1) All looked good. Serdoa accepted our map trade which shows there is no southern passage to the island. That sucks. So we're all-in on the north I think.
2) I still very firmly believe this plan will be a complete failure if we don't get enforced peace with Commodore. At that point I'd almost rather just try to fight him and bleed him out. We can't afford to lose those gold units and still put together a respectable strike force on India.
3) I'm also skeptical about 2 full waves of 10 units working. Count tiles to those Nakor cities we can see - that's a lot of turns of travel...
(January 26th, 2013, 11:19)scooter Wrote: 3) I'm also skeptical about 2 full waves of 10 units working. Count tiles to those Nakor cities we can see - that's a lot of turns of travel...
Me too actually, but i'm thinking maybe there's a nearby island we can stage on? If we can make the two waves be only two or three turns apart they may still work
Probably the staging will be the same spot we put our survival settler.
Ok, can we try to keep McD for 3 turns at least? We're going to need every unit we can muster.
Also, keep in mind its going to take him time to advance. We can have an impi or chariot pillage roads as/when we retreat. If his armies marched from their current tile this next turn it would take 6 turns to reach LJS. Then 3t more to reach InNOut and 5t to get to White Castle.
So we want to delay him 4t to LJS in order to get 10t of production there. Well, 5t to get the unit out.
I think that's very doable.
New turn, and a quick overview shot before I hit the road:
The galley did what I thought: he picked up the axe, pillaged our clams, and moved back where he was out of range of the galley but can threaten to boat both cities. We know he only has one unit on board so as long as we have a city with a unit in it we should be fine. Also, we should keep workers away from the northern shore as that galley has absurd range.
In the west, he has a pair of workers on the hill below the stone and a pair of archers. Who can say "Commodore's gonna settle the stone" first? There's also a third archer just sitting on the forest, I think to prevent our impi/chariot pair from doing anything advantageous. (See - this is what I mean about stalling him too. We can use our mobility to harass his flanks and make his advance be more cautious, buying us time.)
Also, he moved the GG axe into the main stack by the gold. But he peeled off an axe and spear north. Why would he do that? Either 1) the iron mine is completely undefended save for the archers and workers, or 2) he's going to plant a city. Both are good reasons for us, as they tie up units that would otherwise be pushing towards McDonalds.
More to come later, but I think the plan needs to be to move our galley W-W so that it keeps McDonalds from being boated while we keep an axe in LJS. If he moves forward to pillage another net his galley is dead, so I think we're set.
Also, we whip the galley at In N Out and that will be our original scout. It can take the impi at White Castle and the Axe that's on our copper.
More later
Edit: Also note the archer sitting back on the hill, behind his main stack. He's being cautious of us using our mobility to get behind his troops.
Uh, well, once we give up McD he's obviously going to move all his units in there. So the relevant distance is from McD to LJS. He'll probably own the grass mine SE of McD, so he would be able to move next to LJS immediately. And he could also attack by galley.
(January 26th, 2013, 13:59)NobleHelium Wrote: Uh, well, once we give up McD he's obviously going to move all his units in there. So the relevant distance is from McD to LJS. He'll probably own the grass mine SE of McD, so he would be able to move next to LJS immediately. And he could also attack by galley.
Well, if we give McD for peace we have 10 turns. If he captures McD then he won't have control of any tiles to it's east (even the grass hill is 3rd ring LJS). But you're right that the relevant distance is McD to LJS - 3 turns. So we need to hold on to McD for 7 turns to get 10 turns out of LJS.
Or gift McD and use the enforced 10 turns. But I'm against that just out of principle
What would be best if we can prevent him from advancing until we get a pair of catapults in McD. Then we can retreat the whole stack into McD with the cats. He moves a spear onto the gold hill, sees the units and the cat and hopefully goes for the slow and cautious route. I mean, he's been grinding out the slow win so far. I think we can use that to our advantage.
Wait, this has some big errors in it. I'll come back with one later
In general, I think we need to whip In N Out. We don't want to whip the capital any more. If we can get the capital to size 5 then we can work 16hpt. But maybe it's better to get 13hpt at size 4. I think the settler should come from White Castle. The hammers at LJS are better spent on units IMO.
I'll try to get a detailed plan up, but let me know if you're on board for reals scooter. You didn't sound like it last time we chatted. If you're not on board then I don't want to spend the energy on this plan.
This gets 4 galleys and finishes the axe by eot108. There's enough overflow for an archer eot109, but the city is pretty much worthless after that
Edit: Because that probably isn't super clear, the idea is to whip as much as possible
2-pop Whip galleys on turns 100, 102, 105. Then 1-pop galley on 107 and an axe on 108.
This being our ONLY city with a granary, we'll use the less efficient 2 pop whips - more so because we can grow back fast enough to replenish them. Other cities will just stack 1-pop whips
(January 27th, 2013, 00:35)scooter Wrote: Hey, sorry, gone all day. Real quick:
1) I'm pretty sure I didn't touch In-N-Out. I certainly never intended to anyways.
2) Yes, I'm on board.
Sorry, need to sleep. I'll try to be around tomorrow.
Cool, I think today is my turn to be out. And I didn't get the planning done, I'm sorry. Ended up with a bad headache last night and just cashed in early (then laying in bed remembered I hadn't set some builds or ended turn and came back to do so!)
Took a quick peek, and Commodore has his first catapults arriving from the north. We need to pull our army off the gold this turn, otherwise he could conceivably road NW of the gold and hit it next turn. I think this is also a good time to offer McDonalds for peace -- only if we play last though, because we have a chariot finishing with overflow from the axe whip.
Been trying to puzzle the best way to get the settler. I didn't use the overflow for one yesterday - sorry I did this without consulting. But hammers are so tough to come by right now, I didn't want to give all that hammer overflow. For getting the settler out, I thought up two ideas:
1) build it in White Castle. Grow to size 4 and then work Clam, Lake, grass mine, and mined bronze for 12f+h/t. Once we hit size 4 then whip the settler complete. Since White Castle is likely our last stand on the continent this is appealing because it lets us pump units in the interim.
2) Slowly whip down LJS with 1-pop whips to finish units (catapults, likely), and use the overflow for the settler. If we do this I think LJS should use it's overflow first of all on a settler. We can also use the 3rd ring forests.
I also have to see how bad I screwed up In N Out by not working those plains tiles. (I probably messed around with tiles at LJS and forgot to reassign In N Out, just a stupid mistake when we can't afford them )
Where has this morning gone? The coast weekend excursion sure flew by fast. (Okay, that's probably the real reason I didn't get a plan together - RL mini-holiday.)
tl-dr:
1) First Catapult Sighted
2) Let's offer McD for peace this turn, but only as the last person to play so we can get the chariot in it to complete at eot
3) Settler build from LJS or White Castle? My preference is White Castle b/c LJS has more hammer output potential for units, and because we'll have more time to complete it there.
4) I need to get a plan together...
I can post pictures here in a bit, but I finished the turn. Galley started in INO, axe in LJS, finished Construction, moved off the gold, etc etc etc. Finally, offered the deal to Commodore. I expect he'll pop in before the night is over, so I'll watch closely to see what he does.
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