TheArchduke tries his best not to be overrun again as Pericles

[Bacchus]

As for the overall situation I think it's good. Our biggest problem is the amount of gold we are losing to the military.

Can you post the culture and science rates for all opponents and the number of civics? Mouseovers over icons in particular victory categories give the per-turn rate.

Wodens great person is the prophet from the henge I presume?

I think investing in colonisation settlers and districts is the right idea. We also need to push to machinery for crossbows -- they get GG boosted, so a really big help for us.

I didn't think we can take a city from oledavy, but his horse mistake changes everything. Lafayette is probably up for grabs now.

I would also consider running the encampment project at some point. Who is the next GG?

[Bacchus]

There is a small improvement possible to your district planning in the Ithake production region -- if the commerce hubs go next to each other to the two tiles south of banana, and industrials go to the south of them, you would get +4 and +3 adjacency instead of +4 and +2 as you currently do in industrials.

[TheArchduke]

Yeah, but that involves buying a tile for the 2nd commercial and I really, really don´t want to spend any money atm. We are hardpressed enough as it is.

But valid point.

Would you go for Lafayette or Hongkong or delay for 1-2 turns.

I think I want to feint on Lafayette and then push onto Hongkong.

[Bacchus]

Domestic matters

You are right, no sense in buying the tile now. I guess we need to weigh the saving from earlier placement vs income from later gain, and saving likely wins out. What's Ithake's next natural tile acquisition?

I'm also thinking that capital districting is so awkward, that after the commercial hub we might not even build one there for a while. I mean, that industrial district placement takes away as much production by killing the mine as it gives, just saving us two food an a pop point. Useful, but not really a priority, building almost anything else in the capital will give a better return. Maybe an entertainment complex on the rainforest tile adjacent to the commercial hub for an extra gold and the coliseum construction possibility one tile further up the river -- that coliseum will reach to the northern mountain dot, so we would get +8 culture out of it for sure, and then if we ever take Schuyler, it will be +10.

Military matters

I think Hong Kong is just too far. We don't have enough depth in units to sustain an attack there as well as defense around BA. Also consider the timing.

Premise: Crossbows are going to be on the scene within the next what, 15 turns? We have to assume that Oledavy is forgoing apprenticeship to go straight to machinery, and from his tech score I would guess that he is at best on Construction now, at worst at Engineering (for which he has the boost). So maybe even more like 10-12 turns.

Corollary: we will be at a greatest disadvantage in the period 13-20 turns from now, which is when he will have crossbows and we won't. This is not the time we want to be on a big offensive, to have our units damaged or out of position.

Corollary: we need a small, sharp tactical plan for the next 8-10 turns, by the end of which we are in a good position to defend, and Oledavy has been dealt the greatest damage. We can press our units quite sharply for the next 5 turns, but then we need to start healing and redeploying for defense no later than 8 turns from now, so that 10 turns from now we are ready to eat crossbow bolts.

Conclusion: once almost healed-up, we should make a sharp move to lafayette and force him into defensive maneuvers, during which we should hope to kill a unit or two. Maybe take the city, if we can do it on schedule. We shouldn't try to hold onto the city though, because there is no way we can protect both Lafayette and BA in the medium-term. If we take Lafayette, it's more for morale and to force him to redeploy deeper into his own territory.

Aside: you can pillage your own farms, so DO NOT expend that last charge on the builder. As long as we have a builder around BA, it will be basically untakeable, as every turn our units can reposition and heal from constantly repaired farms. Yeah, it's cheesy as hell, but if it wasn't called out as an exploit, we must use it. Actually, I don't think this works. It would be nuts if it was true, especially with pillaging your own mines over things like mercury for an continuous science yield.

[Bacchus]

Tentative plan:

Here is the current situation:


This very turn archers start taking shots at Lafayette in turn, by one of them going on the horse tile. Horses heal. Once they are healthy we set up the attack by placing horses in the fog:


Note the defensive set-up in the south. This allows three hits into any unit that fords the river -- the archer shoots, then vacates the city, the warrior strikes through the city, hoplite strikes from the hill.

Next turn, we move the horses up to the river.


This set up has the advantage of him not knowing when the attack is coming and no ability to counterstrike horses with melee units. The alternative is to stage closer, and ford the river on the move, but he gets an extra turn of warning, so the quicker crossing of the river is not actually quicker, he has the same time to block crossing points. Note, that that to carry out this movement a lot of dancing is required is with the archers -- tiles need to be vacated and re-occupied in a specific order. Unless Civ is now smart enough to let you run through units. All this time we keep firing 1 round into Lafayette every turn, for XP if nothing else.

Ideally, the next turn we cross and drop 2 archer shots plus three attacks into Lafayette. One attack will be across the river. Why? Because that's the only way to prevent healing, so it's effectively 20 HP more damage.


Of course, if we were able to do that, Lafayette would fall and we wouldn't suffer any losses. In reality, that's just what we are THREATENING to do. He will have to respond to the threat, and hopefully that gives us interesting options.

[Bacchus]

Actually, on the turn we cross, we should also bring the Hoplite onto the stone tile for counter-attacks and ZOC effects. We would also have the options of not bringing the horse out so far east, keep it close to the river and gain support bonuses and potentially an archer or a horse on the other side of the river

Also, I'm increasingly uncertain that we can even afford to complete apprenticeship. We are four techs behind crossbowmen, it's too much.

Finally, if he turtles in Lafayette and we see he over-concentrated his forces, the way we reveal our attack above allows us quite easily to change direction and go north -- the entire train of horses would just cross the river on-to the tile north-west of the peak, and then fan out as appropriate.

[TheArchduke]

I would fire on lafayette, if I did not risk an easy instakill on my archer. This is not possible right now, he has 2 archers in the north. Only chance is threatening his with a horse counterattack, else your plan is valid.

An Archer 1W of BA can NOT fire on a tile E, check the terrain. This is the main reason Oledavy thought his horse was safe.

One more turn of healing and positioning then we proceed.

If Singaboy played this passively, I will be pissed, judging from the mil power, Oledavy is wide open.

Ah yes, 20 science Oledavy, i am actually 2nd in pure science, everyone is around 15.

[Bacchus]

An Archer 1W of BA can NOT fire on a tile E, check the terrain. This is the main reason Oledavy thought his horse was safe.

Yeah, that's why on my Staging map I put the Archer inside BA, and the warrior to the west -- my idea was that the Archer can shoot and then vacate the city. But they probably can't move after shooting, I forget.

We should still probably keep the Archer in the city, as his attack is just stronger than the warriors. If worst comes to worst, the Archer could step FORWARD on the pillaged farm, shoot, and let the warrior come into the city and hit out of it. That Archer would almost certainly then die, but I can definitely see situations where that exchange could be worth making.

[Bacchus]

Good news on the science, but with Oledavy on 20 -- wow. I would be surprised if he isn't onto Engineering by now. How do we stand on culture? We haven't built any monuments, have our opponents?

It'd also be nice to find these CS in the west and send envoys, too bad we don't have a unit to spare. But they might be getting eaten up anyway.

Don't forget to swap civic research for an autocracy swap.

[TheArchduke]

Mysticism is already researched so our civic swap needs to wait.

Maneuver, -1 gold per unit, 2 envoys, +1 production and +30% builders from the top of my head.