[Spoilers] luddite tries to remember how this game works

[luddite]

Hi Chumchu, welcome back! Yes, things in this game have gotten interesting while you've gone (although the turn place is slow right now, hopefully we can get back on track). You've given me some good advice so far in this thread, suggesting that I play more cautiously and that he might attack me early. Luckily I at least had a scouting warrior so I had a *few* turns to prepare.

Right now I can no longer build warriors, so it's either axes or archers. Either way, I don't necessarily need them to win (but they do at least have a *chance* of winning when defending a city). I just need them to scratch the musketeer enough that my AT can finish it off easily, or to make it stop and heal for a few turns. Admittedly it's not great to feed it promotions, but that's better than feeding it promotions from warriors that don't even scratch it. But yeah, the warriors are just to buy time.

I put everything into defending the capital because that was the only way I could think to survive. If he wants a laming attack to do pillaging and razing, that's fine. I don't even have any cottages yet, and I can rebuild them all quickly with IMP + fast workers.

I will certainly use workers for fast roads, and maybe I can catch him unprepared that way. But most likely i'm just dead, and all I can do from here is try to survive in the capital as long as possible. If he razes all my side cities, as seems likely, then he can mass outproduce me in anything I try to do.

[luddite]

Got another turn. He killed a warrior in Rodman, and burnt Dulle in the east. These are my first actual casualties of the war:
   

Some good news: that musketeer to the east is now *trapped*, because I finished the Anti-tank this turn. no matter where it moves, I can kill it next turn.

...unless I decide to go after the western musket instead. I'm going to try to protect Rodman, too, since it's a decent city. I took a risk and moved a worker into open undefended. if he attacks it, that's fine, it baited a musketeer into the open.

Of course, all of this is moot if I have I just die on the dice roll vs a musketeer.

[luddite]

(I realize this is probably confusing for lurkers with my handful of blurry screenshots. It's a complex situation with warriors everywhere, it's hard to update you guys on everything. If you want to know, most of those stacks are 2-warrior stacks)

[luddite]

Now that the Buddhist holy city is burned, will it still spread? Annoyingly it hasn't spread yet to my better cities.

[Miguelito]

Only with missionaries

[luddite]

Only with missionaries

Well, that's annoying. Not a big deal though.

Weirdly enough, I think Buddhism spread twice in the first few turns and then never again. And only to my two smallest cities.

[Miguelito]

Two spreads by t50 is pretty awesome though.

[chumchu]

It was good with forewarning from the warrior. I was hoping that we would have had a little more time before the attack. We might maybe have guessed it from various slow expansion. But it could have been a wonder and it could have been aimed in another direction.

Unless he can kill us early, the result will be to slow him down a bit and us a lot, giving an advantage to the other 3. But if I were him and had scouted our position I would assume that we would attack him.

I'm worried his musketeer by the ruins of dull griet might move 2 SW. How do you counter that?

[luddite]

Yeah, his power graph was always higher than mine but never too suspiciously high. I still think it could have plausible just been him building warriors and wonders.

My screenshot is from the beginning of the turn. I moved that stack of 2 warriors to block the SW escape route . But I'm kind of thinking that Rodman is more important. It's by far my best city outside the capital now.

[luddite]

Well shoot, I thought I had anticipated of all of his possible moves but I didn't expect this one.

   

He combined both musketeers on the same tile. His scout is also there. I *could* attack it, but I would likely take heavy damage, especially since it's a hill tile. I don't want to trade 1 for 1, even assuming I'd win at all. So I let them be and moved west.

There's a chance he might attack me in the open, again a 1 for 1 trade, but then I could attack the leftover musketeer with warriors. Also I whipped an axe in rodman this turn.

Also I just realized something I probably should have realized earlier: warriors upgrade to axes. So I'm saving money now, maybe buy myself another axe in a few turns.

Still no sign of a 3rd musketeer from him, although there is another warrior en route. I think I have to adjust my thinking from "how do I survive" to "this is my life now," trying to continue to grow with what I have left.