[Spoiler] PB42: Rusten and mackoti play Krill playing Bismarck of Portugal

[Rusten]

Or he lost a city to barbarians...?
Not everyone will have a chariot nearby to kill a barb axe like you did.

[Krill]

True, Lewwyn could have lost a size 3 city to a barb. I originally dismissed that out of hand because, you know...losing cities to barbs is just bad. Even with the shit luck here, there has never been an opportunity for a barb to attack a city that did not have 2 units in the city. Redundancy etc etc.

Worst case scenario, even now, we take Kalamazoo off Mids for 2 turns and overflow 10 hammers from an archer back into it.

[Krill]

T77.

Not sure when the next turn will be played, because we need Elkad to play, and then Gav. So we might not get another turn until the weekend or we might get it tonight.

I have been spending the past 2 days mulling over the option to not send the capital settler to grab the front city. I was thinking it could be a mistake, but on reflection I would rather not push too hard. T83 settle versus a T79 settle, former covered by axe (on moving to hill) with the archer joining the city on T83, latter covered by only a chariot until those same turns. No trade network in the latter either. But right now I think this game hinges on two outcomes: do we get teh front city, and do we get Mids. In the instance we get both, great, build up and out, get to knights, kill someone. If we miss Mids, that gives us enough gold to rush straight to Alphabet and enough left over to also get HBR quickly afterwards as of now-ish (given research builds): so if we miss Mids and the front city, we can go HBR and try to take it. If we get the front city and miss Mids, we don't need to be aggressive and should just try to hold what we can as we grab Currency, Calendar and IW, and HBR can fit into that as the mobile response. Rushing the front city would push me more towards having to hold land, but pushes us away from Alphabet because of the increase cost of holding the city for those few turns. It's not a reason not to, but something to be aware of. OTOH, this picture is the reason I wouldn't rush to settle without backup other than chariots:





We know that OH double whipped three times on T76, and two single whips on T77. We don't know what he whipped, but that spear has no fortification bonus. I believe that the spear was whipped on T76 and the overflow dumped into something, probably a library unless the micro has now changed to grab a granary to aid regrowth. This makes me feel a little bit better about the timings, OH has known for ages we have chariots so if he was planning to settle imminently, he must have had stuff in this area ready to push up. Unless he was always planning to double whip the emergency spear for cover, but he also knows we hooked the copper recently. None of this information really changes anything though: OH can still settle the plains hill T80, but couldn't get a spear there unless he had 4 workers in the fog. More likely he would use two workers to road there, but he has to move the spear forward to cover the workers in that scenario and keeping the chariot in that area will only slow him down.

I think OH has to move his spear forward to threaten the chariot if he wants to conceal his movements, and then my paranoia will increase but as there is nothing to do in that case I'll just sit and watch. If he doesn't then I'll start thinking we've got hte location unless those 4 workers suddenly materialize.





Barb warrior moved into the FoW. I considered moving the chopping worker under the chariot to road, so it could heal for 2 turns and then cover the north quicker, but that would cost 3 worker turns and saves me 1 tile. Ultimately, that 1 tile is the distance the chariot falls short moving to both cities 2 and 5 but I'm going to carry on tempting the RNG to throw barbs at us (also, the capital can finish a chariot eot78 to cover city 5 and attack anything that goes straight for the city that doesn't move over the copper, in that instance an archer can complete and make it into the city before the barb can attack). Any later than this and the chariot will be healed enough to cover and turns enough to reach. Or Kalamazoo just builds an archer or an axe as needed. So even now, we're covered from barb attacks.





The entire north east is a dead end with furs the only happy resources. That leaves us with a quandry: do we send the workboat west, or build a new workboat in city 7 and send that west, sending this one south and then south east? I reckon just send this one SE, because city 7 (JJ) will have overflow and might as well grow on the workboat and send that one west. It has little else to grow on other than an archer, but it can dump the overflow into the workboat, grow on the archer (when it makes 1 or 2 hpt and wouldn't get the bonus, then throw out the workboat at size 3 or 4 when it can pick up a mine and furs. We'll get more exploring done this way.





City 8 cost 4gpt above and beyond the 2 commerce per turn it brings in. Next turn we belatedly pick up the last scientist and can work a few more cottages at the capital, but it will take another 10 turns to be able to give up the horse permanently to city 8. So by T88 the capital can work 5 cottages itself, City 2 works one cottage, city 4 works one cottage and we can put city 8 onto a plains cottage. Looking at GS eot92 from city 4. Mids is at 127/500. And we need IW, Calendar, 2 island cities, two western coastal cities and two southern cities for jungle gems and sugar.

We are going to be bankrupt very soon. Pray for Mids.

[Krill]

Turn 78

Barb warrior moved into the FoW. I considered moving the chopping worker under the chariot to road, so it could heal for 2 turns and then cover the north quicker, but that would cost 3 worker turns and saves me 1 tile. Ultimately, that 1 tile is the distance the chariot falls short moving to both cities 2 and 5 but I'm going to carry on tempting the RNG to throw barbs at us (also, the capital can finish a chariot eot78 to cover city 5 and attack anything that goes straight for the city that doesn't move over the copper, in that instance an archer can complete and make it into the city before the barb can attack). Any later than this and the chariot will be healed enough to cover and turns enough to reach. Or Kalamazoo just builds an archer or an axe as needed. So even now, we're covered from barb attacks.

...

With any luck, this is the last barb (unless there is a further barb in the FoW) that we will have to deal with from this area. I thought about this yesterday and didn't write it, because it's an unusual tactic, but I'm going to employ the thousand warrior defense. I am not delaying Mids, and unless the axe beats a chariot on flat ground I will not need to.

The capital is building a chariot this turn with the overflow from teh axe. The axe is still being sent south, as I refuse to delay that front city any further as well, but it will only have an archer on T84, not T83 (that archer has morphed into a chariot to beat up this POS axe). But because of the amount of hammers needed, and whipping the settled in city 2, we only work one capital cottage this turn (the fp). It is the tech rate that suffers, which is my usual sacrifice.





The damaged chariot is moving north, but cannot hit the axe if it moves to the copper next turn. I've moved the warrior from city 2 towards Kalamazoo, and I will put that in the city if the axe moves onto the copper. Start of T80, the axe will kill one warrior, and then the chariot from the capital has cleanup duty. If the axe just moves south towards the empty city 2, then all bets are off because it can move adjacent to city 2 on forests so a chariot will have to attack it with worse odds (72%, 77% with C1 but a win generates so pushes the C1 chariot to 3XP from HE status). Immediately after this, pushing out with the remaining Kalamzoo warrior and the other chariot to fogbust the entire area. It should not take more than 2 turns (including the turn of killing that damned axe) to barb bust the entire area, then replace the useful units with other junk.

The scout/chariot pair will be on the tile south of TX (City 4) next turn, so the scout can replace the pushed out chariot, and that should allow a chariot to hold Kalamazoo until an archer completes somewhere, and 2 chariots and the archer from MtK (City 3) should be available to cover the SW.

It is worth noting that this situation should never have happened. I lost a 90% battle of a barb warrior attacking into a forted warrior on a forest east of the capital. Win that, and we have the spare to fog bust the NW: do this, and the barb warrior that won the 99.4% battle against the chariot doesn't generate, and we have the second unit needed to fogbust the remainder of the area. This is essentially a 1 in 10,000 scenario caused by those two battles (never mind the other 90% losses. I believe that a critic would argue that there was so much land, I should have had it fogbusted by now, and my counter argument is that the west is fogbusted. The south is fogbusted. The north should have been fogbusted but units have just died due to unluckiness and I've always wanted to leave the SW clear to generate barbs to get a unit to HE status. I don't think I've made tactical mistakes here, and I don't believe that we're making strategic mistakes either. I just think that I've gotten unlucky.





Next turn, give up the grass hill mine, pick up another cottage, finish archer on overflow, then time regrowth to size 6. Regrowth should be eot86 IIRC. We are making 64bpt at mas science right now, even without working these cottages. So it should bump up to something like 70bpt (City7 is giving up furs to grow shortly). We'll have a decision to make about an Academy, which could be in place T95.





Unit supply will increase costs (2 units re-entering borders but 3 leaving shortly afterwards), as will the unit cost, and city cost from settling the front city. If Mids don't fall, I'm amending Alphabet eta to eot87.





How does someone have a worse GNP than we do?

[Krill]

Rusten, Mack, got a request: I'm going on holiday Monday 4/2/19 and returning Saturday 16/2/19. I will have internet to stay in contact but I cannot guarantee being able to play a turn even if I borrow a laptop. Would either of you be able to sub during that time?

[Rusten]

That's potentially tricky. I'm travelling myself the latter half of January and I think it will continue into February. I can probably do it, but not able to promise anything right now.

[Krill]

No worries, thank you for you if honesty. My main problem is that for about a third of the time away I will not have internet capable of playing the turn, but I will be buying a sim card for contact. Price of staying with a 92 year old great aunt. If neither of you are available I'll have to ask for a spoiled lurker. I'll still be writing a thorough update with instructions but always best to get a ded lurker to play if at all possible.

[mackoti]

No worries, thank you for you if honesty. My main problem is that for about a third of the time away I will not have internet capable of playing the turn, but I will be buying a sim card for contact. Price of staying with a 92 year old great aunt. If neither of you are available I'll have to ask for a spoiled lurker. I'll still be writing a thorough update with instructions but always best to get a ded lurker to play if at all possible.

I can play.

[Krill]

Cheers mack, that will be a great help.

Turn 79 (Played yesterday)




Before.




After. The barb warrior may be able to pillage a hill mine that I am not using, which is a cost I will pay. I've kept the worker in place cottaging a plains tile in case I need it to re-mine the copper. Two warriors in Kalamazoo as discussed, one chariot in place to attack next turn, one chariot in city 2 as back up for either barb.

[Krill]

Turn 80
Bioth these reports are short, got to run to work in 10 minutes.




Axe pillaged copper mine as expected. This is a 9 hammer loss on Mids. Unsure if the warrior death or copper mine loss is worse. This is a total of 21 hammers lost due to barbs now FWIW.





Rolled the dice on the barb warrior combat. Now have a 6/10XP chariot at 38hp that can promote. Built a scout in LBJ to act as the second fog buster. Next turn move to sheep, T82 move into the final fog busting location. Cheaper than any other unit for this purpose, and if a barb unit turns up, the chariot in Kalamazoo should be able to deal with it, if the potential HE chariot can't. Unit costs up to 7 unit cost, 1 supply. I don't think I'm going to need to whip units from LBJ now, borders pop in MtK eot80 and I can send a warrior to cover the City Z area, with no risks whilst moving into position, so barbs can only come from the SW.