[Spoiler] Kaiser has a plan

[Kaiser]

This was the last Medieval Eureka we could get out of the way before using our GS, our target is the castle Eureka to be able to produce and upgrade into Coursers



Buttress and Military tactics would be the bad draws here, you can see that we have pre-researched quite a lot here



Yes! Lucky us nailed it, we can finish it in two turns, I believe even with the overflow from Apprenticship



Some more incoming



1 Settler confirmed, no idea where he built the city, it has to be S or E I believe



Another unit not contributing but scouting, I am not so sure this is smart, but we can plunder a HS from Ichabod here



Here is the front, CMF moved his units up quite aggressively, there is even a 3rd Horseman there. I moved defensively to protect our Archers. He has a slight advantage at the moment but we finish 2 MYC next turn. I am curious if he will attack now, he likely can kill the Warrior or an Archer, I doubt he can kill both



Empire overview



tech overview



civics overview, I am gunning for mercenaries to be able to upgrade our two horseman to Coursers



Our good production cities are contributing to the war



The more recent ones not yet



next turn we should get her, but we have no Campus ready yet. Shall we waste the Library? I do not think that we need the 2 that urgent

Ichabod: 1 pop/building, 2 era score
Woden: civic#13, 1 era score
Suboptimal: 1 pop/building
CMF: 7 pop/building, 1 era score (settled Wind probably near a disaster region)

[Kaiser]

Here is the end of turn save for you to check the current state of the game


  CLEOPATRA 82 850 BC.Civ6Save (Size: 1.03 MB / Downloads: 1)

My rough idea:
- finish apprenticeship next turn
- finish castle the turn after
- finish Guilds best case 4 turns later, 5 turns is no neckbreaker
- get Mercenaries done in 6 turns => switch to upgrade card and upgrade 2 Horseman for 480
- switch to light and heavy cavalry production => produce 2-3 knights and 2-3 coursers
- tech wise we are going to go Military engineering afterwards to hopefully get to Muskets when our DoF with Woden runs out.

Until the next civic switch at Mercenaries we produce:
- 4-6 MYC (2 done next turn, can be 3 turned in EM and KG)
- 1-2 Catapult (1st is done in 3 turns)
- 1-2 Spearmen (as they counter his current best unit the Horseman, 1 will come out of Bortus when Mercenaries gets in)

I delayed Machinery so we can longer build MYC, here is a comparison
                           MYC           Crossbowmen
Ranged Strength   35              40          
Melee Strength     25              30
Upkeep                1                3
Production           90              180
Movement           2 -> 4         2

I think they are quite worthwile being at 90% the RS of a crossbowman but only 50 as expensive in and a 33% in upkeep.
On top of that they have great mobility when starting on flat ground.

[Kaiser]

CMF will probably go into war mode soon, he might even try to kill some of my existing force next turn.
Our citites here are safe due to walls.

If CMF goes all out, he has 3 cities with decent production The Blues, Kings and Bruins. He currently has 26 horses and 21 Iron, he is likely running Maneuver and has a Horseman in production.

Currently he has in the theatre:
- 2 Horsemen
- 2 Warrior
- 1 Archer

He likely also has:
- 1-2 Warrior
- 1 Archer
- 1 Horseman to the SW somewhere, maybe he came back around and there is no 3rd one, but I believe we should assume he has 3

I guess he can probably finish in 6 turns:
- 1 Horsemen, then switch cards to agoge
- 1 Swordman
- 2-3 Spearmen
- 1-2 Archers
- 0-2 Pikemen (worst case scenario)

We currently have:
- 2 Horsemen
- 3 Archer
- 1 Warrior

We can bring additionally:
- 4-6 MYC
- 1-2 Catapult
- 1-2 Spearmen
- upgrade 2 Horsemen to Coursers
- produce likely Coursers and Knights in 5 at EM, 6 at KG, 7 at GM

We probably have to drive a wedge into his territory by going for Kings first, I am not sure if we can feint an attack on The Blues or Bruins to the turn around, but we should discuss our options here.

[Kaiser]

Ichabod: 2 pop/building, 2 era score
Woden: 2 pop/building
Suboptimal: 1 pop/building, 1 era score
CMF: 7 pop/building (Blackhawks), tech#14



Aprenticeship in, naturally I forget to place my ID but at least we get one in EM for the moment



CMF decided to declare and retreat, where exactly his units went is now the big questions. Bruins finished its Walls and seems to be a pricly target, however we have our catapult nearly finished and I suggest we get a Swordsman and a Ram in Isaac next, while GM starts a 2nd Catapult.



Here is his newest settlement, it has a higher Strenght than 26 indicating that a unit is inside. This has to be a damaged Horseman, I think.



My wife has eagly eyes, it looks like The Blues, Blackhawks and Kings are building walls, we certainly need a 2nd catapult, likely even more.



Hypathia is ours, a shame that we already have Libraries in our two campi, I will use her to scout near Geneva until we can built our Campus at CF



I found his horsemen, it is the smart thing to do to delay our advance until he finishes the walls. I assume his Warrior moved to the former Horseman tile and the Archer crossed the river into the forest, but did not reveal these tiles.



I found the border and one of the Natural Wonders these two were picking up left and right in the early game. There is jungle so I assume Ichabod has a monster holy site here somewhere.



He finished another one of those monsters, maybe the strongest of them all as it gave him another 16 and . I fear that the game might be over due to his huge advantage suplemented by -buying Buiilders and Settlers. It looks like he is saving for a Settler which he should be able to buy in 2-3 turns I guess.
His snowball is really rolling now, I really should have denied him sacred path instead of my mediocre pantheon. Here was the short term benefit the wrong choice, I think.

We need to have a successful war here, and best a quick one. I am eager to play this against CMF/TAD/Williams but am clearly the less experienced general, so I am looking forward to your support.



Here is the front after my movements, I decided to ignore Bruins until we can crack its walls and move everything to threaten The Blues, Kings and also Blackhawks.

Strategy discussion:
I think the Blackhawks can only be a late pickup, as we would not be able to hold it against loyality pressure otherwise, but we can consider a feint at it at least.
The Blues is the prize but will be heavily defended by him, maybe we can force him to move too defensively here and get an opening onto Kings?
Kings should be our first target in my opinion, we have to wait for reinforcements however as we have to few units to protect our Archers.

If we can we should try to start trading, in any case we will need 5 turns to upgrade our Horsemen to Coursers and then they have to be near Bortus.
If we can concentrate his forces here in the South, we might have a shot to get onto Bruins with our reinforcements. I expect him to use his for a Crossbowmen upgrade, so his walls will hurt badly.

[roland of gilead]

Yeah crossbows will hurt bad if he gets to them.

I think you have to take kings first. You can't have it shooting at you while you try to take blues.

will have a look at that save in a few hours.

[Kaiser]

I am looking forward to your input and thougts, we can try to set up a online sessions next time the turn comes around, I typically get to play it around 17:00 CEST (UTC+2)

Here is the last turn

Ichabod: 2 pop/building, tech#16, 2 era score, gained 53 to much, barb camp? Harvest and spent money?
Woden:
Suboptimal: 1 pop/building
CMF: 7 pop/building, 1 era score, was this his 3rd Settler settling out to the S or E? spent 39 + his income (was 7 before the war) unit upgrade?



Castles in, I was expecting the Courser upgrade to be a lot more expensive thatn 250 and have prepared to upgrade two. We can consider finishing Machinery the turn after our MYC 5 and 6 finsh to upgrade two of our Archers to Crossbowmen.



CMF attacked out, leading to this situation, there were quite some options to consider here.
- hold back and heal until the upgrades come
- try to nearly kill the promoted Horseman to get it out of the way for the moment
- shuffle units favourably
- upgrade our Horsemen right now without the discount



Here are another 50 bringing us to the 500 I expected to need (well I expected 480)



Ichabod is having more Settlers out, he will soon be up to 8 cities as well I assume and then really start pulling ahead



He also has two Campus or Campus + Library finished by now, so his should soon pick up



I decided to offer one Archer (the one without Alpine) to tempt his Horsemen to attack, he will likely loose both if he does, so I believe he won't.



I could have attacked out with the nearly full health Horseman, but decided against it as I want him to be full health when I upgrade him to a Courser in 4 turns



Here is a core overview, we are mostly on military by now, I decided to go for a Swordsman -> Ram in Isaac and to get a 2nd Catapult from GM to have the option of starting with Bruins instead of Kings. It is a decent city and its encampment is a huge pain in the ass for me.



If Woden accepts, this will hide my Swordman somewhat from CMF, but mostly the intention is to signal him that I want to work together with him, as I believe we have to to slow down Ichabod. He is in a better position to do so, but I will keep my Horseman enar Ichabods borders

[roland of gilead]

I think the ram is vital and getting Crossbows will be key.

Work has just exploded just now but hopefully i can get on top of that today. or at least across the weekend.

[Kaiser]

Ichabod: civic#14, tech#17, 6 empire = Porto Alegre, 4 era score for +3 campus and city? 2 points in religion??
Woden: GA, 1 pop/building
Suboptimal: 2 empire, tech#14, spent 87 (tile buy?) and increases Military
CMF: 1 empire



No thanks Woden, the price is not to steep but the main point was trying to hide the build of the Swordman from CMF, which is naught because I forgot that he cannot monitor my resources during the war anyway xD



He retreated as expected but has another fresh Horsemen to scout our approach, this brings his Horsemen tally up to 4, I did the same move, shooting with one exposed Archer to bait him. I expect him to retreat further. Next turn I need to consider carefully how to approach it as I want to upgrade 2 Archers to Crossbowmen in 3 turns from then and they need to be able to get back and have movement left for the upgrade.



Ichabod has another Campus finished (or a library if he had two before)

[roland of gilead]

do you think he is sitting those walls 1 turn from finishing or still building? It would be nice if that was where most of his production was still going as bad as walls are at least it would be only them.

i suspect he has them done and is waiting until something is in range hoping to surprise you.

[roland of gilead]

also let's have a think about what we would do if we were him.

can we work out the terrain we can't see from counting the appeal? not the best at that but it can be looked up. Get me a current save and i will do that.

how far away is that scientist for scouting.