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

[yuris125]

Right on schedule




Temur Energy gets its 20% cultural defence just in time, but don't think it will be enough to hold it. Our main stack still needs a few turns to get there, it only got out of Commodore's land this turn. It may be prudent to retreat, especially as Gruul Smash and See-Scape are both defended by outdated units which are there just for MP, there's nothing better than an axe in those cities. I do have 4 catapults and a few crossbows in the area (the detachment which was tasked with razing Hard Luck), maybe that will be enough for Miguelito to worry about trading inefficiently

Miguelito just finished Gunpowder this turn by the way. For us the great engineer would bulb it about 2/3 of the way

All in all, continuing to push into Commodore's land is definitely not the play. Especially as we're currently losing money at 0% without wealth builds. We really need to get markets and grocers built in core cities - alas, Miguelito doesn't seem inclined to give us time

[yuris125]

Welp




Miguelito settled a new city, and great artist-bombed it. This allowed him to reach Temur Energy with all units this turn, bombard it with catapults and raze. All my hopes for an efficient trade are gone - he only lost 2 catapults and 1 knight for our 6 defenders (2 longbows, 2 crossbows, 2 pikes)

What's far far worse is that we're going to lose See-Scape as well. Miguelito has a GG Samurai with all the promotions including morale, 10 knights, and 2 horse archers on the gold hill. We have nothing in range to defend against this - I will whip a pike, but aside from that it's a handful of axes and bowmen, and we're just 3g short of upgrading a bowman to a longbow (there's no way to scrounge emergency gold in Civ4, is there?). I was perfectly ok with losing Temur Energy if we couldn't hold it, but the hope was it would be at least a speedbump for his attack, giving us the turns needed to bring the main stack back

I don't regret my plays after Miguelito's attack on Thoth, in Magic there are situations where you cannot play around a card an opponent might have, you play into it and make them have it. Miguelito's great artist was such a card

As long as Miguelito doesn't walk his stack in a vulnerable position after taking See-Scape, it will be concession time very shortly

[Tarkeel]

It's a knight that has the Morale GG, not a samurai. Pillageing improvements is the only way I know to gain instant gold, but it can't be a tile you control.

[yuris125]

Cursor is hovering on the other stack, which is on the city ruins hill. The one on the gold hill has a morale GG Samurai

This is all totally fine and we can absolutely defend against it, just don't ask me how

Yeah that was my understanding re the money as well

[yuris125]

As expected, Miguelito doesn't make a mistake




See-Scape is razed (funny how the weakest unit left in the city, the bowman, was the only one to get a kill on defence), and no units are exposed to be hit on a counter-attack. The unit that took the city is a full health C3 knight, we can try hitting it with a C2 knight of our own, but it won't be good odds. The rest of the stack is out of range of siege units with the GG samurai and another C3 knight as top defenders, there's no way for us to try to get a good trade

Miguelito's attack probably stops here, his catapults already withdrew. But it leaves us in this weird position. Technically our stack, such as it is, is still intact, and not that much weaker than Miguelito's, at least when measured by the power graph. And we will get Gunpowder in 2 turns, which will get us back to military tech parity (apart from Civil Service). But he has a lot more land, bigger cities, and better economy than us - even better now that we lost one of the main economy centres. He can just sit back for 50 turns and build up a doom stack, and unless he somehow makes a huge blunder and lets us kill a large part of his stack, I don't see a way to stop it

Pretty much the only play I see from here is to build up a stack capable of killing Commodore, while leaving enough defenders to protect what's left of our land against Miguelito. See-Scape probably can be resettled once Miguelito's units leave, but it will take a fair few turns to bring it back to being productive. Obviously Thoth's land is no longer attainable thanks to that culture bomb, Miguelito can settle it as he sees fit. But maybe, just maybe, if we claim Commodore's land, there's still a chance

Nauf, would you concede in this position, or try and see if there's still hope?

[yuris125]

Miguelito's newest city




So much for my hopes to steal Thothland for myself. Admittedly it did take a great artist bomb to deny it to me so comprehensively

I am well aware of how bad my position is, and how low the chance is that Miguelito lets the victory slip through his fingers from here. But as they say in Magic, there's no chance of opponent making a mistake if you concede. So unless Nauf or lurkers feel that I'm wasting everyone's time by playing on, we play on

[yuris125]

I still have the same reservations as before about attacking Commodore. Taking his city adds another border we have to defend against Miguelito's superior forces, and he can strike in a different place while our stack is away, especially if he sees us losing units

Basically, razing Commodore's cities gets us nowhere. Taking his cities and trying to hold them exposes our stack to Miguelito, without any room for maneuovre, while we wait out city unrest

If our best hope is Miguelito's mistake, it needs to be soon, while we're (hopefully) in a position to take advantage of it. So why not try hitting Miguelito's units stationed at Holy Simplicity?




I can position units some distance away, with workers to rebuild the roads he pillaged, and hope he neglects checking the situation with his sentry knight. Silly hope, yes, but as I said, I do need a mistake from Miguelito

[yuris125]

Turns out Miguelito is pretty good at this game and is not going to fall for a simple trap. What a shocker

Didn't take a screenshot, but he left just the sentry knight on the tile NW of Holy Simplicity, I could've sacrificed both workers to rebuild the road and possibly kill it, but that's not a good trade I'm looking for

I'm building / whipping knights in the three productive cities, so we get 3 every 2 turns. In the meantime I'm thinking hard how exactly we can use them in a non-obvious way. Also, Gruul Smash now has close to 60 turns of whip anger. Not a problem for now, we have plenty of obsolete units to serve as military police, but it will come into play if we find a way back into the game

Commodore sent a small stack to threaten Naya Burn, but don't think that will come to anything, unless he has a lot more mounted units in the fog than I expect. Mostly just a reminder that we can't discount him, he will keep probing and looking for an opening

[yuris125]

I don't think Miguelito is going to let me do anything in the-land-formerly-known-as-Thothland. He knows I'm eyeing it, and is not showing any sign of letting me contest it

With a significant part of his force tied up this way, maybe I can make progress against Commodore? Thanks to border expansion, I was able to get a trireme close to the city, and can't see Miguelito's big stack in range. Even To The Strongest, the city closest to Yellow Comet, doesn't have much of a stack on defence. And judging by the border shape, the other Miguelito's city is across the lake, maybe on the ivory? In any case, not anyway near to Yellow Comet




Maybe it won't be as difficult to hold as I thought. And the onus is on me to try something

So I'm going to get 2 muskets to protect the siege stack along with crossbows, and go see what I can make happen. Will leave as many pikes and catapults behind as I dare, so that I can defend in case Miguelito moves his knights in

Also, I'm eyeing To The Strongest, which is in galley range from Gruul Smash - maybe there's a possibility of razing it via a naval attack.....

[yuris125]

Commodore's forces




We can bring 6 knights, 8 crossbows, 2 muskets, 3 trebs, 8 catapults. This leaves 5 pikes and 5 catapults in reserve / to deal with Miguelito's knights if he sends them in

I will run the numbers in the morning. We should be able to take these cities? I think? Whether we will be able to hold them is more questionable