Mr. Cairo v. Cornflakes duels

[Mr. Cairo]

The attack on Cornflakes commences. This turn I already killed off an Immortal (forgot to check his cash reserves to see if he upgraded it) which sent his city defenses down, so his only one (I think that's how it works?). He has built walls in the city though, which is a pain. But I have enough Pitatis. I also cleared out a barb camp in the area which gave me enough cash to upgrade a warrior into the sword you can see at the far left of the screen.
At home I'm focusing on domestic stuff, went from Agoge to Conscription to alleviate my cash woes. Building builders atm, have a lot of improvements to do, although I'm going to wait to build one in Stockholm until I swap into the right Civic.
I've basically caught up with Cornflakes in terms of culture and science, just ~1 behind in each. Still way behind in faith, but it's still too early for that to be a problem.

[Mr. Cairo]

he has a bit more than I think I can cut through, but it'll depend on what he does with his units, also, the city is in a very good defensive position. Think I'm going to lose one Pitati this turn.

[Mr. Cairo]

Cornflakes got the GG (of course, thanks to his huge amount of faith I'm unlikely to beat him to many great people if we're actively competing for them). And we engaged in some heavy fighting near his borders. I lost a few Pitati's and killed a couple of Immortals, then he pulled back. I'm still sitting in a defensive position blocking his way west. I'm hoping he doesn't have a lot of land to expand into where he is, it certainly looks as though the bulk of the map is behind my cities. Unfortunately that land is predominately flat, so Production isn't going to be easy to come by... I'll take some screenshots next turn.

[Mr. Cairo]

Here's the battlefield (and CS status, more on that below). I just killed an Immortal on the hex 1W of the GG, after he failed to kill that very injured Pitati (which will probably die this turn). I'm not too concerned about losing highly promoted units, as they promote so quickly anyway. Also note that his Encampment finished repairing. I've had a unit sitting on it for most of the last dozen turns or so, and I was assuming that as long as I had a unit there he couldn't repair it. Then I moved off of it for one turn and bam! it was back at full health.   Was he repairing it while i had a unit on top of it? Idk. But it's very annoying. However, I am doubling his military power right now (even before I killed that Immortal), and he apparently attacked a city-state recently:


Speaking of City-States, I got two envoys into Buenos Aires, and with another from Military Training, I'll be able to suzerain it, which should be annoying for Cornflakes at the very least. Unfortunately that means hard researching the civic, as I'm not getting an encampment any time soon.


Here's my empire, and all the land I have available to settle in (eventually).

I really need more builders. Also, I'm working on the Hanging Gardens at my cap, partly for the civic boost, and partly to try and counteract war weariness.

[Mr. Cairo]

I really hope Cornflakes doesnt have any envoys saved to make peace with Buenos Aires:

If he does I'll have to retreat.

Edit: And he did, so lost 1 Pitati, and am now retreating. I'll get another envoy in 4 turns when I finish Theology civic (building Stonehenge for the religion). But this time I'll save it, build another round of Pitatis and some Horsemen perhaps. Then go for it again with Buenos Aires, but suzerain them BEFORE moving in, in case he has another envoy.

[Mr. Cairo]

So Cornflakes suzerained Buenos Aires, I think to see if they could keep me off his back while he does something else? Perhaps he's having trouble conquering Kandy. In any case, after a few turns I put my two envoys in and suzerained them myself, assuming (correctly it turns out) that he wouldn't have another envoy ready to equal mine. This is the result the turn after:

However, the AI is bad, and City-State AI is even worse. So I don't expect them to do much except get in the way. But maybe that's all I need to push against Bakhtri. I do however have a lot of my army out of position and injured after fighting a semi-serious barb incursion, while my cities are mostly on district builds.

Depending on the cost, I may go after the envoy at Naval Tactics(?) so I can suzerain Mojendo Daro as well, as I'm up to two there after completing a quest for them.

I have decided to go for a culture victory. IDK how feasible that is in a duel, but I already have two wonders, and I'm building a cultural district in my capital.

[Mr. Cairo]

And I concede. WW, already crippling, just cause Stockholm to revolt and spawn 3 swords and a xbow. And Cornflakes suzerained Buenos Aires, and he has Knights. Even if he were willing to accept peace, giving him the option would be basically signing my own death sentence, since it would give him the opportunity to declare a Surprise War on me and get that absurd bonus.

Oh well, it was always going to be an uphill struggle, and I certainly learned a lot. I do think that Persia is too good for duels though...

[Cornflakes]

I'm not so certain that Persia is too strong. I was very disappointed in the Immortal, and the culture + trade route + unique-improvement-I-can't-spell are slow starters. I was expecting to have a strong early lead in culture but it took a lot of resources in builders, commercial hubs, and traders. The +2 movement is probably the most powerfull bonus but you completely negated that by staying at war.

On the other hand your archers were very scary. The fact that they could climb hills or forests and still shoot gave them the ability to first-strike on the attack. If it hadn't been for those mountains blocking the northwest of my city and the river preventing you from flanking me to the southwest you would have quickly overwhelmed me after capturing Stockholm.

Anyway, I enjoyed it and learned a lot as well You up for another?

[Mr. Cairo]

I'm not so certain that Persia is too strong. I was very disappointed in the Immortal, and the culture + trade route + unique-improvement-I-can't-spell are slow starters. I was expecting to have a strong early lead in culture but it took a lot of resources in builders, commercial hubs, and traders. The +2 movement is probably the most powerfull bonus but you completely negated that by staying at war.

On the other hand your archers were very scary. The fact that they could climb hills or forests and still shoot gave them the ability to first-strike on the attack. If it hadn't been for those mountains blocking the northwest of my city and the river preventing you from flanking me to the southwest you would have quickly overwhelmed me after capturing Stockholm.

Anyway, I enjoyed it and learned a lot as well You up for another?

Yeah, it was that +2 movement thing that was very scary, and basically prevented me from making peace with you. At which point the WW got out of hand. Did you not have much of a problem with it? I don't really know how it's calculated, maybe I let my cities grow too large?

But yeah, the positioning of those mountains, Buenos Aires, and the river made that city very difficult to attack.

Sure, I'd be up for another, I saw in your discussions with TheArchduke you were thinking of playing on a large map, and I'd be interested in that. Not separate landmasses, but certainly a larger map with more city-states, so the games might go on longer than medieval.

[Cornflakes]

I’m out until late tonight but tomorrow I’ll try tweaking the starting script and roll a few test maps to make sure it works with the city state distribution. Want to try a small sized map (default 6 players) with diety for the difficulty setting?