[PB73 SPOILERS] scooter's Oracle

[scooter]

Ugh Cataphracts are annoying.





So I attempted a bait of sorts to clear out the western axe/spear pairing. I completed the Sugar plantation, and then cleared out leaving 1 worker exposed. I figured if he opted to go for it, it cost me 1 worker to have odds on both of his units, where my worst outcome would be 2 units for 2 units trade, a trade that favors me ultimately. However, he backstopped it with 3 Phracts, which slowed me down a notch. Mostly just because I need bodies in the city. This is why it's been so hard to push out - I make the slighest move forward, and this response puts me in a tight-ish spot if I get some bad RNG. So, I did a very painful thing and chopped Logan's final forest and instead of completing a Barracks (or completing a Catapult) I squeezed another Elephant in there.





Also used the fresh Galley from Roman to setup to potentially boat in 2 units in this upcoming turn if need be. In addition, I moved up a mini-stack into the jungle to cut him off. If he decides to commit to this attack, I think I can do some serious damage to him. More likely I think he retreats after he sees these units, but I could def be wrong. Will depend on how much fog reinforcing he expects.


Alternatively, he could attack my jungle stack with those Phracts as he does get odds, but the odds aren't great (60s-70s) given that the upside is just killing units, not cities, and it risks them getting caught in a counter-attack. So I'm not sure that he'll do that. Also I was curious if it was worth upgrading my Spears to Woodsman for 20% defense instead of 10% combat. However, the weirdness with how some promos affect attackers vs defenders meant Woodsmen only gave me 3% better odds in exchange for being useless on attack, so I went with C1 for all units.

[Commodore]

Amazing, you have discovered a rare situation where having a free Woody I on spears would actually be very handy.

[Zed-F]

Engineering would probably be nice here just for the extra WE mobility, let alone castles and everything else. If we can't find a way to mousetrap Yuris without it, perhaps we get that before Iron Working, since we might not be able to safely settle jungle cities anyway.

[Thoth]

Amazing, you have discovered a rare situation where having a free Woody I on spears would actually be very handy.

Some woody 3 spears would do some nice damage to phracts at a very cheap price.


I think I'd still rather have Vikings than Maya on a B&S map.

[scooter]

Busy weekend, so I only have time for one picture.

[Zed-F]

Nice to see there’s island city #4. Who dat?

Oxy, you’re going to need more triremes than that. If I were you I’d be trying to make that power line go up faster.

As for Yuris, you called the tune and took your chances; now’s the time to pay the piper.

[scooter]

More of a proper recap of the last couple turns since we didn't get a new turn yesterday.





I spent a couple turns having to dance around this Trireme from Oxy. He also had a second Trireme behind it. The major complication from the recent turns is that Oxy seems to be positioning as if he's going to actively defend Yuris. I was eventually able to get the Galley past this area by bringing up a Trireme of my own and making him nervous in the islands.





This was followed up by this offer from Oxy. The message is clear - DMZ/peace in these central islands area. "Nidaros" was the newly settled Stone/Fish site at the bottom-left corner here, since renamed as "Willa." I offered this back. I actually had an opportunity to burn Westminster the following turn, but opted against it. I really don't wanna 2v1 right now. However, I recently responded by an attempt to warpeace Oxy to prevent his Triremes from screwing with my Galleys, and he has (thus far) opted not to accept or re-offer. So it sort of seems like he wants to be able to intervene on Yuris' behalf while suffering no consequences on the other front? That won't fly. However, he has not played a full turn since these offers, so we'll see. He may be planning to re-offer upon actually playing his turn.





In more interesting news, Yuris took his first Cataphract shot and my Elephant survived which was a huge result for me. I don't remember the exact odds, but it was in the neighborhood of 66%. Losing the Spear is whatever - a Spear for Phract trade is fine. Elephant picked up a second promo. He then moved his Phracts northeast, so he's backed off Gerri.





We have Iron instantly, so that's nice.






The next big challenge is this - tech path. Some options I'm considering.


1) Quick run to Theology (4ish turns) to unlock Theocracy. This might come in serious handy both with land and sea units. Positive side effect of opening up AP. This is my slight lean at the moment.

2) Run to Music for Artist. This could be used for a Golden Age or to culturally control this continent to speed up the land war. This has the positive side effect of opening up a bunch of useful world/national wonders.

3) Straight to Optics for Caravels. I already have Machinery, so I could get Caravels online much faster than Oxy and have a naval edge over him. Would outdate his Triremes, and he has quite a few of those at this stage.

4) Tech Engineering. Pricy tech, but +1 movement would be helpful, Pikes would be helpful, and then Castles would be quite useful too.

[Zed-F]

I kinda like 1) since it has immediate return on investment with SPI and has some long term benefits with AP that outlast Colossus, and we have cheap temples; the main investment in the wonder could happen relatively quickly at the capital and the secondary investment in religious buildings is relatively low initially.

2) I’m not sold on as long as we are warring more than building.

3) seems good for Oxy but if we want to focus more on Yuris right now then 1) is more flexible against both of them. Maybe it’s a follow-up tech?

4) also looks promising but requires more investment than 1) to benefit and we don’t have hammers to spare for castles as long as we are mostly warring. Maybe it’s a follow-up tech?

[scooter]

We have peace in our time.





With the Incans, of course. This is fantastic news from my perspective. I was growing a bit frustrated today that Oxy was seemingly so interested in forcing me into a 2v1. Advancing my Galleys is seriously difficult if I have to cover every turn. Now the question is - can I conquer Yuris in 10T? Well, probably not. But can I accomplish something in that timeframe? Feels likely. First though, I neglected a screenshot.





I had that Chariot on a Galley and an empty Westminster the previous turn. You're welcome, Oxy :P. More seriously, Willa is the most recent island addition and gets us to the full set of 4 domestic IC routes. These islands have been a bit neglected, so they're quite happy to finally be getting worker attention. Borders pop at Willa in about a half dozen turns, and the Fish will be net immediately at that point.





I've finally pushed into the jungle, hence my completion of Iron Working. That forest was 2/3 prechopped, so I finished the chop and roaded, making this city quite safe despite the somewhat scary Phract Road which was preventing me from doing this sooner. Now that I have a serious army and IW, there's no reason to not start pushing towards Yuris. But it needs to be two-pronged, so let's talk about that.





The signs indicate Zerks that can make it in the first wave. Just below the GPP graph you can see the staging tile marked with an 89 sign to represent position at end of T89. I can have 6 Zerks on 3 Galleys on that turn. Connor's Zerk there was whipped and will overflow enough to 3T a follow-up Galley for a reinforcement wave, and a 5th Galley is coming from Tom down south. Yuris will then be forced to commit to putting Phracts in his capital, because those are the only units he has that can defend against amphibious City Raider Zerks, which will mean he can't really counter-attack me. That'll leave me fairly safe to pressure by land too. It's going to be really tough to get good hammer trades against Phracts. In fact, it's going to be impossible. So that's why I'm going to try to come with overwhelming numbers and live with some tough losses at some point. Ideally I can pressure him into a mistake or two, because every city burned makes it that much harder for him to replace. I estimate he has around 6 of them currently, so he can't really defend and attack simultaneously.





Soldier count is rapidly approaching 2x any other player. I'm guessing this is why Oxy signed peace.





Up to 8 Zerks, 5 Elephants, 6 boats, and a bunch of scattered units. I will be adding more, but progress will slow down shortly as my cities are whipped and deforested pretty hard at this point. There's not much left in the tank as far as rush production goes.





Unit costs are starting to get non-trivial. Good thing we have the Lighthouse to pay for all this.

[scooter]

I kinda like 1) since it has immediate return on investment with SPI and has some long term benefits with AP that outlast Colossus, and we have cheap temples; the main investment in the wonder could happen relatively quickly at the capital and the secondary investment in religious buildings is relatively low initially.

2) I’m not sold on as long as we are warring more than building.

3) seems good for Oxy but if we want to focus more on Yuris right now then 1) is more flexible against both of them. Maybe it’s a follow-up tech?

4) also looks promising but requires more investment than 1) to benefit and we don’t have hammers to spare for castles as long as we are mostly warring. Maybe it’s a follow-up tech?

Yeah I've been leaning slightly towards #1 due to SPI and wanting the extra XP. My only hangup is that by the time I have it, how many more units will I actually be adding? Some for sure, but it's sort of a bit late for maximum impact. That's my hesitation.


As for 3, I think it's a bit situational. I can imagine worlds where I'm wheeling this navy around and sending it directly at Oxy around when peace expires, so in that world a couple Caravels would allow me free reign to absolutely terrorize his coast. This would require either a decisive quick win over Yuris OR some sort of peace deal with him, neither of which seem likely, but the odds aren't 0% either. 4 I think is also a little situational. So overall I'm just gonna save cash for a couple more turns and see what Yuris looks like.