[PB73 SPOILERS] scooter's Oracle

[Tarkeel]

It gets really hard for even Pinch Knights to punch through Grens on hills without siege, and the Muskets are all but deleted by them.

Speaking from experience (PB58), even cavalry doesn't want to hit into Grens.

[scooter]

Wow I didn't realise MS was so close until halfway through that post.

I gambled and ran some wealth to speed it, but also Oxy capturing my eastern island sped it up considerably. The cities were perma-blockaded (nasty vanilla blockade too), so they were producing no real value while costing quite a bit in maintenance, not to mention the unit costs defending them. Was honestly a big coup for me that he went back to capture it after spending turns attempting to press the mainland.

[scooter]

Just putting out a feeler here... are you guys still having fun with this game? I don't mind playing on, but im also not opposed to just calling it and declaring oxy the winner here.

HAHA does he not know I razed the capital? Or does he know something about what's coming that I do not know.

[scooter]

Game is finally moving again. I strongly suspect part of the delay on Oxy's part is low morale. That's a good sign for me. We left off here.





This is after Oxy played but before I played. I did not have enough siege + hitters to hit the stack quite yet, so it was time to keep playing defense.


I more or less concluded he was probably aimed at Connor, and there was a good chance he was going to reinforce with siege by boat. However, the biggest concern I had overall was Fort defense. If he could kill my Forts he could stop me from wildly swinging units between Connor and Shiv which was necessary if he was going to take a city. This meant he waas likely to pillage the Fort he's standing on (no problem) and the Fort adjacent to Connor (big problem). So, my workers got to work.





Forts take 10T to build, so 5 workers are enough to get this tile in range to complete it next turn. This ensured that if he did go full-bore at Connor with this stack + reinforcments, I could add more defenders.





I also did some more pre-forting. I already had a Fort 7/10 complete 2E of Logan, but he could theoretically move onto that tile next turn and make things awkward. So I sunk a couple turns of pre-forting into the tile adjacent to Logan as well. I stacked up Catapults on this tile as well as from there they could easily defend either city OR be used offensively if he gave me an opening. I also reinforced Connor enough that his Knights + a reasonable number of amphibious hitters would not be enough to capture it.





Finally, the most important part of my plan. It costs 110g to upgrade a Zerk -> Gren, so I went through all my cities and micro'd them out to ensure I had at least 220g, and I got there with 3g to spare. I also offered this to Luddite.





This means I could upgrade two more if he accepts, and in return he gets a bit of interest for his loan. He accepted which was fantastic news. So then I waited a week for Oxy to play, and he did this.






Honestly fairly surprising. In short, he wheeled all his Knights south towards Shiv, and then he unloaded 10 siege and 9 assorted 1-movers to join while sending the others elsewhere. He also sacrificed a Knight + something else to raze my Forts. His total crew threatening Shiv next turn amounted to:

8 trebs
2 cats
15 knights
6 muskets
1 xbow
2 pikes

AKA 10 collateral + 24 hitters. As you can see, I don't have nearly enough in Shiv to deal with that with just 14 defenders, several of which won't put up much of a fight. (Note that these front cities being on hills has been absolutely critical - I would have lost already without them.)


So, let's see how much we can ferry in. He has cut my Fort access, so I cannot ferry anything in... Unless of course I have pre-forted properly.





As planned, these 5 workers built a new Fort on the horse, which opened up Connor here - though this wasn't the crucial one for this turn as units could still just walk onto the boats. More important was the other pre-fort which was covered by units.





Lost 2 Knights attacking at 25%-ish odds, then cleaned up with other units. It had to be this tile as this tile was sufficiently pre-forted while the other was not. This let me ferry all kinds of stuff in! I think most people know about boat-chaining, but in case you don't, this trick is incredibly powerful in MP:





Take this catapult. I want to stuff them into Shiv to soak up collateral (and maybe counter-attack). However, it did not have enough movement points to get from the signed tile where it began the turn onto a lake boat. However, with my freshly built Fort, I could load it on a Galley that's parked in Connor, and move the Galley onto my naval stack. Then I choose to Load Units onto one of the Galleons sitting with 6 movement points available.





Then I move those Galleons into Shiv, then press Unload Units, and now my Catapult has moved 10 tiles in one turn. A big part of my defense this game has been spacing Galleons to open up chain opportunities. For example, in this screenshot I have a Galleon 3 tiles west of Shiv that's unmoved. You can't see, but there's also one parked in Logan. The purpose of these is for another chaining route if my Forts were to get cut. I wouldn't be able to move nearly as many units, but I could still chain around the long way thanks to those Galleons waiting.





After moving all those units and more in, I finally upgraded 4 Zerks and dry whipped another so get to 5 Grens in this city. In the end I was able to add 5 Grens, 3 Knights, 2 Muskets, 3 Zerks, and 6 Cats. It's enough raw units to guarantee the city survives another turn barring a very unexpected trick from him, which is always possible. I don't think he can crack this, and honestly I might be able to wipe him if he stays in range next turn.





Finally, I had to make one last choice which was to protect these workers from his mini-stack on the hill. The workers just felt too important from a forting and/or combat roading perspective to yield them, so I elected to defend them after agonizing about the decision for awhile. I may have added another unit after taking this picture, not sure exactly.


And that's it for this turn, whew. The tactical situation is way too interesting to not report in-depth, so here it is. Again, I think I have this covered, but he's straining me more and more, and as long as this stack lives I cannot breathe easy. However, I'm up to 5 Grens now, and I can upgrade one Zerk/turn indefinitely if that feels like the right decision, so it's going to get harder and harder for him to make headway. I've also got a couple of my first SOTL rolling off the docks from western cities shortly, and I can start forcing him to group his boats more at least.


I'm really hoping to fight him soon. We'll see what he does next. He may need to take his big swing soon and let the RNG fall where it may.

[Zed-F]

Great to see that things are tense, but the line is holding, and there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I wonder what Oxy does if he sees the writing on the wall.

Wha about your GG Galleon and the zerks that razed his capital — what wound up happening with them after their heroic deed?

[Erasmas]

Very exciting! And a masterclass on the merit of mobility. First offensively towards his capital and now defensively. Most know extra movement is powerful, but this good...

[scooter]

Well, he did attack, but it was dicier than hoped.





There were other logs, but I won't dump the screenshots. In short, the damages for each side were roughly:

I Killed

* 4 treb
* 2 cats
* 12 knights
* 1 Musket

He Killed

* 6 Muskets
* 3 Grens
* 2 Knight
* 1 WE
* 2 lbow
* 3 Zerk
* 4 catapults

Problem of course is he reinforced again by merging in the 1-movers on the hill and adding more by sea. So it's going to be dicey. This is how it looked pre-turn.





Time for another round of "how many units can I stuff in." The one ray of good news...





He emptied the islands. I don't think he can add much more, honestly. But it does mean he probably has more reinforcements coming next turn, and I might crack if it's a lot. We shall see. I looked into attacking his stack, but he has just enough defenders that it just was not going to work. All I could do was stuff all I could without leaving Connor too free.





And then near the end of playing my turn, I about had a heart attack when I noticed this. Very sneaky! He slipped a 6-move Galleon under a Frigate in a weird spot where he hoped I wouldn't hover to check, and it nearly worked. This Galleon could boat Roman, but it could also contain a GG/Knight that could do the old drop/merge/promote/attack trick and potentially hit Logan. I think. (He has a GG Knight that has disappeared, would bet it's on board.) So this resulted in me panic-stuffing some junk units into Logan/Roman in order to just have raw bodies there to tank a shot as I had no ability to attack/block the Galleon (believe me, I tried).





That should cover me.





The power gap between us has not really gotten worse or better as we've lost fairly similar totals so far. I forgot to take a final end-of-turn shot, but my screenshot a few spots up more or less shows the units in Shiv end of turn. Many of my defenders are wounded, but many of his attackers are too, so... we shall see.

[Zed-F]

Sounds nervous-making! Good luck in the next rounds’ combat and here’s hoping Oxy breaks his army going for this.

[scooter]

Sounds nervous-making! Good luck in the next rounds’ combat and here’s hoping Oxy breaks his army going for this.

Yeah, pretty much all I can do is sit back and hope the RNG goes my way, and hope he runs out of reinforcements. I don't think he can break through with what I can see (though I'm not gonna sim to find out), but if he's got like 10 Muskets dropping off next turn, yeah it'll get tough fast. Also, yeah I just dry whipped a Gren two turns in a row from Shiv - absolutely painful, but what are you gonna do.


Good luck, Oxy. It's been well-played either way. Though you absolutely would have broken me had you tried this 10 turns ago IMO.

[xist10]

The GNP is insane.
So if you "survive" ~ 5 turns, you think you will win ?