[PB73 SPOILERS] scooter's Oracle

[Zed-F]

Saving gold for a few more turns seems reasonable; if the XP from Theocracy won't much matter because Yuris slips up, then cool, we have other options to get back on to economy buffing. If we are expecting to slow down on unit production sometime in the not too distant future due to too much whipping, that sounds like we may generally need to pause vertical growth and queue up some expansion workers / settlers to wean ourselves off whip unhappy. Of course we need to watch our expenses too.

But if we need to see what the next few turns bring before we commit to anything tech-wise, that seems fine.

[scooter]

Had some absolutely horrendous RNG today.





Not this. This was just run of the mill slightly unlucky. Yuris had a lot of his Cataphracts in range of this tile where I placed 3 War Elephants, which was moderately surprising. I figured maybe 2-3 would be in range, and I would have been happier to take that trade. I think his 3-to-1 trade was slightly more likely than not to happen, but hardly guaranteed. However, what came next... Yeesh. Essentially I looked at this and saw opportunity. Let's kill some of these Phracts while I have control. I had a Zerk on a boat in range in addition to the units highlighted, plus the ability to ferry in 3-4 more. The promoted Zerk and Spear both had around 20% odds to kill the fully healthy Phract and 80%-ish to 1-for-1, and of course the Chariot behind it was easy pickings. He also had 2 wounded Phracts behind these, so if I got lucky I'd get a swing at those too.

The Zerk and Spear got 20% odds each. The odds of losing without inflicting any damage was around 6%. So I went Spear first, hoping to part wound and finish with the Zerk to net a promotion and make for a great hammer trade. The Spear died without a scratch. I decided to swing with the Zerk anyway because I could still clean up with the Axe, and uh, it did just 2h damage. Absolutely brutal. Vodka puts the odds of those 3 units killing a Phract to be around 96%, but obviously it's not possible for an Axe to even threaten a 10Str Phract, so I didn't just hit the 4%, I hit on the lower end of that distribution. Basically this was a < 1% chance result. The kind of result that meant I needed to walk away for a bit after.





I expect he's gonna take his XP and run. However, I decided to bait him to press his luck. Would be shocked if he goes for it, but I stuffed the city and also have units coming on boats (and by land) that can counter-attack if he pushes on. So we'll see if he's enticed by a worker. He may trade the wounded Chariot for one, which would be a mild bummer, but he's using it for cheap vision, so removing it would still be nice.

I did consider skipping any of this and simply running past him on boats, allowing him to burn this city in exchange for potentially losing his capital. However, I wouldn't be able to reach the capital quite fast enough to beat his units back. So that was out.





In brighter news, popped a Merchant. He's gonna have to sit for a few turns with the war and all that, but soon I'm gonna send him on a Galley trip to Luddite for a trade mission.

[Commodore]

I like how it shows that somewhere in the process you went "yep, I need Theocracy XP for this".

[scooter]

I like how it shows that somewhere in the process you went "yep, I need Theocracy XP for this".

HAH. I can actually explain what happened there. That was actually me debating over upgrading a Warrior to a Zerk because it was in the vicinity and already had C1. So I was toggling my tech selection to figure out how much that choice would delay Theology to decide if it was worth it. Ended up deciding to do it. Slightly painful, but it's a way to put my commerce to work. But also it's probably my subconscious admitting that Theology next makes sense.

[Zed-F]

Yeah, hopefully Theocracy lets our WEs get odds on Phracts, though we’d rather it doesn’t come to us having to build a bunch more of those. Hopefully we get some better combat luck in upcoming turns; we had been getting a bit lucky previously but that result evened things out and then some, so we’re due an upswing.

[scooter]

Yuris stuck around last turn and reinforced his Phracts, but didn't actually attack. He also demanded Stewy for peace. There's no chance I was ever going to take that. So I grimly stuffed the city with more units and streamed more in. The reality is I wanted to take a fight because I think I can replenish faster than him. But this was going to mean more rough losses for me. Gut check time.

This turn he attacked and killed 3 more Zerks and another Elephant while losing another Phract. He reinforced with one fully healthy Phract, which I think meant I was looking at just about all of them, and nearly all of them were wounded:





This was going to be dicey, but we've seen how rough it is trading into them. I cannot let them all promote and run or else I basically can't win this war anytime soon. Honestly I was a little bit tilted over this game, which was a dangerous recipe. The biggest annoyance was this Chariot. It blocks an Elephant and 2 Zerks from being hitters, or more accurately it would cause me to use up a Zerk attack on the Chariot that could instead go for the Phracts. However, you'll notice the Chariot is exactly half health (and C1), and I have a Warrior in Stewy. So that meant I had a 45% shot if I wanted to try to get lucky. I'm in no risk of losing the city as I have naval reinforcements coming. The upside would mean freeing up a hitter. So I rolled the dice.





YES. Most relieving combat result in awhile. Sent my Cat in to die, and thankfully it scored a hit on the Phract in addition to collateral on just one unit. I expected 2? Whatever. Alright, let's roll some more dice.





54%. Meaning the first two attacks even out to be almost exactly two coin flips. Can we win both flips?





LET'S GO. Sent in all 4 Zerks.


38%: Lose
48%: WIN
86%: WIN
99%: WIN


The end result:





Sadly ran out of bodies to finish off the last one, but hoo boy did this feel good. I also reinforced the city in case he has 1-2 more in the fog, but tbh I'd be shocked if he had 2+ more. I think he sent the house at me.





He also did this. On one hand it was annoying as it kept my Zerk from moving within Galley load range next turn, which is a serious bummer. However, if he advances the stack, they die, and I get XP, so there's that.





Full turn combat log. You'll notice the General spawned. I think the way to go is to use that on an XP sprinkle and get the Warrior that killed the chariot (and now has 4xp) a free Zerk promotion.





I'm pretty decimated as I'm down to 5 Zerks and 2 Elephants, most of which are wounded (but can promote), but I think he's in worse shape. I'm trying to figure out how quick I could counter-strike. If I could get on top of his Iron and pillage it, I can win this. But if he has 2 Phracts, basically anything I could drop off would get smoked with no ability to counter-attack, so it's all super risky. I have Galleys setup to chain units quickly, but the larger problem is all the units are so shot-up they're barely good enough.


Remind me, there's a way to use a Great General + Morale to land, then promote and use your extra movement points, right? I'm wondering if I can do an amphibious pillage that way which would remove the risk of losing a unit for nothing.

[T-hawk]

So the sun of these exchanges was 4 zerks, 1 elephant, and 1 cat for 5 phracts and a chariot?

Free Zerk promotion with the GG - I was confused until realizing you mean free upgrade.

I think the GG+Morale trick works. IIRC, you take the Morale promotion after landing, to get a movement point back. I remember arguments about the trick somewhere along the line - don't know if there was ever any don't-do-that rule or agreement, or if any of the mods ever removed it somehow.

[El Grillo]

Yes, unloading and taking Morale works to take another action. It is even more deadly when combined with Commando and railroads

[Mjmd]

Beware the paratrooper with morale and commando.....

[Commodore]

I think the GG+Morale trick works.  IIRC, you take the Morale promotion after landing, to get a movement point back.  I remember arguments about the trick somewhere along the line - don't know if there was ever any don't-do-that rule or agreement, or if any of the mods ever removed it somehow.

It mostly certainly does work; I don't thick we've said its exploitative, it does typically cost a GG after all.