Arise, Riders of Rohanna! Ride for Molach! [SPOILERS!]

[Molach]

I did the SIP.

I really hate being so close to Ljosalfar. We probably moved 3-4 tiles towards each other. If we hadn't, I wouldn't be having this conversation with myself. His worldspell will allow my capital to be attacked by 20 10-str walking trees. And he is a long-term threat. If we make peace & NAP he will get to his worldspell before I can chariot/catapult rush him. We are just too close, he is Cre which is not helping matters any either. If we go peaceful, he will make a city N N E-ish of his capital (getting water mana) and I can make cities directly south. But we will both have capitals on the front line.

I also feel bad about attacking this early in general, it will cost me my worldspell, it will set me back a fair bit by not going worker (not that much though, but significant), it will paint me as a bad guy. If it fails we will both be taken out of the game as we will be bogged down fighting/keeping up the balance of power. We both will be stunded early on by no early worker.

But can the attack even succeed?
If we get contact soon, logical move is to ask for a nap. Me refusing means he knows I'm up to something. Unless I can fool him with my patented "silent and deadly" I do in WW-games when I draw Evil role. Or just stall while 'checking how NAPs really work'....

I can hit him with 2 warriors + scout - (buffed with worldspell). 1 warrior built in 5 turns. Then need to move 5 tiles. Attack by turn 10. Stack visible at turn 7.
Could go with 3 warriors + scout - built by turn 8, visible 10 attacking turn 13. However his borders pop on turn 12, so no go.
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What is Ljosalfar doing? I'd guess tech agri and build worker. If he has metal and wine maybe he can go for crafting/mining, but I randomly guess he has some AF-tiles that will be very strong with farms, and that he will try to get cottages up as soon as humanly possible. He has no reason to suspect we are close, and his fast-forest units can quickyl do home defense if needed. Worker might take him 9 turns or 10, to be changed into a warrior at any time when he smells a rat. He will still be at size 1 when he aborts worker, then he can probably build warrior in 4 turns. If he has no 2-hammer tiles 6 turns, but that is unlikely. So if he does not see me coming till turn 5-6 I think I win for sure. I'd needIf not, I've run some sims, and it seems 2 warriors +1 scout + worldspell wins vs 1 warrior and 2 scouts, even on a hill city. If not hill then it's a done deal.

I set build to warrior

I can call off the attack, warrior first could be because I'm a noob and not cause I wanted to attack my dear neighbour.

If Sian goes warriors first while teching to GK I'm through, but should be able to see this when I get contact and just break off. If he builds worker 4 turns, then aborts (after scouting me), and builds warrior turn 8, I'll face 2 scouts + 1 warrior with 10% def bonus. I've simmed this, and it looks like I win most of the time. Depends again on whether he has a 3H-tile or not, if so he gets a new warrior turn 11. Which is bad.

Still much that can go wrong.
Forgot to check that Ljos still starts with 2 scouts in EitB...
(Fake edit: Like forgetting he has a 1 turn advantage on me. That should not matter much for when he goes into warrior-production mode though)

[Qgqqqqq]

Everyone started with the same units, regardless of their usual ones.

[Ranamar]

Sorry I haven't been posting... I forgot to check in all weekend and it looks like you finally got moving in the meantime.

If you're rushing warriors, how does the city look for production? (Can we see a picture? I just saw you didn't settle turn 1.) If they went worker first, that should take around 8-9 turns, I think, and then a warrior is going to be a similar amount of time after that while they grow. So... you've probably got approximately 15 turns, if you want to be safe, to make your move before a warrior is built.
Edit: I somehow missed the math you did. That's a worse situation than I was suggesting... I'd worry the rat will be smelled as soon as he sees your power going up, unfortunately. At least scouts don't get a city-defense bonus, and maybe you can find some good ground to attack from, although any such ground is going to provide more hammers in the meantime.

Longer term, you said it's Ljosalfar. That means, when they get March of the Trees, they'll have a nice defensive worldspell. If you're going to do this, I think you probably need to do it sooner rather than later, because, once they get their religion, they'll be able to slaughter an incoming attack force. If you move quickly enough, you might be able to choke them enough to make that hard to get to, though. On the other hand, in case you fail, you probably want to get to bronze working to clear that jungle away from your front. If it gets to that, though, you're probably both going to be behind.

[Ichabod]

Well, lets try to rush, if you already have a warrior on queue. I think he goes worker first, almost assuredly. It's a pity he got a warrior and not a scout, that's on of the disadvantages of playing the elves and it should be in the map. Alas, it's not what we have right now.

Maybe you ctach a break and meet Serdoa and the orcs after his WS. Then you can maybe make a plan to attack him together.

[Molach]

Damn I don't know what to do. If I can go back in time and try to do whatever I end up not doing, that would be interesting.

Rush just dropped from most likely to succeed to ..probably not concerning the turn 10-attack with 2 warriors and 1 scout.
It's not likely to catch him away from home with fast-forest-elves.

Sian's worker build is 9 or 10 turns. After that, grow on warriors. So he'll have 2 warriors by 13, and likely 3 warriors by turn 16 so don't think those attacks can work.

I could also do the turn 10 double-warriors-scout attack and see if the door is open - if not, get a NAP and prepare for cold war and eventual showdown.

I'm literally changing my mind like 5 times last hour now. My land and micro plans are crying for a worker now, and not 6+7 turns hence.

However I'll try a warrior - if we get no contact by turn 7 or so we might be on. And the warrior can be used to either free the demon or pop the hut NW. I can always declare, enter, see & either conquer or flee. Then see if he wants to talk or if we are gonna warrior-smash each other to oblivion, or if we can both agree to a nap and enjoy a nice, frosty cold war.

Mutter.


Demos


The North-east. Gold-diggers welcome

It's said that in chinese the symbol for 'Crisis' is a mix between symbols for 'Danger' and 'Opportunity'. So this is a crisis. The crisis.
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I was wrong, to the NE is some road, and a sign that begins with 'Greater '. So unless civopedia is missing something, that is a pre-placed sign. Greater Qtown?

[Ranamar]

It's a pity he got a warrior and not a scout, that's on of the disadvantages of playing the elves and it should be in the map. Alas, it's not what we have right now.

Woah, I missed this... how do we know that?
(Other than that, your reaction is the same as mine. I hadn't thought of bringing the Orcs in... not sure what they would get out of it, though.)

[Qgqqqqq]

I decided to make it even to simplify the changes between civs.
Sorry if people considered this uneven, but I announced it before sending in the first save.

[Ranamar]

Based on the added pictures, it looks like at least we'll have 2 population (... and no workers) when we finish that warrior anyway. Also, the Ancient Forest is not a bad tile to work in the meantime.

After that, I think you can get a farm in and only be a turn or two late on the dye plantations.

It was probably a suboptimal start, but it doesn't seem like all is lost... and maybe you can bully your neighbor into some sort of concession.

Also, what's that "Greater ..." in the upper-right corner? I don't remember what that feature is. (Edit: and once again, I thought I read a whole post and didn't... guess we won't know until we send someone there.)

[Ichabod]

I decided to make it even to simplify the changes between civs.
Sorry if people considered this uneven, but I announced it before sending in the first save.

Well, it's definetely ok if you said it beforehand. The setting of this game was so complicated that I didn't see it/forgot about it.

The "Greater..." sign is probably placed by the mapmaker, since I don't think there's a FFH feature with that name.

[Molach]

Actually I should have known. After I spent one turn warr-ing I noticed that everyone had 8000 soldier points, and I would think scouts were less than warriors. So my bad. I could also have read the tech thread properly, but thats beside the point.
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Perpentach has gotten a score increase, so guess he got a tech. He got it turn 2. +8 score from baseline, but that does not tell me what tech it is, all techs he can reach now give +8 score.

End of turn Capital (switching to 2-hammer tile for one turn, which also delays growth a turn, of course. But every turn counts for trying this rushing thingy):


EOT Demos:


And a map of the SW, showing that he will be able to see my borders now. And this is also when I officially first see them. (If not for my settler-on-coastal-hill move):


Nothing else happened, scout started moving home to join the attack 'force'.