[SPOILERS] Cornflakes and giraflorens PB49 - any stock traders out there?

[Cornflakes]

Spotted the first Incan knight this turn, so FT reached Guilds about 5-6 turns ahead of me. I would have equaled (likely beaten) that timeframe if Commodore had not attacked   I begged 100 gold from FT this turn to shave a turn of saving (or 2 turns of lower slider). If FT accepts and grants the gift I'll 100% look east at conquering territory from Commodore. If FT declines then I'll take a hard look at possibly having to knock FT down a peg now before he gets untouchable.

[Cornflakes]

FT accepted! Relations increased to Friendly, and I do not plot war at friendly 3 turns to Guilds, then another 10 to Engineering. I do not have Slavery but by the time I hit Engineering I’ll have about 15 knights. If I see an opportunity earlier I’ll take it. Otherwise I’ll set up to attack Commodore’s border city (currently stuffed with defenders) with my slow stack from the fog.

[Cornflakes]

Guilds completed last turn, and my Heroic Epic city of Trailing Stop cranked out a shiny new 14XP 4-promo knight the very same turn! Base production is 36 getting 81 hpt towards units. Need 4 more base hpt to 1-turn knights indefinitely. Once Engineering completes in about 10 turns for the +1h to workshops I think I can get there. As-is I can go War Elephant > Knight > Knight or trireme/galley > 3x Knight.

Made another move against Commodore this turn:

   

My sentry chariot has been watching Commodore assemble a stack of catapults behind Whole Florensis. Also the garrison of Whole Florensis seems to have been gradually thinning over the past half dozen turns (some to the new Clovis Pinacle, some probably to face Fintourist). I decided to make a move against Whole Florensis now with the idea to keep, and then hit the catapults behind with my horse archers. Screenshot above shows the forces at the start of the turn. Also note for future reference that I still have majority culture on the tile with the catapults. This may be important as it would allow me to raze WF, re-plant immediately with a combat settler, and hit Called Ryukyuan with knights. I only noticed the majority culture when posting the screenshot but I suspect the tile 1S would be even stronger majority since it is in CR's 3rd ring while 1st ring to my former city. 

I threw one Barrage 3 catapult at Whole Florensis, and realized the futility of the attack. Samurai are nearly immune to collateral. The B3 cat (with +100% collateral damage) reduced D3 samurai to 7.5/8   and barely better on the D2 guys. Moral of the story is that I'll need more catapults to bombard the walls away. I called off the attack, but then realized I could simply bypass the city and attack the catapults directly with my HA. This would be a suicide mission for my 5 HA (+ sentry chariot which could attack at the end after the surviving cats were heavily flanked). But I would get an equal hammer exchange and greatly reduce the threat of anything from Commodore. It will take 5 turns at least for Commodore to rebuild and re-assemble a cat stack on my border and by that time I'll have knights on scene. Result after attacking:

   

Three catapults survive at 1.4/5. If only I had a few more cheap chariots around to throw at them! Oh well. I decided to offer a peace treaty to Commodore before logging out. Commodore has been offering peace every couple turns (war weariness has to hurt from his failed attack in my territory at Technical Analysis). If Commodore accepts then I get to withdraw my HA, if he refuses and re-offers then we stay at war and I keep taking shots as I have opportunity. I attacked the cat stack from the wheat so that he will have to withdraw some of the garrison from WF to kill my HA stack so that may open up an opportunity next turn to take another shot at the city.

[Cornflakes]

How do we achieve victory from here? Commodore really messed up both our chances. Imagine if all those hammers sacrificed at the walls of Technical Analysis had conquered India ... I would have just finished my conquest of former-Carthage and Commodore would have a nice defensive fortress at Called Ryukyuan. I would be in a position to directly face off against Fintourist's Inca, while Commodore could then turn his attention to conquering Mr. Cairo (assuming they have a border, since I met Mr. C from the east ... still haven't located Persian territory) or Ruff Hi.

Anyway, I think this is Fintourist's game to lose at this point. Not ready to concede yet though! If I can grind former-Carthage out of Commodore without too heavy losses I may have the production to contest former-Khmer if FT leaves an opening. From there I trust in ORG trait to consolidate and tech up.

[Cornflakes]

Commodore accepted peace so my HA were spared.

[Cornflakes]

I received what I thought was a decently positive event:

   

I spent the 41 gold for the extra culture (300 vs. 100) which immediately popped 4th ring borders and saved about 30 turns there. Since I still had majority culture around Whole Florensis I figured that would give me some additional maneuverability ... except ... Commodore ... researched up to Music and artist-bombed WF the very next turn 

Our 5-turn enforced peace expired so we are now back at war as of last turn. But the screenshot from this turn is more interesting:

   

New culture borders are on display too. Commodore now has majority culture on all the tiles he controls but militarily the tide has turned in my favor. After considering long and hard I decided that I was strong enough to advance onto flat land, knowing that the fort in Commodore's culture does not have any effect on my defense. Commodore threw his re-assembled catapult stack and all of his horse archers at me with almost no effect. I paused for a turn to bombard (planned anyway) while my medic will heal most units back to full health next turn. If Commodore tries to hold the city I can easily wipe his stack next turn. If Commodore retreats then my knights will be able to run down some of his units at positive odds, or my stack can just march on to the next city he tries to hold. I completed 5 more knights at the turn roll so I'm now solidly higher 1.2 in BUG power ratio.

My biggest concern now is that Fintourist will seize this opportunity to stab a knife in my unprotected back while I am striking east against Commodore. But I can do absolutely nothing to prevent that so I just stick my head in the sand an hum happily away. I actually don't want to take Commodore out completely, or even irrecoverably. I need to maintain the global balance of power, because if I set myself up as the only viable rival then Fintourist's win condition is exactly equivalent to stabbing me in the back.

[Cornflakes]

Whew, long turn! But decisive victory over Japan!!! Need a break before reporting though

[Cornflakes]

The battle of Whole Florensis will go down in the PB49 history books as the decisive turning point in the Babylonian/Japanese war. Finally after centuries of unjust oppression, pillaging, and burning by the Japanese, the Babylonians have avenged their fallen comrades and routed the Japanese samurai. Not even the lore of their artists, so recently spreading mass propaganda throughout our rightful territory, could sway the battle in their favor. Our victorious army chants BURN, BURN, BURN away the the propaganda centered in Whole Florensis.

Start of turn ... similar to the screenshot from last turn but included for completeness:

   

I have 9 catapults and 32 hitters (several badly wounded from Commodore's sortie last turn). Commodore has 17 defenders, including 11 samurai of which over half are promoted with Maneuver. I thought long and hard and decided to go all in. Overall I was banking on getting the Samurai down to 7/8 or less. That would give me barely-to-mildly positive odds on each individual attack, and with the larger army I would be able to mop up. I used 3 Accuracy cats to remove the remaining defenses and then sent all 6 remaining catapults to their death. I got in a couple hits on the top defender and spread around the collateral pretty well, and most were between 6.5-7. It helped that Commodore didn't have catapults to soak up collateral hits, but the drill promotions softened the hits against the samurai. Here is the battle log after sacrificing the cats:

C3/Shock knight vs. Samurai 74% ... loss 4hp remaining!
C3/Shock knight vs. War Elephant 82% ... WIN
C3/Shock knight vs. Samurai 82% ... WIN
C2/Shock crossbow vs. Samurai 68% ... WIN
C1/Shock crossbow vs. Samurai 71% ... WIN
C1/Shock knight vs. Samurai 71% ... WIN
C3 knight vs. Samurai 72% ... Loss 5hp remaining!
C1/Shock crossbow vs. crossbow 49% ... loss
C1/Shock crossbow vs. Samurai 80% ... loss
C1 crossbow vs. Samurai 51% ... WIN!
C1/Shock crossbow vs. catapult 74% ... WIN
C2 knight vs. Samurai 68% ... WIN
C1/medic crossbow vs. Samurai 52% ... loss
CG2 crossbow vs. Samurai 53% ... loss 
CG2 crossbow vs. swordsman 88% ... WIN
C3/shock HA vs. spear 71% (5% withdraw) ... loss
Overall that is about as average a result as I could get, except that the losses were generally some of my most valuable units (2 knights, medic, 4-promo HA), From here it was just cleanup of the above losses, all >98%. Captured and razed I decided to raze so that I wouldn't face the massive artist bomb cultural borders if Commodore ever re-captured. 

   

Behind the city there were two Samurai which I thought I could clean up at decent odds on flat land rather than waiting until they were fortified in a city ...
C3/shock knight vs. samurai 89% ... LOSS
C2/Flanking2 HA vs. samurai 61% combined win/withdraw ... LOSS
C2/shock HA vs. samurai 91% ... win, but barely! Just 10hp remaining
C2 WE vs. samurai 80% LOSS Wow these were some lousy dice rolls here at the end. Another WE cleans up. At this point I only have 1 4.5/10 knight left available and no targets to attack. I move the sentry chariot forward and then pause for a very long time to consider my end of turn troop placements. The power ratio is up to 1.5 so Commodore is gassed. I need to press forward with all speed and do whatever damage I can before Commodore can rebuild.

   

I returned the favor to Commodore for the empty-galleys-in-the-backlines maneuver that he pulled on me during his attack. I sent 2 galleys escorted by 3 triremes, but only 2 units loaded on the galleys. This turn I dropped off the two units (8xp HA + C2/amphibious WE) behind Called Ryukyuan. I didn't know that other city was there until I landed, my purpose was to distract reinforcements from CR. I moved all of my surviving mounted units forward to where they could hit CR next turn. Most of my units are heavily damaged but I don't see how Commodore can save CR. I'll promote one off my victorious units to medic and heal there in my culture for a turn or two before advancing on Clovis Pinacle. It's size 1 so can't put out much more. If I can raze that newly-revealed city that would be a huge huge win. But at minimum I'll force more whipping in a GA and will be able to acquire the entire Carthaginian peninsula and probably the island north. That will put me at higher city count than Commodore and give me enough land to at least have a shot at consolidating and getting a viable economy and manufacturing base to challenge Fintourist. That's all the land I wanted anyway before Commodore's fruitless attack.

[Cornflakes]

Commodore completed engineering and got a samurai into Called Ryukyuan I threw one full strength HA at it which died without scratching the samurai. The rest of my units are heavily damaged. Best odds I could get were 10% with a highly promoted half-health knight. But if I rolled poorly on that I would be in bad shape. Also any victorious unit is guaranteed dead. A size 2 city isn’t worth that cost. I consolidated everything onto the fort and fortified in place to heal. Next turn most of my 1-mover stack will be nearly healed. I’ll probably move in against CP next turn while I heal the mounted stack for a turn in my culture.

[Cornflakes]

FT razed a 68 point size 8? (9?) Japanese city this turn   I'm pretty certain this was the Jewish holy city because the star on the Japanese state religion icon disappeared. I had a settler ready and immediately founded 1SW of sheep bringing me up to 8 cities (Japan is down to 11)

   

I think the razed city was on the tile marked A with 4th ring culture borders, but possibly B with 3rd ring borders. I was looking back at screenshots to figure out the culture I noticed that Clovis Pinacle was never pictured above 1 pop. I was looking forward to keeping that city but Commodore must be intentionally keeping it at 1 pop for an auto-raze. Or maybe it did grow but immediately whipped away during our 5-turn peace time when we played a couple double turns, and I was playing via teamviewer and didn't get many screenshots. Hopefully! 

My army wasn't quite as healed as I expected but I decided to advance anyway. My sentry chariot located 1 samurai, 2 catapults, and 1 HA in CR, plus 1 HA outside CP. I expect at least 1-2 HA further back would be able to hit as well. I would lose a few units to an attack out, but even in worst case my catapults wouldn't be flanked away and I would be able to wipe those Samurai much easier if they give up their 25% fortification.