[SPOILER] [PB38] OT4E plays this one because lurking around takes too much time

[OT4E]

Top power has dropped from 320k to 270k, so we are #1. And people are making some real wars and GGs are emgerging.

From what I have noticed at civstat:
- plako lost city to commodore
- earlier plako has also lost city to Gavagai
- I am not sure but I think plako took a city from Bandit who was mainly consumed by Gavagai
- mackoti consumed Aretas
- mackoti took 1 city from Rusten
- Adrien has recently lost city to naufrager

[OT4E]

So OH got MOM in new border city, which will steal our sheep:


GJ plays very safe so far:


We have 7 numids in northern group and 5 in the western including 2 damaged ones.

[chumchu]

Does WAR stand for war elephant in Louchen MTS? If he has elephants and catapults it will be difficult to keep our numids safe. Pillaging the elephant near his capital should be good in any case. I agree that we should keep scouting for weaknesses but I am less optimistic than you. he seems to be staying put in his cities. What we are doing is choking him and paying extra upkeep.

MoM would be a real prize to take and it also puts us on a clock as it will accelerate OH:s development exponentially.

[OT4E]

No it is just a warrior.

Ivory pillaged as a part of destroying GJ's production strategy. He must have anger after losing furs and ivory. So he cant use his mines and cottages effective.

If we are waiting for trebs we must be sure that GJ's infrastructure and road network is destroyed so he cant consolidate. We either raze his cities or cut them sonhe will not be able to send reinforcements to his cap. With 6 trebutchets we can breakthrough 15 defenders but not 30. Also if he gathers so much at one place he will most likely be able to defeat one of our groups if we keep them in split.

[OT4E]

Our main group is now forking The Wildlands and Luochen Mts (red arrows):


But of course we are not going to attack those and the main goal of this movement is to pull attention from possible attack on Spirit Stream. Next turn we move everything in position to attack it (white arrows). I think it is worth trying at least. Let's see what GJ does.

[OT4E]

GJ has probably suspected something and made 3 pop whip in his capital. Ouch... It was a spear. Yesterday I made some simulations and even with 2 additional spears we have nice chances to take Spirit Stream. I took it 13 times from 15 in my test which to my mind was very close to real situation including promotions and fortify.

But of course it is some kind of gamble. If several numids make no damage (what happens from times to time) the situation changes to negative outcome. Right now I think we have to risk. It seems that we are working every coast and we still have only +12 income.

What do you think?

[OT4E]

What speaks for attack:
1) It is decisive blow. GJ must be broken if we succeed. He will still make some resistance but with no chance to consolidate. We will have many different opportunities to bring trebs by water and take the rest of his cities ib measurable time.

2) Nobody truely knows how it goes with trebutchets in 10 turns.

3) High chance to beat GG which is nearly born and it often appears in capitals.

4) Big burden of unit and supply cost . We can produce more army but we cant really afford it. So upkeep for 20 more units will hurt us and it is inevital if we want trebs.

5) We get some easy cash, may be enough to reach Alphabet and get out of economical hole.

What speaks against:
- We can lose all. I know that you'd better stop if you lose first 3-4 battles without appropriate results but I dont remember it worked for me.

[Krill]

Could you please enlighten the lurkers with the different stacks involved?

[OT4E]

GJ's possible stack condition is illustrated on the screenshot from my sim:

I think everything is precise except +5% on spear he has got this turn

We have 16 NUM 4 AXE 1 SPE 1 ARC 4 CHA, which are actually:

NUM 6.0 *+
NUM 6.0 ***
NUM 5.7 *S
NUM 5.6 *S
NUM 6.0 *+
NUM 6.0 *+
NUM 6.0 *+
AXE 5.0
AXE 5.0
SPE 4.0 +
ARC 3.0
CHA 3.0
CHA 3.4 *

NUM 6.0 *S
NUM 6.0 *+
NUM 6.0 *+
AXE 5.0 RRR
AXE 4.6 RRR
CHA 4.0

NUM 6.0 *+
NUM 4.8 **
NUM 4.6 **
CHA 4.0 *

NUM 6.0 *+
NUM 6.0 *+

NUM 6.0 *

Legend:
- "*" = star
- "+" = unused promotion
- "S" = shock
- "RRR" = city raider 1,2,3

[Krill]

Cheers. Looks like an interesting turn to play.