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

[NobleHelium]

Er, it was 54% odds of Commodore winning. I actually liked the odds but in the current strategic picture we can't afford the loss of that impi. It would have been a tactical victory but strategic loss.

[scooter]

Thanks guys for covering the turn. I'm at CES this week, so I'm going to be a little spotty. Anyways, I trust your judgment on this.

Pindicator - if you don't mind being the default turn player for a few more days that'd be great. I will be around once or twice, but it's best if you're default. Let me know if this is an issue and I'll work around it.

[NobleHelium]

CES, huh? Sounds interesting. You should tell me about it when you get back.

[pindicator]

Sure, I can keep up with the turns, but you may want to be around for a strategy session -- especially the next turn. Oh wait, Commodore's already played. Let's take a peek...



Battles went like so:

Archer (3.0) vs Axe (5.0) - 5.2% odds. We win, but axe goes down to 55hp
Archer (3.0) vs C1 Impi (4.4) - 13.5% odds. We win, impi takes one hit, now at 86hp
Archer (3.0) vs C1 Impi (3.69) - 44.1% odds. We win, impi takes one hit, now at at 67hp
Archer (3.0) vs C1 Impi (2.94) - 71.7% odds. We lose, archer down to 12hp.

Just one more hit. Sad

Anyway, there are still 3 archers in the north. In the south there is the 12hp archer and a warrior, plus whatever is moved up in the fog. I think we should retreat the axe, and flash our impi up north onto the desert hill to spot what's going on there before ducking back. And there's the warrior from McD which I'm moving up to Subway.

Gotta keep those workers safe for 3 turns and we'll have plenty of units via chopped hammers. Looks like Commodore gained an archer by the last turn shown in power graph

Scooter, any thoughts or requests of images?

[regoarrarr]

You killed me!!!!!!!!

[pindicator]

You killed me!!!!!!!!

Hey, you started it!

[pindicator]

So Scooter, I'd like you to weigh in because I'm afraid our strategy is a bad one.

Our current military:
1 axe
1 impi
2 warriors (and 1 of those warriors is defending the entire east side)

Commodore's Known Units:
4 archers (1 wounded)
1 warrior

My concern is that we are not building enough military, and our strategy of claiming the contested lands while having a military upper-hand is going to fail if we have to defend a spread out front. Glancing at the power graph I can see that Commodore is continually building units - he's going to zerg us with archers if things keep up as they are. (This is why I keep saying I don't care about the copper city - if we had the resources to hold it I would love to grab it, but I don't think we do or will in the near term.)

After the current worker in Zaxby and settler in LJS finish, I think both need to go on military. I hope that isn't even a point for debate, really.

Other things we can do to improve our military situation:
* Use workers at Subway to chop out units instead of infrastructure
* Upgrade the warrior coming over from McDonald's to an impi. We need to turn off research for a turn. This will cost us about 2 2/3 turns of saving gold in total.
* Swap Research Archery. City defense becomes easier, and at this rate I do project us defending in cities.
* Do not settle stone city next. If he pushes north & south after we settle the stone city then we may not be able to defend both. Settle northeast of Zaxby's - and use that high mfg spot to churn out units and gain control of the battle field. Once we have control of the battlefield then we can push for settling.

If we had any opponent but Commodore I would feel ok doing things as we are. But we don't have someone sane, we have COMMODORE. The guy is freaking spamming archers to kill us. We can't try to expand and defend at the same time, otherwise I'm afraid his hammer advantage (as in his dedication to military hammers) is going to win in the end.

[scooter]

Ugh, I don't like any of this. That axe is super vulnerable now that it's no longer immune from Chariots due to the Impi.

Few thoughts:

1) Zaxby's is a rough spot to build military in because it's such a long walk to the front.
2) Are we going to really prefer an archer to defend a flatland city over an Impi? That's going to delay us on getting Construction which I think is more dangerous. The only way an archer is better than an Imp is if he gets axes, and that seems like it isn't happening anytime soon. I had been checking tile yields to see if he got iron, but nothing so far.

I'm mostly in agreement with you though. At this point, I'm ready to just turn this into a duel and ruin Commodore's game. We're so far behind and he's continually giving us no choice but to build military, so the game is quickly slipping away. Let's punish his dumb choices and have fun, and then if we can salvage some sort of mildly respectable finish longterm then awesome.

[scooter]

Pindicator - in some ways you and Noble will have to use your best judgment on this as I'm so hit and miss that I'm not going to have a chance most of today to log in and look around. A few more stray thoughts:

1) north Impi probably needs to come down a little further at this point. No idea if he has a chariot or not, but a single chariot could put our worker in danger and prevent us from chopping there (not to mention bye-bye axe)
2) I'm hoping McDonalds Impi is finishing soon?
3) Note that LJS has an Impi 1T from completion. I think it's absolutely worth delaying the settler by 1T to finish it now.
4) I'm a little iffy on paying so much to upgrade that warrior. I dunno if you were accounting for the Impi at LJS we can finish this turn? In the end though, I'll trust your judgment on this one if you think it's necessary. You can always move it towards Subway and upgrade later.

[NobleHelium]

I don't think we should upgrade the warrior unless it means we'll lose a city otherwise. I'm also not sure we need to swap to Archery. Other than that I'm okay with pretty much any and all military mobilization.

I'm not spending that much effort in this game mind you, most of that is going into 45 and the demogame currently.