[Spoilers] Ceterum Peter censet Carthaginem fore triumphatrix - Adrien + Miguelito

[AdrienIer]

Good to know !

[Miguelito]

THH whipped what I think is called a shitload of knights, and I'm not all that confident they're not aiming at us.





That's the situation. I counted six total. Three of them can get in position to strike Hulk next turn.
What we've got there:
- 1 spear
- 2 axes
- 5 numids (shifted 2 over from Al border) + 1 chariot
- 1 cat

My panic movements are:
- changed hulk back from the nearly finished missionary to barracks and whipped it to 1t a spear the turn after with the overflow
- whipped the lighthouse at barrow to start a spear the turn after
- delaying NE 1t for a 1t spear

we're also getting 2 fresh cats onto the boats next turn. I'm thinking to set up a boat chain from GD to Hulk mid term?


Ok, I think while it's just knights we should survive the 4 turns to gunpowder with (few) cats, spears and the other meatshield units. It would be nasty if he had CKNs in the mix, but I've seen just 1 and it's heading towards Mardoc.
In fact, it's still most probable he's attacking Mardoc and not us. All his ancient units is going towards Mardoc and that knights are mostly in the cities where he just whipped them. But I don't want him to think he can make easy gains with a fast strike. We've got a great advantage with our ability to scout more or less his entire border region. He just has one chariot between TOS and Kiwi.

[Miguelito]

turn's not finished yet btw, so we can discuss movements

[AdrienIer]

We can interpret his actions as either the prelude to an full on attack on Mardoc or a knight attack on us while his outdated military hang around Mardoc's border to make sure he doesn't intervene. Either way we want to get more spears on the border while we tech to gunpowder, but I think finishing NE is still the best play.

[AdrienIer]

Missionaries can wait though

[Dreylin]

Yeah, difficult to say for sure which it is ... although we do know from the tech thread that he has been looking at city names recently!

[AdrienIer]

No-diplo civ 4 : where you get so paranoid that an innocent comment in the tech thread becomes the indication of an incoming attack

[Miguelito]

ok, I did what I reported above, but nothing else. Overflow in Hulk should be enough for 2-3 1t spears. We should also be able to 1t one in Barrow, and I'm sending one from Pfeffi. It's not that bad to delay NE/university by 1 turn imo (it doesn't delay Oxford and the gunpowder research should be done before the university anyways).
We birthed yet another GS in Pfeffi.
Foreign news I hadn't noticed before: Al revolted to Vassalage/HR, apparently without a GA (Culture/Esoionage graphs are flat)! Don't get why he hasn't thrown one yet, he's the MoM man . Also, we should expect knights from him at some point not too far away. His GNP has consistently been the lowest throughout the game though, so maybe not too soon either. I'm not seeing forges in his cities yet, so possibly he still has to go the machinery path.


Btw here's an illustration of THH's whippage:


We might recover that insignificant crown at least for a while

[AdrienIer]

Isn't our GA finishing this turn ? Are you sure we can finish the NE in 1t even outside the GA ?
Maybe AlH is trying to get 2 GAs back to back, and is waiting until he gets the necessary GPs, IDK.

[Miguelito]

Isn't our GA finishing this turn ? Are you sure we can finish the NE in 1t even outside the GA ?

We can, easily (just 10 raw hammers to go)

Maybe AlH is trying to get 2 GAs back to back, and is waiting until he gets the necessary GPs, IDK.

But get into anarchy ?