[Spoilers] Bacchus debuts on RB showing unmatched vision and slick dice-rolling

[Bacchus]

Sure will! This is the fun part.

EDIT: Hey, reader, a challenge for you — can you cook up a situation for which the words 'defense strategy' would be even more cruelly mocking?

[Bacchus]

The combat went:



We are pretty much hitting the mode of the distribution, so no-one can complain. I hoped for a tactical blunder, that retep perhaps would be lured to pillage the pig, but the hope was in vain, of course. Next turn the city falls, barring something like 0.01% success. I need to consider whether to withdraw the warriors, or to let them damage the stack a bit for an easier chariot counter-attack. As the Wheel still has a while to go, I will probably withdraw.

[Bacchus]

Mostly for logistical reasons, I decided to stay the Warriors in FM. Turns are a bit tight on getting the chariot out on time, actually, so a practical delay for unit movement is valuable, and warriors will not contribute anything to capital defense anyway -- I will complete 3 archers there in the next 4 turns.

[Bacchus]

That 'defense strategy' in full:

Retep's spear died at just under 80% odds, his axe is at 49HP, the city is pillaged. It's a bad outcome for retep, but not unimaginably bad. In practice, it changes little — he couldn't take the capital and still can't, the advantage, however, is that now his axe is out there unprotected, so unless he built another spear that is already marching south, he will have to withdraw the axe altogether, rather than risk it dying to a chariot.

Our plans are as follows: Archer completes in capital start of next turn, two chops fall into the cap for another immediate Archer and OF, the turn after we get the Wheel and road the horse to start on the chariot, which will also be completed in 1 turn due to OF of 23 and decent native production.

In other words, hopefully we will show yet again that Ancient war is a ludicrous affair even against a hugely unprepared opponent. OTOH, I'm not sure what else retep could have done, he had to take the chance as given.

[Cheater Hater]

wait--is retep attacking the capital or our second city? A couple overview shots would be nice (and make it so I don't completely lose interest in this game :/ )

[Bacchus]

wait--is retep attacking the capital or our second city? A couple overview shots would be nice (and make it so I don't completely lose interest in this game :/ )

We don't have a second city anymore I don't think there's any need to despair, simple statistics meant that our expectation not only of winning, but even of doing well is low even before you take skill differences into account. So what changed? Well, we are pretty much certain to be last until other wars happen. And happen they will. But not really against us, our only other neighbour, Serdoa is absolute miles away; whilst retep's other neighbour is both close and busy militarizing in response to retep's impressive power graph. I think Inca is a global leader in power now. What will happen for us is this: we will beat off the attack, settle south, and remain a small sucky state until Galleons come or until someone pulls a Zulu invasion of India on us. Except that we'll have troops. But in any case, I'll perfectly understand if you lose interest Here's an overview of our city-state.

[Cheater Hater]

I think the problem is that as a lurker I generally follow threads that have more content than this one has had--as an example, in the Demogame Old Harry posts a ton of pictures every turn, and I know enough about the game to ask good questions, and even fill in for a turn in a semi-complicated situation. It seems like not everyone does that/has the time for that, and my expectations weren't fulfilled as a result

Anyway, I'll stay around for at least a little while longer--you shouldn't have to suffer alone

[Gavagai]

Settle copper and keep on with this war until Retep is eliminated.

[Bacchus]

CH, yes, the standard of reporting varies greatly , and mine has certainly collapsed once this war made every move forced and not really worth discussing. I do apologize, but we will pick back up soon enough. I might even have the stomach to look at the demos in 20 turns. Retep and Inca both built massive metal armies, about 6 units apiece, which I would guess are now facing off somewhere on the border. Great break for us that all these axes didn't go our way, but boy did retep chop them up quickly.

Some overviews in colour follow.


Chariot completion as planned. Note the chop in the south — we are clearing a settlement spot so as to avoid wasting these discounted, but still oh so valuable hammers. They will go into our second chariot. Workers who have 1-turned the road just as we got the Wheel in, will proceed to 1-turn a piece of the road to the NE of the capital, to give the chariot ready access to the theater. I imagine that he will pillage the pig and move the axe to protect, we should be able to take both out.

Exploration:

This is funny. The 0.1 scout that I thought too hopeless to heal has made his way to the greek borders, which offered protection from animals, and then by bumbling about aimlessly (as you can imagine scout movement in the current predicament is really taking a back seat in priorities) managed to defog all three of the Greek cities. I'm not sure what their most recent one does, I assume there's copper. And yes, that's THREE native hammers in the capital tile. For an Expansive leader. With Aggressive Phalanxes.

South is much less interesting.

This peak is a real bummer, which could have been avoided easily, if only I paid attention to the fog and saw that desert ends up in coast. I'd imagine Serdoa has a neighbour in all these lands, otherwise, and given our own situation, he's a winner.

[Bacchus]

Eventful turn.

Retep chooses to attempt a witdrawal, but our field engineering efforts bode badly for him:


The newly trained chariot swoops from the hill down the barely laid tracks and catches the disarrayed axemen upon the very ruins whence so many of our compatriots have died:

Demoralized and at half-strength, Khmer axes, for all their battle experience, fail to inflict even a scratch upon our wheeled cavalry. Khmer's prehistoric brutes are likewise trapped. The half-hearted invasion of our brother people, enslaved by the American tyrant flounders.

We meet Plako, who is Serdoa's neighbour. I'm happy about this pairing:


The world as we know it:


7/18 so far on this landmass, and I wonder whether it snakes around beyond Greece to make the whole thing into a Pangea-like monstrosity.

Unless the entire Khmer stack now decided to take vengeance upon us, blue skies ahead. Another chariot completes in 2 turns in the capital, which will then start and almost immediately whip a Settler for 3. The happy gets connected just in time, who'd have thought it.

How many chariots does one need to smash through a spear in the field? 2?