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

[WilliamLP]

Just to be clear Redstone III belongs to Dhalphir, right? And Dhalphir also took that barb city with the pigs 2S-7W of DoubleStar? Bacchus should never let that stand. The city that we razed from Bacchus was a staircase to nowhere for him and he should realize that. It exposed us to risk and got him very little except an entry point into disputed land between both us and Ichabod.

It's true, Dhalphir has basically set up to dominate the land grab to the south. Dhalphir has Plako on his other side. Yes, Stranger's location maybe made sense when we were fully pinned down by Retep but as soon as that ended it changed the balance a lot.

So what's next?

We have absolutely nothing to gain from a military showdown with Bacchus now that we've removed that city of his and protected our underbelly.

I probably agree but sending a big stack at C of Conscience in a surprise strike isn't completely insane if Retep has given up on being a troll. (Big "if".)

So I guess what I'm getting at is that forced peace with Bacchus is probably a good thing right now as well as the most peaceful signals that we can send. I think that a DOW + one-sided peace deal is in order. Give him absolute certainty that he can engage to the south. From his farthest city, he's 10T away.

This seems like a good idea, so I just did it. Even if he keeps war, we have knowledge that he doesn't want peace with us, which is something.

So other than convince Bacchus' that we're not a threat, what's our grand strategy? Some options:
1. Keep developing our main land.
2. Push to the islands.
3. Take out Suit Up.

It's arguable whether settling new cities on our NE mainland with Retep's 20 units stack is more or less risky than settling the islands. I'd personally lean against moving towards the islands because they're just too vulnerable to complete loss. If we weren't already getting ICTR then I'd be 100% behind settling 2 island cities but I don't think that there's any benefit given our ICTR with Fintourist/Old Harry is there?

I'm very for launching the basic seed of a colony (even just settler + galley + worker + 1 unit), regardless of what else we do. This is because the potential long term gain is massive, and the cost isn't all that much. We're a few turns away from that though: we need a galley for instance.

We pretty much would have to decide on a course of action tomorrow to make this as effective as possible. OR,....maybe you know the answer already and can save us both some time? :LOL:

Yeah, my gut is still to be extremely gun-shy about it. Not because I doubt the value, but because I doubt an estimation of what we need to make it viable. E.g. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable saying it's a positive net outcome with literally twice our current military.

The attack needs:
- Enough to take the city vs what Retep has (everything) plus what he can whip out. If we're in a stalemate it's a massive setback to everything, and it can't be close.
- We need to deal with Ichabod on our opposite side who will know what kind of stack is needed to attack Retep, and may correctly deduce that most of our power is out of position, and he does have a lot to gain by taking a chunk of us out.
- We have to be sure that the wounded part of what have left after taking Suit Up can't be taken back by Bacchus.
- We have to consider all of Retep's options, for instance the Starcraft base race where he waits for us to fully commit and then sends everything he has at our core, trying to do as much damage as possible before he's literally eliminated.

I also question whether the tech hole it would put us in (whipping cities now just when our happy cap is about to shoot up), combined with how Ichabod's economy is taking up, doesn't just put us in a hopeless position vs him before we can start to dig out.

[WilliamLP]

Krill-style update. (I won't make a habit out of this! Instead the offer to forfeit all your free time and install the game is always there... )




Atypical capital specced out for production with no cottages, and constrained to perma-work a priest. We certainly want to move the palace for CS, perhaps to Barbiere. I'm thinking of a settler next, though growing more is an option (note happy room now and we get another fur next turn for another +1).




Obviously commerce and more commerce. For a mid game to late game Bureaucademixford capital you can't do much better.




Worker is cottaging the last grass river, and other one is chopping and mining the grass hill.




A market would be nice here but we also could use more spears.




Has run out of good tiles to work. Will either just whip-cycle military (more efficient than working plains hill mines I think) or maybe slowly grow onto plains cottages.




Needs river grass cottages now that it's free to grow some more.




Will also be a great commerce city eventually. Needs sheep improved obviously but workers can't be everywhere. Second wine hookup is next turn.




Yet more commerce because we need it. I think sheep is improved in two turns.




It might be worth a missionary in here though it's hard to commit the 40 hammers with no shrine with the RNG might spread religion anyway at any moment. It will whip a terrace when it can.




There's a work boat that will net the fish next turn, and it will give the copper back to Turandot.

[MindyMcCready]

Krill-style update. (I won't make a habit out of this! Instead the offer to forfeit all your free time and install the game is always there... )

Thanks for that,....yeah, the cost of an engagement right now is pretty costly given all of our cities are staged for easy growth onto productive tiles. Still, the military savings are also pretty good if successful. I'll try to take a look at it tonight.

Not sure I'm ready to eliminate all of my free time like I'm pretty sure that you must be close to doing.

[WilliamLP]

Bacchus took peace. I guess I misread his intent!

This leaves us with a lot of units that don't really have anything dire to take care of. I think at this point the next move is take the northwest and seal it away from Retep. As much as I don't think a full push on Suit Up is a good idea, I'm more than happy to skirmish over there if he contests it.

What Retep is actually doing now is a bit of a mystery. His power hasn't moved in a while, maybe he's getting a settler out? Or he's just been building workers and consolidating economy a bit?







The leaders are starting to gain serious distance on us. I wouldn't even be surprised to see Liberalism fall soon.

I'm sure the world is eyeing Mackotti on the minimap. He looks intimidating, since he's taking cities off of purple (mostly_harmless) to his northwest.

I still give a probability that Dtay is a smurf for some multiplayer vet. If this really is his first multiplayer Civ game, bravo.

[MindyMcCready]

Bacchus took peace. I guess I misread his intent!

Well I wouldn't go so far as to say that. Rather you packed Hoffman full of enough troops while maintaining a high enough power that good sense got the better of him. His power ramp up was more than was necessary to defend against Retep, so he was planning something. I'm sure that he would have killed our city if you let him.

This leaves us with a lot of units that don't really have anything dire to take care of. I think at this point the next move is take the northwest and seal it away from Retep. As much as I don't think a full push on Suit Up is a good idea, I'm more than happy to skirmish over there if he contests it.

Parent-teacher meeting last night so couldn't get to any calculations. A city-by-city glance really only has 3 cities that could pump out significant military at low opportunity cost Turandot, LT, WT for maybe 400H over 10T without whips. Not really enough to crush Retep and defend against Bacchus opportunism. So I'm happy to leave it for now and not argue out a questionable uphill debate/argument.

What Retep is actually doing now is a bit of a mystery. His power hasn't moved in a while, maybe he's getting a settler out? Or he's just been building workers and consolidating economy a bit?

He probably needs more commerce before he can support a larger army. Good to see. Anything that takes away hammers for military and spreads out his existing military is a good thing for us.

The leaders are starting to gain serious distance on us. I wouldn't even be surprised to see Liberalism fall soon.

I would say that this is a reason to stay away from the islands and work on our mainland. It'll be tough to hold them and may not return their investment.

[WilliamLP]

I would say that this is a reason to stay away from the islands and work on our mainland. It'll be tough to hold them and may not return their investment.

Aww, the island to the northwest seems like a great move to me. Other than Retep, the closest to it is Commodore. I think we can rule out peaceful coexistence next to him (LOL). But still, he doesn't seem to have reasonable access to the island pre-astronomy and I can't imagine him prioritizing astro basically ever.

[MindyMcCready]

Heh, why not then. It's only Commodore. :LOL:

I hope that you divert a portion of that army to the Ichabod front. Just as with Bacchus he'll only have intent if we let him easily.

[WilliamLP]

Honestly, I'm facing Civ burnout at the moment, so may have to tone down the reporting for a while...

Nothing too much is new for the last couple of turns. We're getting spice for wines from Ichabod and are basically completely set for happiness for the short to mid term future. The next project will be to settle the NW city by Retep in a couple of turns and see if we can defend it. Feudalism comes in 5-6 turns.

[WilliamLP]

A settler is coming out. I think we can plant immediately on the plains hill 3W of Traviata. The western force is shown, plus 3 spears in Barbiere. We have 3 more moves before Retep could attack. The fact that he has 2 unchopped forests NE of Suit Up shows how committed he is to this game right now, perhaps. That horse city has been there for what, 70 turns, with no border pop?




Working for full econ and horizontal growth.




That's demos at 100%, which aren't terrible. We're going to work 0% for one more turn though and then get Feudalism in 4.

Note someone has Exports - Imports of negative 197! That's crazy, and higher than the world average GNP! It might be Harry-tourist, who probably have Open Borders with a lot of people and have a near Monopoly on Alphabet.




Our next tech will probably be CoL. After that... contrary to appearances I do want to be able to take out Retep sometime, but with a large tech advantage.

Options are:
- MC -> Machinery, whip out crossbows. Crossbows are better vs Spears and Axes on a unit by unit basis than Macemen and cheaper. So they're great for hitting a sufficiently backward opponent. They don't have much shelf life though, being poor vs longbows, knights and muskets.
- CS -> MC -> Machinery, whip out maces. CS has the advantage of being a great economic tech. The irrigation spread isn't that crucial here though because our river network is quite extensive.
- Iron -> HBR -> MC -> Machinery -> Guilds, whip out knights. Since we went Feudalism so quickly we're already basically on the Knight beeline... Retep's tech is so halted I doubt he could have longbows by this time.

As usual, I think we'd need an extremely strong push because we'd be facing not just Retep but the possible counterattack and defensive needs of a cornered Bacchus.

[MindyMcCready]

No problem about the burnout or reporting. I'm in peak season at work now as well, unfortunately.

Happy about Feudalism,...can't come too quick with Ichabod's power way up like that. He's likely capable of a 50 unit stack by now so he's going to just slice through Cheetah. Cheetah's up to Retep power levels with more pop and tech so probably can't put much more than 20-25 units into a defensive stack. He won't have enough cats to collateral or HA to flank so good night Cheetah.

Tech options: COL is probably best. Caste + economic buildings.

At first glance, I don't think that we should go in with Crossbows. Most of Retep's army is, or will be, HA which will defend against the CBs at even or better than even odds given the promotions. They're also not that cheap and, like you said, don't have the shelf life. Plus you need to add Iron working or at least trade for iron.

Guilds is farther down the road, probably a little too far. Also, Retep's "empire" isn't big or wide enough to need the speed or forking.

Definately prefer the maces.