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

[yuris125]

After sleeping on it, I once again start to wonder if going after Thoth is the way to go. It all boils down to the same point as before - taking out Thoth will take a lot of effort, and only net us a single city. The hope was to get it done before I hit key techs to get involved in a real hot war against Commodore. Between my mistake on the attack, and Commodore's invasion forcing me to pull back, that didn't happen. Now we find ourselves in a situation where Commodore keeps prodding our defences and will be on lookout for any opportunity to do the same thing he did last time we went to attack Thoth. At the same time, he's still behind in tech quite significantly, I said a few posts before that he recently finished Machinery - turns out he didn't, he just had research parked on Civil Service while he was saving money. The last turn Machinery once again popped up on his research list, and is due in 4

I said before that Commodore's stack composition means we need pikes to attack him - well, we have pikes now. We will likely have knights by the time we're ready. I think we should. It's all good and well to hope he can do something against Miguelito, but I just don't know if he has the means to do so. It doesn't look like we can work together, and our hill skirmishes don't help anyone

[yuris125]

We lost cultural control of the hill between Red Deck Wins and Blue Moon

Commodore's stack moves onto a tile we can see - guess he had it on the fogged tile to be in range of Blue Moon if we attacked there, but now that we can't get there in one turn, he moved it closer to the border




F5 if you (understandably) don't want to count the units




I'm thinking that if we want to commit to attacking Commodore, we should go ahead and resettle Boros Burn, even it's for nothing other than culture pressure. Killing his stack will be much easier if we can draw it out of his territory, and resettling a city which was clearly annoying to him is a possible way to do that. Worst case scenario, he razes it again, having to lose a few units in the process, and with 100 foodhammers for a settler being not that much at this point, it would be a decent trade

I still think that Commodore and me fighting hands the game to Miguelito, but with the way the turns since he razed Boros Burn played out, I don't see how us fighting can be avoided. And if we take over Commodore's land, and can stall Miguelito, there's at least a chance

That said, with Miguelito's power graph going up, I do expect him to show up in Thothland any turn now, definitely once Commodore and I start fighting, and that will be the beginning of the end. That is, if the beginning of the end hasn't happened yet

[yuris125]

Went ahead and started a settler in RDW. Will be ready in 4 turns. The city will be defended by 2 longbows and 2 pikes - hopefully enough to make Commodore commit a sizeable portion of his stack if he wants to raze it. Also moving crossbows off Thoth's border, just leaving the G2 one on the gold hill at See-Scape, they're not doing anything back there if we're not planning an attack any time soon

This all may be futile and/or silly, but I don't see a better play, moving into Commodore's land and getting hit by 20 catapults before we even get a hit in doesn't seem productive. Neither does attacking Thoth and getting invaded by Commodore again while our stack is away, will be a repeat of the same scenario. Neither does sitting back and waiting for Miguelito to build a stack capable of rolling over the rest of the world. We have to prompt action, but create an engagement we can win - maybe resettling Boros Burn will help us towards this goal

[yuris125]

Commodore finally managed to kill the unit on that hill without taking any hits on the longbow who dealt the killing blow. We have no way to efficiently hill a full health G3 longbow on a hill, so have to let it go, at least for now

Miguelito now also has Engineering. I wonder if he's actually planning to do anything with his stack, or if he's content to sit back and force myself and Commodore into a fight. After all, in his position, unless we do something, he could well just sit back and tech to space. The game is still miles away from Astronomy (and he's likely to win the race to Astronomy should there be one), and until then, he doesn't have to fear Thoth, and doesn't look like Commodore can do anything either

[yuris125]

2 turns today, with not much happening, but a settler is finished, and I had some units camping city ruins, building up fortification bonus. We'll see how Commodore reacts when I refound the city tomorrow (the name will be Naya Burn, adding an extra colour in Magic terms, in the hope that it's an upgrade over the previous iteration)

As you can tell from previous posts, I feel very uneasy about antagonising Commodore at a time when it's unclear how to stop Miguelito. But with how the game played out, I don't see a scenario in which we don't fight. Which means I'd rather it happens sooner, before Miguelito's lead becomes unassailable (I'm not sure it hasn't yet, but he's not rolling over the map with an unstoppable stack, so there's probably still a chance?)

[yuris125]

Decided to hold off the city for one more turn. Commodore's stack is in back in view and in range to invade, and next turn I will have two more pikes ready to hit it if he does invade




11 war elephants, 8 horse archers, 4 longbows, and an assortment of older units. 23 catapults is the scariest part. We have 14 + 2 trebs for siege units. Here's my F5 (obviously some of these units are on defence duties, mostly bowmen and axes)




If it does come to fighting, it will be bloody - calculators show evenish trades, maybe slightly in Commodore's favour. But given that knights are not going to be effective against Commodore's stack, and Gunpowder is still a while away, even if we do get a great engineer.... I don't know if we can afford to wait. Honestly I would've preferred to wait and build more pikes - but that also gives Commodore time to start building crossbows, and the cycle of "let's just wait until the perfect opportunity" continues, while Miguelito is sitting back and getting further and further ahead thanks to his wonders

Not that us fighting is guaranteed, it is subject to Commodore being annoyed enough at me resettling the city to invade. I'm not in a position to fight this stack in his territory

Commodore is on Engineering research now, and apparently has research visibility on me, despite our EP invested in each other being very close (290/292 as of this turn). I mused about it before - I wonder if research visibility is too easy to get

[naufragar]

Commodore is on Engineering research now, and apparently has research visibility on me, despite our EP invested in each other being very close (290/292 as of this turn). I mused about it before - I wonder if research visibility is too easy to get

I'm coming back to this after being out of town for a few days. Demographics and Research Visibility both have modifiers that let people spy with less than equal amounts of EP. Off hand, I think that you need 1/4 EP for demos and 3/4 for Research? So it's very hard to keep a determined opponent from knowing your business in the late game.

[yuris125]

Thanks Nauf! I guess since graph visibility can be unlocked both ways, I guess it makes sense for research visibility as well. Just feels like such a crucial information should be harder to obtain

Glad that you had no objections to my plans regarding resettling the city. However....

Change of plans (again!)




The thing I expected for many turns is happening. Miguelito is finally putting Thoth out of his misery. I'm moving the stack that way, to see if there are any spoils we can claim, and any Miguelito's units we can kill. Weakening Miguelito seems much more important than skirmishing with Commodore

[yuris125]

Miguelito razed Thoth's capital

His remaining stack




That's honestly not a lot left. And it looks like he traded pretty evenly with Thoth - he just had so much stuff. The current power graph:




Notably, Miguelito didn't have a unit on the tile where Thoth's capital was, so looks like he was aware that I had forces in general vicinity, and deleted the unit for XP denial. Also, great positioning - thanks to Miguelito's border expansion, there's absolutely no way for me to hit this stack and take advantage of units' low health

Thoth is down to a single archer in Hard Luck, and this definitely opens up an opportunity. Miguelito probably has to stop and heal / reinforce, and we can take Hard Luck ourselves. I feel like keeping it and resettling on the spot where Thoth's capital was would be adventurous at best, with Miguelito's culture from the holy city extending all the way to that tile. But we could raze Hard Luck and resettle on the iron hill. Good thing we have a settler on hand

Commodore in the meantime doing things with 4-move galleys, which are in the lake this turn. Couldn't figure out if there is anything threatening he can do to me from this tile, and his plan may not have anything to do with me - we'll see next turn if I missed anything




By the way, I haven't given up on resettling Boros Burn, but maintenance would be crippling right now, and will get worse as we plan to settle in Thothland, quite a distance from the capital. And since we will no longer have Thoth between ourselves and Miguelito very shortly, and are hoping to settle a city in land Miguelito might feel he has a claim on, resettling a city in Commodore's face at the same time feels ill-advised

[yuris125]

Miguelito did withdraw. Looks like we're free to take Hard Luck. There's also a small dip in Commodore's power graph this turn, maybe there's some skirmishes? Maybe Commodore is trying to take advantage of Miguelito's stack being elsewhere and suffering losses, as he did when we attacked Thoth?

Thoth whipped a praetorian (to be expected), and gets to live another turn. Hopefully nothing silly happens, and it is just one

Nauf, are you onboard with settling on the iron, 1E of Hard Luck? This allows Miguelito to get another city if he wants one, as shown by the sign. Which would put him in dangerous proximity of Gruul Smash, either by land or by sea




But the only way we can deny it is by settling a more aggressive city, on the spot of Thoth's former capital is probably the best spot. And I don't see how it will ever be safe. We will claim the first ring, but with Miguelito's holy city nearby, even the second ring will a problem