[59] Miguelito and Rusten move stacks to berimbau rythms

[Rusten]

Been on mobile so I missed some things first time around and maybe there's more.

I don't think you should attack into him by rice. Just defend city with longbow and knights and keep his units busy. We can move in at an opportune moment with those units later. You can keep roading towards his city west. Just protect workers with a knight.

[Miguelito]

I hope Donovan reactivates his thread, because I'm not willing to document how he got to raze Filho de Ogúm, our cheeky plant on his continent from some 20? turns ago. Suffice to say that I had set up what I thought was a moderately clever trap, hiding forces, but then he brought in 2 movers from the fog, and those forces that I was hiding weren't defending the city, so I fell into the pit that I dug myself. Genius. Although I also think that the combat rolls were disappointing. But it was easily preventable. The city had a granary (chopped) and a momument, and maybe a quarter of a lighthouse done. It was also a very good lookout. Very annoying, but just have to continue.

Here's the main theatre:


Yes, it's actually 5 chariots. Roading the hamlet NW of the copper he would have the option to attack Sawblaze, so I decided to pillage the copper and road. Also put healthy knights on the forested hill, but they are still too few to push for the cap. Witch Doctor should fall next turn though, and then we go west with reinforcements. Of course, need to take care from units incoming from whiplash.
If Don whipped a trireme in Icewave, we are likely to lose ours. Also unnecessary, I could have set up the blockade 1E.


I count 8 musketeers to be whipped more or less instantly. Which is not that awesome, but I'm still looking forward to it.

Also I have been reassessing the Taj build. I had projected for it to be a 1 turner in Lavandeira, but that was assuming we'd have OR. WIthout those 25%, the wonder costs 400 raw hammers. 180 are chops, but we can't do 220 in one turn. The market overflow can provide up to 120, and 20 per turn is easily achievable at size 7. 25 is much more difficult. The city is currently at size 6, and will still need to whip some pop for overflow. I'm not even sure we can manage to set up the full cascade. I guess it would require 3 items, 2 of them including 29 from whip. Something like spear ->courthouse -> market. But it seems we're already a bit late on preparing that, between having to grow the city and putting hammers into those builds.
Otoh I am comforted a bit that Cornflakes seems to be busy with other stuff, and we don't know of any other serious competition.

[Miguelito]

We took poor spite whipped Witch Doctor (4->1 over the last turn). At least the city had a lighthouse and granary . Donovan had taken a 27% shot with a fresh elephant against ours, and won, so we are jumboless . It rendered him a GG (watch out for a rogue Morale HA) . At least our trireme at the fur island won on defense and was covered with a reinforcing one.
You see that Dono's mobile stack has added an HA. I hope the units that I put into Witch Doctor are enough.
My plan is:
t130: we cut the road W of Witch Doctor with the HA*, then concentrate forces on the corn.
t131: we either storm the capital with 12 knights, or advance on the sugar for bombardment. Just 2 (accuracy) cats in the vanguard though.
Also Donovan has an eccentric way of improving, or not, his land. The forests jump into the eye, but also that sugar is just bare. No farm, no cottage. The forests are great for us of course.

*there's a galley around though.

GAs are getting launched left and right, so we fell down to 8th in GNP while saving. Elkad's Mfg in the GA is impressive. I think he also revolted to bureaucracy. Offer the alliance once we take Dono's cap? I really don't see us attacking him.

[Miguelito]

I'm delaying the charge on the capital by a turn, as Dono is able to put enough pikes into it so a direct assault doesn't seem profitable. Instead I'm positioning to fork the cap and whiplash next turn, including with the reinforcement knights.


I am a bit worried whether I guarded Witch Doctor enough. If he retakes the city and has 2 movers left the GG medic is in danger. That would be very embarassing. I'm counting on each knight to kill a chariot after the first HA - that didn't work out so well last time - and then there are some reserves. It would be interesting if he moved up his cap pikes onto Witch Doctor, but I think we'd win that battle.

Oh yeah there's a city of Dono's 3S1E of his cap that we hadn't seen before. It just has an archer for garrison.

civac, still without Machinery or Monarchy, is building up power. I fear he might try a strike on Elkad, or to catch us in Dono's land. We need a conclusion there. Elkad seems aware of the danger, and is concentrating his power on the civac border while leaving ours blank, but it's 32 cities vs. 13, at similar military tech levels. If civac attacks there, of course it would be sweet to hit him in Elkad's land in turn. Ideally we'd exchange knights for muskets in Spain and move the former north, to flank his siege. But that may be wishful thinking, and overall take just too long. Do we need Engineering after Nationalism?

[Rusten]

Decided against pillaging the road 1W of Witch Doctor? Because he could hide workers in the new city anyway?
Yes to engineering after nationalism, I think that's a very important tech.
I remember civac sending units across the world into ally territory against a potential rival in a recent PB (the one where Noble played), so be careful. His current techs make him pretty harmless though.
I don't mind delaying conquest a turn or two -- unit retention is important. Patience is a virtue.

[Miguelito]

Decided against pillaging the road 1W of Witch Doctor? Because he could hide workers in the new city anyway?
Yes to engineering after nationalism, I think that's a very important tech.
I remember civac sending units across the world into ally territory against a potential rival in a recent PB (the one where Noble played), so be careful. His current techs make him pretty harmless though.
I don't mind delaying conquest a turn or two -- unit retention is important. Patience is a virtue.

Points taken. The road would have required to sacrifice an HA, or to expose a knight stack to pikes with limited means of striking back. I figured the 3 move GG can do it safely next turn. I'm also thinking I'll advance the knight stack in Witch Doctor next turn. Dono could use his pikes and 2 movers on them, but then they aren't in the cap and we can take it from the fork tile, which sounds like a win.

On a peaceful note, we are getting 2 6c routes in Bonfim

[Miguelito]

Next turn will be interesting.


I'm still not sure if this is a good move or utterly dumb. The selected stack is the southern one. Dono's 2-movers have disappeared, and in the cap there are 5 pikes and 2 CG3 (GG) crossbows. 1E of the highlighted stack there are 4 more knights and the woodie axes (plus catapult reinforcements and workers).
He could use his capital pikes to kill the southern knights, but then he loses the capital. But it could mean that he retakes Witch Doctor. He may lose the capital anyways, although I have not simmed yet (but would do so before attacking into this. Most likely we don't want to charge into that without at least some collateral hits).
If no huge surprise appears, we take Whiplash next turn.

Young men all over France are taking up track racing. The champions get rewarded with firesticks and fancy hats:


"All over France" is a bit of a lie. We only had 3 this turn, and will build up only slowly until we can draft. I wonder if it would have been better to wait 4 more turns researching, and attack with an army of 30 musketeers against Donovan's pikes.

Our explorer notes something interesting:


This is in Mr. Cairo's former land currently being conquered by mackoti. If pindi also has culture there he most likely came from the north (Donovan's position). But that goes against my theory of the world:


A lot of this are educated guesses, naturally. We have not actually seen territory of Ramk, GKC, Joshy, superdeath, naufragar, pindicator, nor anything on the 2nd donut in the box. Naufragar and Amica have been at war for a while, which is why I've placed them together. Maybe it was just an opportunistic axe galley of pindicator's?


We also met Ichabod (Hammurabi of Germany). I don't know where, but the game opened to his OB offer, which I took.


He is not doing too badly in terms of research. In particular him and mackoti already have Optics, and maybe circumnavigation as well? That is another target for after Nationalism, although Engineering has priority. Also, while we are clearing the second tech required for Nationalism, nobody we  know seems to have both of them.  Cornflakes and Elkad both have Civil Service, and have Philosophy available. Elkad has shown an impressive GA GNP spike, far surpassing ours.

Here is the international relations web, if you can discern anything:


Ichabod seems to not have declared on anybody yet (didn't check the other way around)

[Miguelito]

Also, if we don't attack the capital next turn, raze Hydra, to rid him of a production queue? It seems quite fillerish, refoundable later on.
edit: you can look at the spot in Charriu's territory. It doesn't claim resources, just shares the capital fish.

[Rusten]

Interesting choice. Not really following the unit retention philosophy I mentioned , but we'll see how it turns out. Might be brilliant, but hard to tell at first glance.
Why isn't the axe (or axes) together with the main stack? Trying to provoke him?

I think I'd keep the city if it keeps infrastructure. It's on a hill so it can be defended fairly well with just a single musketeer. I'll try to log in after DZ plays to get a better view.

[Miguelito]

Why isn't the axe (or axes) together with the main stack? Trying to provoke him?

those are 2 woody II axes and 4 knights covering 2 reinforcement catapults and 2 workers due to build a road if we want one ( I just notice,  we only do if the cap falls, but I couldn't cover the hill 1N anyways so )