[spoilers] The 49ers: Sanctimony and Public Defecation

[Zed-F]

Cornflakes next invasion force is an axe *and* a spear, by the way.

Oh! Whatever will you do?

[scooter]

Questions, comments, snide remarks? Cornflakes next invasion force is an axe *and* a spear, by the way.

I appreciate that you asked for snide remarks, and then kind of made one of your own in the very next sentence.

[Charriu]

How did you deselect it and how do you move around?

Just the standard way? Right clicks? It just feels...sticky. I dunno. 

I was just asking because there are multiple ways to do those things.

[Commodore]

Not as huge as the Stables Quest, but it's a nice event nonetheless.


Holy city has done its work. My southern border is much more secure now. True security would have me killing Candlesticks, but that's for after knocking out Carthage.

On the subject of Carthage...

I can kill this city. It won't be cheap, the real question is if I should send in axes first, or horse archers. Whichever sort I send, I expect to lose most of them. The very diversified defender stack makes it nice and tricky; sword>spear>axe defend versus the horse, while axe > archer > archer defend against axes. I need to find the time to sim today.

[Commodore]

In the end, it wasn't a hard choice. Horse archers are very valuable, as flankers if nothing else. Axes are cheaper, less useful, and when they get initial odds like this...

Lost the first few axes to trash the archers and axe, but then I won against the sword and spear, who were the real threat against the horse archers. A series of wins later, Carthage in the kitty:

I like this city. It won't be useful to cottage up at this point, but plenty of food and hammers, so nothing but sammurai and horse archers for All of Time. Bare minimum infrastructure too, woo.


Check out my empire, guys. Now I just need to beat back Cornflakes in five turns when the peace treaty runs out and he zerg rushes, I'm sure.

Demos tell a fun story, and this with Carthage not out of revolt:

I can win with this, long-term. Short term, the scary thing is my GNP sucks massively and there are going to be catapults and war elephants om my face before I can sammurai it up. Interesting times.

[Commodore]

It's the FINAL SHOWDOWN (doodle-de-doo, doodle-de-de-doo)...


I guess I buried the Venerable Lede last turn. Cornflakes offered peace, I accepted perhaps overly casually. Looks like he's being pretty Standard Issue Cornflakes and just pushing slightly without really attempting to seize the tempo. He might not attack in five turns, looks like, because he's got plenty of One More Techs to polish off before he has the perfect Commodore Killing Stack With Which To Win.

Still tops in power after losing those axes. My horse archer promotions are yuuuge, for what it's worth, too. Have one that's 1XP away from West Point already. The cunning plan of Boudy with Horse seems to be working.

I think I'm secure in the south still, thanks to the odd intransigence of the two belligerents. Mr. Cairo will eventually be able to overwhelm Migeulito with sheer hammers, but it's going to be very bloody without catapults or room for manuver warfare.


Diplomacy is...fun:

-Fintourist is personally demoralized, from his posting tempo. The timing says its because he failed to finish off Elkad, but I don't know the details. Cornflakes might have interfered, or Superdeath? Anyway, he's trading us silver right now and once we get our own source we'll offer the gold for something else preferentially. Economy? Excellent. FRIEND TO JAPAN. GAME LEADER.
-Cornflakes, on the other hand seems to be pretty engaged, playing prompt turns and posting decently often. His economy is excellent, he's claimed huge tracks of the middle of the map, and his immediate neighbor have been eaten. He'll be wanting to peacefully develop and tech to knights if he's smart, but he's got a tricky diplomacy situation with #1 and #3 on either side once the two rumps get killed. RIVAL TO JAPAN. GAME LEADER.
-Mr. Cairo has to resent me leaving him in the wind, but it's darned hard to figure out how to fight his neighbor without being in conflict with him. His GNP is terrible, like Japan bad, so he's got to just slog forward and figure out how to kill India and turn things around. I think we both appreciate the inexplicably peaceful border we've shared. NEIGHBOR TO JAPAN. GAME INFLUENCE.

[DaveV]

No one has open borders with anyone? Is that enabled by Alphabet?

[Commodore]

No one has open borders with anyone? Is that enabled by Alphabet?

Welcome to Pitboss 49, where tech rates go to die. Alphabet is for losers, apparently.

[Zed-F]

If Cornflakes does not attack in 5 turns, what are your plans?

[Commodore]

If Cornflakes does not attack in 5 turns, what are your plans?

Try AND take OVER the WORLD, dear Pinky.

In all seriousness, the mid-long (next 40-60 turns) game really doesn't favor me. I might look at swinging a late Colossus, which would help, but as it is I won't even really be able to swing Machinery before I need to be smashing into Cornflakes' face. His new border city will be helpful to me unless he's got a good culture bomb plan; the Sami Curse holy city borders let me hold that hill sheep tile and I can thus fork him pretty well. 

The real question is if I should go for Iron Working right now for, let's be honest, really really awesome RtR aggressive swords, versus holding on the extra dozen turns that would lead to the far superior samurai. Either have a decent exchange rate vs. bowmen, while axes, even cover axes (yeah aggressive), will definitely suffer.