Intersite Game - Turn Discussion Thread

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Are CPers, WPC and UniversCiv really stagnant, or maybe they just haven't finished their 5+ turn tech?

[NobleHelium]

Yes Nic, CP, WPC and UCiv have all agreed to a pact to not tech for the remainder of the game.

[Sullla]

Germans finished their turn. They only whipped a single time, one 2 pop whip. A confident bunch. I will type up my thoughts on how to play this turn tomorrow, but here's some pictures of the tactical situation before heading off to bed:

Looks like nearly all of the German army up in the northeast is moving towards us. If only WPC had moved in two turns ago... Anyway, we also uncovered virtually the entirety of CivFr territory with that Spanish map trade, and we can see everyone's techs now (including the backwards teams) via our Alphabet discovery. I will run through all of that tomorrow when it's not 1am local time.

Expect to play the turn at 6pm EST again on Friday.

[Sullla]

Game is down right now, so I can't take any more screenshots. Hopefully it will be back up this evening to run the turn.

Here is our main front at the start of our turn. I did move up the mace as requested onto the plains hill tile in the east, revealing a longbow and a spear inside Wismar. That's looking like a tempting target (we can road the desert hill two north of Wasserburg and hit it easily with knights), but the capital must come first.

The Germans seem to be focusing on a lot of war elephants instead of longbows, which is a total godsend for our team. While it's true that elephants do well against knights, longbows in cities on hills do far better, since the elephants get no defensive bonuses at all. A C2 knight versus a C2 elephant isn't even all that bad (it's roughly strength 12 versus strength 13.6 and yes, I know the combat odds don't work that way). Meanwhile, a C2 knight versus a CG2 longbow in a city on a hill behind walls is roughly strength 12 versus strength 14.7, plus the longbow is cheaper to produce, plus the longbow gets a first strike against anything not a knight. It's not really a contest. The Germans should be covering their territory with a sea of longbows:



This is the stuff of my nightmares. Thankfully, we are not seeing too many longbows thus far. We will take Helm S Klamm this turn (C1/Shock knight has 88% odds to kill the lone axe) and then move the main stack northwest of Worms, in position to hit the German capital on T156.



The northwest is quiet. We can be the aggressors again over here. My suggestion is that we road the desert tile south of the iron and move our two maces + one elephant over here onto the tile two south of the rice (W-SW of Weil). We have another mace who can cover the three roading workers against any potential chariot in the fog. This allows us to move the 2 maces + 1 elephant combo up next to Weil der Stadt on T155, which is probably not enough to take the city on their own, but it will force the Germans to keep at least some kind of token defense in there, or we'll walk into the city. Those units will also block the only road that runs over to Wanzleben, since there is no connection north of the peaks along the coast (as of 5 turns ago when we scouted this area last).

The tile west of Weil is also useful to hold because if the city falls, we can road the tile two west of the city and move W-W-NW to be directly next to Wanzleben. This is why it's better to go after Weil before Wanzleben, since we have easy access to the far northwest city once Weil goes down. At the very least, we'll put a little pressure on over here and make them think about moving every unit into the capital.

Probably the worst news of the turn was the disappearance of the German army from the WPC front. There's almost nothing left up here now. It's possible that there are units hiding south or southwest of Wasserburg, but most likely they are all moving down to defend the capital. If WPC had just moved in two turns sooner, we wouldn't be in this situation right now (and there would likely be a lot of dead WPC and German units from a massive unit trade, sigh). But it is what it is. WPC will be happy, if things stand like this they'll get a pretty free city up here.

Now a word about the terrain here in central German territory. If you'll note the German road network, there is no way for units that were inside Wasserburg last turn to make it into the capital to defend on T156. The existing road network doesn't allow it. However, if the Germans road a couple of hill tiles, then those units will be able to make it there just in time. We should assume that they'll have workers available, and those units will all be inside the capital.

So what are we looking at facing? After accounting for units killed by WPC and units still up at Wasserburg, we're looking at roughly 10 axes and 10 catapults moving down from the north, to go along with whatever the Germans have assembled on their own. The one really good news is that we won't have too many longbows to fight inside the German capital, likely either 2 or 3 of them, and none of the units moving down from the north will have any fortify bonus either. I'm thinking we'll be facing something like 3 longbows, 5 elephants, 12 axes, 10 cats, and 5 spears. It's a not inconsiderable number, but once we take out the city defenses with our catapults, we'll get odds on just about everything there. I would not be surprised if it took two turns to take the capital just in terms of wading through all of the units we have to kill. And this is also a bit of a pessimistic scenario where the Germans don't make any attempt to defend against WPC. If we're lucky, they'll keep some of that in the north and we'll have an easier time.

I plan to do the turn at 6pm EST (1800) tonight, same time as usual. Livestream: http://www.twitch.tv/rbciv/

[Bigger]

this war suddenly got more difficult. I'm pretty sure we can roll Adlain, but I'm worried about fighting Lord Park down the road.

[Bigger]

Yes Nic, CP, WPC and UCiv have all agreed to a pact to not tech for the remainder of the game.

well this is good news. maybe CFC and CivFr will join that alliance

[darrelljs]

I saw the screenshot before reading the text and soiled myself.

Darrell

[antisocialmunky]

... worst load/unload boat micro ever.

[Bigger]

this kind of funny. turns out CivFr did us a favor by giving the Germans Ivory, they would be tougher to take out without it . (im assuming they would be building longbows and not more axes if they didn't have ivory).

[Ruff_Hi]

The northwest is quiet. We can be the aggressors again over here. My suggestion is that we road the desert tile south of the iron and move our two maces + one elephant over here onto the tile two south of the rice (W-SW of Weil). We have another mace who can cover the three roading workers against any potential chariot in the fog. This allows us to move the 2 maces + 1 elephant combo up next to Weil der Stadt on T155, which is probably not enough to take the city on their own, but it will force the Germans to keep at least some kind of token defense in there, or we'll walk into the city.

Why road 1 south of the iron and put units 2 south of the rice? Why not road the iron and put units 1 south of the rice?