[SPOILERS] enough is ENOUGH! scooter opens some windows and finishes first!

[scooter]

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[scooter]

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[scooter]

T59 takes a deep breath and calms down

<redacted bunch of stuff>

Funny thing is I'd LOVE to cobble together some Chariots and Keshiks and take a run at Serdoa (he's not that far from me - no one is), but Commodore has crossbows near me so I'm not sure I can afford to do that without knowing Commodore will be peaceful with me. I can't know that sadly. I'm trying to give him a chance to hint at it.

Oh - I didn't explain the full thing earlier. Serdoa didn't JUST finish TGL. He also finished Hanging Gardens AND he did this:



(yeah that scout could be dead unless Serdoa presses further against Comm. I just saw the ruins from the windmill and wanted more info so I did it anyways and immediately regretted it hah)

But wow Commodore, I'm running a bit of a farmer's gambit yes but I at least have sufficient military that I could've dealt with an axe + chariot easily. Commodore is in serious trouble now. Lewwyn is pulling things together but still behind and I'm struggling now with the loss of TGL... Basically, Serdoa is currently 1st in Food/Mfg/GNP:



So, um... Now I'm not going to start saying "game over" but honestly, if he doesn't get hurt militarily it will be game over eventually. Now, if I knew Commodore would remain peaceful with me, the two of us could easily do it. I could get some 2-movers together and hopefully hurt him before Elephants showed up... And Commodore could build up for Phracts and bring him back to the pack that way. Unfortunately, if Commodore sends xbows at me like Dazed fears, then that'll just exasperate things.

FWIW - I'm fine. I'm reasonably confident I will not lose a city to xbows. However, it'll cause me to slow myself down enough to deal with them which is not what I need at the moment. Anyways, the Commodore front:



I mispoke earlier - this chariot is dead if he wants it dead. The logical move may seem like moving onto the Oasis but it's not. He has 2 workers in the city so he could road the plains and kill with the xbow. The bigger problem is that gets him closer to my city. That's NOT ok with me. I briefly considered moving NW-NW and seeing if I could cause him problems, but again, that's in range of his xbow and forces his hand so he HAS to kill me. Plains hill is a decent option but again that's threatening. I think this was the smartest play:



And yes, for those with sharp eyes this is REMARKABLY similar to me chasing his warrior . That was intentional on my part. I chased his warrior right along this exact path at my land but never killed it despite my ability to do so. Just this turn I let it go and moved the chariot away. He now has the SAME situation - he has superior units and the ability to kill my inferior unit. If he lets it go and doesn't move on my city, I'll interpret that as peaceful intentions. If he kills me... Well I'll prepare for his incoming (again, I'm fine) and I'll try to find some way to wreck Serdoa before my units are all obsolete .

As for preparations, I did the following:

1) Micro'd cities with wealth to finish HBR this turn. I really think I should be doing more wealth building btw - I have excess hammers that would go nicely into gold-> beakers.

2) I built wealth in cities that had heavy overflow. That overflow does NOT go into wealth, but it IS stored so it'll get dumped into Keshiks. Those Keshiks will either be crossbow killers or they'll harass Serdoa (get your Spears ready!) depending on if Commodore wants to be buddies or not (the life of my chariot). It could be that my hinting has been too subtle, but I'm hoping he's noted it. Sante Fe is one of those cities btw which is right by the front. I'm in good shape. I have some chops available too if need be. And if nothing else I certainly have the workers necessary

3) I have quite a few chariots. Chariot obviously gets hilariously bad odds against a crossbow, but a crossbow on flat ground (there's a lot before my city) will still usually die to 2 chariots.

4) I have 0 axes in that area (except on ele island which he cannot reach) so honestly his xbows are worse than if he had just built horse archers.

So I'm not concerned. Anyways, checked on Lewwyn just to see if there was anything interesting:



Not really. Guessing he's flashing me a spear to let me know not to send Keshiks his way. Duly noted. Honestly with all this killing that's going on, Lewwyn is now a dark-horse candidate to win this game. His traits are the best out of anyones from here to the end, and he's certainly not going to get Phracts - it'll be me or Serdoa I'd bet. We'll see.

[scooter]

Random thing - if Commodore doesn't kill my chariot, I'm kind of considering gifting him a worker. Now I'm not sure you can really "gift" in AW, but you can certainly walk it into his borders so he captures it. I think that would cement an "alliance" of sorts. I'm not going to do anything that involves words like renaming units or whatever, but a worker is a worthwhile investment to hopefully gain a "friend"...

[scooter]

T60 loses a chariot

Sigh:



Also need to get archery. Whoops. Cities:



Yep, ready for more expansion. They're going to hurt economically but it's gotta be done. Spied Serdoa's axe headed home:



Power graph shows everyone is building military now:



And the demos:



Depressing. Not sure how Serdoa loses outside from some bad Phracting.

[dazedroyalty]

I'm still nervous about war coming our way. Can we get some sentry units between us and our opponents? Commodore bothers me because of those cross bows. Serdoa bothers me because, well, you've already pointed that out. Lewwyn is my "least" concern which is, in itself, concerning

[scooter]

I'm still nervous about war coming our way. Can we get some sentry units between us and our opponents? Commodore bothers me because of those cross bows. Serdoa bothers me because, well, you've already pointed that out. Lewwyn is my "least" concern which is, in itself, concerning

Working on it yeah. Thing is - Brian is far from me (I'm talking between borders) and I have naval superiority between us so he's unlikely. Plus his military really isn't that much better than mine anymore. Lewwyn is also far from me and again I have naval superiority between us. Serdoa's military is about the same as mine - I have 2 chariots and 2 axes and we've seen 1 chariot + 1 axe in Commodore's land so it's not like he's got a stack to come at us either.

So honestly, the only real concern at the moment is Commodore with at least one crossbow. Fortunately I've got that covered as well. I'll have 2 chariots + 1 axe in the are (axe is hopefully just to clean up a redlined unit because axes get shredded by xbows - it's just a warm body) and two Keshiks will be whipped to completion next turn so those can make it to my border city rather quickly too. Just played the next turn and still no sign of Commodore. My nearest chariot finally made it to the area and will act as a sentry - going to be careful not to get it killed. Within 5T I'll have enough to handle as many as 3 crossbows which seems like a very high estimate of a potential attacking force given Commodore's lack of military power. I'll get a chariot up there to sentry him and I'll slow down my rush if I don't see him coming - I have no real idea if he's planning to come or not. I'm guessing no - it's be silly to come at me at this point when I know what's coming... But I'm going to be prepared anyways.

See - the advantage I have right now is I have tons of whippable pop all over the place and I can build Chariots and Keshiks, so I can get them all out quickly. If Commodore doesn't come, I may cobble together a raiding party of some sort. We'll see. Report coming in a bit.

[scooter]

Basically - my position is actually really defensible. I have 1 city fronts everywhere (so no forking) and I own both of the main lakes that are my Brian/Lewwyn borders. Commodore didn't do that, so he lost a city. I've made a point to own those lakes - burning both towns for myself. I think that's helped me quite a bit. Unfortunately, Serdoa is MILES ahead in GNP/Food/MFG. It's actually embarrasing. It's like he's playing in a greens game or something - this is GG really soon here. I just wish Commodore would recognize that and leave me alone so I could fix it rather than killing my chariot. I've done all I can to signal friendly intentions but I'm guessing he just hasn't picked up on it. Oh well.

[scooter]

I'll split the military situation from the rest of the report. This is to make Dazed feel better by proving to him that I've got a plan up here . This is from today's turn.



Alrighty. First, yeah that's two chariots which helps. Those should kill 1 crossbow barring some bad luck, and I've only even seen 1 crossbow down there so I'm guessing he probably doesn't have any more than that. Also, Sante Fe and Simple Math both began Keshiks this turn and have the ability to whip next turn. Finally, I loaded up my elephant axe onto the galley that you see on the far right edge of the screen. I'm kinda playing "zone" with that galley - I can ferry it into the front city in case of emergency, but I'd like to drop it back onto jumbo island. So even if he rushes right at me now with 2 crossbows, the first Keshik will definitely make it on time so either way I should be fine. If THREE crossbows come into view next turn it'll be a little more dicey. I'll finish Construction at end of next turn though so that'll mean my roads across that river becomes a bridge so my Keshik from SM will get there 1T faster.

All of this may not matter though because again, I don't think Commodore is crazy enough to come at me right now. I'll use my northernmost chariot to be a sentry of sorts, and if he seems to happily stay at home, I may come up with some other plan. We'll see.

[scooter]

T61 is playing for second place

Turbo Settler time:



Yep that's a settler that just completed and being followed by a 1T settler. Don't need no economies.



The Market in No Light will be helpful - that's a good commerce city right now. Here's Serdoa:



So he went for the north elephant. I'd go for my north elephant if I had landed TGL, but it's not as valuable now because I won't get a 3rd IC route. Anyways, it'd be tempting to run some units down here, but given that forest and his culture giving him visibility, that's not really all that possible. Maybe to my south. Anyways, some city planning. The first two will really need Calendar which will be my next tech:



Because obviously. Strong site right here. I'll need to get some good defense into here from Lewwyn. Brian side:



Another strong site. A more immediately useful site:



I put that there temporarily but I hated the placement because it's off the coast. It just feels weird, though it could be a useful canal city. I'm considering switching it to 1NW (7) onto that plains forest coast near War Paint. That seems like the better spot. King Park has more improved tiles than it can handle so either way it seems helpful to be able to share some with these surrounding cities. Dazed - got a vote on which spot to settle? Basically, the sign allows a canal and more tiles, but NW of that makes it coastal and can share the stone. Coastal isn't a huge advantage only because that Fish pretty much has to belong to War Paint, so I don't know. See, the signed spot can also work 1st-ring Pigs without a border expansion so that's important too. Hm.

Anyways, proof Serdoa has lapped the field:

That's just ugly. Well played. Really wish I could do something about it, but I can't until I'm sure Commodore will leave me alone and given his chariot execution over there, I'm no longer confident of that. Sigh.