[SPOILERS] scooter, pindicator, and Huayna Capac try some fast Zulu cuisine

[NobleHelium]

Borders don't expand far from an island, what's the point in bombing?

[pindicator]

Borders don't expand far from an island, what's the point in bombing?

Because it's awesome?


New turn!

Here's the situation on the silk island from where we left off:



No way we can take the city this turn, but we have a mace and catapult that can be unloaded this turn, and 6 more units that can be picked up and moved in position to attack amphibiously next turn. So this turn is all about take out as many longbows as possible. I didn't do a menagerie of screenshots for every attack, but the order went like this (more or less):

• CR2 Cat vs Longbow - Loss, no damage dealt (but some collateral)
  
• CR1 Cat vs Longbow - Loss
  
• CR1 Cat vs Longbow - Loss
  
• CR1 Mace vs 5.4/6 Longbow (18% odds) - Loss, but LB down to 2.4
  
• GG Mace (C1, CR3) vs 4.4/6 Longbow (84% odds) - Flawless Victory!
  
• CR1 Mace vs 4.4/6 Longbow (54% odds) - win
  
• CR1 Mace vs 3.9/6 Longbow (45% odds) - loss (I'm 99% sure that the odds for these last two are right but it doesn't make sense)
  
  
• CR1 Mace vs Shock Axe (85% odds) - win
  
• CR1 Mace vs Weak Longbow - win
  
• CR1 Mace vs Archer - win

So the situation is a lot more manageable now:



I then dropped off another mace & catapult on top of those, so we have more than enough to take the city next turn. Xenu has offered no evidence of ships, so we will have this city next turn.

We offered peace for Glad Fish. In our situation I think the trade off of pillage gold for free infrastructure will work out.

Scooter, if he does accept peace, what do you think about gifting him one of our wines? I think we're trading wines for silk right now, and we also have an excess that we can't find a home for at this time - so maybe it will help smooth over the fact that we sank his navy and stole his cities if we start donating to him after.


Now on to the bad news...



Slowcheetah finished Astronomy this turn, and he is moving his caravels in an increasingly aggressive positioning. He's now stacked them up into groups of 3. We're bringing a lot of our northern caravels that were used against Xenu down south to help against Slowcheetah. The thought of knights on galleons is not very appealing right now, so we need to come up with a plan. In the meantime, it's galleys, caravels, and pikemen. Now that people are starting to land Astronomy, no city is backline:




Hey Noble, what would a Great Artist bomb here do?

[NobleHelium]

Bombs are awesome, I agree. I love them. But you've gotta use them where you maximize their awesomeness.

Where in that picture are you talking about?

[pindicator]

Where in that picture are you talking about?

I'll give you one guess

[NobleHelium]

I'm going to guess the island where our archer is since I've already talked about north of Mad Fish.

In all seriousness, we'd be able to culturally push Mad Fish with a bomb there, but I don't see the point. It'd be easier to just attack the city.

[NobleHelium]

Any chance of another GG?

By the way the longbow defender selection weirdness is not that unusual. You can get nonmonotonic odds on defender choice if the defenders are hurt with different modifiers. It selects based on the strength ratio which doesn't drop as fast as the odds do. Not sure how first strikes factor in though.

[pindicator]

Xenu played, and declined our generous peace offer. His Longbow is at 4.1/6 and is now CR2. I could chance the GG mace at 85%, but I'm thinking I'll just chuck a mace at it instead.

Will play it tomorrow, though; I'm sleepy now

[NobleHelium]

Apparently I was wrong about the spies not getting caught in OB territory, it's just a significantly reduced chance. But you guys probably already saw the other thread.

[pindicator]

Hadn't caught that yet. Scooter, does this change your opinion on spies?

Speaking of spies, Slowcheetah built his first galleon in Paris, which our spy caught sight on. I'm moving our second spy to his main island. My thinking is that we have 3-4 caravels spying around his lands, well past the border of aggression, trying to spot any potential force buildup that could be heading our way. Then the majority of our caravels plus our galleons are in a spot to intercept.

We have a number of galleys ready to be 2-pop whipped next turn, overflowing into galleons when we discover Astronomy. I whipped a couple pikemen in our landlocked cities, but clearly we need better garrisons in all our cities now. Probably start with the east coast and work our way north and west.

Oh, and we have a new city now too. Which is pretty nice timing because our silk gift from plako can be canceled next turn.

Sorry for the lack of picks. Morning got rushed a bit.

[scooter]

Nah it doesn't really change my opinion on spies - he's very clearly in war mode as we've known for awhile, so no need to pretend otherwise. Though we obviously need units now.

As for the artist - as I said - I can't see any place where an artist bomb even comes close to the value of a golden age. However, a golden age now is a little awkward since we're going to HAVE to whip like crazy anyways, which isn't usually what you want out of a golden age.

You offered Xenu straight peace right? It's pretty much get peace and wheel everything down south to prep for Slow. Our best hope is to sink Knights in the water and not let them land, so I'm completely fine with being fairly aggressive with boats if/when the opportunity presents itself.