[SPOILERS] yuris125, pitboss 76

[yuris125]

Going to try to recapture the city. This is the last turn I can do it while the land around it is still neutral




Probably have to throw away all catapults, but we'll see how combat goes. Catapults need to be promoted to Drill 1 to negate longbow's first strike. Vodka gives 84% on the maceman killing the longbow, and 69% of victory without combat with the gg crossbow, who I would prefer not involved in combat, undamaged, and defending the city. The latter odds are inaccurate because Vodka thinks WEs are strength 8 - but regardless, the odds look good enough to give it a go

[yuris125]

Two catapults brought the longbow to 2.4 health, and war elephant became the top defender. Then this happened




My elephant was only getting 50% odds on his after that, so I had to send the 3rd catapult (this one promoted to city raider, didn't need drill for this attack). The catapult survived, and I was able to clean up from there. Crossbow was forced to be involved in combat, but killed the last defender without taking a hit

There's definitely a chance Thoth takes the city back, especially if he has more horse archers on the tile 3SW of the city, or captures the workers. But, well, small victories

[yuris125]

General state of the game: Thoth researched Optics. It's good because he still doesn't have access to zerkers; it's bad because I no longer can control the seas. Although with the need to build land units, not like I had any chance of maintaining control of the seas anyway

I'm very unlikely to come back from this position, all I can do really is to keep defending to the best of my ability and make Thoth regrest his decisions. Wonder how he feels about the never-ending war. It's unfortunate that I cannot afford to discuss peace with him denying me horses; if he took only one of my horse cities, I probably would've accepted it by now and tried to get peace and develop the cities I still have. As it is, the war will have to continue to the bitter end

Commodore has knights. I have Engineering (just finished at the end of last turn)

[yuris125]

Decided to research Feudalism after Engineering. Not having longbows hurts me when crossbows are a big part of any attack, and I have no immediate need for Paper - Education when units are the priority (plus I would need a great scientist for Education, and can't hire specialists at the moment after all the whipping)

Wish I could have some help in this war, but Scooter is tied up defending against Commodore's knights

[yuris125]

It's coming




This doesn't look like a particularly scary stack, what's scary is seven galleys in the seas. I have little idea what's on them. Definitely a few units from Golem, I know of a crossbow and a sword, but what else?

Going to whip walls - for the 10% extra defence, to slow down bombardment if Thoth goes for it, and to have an option to build a castle. Also moving in the mace who's been protecting the ivory, and the gg crossbow from the north

Could be the end of me if Thoth does have enough - we'll see in the next few turns

[yuris125]

As suspected, there were plenty of units on the galleys to make Thoth's stack formidable




The two galleys at Golem have at least a longbow and a sword, and three at Streamer probably have a few extra units as well

On one hand, don't know if I have enough to hold. On the other, don't think retreating makes much sense, the capital is the best defensive position I have

My defenders: 5 maces (one wounded), 3 war elephants, a GG crossbow, a catapult, a trebuchet, and an archer (lol)

Going to whip a castle and pray

[yuris125]

By the way, Pindicator has a scout inside my capital, and if he sees my defending stack demolished, I will not begrudge him for invading, whatever prior diplo we had

[yuris125]

I see that Thoth did take my capital

So, a premature post-portem. I'm happy with my opening overall, I think the Theology play was good, and I don't mind getting holy city in the city where it could culturally pressure the barbs. But the idea of culture flipping barb cities was needlessly cute. I was too scared of an idea of attacking fortified longbows on a hill, but as shown by others, it could've been done profitably and without relying on luck of culture flips, even if I did manage to get enough culture to trigger them

This means that I should've prioritised the iron city higher. Farmer is a good city, even with Pindicator taking control of the cow, and it seemed important for landgrab at the time, but I think it was still going to be an option 10 turns later. And I needed swords sooner, not only to contest barb cities, but to make a reasonable attempt at retaking cities Thoth took from me

Obviously, I greatly underestimated Thoth's threat, underdefended Streamer, and revolted out of slavery without knowing where his units were. I actually had a scout in his territory the turn he declared, but it was trying to get an eye on the war theatre between him and Scooter. Seemed like a good idea at the time, that was likely to be the place where most of his army was, but the fact is, he didn't need "most of his army" to put a serious dent in my game. Having eyes closer to home was more important

Research-wise, I'm happy with my path, but I did underestimate the need for Longbows, and should've found room for Feudalism in the research queue

Finally, still hard to tell where I should've fit more workers in build queues, but I definitely needed more

[yuris125]

Unless something noteworthy happens, it's going to be a slow (well, hopefully slow) death animation from here, with little to nothing to report. When I had offensive aspirations, I had to put some thought into what to whip, but now that all I can do is prolong my defence, and I have access to Longbows, that's pretty much all I'm whipping

Graph came in, and while Thoth's attack on my capital did cause a notable dip, he's already back to where he was, well ahead of everyone in power

[T-hawk]

Well, thanks for the reporting, this game has been fascinating to watch.

Funny how everyone was saying that a medieval game would be dominated by a knight rush... and the one person who made a successful attack didn't have them, ha.