[SPOILERS] yuris125 trying to find three weaknesses

[yuris125]

Cornflakes is about to settle right on my border




Tough luck for him really. We're about at the turn Commodore proposed for an attack (next turn I think), and this gives me a much easier attack route

[yuris125]

Commodore still didn't go through with the attack on Cornflakes, but with his latest city - this cannot stand. Even if I have to attack across the river. I have 3 cats, 4 swords, 3 chariots, and a couple of horse archers ready to go. Next turn I will send Commodore a simple war with Cornflakes diplo, and then go in regardless of what he does

This turn I cancelled OB with Cornflakes (he would've seen the stack), so he probably knows it's coming, just not how much

[yuris125]

Cornflakes declared himself, attempting to war/peace. So here we go




In the back are 4 horse archers and 3 chariots

Sent Commodore a diplo to join in. War against Cornflakes was his idea after all, and he had a scouting chariot in my land, this development shouldn't be a surprise to him

[yuris125]

Commodore signalled that he will attack in 4 turns. Not too happy about it, but nothing for it. Hopefully it will be better coordinated when it's time to attack Scooter

Took / autorazed Wavelength. Lost all 3 catapults but nothing else

Going to try to take one of the cities on the eastern side of Cornflakes's empire with mounted units, and assume Commodore manages to take one

Starting a few settlers to be ready to resettle Cornflakes's land, if this does work out

[RefSteel]

Congrats on drawing first blood! Note as well that with these game settings (3 city elim) all taken cities will be autorazed, no matter their size or contents. I'm really curious to see how the game develops with all the ramifications of that rule!

[yuris125]

Last turn I moved my mounted units into Cornflakes's east, trying to find an attack on one of his two eastern cities. Unfortunately, I found maces waiting for me. Between that and phalanxes, putting a dent in his position with mounted units is not going to be easy




I had to think if there was merit in attacking Its A Wave this turn. Not a combat that could be set up in the calculator, as phalanxes are different from the baze game. But even using regular spears instead of phalanxes, and disregarding the wounded C2 chariot entirely, I was only getting 23% of taking the city. Not the odds I could take

Feels like my best chance is an attack on Stoichiometry, which can be reached by the sword stack from earlier. Being hit by the catapults would be unpleasant, but if I keep my mounted stack in range of the city, catapults leaving the city would give me an opening to hit with the 2-movers

I intended to position the stack on the desert hill 2N of Its A Wave to have forking options, but moving the chariot on that tile revealed a mace and 3 horse archers on the ivory. So I moved the rest of the stack on the forest 2E of Stoichiometry instead

Commodore did join the attack this turn, so hopefully he does make progress. I don't see myself taking more than one more city, so I do need Commodore to take at least one

On the research front, I'm about to finish Feudalism and could bulb Machinery, I do have a great engineer out. But with everyone else already having Machinery, feels like it would be way better to hard tech, then bulb Engineering

[yuris125]

Commodore took Cornflakes's city. Meanwhile, I managed to lose an attack and give Cornflakes a great general (although tbf it was a 90% attack)




(oops, realised I screenshotted the wrong log entry. I attacked the chariot that killed my chariot with another chariot (not confusing), it was a 90% attack, and I lost it)

Cornflakes is now in quite a difficult position, since even if we can't make further progress, his own expansion options are very limited, he has to prepare every new city very carefully, as losing one would be game over. But of course, preferably either Commodore or I can finish the job

Commodore seems more likely to do it at the moment, there's a baby city not far from the one he just took. Whereas on my side, Cornflakes's defences look pretty robust - but of course, at least he's forced to keep the units here and not send them over to fight Commodore




Stoichiometry is impregnable right now, but if I can force Cornflakes to keep units there, maybe I can march the 1-mover stack towards It's a Wave, potentially pillage the roads / block reinforement routes. Mainly I don't want Commodore to think he's the one doing heavy lifting and therefore is entitled to more of Cornflakes's territory. Assuming we close out the attack of course

[yuris125]

Welp




Not unexpected, I did see Scooter unit movement on the border, but thought I had another turn or two

Frankfurt is toast, Cologne might be as well. Probably can hold on to the rest, so I shouldn't be out just yet. Probably. But losing Frankfurt and Cologne means losing iron and horses. So yeah, suddenly things are looking pretty bad

[yuris125]

Some longbows are just born heroes. That longbow I whipped in Frankfurt killed 5 units before falling




City still fell of course, there was no saving it, but after whipping a longbow in every city, I actually think I might even hold on to Cologne. And I may be able to resettle the iron city in a more modest location

In the meantime, Cornflakes keeps sending peace offers, but finding a way to capture a 3rd city off him and claiming half of his land is the recovery plan. And the consideration of maintaining relationships with Commodore still remains (mostly need to make sure he's happy to amicably split Cornlakes's land). So I really can't afford to get out of that war

[yuris125]

Gotta say, with the way the game played out, Germany was not a good pick. Producing engineers for bulbing is as tricky as I expected (plus losing the GPP pool in Frankfurt hurts), and I'll be surprised if the game continues beyond knights