TheArchduke tries his best not to be overrun again as Pericles

[Bacchus]

He is simply showing situational awareness, he can't attack Singaboy until he dealt with us. He would be walking into a 2v1. This way, he is pushing us into 2v1.

Maybe a little overly aggressive with the horses there, but you are going to try and kill the encampment the very next turn, if I understand correctly?

[Bacchus]

By the way, the south-eastern-most horse won't be able to attack the encampment because it's on a hill, that's why I was talking about staging on the tile that's within Mykenes culture, needs the GG move bonus. But maybe these rainforests cover hills as well, it's impossible to tell. Anyway, it will still give an extra flanking bonus, which is nice.

Talk me through the plan for next turn. Oledavy will shoot up one of the two southern horses supposedly for ~68 damage, and upgrade his northern units, what do we do?

EDIT: I've just realised and checked something -- there is no flanking bonus against districts. Ouch.

[TheArchduke]

Upgrade the double promoted archers to crossbowmen and yeah, launch an attack on the encampment.

It is clear that Oledavy is aiming for us, so we will strike first, if he does not.

[Bacchus]

Oh, I'm sure that he will declare war and shoot at the horses, we would be mad not to do it.

[TheArchduke]

I am close to resigning this game.

Carthage, alone for Oledavy. Are you kidding me? Is there a Geneva somewhere in the north as well.

Why there is not an encampment on every frigging city of Oledavy I have no idea.

What an easy mode map for everyone else it seems concerning Citystates apart from me. Here have some screenies. I am not feeling like even moving right now.  It is a wonder I am actually not behind in score on this shitty map.

   

   

   

[TheArchduke]

Not sure why he wants to attack the strongest military behind China, but whatever.

It is not like I really had a chance to win this in any case.

   

[Bacchus]

Ooh that backline horseman is painful. And of course upgrading knights increased his garrison strength.

Alright, well the Mykenes horseman has to come back as does the hoplite. Horseman can go right between Ithake and Mykenes, hoplite into Mykenes itself. We'll lose the cattle pasture I presume.

So, anything that we realistically take has to be slowly shot down over time. Pulling the horse back is not even a problem, as why run it into strength 44 full health encampment. Our own horse know has to be used very defensively, basically to trade against knights at something like 2-for-1 by concentrating attacks.

There is now less rush for upgrading the crossbow too, as we can't really take down the encampment quickly. Good timing by Davy on those knight upgrades.

Move the crossbow from Myrmi on to the forest behind the encampment, from where he can shoot encampment attackers. Vacate that spot by pushing the horse up to the mountain pass. We kinda want to threaten a breakthrough and pillage campaign in his backlines too.

Shuffle generals north. Move double promoted Archer into Myrmi, to be upgraded next turn.

Relocate all trade routes to run out of Mykenes to somewhere productive (Myrmi, I guess), we want to push that crossbow completion forward.

We should have saved a builder for chops actually, but nvm. Still, let Ithake build a builder next, I'm sure chopping those rainforest will give a crossbow quicker.

[Bacchus]

And also, yeah, the map was brutal to us. City-states are one thing (partly can be alleviated through aggressive scouting), but we have a hopeless geopolitical position, because we are in the middle of a Pangaea, neighbouring effectively everybody. Long-term, now that Alhambram has his economy seemingly sorted, there is only one outcome for us -- get partitioned between peripheral players. But that's just the consequence of a random Pangaea, you are very likely to have a more centrally located player. The trick here is not to win, that's very difficult for us, as any economic development just invites a dogpile, but just to give a good showing, and I think it's been very reasonable so far.

[TheArchduke]

It was a random map checked for unbalance. Realistically we could only ever contact on CS first and those boni are massive. Carthage however is really out there with its +1 trade route. I do think we need to kill his encampment if we want to have any hope of keeping Myrmidon.

And yeah the map blows, I can't wait to read the smug lurker comments this time around..

[Bacchus]

+1 trade is suzerainty, which Davy has no particular advantage in getting (the double-your-first-envoy policy makes up for the free envoy Davy would have got).

We do need to shoot the encampment down, that's definitely true, but it will just take longer. And to earn these extra turns we need to prop up our own encampment, taking one shot at the Schuyler camp now is not as good as being able to concentrate fire on a knight next turn. If we can kill two of his knights, we can then shoot the Schuyler camp at leisure.