[49 spoilers] Miguelito, pindicator and Adrien take Shiva by the hands

[Miguelito]

Seeing just now on PBspy Comm whipped once 2 pop, and twice 1 pop, meaning that all the chariot shenanigans are very probably moot and I just have to see how many spears I can get out

[Charriu]

Please do check that. I'm suspecting that this behaves different in a PB compared to a single player game.

[TBW]

I'm 99% sure the demo screen updates live and you can see the top soldier count even if you don't have graphs on someone.

[Miguelito]

travelling and can't properly report atm, but Commodore finished the horse whisperer quest  

that's 6 free horchers for him (at least unpromoted), which should appear in the capital, so on our border in 1 to 2 turns. In addition, I'm seeing three HAs that he's built on his own, promotions pending. Spears everywhere and we'll see if it holds. Next turn there'll be three in Pashupati, and also the three axes who behind walls shouldn'T be too shabby. Declared on Ruff to get our gems back, hope he takes peace, at least he appears to have no relevant power.

Trying to sneak in the chariots onto a jungle tile that can strike LL, but which he can't see, but I'm not too hopeful, as it can be seen from his eastern attack route, and there will be attacking.

[Miguelito]

that's it, we're toast. I had missed the event by a turn actually and he's on our doorstep with 9 HAs, plus the axe/archer.
Out of pride or whatever, mostly to increase the likelihood of razing LL, I attacked and killed a HA/chariot duo*. So now I have 6 defenders in the city (plus the scout), 3 of which are spears, but of those one is slightly wounded and one heavily. So forget about it.
I pretty much doubt we can stabilise at Mahadeva, but that has to be the goal.
Cairo is also moving up, though still mostly spears/archers.

*Sorry Charriu, didn't record power rating

[Charriu]

Don't be sorry for me. With PB52 I can make my own observations. After all CtH and RtR use the same code base.

[pindicator]

That HA event may need some tweaking for MP games

[Miguelito]

turn 76

Commodore hadn't got through Pashupati's walls yet (I actually have no shot of the combat results, but we killed some 3 HA's, he retreated 2, killed four of our units and brought the others down enough so they won't stand this turn. I think he had about average rng results, maybe a bit above (won one of the 20% fights and another at 45%). I evacuated the medic scout and the scout that I had whipped last turn - the only drywhip option - who... can go and look what FT is doing?). But that meant that our culture was still up.

This turn, my chariots started on the one tile in reach of Last Lapp that Commodore should not be able to see (previous plans had me roading from the south on the turn of attack, then doing the same in the west with his other city, but...uh...), but he still had a new promoted HA there, probably from the 2nd city in the NE from where this way is shorter than the road in the west.


Zulan's combat simulator gave me 47% win chance with both chariots, good enough to try.
The first one retreated.

The second one:

So I got my revenge ahead of the offence.     (it doesn't feel as awesome knowing you're losing the war, but, it's something. Of course it's the city he likely minds least losing.)


For Charriu, note that the relative power rating did update live:


That's after I already deleted the first of my heroes. On the following shots with both chariots deleted you'll see the rating changed again.

At Mahadeva we'll have 4 fresh spears, an axe and an archer next turn, and more coming in. I hope it'll be enough to hold at least short term, providing that Cairo doesn't move in. I'm seeing three spears, two archers, an immortal and an axe around his border city, now walled. Looks rather paranoid than aggressive. He definitely is building up power and is now above ours. Somehow he's still at 4 cities, and hasn't whipped in weeks, while also playing very short turns. He mentioned in the PB52 setup thread that he's recovering from eye surgery. Possibly he'll stay passive due to that?
I offered him stone for stone (since he's traded away copper and horses already). Maybe he'll take our raze as a (faulty) sign that we're resisting Comm (nope, he saw that we were doing, and that was no show of strength), or whichever way else concludes that he'll rather fight him on our side. At least those spears would be useful for that. But probably razing Last Lapp was just what made our south digestible for him, as Comm can't really split him from our core anymore as easily. In any case, that would leave Pashupati as Commodore's only spoils for all his HAs. Would he accept that? Would I prefer that (being conquered by Cairo)?

The impending doom:




Sucks not to have another chariot around, but the one I had in the city foolishly tried to defend against an HA.
I lost the shot of the city garrison, but it's a c1 axe at 3.1/5, a spear at 1.6/4 and another at 0.2. One unlucky aspect of the defensive turn was that I got no new promotions at all due to retreats and him apparently killing just the right units who had gotten kills before.
I whipped a chariot in Pashupati afterwards after connecting horses which already had some hammers into it.

The power graph is something else:


He's doing the right thing and building more, so the dip will not be as drastic.

That HA event may need some tweaking for MP games

I am not sure. I think it can be argued that it is too strong for AGG in RtR, where they get the stables half price, making it a net hammer gain even if you didn't use the stbales at all. However, I should have been able to avert this:

• I noticed very late that Commodore was classical already (like 5 turns after the fact), hence I made a significant sacrifice to get chariots online to counter the shock axes and gain an offensive option instead of just building spears, because that classical tech could only be HBR, considering his GNP graph.
  
• I noticed that he was barely building new units during our war, but assumed he just wanted to maintain the conflict low level and more costly for us than him (it was) while he was growing
  
• When I saw him whip a stable in a border city with no other buildings in it (5 turns ago), I did not stop to seriously ask myself why the hell he was doing that. In hindsight that should really have been the moment to tip me off. Even then I could probably have got 2-3 more spears into the city, which would likely have been enough.
  
• I didn't check the event log the turn it happened, but rather the one after, but didn't look closely at the date, so I expected the HAs to arrive a turn later. Wouldn't have changed anything though, at that point I couldn't speed up the spears any more.
  

So, I made some significant mistakes, and otherwise could probably have held, although at a cost that would likely have crippled me in the long run (well, this war has already, even without losing Pashupati and whatever's coming next)
Point three was probably the biggest mistake. My eyes were pretty much set on burning something of his at that point, so I still really wanted to go ahead with the chariots.

I am pretty curious if the event was part of his gameplan. How probable is it to appear after you research HBR? I remember he got it in PB46 (with Mongolia, but not AGG) and felt tempted to take the HA option, ultimately deciding against it as the border with Gavagai was already too fortified. Japan is a strange pick for that plan though, useful only o confuse the opponents.

Demos/graphs. Our decline is now evident.

Also looking at the shots, I really should select a tech! HBR or IW? Or move towards catapults?

[Miguelito]

Lurkers, I'm a bit sad. The last report had my first ever MP city conquest/raze, and I don't get a single   back? You still here?


PBspy tells me it's turn 78, I've stopped counting as I'm trying to find my motivation back.

I took peace with Commodore. He had disconnected the road to Pashupati and I had no offensive potential left. I'm wondering if it would have been smarter to evacuate the Pashupati garrison before the attack to the banana tile, where they would have had the same defense bonus and not have had to fight the axe (and archer, who actually dealt the final blow); I killed 5 HAs and a chariot during the battle, and lost 3 axes, 3 spears, and a chariot (and of course the city). Also killed another HA during the Last Lapp raze, and had to delete both chariots. Overall a slightly favourable hammer trade, but I can't really rebuild the army right now (whipping again would be a huge pain, the capital has 48 turns of anger at this point). Unfortunate with Cairo's power rising, although I still am hardly seeing offensive units from him. It might have had a positive psychological effect on Commodore, together with the raze, no idea.

Anyways, I can't just remain in this hole, so I decided to hope that Cairo will stay defensive (his last turn was the first in a long time to take more than 5 minutes, and this turn he isn't playing right after the roll as he has been doing for a good while, so the assumption might be foolish), and that Commodore will not just come back with more HAs and shock axes (essentially, this is hoping that Raskolnikov is a more plausible target).
I am building a settler in Mahadeva (4 turns with the horses) and a missionary in Nataraja who is bound for the island city of Nilakantha (for culture, and I want to get Moai up there, so the OR bonus will be helpful as well).
With the settler I want to finally settle the southern city. I am leaning towards a suboptimal but fast location, the pink dot in the following shot:


Orange was the original plan, but it could mean conflict with Ruff, and I can't have that right now. Also has longer supply lines if I have to simultaneously guard both borders. Red would at least be on a hill, but the wheat would need the border pop, and that could easily be 20 turns after founding. Founding on the elephant would be a port, but cover less cottages (I currently don't have the population to work all FP cottages, as they were whipped away for the war )

At least for the duration of the peace treaty, I'm keeping an eye on Pashupati to see how Commodore keeps it garrisoned. I'll also make a point of not pillaging the sheep pasture as a sign of goodwill. I really don't want to fight him again, at least not until by a miracle I get a leg ahead technology wise.



So far he's just healing the attackers. You also see a blue dot, which I will not feel safe to settle before regaining some military production capacity. It also needs a lot of spare workers, so that's fine for now. I am researching IW now, as being reduced to 4 cities I feel like getting the jungle rice online and hopefully at least one iron mine would be pretty helpful. I don't think I'll chop a lot more of the jungle too soon though, at least not while Mahadeva can't work all FP cottages.

In the south I'm scouting the barb city and FT:


Again, atm we just don't have the production capacity to do anything here, although it would open room for at least 2-3 new cities.

Demos/graphs

[Miguelito]

relogged and Cairo invaded the island, looks like we just can't get a break (left without doing anything). I haven't even built a trireme yet, it was the one place that I wanted to let grow. The spear I was building comes one turn late, damnit.

edit: Ok, I can very probably save the city, at the cost of a GG (a spear which is right now at Nataraja get GG'd, gets shipped next to the city, promote to Morale, and into the city). Nilakantha gets a trireme whipped, I hope Ciaro leaves his galleys hanging around.