[SPOILERS] Team BASTARD settles on deer.

[Mardoc]

Arghh. Dhal's claimed the fish. Egypt's pressing on the clams. Mayyyybe we need to consider not burning the place. It hurts to give up those seafood, but it's going to be a long while before we can get them anyway. And Corn/cows isn't a *bad* city, even if it wastes potential. And it does save us a settler.

Also, Azza finished an axe here. Not to worry, our axe has it covered:



and wins!

Course, now we've got to sacrifice a unit to clear out that spear, instead of letting the axe simply romp. It's tempting to wait a turn and just use the axe again, but that worker's been on the forest for a while; he'll probably get another unit next turn. And our axe has only 0.3 health; even with a promo-heal he might not have good odds on the spear next turn.

I fuss for a while...take the 5% odds shot with the 25 hammer archer, or the 10% odds/18% retreat shot with the 50 hammer HA? Eventually decide we're destined to lose the fight either way, best to spend the cheaper unit.

But...the archer does literally nothing. The HA who follows him in takes the spear to 3.4/4. And although I probably shouldn't have bothered with him, the last HA also loses, taking the spear to 2.0/4. Gah! Doesn't matter if we want to keep or burn if we can't get any stinkin' odds here...

Speaking of throwing good money after bad, I take a full health axe from Dental Plan and ship him north. If Azza attacks out, we can kill his spear afterward. Course, that probably still won't get us the city, but I'm not thinking super clearly at the moment. Gah! Should have waited. Now that spear will have Shock.

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I do end up whipping the settler from FC. 5 turns early on the new city will help; having production while FC regrows will help. I think we're basically trading commerce for foodhammers, and we need food/hammers more than we need commerce at the moment. Definitely sending the settler south We might not even get our chicken of the north, and if we do, I've mostly talked myself into keeping it rather than burning it.

Yellow goes onto a Buddhist temple; still planning to get our shrine from here. Other cities growing on units or lighthouses, as appropriate.

Gah!

[Commodore]

DP needs renaming!

Sorry about the tilt.

[Mardoc]

Thought about the situation en route to work. A few conclusions:
a) It should have worked. I think we had 80+% chance of getting the city, the RNG just screwed us. But...

b) I'm an idiot. If I stopped the attack any time before I used my last HA, I'd have 90+% odds of getting the city next turn. Azza just finished a unit and neither chopped nor whipped; he's only going to have that spear next turn to defend with. That means we want to attack with the promo-healed axe, and we didn't save him. Probably should have stopped the instant the archer failed to scratch the spear, or just paused after the axe win, period. But even saving the last HA instead of throwing him away at 35%, would have let us take the city next turn.

Need to walk away from the computer for a minute between each battle. A little more patience and a little more analysis, instead of rage, would have meant this is a sure thing.

c) We still might salvage this. It assumes that Azza brings no reinforcements, and can't finish a unit until two turns from now, but I think both are fairly safe assumptions. Possibility 1: he stands pat. We promo-heal our axe to CI/Shock, and he should have 70+% odds to kill the spear. Maybe take the shot, maybe not: probably depends on whether he finishes that chop or whips, or not.

If we take another axe from Dental Plan, we ought to be able to guarantee two well-promoted, almost healthy axes on the forest hill next turn - three if he doesn't kill the axe IBT. He finishes a unit almost certainly...but even if it's an axe, a shock and a CII axe ought to be able to kill that. Either he kills our axe with his spear, and we revenge it, leaving 2 axes to one - or he doesn't, and it's 3 axes to 1 plus a spear. Or we gamble on hitting with a promo-healed axe and maybe just win directly. All in all, probably about 60-70% odds of taking the city; then we just have to figure out how to hold it.

That leaves DP vulnerable for the moment, with only a half-health axe and an archer, but I'm pretty convinced that Azza can't exploit that. We'll stick another axe in next turn, and start fortifying/healing.

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On the other hand, even if this works, it might not be the best idea. It expands the front to two cities with no culture, no walls, and roads from Azza's core directly there. And they'd each be guarded by...two units, axes? Maybe we've put enough fear into Azza that he doesn't counter, but maybe that just leaves us spread too thin to hold anywhere. I'd really be torqued if overreaching causes Azza to get back everything we've taken. This comes back to the throwing good money after bad: if I waited til next turn, and took the city with the axe or axe + 1, then we'd already have a garrison without having to weaken DP.

If we stop here, then our position isn't bad. Wasted 125 hammers trying for Nothing, but that does still prove we're a real threat to the city. Use a unit to cover a worker putting a road on the plains hill 2SW of Nothing, and Azza might well take that as a cue to stack a lot of units more or less permanently in the city. When we're ready, kill them all with cats. Or, if he doesn't - well, then a handful of axes, swords, or HA could hit it with a lightning strike from the fog. In either case, the city isn't worth a whole lot to him, is it?

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I'm thinking the next push needs to be either cats/axes at Nothing, or a handful of HA doing a recon-in-force at Boo-urns. Get a road up to the Arabian border in the south, and we can put a force of HA from the fog to overlooking the city, in one turn. If it's weak, we take it, if it's not, we only put one HA in and leave the rest probing for other options.

So the shortest term goals are to secure DP and get some roads in place to threaten Azza all over. Try to make him defend everywhere and more opportunities will come.

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Stay the course, Mardoc. We're ahead in miltech, and ahead in city count, but in both cases, not by enough to make this certain. Focus on the strategic goal: keep Azza on the back foot while planting and growing your own cities, and this will be easy soon enough.

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@ Commodore: Does Dental Plan look like it's out of revolt? I like that idea of Sullla's, it seems a natural time to rename. Patience!

[Mardoc]

That was a total bust. Azza brought a chariot up from his backlines, killed the axe on the hill. We couldn't run from it, so I attacked - and ended up losing an axe to kill it. Our last axe is 2.5/5 health on the hill and probably dying this turn.

Oh well. No more little probes - only invade Azza's territory in overwhelming force!

[BRickAstley]

gah.

Oh well, live and learn. Here we learn that starting against azza and responding in turn just leads to more of a chance to get stomped by finharry in the future.

Nice trying though Mardoc. We could have had that go alot better if the dice weren't so cruel.

[Mardoc]

Eh, I guess. I wouldn't blame this latest setback on Azza except in the overall 'why we're at war' sense. It was much more about my mistake, trying to stretch a military to do more than it really could. And, admittedly, a bit of RNG pain. But at least we put forth a credible threat to Nothing At All, and it seems that he cares about the city enough to try to hold the place.

He didn't kill our axe last turn, but he did build one of his own and get some culture into Nothing, so we're withdrawing. I did manage to get a road onto that plains hill overlooking the city; we'll try for paranoia for now.

Still, we're at 9 cities to his 6, about to be 10 next turn. We've got a nice wave of archers, War Elephant, axes, spear, heading to hold the front. I'm thinking this is a good moment to pause and push out a couple more settlers, honestly. Rebuild a few more cats and we can hold where we're at without too much trouble.

The barbs built a city on Icecrab peninsula, I'm debating if it should be burned or kept. It would change our dotmap, but I'm not convinced it would be horrible - at least not 100 hammers worth of horrible. Can't do anything about it now, and we probably want to let it grow first anyway, so it's not an urgent question.

I'll try to report more this weekend. Up to five games at the moment, though, so my focus is a bit diffuse.

[Mardoc]

Time to catch up a bit on the reporting.


Got city #10 this turn . Not *quite* as well supported as it could have been, but we've still got it roaded, with a turn into the Deer camp, a WB completing from Green for the fish, and a couple more workers inbound. Going to be an awesome city given a little time.



Our galley is finding all sorts of new friends. Maybe we should consider picking up Alphabet, to enable Open Borders. Would help with both meeting people and commerce in the event BGN decides to stop being a friend. I'm probably declaring war on Caledorn next turn so we can continue moving, unless you object.


Here's the barb city I mentioned. If we keep it, we can move the crabs city 1S and remove the Sheep spot. That would be less efficient with the use of the lighthousable lakes, but it might be worth it to save a settler.

Next two cities are planned for the silver and the whales, so we should have time to let the barbs grow if we want to keep that city.


And here's the front. Specifically, the Nothing At All garrison. Yeah, we're not cracking that city without cats, not unless Azza throws the garrison away. At this point, it's probably better to just leave it alone and let him forget about the troops.


Here's Dental Plan, which I forgot to rename. Starting to look likely that it holds - the Walls are coming in nicely, and Azza's being more passive than I expected. Maybe that's a silver lining to the threat to Nothing. But when the walls come in, we'll have increased its security by a lot; once we gain control of first ring, I'll consider it ours. And honestly - with the first ring, it'll be a very nice fork of Boo-urns and Nothing At All. For the meantime, at least it's not an Azzan base.

[Mardoc]

I believe I mentioned something about Azza being passive?


Hit his stack with a cat and HA. Both had ~70% odds, both lost . Just can't catch a break with the RNG. They did at least wound his axes enough that I think this will hold. Assuming again nothing new in fog. Honestly, the War Elephant alone ought to be able to hold, but the extra units ought to help matters.

Four more turns til the wall finishes. Hold it that long and he's not getting it back, period.




Still left half the empire on peaceful duties. I hope I don't regret that, but it seems important to keep growing.

[Mardoc]

You've got to be kidding me! Axe beat elephant on the first try? Not a single victory for us?


Azza offered peace, and I reoffered it. Clearly the RNG wants him to win :rolleyes:

Not...not quite sure what to do next. Not convinced anything can work when Arabia wins all the coinflips...and all the 33%'ers...and even the 1% battles. Makes me very glad this is pitboss, at least.

Rebuild a cat stack and try again? Just go straight for longbows...or crossbows? Sit in our corner and cry?

Gah!

[Mardoc]

Yesterday's turn:









Today, didn't see anything worth a screenie.