[SPOILERS] pindicator prowls pacahuatl's path of pantheons

[pindicator]

Oh there's lots to snipe at. I'm not playing well at all this game and the war is no different. The approach I took was very slow and I'm risking exposure on multiple sides just to avoid approaching Victor city from a narrow choke

[pindicator]

Turn 147




Slow advance, taking free shots at the chariot in the north and the catapult in the south.  Going to make sure when I do push it is with everything in position and so I can hit in force.  It takes time to move through all that rough terrain between our cities.  Also, he allowed me a foothold on the other side of the river.  That was nice of him.

I've got a couple ideas on how to crack this:  first would be to just advance on Threery and then bombard down the walls with field cannons and the bombard.  But if that looks too rough, I might be able to swarm all over Linear Feedback with a quick transition.  That city also has far fewer units in the area, so I could potentially take it with a quick maneuver.  That would require me to cross the river to the south and also screen his units from Threery so it probably isn't likely.  So we probably need to try to kill his army at Threery without exposing ours to a strong counter.

I let Woden snipe the Great Scientist.  I mean, I didn't let him.  I just forgot to watch that screen over the last few turns.  I think 3 or 4 turns ago I saw that it was Isaac Newton and thought that was a good one to get.  Then I forgot anyway.  However, I think the consolation prize was pretty good:




That's a good 1,250 beakers coming my way in a few turns.

If you notice,I'm not really building units.  My backup plan here is just to slow down suboptimal's science.  Woden is probably going to win with being all alone out in the east, but I can't keep sitting back and letting suboptimal build up his infrastructure and keep surpassing me in science like he has been.  That's the other reason we're going slow and steady: don't want to lose units needlessly.

[pindicator]

Turn 148

Opening shot:




Suboptimal has committed his gold and upgraded knights. (Pikes and shots - need to make more.) In a way this is a win, but it's obviously a bit of suicide to try to push with how the situation is as of now. Some other factors to note:

• The archer is gone. Likely he doesn't have field cannons yet
  
• Nothing moved to the south or east. Unlikely to be outflanked. More on that later.

Here's what I decided on.




One immediate regret: that cannon should have gone east instead of one of those field cannons. I want the cannon hitting Linear and not towards the knights of Threery.

I'm banking on suboptimal not pushing next turn, but even if he does I don't think it's going to be easy for him without ranged units. Another reason I kept the chariot around is it mucks up his movement. That's also why I took a shot at his stronger knight rather than the less defensive knight farther north: I wanted to inflict damage on a unit that had more opportunity to do my units harm.

I gave a lot of thought to pulling off the north bank of the river this turn and shifting everything 1 tile south, but decided not to for 2 reasons. First of all, that pillage gold is insane: that's at least an upgrade per mine. Second, I don't want to tip my southern ambitions off quite so fast. Suboptimal should keep more units to the north where they can't reinforce. It amazes me that he didn't pull the catapult away, but instead left it for me to kill just to get a little bit more damage off. Similarly that horseman didn't move or get upgraded. So a lot of mounted units pushed south with the idea of possibly crossing the river next turn.

Because if I can cross 3 or 4 units to the south then they can flank the southern end of suboptimal's knight group. Or they can head east to envelop Linear. Or they can do something far more ambitious:




I don't know if capturing it would be wise. But I sure can pillage a lot of tiles and districts if that's all as undefended as I think it is.


Finally, we end on a sad note




In an ill-fated decision I figured I would scout with my galleys before upgrading them to caravels. I didn't have the cash on hand and I also really just wanted to see what was to the east with Woden. Well, that navy isn't making it home. 1 galley sunk last turn and this guy is going to not be around much longer.

[pindicator]

Turn 149

Crossed the river




I fixed my mistake of last turn by swapping the bombard and field cannon, and was rewarded with a graphical bug. For a moment I thought my field cannon was deleted due to a bug, but even though I had tried to swap position of the units by dragging one onto the other, the bombard was moved and turned invisible onto the tile SE of where it started. When I moved it again it was displayed again, saving me lots of panic and a bug report.

I guess the musket I had seen in Linear earlier is the one that is now to the south. I'm going to see if I have enough for actually taking Linear, but I guess that is going to have to come from the mounted units I crossed south with. Those units are just going to pillage away for now, until my 2nd bombard can come down.

Oh and the galley survived. No idea where the barbarian caravel went, so I'm just racing home.

[pindicator]

Turn 150

Push further south




Pillaged the mine at Linear for another 230-some gold. Decided to get brave and push towards the road and niter. I'm hoping to cut the niter but I didn't have enough movement to do that. Also, finding more units in the south had me a little concerned. But I think we can still tackle this, and I killed a horseman that was on the tile that my courser is sitting on now. Next turn I want to pillage something or kill another unit down there - whatever suboptimal gives.

I want to pull back from Threery, but I can't because as soon as I do he is going to send all those knights south and my units will be round up. So hopefully we can sit tight another turn or two there.

It would be really cool if I can make back all the upgrade gold I spent; as of now I think we've made about 700g. We spent something around 1700-1800g on upgrades, so have a few more mines to go!

[pindicator]

Turn 151

Well, suboptimal has more units than I thought.  In fact, I'm pretty sure he could just overwhelm my position if he decided to zerg everything at my position.  He was able to send more knights against my courser than I thought possible - although he did pull a lot away from Threery.  Still, I didn't think he had quite that much mobility.  Not like I'm meticulously mapping out his possible movements or attacks anyway.




I was able to respond by killing a knight of his at Threery, although I probably will lose my UU skirmisher in return.  Still, better to have that take some shots than my wounded units.  I probably need to pull back soon.  This means I probably also need to pull my southern expedition back north unless I find some actual chance at shooting at Linear.

And finally, we have found a bug that is annoying:

[pindicator]

Turn 157

Dammit Reina




Unimproved clearly does not mean unimproved.

[williams482]

Reyna affects unimproved features, right? From that shot, it looks like things are working as described.

[pindicator]

I also have Petra in that city, so I was expecting 4g on those tiles

[Quagma Blast]

The game makes a distinction between 'features' and 'terrain'. Desert and hills are terrain. Features are stuff like marshes, reefs, and forests. Maybe floodplains and/or volcanic soil count, but I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure resources don't. Basically, that's a really powerful promotion if you're taking advantage of the Maori unique building, but otherwise it often doesn't apply to stuff you actually want to work.