[Cornflakes] 57 Christmas Treats That Will Make You Hungry

[Cornflakes]

Gavagai's forward incursion is surrounded and will be defeated next turn, hopefully earning me a GGeneral.

   

Expected losses are 1-2 axes to clear Gav's stack. In the north Gav has 5 axes + 1 immortal minimum in addition to the visible garrison of Pasargadae. My worker-scout could not see them from the desert tile this turn.

   

Economy is my Achille's Heel right now. If I could support the military and city expenses I think that I could build Trebuchets now and conquer the rest of Persia. But I'm losing gold at 0% already, and supply costs will increase when I advance in addition to more unit maintenance. Capture gold will keep me solvent for a few turns after each capture but it could get dicey. Recapturing Christstollen would restore overseas trade route, give me a 5c Whales tile, and also provide Whales luxury for an additional pop everywhere. Therefore I'll build a galley first and make that my next objective. Unfortunately the Christstollen will be growing in the next turn or two and will be able to whip another defender.

   

I have a pretty even split of archers, axes, spears, and chariots.

   

   

The red lines on the graphs mark when Gav attacked. Considering the current position Gav's attack was some combination of poor strategic decision and very poor execution. If Gav had held Tarsus and Bactra our positions would be reversed right now (me totally out of the running), but still Gav would have lost ground vs. the leaders and inspired the wrath of an AGGressive neighbor with an even stronger classical/medieval era promotion advantage. That is not a winning strategy.

[Cornflakes]

I logged back in to offer Gavagai peace for return of Christstollen. Gav would get to keep all of his forward units. I doubt he would accept, but maybe. After thinking through the situation further when posting the above update I realized that I can't press the attack and conquer Persia without leaving my core totally exposed to TBS. I would end up in a PB9 situation where I conquer a neighbor and then immediately lose half my empire. I have to consolidate, work on the economy, tech up, and then put myself in a position to pile on and scavenge gains when someone else makes a move.

[Cornflakes]

The wins continue! I defeated both of Gav’s axes in my territory at 65% and 28% odds. This is now overall a 2% string of wins. Not yet in the top 10 RNG results on RB but certainly a nice result. XP for this 2 combats (in my territory) earned me the GG.

[Amicalola]

Congrats on the wins!

How are you finding the sequential PB, as compared to a simultaneous?

[Cornflakes]

Sequential PB is great now that we have settled into a regular play pattern. Gavagai was the initial “weak link” when we first converted because he was playing about an hour or two after OH went to bed, which caused all the Europeans to play in their morning, which caused Pindicator to pass me the turn after Gavagai’s window ... Now that Gave is playing slightly earlier we are rolling smoothly. The Gav > TBS > OH > Pindicator series play their turns collectively in about 4 hours. Then it doesn’t matter whether I play immediately in my evening (not always possible) or 10 hours later the next morning, Gav always plays at about the same time. Which is fine. We have a consistent 1T/day roll now which I all we need. I couldn’t play more than a turn a day anyway just due to the time required.

It is great knowing that I will always have the ability to whip if attacked, and always know that units I’m seeing will have one turn of movement between each time I play. It cuts down on a lot of extra “what if” scenarios involving double moves 2 turns before a war declaration. It is refreshing and freeing. 10/10 would play sequential again with a group of consistent players.

[Cornflakes]

   

I finally completed a galley for the reconquest of Christstollen! There is a single Immortal defending and I have an amphibious 3.2/4 spear that gets 96% odds already and is healing to 3.8/4 this turn so the odds will improve. I'll also load an axe as insurance. Instead of pursuing Gav's 2nd galley I'm blockading Christstollen in order to prevent it from growing and whipping in another defender. I played a minor inaccuracy last turn because I didn't think about the blockade until after I had moved the trireme. I would have really kicked myself if Christstollen had grown last turn. That would probably have cost me another unit and another turn on the recapture.

In the east I'm going to stage for a morale chariot to raze Gav's capital, which is currently defended by just a warrior. Gav can see the GG now but it will be out of sight on the staging tile.

[civac2]

What tech allows you to build trebs in RtR?

[Cornflakes]

What tech allows you to build trebs in RtR?

Machinery. They are expensive compared to catapults, but they do collateral damage and I am a long way from Construction currently losing gold at 0%

[Cornflakes]

   

I'm all set up to recapture Christstollen  whether I ultimately win or lose, I'm proud of how I responded to Gavagai's attack. If I had attempted to immediately recapture by whipping galleys I'm confident that Gavagai would have been able to make it very painful due the the amphibious penalty. At the time Gavagai had both a production and food advantage so long-term he would grind out a win 1v1, and defenders advantage would have been enough to hold the line at Tarsus given a few more turns to reinforce.

[Cornflakes]

Recaptured Christstollen! Unfortunately the granary did not survive recapture so I have to rebuild from scratch

I desperately need to fix the economy. I'm at -100 gpt at 100% research, and -5 gpt at 0% research. That puts me very far away from even the next tech that I choose.