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

[MindyMcCready]

I'll post more but first,....the pic that you posted is after you've moved? So that pic is the start of T106?

[WilliamLP]

First, please point out mistakes but avoid a harshly critical tone. Usually I can take it but some days it wears me down.

He doesn't need worker assist to hit Barbiere with 2-movers - the road is there. It could be pillaged with a suicide chariot, I'm not sure if that's worth it, but it maybe is. Yeah, there really should be a spear in Barbiere - the 2 spears immediately north have no good reason to be only 1 tile off.

I'm sure he doesn't have another chariot given they're all accounted for and he's been suiciding them as expendable. Could he have a 6th HA on the staging tile right now? It seems unlikely but it would be a good play so paranoia would be correct.

Bad news is he has city visibility apparently:

Passive Missions
Base Factor * (100+How much they have against you)

Demographics=0.3
City Visibility=1.2
Investigate=2
See Research=0.75

He has 332 on us vs 137.

City visibility is 1.2 * (237) = 284 so he's had it for a while.

We can't realistically get rid of it before CoL if he puts all EP on us. It will eventually go away if we spend all on him (because 1.2 > 1) but since he's 48 points over that would take like 60 turns.

So not allowing this is something I need to be more conscious of in future games.

[WilliamLP]

Most recent pic is after our move, before Retep's on turn 106.

Power graph:




"Nobody's power moved" is an exaggeration but Retep did look pretty flat before last turn.

[MindyMcCready]

Alright,...but you're talking to Hit Girl here not Diplo Girl. You should have known what you were getting yourself into by the name alone. I'll give less 'Hit' a try. :LOL:

City visibility is something that we'll just have to live with. It would take the majority of our EP to counter him and that's not worth it given info on Ichabod is much more critical, and maybe Bacchus too. If we can deal with this attack it'll never again matter.

[MindyMcCready]

Haha,....well I tried to edit my post in case you were already bugged about my first post. Looks like you already saw it. :LOL: Maybe a little too much 'Hit'.

Back to business:

Off the top of my head, I'd say that a straight drive into LaTraviata is his best bet for causing us some damage. In general our spears cannot stand up to a second HA but have roughly a coin-flip of a chance of standing up to a HA + Chariot combo.

43% of 68+ HP post HA (C1) and then 76% odds on a C1 Chariot.
61% of 52+ HP post HA (C1) and then 65% chance of surviving a Chariot.

So with 4 Spears we *should* fend off the first 4 HA,
-Coin flip on the HA vs Archer.
-Chariot vs Cat - have some 75% odds of defending
-Then we coin flip chariots vs wounded spear.

Any axes that you put into LT are strictly cannon fodder for the chariots so should probably attack out.

[WilliamLP]

I think if he goes SE he's dead meat, since we can suicide the cat (with even a decent chance to withdraw), and spears can kill off HAs without having to move away from the city.

I'm expecting NE-E actually, with him envisioning SE-NE and a fork of LT / Turandot.

And axes are pretty useful defenders against HAs. The chariots only get to eat them if he can clear the spears first, and I think, versus a HA, an axe will be the top defender vs a wounded spear usually? (Meaning that wounded spears would still have odds on a chariot, but the HA couldn't get them all with axes on top).

Whatever he does I know it's pretty important not to play too quickly but use the 12 hour turn split or a lot of it.

Another point is our triple-fork defense tile has extra value because I don't think Retep can't see it. (The tiles may be just so that it doesn't have vision from any of the three city tiles - Barbiere is not on a hill, and Traviata and Turandot have sight-blocking hills on the diagonals.)

[MindyMcCready]

Attack Route #2: Set up the mobile units to be NNWW of Turandot for a EOT108 attack on either Turandot or LT.

If his 1-mover stack is 2S-4W of LT right now he could road 1S-3W and then participate in the attack on the same EOT108. So that's 6 axes + 3 spears to add to LT.

NOTE: As of T103 I thought that Retep still had 6 chariots. Maybe park a chariot into Barbiere,...

[MindyMcCready]

I think if he goes SE he's dead meat, since we can suicide the cat (with even a decent chance to withdraw), and spears can kill off HAs without having to move away from the city.

Well you're giving up 45% defense if we attack out. We'd still have 88% odds with a C1 Spear vs a C1 HA. That comparees to the W-L-R of 72.3% - 9% - 18.2% for defending. So that spear is basically out of commission and doesn't have any chance of defending against a second unit (6.9% chance of the spear havig more than 31HP).

As I'm seeing it right now, if he follows that path, I'd prefer to defend than attack out. With the intent of buying us another turn, that is.

Although his attack angle suggest that he will move NE-E, this path is a possibility because it saves him 25% river crossing. Crossing the river means W-L-R of 77.1%-3.6%-19.3% and our spear would have 77% chance of being at 55HP or more, which means that we'll have very strong odds (75%-16.4%-8.4%) of surviving a follow up chariot. In fact, our C1 Axes will have odds on the chariot (58%-35.2%-6.5%) where they normally wouldn't. That 25% river crossing is a very big swing point.

Turandot's 60% culture is even better than 20% + 25% river. So bottom line, if we can get 4 spears into each city + a couple of other units we should be able to hold (each) city for at least a turn.

I'm expecting NE-E actually, with him envisioning SE-NE and a fork of LT / Turandot.

Absolutely, that's the more likely path. To be combined with his remaining stack of 6 axes + 3 spears for a EOT108 attack.

And axes are pretty useful defenders against HAs. The chariots only get to eat them if he can clear the spears first, and I think, versus a HA, an axe will be the top defender vs a wounded spear usually?

Yes, I think you're right that the axe should defend against a HA over a wounded spear. Overall, I'm uncertain of the rules on this, and won't be learning them given its Halloween. There are some wacky examples where the top % defender doesn't defend when the HP aren't at 100.

Whatever he does I know it's pretty important not to play too quickly but use the 12 hour turn split or a lot of it.

Agreed, while normally we'd want to be a courteous as possible I say that the extra time is warranted when an opponent might be forking your cities. Retep's a pretty strong player and can come up with some pretty good moves that we need to defend against.

Another point is our triple-fork defense tile has extra value because I don't think Retep can't see it. (The tiles may be just so that it doesn't have vision from any of the three city tiles - Barbiere is not on a hill, and Traviata and Turandot have sight-blocking hills on the diagonals.)

Not sure about this one way or another - never thought about this before. The triple fork is NNW of Barbiere so if he can see everything in the BFC, he could see that. If he only sees inside of the city screen, then he might not be able to see any units that aren't directly inside a city? Sorry, re-reading are you stating that city visibility means seeing in the 3x3? If that's the case, then great! Uncertainty on his end will mean attack sooner rather than later.


PS: All of my calculations are done assuming a C1 HA. Given how quick he's cranked them out, I'm hoping that he doesn't have stables.

I'll try to take a look at the power graph before I leave today.

[WilliamLP]

Not sure about this one way or another - never thought about this before. The triple fork is NNW of Barbiere so if he can see everything in the BFC, he could see that. If he only sees inside of the city screen, then he might not be able to see any units that aren't directly inside a city? Sorry, re-reading are you stating that city visibility means seeing in the 3x3? If that's the case, then great! Uncertainty on his end will mean attack sooner rather than later.

City visibility means he sees the city center tile, and everything it can see (it may be more or less than the BFC). So 3x3 for flat, and extra vision for hills as per the usual rules.

[MindyMcCready]

So it looks like he's at 160K of power.

Tech 34K.
Pop est = 6K (hasn't move much :LOL
Visible or known units = 105K (5HA + 6 Axe + 3 spears + 1 archer + 6 chariots)
Barracks = 3K
Unaccounted = 12K.

Please note that I still have him at 6 chariots. I'm crossing my fingers that I'm wrong on that or that he's at least out of position.

All in all we're facing off with a 21 unit stack/threat. I hope that you ignored my request to send troops to Manon. :LOL:

So the good news is that its unlikely that any of those HA are double promo. The other good/bad news is that, assuming the high likelihood that we'll see the 6 axes + 3 spears,...he has almost nothing at home. Good that he's maxed out.

Actually, just thinking about our last battle how you isolated those 3 units. Don't think it really clicked in at the time, but I'm thinking that those were part of the piddly 'unaccounted for'? Not 100% sure about how I'm remembering this,...but if he pulls the same move again that means that his cities MUST be completely open.

Another RISK: Battle at LT or maybe Battle of the fork, followed up with a mobilitty CRIII axe on Barbiere. We'd get a turn or two in between but do need to watch out for that.