Gavagai is the last to open his thread

[Thorite]

YAY!

[Dark Savant]

Ooh, time to break out the popcorn! 

[Gavagai]

Kish was defended by a single warrior and stood no chance. I'll try to burn Lagash and then will seek peace: cannot attack the capital with WCs at that point. I'll try to finish off B4ndit later with Swords.

[Gavagai]

This is a T74 report which I am doing after playing T75. I still think that it is instructive and B4ndit may find it useful later.



This is the situation at the beginning of my turn, after I moved my scouting warrior 1SE. B4ndit has three Vultures: two of them you can see on the picture and there is one more in Lagash. I have three WCs (one of them heavily wounded) in Kish and one more in the open field (you can see it on the picture). Also, there is an axe moving towards Kish and there is a WC which is about to be completed in Memphis next turn. Important note: those are all the forces which I am ready to commit to this war. I need to prooduce the next cycle of settlers and workers now or I will critically fall behind the leaders. The army which I have described is not going to receive any reinforcements in foreseeable future.



This is the situation after I played. I have fucked up - the consequence of playing the turn in a tired, sleeep-deprived state. I have put two WCs from Kish in a position to threaten Lagash next turn. I have left the wounded WC behind - it was too weak to have positive chances against a Vulture. However, there was no way for me to threaten Lagash by eastern WC and keep it safe from a counter-attack by one of the vultures. This is why I put it into Kish for safety.
This was a wrong choice. As I threaten Lagash with only 2 WCs, B4ndit could have put all three vultures inside it and keep the city for one more turn. And next turn he would have completed a spear in it which would make things much more complicated. The correct play was to put the WC into Vultures' kill area. A vulture which would kill it, wouldn't be able to defend Lagash, so I would have 2 WCs against 2 Vultures. Observe, btw, that I did not delete the warrior, thinking that a unit which would kill it, would be effectively removed from this war for the next couple of turns. Sadly, I did not apply this logic to my chariot positioning as well.
And raising Lagash is very important. Without it Kish is safe from a counter-attack and I have a clear and quick path to the capital. With it Kish is right next to a culture border and the path to the capital would be a few turns longer. This small tactical mistake could have far-reaching strategic consequences.
Luckily for me, B4ndit fucked things up as well. I have no pictures but he left only one Vulture in Lagash, put one to NE from it and kept yet one more in place. To be frank, the logic of this unit positioning escapes me, this is one of the worst ways to position the units. I have raised Lagash and, after the culture has disappeared, was able to safely kill NE Vulture as well. I offered peace to B4ndit, as I have achieved all my war goals by now. A little bit later I will come back with Swords and take the capital.
Also: Plako has declared on B4ndit. There is Ur to SW from Lagash, Plako will get it. I have no quarrel with this.



This is the reason why B4ndit is in such a trouble: he stopped building units at critical moment. Also, the most of his army consisted of vultures. I suspect, he has no Archery as of now. I want to make it a point, actually: skipping Archery is a typical mistake of SP players inexperienced in MP. You should not do that. Archers are a great unit: they are cheap, they are just as good as any other one-mover as scouts, spotters and garrisons, they can be built after you connect your metal, they can defend cities reasonably well, they have no strong counters. And in Rtr mod Archery is dirt cheap. Without Archers B4ndit had to pay 35 hammers for garrisons and had his combat army spread out throught his whole empire instead of concentrated at one crucial point.

I will later make an state of empire post. Wanted to do it for T75 but T76 will do as well.

PS: I got graphs on Plako after turn roll, his army is actually equal to mine. I hope, he would not want to mess with WCs and I am definitely leaving him alone.

[Gavagai]

This is the middle of T76. B4ndit has chosen to reject my peace offer and instead killed one of my WCs with his vulture. He tried to kill another one but the vulture died. I killed his victories vulture back, the picture was made immediately after that.



If this is how he wants it, I might as well press on. This is the situation at the end of the turn: I can attack his capital with four WCs. A barbarian ally joins in from the east.

However:



Plako wants to be annoying. He took a city from B4ndit and made peace and is now sneaking around my borders. This is why I decided to play conservativly next turn.



I pulled 2 WCs back to Kish. May seem like an overkill but I want to send a clear message to Plako. I advanced forward with other units but also offered peace to B4ndit again. My Axe has only 50% chance against the spear after all defensive bonuses are accounted for, he whipped something in the capital this turn and there is one more spear lurking somewhere in the south. It can reappear in the capital. Also, barbarian Axe is more interested in pillaging than attacking cities. I am not taking the capital at that moment.

[Gavagai]

I considered declaring war on Plako and offering peace to force him to reveal his intentions but decided against it. I believe we both are rational enough to sort out the trust problem without fucking up trade with each other.

[Gavagai]

Competitive demos but the game is lost. Mackoti started between two green players, one of them opened with a warrior and another one wasted early game on building wonders. End of story.

[Gavagai]

About wonders. I remember, there was a time when it was a non-trivial choice - whether you want to expand at start or to build a wonder. At the current state a combination of RB-mod early wonders nerf and incredible lushness of hand-made maps removed this decision from the game. I do not like that but apparently I am in minority.

[Gavagai]

War Chariots. What a good unit.

[Bacchus]

Got an update? How is it looking? Who will win?