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

[yuris125]

Well, as it turns out, looks like Thoth's praets did go after Miguelito, and at least had some limited success




Although no cities changed hands as of now

I did briefly consider if it opens a possibility to attack Thoth now, but probably not worth trying. Our capital (meaning his too) is going to 60% defence in 8 turns, it would be touch and go if we coudl attack before then, and even 40% wouldn't be easy to break. And of course we still can't kill his stack on offence. Best to wait for cats

Math bulbed, scientists fired in the capital as planned

Merry Christmas Nauf and lurkers!

[yuris125]

Well, Commodore did decide to send a stack to probe Boros Burn




I set up walls whip as planned and moved the units we had between Gruul Smash and Boros Burn into the city. We have 3 axes, 3 bowmen, and the starting archer on defence - this should be fine. Also knowing that Thoth's stack was involved in combat vs Miguelito, moved some units from Gruul Smash and See-Scape to keep watch between cities. Slightly risky - I'm basing this decision on the fact that there was a turn when Miguelito lost a fair few units and Thoth had a dip on his power graph. But units are still close enough to return to the cities, and with them now big enough to quickly set up double whips, it should be ok

More alarmingly, we got research visibility on Commodore at the end of the turn (didn't even realise we were close, I've been splitting EP evenly between Thoth and Commodore ever since we got everyone's graphs), and he's researching HBR, which is due in 5. We might have to build a few spears

[naufragar]

Merry Christmas, Yuri!

What a delightful gift Commodore prepares. (I enjoy the power ratios in the corner.) He could always have more units tucked away, but you're right that doesn't seem so threatening.

Sure, we'll need spears, but remember that Comm will need to put hammers into the horse archers since nothing queue upgrades into them (I think ), so assuming HBR research (5 turns) plus opening queue (1 turn) plus whip (1 turn), we've got 7 turns before he can start rolling them out.

On the subject of stagnating growth, in a normal game, you can usually channel that growth into expansion pretty effortlessly. With this tiny map and all the whipping, we're going to be growth-constrained, so don't worry too much about turning on avoid growth or working low food tiles. If we never solve the happiness issue, yeah that's bad, but working a cottage with avoid growth is infinitely better than growing into unhappiness if we're not going to whip that unhappy citizen away.

Merry Christmas!

[yuris125]

Commodore's stack did move away. So I didn't whip the walls can sit on them for now. We gained control of the spices tile this turn, so his attack can't come out of nowhere

So basically this went like him asking "do you really have the units to hold the city?" - "yes" - "ok, Merry Christmas then"

I will keep an eye on the power graph to be prepared for HBR (I think chariots can be upgraded to horse archers for cash, but not in queue). For now, everything is quiet, no one's power is growing, and we're ~10 turns from catapults

[Tarkeel]

I will keep an eye on the power graph to be prepared for HBR (I think chariots can be upgraded to horse archers for cash, but not in queue). For now, everything is quiet, no one's power is growing, and we're ~10 turns from catapults

Civpedia to the rescue! Chariots only upgrade to Knights actually. For units that have more than one upgrade shown, it will queue-upgrade to the rightmost of those. Archers can upgrade to LB and CB, but will queue upgrade to CB. There are some nice subtleties here, like how Caravels queue-upgrade to attack subs.

[yuris125]

Thanks! I was going by the info on Civfanatics, which says HA upgrade was also an option. But could be pre-BTS info, checked in-game and chariots indeed only upgrade to knights

Whipped out first forge in the capital




Going to build a couple of spears there while we regrow, don't think it needs a lighthouse, and we have everything else. Won't go overboard, especially since we don't want to increase our unit maintenance expenses too much, but having one in the capital and one in Boros Burn would be nice - just to avoid any silliness

Gruul Smash is growing into unhappiness this turn, it can work the tiles the capital can no longer work after being whipped, but also it will have the forge triple-whip ready once it gets to 6

See-Scape will start working scientists next turn as it grows past its 4 good tiles. I will probably cottage its green tiles later on, but for now it should get a start on GPP generation

Those random tiles where I started building cottages were just me taking advantage of free worker turns as I moved them around. I do not necessarily intend to use, or even finish these improvements

[yuris125]

We're back after a rare no turn day

So I've been thinking how we're going to attack Thoth, and coming to conclusion that we cannot really do it without crossbows




There's no safe way to approach his capital, he may or may not still have the forest on banana, but the rest of the forests have to be chopped down. And praetorians would destroy our current units if we try approaching on flatland

The plan has to be to finish Construction and build some catapults for defence, so that we no longer rely on sticking units behind walls and hoping it's enough to make attacking stack go away. Then wait and see if the next great person is an engineer who can bulb Machinery, or a scientist. Scientist would be used for a golden age, and we may have to sit on it until we're certain we can at least get to Monarchy by the end of the GA. We can't plan too far forward until we know who the next great person is, but the point is, we can't make aggressive moves before Machinery. Can't wait too long though, or Thoth's capital goes to Miguelito

Also pictured, looks like Thoth is about to settle that crappy city we talked about (there's a settler under the axe on the iron tile)

One more thought. Colossus is still available, and we can build it in 9 turns in Big Red Dragons once its forge finishes. Could be worth trying? Miguelito must have had it in mind when he oracled MC, maybe had to delay it due to Commodore's attack? But now even if he beats us to it, we can use the failgold

[Tarkeel]

There's no safe way to approach his capital, he may or may not still have the forest on banana, but the rest of the forests have to be chopped down. And praetorians would destroy our current units if we try approaching on flatland

Forests actually update in the fog.

[yuris125]

Really? Surprised Thoth didn't use the forests SE of the capital for his praet build-up if so

[naufragar]

Forests actually update in the fog.

Really? I'm a touch skeptical, but you seem so confident.

Yuri, the catapult build up seems like a great plan.

We're not in any rush to kill Thoth. He's equal power with Miguelito while having less to defend. Agg Praets are at their most potent in this era, and he's got nothing to do but build them. Even C1/Shock Crossbows (can they even get shock?) don't get odds on a C1 Praetorian in Thoth's capital, even before fortification bonuses. I doubt Miguelito comes close to attacking until Samurai. In the meantime, if we've got sufficient hitters and defensive cats, we've got a relatively fang-less southern neighbor right when we want to be doing Golden Age, techy things.

That crappy city won't make Thoth win, but it could be at 10 hammers per turn at size two. Very nice for a desperate military build up.

I like the Colossus plan. I don't know the suitable MtG analogy, but we've want to go long versus all these low, fast combos.