[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I think peace is the right move. The war is stalemated, and once you kill that other musket, hopefully the archer, and repair the encampment so Kaiser is staring at fresh defenses, he may be so demoralized that he takes peace, vowing to return later with a rebuilt army and better tech. Nothing we can do about that, but we could certainly use the breather.

As for Eleanor, I think we have an opportunity at Yerevan. Sub's military is substantially weaker than our own, and going to get banged up taking that city. He and the city will be vulnerable, and taking Yerevan nicely secures the Red Wings and Capitals sites. It also opens up opportunities into the Wild valley. I don't think we can win a war with England (look at how well Kaiser's war is going), but I DO think right now we could win a border conflict. That offers like a 1% chance of building up into something sort of respectable, and it would secure us more production bases for round 3 with Egypt.

[williams482]

I agree that peace with Egypt would be ideal. Should I try offering a DoF? Kaiser has made so little progress against us, I'm guessing this is peak time for him to consider one (if he's smart, he'll be worrying about what direction that ever growing Phoenician army is going to be marching in), and I really don't want to have to worry about another wave of Muskets in 15 turns. Normally surrendering the first strike would be a disincentive to do something like that, but as proud Canadians, we scoff at such things.

We would need to denounce suboptimal five turns before we attack him, and he's still made no progress against Yerevan's defenses. The purpose of a denouncement will be obvious, so timing is going to be awkward and Suboptimal may realize that we will take Yerevan off him, and withdraw. That would be a lesser win for us, but still a win. On the other hand, I really don't want half a dozen English musketmen showing up outside Wild in 15 turns, and the 30 turns of vulnerability after a denouncement is not particularly appealing.

We also know nothing about the land behind Yerevan, which is very bad if we're going to march an army into there. I'm increasingly inclined to spend an Envoy on Yerevan just to see what they know about the world. If I send suboptimal an iron/iron deal on the same turn, he might get the message, and might back off. I don't see much harm in giving a 6th turn of warning in the event that the message is received but ignored. Thoughts on that approach?

For infrastructure, my hope is a feudalism wave at Monarchy, with Commercial Hubs/Markets/Traders mixed in before and after, then another big Colonization push to fill in Ducks, Red Wings, Capitals, and maybe Stars. Most likely we can get two settlers out from Blues plus one each from Kings, Blackhawks, and/or Bruins, assuming a surplus of builder labor for chops and improvements. That is going to be much easier to pull off if we aren't in a hot war with England at the time. At least we don't have much in the way of vulnerable coastal cities, with Penguins and the proposed sites only accessible by a single water tile. Frigates will have little trouble taking those cities, but that's a problem for another era.

[williams482]

Turn 109:

Stirrups completes:



Unfortunately, Kaiser's musket did earn enough EXP to promote:



Tortoise was the obvious choice here, and that's what Kaiser did. I can only do chip damage to the unit now, and with my Crossbow ready to promote, I think a better approach for this turn is to kill as many of the vulnerable ranged units as possible, and tackle the Musket next turn. I think I can kill the crippled archer, both cats, and the MCH on this side of the river if I don't promote the crossbow, although I will expect to lose one, maybe two injured horses on the following turn. Unfortunately, I do not see a way to kill the ram. The least dangerous unit of the bunch, and also the easiest to mop up next turn, is definitely the injured archer. I do not believe that unit will be able to shoot either of the redlined horses, so +5 strength on the crossbow next turn is going to be more important than killing that unit now. 

First the pike attacks out of the city at the adjacent cat, dealing 30 and taking I forgot. the 48 HP horse 1SW of Bruins attacks, dealing 32 and taking 35. The city strike cleans up what's left. Then, the horse behind Bruins surprises me by being able to reach the crippled archer! Apparently moving from a city not only negates the river crossing penalty, but also the movement cost of a hill? Or does the incomplete commercial hub (which does not show as a road on mouseover) have an effect on this? Whatever the reason, I'll take it. Scratch one archer, and we earn three era score to boot for capturing "the battle standards of a veteran enemy." The horse takes 11 damage and should survive a musket attack, but a ranged strike on top of that could make things sketchy. 



Now, how best to tackle the MCH and the cat? We have a crossbow and a healthy horse that can hit either. Killing the cat with a healthy horse would be ideal, as that guarantees that it will survive and we can finish the encampment next turn. The only way to get two hits on the cat is with the crossbow, so I move the redlined horse to the hill 1W of Bruins and promote (coursers, this time), Advance the 51 HP horse to the incense, move the crossbow to the abandoned tile, and shoot for 55 damage. The injured horse is a narrow favorite to kill, averaging 48 and needing 45. The healthy horse would be a guarantee, but I cannot kill the MCH if I spend that unit on the cat. I decide to take the gamble, and win! Killing the cat and taking 21 damage. I advance both healthy horses adjacent to the MCH, and attack. First the more sheltered horse strikes from the incense tile, dealing 47 to take 18. The other then finishes the job, taking 14. Excellent!



Kaiser can kill one horse on his next turn; The 30HP horse in the encampment would take more than 30 damage if shot by that MCH, and thus probably doomed. The recently promoted 58HP horse on the Commercial Hub hill is quite safe from the musket, with a +10 support bonus and the river on his side, Kaiser barely has a strength advantage if he attacks the unit and would doom his musket if he tried. The crossbow promotes to Volley, ready to get back in action next turn. Bruins starts up the encampment again, and should complete it without issue. I briefly consider offering peace this turn, but decide nah. For this moment, I'm out for blood. Bring it, Kaiser. 

Kaiser sezerained Geneva on his turn, booting Amani from the city and terminating our trade route just a few turns before it could start constructing useful roads. Ichabod immediately tied his envoy total, so we are again at peace but making less money. The strategic considerations of getting roads down trump the yields we were getting from that particular trade route, so I move the trader to Wild and plan to send it to either Venice (formerly Antioch) or Blues next turn. 

With Amani available, I think the best play is to stick her in Yerevan. No other City State is positioned such that two envoys makes the difference between surainity and not, and placing Amani is much less costly than an actual envoy if Suboptimal ever does get around to capturing the city. I'm still undecided on if the map knowledge of suzeraining them is worth an envoy if Suboptimal gets things together and looks likely to capture them before Amani can establish, but fortunately I can delay that decision. 

Also of note, we finally see some Brazilian borders:

[bloody screenshots! They are just west of Was-Antioch-But-Now-Actually-Venice]

This is the city of Sao Luis, currently pop two and thus was probably visible a few turns ago. This explains what the hell Kaiser was doing with that courser/MCH strike force we spotted near the Devils site that never materialized around Blackhawks, and offers some additional insight as to the shape of the map. Previously I had assumed, without any particular reason, that Ichabod was north of Kaiser and Woden. Evidently he is instead due west of us. That makes considerably more sense in retrospect, as based on his yields and pantheon choices, he has obviously found a nice little jungle belt to lounge about in. 

Research goes into Military Engineering, which we will boost eventually with the Aqueduct at Kings. Our tech path going forward could use some thought. Shipbuilding and Education are boosted, but neither offers us much value at this point. Celestial Navigation is unboosted and boostable during our upcoming Feudalism wave, but only one turn away regardless. We can also research Printing, 18 turns away unboosted and almost entirely useless. Probably the best approach is to put 5-6 turns into Military Engineering, then knock out Shipbuilding (2t) and part of Education (5t) while we wait for Monarchy to boost Castles. That gives us about 13-14 turns to knock out the Aqueduct at Kings (9t build) before we start dumping research into lower priority stuff. We'll want four turns to prebuild the builder and one more to complete it once Feudalism finishes, so plus the 9 turns of building that's 14 total to complete the 'duct. No problem there. 

I have a decision to make on our chariot: upgrade now, or wait? and if I upgrade, do I show Kaiser the unit adjacent to the Columbia river, allowing him to A) know it exists (although our city strength increases should tell him that) and B) shoot at it, but also giving that Knight a chance to attack Kaiser's retreating units? Or do I upgrade it 1NE of Kings so it can get involved with the fighting near Kings faster? That's the safest option, so we'll go with it. 20 iron and 160g later, and behold! shining armor beside a 49 strength city. Beautiful, eh?



Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

The empire scores are really the leading indicators for the future of the game.

As always, you're doing fantastic. The Encampment is guaranteed to finish next turn, which will be SUPER annoying to Kaiser, and you've wiped out much of his ranged units before they could upgrade to more dangerous bombards or catapults. He's down to just the ram now - and if you could get Castles for medieval walls, then the ram will be obsolete and ineffective. At that point he's not cracking even Bruins short of Flight.

I think that's the window to go after England. If there's even a 1% chance (I'd rate it about two orders of magnitude lower) to be competitive, I think our path is still a border war with Eleanor. Once we have medieval walls, we will have a brief window to go after English-Yerevan and maybe elbow Sub back a bit. Then we can cross our fingers and hope Woden/Ichabod/and yes still Kaiser bloody each other enough for us to, uh...do something brilliant.

[williams482]

I agree that snatching a few of Suboptimal's cities and hoping to win a field battle convincingly enough to make real gains is the best way to possibly get back in this game, but what I'm suck on is how.

We've talked about what Kaiser did wrong in this war, but a huge part of why we won was that we have five turns to prepare ourselves, something we knew in advance and counted on while executing a settler push. We got a little lucky in that Kaiser denounced us right as two of those settlers were finishing up and a policy swap was coming online, allowing us to swap to unit production almost immediately and direct a would-be settler chop into a horse, but even a poorly timed denouncement would have allowed us to get walls up and extra units in the field. The same will be true for Suboptimal if we denounce him, and as pleased as I am with the outcome of recent battles, I'm under no illusions of being able to turn this army of largely obsolete units into an effective invasion force unless the opponent is very weak or entirely unprepared.

One thing that could give us a better shot is if we were somehow able to goad Suboptimal into denouncing us, instead of the other way 'round. If we're still at war with Kaiser, but suzerain Yerevan with a single envoy and divert a few units (a warrior and a couple horses, perhaps) to block Suboptimal's advances against the city state, we might be able to annoy him enough that he's willing to attack us. An alternative for him is to make peace, spend three envoys removing our suzerain status, and attacking again, but given his initial failure to take the city, I'm guessing the terrain on the other side is unfavorable enough that Yerevan and it's walls will hold for a turn or two and allow us to reposition. With the help of medieval walls and a military alliance with Ichabod, we can hold off Kaiser's forces with minimal commitment of our own, and have a task force near Wild ready to drop the hammer on Smiler if Suboptimal does denounce us.

Problems with this: I'm blindly guessing at how a human being will respond to a basement dwelling neighbor with a large army essentially taunting them. Suboptimal seems to be a fairly methodical, detail-oriented player who has historically struggled with bigger picture strategic goals. None of that indicates a high probability of failing to think through the nuances of Canada's ability, or a general vulnerability to cheap tricks.

The alternative seems to be denouncing Suboptimal very soon, so we are eligible to attack him very shortly after Yerevan falls. He will no doubt respond by getting walls up in Smiler and Howard, the two border cities, and should have sufficient time to complete or very nearly complete them in both cities. He is also swimming in cash and has massive resource stockpiles thanks to England's ability, so there will be upgrades aplenty in that time. He upgraded two units on his latest turn as it was, spending roughly 330g on a 51 point milpower spike. Smiler has no walls, no districts, and 45 defensive strength, so that means that was a pair of muskets and some healing. Suboptimal still has 29 Niter, his iron stockpile is 100 strong, and although is gold reserves are largely depleted he pulls in 75 per turn. Plus he has at least two warriors just kinda hanging out on our border, ready to get stronger in a hurry. Yikes.

I'm cognizant of our extremely low baseline odds, but sell me on this. How does attacking into that (after a five turn advance warning) give us a better shot than sitting back, backfilling our lands, and hoping Woden's rapidly growing army quagmires in Ichabod's core to the detriment of both while we get our cash and science infrastructures back to something resembling relevance?

[williams482]

Turn 110:

Civil Service completes: 



And at Bruins, a flurry of good and bad news:



First, the encampment is repaired, apparently, but has no hit points, walls, ranged strikes, or any visual difference whatsoever? What the hell? Evidently I have no idea how these things work, because repairing a destroyed encampment of a captured city in Single Player games rejuvenates the whole thing. Do I need to run the repair walls project (probably available next turn) too? And why is this different? Anyway, production goes into a fresh horse, due next turn. 

Second, Kaiser has declined to kill my horseman, opting instead to injure (and promote) the horse on the forest tile. That's a lucky break for us. Third, Kaiser still thinks he has a shot at Bruins with his two muskets and minimal ranged support, because he fortified his musket instead of withdrawing. That was a mistake, and he'll pay for it. 

First, hit the musket. The city chips it for 10, the crossbow for 8. I'll admit, not a lot of damage there, but it's double what the unit will heal. The crippled horse withdraws to Kings, and the pike in Bruins hunkers down to heal. The other crossbow summits the desert hill 1SW of Bruins, ready to shoot at whatever seems appropriate next turn. That unit has a garrison promotion, and thus would benefit from being inside the city, also possible next turn. The knight moves in behind the crossbows, and the redlined horse on the forest 1SW of the encampment withdraws adjacent to Kings and promotes, taking Coursers again. The 58HP horse on the unfinished Commercial Hub fortifies for the turn. Kaiser can kill it, but he'll need to attack with his fortified musket to do so. The 82HP horse on the incense also fortifies, and should safely heal to 97HP for next turn. 

Unfortunately, I see no choice but to abandon the newly repaired, shockingly useless encampment. With two MCH range strikes and a musket attack available, Kaiser can kill any unit I put on that tile and take it himself. Unfortunately there's little chance he ignore it, even if he is oblivious to the repairs, as the tile is on the musket's most obvious path towards Bruins. Bloody stupid game. I withdraw that redlined horse towards Kings as well. Unfortunately there are no tiles within my borders it can stop on safely. The 60HP horse on the wheat is also a quandry. Kaiser can kill the unit with two MCH strikes next turn. I'd really like to keep it in theater here, but that necessitates a withdrawal to 2SW of Bruins, behind the healthier units. One ranged unit can shoot at it next turn if Kaiser wishes to advance to the riverbank, but the horse will survive and that unit would be killable in return. That leaves us with this:



The trader from Wild offers a wide selection of different roads he can build us, all of which suck:



What we really need, more than anything else, is a road that allows us to move onto the desert hill 1SW of bruins with one movement point. That is enormously valuable. I, overflowing with irrational optimism, had assumed that the trader would got from Wild through Bruins to Kings/Blues, not dodge around it for no bloody reason. Why the hell am I not allowed to adjust these routes? I eventually decide to put the trader in Bruins and run it to Kings, which has meh yields but will give the most important roads (but not the second most important roads, from Bruins to the GFH 1NE and onwards to Wild). Ironically, once we do that, I believe the route from Wild would go through Bruins, because it would have a Trading Post and thus the algorithm would prioritize it. 

Have I explained enough how terrible the road building system in this game is? It's simple, elegant, and infuriatingly inflexible, perfect until you actually give a damn where your bloody roads are being placed.

Anyhoo, we have a policy swap. Professional Army is definitely out, What do we want in? Crossbows are terribly expensive, and will likely take 7-8 turns in Blues (best production city) and Blackhawks (already started one) even with the card. Horsemen cost half as much and have certainly shown their usefulness against Kaiser's ranged attackers, although they are largely impotent against muskets. Their upgrade path is favorable, but we already have more than we will likely be able to upgrade anyway. Whichever card we swap in will be present for 10 turns, the time required to research Monarchy. I decide crossbows are going to be more useful for longer than additional swarms of horses and swap in Feudal Contract: 



Blues starts on a Crossbow, due in 8. Blackhawks will continue it's own, due in 7. Blackhawks' builder is now two turns out, close enough for now. 

Suboptimal's milpower spiked by 63 this turn to 458 (now higher than ours), at a cost of 110g and 40 iron. The gold and resources line up with two warrior -> sword upgrades, which would be +32 between them. The remaining 31 is probably a hard built archer/quad and some healing. Niter stockpile is up to 33, so he makes +4 per turn. With he upgrades his income actually rose, to 77gpt. We will not win that war. 

Phoenicia has four engineer points now, England two. Brazil is up to 10 merchant points, 36 prophet points, and 12 scientist points. Dollars to donuts that's Pingala's Grants promotion kicking in. 

Scores: 

[williams482]

Oh, shit. I forgot to offer Ichabod a military alliance. That's actually significant, one fewer turn of +5 strength on all units is a real difference.

Next turn!

[williams482]

Also of note, we killed approximately 105 milpower worth of units last turn, but Kaiser's milpower only fell by 23. His Iron stockpiles are at 22 right now, with horses maxed out at 50 and Niter at 10. I'm guessing that's a hard build courser or crossbow, a hard built sword for future musket upgrades, and some healing. Likely there's a second sword in progress as well. Knights are also possible, but we won't know until we see one because the muskets have already established Kaiser's city strength.

[williams482]

Turn 111:

Kaiser just keeps coming:



Notable here is the healer Great Scientist, who gives +20 HP healing to adjacent units. That's an extraordinary weapon, and gives Kaiser a far better shot at cracking Bruins than I had given him before. I'm definitely kicking myself for not watching the names of the scientists going by, only the points generated, as this guy would have been worth running projects for. +30HP healing for adjacent units? Massive. Also interesting, that musket took damage entering the encampment tile. Apparently the district began to heal after my turn, but not enough to present a significant obstacle to a musket.

Ichabod did what I forgot to do last turn, offering a military alliance:



Accepted, obviously. Every across-the-board +5 strength bonus helps!

We get annother damn barb camp. Fortunately, our Warrior is in position to chase them off. 



And suboptimal has exited his military malaise, sieging Yerevan and driving it down to half health just this turn. I've gone back and forth about spending an Envoy to get what info we can out of a doomed Yerevan, and I decide to pull the trigger. That reveals this:



Unfortunately Yerevan did not have a galley out, and thus we learn relatively little about our world. This also grants them (and thus Suboptimal) an additional tile, a five food floodplain second ring of Red Wings. That maybe wasn't worth it. It does, however, tell us two things of value: One, suboptimal's heavy hitter is a caravel, supported by horses. We could not have blocked this attack. Second, there is a narrow, cliff-enclosed pass between Yerevan and Smiler. That's a critical choke point, and will probably be relevant if things get bloody between Canada and England. 

One important micro point does occur to me: we are very likely going to want to chop out Medieval Walls at Bruins if we can keep the city alive that long (likely, as our knight-occupied city will defend at 57, with some maluses for damage). That means we want Magus in Bruins, and Liang in Wild to get the already prebuilt builder out with an extra charge. I make the swap, and realize that I never actually assigned Amani to Yerevan earlier . Our two not-stupid choices at this point are Venice and her old stomping ground of Geneva, the later of which will get us +2 beakers. There she goes. Oddly, her time in post-eviction limbo apparently counted towards her establishment time, because she only needs three more turns:



The trader in Bruins goes to Kings for the high-value road and minimum possible time before reassignment, as planned. I consider constructing a sword, which would take 6 turns, but decide instead to take three turns to finish a monument. That +2 culture, in tandem with an automatic amenity reassignment from Kings to Blues, should cut a critical turn off our Monarchy research. I do switch Kings over to a sword, already started some time ago and due on four turns. 

Kaiser did advance his level two archer, apparently named "Robin Hood", into the bend of the Colombia. I can kill it, but it will cost me two horses, an obviously poor trade. Instead, I withdraw all the horses out of range of any units on that side of the river, moving the redlined ones into friendly lands and the yellowlined ones just outside, to positions where they might be able to strike at muskets or crossing ranged units next turn. The fortified horse on the unfinished Commercial Hub holds his position; Kaiser can definitely kill this unit with two attacks from his muskets, but that would leave them quite a bit more vulnerable than they are now and probably allow me to kill one in return. The fresh horse out of Bruins moves to occupy the GFH 1NE. Kaiser would of course do massive damage if he attacked it, which would be fantastic. I advance the pike from Blues into Robin Hood's range. Kaiser would do about 21 damage if he attacked, which is real but not critical, and I want this unit in position to get involved if necessary. Finally, we take our shots for the turn: city strike (unfortunately unboosted by our alliance) for 10, Garrison crossbow from the city for 15, Volley crossbow for 11. That unit looks to have about 30 HP left, few enough that I can kill it next turn if it holds it's position. That leaves the battlefield as shown:



Overall, Kaiser has arrayed against us approximately 300 milpower worth of units. We know he had at least one other spear that is not visible or adjacent to a visible unit, and he is almost certainly continuing to build reinforcements. That 214 milpower worth of unseen units could be a strike force for another city, but Kaiser has 1) shown no inclination towards serious strikes at multiple targets thus far, and 2) we need everything we have to stop this attack at Bruins. We can think about redeploying the horde once they are healthy and Bruins is fully under our control, but for now, we stay focussed on this front. 

England is up 19 admiral points. Egypt has their first. Suboptimal is up to three engineer points and three GWAM points. 

Scores: 

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I don't think we could win a full-blown war with sub, but the hope was his army would be weakened after taking Yerevan and we could have an opportunistic strike, which we then fortified a la Bruins.

But seeing that, and his caravels, I think we don't actually have even that slim window, and should go peaceful expansion if we could force a peace with Egypt somehow. Wait for a miracle to break our way.

I guess we all learned how Encampments work, though - apparently you repair them and THEN they start to heal? But you have to repair the walls separately? Baffling design decisions. Huge waste of time on our part, but a learning experience, I suppose.

However, I was counting on the Encampment strikes disrupting Kaiser's attack, nor did I anticipate his super-healing. He might outheal Bruins now, and that would let him grind down the city if we can't find a way to knock off one of those Muskets. What prospects for reinforcements do you have in the theater? Getting the red-lined Musket obviously is the greatest goal, but I'm not sure that's doable with what we have.

Also, note again how foolish Kaiser is for focusing on our strongest city. He has almost totally won control of the west side of the river - which is where our capital sits - and yet he's still crossing 2 rivers and thick jungle and hills in order to attack Bruins, rather than go after Blues, where he could trap our army in the open (or else we give up the capital), bring 3 units to bear against the city, AND has wide open terrain to approach.