[SPOILERS] Semi-retired thread. yuris125, pitboss 50

[yuris125]

So instead of building Praetorians scooter built the Pyramids and the Colossus. In the meantime Cornflakes took full advantage of my fight with Superdeath and has more cities and way more pop. The eastern half of this world is doing much better than us in the west

I need to finish off Superdeath. Don't see how to do it without catapults though, and that's a dozen turns away

[yuris125]

Scooter switched to Police State and his power is spiking. Guess he's finally crunching out Praetorians (or maybe even something worse). In any case, he's probably going to take out Superdeath. Might not stop there and attack me after that?

For now I'm trying to expand to the islands while teching towards Construction. I think Construction will come too late to do anything offensively unfortunately. But I know I have no chance if I switch to building units now... going to get settlers into the sea first, while looking for viable ideas for what to do next

[yuris125]

Scooter is attacking Superdeath's capital. I will let him have it uncontested, but will try to grab the second city. Hope I'm not too late; I just finished Constructions and need a couple turns to get 3 cats and a couple more to march to the city. Depends how long it takes Scooter to capture the capital

To be honest, I took a peek at the stack he had, and it didn't look all that impressive. But based on power graphs, and based on the fact that he went ahead with the attack, I assume he has more that I saw

Hopefully he isn't planning to continue attacking me after killing Superdeath. I'm building axes alongside cats in case I do need to fight against praets in the near future

[yuris125]

The big question is - what is the plan re Cornflakes once SD is eliminated. I was unable to harass him due to being engaged in a fight with SD in the early game, Scooter was happy to work on peaceful development and Pyramids and didn't threaten Cornflakes either. He now has double the score of Scooter and myself, and seems to be the clear leader

I'm not in a position to decide what to do here, my score being close to Scooter is misleading, since he just went through multiple whips while building up the stack to attack Superdeath. I'm clearly in 3rd place atm, and Scooter (presumably) taking Superdeath's capital will only put him farther ahead. However, there's a question. Does he think he can take on Cornflakes on his own if he eliminates both SD and myself? Or would he prefer to try to coordinate with me and attack Cornflakes together?

I'll be honest - considering the difficulty of a coordinated attack in an AW game, I wouldn't be surprised if he turns against me. He probably won't bother taking my island cities, but the two mainlands cities would be a prime target for him (three if I take SD's second city). But if we could find a way to work together, I might still have a chance in this game

I just hope he doesn't take my attempt to take SD's second city as an aggressive play. But letting him take both SD's cities uncontested would just leave me in too weak a position, basically waiting for either Scooter or Cornflakes to get far enough ahead to take me out without breaking a sweat

[yuris125]

Well, it looks like Scooter actually lost the battle at SD's capital. There's a huge dip in power graph of both of them (with Scooter losing more), and I'm not seeing evidence of him continuing the attack. He is rebuilding military, so presumably another attack will come. But it appears to be not imminent

Meanwhile, Cornflakes started upgrading Bowmen to Longbows (he Oracled Feudalism probably?). He also started a golden age for the first big civic swap. Given the current situation, I think the best way to beat him has to be a coordinated 2-front attack. I wonder if Scooter agrees, and if there's any way to set one up

First we need to take out Superdeath though. I will delay my attack for a turn, get one extra unit into the stack, and give Scooter an extra turn to rebuild and come back for SD's capital and force him to defend both cities at once. But I don't want to delay further. I want SD's second city at least, even if I don't plan to fight for his capital. But this might also change, depending on how long it takes Scooter to build a new stack. Shouldn't be that long, considering he's in Police State...

I have to say, for all the flak SD gets for being excessively aggressive, he did all the right things this game. He had to attack either me or Scooter for expansion, and I can't begrudge him for choosing me, given that WCs are a less scary UU than Praets. My defence was perhaps helped by some lucky rolls which allowed me to lose a couple fewer units than the expected result. But his defence against my counterattack was very strong, and he managed to fend off Scooter's initial attack as well

That said, it's hardly a coincidence that the player currently in the lead is the one staying out of active fighting for the entirety of the first 95 turns

Yes, we're almost at T100. Will I hold at least one SD's city before that milestone?

[yuris125]

Btw, I apologise for walls of text style of reporting, I'm doing my best to show my perspective on the game, but I understand you may want screenshots. If there's anything in particular you want me to show, please tell me!

[Mjmd]

As someone who has been doing a lot of wall of text style reports I'm ok with it. I'm just happy for reports. 'Glares over at Pitboss 88.'

[sunrise089]

Especially with this map given the small size and pre-discovered map the wall of text is perfectly fine and superior to screeshots sans commentary.

[yuris125]

Thanks for commenting guys

It's time for the next attempt




Hope this is enough. The Axe + Spear pair right in front of me and two Archers currently in the city shouldn't stop me. Depends how many units SD is willing to transfer from the capital to defend the second city. I may have to move SE rather than S next turn to cut off reinforcements

Also, my own cities are super exposed right now, each is defended by a single archer. There's a chance this backfires....

[yuris125]

This is what I found in SD's city




This is.. more than I expected, especially given that he didn't transfer much from the capital. Looking at the map, my best guess is that he settled a city on the island to the south of the capital, and ferried units from there? The unpromoted archer definitely suggests he has the 3rd city, I know he built barracks in both mainland ones

In any case, I have 8 non-siege attackers against 7 defenders. Attacking across the river is a problem, but the only way I can avoid this penalty is by moving 1S and giving up the defensive penalty. With my unpromoted units against SD's highly promoted ones, it would give him an opportunity to attack out of the city and clear some of my units before I even get a chance to attack. Catapults should give me the odds even attacking across the river, and I can afford to lose one attack and still take the city

Post-catapult attack:



The biggest remaining problem was the spearman. Axes were getting archers as top defenders, with 80%+ odds even across the river. Cool, but it meant I still had to kill the spear with a chariot. The best way to do it was to risk the highly promoted one. Of course the good thing about chariots is that they can give up the hill and attack after moving 1S, they're not getting defensive bonuses anyway. And the experienced chariot had 73% odds on the 2.2 health spear....

It lost

Oh well. I could afford to lose one. Unfortunate I had to lose my best promoted unit, and this victory also gave SD a great general. But I had to play the odds

Rest of the attack went smoothly