[PB66] Tarkeel and civac explore the untamed wilds

[Tarkeel]

Turn 65 (1400 BC)
Our heroic axes has been slaying a lot of barbs down south, and one can promote shock next turn. There's still more barbs coming, so the south isn't likely to be immediately contested. We're likely to need chariots soon, but our horses are located in a rather inconvenient spot.


We also founded Crushbone on the northern shore, which is likely to annoy MagicScience, who likely wanted to settle on the forest to grab the twin crabs we're now taking. We have a few cottages coming online so the economy isn't quite dead yet.


Crushbone is the main Orc stronghold on Faydwer, and a constant thorn in the side for the elves.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 68 (1280 BC)
Kedge Keep was founded last turn, giving us a foothold in the south:


CrabCorn will be next, but the other city sites here are very tentative still. We're churning out some more axes to go exploring, as the barbs don't stop coming.


Kedge Keep is an underwater dungeon located below Dagnor's Cauldron, home to Phinigel Autropos.

[civac2]

I pushed pretty hard for settling the eastern area because it is so food-rich. The hope was it could supply settlers and workers for expansion. However, it turned out both cities required various small items (2 wb, a monument) which could only reasonably supplied with 1 pop whips. Both cities were pressed for happiness, but especially Kelethin. The whole thing didn't work out as planned though it's still hard to see where else we could have settled.

What's the point of these ruminations? It partly explains why we didn't defend Crushbone at all.



Tarkeel didn't consider that Crushbone would have denied MS a city on the southern tip of his area because it's technically the same landmass. For me, my builder instinct got the better of me and I did not want to mistreat the eastern cities even more. (And even a 2 pop-whip would have produced only one axe without a mine S of Kelethin. Which we totally should have build over one of the cottages of course.) This blasé attitude was enhanced by Tarkeel being so obviously unworried.

Anyway, we offered peace but MS is apparently on the war path having tasted sweet victory.



Not even a counter offer of a cease fire. Kelethin is defended by a cold-whipped axe and a warrior. If he has a chariot the city will likely fall and if he has two axes it's not too improbable either.

However, his later actions are a bit unwise I dare say. Burning down Crushbone was fair enough. We did have that one coming. If he keeps going for it the last vestiges of hope for this game will die and we have a free hand to pull him down into the Abyss with us.

(Notice how it was not possible to settle Crushbone in a less provocative location without ceding both crabs. We would have jumped at a solution that took the southern crab and left the other for MS. Even those parts of our lands that look fine superficially are f*cked up in subtle ways.)

[civac2]

It appears MS is keeping the war going to ensure he gets the double-crab city. That's fine. Let's see how quickly he can supply a settler. Our backup settler will be able to reclaim the spot in 3 turns which is probably too late. If so, we will take the alternative spot at the wheat sharing corn and sheep. Taking the corn off Kelethin helps that city's happiness issues.

Somewhat bizarrely MS dropped off his axe in the ruins of Crushbone again. Maybe this is meant as a signal or he wants to cut the road south of the ruins.

[civac2]

No settler from MS yet. Bit sloppy that.



If he gets a settler on the forest next turn we could beat him to the city but that would be quite dangerous. MS healed his axe in our territory and it would have odds vs the city garison (it has C1). If his galley returns with more axes or chariots the city would fall a second time. If he does not get the settler ready next turn we can likely found and defend Crushbone2.

[civac2]

MS offered a cease fire followed by a peace treaty (presumably, got an empty screen after the cease fire).



He may gotten spooked. From its vantage point on the hill his axe was able to see three axes of our own. And he may not know we don't have Sailing and thus can't hurt him at all. However, from next turn the pensinsula will be garrisoned by 5 axes and a spear in total.

And so, we are back to where this unfortunate epsisode started other than being down a settler, 11 turns of development for Crushbone and unreasonable amounts of whip anger. Why do this at all if he does not have a settler ready? MS is going for the Colossus and may not want to be distracted from that goal. (That was another reason I did not expect him to get aggressive.) But again, if so the attack was ill-considered. Unfortunately, that also means MS will have triremes very shortly.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 79 (900 BC)
I've been a bit too busy lately, but at least civac has kept you updated on the main events. MagicScience burned our lightly defended Crushbone, setting us back dearly. Just how much is becoming apparent now. But first, a look at our core:


Firiona Vie was founded last turn, after a long discussion about shifting it around some. This will be a very good heroic epic city down the line, and we've already got the level 4 axe from hunting barbs. Only just in time, as the supply of barbarians from the south has been cut off:


We only recently made contact with Alhazard's warrior when it was spotted in the wilds south of Felwithe, and last turn found his borders on multiple fronts, and this turn found him ready to settle one of the few decent cities we had pencilled in. We sent him an offer of peace-time turnsplit:

Greetings MrHazard,
We have seen your settler in the unsettled area between us, and feel it's best to ask for a peace-time turnsplit for the next few turns. As we're already playing, we will take the first half.
Yours,
TarVac

Right now we have a settler in Kedge Keep, and are lining up two more. In an ideal world we'd declare war and scare him away from GameCove, but that's not something we want to do against Egypt with horses hooked. If for some magic reason he retreats his settler we'll try to grab that site (or even the flatland NW of it), but main target now is ShinHills or the agressive plant S of it. We'll then probably take SuperLake for our transition into the main prize in all:


The eastern wilds would have been our natural expansion if it wasn't for the very awkward terrain south of Felwithe. You can also see the very weird archipelago that's contested between us and GKC; we have considered settlig it but it will be very hard to defend. This map has the weirdest islands I've seen.

There's also other action around us; Mjmd whipped up a force and burned a city from Jack, and MagicScience seems to be involved in another border skirmish with GKC. Gingerlito built the Oracle and took CodeOfLaws, so I'd peg them as the clear frontrunners right now.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 80 (875 BC)
Alhazard settled Byblos on the flatlands that were surely his original spot. It's a sweet city with sheep, cattle and deer.


It's not a great border city as it's on flat grounds and locks us into SuperShittyCity. In the west he's ready to snipe our gems with a settler under the archer, again on flat ground. His warriro has been walking south of Felwithe and Kedge Keep's culture should be visible in the fog, but we're pretty sure that's the limit of his knowledge of our borders. That's a long way of saying he doesn't know how bad a border he's creating with those two cities, and that's not something we can live with so we're going to the the most stupid thing I've ever done in a pitboss: Attack Egypt (with hooked horses) in the ancient era.

War Chariots are scary, but so far we've only seen archers and the odd warrior from Alhazard. We have a sea route to Pi-Ramesses which is connected to his horses, but don't have a trade connection to him, which should mean the horses aren't connected to his core for whatever reason. The axe at Byblos revealed that there's a large expanse of water between the two psosible axis of advance, so we'll have to commit to one side. The axe could have gone SW onto the hill to threaten the horses, but we felt that it would probably not manage to disconnect them before dying. We're also somewhat helped out by the barbarians around Pi-Ramesses; it's archer defender is out of position after killing a warrior on the pigs, and there's a spear advancing.

The strategic goal for this war is clear, raze and resettle the border. I'm not sure it's possible, but our lands are bad enough that it's a risk we have to take.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 81 (850 BC)
Alhazard redirected the western settler onto the plainshill instead, which was surely an afterthought. Byblos' archer retreated though, being replaced by a war chariot that was whipped in Pi-Ramesses last turn. Pi-Ramesses is defended by a 2.3 strength G1 archer, which might not survive against the spear. Our initial force is gathering SE of Kedge Keep this turn; there's another axe/spear coming down from the northeast as well.


MagicScience is extremely trusty after burning our border city, leaving two of his very exposed:


Hermes (which can be seen from our borders) is defended by a lone Phalanx, and Apollo is actually undefended! Id only our attention wasn't focused in the south, this would have been a good time to take advantage.

Our scout is having a walk through Mjmd's core, and I much prefer his copper and horse placement:


It looks like we're in the bad part of the world, as Mjmd is the onlyone we know on the upper half of the scoreboard (not that score is important at this stage)

[Tarkeel]

Turn 83 (800 BC)
Alhazard's exploring warrior was in a position to spot our stack last turn, so we moved up to his borders in order to invade this turn. His response was... puzzling.


The WarChariot left Byblos, leaving it undefended against the barbarian axe, and the warrior turned back into the eastern wilderlands. He only whipped once as well. It looked like that the water between Byblos and Akhetaten is a fjord separating his holdings, with his core on the Akhetaten side to complicate his logistics. Our scouting workboat confirmed this turn that there is indeed a narrow isthmus connecting his lands. First we take the opportunity to pop the exploring warrior:
Spear vs Warrior, 99.12%: Victory and 2xp

Byblos can be dealt with in several ways: The axe that's currently in Byblos will be teleported out, but it has enough XP to take Woodsman 2 and get back in the city immediately (and then die). We also discussed going full bore and killing all three cities he has over there, which might tip this over into a forever war but the land connection will make that hard. We could offer peace for Byblos, but then the barb axe would take the city. Instead we're going to raze and resettle 1N where the city is better placed, both for culture and immune to strikes from the sea.