Why did we poke the bear? Even his Caravels overmatch us...
OT4E is doing too good a job of reinforcing his cities.
If I delete this Caravel he might just go looking for it out at sea rather than sending this Galleon at OT4E or us.
Caravel vs 3.4/4 C1 Galleon - 38%... LOSS (2 hits)
Caravel vs 2.0/4 C1 Galleon - 88%... WIN (1 hit)
Stupidly I didn't compare power before and after sinking the boat so I have no idea if it was loaded or not .
Just out of curiosity I moved a Caravel up here to OHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!
This whole bear-poking thing was just such a bad idea. Research is set to Engineering for the counter to the Knights Mack is building (and OT4E will soon be able to build) and extra speed for reinforcing. Assuming a mix of twelve CR1 and CR2 Zerks I believe Waldorf would narrowly survive (another G2 LB arrives just in time) while Statler will have 4LBs, a Crossbow, a Vulture and 3 Swords, which should let it survive. Of course we have six Caravels around to try and cause trouble. I'd hope they would sink one of the Galleons and make the others think twice about advancing. Fingers crossed that he splits the stack/ends turn on ocean/something else dumb...
Golden age starts t162. Vassalage can't come soon enough .
(June 6th, 2016, 10:55)TheHumanHydra Wrote: Nice! Yeah, the hopeful converse is that rational game-player Mack doesn't tilt to hard at you either. :D
I'm still going to claim that this is a better outcome than him easily taking OT4E's shrine, but its a damn scary one.
We're likely to get a Great General in the next few turns. Do we want a medic or do we settle him in TSC for 9XP Vassalage units?
One of our Caravels killed a (probably empty) Galleon! Galleons effectively cost him 60 hammers while Caravels cost us the same, so losing boats at a rate of two or three to one isn't actually very clever. I retreated most of our boats out of range after taking this shot. I think Waldorf holds off 12 Zerks easily, so they don't need to defend it, while Statler is out of range anyway.
This was satisfying - only three more XP needed for the next Great General...
I was wrong about the non-boatability of the Hindu shrine . Thank god Mack is attacking us instead .
(June 8th, 2016, 14:06)Old Harry Wrote: Thank god Mack is attacking us instead [/screenshot]
I was going to quote this too. When previously have these words ever been collected in a sentence?
(June 8th, 2016, 21:30)wetbandit Wrote: It is Mack, after all, he could be attacking both us and ot4e. Death to mack!
Yeah, I think it would have been wise to take the white peace and build defences for the next attack after all... Checking the power graph and demos I think Mack has about 50 Zerks (possibly with some Knights thrown in for good measure). He can potentially hit Waldorf with 39, but I think the two Galleons covering the injured one outside Waldorf are likely to be empty and the 5-movers will probably head on north to do more damage. So I'm betting he's aiming 18 Zerks at Waldorf. With six strong defenders (his CR2 Zerks will start off at 4-10% odds against all six) I think it'll cost him about 15-18. So for some lucky rolls.
I begged loans from TBS and 2metra for upgrade gold, but I doubt they'll come through. I also offered Mack 500 gold to call it off. Might be a little late now...
Mack can move five 5-movers to threaten Gonzo and Animal next turn. To threaten Gonzo they have to go onto ocean, where I hope to be able to dogpile them with Caravels (although he can probably pick off the ones on the end of the peninsula). I'm going to gamble that we can get enough defenders into Animal to be safe and go light on defenders in Gonzo for now.
We have a 75% chance of launching a golden age next turn. I think we'll go for HR/Nat/Caste/Merc/Pacifism but Slavery and Paganism are options for last-ditch defence and cost-saving (I *think* Pacifism will cost 40gpt more than OR and 60gpt more than Paganism. Vassalage would reduce that to 10/30gpt but drafting Maces is going to be important...)
Mack wants 1500 gold for peace. I think he's making a mistake with that - he could take our 500 gold and easily conquer REM, whereas to make headway against us he'll need to sacrifice a lot of units and he won't gain any land...
We got the non-Great Merchant we needed, along with a new Great General thanks to some last-ditch rear-guard action from our rapidly shrinking fleet of Caravels. The six boats we have now aren't going to be relevant unless we can trick Mack into overextending, so I think we retreat them past Gonzo. A process of elimination makes me think we're only facing threats to Waldorf (up to 30 Zerks) and Animal (up to 12 Zerks) this turn.
There are a couple more boats on their way, along with a mini-incursion from a couple of Woody2 Zerks. A C1 Crossbow takes aim at Zerk #1:
- C1 Crossbow vs W2 Zerk - 70%... WIN! (4 hits)
James Watt helped start our second golden age. On civics HR, Nationhood and Merc are a given, but Slavery/Caste and Pacifism/Paganism aren't so straightforward. We don't have many specialist slots so I think we either go for Slavery & Paganism or Caste & Pacifism. We're going to want to draft Gonzo and Waldorf repeatedly, with Fozzie and Scooter to back them up. There aren't a lot of places that whips are obvious, but actually I can see enough to make it worth it for five turns or so so I went for Slavery/Paganism.
We're saving cash again this turn. If we don't need to spend a load of money on upgrades next turn (we will) we could get Astro, Constitution or Guilds->Gunpowder in 6 turns.
- If we manage to sign peace then Constitution is the obvious choice
- Assuming we stay at war Astro would let us build our own Galleons to defend our waters better
- Drafting Muskets only gets us one more strength point than Maces, but that could also swing the odds in our favour. These are both on the line to Frigates too, which will be needed.
In foreign news we got the loan from 2metra and another from TBS totalling 600 gold, meaning we can make some upgrades if needed. OT4E whipped a lot of Knights last turn, which I think we respond to by whipping a castle in Mr Snuffleupagus and putting some pikes in there. He's got about ten catapults handy, so that isn't a permanent solution, but right now I'm just up for buying time. Meanwhile Commodore and TBS seem to have skirmished a little over Pindi/Brick's remains. Their war weariness is 14/9.
A quick look at some cities:
TSC needs another specialist slot
Gonzo is in real danger - it's on flat ground, meaning green Longbows don't get odds on CR2 Zerks. We'll reinforce with a X-bow, a Mace, a warrior and two Vultures next turn. Upgrading several of these units will be important if we're going to keep the city.
Fozzie could be one of our GP producers, but it'll be in the firing line of Mack's boats very soon, so probably not worth investing too heavily in.
Waldorf could also produce a GP, but I plan to draft and whip it too much for that to be sensible.
That leaves Rowlf and Elmo as backup GP generators.
While Big Bird will pop the 600 GPP person before any of the others can.
We remain firmly screwed. Mack asked 120 gpt for peace this turn, I countered with 50 gpt, but I think he'll burn Gonzo instead (although he could take out Animal with about 25 Zerks if he wanted).
The bad news is that OT4E is piling on - I had a Castle in the queue here, but OT4E's cats would reduce the defences to 10% (20% with Castle) before I can whip it in. Better to make it expensive and then cut and run. I'm bringing Catapults back to help trash his stack, but they're a couple of turns away as they had gone to concentrate on Mack for a bit.
Travelling turn on crappy laptop so no pictures. As expected Mackoti burnt gonzo (at a cost of only five Zerks - I think he got a couple of lucky battles) . He offered peace for 50gpt, which I should probably have accepted, but I've just decided I hate myself so I offered it back for 300 gold so he can carry on around the coast burning more cities.
Meanwhile OT4E has moved his stack next to M Snuffleupagus - he'll bombard the the city this turn and should be able to take it next turn, but I held our cats further back just in case he wanted to take it this turn.
Mack took peace, OT4E burnt Mr Snuffleupagus. He used up a bunch of Catapults and Horse Archers to preserve his Knight stack for attacking further (read from left to right).
We want to get a sight on his stack to see what's what, so:
- Pike vs C2 Knight - 67%... WIN (1 hit)
- c2 Spear vs Sentry Horcher - 78%... LOSS (3 hits)
- Medic Chariot vs Sentry Horcher - 99%... WIN
We can cut the western one of these roads to slow OT4E's Knight's advance, but the other is protected by a windmill - we have a stack of Maces, Longbows, Cats coming into the area in the next few turns, I don't think they will be in time to defend Cookie Monster, but Oscar and Big Bird should hold. I switched builds to pikes to combat the Knight threat.
We have a city to resettle, but do we settle on the horse again or settle two cities instead? I'm inclined to the latter, for the hill bonus that Gonzo was missing, what do you guys think? They'll only have one food each so will grow slowly.
We also need a new Moai site. These are the options:
- Waldorf has 7 water tiles and could build it pretty fast.
- Rowlf has eleven water tiles, but will take a while to build the wonder.
- Elmo has 14 water tiles but will take a while to build and grow onto them slowly.
- BB only has six water tiles, but the extra GPP's will be handy and it'll build fast.
.
.
. Thank god Mack is attacking us instead 
for some lucky rolls.
- we have a stack of Maces, Longbows, Cats coming into the area in the next few turns, I don't think they will be in time to defend Cookie Monster, but Oscar and Big Bird should hold. I switched builds to pikes to combat the Knight threat.
