[SPOILERS] Small Wunders and Izzy of Inca: The fat lady sings

[WilliamLP]

I just want to say that this a really good, detailed thread, and I'm learning a lot from the discussions between you two. Keep it up!

Thanks! I'm learning a lot too, as hopefully shows.

[WilliamLP]

Oh crap!




In worldbuilder, the road on the staging tile doesn't change the graphic on the hill 1S!! This means there's a chance he has the staging tile roaded and could take Barbiere with a chariot if he's set up perfectly. I really should have checked this before playing the turn...

[WilliamLP]

Still the same turn, his move:




He went E-NE with his main stack. His other visible axe moved onto the horse city, most likely.

This all might make my western move look a little foolish: I wonder if we can actually invade! The problem with an engineer road move W-SW is that the workers might be left hanging to a chariot, to be deleted. S-SW is possible though.

It's also possible to road SE, and move SE-SW, and also join the move by the 2 axes in Barbiere.

[MindyMcCready]

First, I admire your resolve to look at a Civ that is at least 14k ahead in power to all 17 other human players, nearly twice the average, and bemoan the lack of prioritization to axemen.

Hey! I wouldn't be a miltiary advisor if I wasn't always moaning about military. When you buid enough axemen I'll start moaning about spears and chariots.

And this is not the first "I feel so safe" feeling that you've had.

It's all about resolve. The Ministry of Peace has no concern for lesser priorities.

[WilliamLP]

So what do you want to do here?

1. Forget tricks in the west. Aim to merge stacks and assemble about 7 axes, and hit him then, now that he's committed to being east.
2. Try to invade 4W1S of Barber. I don't know if this is an option because a chariot in the capital could kill the workers needed to do this if we don't block the road as well.
3. Try to invade 2S3W of Barber.
4. Try to invade 2S2W of Barber, which can be joined by units from Barber itself.

[MindyMcCready]

So what's the objective of this little invasion?

While possible, it's pretty unlikely that we'll capture his capital. C1 Axe vs Archer has 9.07%; however the follow up axe would have 64%. Now 64% sounds ok, but that's really just 1 coin-flip of an advantage. Having said that, if he has 2 archer/2 axes or less than we should take a shot. A C1 Axe + Axe vs an unfortifed Axe has 67% for the 2nd attacker and 33% for the defender. If the axe is fully fortified we'd be looking at 38% chance of a 2nd axe victory.

He'll certainly have 1 unit for MP, 1 whip + 1 chariot and our invasion probably isn't going anywhere even if we got a 3rd axe in there.

Are we trying to take out his horse city? I'm not sure that we even want to raze that little moneypit. So long as we're fighting a defensive war and have a spear in our border cities, him having that city is not too worrying. It's also going to tie up his production since he'll probably want to build a monument for the silver and a granary. So that crap city won't be a net contributor to his empire before we get catapults.

If we're trying to get Retep to whip down his cities - I'm not sure that I want to force him into that right now. If instead we wiped out that stack, and he's giving us a sustained really great opportunity to do so, then I'd love to force him to whip down his cities. But right now if we make a feint and pull back, he'll have added a couple of units and we'd still have the issue of WT being isolated. You can point to total power if you want, but I'm still going to point out that WT is isolated. And because Retep's front city is a 40% culture city on a hill he can afford concentrate his power in a way that we cannot. 1 Chariot to cut the road is all he'll need to get to WT first and all that extra power we have doesn't mean squat in deciding if WT is razed or not.

Sorry, I reread your email. The objective is to pillage? Which tiles? His SW cow? We'd have to get south of his city and that 5 axe stack could turn around and trap us giving him a 2:1 opportunity. He might have a couple of mines to pillage but everything else probably isn't worth it.

Eoesn't really seem worth it to me. Preferred route for me remains crank out 2 more axes, wipe out that stack. If we get a little better than average luck or even average luck we could lose only 2 axes.

We could then consolidate our stack into:
3 axes + 1 archer from ruins
Barbiere's 3 axes + 1 spear
Bring down LaTravistaAxe + 1 axe.

So 7 axes + 1 spear + 1 archer. Retep would absolutely have to whip his capital right down or risk losing it. And we are then done with Retep until we're ready to just own his cities. You asked the question of whether we can do better than that - I think that this would be the best use of 70H we could have right now.

70H ASAP to buy us freedom from reacting to Retep's moves.

[MindyMcCready]

So what do you want to do here?

1. Forget tricks in the west. Aim to merge stacks and assemble about 7 axes, and hit him then, now that he's committed to being east.
2. Try to invade 4W1S of Barber. I don't know if this is an option because a chariot in the capital could kill the workers needed to do this if we don't block the road as well.
3. Try to invade 2S3W of Barber.
4. Try to invade 2S2W of Barber, which can be joined by units from Barber itself.

#1. I want to wipe out his 5 stack. Then, depending on how the battle went, choose to invade. With anything other than a disaterous luck, our power advantage will turn retep into a buzzing fly rather than a threat. We'll then have free reign to expand at will and in the locations of our choosing.

[MindyMcCready]

To make this tempting,....just think of what the graphs will looks like when Retep take s 30K power drop.

Also, we'll probably lose our gold in 2T if you invade. I'm pretty sure that you won't want to delay math now would you? :LOL: Hahaha, I think I've found what will convince you to hit that stack. Yellow kryptonite. :LOL:

[MindyMcCready]

I just want to say that this a really good, detailed thread, and I'm learning a lot from the discussions between you two. Keep it up!

Hey Gazglum,

Glad you're liking it. :LOL: Surprised, that somebody's willing to shift through all this text, but still glad.

I suspect that we'll 'keep this up' for as long as William can take it. I'll do my part.

[MindyMcCready]

WT has 2 archers and a spear on a hill, plus the eastern stack. Almost no amount of chariots can threaten the actual city tile.

I think that I've been under the mistaken impression that WT had 1 archer + 1 spear + 2 quechas. With that second archer, I'll turn down the 'dire' dial,...but only one notch!