[SPOILERS] Small Wunders and Izzy of Inca: The fat lady sings

[WilliamLP]

The point wasn't to get a settler down there ASAP or anything. It was to slow Ichabod down or disrupt him. For example, if we put a GII Archer + GI Archer on that hill, then Ichabod has to either bring 4 phalanxes to clear them out first or settle elsewhere - a large resource requirement when he could be rexing with minimal army.

A G2 archer will be pretty hard to get. But the way things are going maybe we can get that second GG and start pumping 5xp units out of Turandot!

Given Cheetah's buildup, Ichabod probably couldn't spare those resources immediately. We've then cost him a very good city site at low cost in the worse case and, in the best case, we could land that location down the road.

I am a little worried about underdefending WT, just because of how good a city it is. It will be very appealing for Cheetah as well! I wouldn't be that surprised to see 4-5 axes come out of the fog to the NE soon. His rationale would be that we're under attack from 2 other players, we have to be weak somewhere. So I'm really reluctant to move anything away at this moment (we only have 2 archers and a spear there). But as quickly as we can get more military to the east (and we should) I don't mind the plan of aiming to have a couple of sentry archers on that hill at all.

Scouts are useful for sending a "peaceful, but watchful" message to your neighbours. I think that this message would be a little wasted on our current set of neighbours, and our messenger would be dead. We could use a scout for visibilty in Cheetah's direction, but that's probably the one area that we'd still encounter barbs.

They're also useful for having 2 moves! But I guess they're just food for chariots in this game, so bad idea.

He could afford it. All he needs to do is plant that city and fortify it with 2 Phalanxes and we wouldn't be able to do much about it until Retep is dead and/or we have cats. We could commit our entire army to the area, but that's a long way and a lot of turns and we'd probably have our gold-silver pillaged by Retep if we were to do so.

Are you sure we couldn't do much? We actually have 4 fairly expendable shock axes that could get there in a few turns! And the count so far is that retep has lost 8 axes and a worker (340 hammers) for nothing. I think at this point we could move quite a bit out and still be secure in defense, if all we're doing in the west is defense.

I think the point that defense is favored has been proven!

I'd really like to know if Retep is getting war weariness unhappiness in his capital yet. (Any lurker who can tell me if there's a number in game that shows me? I can see my WW toward him but can't find the other direction.)

The forumulas are out there but they have a lot of variables.

[WilliamLP]

Barracks: increased cost to 60 hammers, +1 culture.

Wow! Why didn't I know about the +1 culture until today? I don't think we'd ever build a barracks for culture but it does mean we can expect a player like Ichabod to build more barracks (and have more 2-promo phalanx) than he would in a normal game.

[Ceiliazul]

did your GG axe survive?

[MindyMcCready]

Barracks: increased cost to 60 hammers, +1 culture.

Wow! Why didn't I know about the +1 culture until today? I don't think we'd ever build a barracks for culture but it does mean we can expect a player like Ichabod to build more barracks (and have more 2-promo phalanx) than he would in a normal game.

You didn't know that? Shaka of Zulu is an absolute terror now.

I swear that I wrote that somewhere to mention how Retep's horse plant will build a barracks to get the silver. Another reason why we want a city 3W of LaTraviata - denial value. I think that I probably wrote it and then reworded dropping that mention.

Yeah, Ichabod with the Expansive markets + aggressive culture building really has no weakness in the mid point of this game. We'll need Horse Archers quite soon after construction to deal with him.

Speaking of unspokens: you know that the Phalanx does't get a bonus against Horse Archers, only Chariots. Just in case, info.

[MindyMcCready]

PS: Based on nothing more scientific than my own SP, I imagine that Retep wouldn't have any WW yet. Early game, it just doesn't seem to any impact.

I'd be surprised if we have any war weariness at all right now. My non-equation based understanding is that time spent in foreing lands + dying in foreign lands + capturing cities are the biggest factors and we haven't been doing too much of that aside from the Ichabod city raze.

Have you got an equation for that?

[WilliamLP]

did your GG axe survive?

Retep's turn:

Chariot vs GG W1 Axe on plains hill (28%): His loss
Chariot vs GG W1 Axe (97%): His win
Chariot vs Archer (74%): His loss

So in the end, the 2-promo GG axe was sacrificed for a worker, a chariot, and disrupting his chop in progress. I think it was worth it.




Sorry for messy signs but it's a messy game! I can't tell if we're playing a human being or the AI from a Starcraft campaign vs Zerg.

In total we have 7 axes (4 shock, 2C1), 2 spears, and an archer. We see 4 axes (none promoted) and 3 chariots.

Of our axes, only 2 are unwounded, the ones NW-N and NW-W of Barbiere. If retep wants to attack Barbiere in 2 turns behind walls

Preliminary moves:

N axe promotes to Medic 1 and moves S-S where the 3 axes there heal in place.
E axe heals in place.
2 full health axes and 2 spears on the fork tile (Traviata empty)
Archer moves to Barbiere to heal.

(Plus boring econ stuff - improve the gold then hopefully the silver.)

I won't play for a few hours, for input.




A couple of turns out of date - this is the poor combat vs Ichabod. He must have built a phalanx that turn since his drop is small.

[WilliamLP]

I'd be surprised if we have any war weariness at all right now. My non-equation based understanding is that time spent in foreing lands + dying in foreign lands + capturing cities are the biggest factors and we haven't been doing too much of that aside from the Ichabod city raze.

Have you got an equation for that?

This article seems pretty comprehensive.

Interestingly we had (as of last turn) 12 weariness toward Ichabod, and only 2 toward retep, where all the fighting was done in our borders. With Ichabod we captured a city, plus the recent combat losses occured in an area where we were not culturally dominant, despite it being our city borders! (Because the tile was inside Too Many Kojiros I guess.)

The best I can parse that is that retep has at least:
7 combats where he was attacked in our borders: +14
Maybe a losing attack from neutral to our culture, if the chariot vs archer counts: +3
Razed Carmen: +6

And it decays 1 every turn, so maybe he's at +21 or so?

The formula may be: 7 (population) * 21 (ww) * 0.70 (modifier for large map*) * 0.50 (modifier for multiplayer game) / 200

(It's a huge map in size but the XML settings were changed to give it the parameters for a large one.)

If this is correct, you're right, he's nowhere near unhappiness - maybe only 25% of the way there.

[WilliamLP]

You didn't know that? Shaka of Zulu is an absolute terror now.

I swear that I wrote that somewhere to mention how Retep's horse plant will build a barracks to get the silver. Another reason why we want a city 3W of LaTraviata - denial value. I think that I probably wrote it and then reworded dropping that mention.

Mabe I just dismissed any point that attributed that plant with any redeeming value whatsoever. To me it just says "Hurrr... I need da horsies naoowww...". If he wants to invest 60 hammers getting a barracks there without chops while growing to size 2, good luck.

Yeah, Ichabod with the Expansive markets + aggressive culture building really has no weakness in the mid point of this game. We'll need Horse Archers quite soon after construction to deal with him.

My own jury is still out on the value of the market even at 75 hammers, but if you play this game like you're "supposed to", expanding until the verge of bankruptcy and then digging your way out, I can see the worth of having them cheap when you're running less than 50% science.

Unfortunately, after saving 2 anarchy turns, our own SPI trait is basically a dead draw until the mid to late game, where it becomes good. Still, we're better off than Retep who sees Protective / Philosophical and thinks it a great combo for an all-in rush! (I wonder if he'll even see a single great person.)

Speaking of unspokens: you know that the Phalanx does't get a bonus against Horse Archers, only Chariots. Just in case, info.

Yes, and thank goodness. The last thing we need to face is a super axe / spear hybrid with 2 promos from barracks.

[WilliamLP]

I basically made the moves above, with the exception that I put a full health axe in Barbiere, in case Retep has two workers on the staging tile and a chariot to strike. (I have a hard time seeing how he could, given all the units we see...)

Situation in the east:




We have a CG1 archer, an unpromoted archer with 4XP, and a spear.

[WilliamLP]

Peeking at Retep's move before the turn roll:




He (temporarily?) stepped back. The axe and 2 chariots forked north, hoping we made a terrible oversight, but we didn't: Traviata will be defended with a C1 axe and 2 spears. The other units will keep healing, which is quite welcome.

I hate to bring this up again but I see a strong case for getting the east horse / furs city right now, rather than New Carmen. The reason is that the site needs virtually zero attention to defense, and Retep is showing every sign that he is going to be fishing for chess tactics on our borders for the rest of the game, to the exclusion of all else. And just a couple of chariots would force him to pull axes back and invest in spears. Also, the fur happiness would be quite valuable right now as well.