[Spoilers] CH tries to be more than a warm body

[Cheater Hater]

So...any clue when this game is going to fire back up again? Sure, Borche rarely communicates, but apparently there's been recent action in Ichabod's thread? More tellingly, both taomack and NH have logged in since the turn roll (multiple times for mackoti). My guess is that mackoti could be declaring this turn (or at least soon) and wants to maintain the turn order (or ensure second if he's declaring this turn). If so, what does that mean for me? The picture dump I've been sitting on for a week shows I'm starting the Knight train, though they aren't coming out quite as fast as I would like (especially since the GA ends in two turns, and I never managed to get another Great Person out). When I switch to Slavery next turn (which I need to remember to do, which is hard with the week-long turns), how much whipping should I do if I think the war between my neighbors is imminent? And of course, more tellingly, who do I attack? I could easily get Eydis Darkbane back if Serdoa lessens the garrison there (assuming mackoti doesn't attack there first, which I doubt he will due to those hills), or I could take back a chunk of DZ's old territory if mackoti feels he needs a big attack force (more than the various stacks of mounted units, and thus eating into the garrisons). Of course, Serdoa is lower in power (though the difference in units isn't as great anymore, considering mackoti's tech and population advantage), and he's missing not only Knights but Longbows as well--but if I want to win mackoti needs to die (both based on his lead and his skill advantage).

The other thing is that NyleStandish and Elkad are fighting--how did they become the lowest civs (that aren't imminently dead) on the totem pole so quickly? Wasn't Elkad taking a city or two from REM while he conquered Commodore just 20 or so turns ago?

[GermanJoey]

Ichabod probably forgot to end turn. The only other player to play is NobleHelium.

[Cheater Hater]

Wow, it's been a while--it's a combination of the slow turn pace (the never-ending turn over the holidays, combined with the now-solidified 48 hour turn timer), combined with the fact that not much is happening. Sure, some things are happening around me (notably Elkad's problems, with REM jumping into yet another war--at some point he has to sink due to maintenance costs, right?), but I'm mostly over here building Knights, being indecisive on who to attack and how many Knights I need to do so. I was planning on posting at least something today, but it wasn't going to be more than the standard "state of the world" post (the pieces of which can be found in the folder), but there was one interesting development:


Yes, that is an empty city, and it was full with a ton of units (plus Cats right outside). I could have taken it, but not only are there turn-split concerns (I moved ahead of Serdoa/NH over the holiday turns since they took forever to take their turns, and only recently returned to the usual where I moved last), I only see three possibilities:
1. This is an trap, as Serdoa/NH are concerned about my Knights (that they should be able to see from the sea) taking out all their units and don't care about my old city. In this case I don't want to walk into the obvious trap just for one city I probably wouldn't be able to keep.
2. Mackoti is moving some troops in a threatening position to Serdoa/NH, and they need defenses now. This is obviously the best case for me (since it weakens both my neighbors), but nothing about it adds up--mackoti hasn't moved away most of his troops from my border, and there's no reason for all of the troops to leave (especially since that city's on mackoti's border as well as mine).
3. Serdoa/NH are trying to snipe a city or two from the collapsing Elkad, and need all their troops to do so. Again, why move everything thing away in that case?

I'm assuming it's a trap, and thus will wait until I get more information (probably a war declaration from someone). However, I need to declare eventually, before Serdoa/NH get Guilds (and or build Longbows) if I'm declaring on them.

[Cheater Hater]

Well, I got that confirmation
The only question is who am I declaring on, and when. This is clearly my opening, and I feel like I have to attack mackoti to have any sort of chance (and for anyone who's not mackoti to have any chance of winning this game--think about it, Serdoa/NH was a clear 2nd place, and they're going to get demolished because they don't have Guilds and just got Feudalism. Still, the temptation to pile on to Serdoa/NH is tempting--it would be easy, while probably ensuring a couple new cities, but that doesn't win me the game, just ensuring a little more time before mackoti demolishes me (and sets up the inevitable clash with whomever wins the other continent--I have no clue who's winning between Krill/boak, Gavagai, dtay, and Ichabod, but presumably they'll clash eventually). I'm waiting until Serdoa/NH play to stay flexible/get maximum information, but I don't think I can declare this turn on mackoti regardless. Instead, I'll just have to do a couple whips, rotate troops towards mackoti's border, see how many troops mackoti moved away, and see how many troops he lost to raze the one city so far.

[Cheater Hater]

Well, that was underwhelming--mackoti just burned the empty city, and then Serdoa/NH immediately made peace

I guess that means I could resettle the site if I wanted too, and it means I have the freedom to move some of the troops away from that border. Of course, if you look at the pictures, you can see I put a bunch of Knights in range of mackoti's city, but that isn't a certain attack--mackoti just is moving a bunch of troops away from the border, and I'm keeping all my options open. Unfortunately I need Serdoa/NH's help on an attack, and I don't know if that was peace or a ceasefire

[Fenn]

Wait, so why did Serdoa abandon that city in the first place? Did mackoti or you have an overwhelming force nearby?

Yikes, that Power differential is not encouraging. Time for an Iron/Iron deal with Serdoa? Without a big advantage in tech or soldiers, there's no point trying to fight Mackoti alone, and I doubt going after Serdoa will end well either.

I'd try to turtle up and look to expand elsewhere, but obviously that's not an option for you either. Are there any islands on this map? I can't see anything from peering at the minimap.

[Cheater Hater]

Wait, so why did Serdoa abandon that city in the first place? Did mackoti or you have an overwhelming force nearby?

Yikes, that Power differential is not encouraging. Time for an Iron/Iron deal with Serdoa? Without a big advantage in tech or soldiers, there's no point trying to fight Mackoti alone, and I doubt going after Serdoa will end well either.

I'd try to turtle up and look to expand elsewhere, but obviously that's not an option for you either. Are there any islands on this map? I can't see anything from peering at the minimap.

No clue why Serdoa abandoned that city--sure, I had some units nearby, but he had 9 Axes, 5 Spears, a Chariot and 2 Archers in the city just 2 turns ago, with 7 Cats sitting outside.

How much "AI Diplo" communication can I do in this game? Considering most rivals don't abandon a city they just took from you, I would have expected something from Serdoa/NH

There isn't anywhere else to explore, certainly not on my coast. Other than resettling the Darkbane site, I have a couple of mediocre sites I haven't bothered with (one in the middle of Olly, Cuzco, Vilcas, and Hua, and one east of Cori that would push the Serdoa border)--are those worth settling? I've been focused on the military average ever since I got Knights, that's been relatively promising--after the three Chariot upgrades this turn I'm actually above the mean in power for the first time in a while, and I did a bunch of whips of Knights this turn as well.

[Cheater Hater]

It's been a while since I've posted in here, but there's a reason--I have a full report incoming, and it may decide this game. Let's start with the normal overview, since I haven't done that in a long while (over a month):




Nothing that special--I'm continuing to crank out Knights, and my only non-military builds are the replacement settler for Darkbane and a couple starter builds in filler cities. However, my C sign from a while back has transformed into something a little more...actionable

Oh, did I emote ? I think maybe that should have been a...


Yes, I think I finally have a plan for at least getting a decent first strike on mackoti--notice how I've been moving behind him every turn for a while. Here's the basic plan:
1. Get Engineering--this means the attack will start on T139 if everything goes well (as I delayed it a couple turns to upgrade a couple Knights for my prior aborted attempt).
2. Declare and take Maersk with all my 2-movers--I need to sim this, but 5 units should fall to 16 decently-promoted Knights (especially when most don't get the defensive bonus). I also need to decide if I'm keeping the city--it feels greedy, but if most of the units are gone from this end of the map I should be clear for at least a couple turns.
2.5. The culture should shrink--and if I'm interpreting the culture rules right, since Mondatta is only at 20% defense it only has its fat cross, and thus the tile 1E of mackoti's iron should turn neutral the moment Maersk falls. Please correct me if this is wrong immediately!
3. My Cats collateral down the stack on mackoti's iron--that stack is surprisingly weak to be defending outside of a city
4. When my Cats are done, my remaining Knights/2-movers/random Axes finish off the stack (and the mini-stack my Axe is currently sitting on). This is where the sign comes in--I need to road that tile for any remaining 2-movers from Angola to make it to the iron stack.

Obviously this plan has a ton of problems:
1. It's insanely fragile--it breaks down if Mondatta pops borders, new units show up in Maersk, or even if a decent chunk of the iron stack moves into Maersk. Honestly I was worried about posting this just because activity could tip off mackoti to something. I mean, he sees my main stacks with his scouting chariot, but they're mostly defense at this point, and he doesn't know I'm about to get Engineering (and presumably he doesn't have it, though I'm not sure about that either).
2. I don't know where the rest of his power is. Presumably he has a bunch in the north (to defend against the conquering REM), but all I've found is this stack of 2-movers:


If those units show up, that's an obvious problem because...
3. This is pretty much all I have. Sure, I'll take out the main two stacks with some units to spare (unless I get awful combat luck), but it's going to use a lot of Knights taking Maersk (presumably) and a lot of Cats taking down the iron stack (again, I need to do some sims). I'm not touching the Mondatta stack at all, and while it mostly can't hit me if mackoti doesn't have Engineering, it's still somewhat of a threat.

As such, I need help from someone. Thankfully I have two decent options (REM is running out of people to conquer, while Serdoa has reason to hate mackoti), but I don't know how to communicate that. Anyone good with AI diplo communication?

I have the second half of this post to write (with demo and foreign stuff), but I want to make sure this gets posted now.

[Cheater Hater]

Well, a couple of hours and there hasn't been a massive congregation of and --mission accomplished on the subversion attempt?

Of course, the real reason is that there's a lot of action going on across the globe; AT was eliminated earlier this turn, and Elkad and Tsargon are likely soon to follow. Here's the foreign picture from what I can see:


As you can see, Elkad's getting dogpiled after being mostly eliminated by REM's desire for conquest (he's down to only 2 cities), and the plako-NylesStandish war is likely to lead to another elimination soon (though I certainly hope neither Serdoa or REM are paricipating in that). Then on the other continent, tsargon's obviously almost dead, while Molach won't be far behind. The problem is that behind all of those is the tier where I am. It isn't quite as bad as it looks, as a lot of it's from the whips, and I'll jump back into the plako/Borche tier once Engineering completes. Still, I need to act soon for obvious reasons.

Anyway, time for some stats!








My Knight pump has been helpful, as I'm even above the world-conqueror REM now--of course, the problem is that mackoti and Serdoa are still above me! I know I'm still partially to blame (since my passivity let mackoti and Serdoa expand), but it still doesn't feel good to be trapped by numbers 1 and 2 on the scorechart and local power chart. All the dead civs walking also make my demos screen look bad--that average GNP at 100% research (admittedly on a tech I'm probably not getting much KTB on) isn't going to look nearly as good once those four bottom-dwellers die (or even just Elkad and tsargon). Those whips also hurt my population numbers (as my big cities were the only thing that I was doing well once I ran out of land).

[Fenn]

Generally if you want to communicate an intention to attack, try an Iron-for-Iron or Copper-for-Copper deal, and throw in some amount of gold to indicate when you want to attack. It's simpler in your case since REM and Serdoa/NH would immediately understand that you're talking about taotao, so no need to invent some convoluted signage indicating the target.

If you want to keep Maersk, you may want to take some LBs and Spears along - bearing in mind that the 2-movers of the Mondatta stack could hit New Nairobi two turns from war, so be sure you have enough force to wipe/cripple the Iron stack.