[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Hang in there, and keep your spirits up.

[scooter]

Thanks BGN! I'm just gonna focus on 'winning' my Lewwyn duel and not worry too much about the macro consequences. No sense in doing that anymore.

Lewwyn appears to have set his sights on the capital (he's no longer even threatening Gators), but crucially he's going to wait and heal up before marching. That means I definitely will have infantry before he gets there. The question now becomes how many can I scrounge up between now and then. I'm pretty sure it won't be enough to stop him from burning it - especially considering half his Rifles are pinch and he's using a medic3 now for healing (oof) - but still, he's at least giving me a shot. Maybe I can at least bleed him out enough that the cap is the last one he can burn. How's THAT for optimism.

Also, WHO DO I NEED TO KILL TO GET AZZA TO JOIN IN. I realize he can't see that Lewwyn has nothing in his southern cities like I can, but still, dang. He's sitting on tons of units with a valuable shrine 7 tiles away defended by 1 archer. Anyway, I'll very likely be taking it myself.

[scooter]

To clarify on the Azza comment - Azza is still at war with Lewwyn and refuses to sign peace. He doesn't even need to wardec him - just walk into his essentially undefended cities.

[spacetyrantxenu]

To clarify on the Azza comment - Azza is still at war with Lewwyn and refuses to sign peace. He doesn't even need to wardec him - just walk into his essentially undefended cities.

Scouting in force would yield up a big conquest? Where the hell do I sign up for that mission?

[NobleHelium]

Gift your map to Azza, maybe he'll get the hint.

[scooter]

Yeah, I tried again on Azza - this time offering him my map followed by the usual horse/iron trade and his city that has a ton of units in it. He ignored it. He's playing 3-4 minute turns routinely, so there's a chance he's just not interested, which is fair. Just disappointing.

Anyway, Lewwyn decided to sit and heal for another turn, which should significantly increase the amount of infantry I can get into Trailblazers. I just rolled the turn, so Assembly Line, Rifling, and enough gold to turn 8 grens into infantry right away are here. In the end, I believe I'll have something like 20 infantry by the time he gets there. It would be more than that, but he's got first half of the turn timer sadly.

That's almost for certain not going to be enough to save Trailblazers, so I'm already planning as if it's gone. But it may just be enough to bleed his main stack just enough that I can stop the bleeding there. Infantry have an inherent +25% against gunpowder. I can give some of those infantry pinch on top of that, in which case he's gonna have to basically cut their health below half with collateral just to get odds on them with rifles. (Yes, I'll have some city garrison as well.) Granted, a lot of his Rifles also have pinch.

My Grens from down south landed in Azza territory. Lewwyn apparently saw them and responded by moving one of his Knight stacks south. Those units of mine were never going to figure in to the Trailblazers battle, so honestly I"m just happy to have forced him to bring units south rather than adding those to his stack.

I also caught a spy poking around in my northernmost cities. That... is probably Commodore (who doesn't have airships or any sentry units nearby), given Lewwyn is going to be more interested in the garrisons around Trailblazers. He may have just seen me lift units off the borders and wonder if he can get a piece himself. Anyway, he doesn't have the sheer numbers Lewwyn has to beat infantry, so it really depends on how fast he can move, and given that I just saw the first Cav from him this turn (thank you airships), the answer on how fast he can move is "not very" since all he really has for an army is about a dozen 1-movers... Likely nothing I can do if he decides to take a couple northern cities, but I'm kinda doubting he has the MFG available to produce the numbers he'll need to overwhelm infantry. Then it's a question on if he wants to spend his valuable gold rush-buying things. Piling on me is probably the right decision, but that implies him doing it like... last turn. So I might be ok, hard to say.

Mackoti is still at peace for 6 more turns. He can easily take the islands, but he really lacks the navy to power his way onto my land I think. By that I mean - I just have way more and better boats than him - I've got airships all over the west islands, and I've got at least 2x as many SOTL as he does - I've been building drydock-enhanced SOTL out of my west cities nonstop since I got the tech needed. So I dunno, he would either lose his land units on galleons, or he would be able to land them and lose his entire navy in the process. We'll see, hard to predict what he'll do. I did take his 20g for 20g offer to imply 20T of peace, but mackoti deals aren't worth too much as anyone who played games with him back when diplo was enabled would tell you.

[scooter]

So, there's an outside chance Lewwyn might have blown his chance. I had 5 minutes and did a very rudimentary sim - just to guesstimate what ballpark he can bring me down to in terms of collateral. It's not great news for him - after burning all 18 CKNs and 13 catapults, it appears that he still won't be getting odds on my infantry, and I'll have around 20 of them. There's a very strong chance he'll raze it anyway on the back of raw numbers, but still... I've gone from 95% sure Trailblazers is being razed down to about 70%. If he had started moving in right away rather than waiting a few turns, I would have had no prayer at all to save it.

[scooter]

Interesting.



So, my number of infantry that I can get into Trailblazers is more like 25 it looks like. And yes, those Galleons off to the east were used to chain in 3 Grens from like 20 tiles away .

Anyway, I really expected him to move onto the desert tile. Perhaps he's trying to avoid a flat ground counter-attack. Anyway, this brings an interesting question: How many units could a few Guerilla2 Infantry kill if I plopped them on that hill?? I'm guessing SEVERAL. I could even stick a fort on that hill (I have the workers around just in case I wanted to do this) and give some infantry city garrison, that way they'd be useful even if he doesn't attack it. The downside is I don't want him to be able to capture the fort and then sit there indefinitely.

The alternative to him attacking the hill is him wasting another turn going around the hill (giving me several more infantry in Trailblazers).

The other thing is I think there's a chance he may not realize I have infantry. I wouldn't think he'd take this path if he realized I could plop G2 infantry on that hill. I may consider just moving G2 grens up there, then next turn I upgrade them into infantry - at this point I'd rather him not bail on the attack given how much I'm punishing my cities/cash to make this defense happen. Also, look at those cash reserves. That's enough to upgrade 21.8 grens to infantry next turn (yes I have at least that many available), 22 if I sneak in another wealth build or two. And then I'd still have at least another turn to go, which is why my 25 infantry number may even be overly conservative. So the question is if it's worth it to spend 1-5 infantry on that hill. The answer to that is almost certainly yes, the better question is how many.

Noble/Cyneheard, got any opinions?

For reference, here's Lewwyn's south:



Looks like he's planning on letting those Knights join the party after all. This really will be one huge battle.

Also, I'm gathering 9 3xp grens and a 3xp junk unit (free upgrade) to do GG XP scatter this turn. That's always fun.

[scooter]

The other thing is what I want to do with my 20 Knight stack. On one hand, I could combine them with my southern Grens and really tear into his nearly-empty cities while he invades me. On the other hand, I could stuff them all into Trailblazers to soak up collateral. The latter is very, very likely my best option, but it's something to think about. It's also realllly betting big on the capital holding.

[scooter]

Turn 214-217

Found some spare time for the first time all week, so I figured I would add a few screenshots in addition to the lunchtime mini-dump. I did this a few turns ago:



Sabotaged the road on this tile. the problem I had was units were seriously tied down in Gators because of those Knights threatening Gators. Doing this allowed me to almost empty out Gators (after Lewwyn moved off that hill and into his culture that is), which meant I could hide my Knight stack and force him to account for them. In the end, I think the actual impact was pretty negligible, but it's just a minor detail that meant he needed to acccount for one extra thing (meaning he needed to at least pretend to defend his cities). On to the current turn, I did the GG sprinkle.



Nice, neat 10 extra promotions there, not to mention turning a spear into an infantry for free. The 4 CG1 will be turned into CG2 infantry, should be nasty. Right now I'm thinking that I'll turn 3 of the 5xp infantry into Guerilla2 and move them onto the hill. That leaves the other 3 to be whatever - very likely pinch, but possibly C2 if we get into a position where I'm counter-attacking into his stack and Knights could become top defender. Also, check this nasty guy out:



Yep, I now am the proud owner of a C2 CR3 Morale infantry. 99.4% odds on a full health rifle fortified in 60% culture. That's obscene. This is like a tank without blitz, essentially. Also, since Lewwyn moved his Knights north to seemingly join his stack, I decided to use my southern Grens like this:



He's got nothing down here at all. Fun part is if I can capture this in a few turns, I can upgrade these guys into Infantry once I own the city. Also, yes that's the Confucian shrine - the biggest prize on this continent. We'll see. Hopefully he'll actually swing his Knights down here to account for this, in which case I'll just retreat. But if he lets me walk into it, I won't turn it down. These guys were never going to factor into the big battle up north anyway.

So this is all pretty positive news. Where's the bad news? Oh, right.



4 Cavalry pictured here, there's another visible in one of these cities. That's 5 more than he had a couple turns ago. Not a coincidence. I seriously, seriously thought about upgrading that archer on the border into an infantry so he would see it and know not to bother, but I can't afford to do that juuuuust yet. Anyway, if I'm able to survive this Lewwyn attack, I'm fine, because I've got superior units, MFG, naval presence, etc. But if Lewwyn actually succeeds, these northern cities go down in a hurry. In the end, it would be an acceptable loss, and I'd be able to get them back later. I was convinced that piling on was the right move for Commodore 4 turns ago, not so much anymore. We'll see, monitoring closely.



While I was logged in, WLP took two Bacchus border cities and got a great general. Bacchus lost his cap to Plako the other day, so he really is next on the chopping block. Amazing how many people Azza keeps out-living, really.

That's about all the time I've got at the moment. Any burning questions?