try for Boo-urns if we have enough surviving to be confident in breaking a 7-8 unit stack, without the initiative. So...probably we just stand pat. Ideally Azza reacts in a rage and gives us a second chance to use cats with initiative. But it looks like killing 6 units and capturing one town just isn't a big enough victory to push onward, at least not onward with what we have now.

So realistically we'll take advantage of this mistake, and keep our eyes out for the next one. Maybe he'll try to retake Dental Plan before he's got an army that can, and we can shred it. Maybe he'll plant another foolish city. Or maybe he'll just spend too much on army and that'll let us plant and grow more cities, and come back with HA/elephants.