[SPOILERS] Out of retirement and into the fires of war. yuris125, Pitboss 68

[Tarkeel]

Commodore cleared our crossbow between the capital and Blue Moon, attacking with a guerrilla 3 longbow at 11% odds - the longbow withdrew - then killing with a horse archer. I killed the horse archer with ours, but he probably can reclaim the hill if he wants it. We didn't have a proper major fight with Commodore, with him withdrawing after razing Boros Burn, but he did win some low percentage combats in our skirmishes. Not that it had a major impact on the game, just adds insult to injury

I think the game only shows you the odds to win, and G3 LBs have a 50% withdraw chance, so the odds were much more in his favor than it looks.

[naufragar]

The annoying part is that I can stand by every decision I made in the game. The attempt to take advantage of Thoth's weakened defenders in the capital obviously ended up in a disaster, but apart from that... some decisions can be questioned in hindsight, but overall I think I played fairly well.

At the end of the day, you can only control your own play, and your play was good. There's always going to be a massive amount of variance in a setup like this just because of who attacks whom. And hey, that wheel might yet turn.

[yuris125]

Thanks. Randomness certainly played its role, just take the fact that the game probably plays out very differently if we our great person 3 or 4 is an engineer (over 40% chance of that) and we get the pyramids. And while I complain about Commodore's attack sealing the game for Miguelito, since neither of us is likely to be able to take on him on our own, I can guess his reasoning as well. This is an always war game, coordinating are two-front attack would be difficult, and if he sees the chance of us working together just as low as the chance of him beating Miguelito one-on-one, him going for the option which doesn't depend on another player's cooperation makes sense. Especially as I have history of misreading the meta. Heck, maybe I'm misreading it now

Anyway, the skirmish for the hill continues, Commodore loses a spear attacking my horse archer, but clears it with a chariot. I kill the chariot. Tbf, hammer-wise, this is probably working out in his favour, he's losing cheaper units than me. But I do need safety from that direction if I am to be able to send a stack against Thoth again

Speaking of Thoth, I made a mistake there, moved our sentry horse archer into his territory to see if Miguelito is doing anything, but forgot that the oasis ends unit's movement. So the horse archer is in range of Thoth's capital, and possibly toast. Hopefully he thinks it's a trap and doesn't go for it

Turned on research, Feudalism due in 4 turns, same turn as our next great person is born. If it's an engineer, we bulb Engineering; if it's a scientist, I probably go for a golden age to switch to Vassalage and help with Heroic Epic build

I think the game only shows you the odds to win, and G3 LBs have a 50% withdraw chance, so the odds were much more in his favor than it looks.

Thanks, this makes sense, I didn't see it in the tooltip and didn't think of looking up promotion details

[Tarkeel]

G3 and W3 are both something of an odd duck, doing different things than the two preceding promotions. They were also added later on (BtS IIRC?).

[yuris125]

We won the skirmish for the hill, at least for now

Commodore's stack moved into the fort closer to Yellow Comet. I'm still trying to figure out his plan; I keep looking at options how he can reach Gruul Smash across the sea, and just don't see a way for him to ferry over more than 4 units in a single turn (which would be easy pickings), even with the scary 4-move galleys




Or maybe Miguelito is threatening and Commodore has to move his stack for defence? I wouldn't say no to them actively fighting and leaving me free to go kill Thoth

Just wish I knew what Commodore's current plan is, if he has one. With his stack still a looming threat, I don't see how we can take another risk needed to attack Thoth. On the other hand, the longer we wait, the lower the chance of stopping Miguelito is....

For the moment Miguelito's power rank continues to climb at alarming pace, while Commodore's and ours are trending ever so slightly downwards after our skirmishes (thought I took a screenshot, but apparently not)

Oh, and Thoth did kill the sentry horse archer - mistakes were made

[yuris125]

Commodore's 4-move galleys are in the middle of the inner sea




I still don't understand why. Gruul Smash has 9 units on defence, they're not the best unit, but with 60% defences against an amphibious attack they're good enough. And Commodore can't ferry more than 8 units in a turn, he doesn't take the city even if he wins every combat

Moved a crossbow into the city just for being super ultra mega safe (also not like it's doing much elsewhere). I'm still building up a stack to make it possible to attack Thoth without exposing ourselves to Commodore too much. Our catapult count is decent (13), but I probably would have to leave some behind to make sure we can handle Commodore's invading stack. Likely we will have a window once we have longbows on defence, even better if we can get pikes as well

[yuris125]

One thought I had last night regarding Commodore and his 4-move galleys is that he recently finished Machinery, so perhaps after posturing for several turns with his mounted-heavy stack, he loaded the galleys with crossbows and is trying to find an opening with them. In which case moving that extra crossbow into Gruul Smash was a good play - although bowmen probably would've done ok against an amphibious attack with crossbows as well

Obviously no idea if I'm right, but this is one possibility I could come up with which makes sense

[yuris125]

Early turn today, but nothing's changed, the 4-move galleys are still in the middle of the ocean

Our great person is finally an engineer. Engineering bulb is happening next turn, then I can start thinking about how to separate our forces between attacking Thoth and defending against Commodore. Unless there's a reason not to bulb Engineering

Not sure on the next research, I was planning to go for Guilds, but will knights actually be good when Commodore's force is so heavy on war elephants? Will have a think. Commodore is currently on Civil Service after finishing Calendar; it's funny how we thought in the early game that Calendar resources would be important, but in the end Miguelito and I are managing happiness with HR and never bothered improving them (I have the forested bananas from the early game lumber milled, guess that counts as an improvement?). I think Commodore needed the extra happy because he's in Representation, that's why he researched it

[Tarkeel]

I'm a big fan of cottaging normal non-forested bananas actually.

[yuris125]

Yeah I probably would've cottaged it if it wasn't forested (and I think Thoth did after chopping down the forest to deny me defensive bonus in the first attack attempt). But I thought on this map hammer was more important