[PB74] Tarkeel and civacs Game of the Year

[Tarkeel]

Turn 38 (2480 BC)
We got lucky and Dreylin didn't trigger the trap, instead mirroring our move south. He's looking to stack up on the SandyBeach site:


He'd probably be best off attacking 2 vs 1 last turn, but we take that break and keep advancing.


Stepping onto SandyBeach reveals his third warrior, guarding a worker we presume is chopping. Current status is that he has three warriors, two of which are covered by ours and will be teleported if he declares. Our lead chariot is visible and can attack SandyBeach, the second one is hidden and can reach the floodplains north of it. The last two are a turn behind that.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 39 (2440 BC)
Dreylin's stack is fortifying on the hill, and a fresh-built 4th warrior has appeared in the forest with the worker:


Why fresh-built you say? Let's look at graphs:


There's only room for three warrior builds, so the fourth one must have been fresh-built in the second city this turn. Worst-case he has a fifth completed in the capital as well. Since our warrior on the hill would get bounced on declaration, we move up to the corn, and then declare:


He can take a potshot on the floodplain-chariot with the two hill-warriors for 10% odds, but we'll take that. He's more likely to attack all four warriors into the advance party, but with the chariot there we're confident it will end in our favor, and there's two more chariots to mop up. If he leaves the stack alone, the warriors can set out for the capital while the chariots kill his copper city.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 40 (2400 BC)
Dreylin pulled back from the hill, and is blocking both the forests north of his city; there's also a fifth warrior and the worker scampered off.


This is actually pretty solid defending, except for the worker not being able to finish it's chop. We have two options: force through on the 2-warrior forest, or skip around to the east. Only two of the chariots can hit the forest, and both of them have to win for one of them to threaten the city next turn, about a 50% chance. Pivoting around to the east seems much better, which will also threaten the copper and the worker we're assuming is roading it.


We decided to whip another chariot out of Catan, since C&D reveals Dreylin's second city has grown and won't be auto-razed. The workers are choping as well, so Catan will contribute two, and Augustus will complete either a chariot or a monument.

All in all this has been quite a learning experience for us; civac said it best on discord last night: "I think I learnt enough about chariot rushes to know not to do them anymore" and I wholeheartedly concur. Even when they work they're nerve-wracking.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 41 (2360 BC)
First, something completely different. Our scout made contact with Amicalola in the far south:


The diplomacy overview looks like this though:


EP spending indicates that Amica has been spending EP on Dreylin for 34 turns, with the last turn split on us, which should mean that he's actually our mystery eastern neighbor. Unless he's spied our borders from the fog, he might think we're south of Dreylin for now. But let's get back to the main event:


Dreylin only pulled back two of the warriors, and is still defending the forests. With a fresh built warrior he could have two in the city, and we can only reach it with one this turn. Our biggest fear is that he'd have 80g on hand from huts to upgrade a warrior to an axe. Pillaging the copper isn't actually a priority this turn as he did 1-pop whips in both cities, which can't be axes. He did however sacrifice the worker to finish the road, and why

The biggest decision is actually which chariot to kill the copper warrior with: If we use the lead chariot, it can retreat after seeing what's in the city but not attack it. If we use a trailing chariot, we can use the lead chariot to hit the city, but we're also committed to moving up all three to suffer a potential counter attack. In the end, we go with a trailing chariot:

Chariot vs Warrior, 99.1% + 0.1%: Win, taking two hits
This reveals an upgraded axe and warrior defending the city, and the axe defends against lead chariot:
Chariot vs Axe, 95.6% + 0.4%: Win, taking two hits
We move up the rest of the forces and turn on auto-promotion do have the victors heal. That was a cleverly laid trap by Dreylin (again), and we lucked out that the axe was defending. Not sure if it would always do that?

[Tarkeel]

Turn 42 (2320 BC)
Dreylin didn't attack out, and instead stacked five warriors in the city. He did leave a warrior in the forest N of it for some reason, so our warriors can advance and take a look:


Nothing. The two big questions this turn is whether to risk the wounded chariots, and if pillaging the copper is worth it. In the end decide to go for something clever: by moving the chariots south of the city this turn, we can stage all units on the forested hill 2W of Anchovy, where we fork both of his cities. The wounded chariots pillage and the healthy chariot takes charge:
Chariot vs Warrior, 95.6% + 0.4%: flawless win


We could have traded the road-pillage for another (most likely) dead warrior, but the risk of weakening the fork with a red-lined chariot was too high. There's another two chariots on the way, and a third finishing in two turns.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 43 (2280 BC)
Our leading warrior advances, revealing the situation:


The last fogged landtile should have a plains cow. The chariots will advance to the corn and pillage it, and the warriors stay on the forward hill. The reason for our cautious advance is that you can consider each chariot a double-barrel shotgun: One reasonably sure kill, and after promo-healing it has another good shot, but after that it needs to reload/heal, and that isn't available to us here, and we want to take out the capital before it gets 40% defenses.


Meditation Mysticism completes, and we set it to Fishing for no other reason than we don't urgently need Pottery. Both will come in soon enough thanks to the hut gold.

Since this is a quiet turn, here are some other musings.
One of our neighbours has Meditation, which should mean there's religion on our continent. Culture graph reveals it's not Commodore.
Our scout is starting to make a complete circle northwards and just found Amicalola's capital, so there is a southern connection to the east as well, meaning the water southeast of Dreylin is an inner ocean. I like that, it adds strategic depth to the map.
Unless I've missed it on PBSpy, Xist is yet to found his second city, while Commodore and Piccadilly founded their third this turn.

Anything the lurkerati wants to know?

Edit: Civac thought the lurkers deserved an after-shot.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 44 (2240 BC)
The turn starts as expected, with 3 warriors in the capital and 5 in the copper city, but the worker is nowhere to be seen. We move up the new chariot to the corn incase it's trying to complete the chop, but it's not there. This might be where we lose the game but there's nothing but charging the lightest brigade across the bovine fields into the fishy capital:
C1 Chariot (3.4) vs Warrior, 53.2% + 4.7%: loss, taking the warrior to 0.7
C1 Chariot (3.4) vs Warrior, 54.2% + 4.6%: win
Chariot vs Warrior, 71.9% + 2.8%: loss, leaving another 0.7 warrior
Chariot vs Warrior, 99.9%: flawless win!

We got slightly unlucky there, but with the two warriors moving up to support we should be able to take the city next turn.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 45 (2200 BC)
Not sure if it was desperation or a misclick, but Dreylin attacked out with a warrior at Anchovy:


There's no big thinking here, just go in with the best odds first:
C1 Chariot vs Warrior, 76.9% +3.4%: loss, bringing the warrior to 0.2
C1 Shock Chariot (3.0) vs C1 Warrior (1.6), 77.1% + 2.3%: flawless win
Warrior vs Warrior (0.2), 99.9%: win!


While I said we were slightly unlucky last turn, leaving one wounded warrior was the expected outcome. Losing another chariot this turn was another slice of bad luck, but not entirely unexepcted either.

At Anchovy we swing a reinforcing chariot around east to threaten the worker trying to connect the copper, while the others move up. On the home front, Catan is finishing a third warrior, while Augustus is finishing the last chariot to escort our fresh born General to the front. If need be, we can use it to promote all four fresh chariots to shock.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 46 (2160 BC)
I spy with my little chariot a worker trying to pull off a sneaky chop:


We're blocking the corn with a warrior in the vain hope he will attack out. This is just a regrouping turn, might pull the trigger on something next turn but more likely we'll sprinkle XP with General Lysander first.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 47 (2120 BC)
Another boring logistical turn, moving the GG up to the chariots so we can attack with shock on all four. Next turn (T48) we'll attach and spread the XP on 3 chariots, and strike the turn after (T49) with all four.


On the badly neglected homefront, Augustus whips out a monument (instead of the planned chariot) and Catan will make another worker before growing up and start churning settlers. The fresh worker finally gets to farm the wheat.