[Spoilers] - dtay in pb27

[Alhazard]

Ditto what THH said except i dont find MP stresful. But i can tolerate AW donut games that sullla featured on his yt channel. Ironic though that he abandoned that game

[Ceiliazul]

I can only play SP, due to play opportunities that vary from zero to tiny. However, I find SP kind of relaxing. Micro mistakes are more easy to swallow, tactical errors much less likely to be punished.

Takes me months to play thru a SP game. Current game has been going for a month, huge diety on big and small. No tech trading, no vassals. Higher difficulties make the pace MUCH faster, which I like.

Now at medieval age, recently got declared on by France, cuz power ratios are always against you at that level. He took a city, I scrambled to meet his advance, then he wandered for just long enough for my cats to get in position and I eventually got my city back and took a salient city he settled that I couldn't tolerate.

MP is a much better challenge, but I aint got the time. SP still lets me ruminate on macro options away from the game, but doesn't demand perfect micro/tactics. Fills the need but doesn't consume too much of life.

[dtay]

In a golden age, switched to HR/Vassalage/Serfdom, which actually cost me no extra gold in civic costs which is nice. Saving gold for 1 more turn, then at least grabbing construction because I don't feel safe without catapults any longer, given Ichabod going for knights (see below) and AT wandering around with a massive army of keshiks and assorted others (AT has now declared on 2 of his 4 neighbors... maybe they'll all throw their games away at him and I push it over the edge?

Overview shot



Golden Age demos with tech on



Tech Tree



Biggest problem is this guy



He's clearly going for knights, grabbing Machinery and now Feud. History of attacking me, flatland border, bleh. It's not really a threat if I counter and go to Engineering to guilds myself, I just don't want to be locked into military tech for defensive purposes, I'd rather be sitting by with a large army to hit AT or ichabod in the back, or settling astro islands.

So bleh, need to figure out minimal acceptable defense on that end, and then pick my expansion bet. Peace or war, peace or war? On the non-game side of thigns peace is a ton more relaxing and I've had a lot less time for civ these last few months.

EDIT: Worth noting Machinery is necessary for every path I consider plausible (guilds, engineering, optics), so probably going there next.

EDIT2: Could I rely on trebs? Is that insane? Especially for defensive stacks that's decisively non-ideal... ugh

[dtay]

Lurkers, you will be glad to hear that I am paying the Iron Price...







Logic: I've been griping all game about how my neighbors have't given me openings. Well, here's an opening. AT has been in a grinding, troop-bleeding war with Molach, his power is depressed, recently attacked a DIFFERENT neighbor, and has to defend literally every border. And also I have city visibility.

I may be 5 turns from knights, so ~8 turns until the cavalry (figurative, not literal, unfortunately) arrive. But in the meantime the longbow, sword, catapult, and HA army (with some scatterings of war elephants to join) should suffice against pretty meagre resistance.

ATs Keshiks can get to the front in 1-2 turns, though he doesn't actually have a lot of them. It'll take 4-5 for his 1 movers to get up here. Presumably he'll also whip stuff. I'm feeling good about getting at least 4 cities pretty easily, and then having to break through more carefully and slowly.

The somewhat worrying factor is:



Ichabod beat me to knights. However, looking at his power graph, I don't feel super threatened. His power is meaningfully lower than mine, and he has a much much tastier neighbor to the south. Molach is further behind in tech and much much lower in power. Should be easy pickings for Ichabod.

Ichabod beginning to whip off some food:



So tech path is now guilds -> compass -> optics -> code of laws -> (bulb astro).

Possibly divergence to engineering, 3 move roads help a ton with conquest.

[Commodore]

Good luck! I'm disappointed by the lack of two-moving crossbows, though.

[dtay]

Good luck! I'm disappointed by the lack of two-moving crossbows, though.

What promos do you think those LBs are gonna take?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Fire arrows, because they're awesome, I would hope.

[dtay]

One city down:



And whale breath will fall next turn. Allergy kiss has no border pops, so could be hit by 2 movers on the following turn. But a lot will depend on what that stack of keshisk + morale sword does. if I were AT I would flee along my roads, cutting south west. Then just slowly retreat gathering whipped units (read: cats) until you can deter advance with the defenders right of first collateral.

So if he does that, I should get Urination, whale, and allergy before he can do much to me, after that depends on unit splits, what molach, barteq, and adrien do, etc.

On that note, molach is taking advantage


Which should hopefully split ATs defenses.

Larger shot



Strongly considering engineering though it will delay that island effort, 3-move roads are just so useful for logistics.

Demos

[GermanJoey]

Looks like your economy's recovered a lot, even post-GA, very nice. And, good luck in the war!

[dtay]

3/4 in recent games: they grind to a stop whenever I declare war

damnit