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

[WilliamLP]

I like the basic idea of how to attack Suit Up. Another possible idea is to start from 2S of Barbiere (also invisible) and invade with NW-SW-SW. I'm not saying that's better, but it means that knights could attack Suit Up the next turn if the move is a complete and total surprise and there's still only 3 archers in there or something.

Also in this case I probably agree with you on Engineering. While I'm still really uncomfortable with having to make more and more sacrifices that put us farther behind the world, this attack is basically the main card we've got and Engineering does help a lot.

Well I would have to guess that that fatal misclick was moving that galley the wrong way.

I was thinking it was probably more serious than that, e.g. maybe he moved a huge defensive stack away from a key city that Scooter could take at his home? He said he was sending screenshots to Sunrise, and with him being a MP vet I'd trust him to say "that's bs" if it was something small like mis-moving a couple of units around a border city at war.

If it's not obvious what to do next move I'll try and post here for input.

Yeah, it's an interesting idea to have a galley net for defending two cities. Since units can board and unboard an infinite number of times in a turn a chain of 2 could move any two units from one city to another in one turn. They just wouldn't be able to unload and move in the same turn. I don't think it can work in two directions though with only 2 galleys.

I'd be really surprised (but not brain exploding) if he has a trick to take Magic Flute. We've been defending it extremely carefully on every turn but this one. I think the only way Comm actually could be set up for it is if he actually intended the Mindybanes to be a trap, and he was also willing to sac the city of Bathurst for it!

For consideration on whether we keep Bathhurst or not. I'd really like to keep it, and with LBs vs not-Knights/middling power why not?

Points against:
- It's far away and expensive without courthouses.
- It makes the defensive liability of the island much higher. We have to be alert for boats out of the fog at all times. Only having MF to defend means more LBs can live on the main land and participate vs Retep / Bacchus / etc.
- We can forget about the fish. Comm will pillage it instantly, and so the city won't have food. (This is probably the main argument for me.)
- I think it would be much more tempting for C to wage a long campaign to take back a city, then to settle again and march over the island, by which time we may have 3rd ring culture in Magic Flute as well.

If you were Commodore, what would you prefer we do? I think he'd prefer we keep the city.

But at any rate, I was pretty sure we'd be able to raze the city before, so let's see what it actually has.

[WilliamLP]

Oh I've deliberately resisted temptation to log into the game and see what the situation looks like! (We could know definitively whether the misclick was something related to us.) It seems like poor sportsmanship though.

[BRickAstley]

It seems like poor sportsmanship though.

From my knowledge of the situation, the mistake mentioned didnt offer him any sort of advantage if he had done it, so I don't think there was any malice or desire to mess things up in the mistake/reload request series of events.

[WilliamLP]

It seems like poor sportsmanship though.

From my knowledge of the situation, the mistake mentioned didnt offer him any sort of advantage if he had done it, so I don't think there was any malice or desire to mess things up in the mistake/reload request series of events.

Oh, I meant me logging in and trying to see if there's any information I could get for myself would be poor sportsmanship. E.g. knowing it had nothing to do with our civ would be interesting information that he may have a tense position somewhere else. Sorry for the ambiguity.

I'd trust (or hope) that a misclick wouldn't be a cause for a reload if it were something like moving a couple of galleys of units onto the wrong tile when they could have defended a city at war, the kind of thing that I think Mindy is talking about.

[Ceiliazul]

an unintended click that changes the course of the game would be cause for a reload. If Bacchus attacked, bombarded the city and you accidentally moved your garrison out of the city just when you knew he was going to attack, you could ask for a reload.

[WilliamLP]

If my garrison were one unit and I moved it out of the city, I'd say to myself "tough luck" and advise to be more careful with the mouse next time. It's a divisive and unresolvable argument that reduces to personality I think. I do know Sunrise is on my side of it though.

(See the debate in the intersite-demogame forum where I was the voice thinking that units should move the same way after a technical reload, and it shouldn't be a chance for a team to correct oversights.)

[MindyMcCready]

I like the basic idea of how to attack Suit Up. Another possible idea is to start from 2S of Barbiere (also invisible) and invade with NW-SW-SW. I'm not saying that's better, but it means that knights could attack Suit Up the next turn if the move is a complete and total surprise and there's still only 3 archers in there or something.

To be honest I had forgotten that we could see inside of Suit Up. :LOL: That's an actual 3 archers in there right now as opposed to a hypothetical?

There are several reasons that we may want to attack from the north:
1. More likely to surprise him. Surprise was a non-consideration in the past but with 3-move engineering he might not actually see it coming. We've got historical non-attack precedent on our side there.
2. Taking the tile 1N helps cut off reinforcements.

I guess it comes down to our choice of two strategies:
1. Take Suit up as quickly as possible - that would be best accomplished via the southern route and our Knights would have 70% on any archers even with culture. Spears would be more of a problem though and could give us losses in our expensive Knights that we don't need to be taking. Certainly we should expect at least 1 whipped in spear if nothing else.

2. Force a decisive battle in Suit Up via catapults & Knights/LBs. Save the Knights if at all possible with the objective of using them for a quick clean up of other cities afterwards.

Other considerations:
-Those forested units represent 36K of what is probably a total of 150K of power.
-That river by yasodharapura meaning that he can't be fork defending without construction.
-Under either of the attack routes/strategies it doesn't look like Retep could get more than 1 whipped unit from each city before his culture is stripped or the city is taken.

Also in this case I probably agree with you on Engineering. While I'm still really uncomfortable with having to make more and more sacrifices that put us farther behind the world, this attack is basically the main card we've got and Engineering does help a lot.

On that note, I'm going to say that we've spent alot more in sacrifices than these 3 cities would warrant - much of that was to get safety from Ichabod of course. Nevertheless, I think that you'll need to be open to options to get additional return on this huge investment; Bacchus and/or the Commodore island or the other island to the west of Retep.

I was thinking it was probably more serious than that, e.g. maybe he moved a huge defensive stack away from a key city that Scooter could take at his home?

Well the timing of your all-in + the likelihood of a galley chain makes it seem like its related to us. A misclick of any of the galleys would rightly be considered 'fatal' for Bathhurst.

Yeah, it's an interesting idea to have a galley net for defending two cities. Since units can board and unboard an infinite number of times in a turn a chain of 2 could move any two units from one city to another in one turn. They just wouldn't be able to unload and move in the same turn. I don't think it can work in two directions though with only 2 galleys.

Well 2 galleys can accomplish in any one direction but would have to be shifted before being able to do the same in the other direction.


If it's not obvious what to do next move I'll try and post here for input.

I'd be really surprised (but not brain exploding) if he has a trick to take Magic Flute. We've been defending it extremely carefully on every turn but this one. I think the only way Comm actually could be set up for it is if he actually intended the Mindybanes to be a trap, and he was also willing to sac the city of Bathurst for it!

I suspect that the Mindybanes was not so much a trap but an intimidating unit. I think that he was sending everthing else south side to surprise us and left Mindybanes as a reason that we shouldn't move forward. Other than a 5-move galley, I just can't see how he could surprise us at Magic Flute (famous last words). If he deforests the deer, then things can get a little more interesting.

He's well accomplished at war so its unlikely but still possible that he's misjudged the extent of our visibility to the south-east side of the island and/or the culture pop surprised him.

For consideration on whether we keep Bathhurst or not. I'd really like to keep it, and with LBs vs not-Knights/middling power why not?

Points against:
- It's far away and expensive without courthouses.
- It makes the defensive liability of the island much higher. We have to be alert for boats out of the fog at all times. Only having MF to defend means more LBs can live on the main land and participate vs Retep / Bacchus / etc.
- We can forget about the fish. Comm will pillage it instantly, and so the city won't have food. (This is probably the main argument for me.)
- I think it would be much more tempting for C to wage a long campaign to take back a city, then to settle again and march over the island, by which time we may have 3rd ring culture in Magic Flute as well.

Fair points. It's expensive to perform a surprise naval invasion on LBs though, 2-3 LBs would make that pretty safe and fork defenders could mop up any narrow win invasion.

On the 'tempting for C to wage a long campaign'. Well we probably went down that road the minute we planted on that island meaning that its no longer something that we can avoid. With that city we can at least work a couple of farms to whip out triemes & LBs until we can control the fish. I don't know,...in the mindset of Commdore cannot be deterred only defeated (and normally that's not easy) I'd say that gaining that city tips the balance noticably in our favour.

The only thing that's going to stop him from marching to take the island, whether it's our city or his former city is getting into trouble with Scooter or the equivalent. I think that we need to keep trying to win the island while hoping for that outcome.

If you were Commodore, what would you prefer we do? I think he'd prefer we keep the city.

But at any rate, I was pretty sure we'd be able to raze the city before, so let's see what it actually has.

Yeah,...not sure what Commodore would prefer,...but his power isn't that high. He's showing the full Commodore aggression in things like his city plant location and unit upgrades,...but he may not have the power to back that up as of right now.

By the time he builds up a bit and redeploys we may have what we need in there to protect it. Most of your points follow the idea that if you're behind in tech/power don't invest in islands because they can easily be taken away. In for a penny, in for a pound as they say.

[WilliamLP]

To be honest I had forgotten that we could see inside of Suit Up. :LOL: That's an actual 3 archers in there right now as opposed to a hypothetical?

There are several reasons that we may want to attack from the north:
1. More likely to surprise him. Surprise was a non-consideration in the past but with 3-move engineering he might not actually see it coming. We've got historical non-attack precedent on our side there.

I don't know if 3 archers is literal, but there's not much more actually sitting inside of Suit Up.

Why does attacking from the south surprise him less? The source tile is still invisible, and if anything the units there would look like zone-defenders vs Ichabod or Bacchus even if he could?

2. Taking the tile 1N helps cut off reinforcements.

That's true and it also allows razing the horse city more easily in passing.

On that note, I'm going to say that we've spent alot more in sacrifices than these 3 cities would warrant - much of that was to get safety from Ichabod of course. Nevertheless, I think that you'll need to be open to options to get additional return on this huge investment; Bacchus and/or the Commodore island or the other island to the west of Retep.

Don't worry, I'm not a priori opposed to moving on Bacchus eventually, at all. Especially not if he doesn't start building some units really soon.

On the 'tempting for C to wage a long campaign'. Well we probably went down that road the minute we planted on that island meaning that its no longer something that we can avoid. With that city we can at least work a couple of farms to whip out triemes & LBs until we can control the fish. I don't know,...in the mindset of Commdore cannot be deterred only defeated (and normally that's not easy) I'd say that gaining that city tips the balance noticably in our favour.

Triremes are basically a dead unit now I think. Commodore can research Optics and caravels (if he's not doing so already). He's also in a position where it strategically makes sense to do this, and have a large navy, while this isn't true for us. So don't see us ever being able to control that western channel at all, the best we can do is maybe defend the area to the west of our mainland.

Bathurst just has one river grass that is otherwise unused, the plains fur (which we already have two of), and all else it claims new are a few dry grassland and one more grass forest. The worker turns are very scarce too. Magic Flute will really benefit from watermills right now. The city probably costs about 10gpt to hold, after netting out the overseas trade routes (could be very wrong but each city raising the cost of all others is very significant right now.) It needs at least 2-3 longbows permanently stationed that can do nothing else. For the price of that we have mainland cities that would pay off a lot more.

The more I think about it the more I just don't see it paying back anything if we ignore the fish. The southern site with the deer and copper is much better for us.

The only thing that's going to stop him from marching to take the island, whether it's our city or his former city is getting into trouble with Scooter or the equivalent. I think that we need to keep trying to win the island while hoping for that outcome.

If there's a betting line on he and Scooter fighting in the not to far future, put me down for "yes".

By the time he builds up a bit and redeploys we may have what we need in there to protect it. Most of your points follow the idea that if you're behind in tech/power don't invest in islands because they can easily be taken away. In for a penny, in for a pound as they say.

I guess I don't see it as binary like that. Some island sites (like Magic Flute) are much more defensible, also much more valuable, even within the same island.

For the me the whole thing hinges on whether we could ever control the fish. Maybe the only way is if we could agree to peace, but I don't know if there's any realistic way that happens.

[MindyMcCready]

Why does attacking from the south surprise him less? The source tile is still invisible, and if anything the units there would look like zone-defenders vs Ichabod or Bacchus even if he could?

A sentry unit could see that tile from within Retep's territory.

Bathurst just has one river grass that is otherwise unused, the plains fur (which we already have two of), and all else it claims new are a few dry grassland and one more grass forest. The worker turns are very scarce too. Magic Flute will really benefit from watermills right now. The city probably costs about 10gpt to hold, after netting out the overseas trade routes (could be very wrong but each city raising the cost of all others is very significant right now.) It needs at least 2-3 longbows permanently stationed that can do nothing else. For the price of that we have mainland cities that would pay off a lot more.

:LOL: Feels a bit like role reversal.

The worker turns and rate of return are serious consideration of course but there are other things to consider as well:
-Eventually, when you settle in that area would you place the city in the same location? I'd say yes or possibly 1SE for a immaterial improvement. With that in mind, that largely removes the high overlap considerations. We're going to get that overlap ultimately anyway and we're saving 100H now.
-Does holding that city improve or worsen our chances of keeping that island? I'd say it improves it although that's somewhat debatable given master Commodore's ability to retake a city on that side of the island more easily than on the East side. His low power right now makes me think that he won't be able to take it back so soon.
-Does holding that city improve or worsen our chances of ultimately controlling the fish? I'd say it improves it.
-Does holding that city improve or worsen our chances that Master Commodore re-asserts himself on the island. Given our culture won't prevent him from plopping another settler down (even at 3rd ring), I'd say that city does more to prevent him from re-asserting himself onto the island.

The more I think about it the more I just don't see it paying back anything if we ignore the fish. The southern site with the deer and copper is much better for us.

Certainly don't disagree with that but they're not mutually exclusive. There's a pretty good chance that if we remove that south city Master Commdore will throw in the towel, at least temporarily, and allows us to have that fish. He declares holy war
when you mess up his sandbox and/or he believes that there's some huge strategic value. Given his lack of power build up, it seems a little bit like he's going through the motions and maybe having a little fun (MindyBanes) but he might be lacking the normal war passion right now.

We can tech to COL in no time, we're still close to 60% break-even and we really need the cities and production to be able to stand up to Ichabod long-term. And strategically, we want to control the whole island and get it to the point where it can defend itself from anything other than a committed attack.

I'd go so far as to send our first few Knights at that southern city to try to lock that island down. I don't want to delay Retep's death too much but ending our island battle quickly and getting peace with Commdore would be worth it, especially given Bacchus' low power.

If there's a betting line on he and Scooter fighting in the not to far future, put me down for "yes".

:LOL:

I guess I don't see it as binary like that. Some island sites (like Magic Flute) are much more defensible, also much more valuable, even within the same island.

This is true, but it does invite invasion.

For the me the whole thing hinges on whether we could ever control the fish. Maybe the only way is if we could agree to peace, but I don't know if there's any realistic way that happens.

Like I said, at a glance it doesn't seem like Master Commodore has his heart in this island. Certainly he hasn't geared his economy to producing the military for a sweep. Removing his interest might do more to gain peace and allow the fish. It's probably a long-shot but if he's got a eye on Scooter we might get lucky.

Mindybanes would have done more defensively inside the city,...but leaving it where it was removed our visibility and/or made it look like he's got scary elephants. It's good that you called him on that. Two possibilites:
1. He knows that he's weak in the area so he postured aggressively. Needed Krilliphants & LB to protect the other city and no peeping eyes to see how weak he was.
2. He's a bit stronger, and was trying to be sneaky with the Krilliphants.

The thing is, he took a LB with him which suggests that that's for defense of the second city. And where a LB can't stop a Knight, a krilliphant could. So my guess is that, he's only got a LB and Krilliphant in that south city + (W2 mace). If we don't kill Bathhurst due to the sudden appearance of a Krilliphant and LB then we should see if a GII LB can beat the mace back to the southern city.

[MindyMcCready]

Looks like he planted that city on T155? That's a bit more evidence that Krilliphants and LB were required for defense down there and got there via galley chain.

So he has/had a total of 5 units on the island: Krilliphants, MindyBanes, CG-CB, Shock LB and the W2 mace. Theoretically, he's down to 4 units now. If we get lucky in killing off the CB,...

Definately think that those extra 2 LB and maybe the first 2 Knights from Turandot and Die could do some damage while we wait for the rest of the Knights to finish building. Might as well. I'd say that it's our overall power rather than unit positioning that's going to keep Ichabod at bay.