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

[yuris125]

We have no chance of killing his stack on attack. Numbers are awful we we try. We have to either take his capital, or move the units over to defend ours. Taking his capital should be viable - I assume all the metal units he had are in the stack, right now it could be defended just by the starting archer. But it is at size 5, so he likely can whip two more units before we reach it

There are some interesting tactical considerations - like, if he wants to cut us off from moving the stack over from Gruul Smash to the capital, he has to move onto the oasis. But if he does, he would have to either attack the capital across the river, or delay by a turn. If he doesn't want to attack across the river, he can move NW-NW-NW to the banana forest, but that allows us to reinforce from Gruul Smash (me roading that hill for settling the 5th city turns out to be relevant, as we can move the units into the capital via the hill, keeping distance from Thoth's stack). All in all, there are a lot of permutations, and it's easiest to wait and see what he does. Hopefully we're prepared for any move he might make

Actually, he already played. He retreated

[yuris125]

The question now - do we go ahead and settle the 5th city and brace for potential Commodore's wrath?...

[yuris125]

After sleeping on it - no to 5th city just yet




As I posted last night, Thoth retreated his stack. However, the road he built means he can move over and threaten See-Scape next turn. So now we need to reinforce there. We can do that; but we cannot spare units to defend a baby city, which will be exposed to the guy with the strongest military in the world (yep, that's Commodore, he's well ahead of everyone in power now)

Also, as you may have noticed from last turn's screenshot, the whipping we had to do resulted in us being a turn short on cash for Metal Casting research. I'd rather not add a fresh city to the running costs. It will be productive - and it won't even take long to be productive (as long as Commodore doesn't raze it within 2 turns of founding), as it will be growing onto already improved tiles, with the capital and Gruul Smash transitioning to specialists. But as of right now, we cannot afford it. I will reevaluate after Metal Casting is finished

Right now, reinforce See-Scape is what we do. We have 3 axes and 2 bowmen permanently stationed in the city; another axe (the one I whipped couple turns ago) was sent towards the centre of the country but now moves back, and then I have the reinforcing axe from the capital and the axe + bowman stack who covered the settler last turn. They can all reach See-Scape before Thoth can attack, and I can whip an extra bowman. So we should be ok

[naufragar]

[yuris125]

Confirm that Thoth moved for See-Scape, with another axe joining the stack. Numbers again look good for us - good enough to not need an extra bowman whip this turn

[yuris125]

Ummm I did spot a mistake in the calculator setup, we have 1 axe with C1 and 2 unpromoted axes with full fortify, not all three with C1. But correcting this doesn't change the odds

[yuris125]

Just confirming our defending stack in See-Scape, as per above calculations




Once again, we'll see if Thoth attacks, and how it goes if he does

Meanwhile, Commodore is roading the hill where his archer/scout are stationed




Only mild concern for now, all units he builds move out of sight and presumably to the border with Miguelito. At least I hope so. Don't think he can surprise us as it stands, even with the road. But certainly noteworthy

[yuris125]

Thoth retreats again. This could be our life for the next 20 turns - making sure both southern cities are sufficiently garrisoned to withstand an attack from the praet stack, while teching towards cats

[yuris125]

Here's this turn's screenshot - as I said, Thoth retreated. Wonder if he tries moving towards Gruul Smash again, or just keeps the stack on the hill and builds more units. But we're at a point where we can match his military build-up - just a matter of not getting complacent as we progress towards cats




Whipped a library in Gruul Smash, will overflow into a bowman. Started an axe in See-Scape to have a double whip available, although would rather delay the whip until size 5 and not have to whip off high yield tiles

I think next research after MC should be Sailing, which we hopefully can research at 0% with the specialists, while we save money for Construction research, which will follow the Math bulb. Construction was still showing as an 8 turn research at 100% science this turn, probably will be a little less with Gruul Smash library in place

More important news come from abroad - I think Commodore and Miguelito had a big combat this turn. Power graph is still showing us in 3rd place




But we're leading on soldiers according to the demos




Could be a good opportunity to settle that 5th city once MC research is finished, assuming we confirm big losses for Commodore - will evaluate after we see the full effect of the fight in the graphs next turn. I don't think a city changed hands - my back-of-the-napkin math suggests that both Commodore and Miguelito still have 4 cities (sizes 6 + 4 + 3 + 1 from Miguelito and 4 + 4 + 3 + 3 for Commodore match the pop numbers). Definitely keeping an eye on how it develops

Thinking Sailing should be the next research while we save money for Construction. Don't think we will be building naval units just yet, they're a big hammer investment at the time when we want to be building forges and then cats. But having triremes unlocked for an emergency would be nice. Plus it is a Calendar pre-req, and Calendar is likely to be the next research target after Construction. There's also a tactically interesting option to put a couple of galleys into the lake between Gruul Smash and See-Scape to make shuffling the units between the cities easier. But seems too big of a hammer investment to be worthwhile

[naufragar]

Oh man, excellent news. Great-looking demos. All in all, happy, happy day.

It looks like we've got a pretty clear path. Careful and conservative growth until Thoth is irrelevant, while holding onto what we have and then...the world?

Sailing seems fine. You'll have paid more attention to the geography than me. Soldiers disembarking from galleys are faster than units on roads assuming more than one turn of transit. (The ship lands in a city and then the unit can move an additional 1 or 2 tiles.) Probably irrelevant for a while, but could eventually help if we wanted to rapidly get units from Dragons to an offensive out of See Scape.