[SPOILER] Krill rambles on

[Krill]

Update: War has been declared with TheWannabe and his scouting warrior deleted off the face of the map for no hits returned





The spear killed a second barb warrior this turn, and so is 2.9 health but has 3XP, and ended turn in the city. It's basically full health from next turn. The axe finished in FF, and I put 8 hammers towards a spear in JF. You can see that TW has an axe gaurding a worker on the plains hill. He doesn't seem to have much in the area now.





My plan is the same as always, settle those defensible front cities and then build. I thought about this war a bit less than I normally would, because of the following reasons:

• He is Joao, I'm Monty, I can't out expand him so making him spend money on militarygives me some semblance of control.
  
• He doesn't know I have metal hooked, I know he doesn't have horses.
  
• I have a warrior screwing with his horse hook up, as I saw an undefended settler heading to the horse location and he still hasn't settled for it.
  
• I needed to kill the warrior so he doesn't see me roading south to the City 5 location, as I'll be roading around the west of the peak.
  
• My north is easily sealed off with 1 city, all other land is contested with TW so for me the game is closer to a duel than an FFA so long as I can stop it devolving into a fight to the death. I believe I can do that with the planned front city locations.
  
• I have way more power than him and I don't think it's just IW. Now that he sees I have a chariot out, he'll need to build a spear and in that time I'll be close to planting the front cities, plus the spear doesn't threaten me given AGG axes.

No roads, low power, I'm not sure delaying horse hook up is even necessary to get my cities down before WC could turn up.





The barb warrior ended up moving 1 and then died when I attacked it on T56, barb risk to the north is now handled until I get an archer out after this settler.






Whip settler for city 5 on T57, overflow into an archer and take the cow back to grow to size 5-6. I intended to cottage this city now, but I need to get cities 6 and 7 down for the jungle silver and northern blocking sites. Probably going to give up the southern hills to FF to work the cottages on a whip cycle of some description.





Built spear not axe, in case I'm wrong and TW has a second source of horses already hooked. I'll need a second spear, one per city anyway. Would rather overflow hammers from settler whip into a granary though, but JF is a junk city.





Giving the cow back on T58, will need a city defender on T58 as well. Keeps the pig, iron, horse and two mines for 16-17hpt depending on food surplus. Silver is hooked T65, so want to get growth lined up with that. Due to hammer output here with barracks I feel comfortable fighting a war at this stage of the game and it wouldn't get out of control so long as I don't wander stacks into TW land like a moron. I'll build a chariot eoT57 to supplement the southern forces, and then likely a spear eoT59.





Power...three big bumps are IW, AH and Archery.





Making EXP/IMP not put hammers into settlers and workers and into military he can't effectively use is going to help slow his growth curve. Fighting with a hammer deficit as well means he likely has to build unit out of ultiple cities and ends up with supply line issues, helping me with the deadline to get the front cities settled and then defended.





I think he whipped off food? Most important point is that if I'm right in thinking TW borders HAK, fighting me is a waste of his time. So long as I don't get right in his face with units, he will probably want to focus on more profitable ventures. I don't want him thinking that even settling towards me is a viable option right now., and that's why I'm going to be screening his north and north west, then settling it and offering peace at around the same time I settle. That should enable me to hook up the gems with the enforced peace treaty and get borders popped. Then I out build him.

[Krill]

TW played and updated a hell of a lot faster than I thought he would do, so you may have a second war turn update today Just going to play it later this evening so people don't try and do any bastard C&D to figure out whom I'm in a turn split with.

[Krill]

T56




Note the MFG and power number. Short turn military is going to be to my advantage. Longer term, that CY number is too damned low but when I'm on the smaller side for number of cities compared to most players that's understandable. The fact that my neighbours are in the same position means I'm not that worried about long term development given the amount of land I'm about to lock off from everyone else. GNP sucks because I'm saving gold and I never focus on cottages this early in the game, that's more of a concern.

I'm still toying with the idea of MC nexxt, building a forge (2 forge happy) and getting a GE to bulb Machinery, that should be possible by around T110 at the latest. Then my collateral problem goes away and I can just tech economic techs other than HBR.





TW hasn't settled for his horse yet, but I think it's more important to see if he is sending any units towards the gems sight. Given the time it takes to hook a pasture and then build a WC I should be fine unless TW decides to focus on destroying my game. Even then, if he is going to react in that manner I would rather deal with him on my terms than give him the initiative at a later point with this leader/civ set up. I'm still waiting to see if he sends anything forward or if he just hunkers down in his territory awaiting a chariot rush or some stupid attack from me.

Any questions?

[Mardoc]

So this is not intended to cripple TW, just stake your claim to the land? If you come back to kill him, it'll be later after you've backfilled cities?

[Krill]

Pretty much. That's my standard practice: set up a defensible front line against some opponents, usually the more competent neighbours, and then build up to devour the weaker neighbours later. In this situation, I only neighbour TW so it's a bit different. I don't want too safe a border because that makes a later attack more difficult, if he dotmaps to leave maximum distance between front cities. As Joao though he presents a large mid game threat if he can grow to a good number of cities and then build up a stack before I can get my cities down. I need him to focus on defense rather than constant development and at the same time prepare for a possible invasion from him, which is why the front cities are located on hills with most approaches to them over flat land.

I'll have to kill him at some point though, the coast looks to go straight south, so any expansion in a southern, south western direction leaves him in a position to flank me. The north is a long, thin straight to Adrien that would be a bitch to fight through for little gain (if I was making headway his other neighbours would likely get the better, core cities). And HAK looks to be a long way on the other side of a 1 tile isthmus. TW is my only logical target for a mid game attack and as Joao his main advantage in war is numbers. Limiting his development now limits his numbers later.

[Mardoc]

But you don't consider swords to be enough to kill him now? Or is it that wouldn't be as profitable as settlers?

[Krill]

The latter. He can build axes, I build swords. He gets fort bonus, I'm just throwing hammers away and I still have to build the settlers later on for all that land I've just locked off. If he didn't have metal I'd reconsider as swords eat archers alive, so there would be minimal hammer cost. Killing someone at this stage of the game though, you don't get all their land, as their other neighbours will get a reasonable portion of it. Why help them?

Rushes only make sense when you don't have an option to develop and kill people later. Pink dotting someone and making them expand towards other neighbours gets you more land, and potentially harms more people than the single person you just pink dotted because they could fight over the remaining land. Especially if you take a defensive position that is not cost effective to attack into.

If I get the marble and gems city, regardless of WC, there isn't much TW can do to attack me effectively short of building a stack and having more hammers in units than I have to counter him. And all my units should have odds on attack because of AGG. So hopefully I get these cities down and peace, use the 10 turns to chop the forests and junlges I need on the border (plus hook the gems) and then he won't have an opportunity to cost effectively harm me.

[Krill]

There are probably more bugs in this mod than there are in a termite mound.

[GermanJoey]

Is this one?




Just noticed this looking at something unrelated in the worldbuilder...

[Krill]

Seriously, you think that if I knew about those mistakes, I'd have left them in? There probably are a ton of bugs, mistakes and fuck ups left in the 3.0.0.X mod version just waiting for some enterprising individual to abuse.