[spoilers] - pindicator is excited for the next Realms Beyond league mechanics

[pindicator]

Yes, I was talking about that jungle grassland spot, the desert hill should actually be illegal to settle on? What I meant was that the desert hill is the one tile you get that can't be worked by other cities

Yeah, settling on the desert hill is illegal. But it's a tile I'll never work. Maybe if I stack windmill buffs later in the game. The benefit of cramming a city on that tile would really be to work more coast tiles faster. And what really will get me to settle it is if I get a bunch of per-city bonuses going: additional trade routes and free specialists for instance. In fact, my second or third golden age is going to be where I pair Representation with Mercantilism and then I really will want cities crammed everywhere.

And I plan on responding to the Path of Exile part too, but later when I have a tree URL I can share with you

[pindicator]

128

Incursion settled; my second city on Gemling.




The galley at the top of the screen is loaded with another pair of workers. Next turn they unload into Legacy and all 4 workers will mine the galley. Timing just happened to work out there; next turn they load back up and we continue on to Incursion. That city will have a cow and a gem to improve; and I'm hoping that these 4 workers will be enough for the time being: horse archers and missionaries will be all I need after.

There's a galley just off screen to the east that I loaded up another settler and archer onto; we're going to reach down south to the Pig/Fish/Iron location next.  

What I'm currently building:




Some of the newer cities aren't going to get madrassas or markets right away: especially if they aren't heavy commerce cities. I'll aim to get more units in those cities instead.

450bpt at 100%. I think that number climbs by 20bpt every turn now. With a little over 200g to play with, we might be able to bag Feudalism in 3 turns after Machinery. 4 definitely.

[pindicator]

Red alert.

OH just whipped 15 cities. Everything needs to go to units when I log in after work. 
If those are horse archers I'll be ok. If those are pre-whipping into knights then I'm in trouble

[pindicator]

129

I'm screwed.




Time to cancel the stone I'm selling to Mouseferatu and whip up some walls.




Oh shoot, I'm really screwed.

Well, at least Machinery finished this turn. I'll get some crossbows started because they're at least decent defenders on hills and all my border cities are on hills.




WTF DID YOU DO TO CROSSBOWS, KRILL!???

Of all the times - ! So when I was debating between Machinery and Feudalism first I thought i was taking a small step down in unit defense in exchange for being able to get some useful tile improvements earlier. I didn't realize that this was a new change in RtR - I remember some changes to crossbows but not the extra requirement! So now I've got no new unit (not that crossbows are good against knights anyway).

I wish I had other players' sixth sense about when to build these things in advance. I remember being impressed with how when I teamed with Commodore he just had a feel for when the upcoming timings were happening. I'm hopeless in that: even my own timings of when Guilds was coming I kept thinking it was farther off than it really was and kept needing to revise up.

So everything is on horse archers and spears right now.




And in 2 turns everything will be on catapults and crossbows. EDIT: Wait, why bother with catapults now that crossbows have collateral?

I remember another thing that I took from playing with Commodore: you don't need to outrun the bear. Hopefully OH was going towards Elkad all along, or if there was any doubt then this will push him that way. The golden age / knight / mercantilism plan is certainly on hold now. And if OH takes Nemesis I may never get a golden age.

[pindicator]

Not a good sign that OH waited until after I finished my turn to whip another round.

[pindicator]

130

I can't find OH's knight stack.  I've seen single knights move through, but I can't find where he's staging.  They definitely aren't in my north, which would be the best spot for him to make a conservative gain.  (If he attacks north with enough force I think I have to give up Nemesis and Invasion and try to hold south of the river of Vintner's Brook, trade time for space while I whip crossbows and spears like mad.  It worked against one over-confident attacker in PB18, might work again.)

They haven't shown near his city of TalkingHeadMess, which would be the invasion launch point if he was going for the jugular:  hitting Talisman and then aiming to go through there to my core cities of Rampage and Beyond.  If he could take those then I lose the entire south and he's effectively won as I'll not have a base of cities to whip from.  That's why everything is going towards those two cities right now.

I can't find his knights on his border near Elkad, which is where I'd expect to find them if they were heading in that direction.  That is the most worrying part.

I see single knights headed south along my border with Elkad, but that is still the best route for those knights to take regardless of his target.

We're a whipping away.




Construction comes in at end of turn and then it's all spears and crossbows.  Knights at least won't be able to flank-attack crossbows.  I probably need to cancel my deal with Mouseferatu at some point, and get a couple walls up, but I think I need units more than walls still right now.  I just need more time.

And we probably have to go for Engineering next too.


Elkad started this turn with an offer to me:




Maybe if I was already strong.  Maybe if I hadn't skipped Construction thinking I'd have time to get to knights on my own before needing to seriously raising an army.  Ugh, screw these oversized maps; I have no feel for timing on them.  But I am only really giving OH open borders, and I really need that intel on where his knights are.  I don't care so much that he has a sentry chariot running around my cities.  And also, the real contest here isn't Elkad and I vs. OH, it's me vs. Elkad.  It's trying to be the less risky target for OH than Elkad.

So I sent my own proposition out to OH:

[pindicator]

131

Well, let nobody say that I didn't do my best to entertain you all




I don't think this one is going to be forgiven by 50g.

So we need to divert troops south now as well. But the good news is that it is taking OH time to muster his army and that will give me time to whip elephants and catapults/crossbows. I have found the staging, and he's put them at a spot that makes a lot of sense for keeping things flexible:




I count 7 knights and 2 trebuchets so far, along with 1 horse archer in the area. Honestly, my gut says he's going to go for Elkad but he wants to see me whip whip whip to slow down my growth first. So I'm going to play the part because the only other option is a knight and treb stack on more doorstep. Actually, the trebuchets are encouraging. That means the stack has to move slower and I'll have more time to move up units. Honestly, I'm feeling a lot better than I did last turn.

Except I don't know what's coming at me from the south.

So we're moving horse archers south, because they aren't going to be as useful against knights (though they may be useful against those trebuchets). And there are a few spots where I'm not sure whether to build ground units or galleys or triremes. But there aren't going to be any settlers for a couple turns at least; I want to get a good number of horse archers on Gemling Island first.

Still, I did have one more settler that I used this turn:




One galley must be empty, due to the axe and settler I knocked off. But the other .... could be interesting.

[Miguelito]

Can we have F1 please?

[pindicator]

Sure, I'll grab it next turn. Mostly war elephants, though a few places farther back did catapults.

[pindicator]

132

I just got shook down




I shouldn't have accepted. All I could think was that I didn't want those knights headed my way but after a little bit of playing the turn I realized there's nothing from stopping him turning around and sending them at me after Elkad is done. Or even then that money is a direct opposite of my current goals: setting me back as much as it propels him forward.

But - assuming it buys me the safe border for 10-20 turns or whatever.... well, for that it may be worth it as I have a war down south now. And all the horse archers are now going south.

And I'm still whipping out elephants like I have to deal with knights tomorrow: