[SPOILERS] Pindicator as Qin Shi of China - Boring Ol' Vanilla

[pindicator]

Turn 077

All right folks, new turn is up! Barry has played! Let's go get us a city!



Barry did not finish a unit at end of turn, so we're at 13 attackers against his 4 defenders. We got this

...right?


Axe vs Axe (11.1%) - Loss, no damage done
Axe vs Axe (11.1%) - Loss, defender down to 84hp



Not a good start! Come on RNG, let's not blow this army all in one place!

Axe vs Axe (12.2%) - Loss, defender down to 4hp
Axe vs Archer (21.9%) - Loss, defender down to 10hp

There we go! Much better, RNG!

Axe vs 84hp Axe (38.1%) - WIN!!!
62hp CR Axe vs Spear (32.7%) - WIN!!!!


There we go!!! That makes up for the first two! The rest is mop-up

60hp C1 Axe vs 10hp Archer (99.9%) - Win
94hp C1 Archer vs 4hp Axe (99.9%) - Win



Now let's move up a chariot or two...
Ah heck, let's just move everything up!



Fingers are crossed that Barry was building a metal unit and not an archer!

If you notice, Benghazi has come out of revolt, and the happiness from having ivory hooked up is noticeable. My bpt jumped up from 42 to 55, and none of my cities are unhappy any longer. I'm sure the library helped, too.



The capital may not finish that chariot if we take Barry's capital next turn. I'm also starting a chariot at Benghazi and chopped a forest into it, because we lost so much at Ville. If we do swap away then it'll be to build another worker or settler. We need to look at hiring scientists too, now that we have a library in that city.

Demos are so much better. We've gone from last in GNP and crop yield to middle of the pack

[Ceiliazul]

There we go!!! That makes up for the first two! The rest is mop-up

I'd bet you were in the top 10% of sims for that battle, nice! If Barry has nothing new in the capital, will you pile in next turn?

[pindicator]

There we go!!! That makes up for the first two! The rest is mop-up

I'd bet you were in the top 10% of sims for that battle, nice! If Barry has nothing new in the capital, will you pile in next turn?

Yeah, I've never seen luck swing like that in a series of battles before, from worst possible to nearly best possible.

If he doesn't build another unit, I think 4 chariots are pretty good for taking on what he has. His axe has no fortify, so chariots will get odds (i think) on it. So yeah, gotta go for that.

[pindicator]

Turn 078

The outcome may be inevitable, but I don't think I'll be getting rid of Barry any time soon...



My (wounded) axes are moving up, as are my spears. But spears aren't a good solution against what he's showing. I'm trying to think how the best way to finish him off will be...

• Whip chariots and zerg him down. You can see the odds above. We can move across the river and lower the ratio to 4 v 7.05, which is still bad odds and will likely need 3 chariots for every defender. Plus even at 2 moves and over roads, chariots are going to take time to arrive. I did whip a chariot out of Benghazi (renamed Comfort this turn, in tribute to Barry's rainbow and sunshine ways), and am finishing one out of the capital now, so there are some coming.
  
• Move up the axes and spears. Unforunately this will also take a while. The axes are 2 turns away from attacking, 3 turns if I want to not attack across the river. Plus they're all wounded. In total I will have 11 units ready to attack in 3 turns, but that's everything. So even one more archer will make that a dicey attack. It's probably still a dicey attack.
  
• Wait for swords. Iron Working finishes at the end of the turn. We have a settler in production at Tandem, and can whip him out if we really need to. And while swords are the city-busters we need, they are the slowest of slow. We need to:
  • 1. Hook Up Iron, which may involve whipping a settler and settling and hooking up the iron.
    
  • 2. Build sword units
    
  • 3. Walk them a distance of 12 tiles from my capital to Barry's capital

So we're going to be waiting for a while, outside of long odds that Barry leaves me an opening. Which is highly doubtful. His defense has been passive, but it has been competent, so i should expect more of the same. With that in mind, the best option may be to run the chariots around to find his other city, and heal up my axes while we wait for more units to arrive.

[pindicator]

Turn 079

Found his other city, and his workers too. We might move on that before taking the capital.




Iron is farther away than I wish, but not so far away that I need a new settler:



I'll have it connected on turn 82. In the meantime, we're doing another round of chariots

[pindicator]

Turn 080

I think Barry just made a mistake, and I might be able to take his capital next turn.



I was hoping he would do something like this, but I didn't actually think it would happen. He attacked out with his axe and killed my chariot (...and won flawlessly). but that meant it was exposed and open on the hill. (This is why I put the chariots in singles and didn't stack them up outside of the main stack.)

So now it's just 3 archers in that capital, and all of the sudden my spears are attacking archers and not that axe



Also, when I pillaged that camp I didn't get any gold. RBMod break pillaging?
I might want to go back in and promote an axe... but i dunno. If he attacks out with his axe in Hugwarts then I've killed off the last of his axes and it really will be cake.

Now, more chariots are moving up, but not as many as I would like, because Cyneheard thinks I'm not ready for him:



So the chariot that finished out of the capital instead went west. (Also, borders at Tyr popped. We're gonna get that fish hooked up next turn, and grow to 2 as quick as possible so I can get back to that gold mine.) I whipped a chariot out of Scales, and perhaps made my mistake when I decided not to chop a chariot out of Comfort:



Went with a monument first over a granary so we can pop those borders and get all those forests under control. Aside from that, I wasn't sure if granary+plains cow is better than monument to pick up the forest deer...

Power graph shows Cyneheard is likely being opportunistic



But let's not taking any chances.

[pindicator]

While I was eating breakfast I had a Eureka! moment. Ville doesn't need a monument to reach its second ring food; it had a religion! So I changed it over to a granary quick.

Also, if Cyneheard decides to attack we're going to be looking at 2 things:

1. A three-way turn split
2. War until one of us is dead.

I'd much rather live in peace. In fact, I can envision a game like what Commodore and Scooter/Me had in PB13. But he's got to want that too.

[Commodore]

Well, one of you three is about to be dead, right?

Both of you were party to PB13, so you both know how mutually profitable it can be, eh? I'm sure he knows you were a complete and utter paragon of peaceful coexistence there!

[pindicator]

Turn 081

Was a very good turn.





Combat rolls were average-ish

CR spear vs Archer 2.9% lose, archer to 85hp
spear vs Archer 2.4% lose, archer to 85hp
C1 chariot vs Archer 7.8% lose, archer to 4hp !!!!!
chariot vs 85hp Archer 7.8% lose, archer to 55hp
chariot vs 85hp Archer 14.4% lose, archer to 5hp !!!
80hp C1 Cover Axe vs 55hp Archer 81.6% FLAWLESS WIN
54hp axe vs 5hp archer 98% Win
54hp CR2 axe vs 4hp archer 99.9%

Cyneheard backed off and his power isn't growing, so I'm switching everything over to more workers. I've got 6 total for my empire of 8 cities.

WilliamLP is also at 8 cities, but it appears he is doing it the peaceful way. I really need to raid his coastline in a dozen turns...

[pindicator]

I wonder what my expenses are ... Do I have enough between mother load and capture gold to limp to Currency or do I need to run some scientists and bulb Alphabet?