Woden's and Chevalier Mal Fet's [Insert Clever Name Here] Team Thread

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 69

This turn wasn't as consequential as last turn for me, but I think it went well. I finish the wheel as the turn starts, boosting my chops a little, and with no urgent need for iron working or horseback riding yet, I go ahead and slot in shipbuilding. I want to settle the islands soon, and need to be able to embark all my units. After that, not sure. I also finish Salamis's RND, unlocking the inspiration for Cartography:




Cartography, that means I finished two harbors, which means - yep, Salamis finished its second harbor. The city still has appalling production - only 8 hammers, with a population of 5! Everything takes ages to build here, and will, until I bring some hills into my borders - I only just got my first mine up here last turn, and this was my second city. I see now why Dave was less than enthusiastic about this location, but to be fair, where was better? This spot was on fresh water and opened up most of the sailing-related eurekas for me. Trafalgar has handled production well enough, and once Salamis grabs a two or three more hills in its next couple of expansions, it'll be just fine. I BELIEVE that Nan Madol's boost applies per-city, meaning Salamis, Actium, and Leyte will all pop borders a good deal faster now. 

Anyway, I queue up some ancient walls - at 9 turns, they'll take nearly as long as Defensive Tactics will to research, so I gotta start now if I'm going to be ready in time. Yeah, notice how research times continue to plummet - last turn, military tactics showed 2 turns left (I was researching drama and poetry at the time), today, only one. I swap to it since drama and poetry is half-done, but I think I may have no choice but to finish it while Woden finishes Games and Rec. That's not too inefficient, though - at least Woden will get the inspiration for it! 

Speaking of Leyte, and poor production, I swap the tiles around over at that city and cut the time to my builder in half:



The stupid old UI doesn't update, but you can see in the lower right that build time drops from 11 turns to 7. My science rate takes a slight hit, but I don't need the beakers right now. Once it pops, I should have Shiplbuilding finished, and I can build a Quad to be chopped into this city's RND. Then it'll be time to hurry walls before my DOF expires in the mid-'80s. 

But you don't care about silly builder micro, you care about blood! I also notice that Woden has declared war on Kabul, so it's time to kick my military into motion once again. In a staggering display of naked aggression, Afghan military units awoke to find themselves being defended against by a full legion of English warriors! 

With Woden attacking the outlying units to the northeast, it's my army's task to deal with the defenders around the city itself. The battle around Kabul opens with divisions of English archers opening fire across the bay, hitting the exposed defenders outside the city:




A second shot from the other archer nearby redlines the enemy ranged unit. My third division of archers is unable to reach the injured Kabul defender, and so he launches a bit of preparatory fire onto the city itself while the Royal Navy rows up the bay towards the waterfront. It's only a bit of chip damage but there's no better target:




North of the city, my warriors stir themselves into action. The first takes up a crucial blocking position northwest of the city, but is unable to advance further through the thick terrain, leaving the city and nearby archer unscratched - he'll have to overnight here, then go into action tomorrow. The neighboring warrior division, however, is able to hit the archer right away: 




Notice the advantage the thick defensive terrain gives the archer - my warriors barely outmatch them in melee combat. If I tried this without Woden's fire support, I'd probably have been soundly beaten. I didn't expect the warriors to be so ineffective, nor for Kabul to have so many troops. Still, we have the upper hand. While the archer's busy, the HMS Victory reaches the city docks and lands raiding parties of sailors, torching and burning many of the buildings along the waterfront there. 




 To the east, my final warrior has a choice. He could lunge due west, and strike the defending archer in the flank - injuring it but not killing it, and leaving the city to recover half the damage its taken, while the warrior remains out of position. However, it would effectively remove that archer from the fight. 

Alternatively, he could thrust south, onto the key farm east of the city, placing Kabul under siege and cutting off reinforcements from the east. I don't need him to hold long - just long enough for Woden to finish mutilating the defenders on that side, and for my own forces to push hard on the city next turn. I decide to strike south:




The warrior occupies the farm, and again faces a choice - hit the city for more damage, finish off the wounded archer to the south (and capture a builder in the process), or strike the uninjured archer to the southeast. 

1)Hitting the city - this accelerates the capture timeline, but also injures my warrior, leaves the archer to the south free to operate, and could let the builder escape. 
2)Hit the unwounded archer, lessening the firepower coming at me - possible, but it also bangs up my warrior a lot, and I want him as intact as possible to take the city. 
3)Finish the wounded archer - one less unit firing, secures a builder, and makes life awkward on Kabul's robo-governor. If he fires with the uninjured archer, he can't bring his warrior in. If he moves around, the archer probably won't be able to fire. A human could negotiate it pretty easily, but I'm not sure the AI can. 

The warrior strikes southwest, driving to the sea and finishing off one of Kabul's defenders, securing a builder in the process:



The builder just built that farm, so he has 2 charges left. I might be able to use the farm to heal, and the builder itself I can hold in reserve to chop out an RND quickly and then mine a hill. Why the AI loves farms so much, I don't know. 

So that's the situation at the close of the turn. Kabul has 1 uninjured archer inside the city, which has lost about 50 health. Outside the city, he has 1 injured archer, 1 intact archer, and an uninjured warrior within striking distance, plus an injured warrior and crippled archer out of range. Arrayed against that, Woden has 3 archers, only 1 in rnage of the city I think, and I have 3 archers, 1 uninjured warrior, 2 slightly injured warriors, 1 slightly injured galley, and 1 uninjured galley. That should be more than enough to press home the attack and take the city on either turn 70 or turn 71.

[Woden]

Random thoughts,
I am pretty sure we can take Kabul next turn. I would only pillage farms if you absolutely need to. There is a bug that pillaged farms that are conquered don't count towards the inspiration for feudalism, even if repaired. Don't know if it was fixed in the last 2 patches but do know it existed in the past. If we take the city next turn, there should be no reason to pillage them anyways. Just wanted to point the bug out.

Civic-wise, I think you should finish Drama un-boosted while you wait for me to finish G&R. That way I can get the boost. Then I will finish Military Training after G&R to give you the boost while you work on Defensive Tactics. Once I get the religion, I will work on Theology and Recorded History, since they will be both boosted. We should try to lay out a path where we can minimize un-boosted civics (and techs) to ensure we stay competitive.

As for techs, I am working towards Machinery, so you should have all the boost to there and then I will go back to the top to finish techs you have boosted, and then continue on the bottom. We should be able to push to Military Science a little further down the road and could get there early with a dedicated push. I have to start thinking about a little longer term game plan, now that my immediate plans are coming to fruition.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Random thoughts,
I am pretty sure we can take Kabul next turn. I would only pillage farms if you absolutely need to. There is a bug that pillaged farms that are conquered don't count towards the inspiration for feudalism, even if repaired. Don't know if it was fixed in the last 2 patches but do know it existed in the past. If we take the city next turn, there should be no reason to pillage them anyways. Just wanted to point the bug out.

Civic-wise, I think you should finish Drama un-boosted while you wait for me to finish G&R. That way I can get the boost. Then I will finish Military Training after G&R to give you the boost while you work on Defensive Tactics. Once I get the religion, I will work on Theology and Recorded History, since they will be both boosted. We should try to lay out a path where we can minimize un-boosted civics (and techs) to ensure we stay competitive.

As for techs, I am working towards Machinery, so you should have all the boost to there and then I will go back to the top to finish techs you have boosted, and then continue on the bottom. We should be able to push to Military Science a little further down the road and could get there early with a dedicated push. I have to start thinking about a little longer term game plan, now that my immediate plans are coming to fruition.

I'd only pillage the farm to save the warrior's life. As for taking the city, it'll be close - it depends on what those two archers shot on their turn. 

1 archer and 1 galley did 52 damage (14 and 38). Let's take those as average rolls - then 3 archers together will do 42 damage, dropping the city to 106 health. A healthy galley an two healthy warriors will be able to do ~38 apiece, or 114 damage - just enough. But there's 2 archers and a wounded archer to shoot, so not all my units will be at full strength. It could be enough to make a difference this turn, but next turn the city will certainly fall. 

Civics-wise, yep, my plan was to finish drama unboosted. Once I finish military tradition, I'll swap back and knock it out in 3 turns, so it finishes at the same time your Games & Rec civic finishes. We definitely want to keep swapping civics and research back and forth. 

Techs, I want to work on the top half of the tree a little more, pushing towards the other key techs, pushing for Cartography (boosted already) and Square Rigging (not yet boosted) to grab my Renaissance ships. With Caravels, Frigates, and Redcoats in hand, I should be primed for a decisive war. In the meantime, swordsmen, knights, and crossbows will do against Japper and Cornflakes (I need to think about swapping to maneuver instead of Agoge and getting some heavy chariots chopped out. 3-5 would make me feel safe backing up my crossbows and walls).

[Woden]

Nubia-Turn 70

Something is up with not all my screenshots saving. I know I took a before picture and pictures of my combats but many didn't save. Luckily, some did but not the starting few. Anyways, here is the only shot of action that took...   

Archer near Isis took out the warrior. The archer closest to Kabul moved closer to the city and attacked it for 22 damage. The middle archer moved to the flat forest and attacked the archer. CMF lost a warrior in between turns and I am now not sure if we will have enough to take the city this turn. Should have plenty next turn. This is how I left it...

City is at 146/200 health. My archers should be safe but not sure about another of CMF's warriors. In the north, my archer comes across a barb camp...

I shot at the spearman. China finishes another wonder this turn, the Mohabodhi Temple.

Here is the currnet score...

Still a close game. We should make up some ground in the next few turns as CMF adds Kabul into his empire and I add a city and a few more districts. Looking good...

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 70

Open the turn to reveal the completion of military training, and a host of new notifications:




In brief: 1)Singaboy completed the Mahabodi Temple, so Empire's religion will be enhanced soon. 
2)Kabul's archer attacked my warrior...
3)Then a second archer killed it!?   I didn't expect that! My own archers do less than 1/3 total damage to Kabul's warrior - and he's not promoted! My warrior was at over 90 health! Well, good thing I brought extras. Frustrating to lose the builder, though. 
4)The builder gets captured by the warrior entering the vacated tile. 
5)Actium is at the housing cap. Durned coastal city. I need to find time to squeeze in a granary - but for now, it's working the best tiles in the area. No rush there. 

Anyway, I obviously made some error in calculations somewhere, so the loss of the warrior means taking Kabul becomes a lot more uncertain this turn - although as you'll see, it's a near run thing! 

First things first, I swap policies around a bit:



Agoge is in for a little bit longer, until I can chop out the warrior at Aboukir. Ditto maritime industries, with quadrireme builds coming and at least one more galley coming out of Actium. With Trafalgar and Leyte working on builders, I keep Ilkum as well. Charismatic Leader gets dropped in favor of a second economic policy - I consider Colonization, but that's obviously dumb as I'll be switching policies again before I start any settlers. Caravanserais is worth +4 gold to me, soon to climb to +8, and definitely needs to happen in the near future. But for now, the best choice I think is good ol' Urban Planning, netting me 6 hammers across the empire (soon) and boosting my low-production cities a bit. Actium and Trafalgar are my only good builders at the moment.

Near Rome, my scout is finally ready to start annoying Sullla until he murders it. I pillage the road:



I squint at the screen after, but can't tell if that did anything.


 Well, maybe it just needs to be repaired, I dunno. I'll pillage my way along the road until I reach Rome's borders, then if I'm not dead I guess he's not gonna take the bait after all. I'll go sail around China in that case and look for the last city-state left on the map, Archduke's city-state. 

At Aboukir, the warrior reaches 1 turn, so I pause and place the Dockyard. It needs a small tile purchase, and I do have to forgo a +2 adjacency spot in an otherwise useless lake. Better to have a city I can, y'know, build out of:




Too bad the tea makes it impossible to set up a Commercial Hub adjacent to both the harbor and the city-center, but I can still put the CH next to the city-center later. 

Actium's galley, HMS Temeraire, meanwhile, explores up the coast since Nan Madol did a great job revealing most of the coastline in the direction of Rome. Nothing to see yet, though, just lots of blue water:




Need to think about where to pin Dogger Bank on that peninsula. 

Finally, the ongoing battle at Kabul. Most of the defense forces have been cleared out, but the survivors broke the siege of the city and destroyed my advanced division of warriors. My archer battery can either hit the warrior (who rescued the builder), or hit the city itself. I conclude that the warrior can be safely ignored - he won't be able to reach the battle in time to interfere with the fall of the city, and I won't be able to get another melee unit in position to retake the builder in time. So, we volley everything into the city:




Next, HMS Ocean takes the place of Victory and launches her own raid on the city docks. Smoke and flame are rising over most of Kabul now - there's panic in the streets, the commands of the city government are ignored, and citizens prepare to flee the city to the east. The end is near:




However, north and east of the city one of Kabul's last divisions of archers holds out in the hills there, fighting a fierce campaign of attrition that prevents one full division of English warriors from assaulting the city this turn. With the other division massacred on the shore south of the city, the whole burden of the assault falls on my last warrior, the reserves freshly levied from Trafalgar:




Will their efforts be enough? 

No, of course not. I needed one more attack to take the city, and losing the warrior south of the city cost me that attack. I honestly didn't expect Kabul to be able to fully kill it with the resources it had on hand, but I obviously underestimated the robo-governor of the city. Kabul will have less than 40 health next turn - a quick volley from my archers, and an assault by one of my galleys, and the city is mine. 

The final situation around the embattled city:



Broader empire status: 5 cities, 3 completed districts, 2 more placed on the map. A butt-ton of builders chopping and improving, the highest military in the game, a rapidly-swelling trader/harbor economy, competitive science, and the best culture rate in the game. We're starting to snowball rapidly - but will it be enough to catch up to my opponents, who are expanding and building just as furiously? We'll see, but the last ten turns have been great for England.

[Woden]

CMF,
I was looking at the City-States and noticed Russia has 3 envoys into Valletta so I won't be able to get a watermill on T73. If you can finish G & R on T73 through straight research it might be a good idea to straight research it. Otherwise, I will earn an envoy on T74 and can finish it on T74. I will expand on this in my turn report but just wanted to let you know beforehand. Whatever you do, doing finish it on T72, because it will ruin my chance for a discounted 3rd campus.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

No worries. Drama and Rec is due T73, so I'll finish it, then get the tech when you finish on T74. Syncs up almost perfectly.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 71

Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside - 

A quick turn for me, but a fun one, nevertheless. We've got the end of the battle of Kabul, and continued economic development as England surges ahead by leaps and bounds. 

First, I open the turn to find a diplomatic notification. Sullla has once again come knocking with a Declaration of Friendship:



Now, look, I'd love to accept this. I'd love to not have to worry about Roman or Chinese aggression or proxy wars for the foreseeable future. However...there's no real prospect of Sullla marching an invasion army across the length and breadth of Relic just to reach me - hell, he doesn't even know where I live yet. For all I know, neither he nor Singaboy has bestirred themselves from their starting continent, so they very well may have no clue what the world even looks like right now. Now, would he sail an army at me? Please, try it. I'll have two galleys out of Actium soon, to be followed by a swarm of quadriremes (each one chopped into a new economic building*), and I'm raking in the Great Admiral points now. The Romans didn't fare well at sea in the First Punic War, I don't think they'll do much better. 

So the prospect of direct aggression from Rome is slim. But, I worry about how the other teams will see it - if they see us at war with Rome/China, will they - particularly Molotov-Ribbentrop - jump in on the other side? Will it make everyone more aggressive towards us? It's possible, if they sense weakness. What I'd like to do instead is unite with Molotov-Ribbentrop against Rome/China. I was careful to stagger our DOFs, so we have time to renew one before the other expires, which will give us some warning in case of intended attack. Ideally, we renew our DOF with Emperor and Archduke, securing that border for 30 turns. Woden and I then throw our entire forces at the weak Kongo/Khmer team, absorbing them, and then join with Germany/Russia to attack the leaders in Rome/China. Germany/Russia have every reason to want to delay aggression towards us - more time to get Hansas up, more time to research towards Cossacks. We also want to delay - more time to absorb our neighbor, more time to research towards Redcoats (I'll take an equal army of Redcoats, backed from the sea, against Emperor's Cossack army). So it's win/win. 

Ultimately, I decide to reject it for now. I have about 6 more turns to earn the Defensive Tactics eureka, which is coincidentially about how long it'll take me to systematically raze the road from Rome to whatever that city over there is. Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me, but the chance to trade a scout in an already-explored map for 90 culture (still 4 turns production, even from my new Madol-powered superculture) is too good to pass up. 

Let's take a look-see at what Singaboy did with his apostles from the Mahabodi he just finished:




Nuts. Evangelized and took Wats, probably the best of the remaining beliefs. Not sure how we should construct our religion. I need to take a look at the remaining beliefs and see what we can cobble together. No regrets, we've gotten good mileage from skipping an early religion, but now's the time to pay the piper and get sub-optimal beliefs. 

Anyway, y'all don't care about this boring navel gazing, you want the much more exciting naval gazing ( I kill myself) of watching my fleet take Kabul:




The third day of the Battle of Kabul dawns, and this time my second warrior has been savaged by the defending archer fire. I'm not sure which units exactly Woden killed, but his support fire is the only reason I can make forward progress in this fight. Without the Nubian archers wiping out the defenders scattered east of the city, my own army - no larger than Kabul's - would probably have been defeated by massed archer fire. Guys, I just want to take a moment that Woden's been a fantastic ally this game - communicative, attentive to my needs, and full of sage advice. : couldn't ask for a better partner!

Anyway, the city is obviously doomed. The end begins with a massive volley of preparatory fire from every archer involved, shattering the remaining city defenders. All that remains is to occupy the city, which the Ocean does:


 

The galley is the most lightly injured melee unit I have left, and I want to let my two surviving warriors start to recuperate. It's less urgent to have the galleys in full repair, so I can take the time to heal them up before resuming scouting - one galley east, one galley west, to find either ice or a passage to other seas. 

I need those warriors healed up quick, and I'm glad I have another warrior coming out of Aboukir soon, since Molotov-Ribbentrop has surpassed our team militarily sometime in the last two or three turns! I hope it's an armament aimed at the other team - I'm confident that Woden and I can defend at the land bridges and at Thoth, but that would mean dedicating most of Woden's army there, which means no campaign in Khmer will be possible. 

Back at the front, Ocean's marines easily occupy Kabul, taking the English empire to 6 cities:



The army starts to heal up, then will begin to march for Leyte and Actium to be in position as a holding force. I have 15 turns left to assemble a credible defense of those cities. Available are 4 warriors, 5 archers, and whatever heavy chariots I can crank out with maneuver in a few turns. Research to upgrade those to swordsmen, x-bows, and knights will be relatively trivial. I need to double-check Relic's military score next time I get the save, though, and establish a potential order of battle for them. 

At Kabul, henceforth Navarino, I immediately place a Dockyard. 




Couple of things: The dockyard is cheap, only 50 production or so. 7 turns. Now, to use a Limes +100% chop would take 13 turns, to build the walls and then chop. But a galley takes only 6 turns to build, meaning I can chop in 5 with +100%. That not only gets me 2 extra turns of the dockyard, but I can use even more overflow to immediately build a trader!* Best of all, I retook the 2 charge builder in the battle, so I can chop and mine with this guy. 

One final overview shot of England, turn 72:



Everything is frantically building. Actium and Salamis will be ready for Limes chops soon, Trafalgar continues to pump out workers, Navarino is building for its chop, Aboukier is slow-building the dockyard until the builder arrives, and Leyte is slow-building a builder, who can chop, mine, and camp the deer. Science is middle-of the-pack, culture is unrivalled, population growth is slow but I think that's just a weaknesss my coastal empire has to accept. Wouldn't have the culture without it. 


*I'm really starting to think that coastal cities have been underrated. Why? Well, maritime industries! I was thinking about this earlier. Most cities get exactly 1 +100% chop (unless this is Rise and Fall. Bah.) - their one-time build of Limes. I guess they can get more from Renaissance and Medieval walls, but those are of limited utility and more expensive to build for a chop. But coastal cities? Coastal cities get maritime industries. That's 100% chops whenever you want 'em! Furthermore, you don't have to build expensive walls, but relatively cheap galleys (65 hammers) and Quadriremes (120) production, both of which are in many cases more useful than static walls (in addition to being more expensive [80/225/305 hammers], which would you rather have defend a city - a mobile hard-hitting ship, or walls? I mean both are nice, but I like the flexibility of units over fixed defenses). Basically, as long as there's forests, jungle, or stone to chop, maritime industries lets you seriously crank out the builds from cities. Each of my cities has 2 or 3 choppable resources nearby, my plan is to use them to whip out quick districts). You're weak on housing, but the extra culture and science from housing is marginal at best,

[Woden]

Nubia-Turn 71

Lots of active in the lurker thread today, something might be going on? Anyways, start my turn looking at the damage near Kabul...  

Both CMF's warriors are still around but one of my archers are gone! How the hell did a nearly dead archer and an archer at 50% kill my archer at ~67% in woods? Oh well, such is life. I guess better than one of his warriors. I kill the half strength archer next to Kabul. 

Up at Kandy, I check to see what tile will be grabbed next turn...

Nice, the stone! I don't think I have ever seen it grab a different tile when there was 1 turn left. Now I don't need to buy it and will have enough for the campus tile at Horus. 

Now getting back to the activity in the lurker thread. I decide to take a look at the numbers a little closer to see if I can figure out if something fishy is going, especially since I have some important turn coming. First I see...

Interesting, Russia built a wonder! Next I see...

Russia also has 3 envoys in Valletta? I don't know if this is what the chatter was about but I was planning on getting Suzerainship in Valletta next turn. Now it has to wait until I can get more envoys. Hopefully Russia doesn't have a few in reserve. The wonder he built might be the one that gives 2 envoys? I think he built it in his capital because I didn't see it in any of his cities. Wonders appear in the trade screen, right? Well, now you know the reason for my earlier post. Luckily...

I will earn an envoy in 3 turns (T74). If he doesn't put another envoy after I get my third next turn, I will put it in right away. Otherwise I will wait until Military Training is done and put 2 in at once. I knew I would regret not killing that scout when I first met him. Lessons learned, don't let a enemy scout poke around if you plan to utilize a city state on the other side of your continent. 

Guys, I just want to take a moment that Woden's been a fantastic ally this game - communicative, attentive to my needs, and full of sage advice. : couldn't ask for a better partner!

Awe, thanks! You have been awesome too! 

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Oh no, I didn't realize Kabul killed one of your archers.    I should have glanced over my situation shot from the end of last turn to see what had changed - next war we're in, I need to be sure to do that each time I open the save. 

Well, your archer undoubtedly saved my warrior - he had under 10 health when I opened the turn. His sacrifice was not in vain.