[SPOILERS] scooter, pindicator, and Huayna Capac try some fast Zulu cuisine

[pindicator]

Yeah I'm sure the lurkers also told him to plant that totally ridiculous pink dot too.

We also told him that you didn't have any copper.

And now we're trying to meta-influence him into seeing all the posts in your thread and interpreting it as a portent of doom

@scooter- i am undecided. I think i am with whichever you decide and for the same reasons: anyone but Commodore and i'd be ok playing nice and advocate it here. I can't help but think of pb5, where rego and i courted comm as heavily as we could as a friend -- yet at the end of the game he's openly talking about invading rego & i despite our gifts and overtures. Point is, i think acting friendly to comm is a futile gesture. I hate to play based on my neighbor but i think we need to take the chance to go for the throat here.

What if we ignore the warrior and chariot and instead go pillaging? Maybe that's what we do after the attack, to eliminate any counterplay first by removing the chariot.

With the pbem45v break i am going to put a little more time here.
Or perhaps that's

[scooter]

@scooter- i am undecided. I think i am with whichever you decide and for the same reasons: anyone but Commodore and i'd be ok playing nice and advocate it here. I can't help but think of pb5, where rego and i courted comm as heavily as we could as a friend -- yet at the end of the game he's openly talking about invading rego & i despite our gifts and overtures. Point is, i think acting friendly to comm is a futile gesture. I hate to play based on my neighbor but i think we need to take the chance to go for the throat here.

What if we ignore the warrior and chariot and instead go pillaging? Maybe that's what we do after the attack, to eliminate any counterplay first by removing the chariot.

I guess that's what I'm a little bit torn on. I agree with your past reasoning that they do not have copper, and I guess I'm a little torn on how to leverage that. They are not equipped to kill Impis on forests (though they could do it on flat ground without too much difficulty). Part of the question, then, is do we want to go straight for his backline cities and choke, or would we prefer to take this 72% shot on the warrior to see what happens? Part of the downside is even if we get 2 wins, that's serious health we could lose, which could mean a good half-dozen turns of healing while Commodore preps. Yes we'll get XP out of it to promote, but a redlined Impi is still going to take awhile to heal so far from home.

[athlete4life10]

Hello Everybody,
I believe I was actually mentioned here recently so low and behold here I am, back from the dead with the pull of CIV4 and some free time so I've managed to find my way back to RB. I've been guest ded lurking this thread for about a month and feel like I had to weigh in here, not that what I say will matter much. Strictly as a dedicated lurker, I would say go for it. I've not looked at past games/relationships or anything since I left RB but to me it seems that war is inevitable with Commodore so why not make it on your terms, while you have an advantage.

Kill the warrior/chariot. If you can continue to move on and choke great, if not, you've still put a blow to him.

Just my two cents.

On a side note, this thread and the current ADV which I still hope to finish and report on, are the only reason I continue to come back here now.

[pindicator]

Well, what is the goal here? Are we trying to slow comm down? Or do we want to take a shot to "send a message" for trying to settle in our grill? If we want to slow comm down then forget the chariot- lets go choke him instead. If we want to enforce some kind of line, i'm not sure hoe you would convey that but it seems high risk / low reward.

[pindicator]

Glad to have you along, athlete!

[scooter]

Athelete - great to have you around, please stick around and weigh in.

Well, what is the goal here? Are we trying to slow comm down? Or do we want to take a shot to "send a message" for trying to settle in our grill? If we want to slow comm down then forget the chariot- lets go choke him instead. If we want to enforce some kind of line, i'm not sure hoe you would convey that but it seems high risk / low reward.

We have two avenues:

1) If we believe Commodore may be rational and realize he doesn't need to fight us early on to win this game, our goal should be to let him go and just contain, maintaining diplomatic relations. No war has actually been declared at this point. We seem to be in agreement that this is a false hope, though.

2) If we believe Commodore will eventually build back up and come at us again in an era or so, our goal should be to slow him down as much as we can. His start is a quicker start than us, so the best chance we have at doing that is now when we are strong relative to him. This means we try to use these 2 Impis now to inflict the maximum damage. That means a city is not falling, but it does present us the option of A) running for his backlines or B) nailing this chariot.

I really see the attractiveness of 2A over 2B, but we would need to do it carefully. Here's the geography from a turn ago:



He planted on a forest, so there's not easy access to a forest chain. If his chariot lives, it's trivially easy to whack an Impi with an archer + chariot if the Impi is on flat ground, and that's the worst case scenario. He has 2 combat workers available (that we've seen) too, keep in mind. So the real issue is getting back onto forests when the region south of his new city is devoid of them.

We would also need to account for that chariot's ability to turn around and make a run at McDonalds. We ALSO need to account for the fact that we'd like to settle towards the stone relatively soon, and if we're using these Impis to try to run around in his land, we'll need more defenders. So there's a tangible economic loss to pushing forward rather than whacking the chariot and then holding back. What I'm having trouble measuring is if the gain outweighs it.

[pindicator]

What I'm having trouble measuring is if the gain outweighs it.

One of my stumbling blocks as well.

Another is that if i look back at wars Commodore has fought, one thing that stands out is the number of times he has ground out a victory from drawish or even unfavorable beginnings. I don't think war should be taken lightly, because (say what you will about the strategy, but) he usually is able to extract his pound of flesh.

I'll think about it some more, but would we be able to sneak an impi around south before borders expanded? If we didn't go to war, would we want to scout like this? (Getting back would be trivial - declare and offer peace.

[scooter]

No we can't sneak it around - look at the picture right above your post - his culture covers it off pretty nicely.

And yeah, this is why Commodore is a dangerous opponent. For all his bizarre and misguided choices, he's excellent at tactics and war. He's not a serious threat to win the game with the kind of strategic decision-making he's made so far, but he's a huge threat to prevent us from winning.

Anyways, here's the thing. If we let the chariot/warrior go and push for his backlines, I'm having a hard time seeing a good path for our Impis to take. That's what's pushing me to just whacking them and then seeing where that leaves us.

[scooter]

Ok, I believe we should hit the chariot/warrior and go from there rather than ignoring them and running for the backlines. The reason why is simple:



That's all flat ground down there. Leaving an unpromoted non-Agg Impi on flat ground when the other guy has an archer + other units is suicide - you hit with the archer, redline, and clean up with whatever you want. This means landing on defensive terrain is not optional, and we just can't really do that down here. So let's whack the warrior/chariot, and see if we can't get a nice promotion or two and go from there. Let's also gift Azza the horses for now.

Ok with that?

Also, Pindicator, after today can you play all the turns through the 1st? I'll be gone and not around too much until then (then I won't have any absences for quite awhile).

[pindicator]

I'm like 90% sure that if we hit his warrior / chariot that this is not going to be a quick war. Then again, its all in fun so go ahead.

Dunno if i can play tomorrow but i should be able to play even with travel this weekend.