[SPOILERS] scooter's Rule of Three

[scooter]

Yuris gets a longbow in which is a big part of why I'm unlikely to make further gains. But I can take this. Sent 3 Barrage Cats to their death which gave him a GG I need to keep track of now. That GG may well save Cologne honestly.



C2 HA vs Longbow: 11%/17% lose
CR1 Sword vs Longbow: 50% lose (redline)
Shock HA vs 2.4h Spear: 74% win
Shock HA vs 3.2h Axe: 78% win
C2 HA vs 1.7h archer: 95% win







Chariot vs redlined longbow: 98% win





Burned. Now I set my sights on Cologne. I definitely don't have enough living two-movers to take next turn. However, the addition of a Crossbow, pair of axes, and a few more 2-movers the following turn will at least make it interesting. It really depends on how much he's able to reinforce. I think it probably holds, but I'm going to move towards it anyway in hopes I can burn it. Also note how much culture I was able to spread out in the north.






Cornflakes looks like he's in trouble here. Commodore's got a stack far more formidable than anything I've got, so Cornflakes remaining in the game depends entirely on him having a lot more than Yuris and I have.

[scooter]

Yuris has this covered pretty comprehensively, so I retreated and offered white peace. I think he's likely to take it given his war with Cornflakes is still active. In general he's spammed out quite a few Longbows, so I really cannot advance further. Mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned.





Demos are suddenly strongly in my favor as everyone else is in a hot war. This is all well and good, but my low military power is a real issue if any of the other wars stop. Fortunately my huge cultural buffers everywhere make things very defensible. I've currently got a lot of workers chopping Jungle not for tile improvement reasons, but to deny defensive terrain to a potential attacker.


By the way, look at that 46GNP. That is Yuris who was already struggling, and then I burned his Colossus city. He's saving 19gpt right now. He's pretty broke as far as I can tell.





Can see how the world war has affected the rest enormously while I've grown through it.





GNP is starting to catch up too. Creative is buffing this a bit, but in general FIN + cottage spam is starting to pay off. This is especially true at the capital which has hit size 15 and is working a lot of extremely developed cottages with an Academy.





I'm going to backfill 3 more cities - black, orange, and red. I don't think I'm going to settle any more frontline cities despite the signs. I like the huge borders in this style a game. I also think 15 cities is plenty. I am vaguely tempted to go resettle that former Yuris city and culture bomb it, but ultimately I'm not sure how much that's worth. I'm also tempted to prep for a possible replace and bomb near Frequency if Cornflakes were to ever die, but again, I'm not sure how worth it that actually is.


In addition, great person due in a few turns. If I land an Engineer, I'm strongly considering Notre Dame as happiness is an issue for me. Scientist I'm less sure, though hanging on for an ideal bulb target is always useful. I could of course settle it, but even with 75% science modifiers, this game will end like 100T before that generates more beakers than a bulb. Not worth it.


I am vaguely tempted by a Golden Age. I'm hitting around the point where that would be useful. Maybe it could speedrun me towards Guilds. My main concern with this is actually a meta concern. Namely, it would draw too much attention - so much that we could see world peace and Commodore turn and aim at me. Don't love that.


One last detail - I briefly had tech visibility on Cornflakes, and he is close to Guilds. I am not. So that and the possible reward of all his cities going *poof* is probably such a big reward that you'll see Commodore/Yuris keep at it. Maybe I err'd by offering Yuris peace.

[scooter]

Commodore gave it his best shot, but Cornflakes held as this stack backed off on this morning's turn. I have to wonder if it really was correct for Commodore to approach in a way that meant he'd have to attack across the river. I get why - Jungle + River meant Cornflakes could not counter-attack, and Cornflakes did have some Cats. But instinctively I would have gone Forest -> Hill approach and maybe promoted a few crossbows down Guerilla. But he probably simmed it and saw he was going to die if he did it that way.





Settled Red Dot, and Red feels pretty Cerberus-like, so that's what it's called. I'm finishing Feudalism soon, and I'm trying to get to Guilds as quick as I can. That said, I may need to aim for Civil Service instead. It's cheaper, Bureaucracy is really good for me, and Maces would be useful anyway.

[scooter]

Got a low-odds Engineer. I was thinking of using him to rush Notre Dame originally. But now I'm wondering if I should just bulb Guilds. I'm concerned about potentially being viewed as a dogpile target, but Cats/Knights should help with that. Of course, Commodore/Cornflakes are still at war, so I'm safe as long as they're stalemated. I mostly think Knights ASAP as so critical here that I should take it. If I really want ND, I do have Stone and could have a Golden Age soon anyway. Basically there's 3 scenarios here that all feel plausible.


1) Commodore and Cornflakes stalemate for awhile. I get itchy at the idea of Yuris being 2 kills from elimination


2) Cornflakes dies soon, leaving me at a huge deficit and needing to hurry up and damage an opponent.


3) Commodore/Cornflakes peace out, and I become the new Big Bad and get dogpiled.


These all feel plausible. Knights are probably the answer to all 3 scenarios. So that's probably my answer.


As for the Golden Age, the main thing(s) holding me back from kicking it off are 1) fear of the attention it would draw and 2) I haven't figured out a serious Great People plan. These are not the best reasons, but they are reasons. A third better reason might be that the Engineer is for Guilds and the Artist is for tactical utility.





The cottage cheese keeps pushing. I have built 46 total, and this is likely more than the other 3 player combined given what I've seen. The fact that 1/3 of them have already reached Village/Town levels tells you that the early investment in laying them down and working them early at the (mild) cost of expansion has paid off.

[scooter]

Cornflakes sent me this message. I usually don't put a lot of effort into deciphering AI diplo messages because the complex ones almost never work out. However, this was pretty clear. "If you declare on Commodore, his banana city has just one defender."





This turned out to be accurate. However, there's two problems here.


1) I was not prepared to go in this turn as I didn't have much in the area. I could 1T later, but that would prove to be too late.


2) I misclicked one of the HAs in a way that drew way too much attention, so it was over before it began.





Cornflakes then came asking for a loan, which I accepted. He also asked for two spare health resources for a spare happy, which I accepted. He apparently got Paper, so I offered a map trade, and he also accepted. If we can somehow get things to a me + Cornflakes vs Commodore + Yuris, I really like those odds. Thinking about how to communicate this.









I did bulb Guilds and completed it this turn, so some Knights are getting whipped next turn. I'm fairly tempted to turn off tech for a few, pay to upgrade some Knights, and join in on Cornflakes side. Main issue though is Commodore has a ton of Pikes. Yuris on the other hand does not, and his tech is poor enough that it might be a few before Engineering.


My normal Civ4 game sense tells me to turtle and ride my economic edge to a lead, utilizing Cats + Engineering + Knights to deny any attackers. However, there's a lot more risk here. It feels like my best path to winning may actually be "get them before they get me." So I'm thinking pretty seriously about just going all-in on military right now. I have been dutifully building Stables everywhere.

[scooter]

I'm realizing why the southern players had visible barb issues on the graphs while the northern players did not.





Cornflakes has a barb sword going at his capital right now, so I guess this has been omnipresent for the whole game.


Anyway, a couple Knights are out, and I sent Cornflakes a generic horse/iron for horse/iron to let him know I've got Knights and will endeavor to keep him alive. Didn't attach a time to it though as I'm hesitant to make a promise I cannot keep, especially with Yuris peace treaty expiring next turn.

[scooter]

Time to catch up. Turn pace is merely quite fast, averaging something like 2T per day.





I sent this to Cornflakes a few turns ago, and he echoed it. Both of us got Knights, while the other two players have not. So I have dubbed this the Knight Alliance. It's simple - we should be able to win against the others with our tech edge. I think he expects me to join in against Commodore, and I have been fishing for an opening. However, a few turns ago I spied a juicier opening.






That is extremely lightly defended, especially for a city on flatland. Longbows are nice, but they're mortal when not on hills.





I quickly began streaming units in that direction.





This was the setup. I wanted to get all of these units onto the "stage" tile, but I came up just short. So the plan was to get to this spot, then check to see if I had enough with the smaller forward group. If yes, raze and move all in together. If not, delay a turn.





Oh yeah, we are going in.






C2 Knight vs Longbow: 50% WIN
C1 Knight vs Archer: 96% WIN
C1 Knight vs Archer: 96% WIN






We are going for the throat. One more raze and Yuris goes poof, and Berlin is on flat ground. I do not believe Yuris has Engineering either. Fingers crossed.


My one fear is this will draw some serious attention from Commodore. So reinforcements I would normally use for this invasion I am streaming south to defend myself. So it's this group or bust.





The Knight Alliance is quite strong. Now I just needs to hope Cornflakes doesn't immediately stab me in the back.

[scooter]

The Knight Alliance is quite strong. Now I just needs to hope Cornflakes doesn't immediately stab me in the back.

I should elaborate on this. So, the map pushes the corner players into being friendly with each other. The reason is that if one player goes poof, the two players that border them both benefit. It's why I have been trying to keep Cornflakes alive. One catch though is they don't benefit equally. If Yuris does go poof, it puts me in a really strong position. It puts Cornflakes in a stronger position than he's in right now, but it does give him complicated incentives. He's not exactly going to attack me (probably?), but he could give Commodore free reign to do it himself.


I don't think this game will last much longer if I'm being totally honest. I think the wars will simply continue. We have 2 players that are 1 raze away from dying, so there's very limited incentive for anyone to make peace right now.

[scooter]

Oh yeah Yuris is dead I think.





He whipped that Longbow. Also note that Archer positioning confirming he does not have Engineering - it moved 2 tiles instead of 3. My Knights get ~65% on that top defender, so unless he finds like 5 more Longbows next turn, it's done. On the off-chance he does, you can see my backup plan which was simply to fork the capital and Hamburg, which surely is nearly empty if not totally empty.


My only lingering fear here is we may be about to find that 3-city elim doesn't work properly on Pitboss since as far as I know it's never been tried.





As it happens I already have a settler en route along with my Artist to potentially claim a bunch of land, or at least setup a defensible border. I don't know that it makes sense to spam out settlers as it just exposes me. But I am thinking about how to make this safe, and it surely involves a conservative culture bomb to give me tons of warning. My existing border cities already have tons of culture which is great. I was about to settle one of my northern tundra backfill locations a few turns ago, but it was such a marginal city that I hesitated. Then it occurred to me it would be helpful to have one on-hand in reserve for a situation such as this.






My other fear was that this stack would somehow come north instead, and I did lose sight of it last turn which caused some hesitation in going for the throat. But fortunately Cornflakes/Commodore are still in a standoff. I am reinforcing the Commodore border as fast as I can, though. I just think the status quo could change really quickly here. I am also stockpiling cash in case I need to do a bunch of expensive upgrades. I did already upgrade one of my most experienced Horse Archers.

[scooter]

Definitely nowhere near enough, so in we go.






C2 Knight vs Longbow: 67% WIN
C2 Knight vs CG Crossbow: 69% WIN
C2 Knight vs War Elephant: 70% WIN
7.7h C2 Knight (8xp) vs Archer: 90% WIN
Knight vs HA: 96% WIN






Was fairly fortunate throughout all combat in this mini-war, as I think I had no casualties at all? Maybe one I missed. I did have odds on every fight, and it didn't affect the result, but very good to preserve my army. This did all kinds of weird things with the German cultural borders. Most of the "culture" in the fog is not actually there, but the random blobs around the capital are very much there and negatively affected my ability to move the Knights still in the culture. This leads me to interesting questions about what cottages to pillage vs keep by the way. Also need to be wary of barbs spawning in this area now.





An interesting little overflow error here. Not only is it 100% American for some reason, it's also 476200% German. Sure hope that goes away next turn!





Current plan is to settle and then bomb this tile next turn. This will give me tons of vision and a strong production city without encroaching on Cornflakes at all. Mostly I just want defensible. Plus it should keep barbs from becoming an issue.





I spent like 20 minutes in-game considering dive-bombing Cornflakes' backdoor with my remaining 2-movers, hoping to setup a duel immediately. The main rationale is there's a real chance they immediately peace out and 2v1 me. However, most of my Knights are pretty wounded, and Cornflakes has big borders and Pikes. I didn't see a way to hit from the fog, so instead I retreated and prepared to defend myself instead.