[SPOILER]PB47 - Krill - Gandhi of Aztecs

[Old Harry]

Nicely done!  

FWIW, it's a bad map because even though GKC misplayed by settling forward into holy city culture, both of us have been screwed on land. Either one of us needs to kill the other just to have a reasonable amount of land. I know superdeath and AT have masses of land as Ruff is dead, but Cairo has more land than we do.

I missed the start of this game but I thought Cairo and AT have masses of land because their neighbours got into stupid ancient era wars and left them to settle what they wanted?

[Krill]

Actually there is almost no space between Cairo and GKC: there is space for a single city between their capitals and that has GKCs copper, but at least GKC and myself could cram in a city apiece at minimum distance. I think everyone else got a couple more tiles, and that makes a pretty big difference.

GKC made a poor decision to settle for gold and lost his copper for it. That's his decision. But there is such a short distance between him and Cairo that Cairo claimed GKCs copper with a reasonably placed second city: that's bad map design. I picked Gandhi of Aztecs and not Shaka of Sumeria, and couldn't pull off an axe rush, that's my fault for the snake pick.

FWIW, the peaks to my west give me a bit of space, but also locked out further expansion. I've got 5 mainland cities, most minimum distance. Seems like it is a tight area even for 6 on a small map.

[Krill]

Preface to turn report: Sorry GKC. Should have had more than one unit in your capital.

[Krill]

Turn 133 - Razing of Carthage and horse city

I didn't think the invasion was going to turn out this way.





First point: I moved my stack up into view, without teh HA. I was hoping that GKC would react to this and move his units, but I thought he would move to attack me rather than move to defend. Turns out it was a pretty big mistake how he moved.

You can't see it here, but there are two HA on the tile 3N of City2.





Losing his capital like this is bad enough, but I can't keep it because no units can reach it to defend. The city has to be razed, but for posterity this is what was left if I had kept it:




It's not much of a loss to me.





The really unlucky bit for GKC is that I had a single HA in the WE/cat stack. And with cultural borders gone I razed his horse city, so he can't pop out any more NC to be annoying with. Total cost so far is 2HA and 1GG for two dead cities, as neither unit is defendable.








This city was always going to be razed because of the whales, and will be replanted 2E of the rice.


If you think this is bad, it actually gets much, much worse for GKC.




Any lurkers figured it out yet?

His cats can't hit my stack, and I can take his last city on T135 with the 14HA I have. GKC has precisely two turns to attack me or his stack disappears without doing anything.

His NC can hit my stack, or they can makle a run at City 7 to attack on T135 before I play my turn. Otherwise he doesn't actually have enough turns to attack me now. He could place his stack on the former Carthage city location, but even if every single one promoted to C2, my WE already have 95% odds on them without using cats. If he runs straight at city 7 I can still hit him with WC from any staging tile he has access to. If he tries to pillage, I still have workers in position to immediately road, and he splits his stack (which again doesn't really matter as I don't need collateral now).





He could just try to clear up what separated units I have, kill the GG, 2 HA and a chariot, then try and wreck the two solitary WE returning to city 7, but then I should be able to clean him up again where I have odds, and ignore him where I don't.





So far this war is rivalling the PB27 rush into TheWannabe for destruction, but I'm pretty sure that GKC will draw blood now. Almost feels like I need to lose units at this point.





I decided to toss away a scout: it is my only medic unit, but I can rebuild it and I wanted to know what was on defense if GKC blocked the marble tile (so I knew what units I'd need afterwards). That was teh rationalization, but I don't think it really matters at this point (so many unpromoted units can take M1 if I need). I also wanted to know if there was a 2 mover that could have cut the road to buy him another turn. No such luck.




Charriu, I love teh extended F6 screen, but for the love of god do something about F5.





I've already started settlers to replant, but the reality is that Cairo is next, and I've just sent Fish/Fish to superdeath to see if he is on board.

[Old Harry]

Ouch!

So who's going to win the game?

[Krill]

Probably AT, through neighbour luck and not picking fights for stupid reasons.

If I don't lose my stack through stupidity, I basically ram it into Cairo and use Superdeath as the foil. SD can't "backstab" me because it opens up the door for AT to then break out, so he doesn't have a choice in the matter. AT has a choice, to turn it into a 2v2 or a 3v1: if he goes for a 3v1 then the aim is to catch AT out of his culture, which is primarily an SD objective, or if AT goes for the 2v2 it's to try and catch up economic development and probably bulb a few things to catch up in beakers.

So the game shouldn't be called at this point. SD could still win. I doubt I can do so short of third and fourth perfect war turn. If SD wants to call it for AT and we start a new game I wouldn't complain, so long as I can capture the last Carthaginian city.

[Charriu]

So far I only integrated the BUG stuff itself. After that implementation is stable, my plan is to extend the F6 treatment to other screens.

[Krill]

Turn 134

Follow up report. GKC killed the straggling units as suspected, but tehn rammed his remaining NC into my WE and deleted his surviving units. Thus ends my conflict with GKC, because I'm not going to get the kill on his last city: straight into war with Cairo.




This is actually annoying because I now need to heal my units.





I didn't realise it at first, but when Cairo captures Hippo, he will take control of the hill the HA is on, and the grass farm. I will not allow him to push past and try to settle land or be obnoxious, so I declared war on him. Anything he uses to attack Hippo dies next turn.





In addition to these unit moves, I've sent offer of gems for furs to SD (he only has one furs hooked, but he is hooking hte second furs so it's really just a striaght spare lux trade. I also sent him iron for iron: I'd have sent a war with Cairo offer if we were playing with the AI diplo option.

As it is, Santiago Dawn can be attacked on T137, and I will push through to capture raze "If I Had A" if all goes well. Personally, if SD declares I don't see how Santiago Dawn or "If A Tree Falls" hold. "If I Had A" is a different kettle of fish though. Cairo is in HR/Caste/OR, so no whips for him. OTOH I'm a bit low on pop atm, I can probably whip two settlers and another 8-10 miilitary units then I'd need a break just to regrow. Unit costs are painful.

On a mod note: WE seem fine IMO, and I'm expecting them to continue to counter balance Xbows and knights if this game carries on for the next 30 turns.

[Krill]

Superdeath sent Iron to Iron back to me...then declared on AT and razed an irrelevant city.

So I'll be upfront: Concede to AT

[Krill]

Small update: my "attack" on Cairo never got off the ground because of that superdeath move and subsequent peace deal with AT.

Right now players are positioning around Guilds and Engineering. All the power levels have smushed together, and I'm not exactly in a bad tech situation. I have enough gold to complete Engineering, but I'm waiting on a few other players to finish it, and then I'll probably go Engineering>Feudalism and be a few turns behind other players. Not an issue though, because I'm not in a position to do any stupid bulb tricks (I could look at doing and Education bulb but nah).

Superdeath looks to be ahead, he has Guilds but is teching Eng, and AT is researching Feud (and had Eng). Cairo has Feud but is teching Eng.

No one can make a move though, and everyone is stacking up (well, I'm not, but I don't quite need to just yet. I'm building Xbows and preparing for Castles whilst I grow my cities for hte inevitable whips to come).