[PB74] Tarkeel and civacs Game of the Year

[Krill]

I deserve that.

So Lodose is no more. Now what's the plan?

[Tarkeel]

The plan is mainly hang in there and prove our worth as good neighbors and untastefulness as food. Commodore is bringing up the literal big guns and is likely to take the entire south coast, so we hope to swing for the north. We have to go careful for as long as Plemo's forces are alive, but I don't envy him trying to defend against both of us (and Pindi lurking on the seas) at once. Meanwhile we did turn on tech for Chemistry and Riesengarde, and in another turn we could burn the stored scientist to bulb it if needed. We'll also resettle something in the Lødøse area at some point.

[civac2]

Immediate plan is to advance to towards Haithabu over the hill chain northwest of former Lodose. Then it depends what Commodore and Plemo do. If nothing happens either way at that front I suspect Plemo's forces will grow to big to allow us push any further.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 195 (1350 AD)
Still no battle, and forces in sight until we sacrifice a worker for vision.


We're pretty certain plemo is trading space for time here, but we're going to let him. By moving our forces straight N instead of NW we can approach Haithabu on the hills for some defensive bonuses, and it allows 4 of the reinforcing knights to link up next turn. We sure hope Commodore will do some lifting soon or we might have to peace out with Haithabu.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 196 (1360 AD)
Onwards we march.


I sure hope Commodore is landing in the south soon.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 197 (1370 AD)
Commodore did make landfall, and captured two cities: Tønsberg on plemo's island and Jorvik on the Superdeath border. He also sent a flurry of diplomacy:


My best guess is that the first oneis something along the line of "I got this", second is "I'm keeping the islands" and third one is an assault in 6. We send back fish for fish to indicate we're not entirely sure what he's on about, but we have no plans to backstab him. We also had another event:


Not a very big difference, but I took the 50% odds and won.


We also decided to start burning on Chemistry, asking Mig for the 400 gold we're missing at 25% interest.

[Tarkeel]

We also decided to start burning on Chemistry, asking Mig for the 400 gold we're missing at 25% interest.

Mig didn't bite. Most players have 400g laying around. We thought to ask Commodore, but he's burning, so we asked Gav instead. Not sure he'll bother with a 100g profit when he's making 1100g per turn.

[Tarkeel]

We also decided to start burning on Chemistry, asking Mig for the 400 gold we're missing at 25% interest.

Mig didn't bite. Most players have 400g laying around. We thought to ask Commodore, but he's burning, so we asked Gav instead. Not sure he'll bother with a 100g profit when he's making 1100g per turn.

Gav didn't bite either, and instead sent back "Stop trading with Commodore". Well, we're trying to!

[Tarkeel]

Turn 198 (1380 AD)
When we were hunting for bankers last turn, we noticed Commodore had sent up a mini-stack towards Oslo after we played:


We judged that this was likely meant to draw out some of plemo's forces for a trade-off, and it looks like it worked. After plemo and Commodore played again, it looks like this:


Plemo attacked and killed the mini-stack, and Commodore burned Oslo with a fearsome fleet. This opens up a lot of land for resettling down the line. Meanwhile plemo is using the same tactics we did at Rococo: Stuff the city with just enough defenders for an assault to be costly, but not enough for catapult collateral to be viable. Note that if we remove the culture from Haithabu, the survivors outside former-Aarhus can be attacked with our reinforcements.

After bombarding the pinch knight only has 11%, so it's probably worth sending in some cats.

Catapult vs C2 Musket, 0.0%: Flawless loss
Catapult vs C2 Musket, 0.0%: Loss, but inflicting a round of damage
Catapult vs C2 Musket (8.0), 0.3%: Loss, but inflicting 4 rounds of damage
Catapult vs CG2 Musket (7.1), 3.8%: Loss, but inflicting 2 rounds of damage
C1 Pinch Knight vs C1 Musket (6.5), 84.6%: Loss
C1 Pinch Knight vs CG2 Musket (5.1), 86.7%: Win
C1 Pinch Knight vs G2 Musket (4.1), 91.2%: Win
C2 Knight vs Longbow (3.8), 98.7%: Win
G2 Crossbow vs C1 Musket (2.9), 97.4%: Win, capturing the city with 91g, a granary, and a mausoleum.

With the culture lifted, it's time to hit the other stack:
C2 Knight vs C2 Formation Knight (8.3), 50.0%: Loss
C2 Knight vs C2 War Elephant, 63.0%: Win
C2 Knight vs C2 Knight (8.3), 73.8%: Win
C1 Knight vs C2 War Elephant (5.7), 69.7%: Win
C1 Knight vs C1 War Elephant (4.2), 96.2%: Win
Knight vs C2 Formation War Elephant (2.2), 99.6%: Win

With the gold from the Haithabu we only need a 200g loan (to save us from saving for two turns), so we'll see if Magic wants our money.

[Tarkeel]

Logged in to check if I'd remembered to turn on research after shopping for gold (I had), but Pindi has declared on us without sending a PM about it. Didn't touch anything though.