Cornflakes Goes Classical ... or Quantum?!

[scooter]

All three of my opponents have researched calendar in the last 4 turns ... but none of them have a GEngineer ready to rush MoM MoM is boosted by Marble which is absent from this map and therefore makes a perfect Engineer rush target, not to mention it is a valuable wonder. All three of them are either PHI or have the Carnegie Library, yet none of them sync'ed up their Calendar research with birthing an engineer. Scooter confuses me most, having rushed the cheaper Great Library. Why not hit Calendar first, rush MoM, and then go to Literature?

I still can’t believe that Scooter chose to rush the Great Library at most 2 turns before researching Calendar … which he could have researched 2 turns earlier by slotting it ahead of Literature.

And this turn it all became clear … Scooter completed the “build 9 libraries, and get an extra reward if you have Great Library” quest. I decided not to try pursuing since the reward isn’t worth the effort for non-CRE (libraries are expensive!). And I wonder if Scooter may have been distracted too much by the shiny object. Time will tell.

I'll note two things in the game that affects this valuation now that we're well past it.


1) I died before firing a single Golden Age. MoM is a long-term wonder, and I did not believe this game had a long-term.


2) GL sped up my great people production massively, which resulted in that (low-odds) Engineer spawn, which netted me Guilds a good 8T faster than expected. This was the only reason I was able to KO Yuris. It also got me an Academy, and my insane floodplains river valley capital was finally maturing right around this point.


TL;DR Guilds was the most important tech in the game, and GL sped me up in a way MoM would not have.


Obviously you guys instantly peaced out, so that's life. But if Commodore had scored a KO on you around the time I did with Yuris OR you guys stayed at war a few turns longer, I think I probably win the game off this play. Or if I had been able to play things a little smarter, maybe I could have backdoored you before you invade me had I managed my 2-movers more carefully against Yuris. That's harder to say. But I just didn't see a world where I was ever going to be allowed to quietly crank out 3 MoM GAs to salt the game away like a normal game.

And it seems Scooter may just be toying with me:

Was interesting to see you took this as some sort of mild stab, while I felt I was following through on my promise. Due to the geography I viewed this game as largely myself + you vs Commodore vs Yuris, but it doesn't seem like you ever really viewed it that way.


How do you like your chances in the duel?

[Cornflakes]

TL;DR Guilds was the most important tech in the game, and GL sped me up in a way MoM would not have.

My confusion was more the fact that I saw Calendar has having little value except for MoM since luxuries were plentiful on the map. Therefore I was confused why everyone invested the beakers to research it, and then didn't prioritize MoM. Here is my perspective on what I observed from my point of view:
- You spent over 1000 beakers on Aesthetics + Literature + Calendar when as you say Guilds is such an important tech
- You spend the early Great Engineer that you generated not on rushing the more expensive wonder, but on a much cheaper wonder.

And it seems Scooter may just be toying with me:

Was interesting to see you took this as some sort of mild stab, while I felt I was following through on my promise. Due to the geography I viewed this game as largely myself + you vs Commodore vs Yuris, but it doesn't seem like you ever really viewed it that way.

Not so much a stab, more that your Iron/Horse offer from 10 turns ago appeared to be purely to encourage my continued aggression against your biggest rival while you rode off in the opposite direction to conquer someone else. Once Yuri was eliminated, there was no possible end game where you and I take out Commodore and then I beat you in a duel. Had you and I cooperated against Commodore, my end game would have been to play the long game in hopes that Yuri and I could have found an opening 2v1 you.

How do you like your chances in the duel?

Better than a duel between me and you But I'd say odds are pretty heavily in favor of Commodore. Commodore has MoM golden ages (first started 5 turns ago, and chainable for the next 30 turns). My main long-term advantage is easier access to Yuri's and Scooter's land, but the trouble is that Commodore has a lot of land available in the northwest and by the time I could develop my side of the continent reasonably, Commodore will blow past me. So I'm now bending my entire empire to maximize production of Knights in the short term. Commodore has left me the narrowest of openings by swapping into Caste System at the start of his Golden Age. I've been whipping Knights relentlessly and will continue until I'm out of pop. I'm also going to start chopping all my beautiful lumbermills into Knights. There is no long game that I win and therefore I need to kill 3 cities ASAP, or die trying.

The first city kill should come next turn:

   

Once the culture from Tchaikovsky is down I may be able to blitz deeper on the roads (RED path). Unfortunately I think that Grieg will still control the tile 1W of Tchaikovsky. That mini-stack with the War Elephants is out of range as are his few HA in Tin.

Commodore just finished Guilds last turn and will be able to swap back into Slavery this turn and I'm sure has HA > Knight queue-upgrades ready to whip everywhere. We'll see! Game should have a conclusion one way or the other by the end of the week

[T-hawk]

Yes, Grieg will control that tile. It says 85% defense, so 60% before Chichen Itza, so it has third-ring borders which would encompass that tile.

[Cornflakes]

Yes, Grieg will control that tile. It says 85% defense, so 60% before Chichen Itza, so it has third-ring borders which would encompass that tile.

I thought so. But I've positioned my workers such that I could swap into Serfdom next turn (after my whips) and then road the two tundra tiles with two workers each ... the tile that the Knights stand on and the tile 1S of Tchaikovsky. By the way, these are the only 4 workers that I own. All my other workers were sacrificed in the Commodore/Yuri war for chops or roads.


Those roads would land my Knight stack 1SW of the silver ... still 3 turns from Commodore's capital, out of range of any 1-movers coming south from Tin until I am in range of his capital.

Here is that area for reference:

   

After counting tiles, it seems like I don't cut off any time by roading the extra tile and ending up 1SW of silver next turn vs. just roading the tile that my knights are on and ending up on the silver (stack moves 1-4-4). The extra road might make a difference though depending on whether Commodore moves his 1-mover stack out of Tin or not.

Can I kill 3 cities of Commodore before he can whip out enough defenders, or kill one of my cities? We'll soon see!

[scooter]

since luxuries were plentiful on the map

You should take a closer look at my land . Let's just say there was a severe trade-off for my lack of barb activity.

[Tarkeel]

since luxuries were plentiful on the map

You should take a closer look at my land . Let's just say there was a severe trade-off for my lack of barb activity.

Let's just say there's a reason we were angling for the gems that you ended up claiming with Frequency.

Good luck in the final showdown!

[Cornflakes]

Commodore has spent 2 turns bombarding the Frequency castle from 100 -> 70 -> 40% while reinforcing his stack with Camel Archers. I may yet be able to hold here. If I do manage to hold, I have a super medic to heal my surviving defenders and counter attack into Commodore’s stack. I have 1 more turn where I can add as many defending Knights as Commodore can add to his attack stack. Then I’ve pretty much exhausted my whip capacity.

And the whip capacity isn’t the only issue. It is quite possible that the Barbarians might land the killing blow Yuri’s land is now spawning swords and … horse archers! … in addition to the southern ice spawn zone. My next round of whips in the east will have to contain this madness because I have just 1 pike and 2 longbows as permanent defenders of my 3 eastern cities. Everything else has been withdrawn either to the mega-stack defending Frequency, or a mini-stack of Pikes covering the capital and Maxwell on the southwest border (lest Commodore land an easy Camel Archer raze).

[Cornflakes]

I'm suddenly feeling a lot more hopeful! This game might actually last beyond the week. Commodore chose to split off a group of Camel Archers from his main stack besieging Frequency ... last turn I could see 10 on the military advisor, this turn only 4 were in his stack. Since the defenses of Frequency were bombarded away this turn and I have no more whipped knights incoming I decided that this was the best opportunity I would have, so I attacked out. Before:

Before:

   

   

   

   

After:

   

   

   

The Carnage:

   

   

   

38 units killed
20 units lost

[El Grillo]

Good to see that the phalanxes are still contributing a bit!

[Mjmd]

I love the barb warrior doing damage amidst the carnage.