[SPOILERS] Pindicator emerges from the wilderness to play pb74

[pindicator]

"Good faith deals" was what got the most votes.

Do you have other info that I missed?

[Qgqqqqq]

Not at all. I can just never remember settings on city deals so that came to mind.

[pindicator]

118

Scooter spent his forces to kill our horse archers, earning himself a GG in the process.




No idea where that guy went, but I'm sure he'll turn up.

He did move his big stack up from Ford to threaten Waimea, leaving us with a bit of a tactical puzzle:




Thankfully Waimea comes out of revolt at end of turn, so he is not going to be able to road and hit the city with catapults in one turn. However, if we bomb with all our catapults then he might be able to move onto the hill (or jungle if he kills our small stack) and then we are a turn slow to hit his stack. Further, it's possible he could hit our catapults if we're on the tile SE of Waimea because we don't know which way that is going to flip. Culturally it is 54% his to 45% ours this turn, but will 25 culture this turn from Cathedrals flip that into our favor?

Also, if we just zerg down the axe and send our catapults back then do we lose too many units? And can he then shift to the east?

We decided to split our forces: 5 catapults will bomb down defenses, bringing the axe from defending at 10 strength to 9, and the other 6 would shift southwest in case he moves in.




The first vulture was a sacrifice - only 9% odds to win, but he did score a few hits. I risked a horse archer next: with 30% odds to win and 21% to retreat it seemed a good risk, but sadly it died after getting the defending archer to 10hp. Then it was cleanup and Scott fell:




I cut the road NW of our stack, and then snuck our sentry chariot up to the jungle hill to see what was in Ford:




Honestly I was expecting worse. Only 1 horse archer and the 2 catapults we saw from last turn.

Offered peace and pulled a lot of units back, leaving only a spear & vulture on the jungle NW of Waimea. Really getting to an odd spot here where both of us have all our catapults intact but we are both running out of hitters as we avoid each other's cat stacks. So I figured he would use a catapult to weaken the stack if I left 2 vultures & 1 spear. I'd feel fine if he uses a catapult on just 2 units - and honestly he still might. He only shows 8 hitters in his stack, and 11 catapults. Granted, there may be more horse archers behind that. We'll find out next turn.

Commodore is worrying me...




The fact he's scouting our southwest in all this, and he's probably about 6-8 turns away from whipping up an army of knights makes me very concerned. So again, peace offer with Amica/scooter. And if they don't accept we are just playing defense from here on out. We've expended enough of our power in the south.

I offered Commodore a war-with-Bing option for 12t from now. He would obviously get the lion's share, but really we just need to not be his next target. And I need to stuff Mather Point full of longbows.

[pindicator]

119

Amicalola has taken over for scooter. I don't think he took our peace offer too well:




With that response I didn't expect what I saw from him:




He pulled everything back?

Huh, I guess he pulled everything back.

We are going to play defense in the north. Longbows are being whipped in Cathedrals, Gods Thumb, and Ibera. In the south we need to start building up forces so Commodore realizes we are serious about sticking together with him:




Knights are coming soon and I do not want them to come for me.

[pindicator]

120

We got EP vision on Ford this last turn, right in time to see Amica is making his push for Waimea:




I think we'll be ready.

And at the other end of the empire, you don't need any vision to see Commodore is about to roll someone over with knights:




I hope it's not us.

[pindicator]

122

I really hate our position in this game.

Anyway, we're stuck in "til death do we part" with Amicalola, but we're also trying to not whip our economy down to nothing on the way to knights. With that in mind, I decided not to make the big engagement with Amicalola's stack but to fall back and let him retake the city.




He burned a catapult and then cleaned up the vulture/spear combo defending. Then left a considerably sized stack behind.

I sent in a catapult myself, which withdrew, and then cleaned up the defenders without a loss.

The advantage may switch to us here with longbows finally making their way up to the front. One in Waimea, one on the hill behind, and a whole train of them ready to repeat this game over the next few turns.




If I can hold off whipping too hard until we get to Guilds... then it will be time to whip heavily.

[pindicator]

Comm really should attack us instead of Bing. Objectively it would be the right play. I planned on stuffing Longbows in Mather Point but I have to keep sending everything north or risk losing the war.

[pindicator]

123

EP vision is such a strong tool.




Amicalola has thrown everything against us. But now we can see there are opportunities to hit him if we were to send horse archers through Tarkeel. And that his cities are whipped down to nubs. There is no second wave if we can eliminate this stack.

Stephens is empty. Free Flanking 1 is about to shine. I wonder if any of you lurkers know what I am hinting at - this isn't a scenario I've seen played out here often.

It was a bit telling that he didn't throw units at Waimea. I added another longbow and sat back again. I think we move up our stack to the tile SE of Waimea in 1 or 2 turns. Just need to move 1 more piece into place...

Meanwhile, Commodore is assembling his death stack:




Notice how much he's whipping his core down. This is his big move that he can't afford to miss on.

Moai due next turn:




I might try running some wealth to get Guilds in 5. But really I need units more than I need knights 1t faster.

[naufragar]

Free Flanking 1 is about to shine.  I wonder if any of you lurkers know what I am hinting at - this isn't a scenario I've seen played out here often.

My guess:

[pindicator]

All right Amicalola, here's a lesson for future games:  sometimes you take a short term loss to give yourself a chance later on.




(I could also say "don't tilt" but that's harder to do.)

Earlier in the game when Amica came at us with a large stack and demanded he take our city we gave in because I was able to assess that it would cost a lot more to try and whip down and defend the attack.  (I also knew I would come back later and retake it, but that's another lesson for another post.)

Here he seems to be only willing to throw himself into us, when he still has options. I had just offered him a straight peace deal and then immediately regretted it because I realized he could just use that time to tech up to be closer to knights. I'm rather happy he declined my offer.

Sure, he is tying us down in the short term. But we are close to knights now, and that will be when we smash through.

Edit: The fact that this is all over a city he originally stole from us is rather rich, too.