[Spoilers] Dtay's first PB: When you play a game of CIV, you win or you die

[dtay]

^Accidently didn't have that above thing in spoilers at first cause I just sort of assume everyone in pbem53 is in this game. Which is mostly true (BaII is not), but then Dhalphir and Azza seem to be on their way out of this one in the near future.

[BaII]

Hilariously I almost joined this game, so u might not have even had to put it in :P.

[dtay]

So TBS started the war early to snipe 2 workers off me. Amusingly, those workers weren't actually doing anything related to the war effort, they were going to chop some forests to get the Forbidden Palace up earlier.

Anyway, so I've had to accelerate and otherwise alter my war plans. Slow moving stack of death time. Unfortunately TBS has sentry chariots so he can see my stack before it bursts into his lands, so its looks like Im just going to force a giant pitched battle.

TBS has ~10 knights. That is scary. I'm going to do simming on how much dmg I can expect to take through flanking before I actually commit my army to the field. He only has 3 nearby catapults though.

So enough text, how do I know all this anyway? Because my spies let me see...

All this:



Information superiority. I has it.

This is my main army stack:



There are about 6 others muskets lying around in the field not quite in synch, and then ~2 in all the border cities.


So what's my plan? Just charge straight in? Honestly, pretty much. I looked for ways to outflank him and get to a city where he can't put all his longbows in one place, but without engineering it isn't doable. Tis why I wanted war not now, but in 6 turns. Good job TBS realizing that.

I do have a general power advantage:



Which is hoenstly redundant information because I can just LOOK at all of TBSs armies.

Islands, criminally underdefended:



Even right next to scooter:



So I tried to communicate that to scooter/pind:



Alliance + attack over the seas? We'll see if they interpret that right.

[Ceiliazul]

So I tried to communicate that to scooter/pind:



Alliance + attack over the seas? We'll see if they interpret that right.

Haha, nice diplo. I'm sure I wouldn't get it, but they're sharp guys, who knows... do you think you'll be able to take down all the mainland cities in this war?

Good luck!

[BaII]

Do you not have a big enough navy to land a few units onto those island cities? Or are not able to spare any troops for the mainlands war.

[dtay]

In the long run and without outside intervention, almost certainly. If only on the back of drafting. Efficiently? I think so. I need to do the sims of the initial knight attack on my stack, but if that is survivable withotu losing too many catapults my army is just way larger and more concentrated than TBS's. And can increase faster (see drafting). And will have Cur's coming soon ish for a 2nd wave.

He can stack ~6 trash units and ~8 longbows in a city for this first defense. And then has a hit stack of ~10 knights and 3 catapults (obvi I could see real numbers by looking in the game, but just ballparking off the top of my head here). I am attacking with 18 muskets, 6 war elephants, 3 maces, 24 cats, and a few trash units. Then I have something like 7 more muskets slightly out of synch that can cover cities or a damaged stack.

The main danger is flanking. I can have about 6 units that will get straight up odds on his knights (triple promo war elephants and muskets), 9 units if I burn the triple promo maces on formation instead of city raider. Then since all my muskets are c1 minimum, his promotionless knights are 10 v 9.9 for slight odds.

I'm glad rbmod nerfed flanking... luckily the vast majority of my cats can promote, so even if he damages them I can promo heal. I could also sit and heal for a turn while bombarding down city defenses, he can't get that many more defenders in in that time frame.

I'm going to do actual sims of this before the next turn though, I'll getback to everyone on that.

[dtay]

re: BaII, its more I have no port cities located anywhere nearby. I'd have to travel in a giant loop all the way around TBS mainland to get a navy to TBS's islands. TBS also has caravels so could win in a naval contest. Given time to respond, which he would have b/c of the path I'd have to take.

[dtay]

The real prize here is jetboy. The shrine in that city is worth preposterous amounts of gold per turn. Its a ton of how TBS managed to recover from the depths of hell I sent him to earlier. Like... I razed 2 of his first 4 cities. That he managed to come back from that to near parity with me econ wise is super impressive. Luckily I have a "jumpstart" advantage in relevant tech b/c the sum of beakers produced for me is higher + the lib slingshot + I've had 4 golden ages. But right now he techs at roughly the same rate.

[dtay]

Oh also forgot to mention how borders will work. Once (if?) I take bagabond I should gain control of all the roads to its north/north-west since I'm contesting them all culture wise and popinjay has only popped borders once.

[dtay]

Start of turn:



Then




So I have bagabond. I now have I think 3 credible options.
Option 1: Hook around and take Popinjay
Option 2: Head north for Modular Man
Option 3: Strike deep, strike hard, go for Jetboy

I positioned the muskets at end of turn such that I can pick between the 3 based on TBS's moves (I've since gone and seen what he did, but above pictures are from during the turn). My gut is I think a strike straight for Jetboy will make the most sense. its the most valuable city to deny TBS since it has a ton of population and the shrine, it will divide TBS's empire, and I think there is a benefit to leaving Popinjay. Because Popinjay is so close to my borders, TBS is forced to guard it otherwise I can plop 6+ muskets next to it on little notice and take it, since walls/castles don't work v my gunpowder units. So by leaving it, I force TBS to divide his forces even if I keep my stack together, since he can't be sure what reinforcements I have marching through my territory. And if he DOES abandon it I can take it on the cheap.


The tricky part of this turn was I had to divide my forces to guard the healing stack (which my territory grew to encompass) and guard Bagabond. I ended up moving all of the c1-undamaged muskets to bagabond, and left all the injured units to heal. Since some of the injured units are at about 8.2 and are c2+formation, I felt that was an adequate guard.

Healing stack:



Bagabond stack:



On logging back in after TBS we see he did this:



And has a lot of healing knights in the capital (and a medic-3 knight there as well).

I think my best shot is to march down the hills on a path to jetboy. That 25% extra is critical, since it gives my muskets odds on his knights. The tricky part will be figuring out how to garrison Bagabond.




Final note: Man all the city visibility is so convenient.
(pre TBS turn shot)