Cornflakes Goes Classical ... or Quantum?!

[Cornflakes]

Good luck. I have no idea how to judge the position properly in this mode. It's obviously not great to be the target at any given moment, but your attackers must be very much looking over their shoulders as they throw their forces at your borders ...

Oh, I was so focused on reporting the fragility of my position that I completely forgot to mention that Scooter declared war on Yuri this turn and it looks like he's going to be able to snipe at least 1 city. My sentry chariot reports the following from their border:

   

[Cornflakes]

I think Commodore is going to get me. I couldn’t quite withdraw my troops from the Yuri front quick enough.

   

[Cornflakes]

I'm alive! We survived this wave of Tower Defense Mode and now we're 5 turns from Guilds.

   

Commodore decided not to roll the dice. If I'd thrown my catapults at him he could have captured. Save your catapults as defender, folks! Sometimes all you need is enough warm bodies!

In the east ...

   

Yuri's attack also came up just short. I probably survived by 1 defender here. I sacrificed 2 Great Generals for Morale HA over here so it was a costly defense, but we prevailed in the end by the narrowest of margins. (one GG won a 78% battle then died in the counterattack, while the other lost his 78% battle but redlined Yuri's unit.) Sad but necessary.

So where do we go from here. Do we still have a path to victory? I mentioned that we're 5 turns from Guilds now. I think that we have to band together in order to knock out Scooter ASAP, and then I have a shot at sticking with Commodore and Yuri. But my position is extremely fragile now that I am down to 1 city elimination sudden death

I still have the best city in the world

   

I've been 1-turning HA for a few turns and will continue until Guilds. Then will 2-turn Knights. I think for me my path to victory is to just max MFG and go full military with Knights/cats/pikes. If I can swing an alliance vs. GNP leader Scooter, then eliminate Commodore 1v1, and wheel over to Yuri this might just be salvageable.

[Cornflakes]

Commodore has 2 workers on the hill that Planck formerly occupied. His main stack is 2NW.

   

If this was a normal game I'd expect Commodore to road the tile and then plant a city there guarded by pikes. That would be a very dangerous move though since my culture is firmly entrenched. By rushing culture buildings in Frequency I could pop 3rd ring borders in about 10 turns. And he has to know that I'm in full military mode at this point. Is he willing to risk losing one of his precious city elimination lives?

[Cornflakes]

Commodore decided to try again, this time without attacking across the river:

   

After moving my maces/catapults stack back in I have more defenders than Commodore has attackers. He only has 4 siege and since I have 11 on defense there's no way that he can deal enough collateral damage to weaken me enough. I'm mildly concerned about this being a distraction for a HA blitz towards Maxwell, but if that was the case I would have expected those 3 HA to be held back instead of stacked next to Frequency. In any event, I'll be able to stuff 1 pike, 1 LB, and at least 6 other defenders into Maxwell ... plus I can swap to Slavery and whip Maxwell if I need to squeeze out one more Pike defender.

Here's my final stack defending vs. Commodore:

   

If he retreats to grassland I may have a chance to wipe his stack (attacking across the river). He could retreat 1NW to the jungle tile though. In any case, all this dancing around suits me fine as I continue on towards unlocking Knights in a few turns.

[Cornflakes]

   

I poked Scooter with a War vs. Commodore (4 gold) a few turns ago, and followed up with War vs. Commodore (1 gold) last turn when Commodore moved in. On the off-chance that Commodore had bombarded for a turn while moving up an additional support stack into my territory, Scooter could have had a shot at Tin.

Commodore retreated to the jungle however, and added 2 workers to road and get his stack free next turn.

I offered peace to Commodore for war vs. Scooter. I'd offered that in the past, and he turned it around for peace with ME declaring on scooter My only shot at victory is getting Commodore to commit to knocking Scooter out with me. Otherwise there is no benefit to me for giving Commodore peace now that I have a sufficient stack for defense and Guilds in 3.

Maybe that threatening movement from Scooter will breed some distrust and add some encouragement for commodore to flip.

[Cornflakes]

I'll start off with the best news of the turn (not that anything bad happened ):

   

Meet our shiny new Knight! First in the world This was a queue upgrade out of the capital after ending turn. 4 more knights complete EOT, and 2 the following turn.

On to the action this turn:

   

We start off with Commodore sending a mounted stack south but in clear view of us. I've been anticipating a mounted stack arriving from the ice and have enough Pikes already staged in the area so this isn't a concern. The fact that he's advancing in clear view instead of roading through the tundra and ice is a bit odd so my guess is that this is more of a distraction trying to draw troops away from my exposed front city. I did not send any catapults or HA south but did draw my remaining maces and Phalanx on the Yuri border west, to where they can guard my capital by the time the HA stack could set up a fork with Maxwell.

I did however decide to smack that mini stack on the hill. I had a chance yesterday to sim a stack battle vs. Commodore's stack, and I did not like the outcome with me attacking out. Given that I have Knights incoming it suits me better to skirmish and delay. So I sacrificed 2 catapults and 2 horse archers to kill that G2 crossbow, 2 pikes, and sentry HA ... then pillaged the road with a chariot.

   

A Great Prophet was born thanks to the Apostolic Palace and the engineer that I've been running to squeeze out 1T horse archers from the Aether. As the GPP counter has ticked down I’ve been pondering what to do with it. My conclusion is that in the long game I’m lost and must therefore maximize the short term.

   

Aether in GA working max production I’ll be able to get 3 knights back-to-back, then 4 more on the last 5 turns of the GA. Meanwhile the rest of the empire will put out about 10 more. This will at least ensure security of my own borders, and may be enough to strong-arm Commodore into flipping on Scooter for a peace treaty.

[klops]

wow, nice.
I expected you being dead when I came to the forum after 2 days.
Well done, knights will definately further improve your situation.

[Cornflakes]

wow, nice.
I expected you being dead when I came to the forum after 2 days.
Well done, knights will definately further improve your situation.

It has been a tense situation and I will feel much more comfortable if I can get through one more turn roll without Commodore rolling in a large stack. End of next turn I'll have 2 knights in range of Frequency, and the following turn I'll have 5 knights that would be able to hit a stack on flatland outside of Frequency. Commodore's power has continued a steady trajectory upwards while my own has has stumbled and stagnated.

   

My losses were almost entirely on the Yuri front but still it looks like Commodore is building faster than me. It's possible that Commodore will try to rush an attack next turn when he sees that I have Knights out (or even this turn if he notices that I completed Guilds on the tech tree). After all, just one city kill will eliminate me and cause my army and production capacity to evaporate off the map in an instant.

   

When I logged in quick to grab the graph screenshot, this offer from Scooter was waiting for me. Interesting, very interesting. I hadn't considered that Scooter would join in, thinking that he'd be quite content for Commodore and I remain locked in a stalemate. Maybe Scooter senses the risk of us patching up our differences and uniting to knock out the leader and wants to ensure he is on the right side of the 2v1. If Scooter legitimately throws his weight against Commodore, the two of us can definitely knock him out. And then Yuri and I would have to unite against Scooter. (All this while I sit just 1 city away from elimination ).

Probably the right move for Scooter is to cooperate with me just enough to get 1 or 2 city kills of Commodore, and then peace out leaving me to finish him off while he techs forward (but still have the benefit of a weakened Commodore in the long term). But even if that happens, I'm better off with Scooter's aid than without.

[Cornflakes]

I'm never going to reach the next generation of military tech in time to make a difference on the battlefield. I have unlocked Engineering roads, pikes, knights, catapults/trebuchets, and Maces. The next military unit at Gunpowder is a marginal increase over Maces ... and after that it's Rifles or Cannon or Cuirassier, each about 8-10k beakers away (with no overlap in the tech requirements for either). Given the 3-city elimination game mode, I'm choosing to play to the strengths that I can muster at this point:
- Production (fleeting advantage, as everyone has more cities than I, and can whip production)
- EP Vision (counterable but only at the cost of slowing down the research of my rivals)
- Tactics ... I only need 3 city kills each (2 on Yuri), and all my rivals have more targets than I.
- Politics ... I could list this as weekness given I was on the wrong side of a 2v1. But Scooter just sent that iron/horse for iron/horse so maybe I can get him to draw some Arabian defenders away from my front, and provide me an opening to strike at Commodore's underbelly from the ice.