[SPOILERS] Out of retirement and into the fires of war. yuris125, Pitboss 68

[yuris125]

Hired scientists in the capital




Next turn chop at See-Scape finishes - that could prompt action

[yuris125]

Alright, here we go




Stack pulls back into See-Scape, leaving the poor worker ready to be captured. The spear moves to cover the worker on the ivory from chariots. The other worker moves back into the core, but depending on Thoth's play could come back and help with the road. Connecting ivory will eliminate unhappiness in Gruul Smash, so we do want it asap - but at the same time since I suspect Thoth has a decent number of chariots, I didn't want to have both remaining workers protected by just one spear

Walls in See-Scape will be ready to whip next turn, once the hammers from the chop go into production

Let's see what happens... I'm hoping to get the decisive fight with praets out of the way, so that we don't have to keep huge stacks in both border cities

[yuris125]

Thoth did accept our worker sacrifice, but it did not prompt action (the 4th unit in his stack on the gold is a chariot he used to capture the worker with)




Decided not to whip the walls in See-Scape, with ivory improved it has a decent tile to work, and I can do the whip when it's actually needed. In fact, probably should've switched to granary this turn

Capital will build a replacement worker after the bowman for the new city, as it also needs to wait out whip anger

Thinking we should not turn research back on until the academy is ready. None of the techs on the way to Monarchy are needed urgently; we might miss out on Hindu, but I don't see it as a high priority - being efficient with our commerce and waiting for science multiplier before restarting research seems more worthwhile

[naufragar]

Waiting on the Academy sounds smart. Gotta be honest, I have no clue what Thoth's up to. Any sign that Miguelito's been pressuring him?

[yuris125]

Well, Miguelito is catching up on the power graph, he is building units after the Oracle detour. But there's no evidence of active fighting as of yet

The fact that Thoth had a chariot on hand to capture the worker suggests that he is building a stack out of our sight, on the wheat tile. But honestly, I just think he missed the timing. If he moved in with whatever he had when he finished the first praetorian, can't say if we would've held the city, but we would've had a hard time. But by now we had infinite time to prepare

[yuris125]

Thoth build another couple of praets, think he's up to 5. They gotta be coming... right?

Put a small stack on the circled tile, they can return to See-Scape, or reinforce Gruul Smash, depending on where Thoth strikes




Both cities are currently defended by 3 axes and 2 bowmen, plus a wounded chariot in See-Scape

[yuris125]

This is what I mean when I say Thoth missed the window. I ran the numbers with how his expected stack fares against defences we have in See-Scape (with whipped walls)




Expected hammer exchange is close to 3:1 in our favour




Giving Shock to some of the praets moves the numbers towards 2.5:1, but we're still massively ahead. Adding 2 chariots on attack and a spear on defence also doesn't significantly change the math

[naufragar]

Great! The horror of Agg Praetorians still haunts my dreams, but if at this point we can start transitioning to Scientists while Thoth is stuck building military out of 1 (or now 2?) cities, that's so, so good. I don't know Thoth well enough to know his moods. Perhaps he's bummed out and content to sit still? He's got to be worried about incoming Xbows from Miguelito. (I assume they'll run a forge Engineer and hope to get him to bulb Machinery.)

[yuris125]

Thoth is still one one city. I honestly thought he might just attack to get it over with. But still nothing

A quiet turn, just doing what we've been doing. Others are starting to build up their own military - we slipped to 3rd place this turn, behind Miguelito




Commodore built a Swordsman in Blue Moon (his 2nd city) - and Swordsman is not a defensive unit. I wonder if there's something exciting happening between him and Miguelito. Unless he wants to send it to probe us?

Hope he doesn't mind our planned city too much, it is mere 3 tiles from our capital, and he probably didn't hope to keep the spices in the 2nd ring of his city against a creative leader. But he might be annoyed. I can only hope he doesn't send a big huge stack at it

[yuris125]

Second turn tonight. Commodore is 100% building up an attacking stack - this turn there's a new swordsman in Yellow Comet. Assume there's conflict around Miguelito's northern city, we don't know where it is, but presumably Commodore is not happy about it




Thoth lost a unit this turn, looks like a axeman, so there's something happening between him and Miguelito as well




Presumably his capital is not under threat yet, or he would've taken the stack from the gold to defend. Wish I could get an eye on what's happening, but don't see a safe way to do so, short of building a throwaway scout