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

[yuris125]

Great engineer actually couldn't quite bulb Engineering to completion, will take a couple of turns to finish the research. Probably just going Guilds thereafter, don't see anything more useful, and Guilds leads to Gunpowder, which could be bulb target for the next great engineer, should we get one (See-Scape can get the next great person in 17 turns, again will be about 2:1 chance of scientist or engineer, but we kinda need to get lucky to stay in the game)

In the meantime, I will find a way to safely attack Thoth.... and hopefully not die to Commodore or Miguelito in the process

The power graph I mentioned a couple turns ago - as I said, Miguelito's growth is emphasising just how scary his lead is




He just finished Guilds this turn btw, so if he goes into knight building mode, it will get even worse

[yuris125]

Also, I'll probably eat a turn of anarchy to switch to Vassalage and possibly Theocracy, as getting another golden age is not guaranteed, and Vassalage will help make up the money lost to anarchy by saving on unit maintenance. Theocracy is not that useful by itself, but both civics together will allow Big Red Dragons to build triple-promoted knights (barracks + stable + settled GG + vassalage + theocracy = 11 XP). Just would like to build Heroic Epic before getting out of organised religion

[yuris125]

Finished Engineering. I do think Guilds -> Gunpowder is the way to go next, and hopefully I can figure out a safe way to get over to Thothland before then. Maybe building up trebs for attack and keeping catapults home to defend against Commodore's next attempt is the play

Going to wait 16 turns for the See-Scape great person before switch civics; if it's a great scientist, using it + our saved up great prophet for a golden age is the best play anyway. If it's an engineer again, we bulb towards Gunpowder, use the prophet to bulb Theology, and eat anarchy for the switch

[yuris125]

I should probably mention that my strategy regarding Miguelito right now is to pretend his lead doesn't exist and hope he makes a mistake which slows him down. I can't really do anything about it; my current game is about dealing with Thoth and Commodore and hoping the Miguelito problem goes away somehow

[naufragar]

I should probably mention that my strategy regarding Miguelito right now is to pretend his lead doesn't exist and hope he makes a mistake encounters a Commodore which slows him down.

FTFY. Miguelito at this point is Comm's problem. We just have to hope he recognizes his responsibility.

Great People plan sounds good. Just keep swimming; just keep swimming.

[Zed-F]

Whether he knows about it and what he can do about it are different questions.

[yuris125]

Yeah that's the problem, I think Commodore has been going after me and not after Miguelito because he thinks he has a better chance of making progress vs me

I will be sure to show him a pike, to let him know that an invasion now would be more difficult with his war elephant-based army. Although it is entirely possible that he has been adding crossbows in the mix. And frankly with siege units anything can beat anything - it's not exposing yourself to a first strike that's the trick (but defender having Engineering should make invasion trickier as well, roads allowing for 3 tile movement instead of 2 is huge on this map)

[yuris125]

Running the numbers, and I think I'll need at least 6 trebs to successfully attack into Thoth. 6 catapults + 6 trebs leads to all catapult dying, and 3 trebs dying on average, most of the other units surviving. Need more crossbows as well, at the moment I would be able to commit 10 to attack, leaving us with barely enough units to defend against Commodore, and Thoth has too many defenders as it stands. Thoth again has 3 catapults, and could well be up to 6 by the time our attack comes, so we likely will lose units before we even have a chance to attack

This is where the loss of Boros Burn hurts, while it wasn't an amazing city by any means, it was able to contribute to unit production via whippind, At the moment I can only rely on two cities to build units, Big Red Dragons needs 6 turns to build Heroic Epic (and it really is time we build it, with trebs and knights costing 80 hammers), and See-Scape cannot be whipped while we're working on the next great person

So for now all we can do is sit back and work on units. I might do a round of whipping in See-Scape after all, whip away the scientists and regrow. Will delay the great person by a few turns, but will improve the odds of getting an engineer over a scientist. Since we don't need the great person before finishing the Guilds research, it should be ok

And yes, Guilds will take forever to research; would've been better if we could build Wealth in Big Red Dragons, but at the moment we really need more units

[yuris125]

I think the next few turns will be very repetitive - nothing of note happens, we keep building trebs and other units. Don't think there's need to report that. Of course, if anything noteworthy happens, I'll post right away

[yuris125]

Commodore is really fighting for that hill between Red Deck Wins and Blue Moon




This time he put a C2 Formation spear on the hill, along with G3 longbow who killed our crossbow. But a C1 crossbow in the capital was able to win a 58% to kill the longbow, then an axe cleared the spear. I could've killed the low health longbow who initially withdrew with a horse archer, but that would've meant almost definitely losing the horse archer, and I didn't want to lose more units than necessary

What is concerning is that I barely can keep up with Commodore on the power graph. Loss of the extra production queue in Boros Burn hurts more than I thought. Unfortunate that resettling the city would be require too much investment to bring it back up to speed, and also would give us a vulnerability Commodore can attack, at the time when we're trying to finally put together a stack to send to Thoth




Hopefully things will get better when heroic epic finishes in 2 turns

(ignore Miguelito's power graph; as long as I'm not looking at it, that problem doesn't exist)