[PB 55] Miguelito and Mjmd help Amicalola avoid a repetition of last time

[Amicalola]

Here is Commodore's situation at Shimatsuken: 



To be honest, I suspect he will peace out next turn. Which means Jowy's longbows stack might come either to attack us or more likely to make every other city a nightmare. If only I'd made knights 5 turns earlier!!   Silly tech choices coming back to bite me hard. But hopefully I am wrong and Commodore has a second force coming? 

The amazing thing is that Jowy's crazy NA longbow max-GNP plan was soo close(!) to coming to fruition. Another 5-10 turns and he would have been basically impervious to attack, I think. I'm not sure whether to be happy that Commodore and we got here just in time, or sad that we stymied such a cool unique strategy.

[Mjmd]

Ya it was always going to be bloody using older units sadly. I'm too lazy to log in and look, but I'm assuming you have a scout going into Lewwyn lands to make sure he isn't going to backstab you? I don't know how much of a 2nd stack you built up there, but now with open borders you could move part of it down depending what you see for a push at the capital.

I'm assuming you had some kind of diplo messages pre open borders?

Jowy was just famer's gambiting nothing new. I am surprised he didn't build like 5 cats....... He could have crushed you with cats and longbows lol. Commodore's stack is more interesting to me considering he is attacking.. I am curious also if he just bad odds or just yolo'ed that attack.

[Amicalola]

Yeah, Lewwyn's lands have a scout in the north to keep an eye on any funny business. He still has a large stack in the Moai island, which hasn't moved in 60 turns, but I am keeping a garrison in EspressoMartini to compensate.

I was surprised Commodore did so badly in his attack, he had A LOT of units and Jowy lost barely any. I think Commodore probably got unlucky combat rolls, because Jowy's units were mostly in his capital or Elementary. Which then has a knock-on effect on us, since Jowy has more units to spare. It's also possible that Jowy's longbows were just that good.

I agree, I think Jowy could have destroyed us with some cats. Or crossbows, which would have helped a lot defensively. Still, his plan is working pretty well. I was feeling quite optimistic last night, but thinking about it more with my anxiety brain, if Commodore peaces I doubt we can make much more progress, at least for 10 turns or more. Which would be a shame; if that's true we probably gave the game to Civac. I was so sure we'd be able to kill Farmer Jowy.

If Commodore stays in the war I think we have much better of a shot.

[Amicalola]

Good news: COmmodore stayed in the war! Bad news: His stack is shot so I'm not sure why. Like I said, my hope is that he has another stack nearby.

I thought about what do with our remaining money/GA turns (we finished Banking this turn), and I think that after teching Theology this turn it could be better to just start upgrading our chariots/HAs to knights. Alternatively, we could skip Theology and stay in OR, thus converting to Mercantilism a turn earlier and also saving an extra turn of gold for knights. Do you guys have an opinion on this?

I have also turned our first GG into a supermedic chariot, which I think I will free-upgrade into a knight. It is with the main stack.

Edit: Lewwyn has also attacked SD, as expected. Scarily, Civac made peace with Gavagai, though he has no stack near us that I have found.

I was tempted to send our few knights and some HA's to Jowy's undefended city from the last pic, but unfortunately I think he has enough pikes to make that not work by now. Should have teched guilds earlier... Without losing any move turns, we can send our stack towards the two southern cities, or the two northern ones on the border. Thoughts? Garrisons are similar to last turn's picture (sorry I didn't take one before I logged out), except that Fire Spear has a pike in it now.

[Amicalola]

I am also really tempted to stay in Serfdom rather than convert to slavery. The hammer bonuses are no joke! But that is dumb right?

[Miguelito]

normally you don't want to upgrade your supermedic (even though it's free), because you don't ever want to risk him in a fight, and in particular you don't want him to defend.

Upgrading knights will be very costly, although I am not up to date re: our economy's strength. If there is a specific objective that rushed knights can achieve it might be worthwhile.

If you can fast raze Heaven's Hole that would be useful I think, to get the first ring of land once Pindore take Enuma Elish. If he puts LBs there we can be happy to fight themthere without a hill and without culture (walls possible though). Cursed Crater will be anecessity, but also another awful slog. If any city can be fasttracked with 2 movers (ideally from the fog), I would be willing to spend quite some hammers worth in units for that objective.

Also take lots of care to not lose Elementary MD, in particular given that he also has 3 move roads.

How much are we gaining from serfdom, and how far away is the 2nd GA?

[Amicalola]

Right now Serfdom is giving us 16 production and 15 commerce per turn, but those number would rise significantly if optimised. It also makes our workers faster.

Gah, I upgraded it already. Sorry!! My mistake, that logic makes perfect sense. I just saw the '0' and got excited.

200 gold for chariot>knight, and 140 for HAs. You're right, that's extremely expensive, may not be worth it. At least not worth for HAs.

Fast razing Heaven's Hole would definitely be nice, you're right, and we can do it forking Enuma as well. Not with many units, tbf, but with enough that at least 1 of the cities should fall as the capital cannot reinforce that turn. It was most of the units I had there at the time (once again; should have done Guilds earlier). It will be 1 knight, 3 HAs, and some misc chariots that aren't good for much else anymore (non-sentry or medic ones). Thanks for that idea! Any of these units that aren't necessary will join what I am considering to be the next big attack, on Cursed Crater. You're right though, that will be hell if Jowy wants it to be. Hopefully having some knights will help.


This is the forking 'stack.' I also put an axe on the tile, to protect against the pikeman in Enuma Elish, and a pike in case of a knight.

The main stack is healing for a turn before moving out to threaten the city. I am thinking I'll garrison Elementary with about 10-12 units, which feels safe since Jowy's unit's are mostly city garrison longbows and he has no siege. Pictured are the stack and the garrison, which will have 1-2 additional WEs added if we think it's necessary next turn.



Finally, I think I am going to stay in OR for the time being. Theocracy only makes a promotion's difference when producing mounted units without stables, which doesn't feel like enough benefit to me considering we will be stuck in it for a long time. I am going to switch next turn in case you guys think staying in Serfdom is a really bad idea, but it is what I will do if left to my own devices. Serfdom wind/water mills are so much better than mines.

[Amicalola]

Oh sorry the next GA, should be in about 12 turns I think. Woof, I just had a look and we are already at 4 WW in the capital. That could start to really hurt soon.....

[Amicalola]

With the WW really ramping up the best move may be the convert back to slavery until the next GA to whip off our excess pop. Then head back into Serfdom for the second GA and stay there, since our bonuses will be far more pronounced by then too. I am thinking we try to take Cursed Crater, Fire Spear, raze Heaven's Hole, and *maybe* take Enuma Elish; after that WW will be bad and we will most likely want to sue for peace.

That would also free us up to fight Civac or a traitorous Lewwyn.

[Amicalola]

Today I learned I cannot count. Here is what I mean:


I somehow thought last turn that this line of movement was 3 tiles, instead of 4. After agonizing over the turn for half an hour first. You can't make this stuff up. This left me with a dilemma: go for Enuma Elish and get the eastern part of Jowy dealt with, or attack Cursed Crater a turn later. I thought about sending all of our mounted units in an attempt to take it quickly, but:


These stupid pikes and longbows are *literally* more than 3 times their normal strength, at 18+. So I think I'm gonna send the main stack there with a large garrison left in Elementary, and return with all of our whipped knights and trebs to take Cursed Crater and probably fight another HUGE longbow stack of Jowy's. I am sending portions of the stack to garrison the other front cities for the time being, in case Jowy decides to get frisky. Everyone else heads to Enuma Elish, which we will probably have to bombard. Again. This means we can garrison the east lightly following its capture, as Heaven's Hole was razed by a chariot this turn. I don't love sending a main stack to fight what is currently 3 units, but I expect Jowy to whip this city to the ground so even our 5-8 knights in a few turns would not work as a quick stack.

Sorry, I'm really quite enraptured with Jowy's game here. It's just super cool, I've never seen someone use NA at all, let alone effectively. Perks of multiplayer?

Oh yeah, we're back in Slavery.


These are the civics I landed on. The only controversial one might be slavery, but with War Weariness ramping up thanks to SoZ, I decided we would do better to whip off excess pop, which also will hopefully give us enough units to deal with Jowy's impressively obnoxious stacks.

Here is the situation in Commodore-world, and why he didn't make peace. He has more units coming. He did waste all of his catapults though, so hopefully he has more of those somewhere in the fog. It is DEFINITELY in our interests for Commodore to be strong.



Also, check it out:


Superdeath wiped Lewwyn's elephant stack off the map, it looks like. Congrats!! I never expected that, seriously well done Superdeath.   Maybe we should have stayed in that war and been more patient after all. Although worth noting that stack was only a portion of Lewwyn's army, presumably.