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

[yuris125]

Commodore has a scout on the hill NE of the wheat farm, and moves it onto the wheat every turn, keeping an eye on our capital. This changes tile assignments, so I have to reassign the tiles and ensure that the wheat is worked. The sign is a reminder to do that

Tyty, fingers crossed!

And yeah, I was a little overconfident after running the numbers with 5 praets. But they do hit hard, and 7 praets is a lot. Not that I think we could've built more units until we knew the attack was imminent, and how big it was. We needed infrastructure. and didn't need extra unit maintenance expenses. As long as our rolls aren't terrible, and as long as Commodore doesn't see an opportunity to join in when our power graph drops, we should be ok. Even losing Gruul Smash won't be the end of the world if we can kill Thoth's stack, luckily we have a settler on hand to re-found it

[yuris125]

Thoth's road finished, but his stack is still where it was last turn. We're not being attacked yet. I am very confused. Once again, he's giving us time to whip more units in Gruul Smash and get the reinforcement axes over from the capital

I'm still holding off on settling the 5th city - even if Commodore doesn't go after it right away, he almost certainly will once the fighting starts. Plus we may have to re-settle Gruul Smash

[yuris125]

Well, showdown is not happening just yet. Went ahead and whipped walls in Gruul Smash, and an axe in See-Scape. Probably overflow See-Scape into walls to completion next turn

Thoth's play is interesting, by keeping his stack on the gold and keeping two of our cities within striking distance he forces us to keep big garrisons in both. It does slow us down as we can't go full blown infrastructure, have to invest in military builds and deal with whip anger. But he doesn't really benefit from it either. Have to wonder if him choosing the target and bringing the praet hammer down and seeing if he can succeed would've been more beneficial

Maybe he's waiting for our culture to overtake his in See-Scape, so that he can raze the city? It's 51% Roman / 48% Babylonian this turn. Isn't 25% of our culture enough for him to get an option to raze it? But I struggle to think of another reason for him to keep holding off the attack. Unless slowing us down is all he wants to accomplish (he kinda does have a reason to hold a grudge against us)

[yuris125]

It's coming




Two chariots in addition to the praets, one with C1. Spearman is not joining (and I could kill it with the units from See-Scape)

We will have an extra axe and an extra bowman on defence, compared to what we would've had if the attack came last turn. There's too many units to calculate this accurately (calculator is limited to 20 units total), but I think we're holding. I'll post our defending stack when the turns comes to us

[Cornflakes]

The calculator can sim multiple copies of each unit, the box on the left with “1” can be increased. So you can set it to 10 axemen, or 100, etc.

[yuris125]

ohhh I missed that, thanks!

Here are the calculations then







Actually looks like I don't have to whip an extra bowman in Gruul Smash this turn then, we're almost certainly holding even without it, and I don't need more whip anger in the city if it can be avoided

[yuris125]

It goes slightly better for Thoth if he attacks with 2-promo axes before C1 praets, but I can't come up with a scenario where hammer exchange is worse than 2:1 in our favour, or where his chance of taking the city is higher than 2.5%

[yuris125]

Here's our defending stack as promised




Went ahead and put overflow from walls whip in Gruul Smash into a library. Could be greedy, but we still have a 1-pop bowman whip available next turn if we need one, and I don't want to build units we don't need. We have 2 axes and a bowman to reinforce the city next turn as well

Decided not to kill the spear this turn. It feels free, but if we use the workers to road towards the gold hill, we need to put a few units on the hill to protect the workers from chariots. Thoth has access to the same calculators as we do - once he sees the defending stack in Gruul Smash, I can see him turning around and marching to See-Scape. In which case, units left on the gold hill cannot get back to the city before they get attacked on flatland. Bottom line - killing the spear is not free. Not yet. So workers are just chopping the jungle for now

Because I can still see Thoth attacking See-Scape, carried through with the plan of putting overflow into walls there. They may not be needed, but I can't sit on it making sure the walls whip setup doesn't get disrupted. Better to just finish it

Capital is putting another turn into barracks while it's regrowing

Looking forward to seeing where we are next turn.....

[yuris125]

By the way, Thoth's stack includes a worker - this suggests he delayed the attack by a turn to have a worker with the stack. This explains the delay, but what was the reasoning behind this decision? I know combat workers can be good, but was it worth giving us an extra turn to reinforce the city? And honestly I don't see how he would take advantage of having a worker with the stack - unless he planned to keep the city and build a road for easier reinforcements?

[naufragar]

Oh man! Looks like I missed a ton. Those numbers look really good. Suspiciously so, in fact. But hey, maybe Thoth has miscalculated, is on tilt, got surprised by our reinforcements. That would be delicious.

I guess now comes the difficult task of trying to imagine worst case scenarios. If Thoth doesn't like his odds, what does he do? Straight retreat? How close are we to stack wiping him if he does that capital attack you mentioned?