[PB59 Amicalola] The Vespertine Hour(s)

[Amicalola]

T85



Another one bites the dust. Pin did kill my chariot, or I could have considered keeping the city (probably would have been dumb though). 

I decided not to settle our landbridge yet, because the city won't be useful and it's not like Pind will be claiming it any time soon. A sentry unit in that position will do functionally the same thing for the time being.

[Amicalola]

T86


I'm in an unplanned-for war, but that doesn't mean I can neglect my civ's development. I'll be founding 3 cities over the next 3 turns. Frosti is the first, and was founded to claim furs; this plus the gems coming online soon (T91) should end my civ's happiness problems. 

I'm starting to feel that this war with Pindicator was a mistake. I had to use my massive overflow on axes instead of forges, since my military was so low. I'm also a little worried I won't be able to capture the island from him. But I don't want to dwell on the past too much, because that's definitely one of the reasons I spiralled in past games. Time enough for that after the game. What's done is done; time to deal with the consequences.

[Amicalola]

T87




Venus As A Boy is the 2nd new city. I learned one of those tricks you get through experience today; build the road before the city. I did it the other way around, which means I lose a 3 commerce trade route this turn.

[Amicalola]

T88



Final new city. As you can see, defenses are stretched to the brink right now. Pindicator left his worker up due to lag, and sent me a PM to please not take it. Misclicks suck, so I obliged.

Next turn we'll return to war pictures, because after a few turns of planning things are heating up again. This turn I landed 2 units on Pindicator's island. I think he has an axe on his galley, which means he has an archer, a warrior, and an axe to defend. 6 metal units should easily take that. 

But it's more complicated now, because Naufragar made peace (and closed borders). Some ally he turned out to be. I'd hoped there'd be at least some goodwill from helping him out; I should have let him and Pindicator drag each other down without interfering instead.   I'm building even more units now, in case Pindicator sends his Naufragar units towards me. Somehow, I'm dead last in population, despite having 11 cities. That's the real cost of this.

Pindicator might take the 33% chance to sink my galley with his. If he gets that, it would be a disaster, and I would have to sue for peace. But it's twice as likely that he'd just lose his own boat.

[Amicalola]

T89




The island situation is... bad. Really bad. Pindicator had an axe (correct) and a chariot on his boat (excuse me what?). The latter killed an axe of mine, so that I need an extra 2-3 units than what I thought, and he'll also have time to grow to size 2 again. So I might have to abandon the island and come back later. At least I have some tangible lessons from this war; surely if I fight enough with that result, eventually I'll improve at it.

I shouldn't be overly negative - there was good news as well. My other axe killed the archer at 60% thus turn (I attacked with the plan to abandon it if I lost). I'm not sure if I can take it now, we'll see what the next few turns bring.  

Side note - it's kind of a silly problem, but I found this interesting. I have a forge at Cocoon, my best production city. I thought this would help get units out faster. But in reality, it makes me slower, because the units all cost 25-40 and the whips are for 37 hammers, making a 2-whip impossible.   So that's worth remembering.

[Amicalola]

T90

I've had a really intense day. But this turn was extremely important, so it deserves a report. 

I opened the turn to a peace offer from Pindicator, demanding war with Naufragar. Confusing. Then I saw this stack: 


From this, I gathered that Pindicator was essentially threatening me. "Leave my island alone, and this stack hits Naufragar. Take it, and it plows into you."  I appreciate that style of diplomacy. I feel really dumb, for not having a sentry on the choke-point. I even mentioned that I should do that a few turns ago. I probably could have had an extra turn of warning, maybe 2. But this is another round of whips I might have to do, if I took the island.

This presented me with an interesting decision. According to Vodka, I had about a 70% chance of taking the island this turn (apparently I was overly pessimistic yesterday). However, my chances of defending Full of Love are low regardless, and much lower without the island's units. If it was 100% to lose Full of Love and gain the island, I'd take that in a heartbeat. Much easier to build an extra settler than capture the island later. But there was only a chance. 

I decided to risk capturing Bolger. My first axe lost at 20% doing little damage, but then two units won 50% battles, and I ended up taking the island with an extra unit to spare. So that was amazing. Here is the situation:


You can also see that Superdeath cancelled OB; I have no idea why. I sent Pindicator back a peace offer.

The next thing I had to do was figure out what to do about Pindicator's stack. I got really lucky here; I I have worker mid-chop for a lighthouse, that finishes in 2. Next turn, I can whip this archer and the worker completes the chop, which overflows into a walls the turn Pindicator's stack arrives. I'm not certain I can stop the stack, but I am remarkably lucky that I even have a chance. 

I've built up a pretty decent army at this point; I expect to hit top 5 power in a couple of turns. Pretty much all of it is in the south, which means I'm really vulnerable from the north. So far, Cairo has seemed pretty disinterested. But this turn I found this:


Cairo has two jaguars that are going to hop on a galley and presumably hit Frosti in 2 turns. I can whip an archer in 3, but that's too late. So I will move the worker away from the furs (hopefully Pindi's island gives me those soon anyway), and moved Frosti's axe into the city, where it will fortify. Frosti will whip an archer on the turn Cairo's units disembark, which means by the time they can attack I should have an axe and an archer. Alternatively, they could assault off the galley, but I don't think they win that. My own scouting galley is running back to ferry troops if needed (it spotted Cairo's own ship). It sucks that Cairo is attacking, but I'm really glad I have this warning. It's the little things, right?

Edit: I've just realised that a really nice play would have been to declare on Cairo, and park my galley on that 1-tile chokepoint. I could offer peace too. That would either block his galley, or get me 10 turns of peace. I'm not on my game today.

[Amicalola]

As expected, taking the island meant 'no peace.' Maybe I should have left it up yesterday; I was not in a good mood to play. I wonder if this is the point where I can no longer win. Time to hunker down and see if we can outlast the stack.

Edit: I guess it's fair enough on Pindicator's end, to attack me. But I am worried: this is pretty much all of Pindicator's power in my territory, so is he just leaving his actual cities wide open for Naufragar?

[Lewwyn]

You got the island though! Interesting development and maybe walls will hold. To be clear you are whipping the archer and putting the chop into the archer at the same time, are you going to lose some overflow going into the walls since the archer is only 25 hammers? I guess with stone 25h is all you need though.

[Amicalola]

You got the island though! Interesting development and maybe walls will hold. To be clear you are whipping the archer and putting the chop into the archer at the same time, are you going to lose some overflow going into the walls since the archer is only 25 hammers? I guess with stone 25h is all you need though.

I did get the island; I'm very pleased about that.  I'm prone to pessimism, which I'd like to work on in general. But for now, it means my reports might sometimes skew towards the negative. 

That's exactly right, about the archers->walls. I only get 25 hammers overflow (losing 3), but that's all I need to finish the walls next turn. This poor city has ended all of its 11 turns at size 1, despite working a fish tile throughout.

I think there's actually a decent chance of holding Full of Love, with the walls. I'll have 9 units in there, of which 8 get defensive bonuses (though little fortify). However, if Pindicator decides he REALLY wants to screw me, he can keep marching into my territory, which is a scary prospect. I guess it depends how upset he is, but I'm pretty worried about it. Part of the problem is that 4 of my units arrive next turn, so on the coming turn the capture will look like a slam-dunk. I worry he might get himself too deep before it becomes visibly unviable.

Next turn, with everything in place, I'll try to make a proper composite screenshot of where all our units are, so that the lurkers can see what's happening.

[Amicalola]

T92 - Peace In Our Time
Yeah, you read that right. Pindicator made peace with us!!!

He offered Open Borders, which I accepted. Perhaps he'll just use it to try and attack me again in 10 turns, but I'd rather make the peaceful gesture on the off-chance he's being genuine. I did do a lot of whipping of metal units, but in the end I left that war up 70 gold, a fur island, and a crippled neighbour; pretty decent result. Hopefully not so crippled as to let Naufragar kill him. As part of the treaty I declared war on Nauf - I'm not sure if Pindicator would be upset if I signed peace there. For now, to be safe, I won't.

This turn the picture is my demos, on the turn following war. The biggest problem is population, which I've been whipping like crazy. Hopefully that will rise now. You can see, I've fallen a little behind, especially in GNP (my culture accounts for a lot of that). But to be honest, I don't think I'm out of contention yet, as long as I can pull off a Classic Amica Mid-Game Recovery. Feeling good about this!