[Spoilers] luddite tries to remember how this game works

[T-hawk]

I believe you wouldn't; you have to unfog a route up to his border (trade routes can use fogged tiles within another civ's border.)

[Commodore]

Sorry it's not a fun situation, but this is fascinating, a very interesting situation. Good luck.

[luddite]

Thanks guys.I'm hanging in there.

We did get a turn reload. this is one of those situations where a double move or missed turn could absolutely kill me.

That said, I'm probably dead anyway. I didn't micro this as well as I should have. I agree that this is an interesting situation, but it's one hell of a of a situation to come back to when I haven't played a competitive multiplayer game in over 5 years!

I'm just desparately moving warriors in as much as I can. I had to leave a worker uncovered to chop the deer forest. If he takes it, great, that buys me one more turn. But I'm also worried about him cutting of the route to Rodman since that's where my most reinforcements are coming from.

3 turns till I get an AT.

Oh, and thanks t-hawk about the trade routes. I think you're right, but I signed it anyway. Maybe Scooter will see how bad my situation is and attack Mr Cairo... a man can dream, right?

[T-hawk]

I'm rooting for you, the game will be more interesting if you can indeed hold out and turn the tide at all.

Anything else come from diplomacy with Scooter?

[luddite]

Thanks T-Hawk. I think I can at least survive long enough to get one AT out. Then it comes down to dice rolls if one AT can defeat 2 musketeers. Or if worst comes to worst, I have archery tech now, so I can whip an archer and hope for a miracle.

It's a no-diplo game so I can't really say anything to Scooter.

[luddite]

The funny thing is, based on Cairo's troop movements he seems to be going straight for my capital, not trying to snipe any of my side cities. Which is both the best and worst thing he could do. If he takes my capital, that's pretty much the end for me since none of my other cities are developed enough to do much. But it's also possible that I can build an AT in the capital and kill off his musketeers with that, without even losing any cities.

One possibility- if i'm reading this right. He could approach the capital, kill some warriors, maybe pillage my deer or something. But then with sequential turns, he'll see my AT produced before I can use it. So he might just run away at that point and kill my side cities. That's what I would do in his situation.

[luddite]

The funny thing is, based on Cairo's troop movements he seems to be going straight for my capital, not trying to snipe any of my side cities. Which is both the best and worst thing he could do. If he takes my capital, that's pretty much the end for me since none of my other cities are developed enough to do much. But it's also possible that I can build an AT in the capital and kill off his musketeers with that, without even losing any cities.

One possibility- if i'm reading this right. He could approach the capital, kill some warriors, maybe pillage my deer or something. But then with sequential turns, he'll see my AT produced before I can use it. So he might just run away at that point and kill my side cities. That's what I would do in his situation.

Heh, of course as soon as I say that, he proves me wrong. He split his musketeers up this turn, going after Rodman in the west and Dulle in the east.

Scooter offered me copper for free this turn. How nice of him! I took it without really thinking much... then I realized, this prevents me from building warriors. Well thats... probably ok, I have enough warriors now. But annoyingly, I don't have any that can move into Dulle because the river blocks my movement. Rodman I can save for at least one turn. I wish I had put hammers into an archer in Dulle last turn so I could whip it this turn, but I didn't. On the plus side: Dulle has so much whip unhappiness right now that it's maybe better to raze it and build a new city there from scratch  . Downside: it's the buddhist holy city.

So yeah, capital looks safe. I get it, if I was in his shoes I wouldn't want to sit there in enemy territory fighting endless waves of warriors. I think he just didn't realize quite how bad my situation was. But it's still bad of course. Even with an AT and my capital, I won't have much else.

[luddite]

Here's a screenshot. I haven't actually played my turn yet, gotta wait for Oxy plus think a bit more. I'm rapidly shifting gears right now, going from "can I survive the next 5 turns" to "is there anything I can do to come back from this?" His power hasn't increased since the initial spike, so there might not be any more musketeers for a few turns.

Ideally what I'd like to do is pick off his musketeers one by one with AT, or AT + archers/axes. But he'll probably run away as soon as he sees an AT. maybe I can bait him into one somehow.

I keep thinking about the "Empty Fort Strategy"... probably not the best plan.

[luddite]

One more thing... I haven't actually lost anything yet. Not a single warrior or pillaged improvement. He didn't even take the worker I left undefended last turn. It's funny to think that I'm in such mortal peril when I'm still unblooded.

[chumchu]

Hi! I have been away travelling. It looks like a lot has happened already = O.

The warrior defense until you get A-T is smart. I'm not sure if axes are better on the defense here. They still lose badly to musketeers due to no hills and low cultural defences and they cost much more. You can DoW scooter to break copper if you need to build warriors. But that might have consequences later.

Two musketeers with no roading or follow up suggests a laming attack to me. He will likely raze as many cities, improvements and workers as he can to deny us an attack on him. If he tries to garrison the musketeers we can take them down. I suggest keeping two workers with the A-T to act as combat engineers to be able to catch his musketeers if they step within two tiles. Otherwise he can dance in circles around you.

Hang in there!