[SPOILERS] yuris125 trying to find three weaknesses

[yuris125]

So last turn I risked moving my stack next to Gravity, and found it defended by a single longbow. I wasn't sure if Cornflakes already had Engineering and could reinforce, but if he didn't, it probably would've been it

Looks like he did have it though. This is what I found this turn




Didn't think I was going to take the city, so went for cleaning up the horse archer stack. The thinking was that if we don't find the lethal blow, I needed to make sure he had limited units for a counter

That said, I see Commodore is setting up his attack on the other side of the empire, and while I'm not sure how well it will go (looks close from an eyeball estimate), I'm still hopeful we will find a breakthrough

And I signed white peace with Scooter, Frankfurt ended up being the only loss

[yuris125]

After another turn of skirmishing, Gravity had 4 defenders, and while my units were beat up, it was worthwhile to check the numbers




But it wasn't happening




I have to pull out and heal up if I can, then go back in if Commodore doesn't get a kill on his side

[Magic Science]

How long until you will be ready to try again?

And taking a screenshot of your Vodka is a good reporting trick. I will have to do that the next time it comes up.

[yuris125]

Honestly, it may have to wait until knights. Cornflakes has longbows, maces, and presumably pikes (I haven't seen any, but his movement speed suggested he does have Engineering), so units I currently have are going to struggle. Also my economy isn't in great shape after I had to whip longbows all over the empire to defend against Scooter's attack

Ideally Commodore finds a breakthrough on his side before then, but last turn he also had to pull out

There's some consideration to be given to signing peace, but I'm not sure giving Cornflakes time to safely re-expand is valuable, and don't want Commodore to feel I betrayed his trust

[yuris125]

I signed peace with Cornflakes. Basically I realised that I could take advantage of peace myself and settle at least one city to the east of Cornflakes. Potentially will give me an opening in 10 turns, if he decides to strike

We'll see how much this upsets Commodore, but my scout from the front hasn't reported much fighting in ages, and I could see that Cornflakes's stack was so big, it was next to impossible to kill. Looked like Commodore was moving around and posturing more than actually fighting

Of course, no sooner did I do it, there was a notification that Commodore got a great general. So there is some fighting happening away from where I can see. So yeah, hopefully he's not too upset - at least this will make him aware that I can't contribute much at present

[yuris125]

Commodore sent this




Which I think means going back to attacking Gravity (the sheep city) once the peace treaty is up

I can do that. At the very least I will have crossbows by then. Which won't be very effective - Cornflakes has a lot of Cover promotions - but I think Commodore just wants Cornflakes to fight on two fronts

[yuris125]

I picked up Machinery, and, worryingly, 2 players already have Guilds. I will bulb Engineering shortly (won't be a full bulb), but I am scared that Scooter shows up with a bunch of knights and spoils the Cornflakes attack plans. Everyone's power is skyrocketing too

[yuris125]

And just as I post it




Probably just dead, don't see how I can defend Berlin, especially not without iron which is required for pikes

[yuris125]

An early post-mortem while I have time

* I didn't do a good enough job expanding, and while I have been competitive in city count throughout the first half of the game, I ended up far behind in land area. When it was time to growing cities and utilising the land we got, it came back to bite me
* I saw my best practical chance in this game in being allied with Commodore. This resulted in me engaging in a war with Cornflakes. Even if I saw Scooter as a bigger threat, both geographically and based on how his development went, I saw more value in following Commodore's lead
* My iron was very exposed, and I didn't find a safe way to connect it (still don't see one), which led to me and Scooter being natural enemies - but I had to have the bulk of the army elsewhere for the Cornflakes war
* Us being unable to deal mortal blow to Cornflakes resulted in me having no economic edge (not sure what Commodore's current situation is, but Pyramids may be keeping him afloat), and not having the units to defend the knight attack, even though I did expect one (admittedly, again, I thought I had a few more turns than I got)

All in all, everything that could go wrong went wrong, but my decisions-making hasn't been stellar

I'll update if I somehow survive this attack, but most likely I have 2-3 turns left

[yuris125]

Scooter is almost certainly winning this now btw, with Commodore and Cornflakes locked in forever conflict, and Commodore no longer getting help from me, I expect Scooter will get free hand on resettling my land