[Spoilers] Dtay's first PB: When you play a game of CIV, you win or you die

[dtay]

No pictures today, bomb threat on campus + finals has been maximum disruption. Nothing super new in the turn, Fin/OH are sending a sentry chariot up my way. There's no one to meet for them up here, so they must be either scouting me or TBS out. If me, I've been criminally underdefending my southern border, so I'll try to have units conveniently in each city as his chariot goes by to portray strength.

[dtay]

Really want Bacchus or WilliamLP to kill off Retep already... he's consistently last to play the turn.

In other international news, Nakor appears to be rolling over. CivStats has no whips and Scooter/Pind took multiple cities this turn. Ugh. I'm definately at best in 3rd right now (score lines up for once) after Scooter/Pind and Mackoti, and Plako may deserve to be higher than me as well. Staying in the race is going to depend on conquering TBS, and fast.

[dtay]

A return to pictures later today, got to catch a plane.

I'm increasingly losing ground on the leaders, they've managed to keep expanding, either though warfare or access to more islands than I (or both). I'm trying to figure out what the fastest reasonable timeframe I can get an attack on TBS together. I might need to do it before I have knights. And TBS WILL have knights. Yes I will be attacking at a tech disadvantage (though somehow they don't have construction yet).

TBS has managed to recover from 2 city razes very very well. He's arguably the leader of the not-contenders, depends on which category you put commodore into. Digesting him isn't going to be fun. I'm sure in a all-out v all-out war I'd obviously EVENTUALLY win, but will it be anywhere near clean enough to allow me to stay in the race?

If I don't wait until knights, t1 of the war is just about threatening as much as possible. I have all the catapults I'll need, and they'll need to be coupled with substantial amounts of maces and elephants. Maces I can begin drafting in 9t if I revolt on the first turn of the Taj golden age (presuming I get taj, also seeing if I can speed that up a turn or so).

The travel time for maces from the capital to the front is 5t. If I start drafting from the back, I can then get ~16 drafted maces to the front (don't have 20 cities...).

That would give me 14 turns to research the things I need and otherwise build an army. That's 13 units out of EC (1 turn I'll build a stables), some # to be calculated from everywhere else. Research wise I at least need Horseback Riding and Machinery. If I decide to attack without knights I'll add engineering as the 3rd tech in that timeframe.

The knight attack looks a lot different, and is tech constrained instead of golden-age constrained. I'll need Horseback Riding, Feudalism, Machinery, Guilds, and ideally Engineering. Iron Working is probably also required unless I get some diplomatically.

Horseback Riding, Machinery, and Iron Working are all ~400 beakers (remember I've done most of Machinery). That should take me 4-5 turns. Feudalism and Guilds are ~3000 beakers. Most of that researched during a golden age, but that will still take me roughly 15 turns. Then I would need to... actually build knights. So another 5-10 turns (while I get engineering). That feels way way too far off. 30 turns is forever.

Maybe I'll be teching faster than I think, but I'm leaning towards the accelerated schedule. I have about 5 turns to decide.

[dtay]

One additional important piece of information - basically every unit I produce from EC can get odds on knights via Formation promotions. Now I don't really WANT to be making my maces C1-C2-Formation, but I can. Elephants going C1-C2-Formation will be my main knight defenders. Mostly I just don't think TBS can MAKE that many knights, he's thankfully not in slavery and his golden age just ended. I'm thinking mid single digits at most.

All of this feels a lot like rationalizing though. There are so many ways this conflict can go bad or turn into a slog. Here's to hoping he acts like Nakor and just flees for the island or something.

[Ceiliazul]

option three, duh: take HBR as your free tech with Lib!

[dtay]

Not sure why I didn't think of that before

OH is dragging this chariot across my border cities. Now he's going in a bit deeper. He either suspects I'm going to attack him (not sure why that would be true) or is scouting out my defenses.




I'm going to up my defenses in that front. The clear avenue of attack for him is SC. Its the juciest target and the easiest for him to get to sight unseen. Or was until I put 2 sentry chariots over there...



TBS border cities both have two longbows. I can't believe my current plan is to attack into longbows with maces... this is going to be a bloodbath. I just don't see the better option unless I tech a lot faster than I anticipate. Hopefully I can strike quickly (with 1 movers... oops) and take out his continental production capacity. Looking through tactical options. Unfortunately he has sentry chariots it both border-hill cities so its hard to get an alpha stike in even with workers+artist bomb.



Demos. Food isn't pretty:

[dtay]

I think I've got the build time for Taj down to 5 turns, so ETA is 6 turns from now. Then if I assume 4t travel time b/c of engineering I could attack in 10.

The other aspect though is how much do I think TBS is going to prepare and do I or he gain more relative advantage with an extra 3-4 turns of build time? Once I begin drafting I imagine the clock is on and TBS is going to spit out longbows as fast as he can, but I might be best served by attacking a bit later than possible.

The other crazy idea I'm kicking around is somehow trying to fake a war against OH. Like say, offering up a worker on some random neutral tile and trying to get him to steal it from me. Or if I can't get him to do that sending him like 10 gold and then declare war. If I could trick TBS into NOT building military while I'm drafting that would be great. Of course, I need to avoid getting in an ACTUAL war with OH.

So maybe right when I complete the taj, put a worker on the horse tile south of my borders? And either give or demand horses? And then maybe demand all of the military resources to try to understand "send military at me".

[dtay]

Well looks like I'm going to have a lot of time to think about this. Current slate of attack options:

1) Attack in 10t, as fast as possible.
Rating - worse than poor

2) Attack in 10 + change turns, enough to build up 1-mover army.
Rating - poor

3) Attack at guilds+time to build knights.
Rating - poor

4) wait even longer. Cuirassiers?
Rating - poor

Option 2 is narrowly being considered the frontrunner. Option 1 is basically out, I can't see a justification for it. Option 3 was the original plan but look like at best its an audible from option 4 after appraising the situation.? Knights upgrade to curs?

Decision probably needs to be made post-taj. I like none of these. And I really feel like the latter 2, even if they are more successsful at taking down TBS will let scooter and mackoti get an insurmountable lead. Heck, ichabod might get an insurmountable lead.

[Ceiliazul]

make sure you take some time away from the game as well. I know Christmas during my first rb game was probably more civ focused than it should have been.

[Zed-F]

Any updates?