[PB66] Tarkeel and civac explore the untamed wilds

[civac2]

Alhazard reinforced Akhetaten with a damaged guerilla archer and retreated from Byblos. The barb axe subsequently captured the city.



Our C2 + Shock hero looked down on the hapless barb with disdain from his hill, hefted his axe which had slain countless multitudes of other barbarians and charged ...



... and died. A somewhat embarassed newbee axe stepped over the corpse of the Hero of Spain and finished the job, dispatching barb axe and city both. Hopefully, three spears will be sufficient to keep the war chariots at bay. (Tarkeel assures me the Heroic Epic remains unlocked. I shall be incredibly salty if this is not the case.)

Culture expansion in Felwithe increased our vision of the east cost and it is not good.



Possibly, the bay extends far enough south to cut us off from the rich fishing grounds there. Hopefully, the water tiles in the south are just some lakes.

We offer peace next turn after resettling a single border town. Hopefully, Alhazard excepts. Probably not immediatly though, the way these things tend to work.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 85 (750 BC)
We founded Paineel on the forest north of Byblos, sent up our stack and offered peace.


We did consider beeing cheeky and requesting Akhetaten for peace, and considering Alhazard cut the road towards Alexandria, he might be scared enough to accept. In the end we decided to offer white peace to signal that this was just a minor border dispute so maybe there's hope of lasting peace afterwards. If we get peace, the next settler out should settle ShinyHills to secure the border; the current settler is going to SuperLake to take some food away from Felwithe.

[civac2]

We advanced with our mini stack. Tarkeel wanted to pressure Alhazard to make peace by threatening the horses while I was sceptical of exposing our small force. The advance was useful in a different way than Tarkaeel expected.



While it did very little threatening or pressuring it did spot Alhazard's force of 8 war chariots. After releasing the scouting axe from its military contract the rest of our stack hightailed it back to Paineel.

Alhazard spurned our generous peace offers. We added some spears and are currently up to 6 spears and 2 axes in Paineel. Some additional reinforcements are trickling in but I have abstained from whipping too hard as our cities are badly happy-constrained. If Alhazard shows up with 15 war chariots I may regret that decision. There is also the issue Alhazard may try to slip around our defences by using the road to Akhetaten. We likely have to sacrifice a unit soon to ascertain location and numbers of the war chariot force.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 89 (650 BC)
Alhazard has moved his WarChariots over to the western bank of lake conflict, but we expect some to be on the other side as Pi-Ramesses was whipped last turn.


We had two axes on the flatland W-NW of Akhetaten; one was sacrified to deep scout and the other is limping home on the junglehill under spear cover (stack A). We Vodka'ed this, and even with all 8 WarChariots and 2 archers, he would only have some 40% odds to kill it, at great cost to his stack. Stack B is ready to reinforce Kedge if Alhazard bypasses the hill, while stack C can either punish the junglehill or pressure Akhetaten from the gems. Note that he can't see either of these two reinforcement stacks.

We an invasion of the hill 2E of Firiona Vie, where that city can be burned at the cost of exposing his stacks without archer cover, a trade we're willing to make. For now we're dancing around, trying to ambush an invasion with spears.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 91 (600 BC)
Alhazard took the bait and killed the axe, giving us time to reinforce, and we're still waiting for the invasion to come. We founded Erud's Crossing to take some food away from Felwithe.


Main point of discussion has been whether it's worth a turn of anarchy to swap into Buddhism for the happy, which is a good indicator of how bad our position is. We'll probably swap in 2 turns when we have 3 cities benefiting.

[Tarkeel]

T93. Still no invasion, and we revolted. Not going to get a better turn for it outside of a Golden Age.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 96 (475 BC)
The only thing happening the last few turns was the conversion to Buddhism on T93, but Alhazard's stack has finally turned up on the western borders, as expected:


That's 14 WarChariots (3 w/C1) with 2 axes and an archer for stack cover. We expect his plan is to immediately charge Paineel, which is defended by 7 spears (1 w/C1, 4 with full fortify) and an axe. We have other units in the area, and can shift from the east, but the main threat is actually a flank around the lake to threaten Erud's Crossing. He shouldn't know about that city, but moving to attack Paineel would reveal culture that indicates a city in that area. A barb archer from the east is not helping us. We decide to move the extra spear in for safety this turn, Vodka gives 0% chance of losing the city.

We've been having our eye on the Solitude hill on the border with Mjmd, and our settler was two turns away from reaching it when Mjmd claimed it this turn. Yet another thing we barely miss out on this game.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 97 (450 BC)
Alhazard's stack hasn't moved, and we got a peace offering when I first logged in. After looking around we decided to re-offer. It appears he moved up a WC and saw the defenses, and noped out of it.

E: His stack is one WarChariot short, so he probably scouted deep with it.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 100 (375 BC)
Our scout found Amica for the last contact, and we're missing about 20 tiles for circumnavigation. We also founded a new city in the east, with the settler to backfill another site on the way.

State of the Realms
Despite some setbacks in both the north and the south, our little empire is starting to take shape. We've only just recently completed our 8th worker, but every city (except the just-founded) has a granary. Three libraries are supplying most of research capacity, with more coming online soon, along with temples where we can-





Based on our limited knowledge of the world, Mjmd and Plemo&Piccadilly seems like the two top contenders, but it's too early to write off anyone else (maybe apart from MagicScience, who's on the wrong side of a Praetorian war).
Overview


We've almost settled the available space; the settler for ClammyCorn can be seen just south of Dagnor's Cauldron, and DampCloth and ShinyHills are more or less filler cities at this stage. We'll also likely try to get another city on the south-east side, and maybe some islands.

Future Plans
We're planning to hit Monarchy soon, picking up Monotheism on the way, and use the scientist for a golden age to switch into OrgRel and HR for some much needed happiness. We'll have to find a way to limp to Curency and CodeOfLaws after that. We're also trying to generate a Prophet from a not-yet-existing temple in Kedge Keep to make the Buddhist shrine.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 103 (375 BC)
The time on our enforced peace with Alhazard is ticking down, but so far he's not making too threatening moves. Still plenty of time, and no need to spoil the surprise, so we're prebuilding walls on the border.


We also founded Eurdin, our last good city, in the area we went to war to stake our claim on. Firiona Vie will likely start building Temple of Artemis in two turns time.