[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[williams482]

Fortunately, muskets are still a bit away. Niter is unlocked at Military Engineering. Muskets are at Gunpowder, which requires both Military Engineering and Sirups. The boost is to build an Armory, also unlocked at Military Engineering. Kaiser does not have an encampment yet, and will likely have to push through without the boost. We can absolutely get our hands on Crossbow tech before that, although we might have to rely on other players for upgrade cash.

As for future plans, ways to get back into could-possibly-win shape? We ain't found shit.

Like, if we somehow win the field and snag Bortus, and Kaiser decides to bail on fighting instead of overwhelming us with the next generation of better units, then we're still way behind by every relevant category. Even in that fantasy scenario we have no hope of pushing deeper into Egypt unless he completely collapses under a presently nonexistent Brazilian assault. What I want to be doing is setting up a Feudalism wave, preparing to crunch out another 3-5 settlers, finishing up these commercial hubs, and building a fresh set of campuses in hopes of exploiting some favorable military tech beeline, but to be perfectly honest we are powerless to improve as long as Egypt is attempting to attack us, and we just can't produce enough of any relevant currency to compete with the well constructed civilizations even if we come out of this war with no direct damage and some minor spoils.

I'm listening if anyone has a more favorable outlook and some halfway-plausible whacky ideas, but right now I'm just trying to keep alive and wreck Kaiser's dreams because I have no hope at all of a Canadian victory.

[williams482]

Turn 95:

Military Tactics is in:



On to the non-military variety of Engineering. Powinigow Sipi bursts her deadly banks once again, leaving some even nicer soil behind for the hypothetical eventual Red Wings site. Kaiser manages envoy parity in Antioch, putting him at 15 total envoys across four city states. That feels like a lot. We meet some new friends squatting on our Capitals site: 



That could be very inconvenient, with horses and Iron in range. I neglect to send a horse over just now, but I'll need to do that soon. On the eastern front, nothing much is going on:



Kaiser has backed up a chariot archer in favor of it's chariotless brethren. A temporary advance reveals where that missing unit went:



By Blackhawks, there is still no sign of Kaiser's strike force. The barb scout decides that all he has to fear is fear itself and parks himself right next to my horseman, who kills him. That should stop the camp from doing anything for a while. The 80HP horse moves to Blackhawks' city center and will heal there for a turn and await the hooves of wrath. 



If Kaiser continues to sit back, I'll want to set up to slam him again once these horses are healthy and replenished with fresh builds. All the units in reach are the squishier variety, definitely killable. I'll start repositioning for that next turn. 

Kaiser's milpower rose 22, likely healing. 

Kaiser has completed one of his two placed Industrial Zones and is now generating one Engineer point. Ichabod adds a second Merchant point, a ninth Prophet point, and a fifth Scientist point. 

Scores:

[TheArchduke]

I am not really seeing an advance by Egypt.

Does Kaiser want to wait for a tech advantage? Why the early denouncement.

Anyway, good job keeping him at bay. This war is definitely not worth it for him by now.

[williams482]

I am not really seeing an advance by Egypt.

Does Kaiser want to wait for a tech advantage? Why the early denouncement.

Anyway, good job keeping him at bay. This war is definitely not worth it for him by now.

I think he wanted to eliminate my five turn warning advantage by denouncing me early and essentially daring me to attack him in that window. If I'm right about that, he'll be willing to take peace in the near future, but denounce immediately after that to keep his options open and prevent me having more than ten turns of genuine safety. 

I'm considering offering a white peace next turn just to test the waters, and delaying Feudalism a turn to see how that goes. It shouldn't be much of a surprise to Kaiser that I don't want to be at war with him, and I can use that 10 turns for some valuable infrastructure development. The downside is that he'll be 10 turns closer to units I can't kill so easily, and I'll lose a chance to stomp his massed ranged units outside Bortus. 

It does occur that the best high risk, high reward approach I can take is to stay at war with Kaiser, and kill enough units to actually make progress in the field while he's dithering around with sneak attacks and infrastructure. It's hard to imagine even then being able to make progress against his core, but there's a slim chance he'd get panicky and make some really dumb tactical choices that weaken his remaining army enough for me to go on a pillaging spree before he can rebuild, and if I can do that I can turn the cash into some catch up infrastructure, and onward into the deepest, furthest depths of Fantasyland. This can't possibly actually work, but there is plenty of inherent variance there.

[williams482]

Turn 96: 

Engineering completes:



Fuck everything:



I move a horse to intercept, but he cannot reach the scout just yet, and won't be able to stop it from triggering the camp. I should have moved a unit this way last turn, but that wouldn't have actually prevented the scout from triggering. This is going to get bad, fast. 

In lighter news, the western barbs do something spectacularly dumb: 



My horse clears the camp, wasting three era score but adding a valuable 50g. Unfortunately, because Civ 6 is stupid, that just means another camp is going to pop up somewhere, and our back lines are among the most likely spots on the map because we haven't settled them yet. Ideally I'd have units to spare for fogbusting, but, ya know, war. 

Speaking of, this turn's temporary advance reveals some interesting changes in Kaiser's force:



I agree with Archduke that the previous setup did not look like prep for an offensive action, but that catapult begs to differ. Those units are complete trash at everything except attacking city walls, something they are passable at if you can keep them alive long enough to fire. Kaiser will not be able to do that. Unfortunately, I am forced to split my armies somewhat due to the barb threat. The plan for the next couple turns is for the sword out of Blues to hold that pass where the scout is now, with the warrior and maybe a spear providing support bonuses. The other sword will act as the garrison in Blackhawks, ensuring that a courser assault is unable to make rapid progress against the walls. The horses will mass up between Blues and Kings, preparing to hit targets of opportunity. I reposition my archers such that all three can hit the plains tile 2NW of Kings, and two can hit the desert 1SW of that, the two most likely spots for a cat to move to. That plus the fresh horse out Kings next turn can guarantee a kill, and the three currently healthy horses should be able to smack down at least one other ranged unit if Kaiser advances. 

I find myself with a tough choice on if I should complete Feudalism. Right now, both Maneuver and Agoge are useful, and will continue to be used for some time. Waiting delays Professional Army, but I want Professional Army right now and I'll have to wait 9-10 turns no matter what. I'll also be forced to stay in it for a while, because there are no other civics less than 10 turns from completion. I think the "clever" play would be to switch research to Civil Service, currently due in 13 turns, and research it to slightly less than half. Prebuild a builder at Blues, complete it with or without Serfdom (TBD, depends if other builders are in progress, which depends mostly on the war), farm the marsh rice and chop the two swamps for a combined 140 food into Blues. Blues requires a total of 191.1 food to grow from pop 8 to pop 10, and will be pulling in +2.75 per turn net with the max housing penalty, so it would take 18 turns to grow enough that those marsh chops would push it to pop 10. Damn, that's way too long. A granary would change things, obviously, but I seriously doubt I can justify kicking out a builder (5t) and a granary (4t) during a hot war for the sake of a boost (worth 180 clefs, so a pretty real benefit if we had a chance at the game) and a little less time in Professional Army. 

For the moment, I'm going to swap off Feudalism for Civil Service and mull this one over. I definitely should have been thinking about this a few turns ago. 

Suboptimal is up to 15 admiral points, and earned an Admiral this turn. Brazil adds a 6th Scientist point. Woden, Ichabod, and Suboptimal are all swimming in cash right now, pulling in 45, 48, and 62 gpt respectively. Kaiser is at 17, and still has not started annother resource unit, although his milpower jumped by 39 this turn. 

Scores: 




Suboptimal and Kaiser are almost even in score now. That's inflated by his double score RNDs, but still substantial. That's bad for us too, because we're the obvious direction for English expansion, and Eleanor doesn't even need to attack us directly in order to steal our cities. Declare war and kill our Avalanche warrior to settle that spot, then sneak in some pillaging while pumping loyalty pressure into Wild. Hopefully Suboptimal has other plans, but this is yet another reason why we are totally fucked.

[williams482]

Turn 97:

I've been played for a fool.



Kaiser was apparently waiting for me to move the garrison-promoted archer in the Bruins encampment before bringing an assault against the city. Clever, and I fell for it. That archer is now dead, and Bruins is at the very least in danger. 

First things first, increase our city defenses by upgrading a spear: 



The city defenses do not update in the UI, but the city strike button shows Bruins' encampment at 36 strength, even with the attacking sword. Curiously, Kaiser did not fire on the encampment last turn, so either that Chariot Archer 1W of the encampment fired on the now-dead archer (I'm not sure how, with the forest and hill in the way) or moved his full movement to get to that tile (I'm not sure why, it just increases the risk of being attacked by a melee unit if I built one this turn). 

Alright, boring stuff first. Our western barb-buster horse was attacked by the barb spear, he withdraws to Blackhawks. The now healthy horse in Blackhawks sprints towards the main battlefield, but will not be relevant for at least another turn. The sword occupies Blackhawks' city center; those Coursers are still out there somewhere and I can't imagine Kaiser was using them primarily for barb busting. Relevant to that, Ichabod is once again suzerain of Antioch, so Antioch is once again at war with Kaiser. At 48 garrison strength, Kaiser would have an even tougher time taken them than he would going after Blackhawks, so I probably can't expect much of a distraction there. Swapping off feudalism was silly, Professional Army is the only plausible way I'm getting crossbows in the field, and getting those out any slower could easily be a death sentence. Of note, I want to bring Machinery to one turn shy of completion and wait until I'm in a position to upgrade before completing it. Archers are cheaper to build, cheaper to maintain, and have a policy card I can use, Crossbows are prohibitively expensive to build right now. Machinery also obsoletes rams in favor of the plainly inferior siege tower unit, so if I have any desire to take the offensive I want to wait as well. Blues starts a Horse, due in 3, Kings a sword, due in 5. Penguins completes it's monument and starts an archer, due in 6. The sword from Blues moves towards the barbs, he'll hold that choke point as long as possible with support from the warrior. Woden has a new city, in territory that Kaiser would almost certainly have settled if he wasn't so busy not winning this war: 



Well, I hope that's what he's busy doing. The alternatives are no fun at all. 

On that topic, let's go back to the exciting stuff. I need to kill something this turn, preferably two somethings, and get as many horses as possible in position to hit the units attacking Bruins next turn. The encampment is going to take some serious damage from ranged attacks, and probably lose over half of it's wall health if Kaiser has the opportunity to really go ham on it. Two archers and the encampment are likely but not guaranteed to kill the chariot, and this horse is the only other unit I have capable of attacking either Egyptian:



A deeply regrettable, not-temporary-enough advance reveals this:



Damn, damn, damn. My forces are too bloody small and too bloody spread out to deal with Kaiser when he actually brings everything he has to bear, which he still hasn't done because there's a couple of coursers still dithering around somewhere. As it is, he's going to be able to shred my horsemen with ranged units, taking acceptable casualties in the process, and when I am forced to withdraw or lose my army, he'll crunch through Bruins in a couple of turns. This is really bad, folks!

Additionally, I'd like to highlight something which has been aggravating me since the start of this war. Have a look at this:



That's a road that Antananarivo was building with a trader sent towards Kings. Antananarivo died literally one turn before they could cross that bloody river, which would have given me the ability to strike across the Colombia with units out of Kings, instead of taking an entire turn's worth of movement to cover those two tiles. That would be hugely impactful right now, it would have been hugely impactful in multiple earlier battles, and it will continue to be hugely impactful in the future, and because Civ 6 is bloody stupid about these things, there isn't a damn thing I can do about it! My trader, just now freed up, is quite incapable of roading that tile unless I make peace with Egypt and sent him to Bortus, which obviously isn't happening, or march him through the entire bloody Nubian desert towards Antioch, past probably half a dozen different Egyptian units, just to road that first god damn tile so my units can cross a river without being forced to dither around for a turn. The only other way for me to fix this involves a damn military engineer, requiring a tech I don't have, two expensive buildings I couldn't possibly prioritize in this situation, a unit slightly more than twice as expensive as a builder would be, who costs five gold in maintenance and only has the charges to build two bloody road segments? Compared to the incredibly simple power and flexibility of Civ IV combat workers, this is a fucking travesty. 

Anyway, time to start shooting. First I do something dumb and move the horse out of Kings to flank the chariot archer, not the archer:





That confirms another chariot archer on that hill, as I had suspected. It will allow me to reinforce the encampment defenses next turn, but this will cost me some not-quite-lethal damage against the archer and make striking with this unit next turn much more difficult. Archers move up and strike the chariot archer for 29, then 31, and the encampment strikes for 37. You may note that 29+31+37=97, which is smaller than 100.  I knock off those last three HP with the horse, leaving the archer unmolested. This reveals the cat from last turn, strangely not in range of the encampment:



Better for me that he's out of position, I suppose. Any break I can get. 

Finally, what to do with the trader? I need the roads this guy puts down in two different places, around Bruins and between Blackhawks and Blues. I also need cash, so an external trade route seems wisest. I opt to move him to Blackhawks, and will start him towards Geneva for 6g and one beaker next turn, eventually putting down roads everywhere I currently need them. I would have liked to have the chance to plan this further in advance, but of course Civ 6 doesn't exactly go out of it's way to tell you that a trade route is finishing soon, or even let you figure out at a glance when a given route will finish. What a well designed UI!

On the GP screen, Ichabod now has three merchant points. Woden completed a Holy Site project, he'll have a religion in 10 turns. Brazil is down to 4 scientist points, so either he was running the policy card or I was reading Kaiser's score by accident. 

Scores: 

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

The timing on Antananarivo's fall is a perfect microcosm of our luck this game.

A seemingly tiny thing, the least of things, that ends up making an enormous difference.

While the encampment is in danger, it's doing its job of delaying Egypt. A defense of Bruins behind the Columbia river might be possible - but the danger is that we founded Blues on the wrong damn side of the river, and Kaiser would have an easier time repositioning to attack Blues than we would to defend it. Which of course I knew 60 turns ago, which is why we would have taken Antananarivo with our huge warrior army earlier in the game...except Canada sucks.

Oh well, even taking Bruins won't help Kaiser much, as Woden quietly grows behind him, and it's not like we're winning anyway, so don't fret too much. The plan is still just to go down swinging, so no worries!

[williams482]

Turn 98:

Feudalism completes:



Doom is upon us, the Coursers have emerged:



But boring stuff first. I start the trader from Blackhawks to Geneva, worth 6gpt and a beaker. I would like very much to be able to slot in Bastions here. The primary reason not to is that I want to be able to build horses, swords, and archers. The primary reason I'm building swords at all is limited horse stockpile, so I ask Woden for 30 of his maxed out 50 horse stockpile. I should have been begging for more horses earlier, and I will continue to do that when I anticipate future needs. The reason I'm building archers is that they are the cheapest useful units I can get out of my low production backline cities. Right now, with no boost, I'll get one from Blackhawks next turn, and one more each from Wild, Penguins, and Blackhawks on t105. Mercenaries is scheduled for t106, which is perfect timing. I'll have ~500g at that point, enough for four total archer/spear upgrades, and I can always beg for more. That means I don't need Feudal Contract, and I can slot in Bastions to make my cities tougher. It also means that the two archers between Bruins and Kings are expendable: I'll have five others by the time I can upgrade any of them. Thus, we're running with this: 



Kings swaps off the sword and, in a moment of pure fantasy, dumps a turn into the Commercial Hub before starting on a horse when my stockpile hits 20 (or ideally, 50) next turn. The horses near Blackhawks head towards home, while the Sword stays put. That sword is too far away to help much right now, and he'll be able to cover ground faster later anyway because of the road currently under construction. I also do not know if Kaiser still has an opportunist strike force hanging around back here, and I don't want to give him a target. The Barb buster sword and his warrior pal move to occupy the pass, ready to get totally trucked by an unreasonable number of barb horses and swords. 

My injured horse moves into the encampment and surveys the battlefield: 



Support bonuses indicate no adjacent units in the fog. This district will defend at 44 strength, so if my calculations are correct the cats will average 11 wall damage each and the chariot archer 2-3. The sword and spear, with help from the ram, will deal 11 and 9 respectively, which would knock the walls from 60/100 to about 15/100. Because of the river, I believe Kaiser can advance the ram to the spear tile, attack, and withdraw each turn, so I will not be able to kill it here. The sword, however, will be quite vulnerable if it attacks again without promoting, and I should be able to kill it with a ranged strike in that case. 

For this turn, I decide to attack the Courser, and see if I can lure it across the river to attack one of my archers. The Encampment strikes for 16 damage, the archers for 15 and 20, each earning a promotion. That Courser is down to ~35 HP, more than enough to discourage a crossing but still twice as much damage as my horse could have dealt. I advance the pike and healthy horse to provide support bonuses and counterattack capabilities, in the event Kaiser decides to get aggressive: 



Woden is up to 7 Admiral points.

Scores:

[williams482]

Turn 99:

We enter the medieval era:



Um, what the hell?



We finished machinery. When I closed out of t98, it was three turns out. Mercenaries is now five turns out, it was eight turns away. After a few minutes of confusion, I turn to simple rage at this game's terrible interface: We just moved to the medieval era, an entirely foreseeable circumstance, and both techs I was researching had their prices drop 20%, which insta-completed machinery. If this bloody mechanic had been constructed more sensibly, it would apply a 20% reduction on beakers put into techs more advanced than the era, and obviously divide that out of the overflow, which we've already learned os too complicated an idea for the current development team. In retrospect, I should have anticipated this, as I am aware of the mechanic, but of course I would have had no way of knowing if I had already passed the point of no return on the tech. This is an infuriating and painful blow to our already terrible odds in this war. 

So, instead of a new and upgradeable archer, we have 63/180 hammers in a crossbow in Blackhawks, 18/180 in Penguins, and 9/180 in Wild. Those units will never complete in a reasonable timeframe, certainly not without the policy card in place, which I of course deliberately swapped out knowing that I could complete their cheaper predecessors just in time to upgrade them. 

Oh, and kaiser killed one of my archers which I only just now learned I actually really needed to protect: 



Woden did accept our request for more horses, so that's nice. It doesn't affect my newfound desire to commit terrible acts of violence against people who don't deserve it, but okay. Time to channel that into kaiser's disgustingly numerous units. 

The Bruins encampment fortification is at 29/100. That's definitely going to disappear next turn, but that's just part of the defense that encampment offers. With an injured horse inside, the district has the same defensive strength as a Courser, plus twice as many hit points, a river on the most assaultable sides, and a ranged strike. Bring it, Kaiser. 

It is now critical that I protect the two archers this game has permitted me to possess, as they are the only way I'll be getting real ranged stopping power in the immediate future. This means no potshots at enemy units except from the safety of a city, which certainly supports taking Garrison with the promotion earned last turn. I delay that decision, moving the archer towards Kings and three tiles away from Kaiser's units, moving a horse up to cover:



They can kill that horse, but they'll have to sacrifice a chariot archer to do it, and I'd rather lose a horse than a future crossbow. 

On the Blues front, we have incoming:



That Chariot Archer has a +2 support bonus, so one adjacent unit. Due to the forest/swamp/hill combo, I can't advance for a better look without isolating one of my horses. The spear, however, is another valuable future upgrade, and withdraws to the horse tile, safely hidden behind a stand of trees. If Kaiser does manage to kill that unit, he'll leave himself extremely exposed to a counterattack. This does seem a good time to finish Walls in Blues.

The units that I can see this turn amount to 270 milpower. I know there is at least one ~40HP sword and a ~35HP courser, plus a healthy courser. That covers another ~74 milpower. That leaves 78 unaccounted for, which could be a third Courser plus a Chariot Archer and some slightly different rounding on damage calculations. That means Kaiser doesn't have a secret strike force waiting around to smack Blackhawks, although he could have one soon enough that my two movement sword may as well keep hanging around there. It also means that if Ichabod can scrape up bloody anything, he can make progress against Kaiser's cities. Come on, buddy! Go get 'em!

What to do with our city strikes? We can't kill anything, so we'll settle for being inconvenient. Bruins shoots the northern cat for 35, Kings hits the Chariot Archer for 47. I could do a lot more damage to the archer, but I'm hoping Kaiser gets overconfident and leaves it there to be killed by the city/archer combo in two turns. 

On to the domestic irrelevancies. Pen, Brush, and Voice seems the obvious dedication:



Apparently city centers do not count as districts, so that raises our culture by just four. Still, four culture better than our other options. Kings and Bruins have set to work on horses, due in 5 and 6 turns respectively. Robbed of their ability to contribute meaningfully to the war effort, the satellites turn to infrastructure: Blackhawks starts a monument, due in 5, Penguins dumps it's paltry production into walls, due in 12, And wild sets to work on a builder, due in 9. I don't expect to complete that unit unless/until peace is signed and Serfdom is available, as there's not a whole lot of value to be added that won't put the unit in danger, but the alternative was a Commercial Hub that's 18 turns out. Research goes into Castles, due in 10 turns unboosted. That likely will need to be pushed through without a boost, as any Medieval governments are a ways out. On the flip side, it's not like we're swimming in money for a bunch of future 125g upgrades (with Professional Army), so a delay wouldn't be completely inappropriate. 

On the barb front, I still don't see any new units, so I push the sword to the silk forest, revealing this:



Huh. Lucky me? Two hits from the sword should clear this damp with minimal damage, and a forest hill isn't a bad place to tank and attack or two if it comes to that. That scout had plenty of time to communicate his little message, so mechanically I dunno what's up, but I'll take it. 

Woden now has a second Prophet point. We also have a World Congress meeting coming up, so I hope that can pass through quickly. We are second to last in favor, while Kaiser has a considerable lead, so I'm not optimistic that good things will come of that. 

Scores: 




Suboptimal has now passed Kaiser! 

Far above, far above, we don't know where we'll fall.
Far above, far above, what once was great is rendered small.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Kaiser's actually in a bad way. I mean, so are we, but he doesn't have great winning chances right now.

His military score is roughly equal to yours, and his highest quality units, Coursers, aren't really good at city-taking. Furthermore, the St. Lawrence river, while it made it very difficult to hold the plain of the Canadian desert, is also giving you a really good defensive shield for your units. I think if you keep your current positions and defend behind the river line, yes, Kaiser will eventually grind down Bruins' encampment, but then he has to cross two more rivers to attack the city itself, and in the meantime you'll have the army mostly safe and intact, ready to build up strength to hit him when he tries that. At the same time, you're in a good position to move to support Blues if he shifts his attack south towards the capital. So, he's not getting out of this war with gains any time soon - he'd be well-advised, I think, to take a white peace and come back in ~15 turns with Muskets, slugging either at Bruins from the north or Blues from the northwest. Attacking Bruins from due west is about the worst possible path he could have chosen.

Whe he sorts that out, Woden is settling his backlines, Ichabod is steadily swelling his cog-crazy holy sites, and now even Eleanor is passing him up and she's a late game civ, not an early-game civ like Egypt. He has fallen behind in culture and science, too, his earlier advantage fading. I think Kaiser, while he can still grind us down and kill us if he keeps at it, Verdun-style, has shot his bolt. I'd put Woden with his mighty empire as the favorite, slightly edging Ichabod although it's like a 40%/30% think, then suboptimal as a dark horse. He's got an isolated position and good science so if he's left alone to develop he's definitely got good winning chances.