[SPOILERS] Small Wunders and Izzy of Inca: The fat lady sings

[MindyMcCready]

Crap, lost my post.

Agree with the Cherokee > Desert Hill.

Carmen/manon can be the home of our SOD projecting to WT, South of Carmen, West of Carmen, and Cherokee.

Curious how you expect to outnumber and overpower Retep at every turn while we've got maybe 12 units in the area + 4 chariots down south while he's got 15 units + HA stack defenders. Presumbaly through whipping each of the cities 2X before the battle?

[WilliamLP]

Turn report:

Bacchus probably saw that his chariot was doomed and took a swipe at 12.5% odds, wounded chariot vs healthy one, and lost with no hits. So we end up 2-1 ahead in that skirmish, including 1 double-promo chariot that may have been a HE contender, so it's a good trade.

I'd been moving a quechua down to try and get a view of Retep's staging tile, and also to dislodge Bacchus's scout:




Aha!!! He's finally doing it. I deleted the quechua after this, because I didn't want him to know we know. This gives him a chance to make a major mistake.

Retep also whipped 2 units, which are probably HAs.




- Barbiere has 6 axes, 3 spears, an archer and a chariot. The chariot, because he's acting like we have them anyway (3 spears in stack) and for a potential move-in / scout / move out.

- Two spears stay on the W fork tile, in case he's going to side-swipe at Traviata with the HAs while doing this.

- I had a sneaky suspicion about Bacchus in the south (is he trying to hide something by attacking out with his chariot?) so I moved our southern scout to the forest hill, but it sees nothing. I expect he's going to get a city somewhere like 1S of the Oasis, and there's not much we can do about it.

- You may not like this move, but I think we need more military, so Turandot is delaying the settler for a few turns for more axes.

Curious how you expect to outnumber and overpower Retep at every turn while we've got maybe 12 units in the area + 4 chariots down south while he's got 15 units + HA stack defenders.

Basically build more axes. If HA are being used as 50 hammer stack defenders against 35 hammer units, I think I can live with that.

Based on the premise that we may be dealing with a super-stack for a long time, I'm definitely coming around to construction next. A rough estimate for it is 12 turns from now.




Note what may be the first evidence that Ichabod and Cheetah had a skirmish.

[MindyMcCready]

Urgent: Make sure that forest chop between WT and Manon goes to Manon for walls.

[MindyMcCready]

Turn report:

Bacchus probably saw that his chariot was doomed and took a swipe at 12.5% odds, wounded chariot vs healthy one, and lost with no hits. So we end up 2-1 ahead in that skirmish, including 1 double-promo chariot that may have been a HE contender, so it's a good trade.

Strangely, I feel happier killing Bacchus than I do Retep. And you know that I want to kill off Retep!

I'd been moving a quechua down to try and get a view of Retep's staging tile, and also to dislodge Bacchus's scout:

Aha!!! He's finally doing it. I deleted the quechua after this, because I didn't want him to know we know. Retep also whipped 2 units, which are probably HAs.

Good move with the Quecha. We'll have to forever guard Barbiere with spears now. A C1 full fort spear has 92% chance of surviving 2 C1 Chariots and 67% chance of surviving a 3rd Chariot.

BUT,...only 48% chance of surviving 2 Shock HA. 56% chance of surviving 2 C1 HA. So we'll have to keep these numbers in mind.

With his 7 Chariots + 2 HA that means 4 fully fortified spears at a minimum to maintain the defensive advantage.

Looks like our state secret of having horses isn't much of a state secret at all. So he knows that we've got horses and he should know that its not Manon providing them. If he's looking for the easiest way to hurt us, then Manon's his softest target. We'll need to start working on walls + whip + forest chop N-2E in Manon. I would like to, oh so bravely, rename it to Carmen once the walls are complete. :LOL:

We only have 5T to get those walls up if he keeps his stack together. He could even hit Manon in 3T if he separates out his HA+Chariots. We should have our chariots 1NE of Manon just in case.

This gives him a chance to make a major mistake.

Yeesh, that's a lot of units. I'm not sure what kind of major mistakes he could make with his 19 untis to our 13.

At this point I'd say that the mistakes are ours to make. When he takes that cow then we can't stop him from taking the 2S-2E of Barbiere fork tile. At that point, we're likely to lose Manon unless we can get the necessary 4 spears + 8 Axes into that city. And those are all supposed to be fortified units in order to survive.

- Two spears stay on the W fork tile, in case he's going to side-swipe at Traviata with the HAs while doing this.

Not sure about this. I don't think that we can mess around with having no units in Traviata anymore. A commando or W2 axe or G2 or mobility HA could all take a swipe at this city if he lands a GG which he will if there's any type of battle.

1 Spear fortified up gives us a coin flip of odds of surviving a battle with 2 C1 HA. Add 1 archer to survive a promoted GG axe and reply on the whip for all else. Cornflakes did terrible things to AT (capital raze) with an unconventional unit (Commando) in PB9 and we know that Retep's taking every angle he can to hurt us.

- You may not like this move, but I think we need more military, so Turandot is delaying the settler for a few turns for more axes.

:LOL: Yeah, never saw that coming.

Curious how you expect to outnumber and overpower Retep at every turn while we've got maybe 12 units in the area + 4 chariots down south while he's got 15 units + HA stack defenders.

Basically build more axes. If HA are being used as 50 hammer stack defenders against 35 hammer units, I think I can live with that.

Good plan. Add:

Based on the premise that we may be dealing with a super-stack for a long time, I'm definitely coming around to construction next. A rough estimate for it is 12 turns from now.

Yeah,.....I have to say that our life right now would be much easier if we were half-way to construction right now. I think that there aren't any alternatives to construction until/unless Retep loses that stack.

More to come.

[MindyMcCready]

Scenario 1: Retep moves toward Barbiere. Sees he can't take it and moves north to triple fork. We must attack that 19 unit stack within 4T. This could be a horrible exchange for us. Alternatively, we need to have 10+ defenders in each of the 3 cities.

Sceanrio 2: Retep moves to kill his second Carmen. We're likely to lose Carmen (again) if we can't get 4 fortified spears + 7 axes into that city. We have 5T to prepare for this battle. 3T to prepare if he splits off his mobile units.

That triple fork is still his best bet to hurt us. To protect 3 cities, we need more spears than he has mobile units. We also need 50% more units than he has attackers. Even at that ratio its still difficult to safely defend and its difficult to have every last unit attack into that stack without completely abandoning the 3 vulnerable cities to a counter attack.

So this is where a fort on the triple fork is useful. With that fort we have a very good chance of taking a 1:1 exchange. We can't get that type of an exchange without the fort due to Retep being able to 2:1 our units.

Hypothetical: If Retep has 20 units, and we need 1/2 that number per threatened city. Then we need 50% more troops than him the minute that he hits the fork tile --> 30 units. If we can cost him 2 units in taking that fork then he'll have 18 units and we need 27 units to defend the 3 cities + the 2 sacrificed units. So we're down to 29 required units. If we cost him 4 units in taking that fork tile, then we need 24 for the cities + 4 for lost units = 28, etc, etc.

So our objectives should be to cost him a bunch of 1:1 each time he tries to take a key tile and buy some time until we can get cats.

Another way to look at it is that if he moves on CarmenII (and we can get walls in there), then we need to only have 20 units to protect those 2 cities. If he moves to the capital and triple forks then we need 30 units to protect our cities.

So anything that we can do to entice him to move on Carmen means that we're more likely to be able to defend. If he makes the mistake of moving toward Carmen, then that will cost him some pretty key turns. And those turns should be wasted turns if we can successfully defend.

So Art of War "appear strong where we're weak and appear weak where we're strong" means that we should do what we can to entice him move east.

We'll desperately need a road network north of CarmenII. With any luck he'll bite at that and we'll be able to delay that triple-fork fort for awhile.

[WilliamLP]

Yeesh, that's a lot of units. I'm not sure what kind of major mistakes he could make with his 19 untis to our 13.

Letting us take 6-8 axe fights on his stack over flat land that are 70+% in our favour would be a start! Letting a suicide chariot delete 2 of his workers is another possibility.

I'm sorry I just can't share your terror and pessimism over this guy's 2 productive cities and size 4 capital. He either separates his two movers and he's dead meat to spears, or keeps plodding along one tile at a time while we build up. We deal with the tactics as they come, without overreacting.

[MindyMcCready]

[MindyMcCready]

So what exactly made you hear terror?
Was it the warning that we'd need 4 spears in Manon in 3T? Or the panic when I pointed out that he could be at our triple fork location in 4T? Maybe it was the shrill warning about the near-certainty that he's going to have Commando ability or W2 at his disposal imminently?

Unrelated, I was a little worried about a chariot approach along the blue like this:

My, my what a pessimistic and terror filled post there. :LOL: I had considered that same move but hadn't bothered to post anything because that seemed SOOO easy to defend against. I guess we all have our moments of 'panic'.

[MindyMcCready]

Beware: Panic ahead.

Here's the easiest way that I would attack you. And yes, it will be if we lose that city a second time,...with no distraction from Ichabod,....and against a civ with only 2 productive cities.

Take it or leave it. I'm posting this out of due diligence.

[WilliamLP]

Sorry for sounding dismissive. I think we have a big disconnect in perceived threat level.

We only have 5T to get those walls up if he keeps his stack together. He could even hit Manon in 3T if he separates out his HA+Chariots. We should have our chariots 1NE of Manon just in case.

I'm not sure we can't defend it without walls. And if we can, the walls are a huge cost (losing the terrace for a very long time), though admittedly much less than losing the city.

The crux of it is that I don't think he can separate out his two-movers at all. E.g. if he moves horse units to 2S2E of barbiere he just gets stuffed with spears. We are going to need a bunch, at least 6 around Barbiere or more, but that's basically what we have anyway. (3 in barbiere, 2 north, 1 in Manon). Plus chariots around Manon can trade with what he can get through spears, plus we have decent production centers in the east operating while he's doing this.

Not sure about this. I don't think that we can mess around with having no units in Traviata anymore. A commando or W2 axe or G2 or mobility HA could all take a swipe at this city if he lands a GG which he will if there's any type of battle.

We can rule out Commando - it needs Military Science (and C4, so a minimum of 26(!) experience for non-aggr). Is there a specific way to hit Traviata from out of the fog without a turn where the unit is visible? (E.g. can a W2 great general axe move twice, promote morale, then move twice more?) That's a question for world builder I guess.

Good plan. Add:

I think the time to whip, when it sacrifices long term economic development, is when Retep shows he could take a city. I don't see it yet.

Scenario 1: Retep moves toward Barbiere. Sees he can't take it and moves north to triple fork. We must attack that 19 unit stack within 4T. This could be a horrible exchange for us.

This is the part I don't get: we have 8 promoted axes right in the area, many with shock, he has six unpromoted axes. I don't see any attack he lets us have on flat land going badly for us. And we'll have more than that pretty quickly without much whipping.

Hypothetical: If Retep has 20 units, and we need 1/2 that number per threatened city.

That's a part I think is an overreaction - we just need a single stack around Barbiere that can hit his and trade at 1-1 or better. Plus a few spears in edge cities for 1-off attacks.

So our objectives should be to cost him a bunch of 1:1 each time he tries to take a key tile and buy some time until we can get cats.

Sure, and right now just hitting him with axes gets us a lot more than 1:1.