[SPOILERS] Magic Science and Mr. Cairo in Pitboss 40

[Magic Science]

Any chance of grabbing Elkad's island city? It seems as though you'll rule the northern ocean long after all the mainland cities fall, so might as well grab that island. It looks pretty tough with a castle and a longbow on a hill, but enough ancient trash to weaken it and it'll fall.

I'm afraid not, at least not for now. White bear is defended by two fully-fortified City Garrison I longbowmen behind walls and a castle, and of course, we can't bombard and are forced to suffer the amphibious attack penalty as well. It would be a horrible bloodbath to capture it. That said, you are correct that the Incan League will rule the Northern Ocean for a while longer, and I might consider suffering through a bloodbath to capture White bear sometime in the future. It only has to fall one time, and then it's ours at least until Elkad has Astronomy. There is no way that a galley counterattack could even reach the shores of the island with galleons on patrol.

However, Superdeath's island city, Aquaman, only has one longbowman and an impi to guard it, and it doesn't have walls. I am making some low-cost preparations to possibly hit it with my City Raider II veteran swordsmen and some other random stuff when the peace treaty expires.

In fact, might it be worthwhile to try and evacuate as many good units as possible from the mainland to the islands? That way you can remain a threat to Elkad and Superdeath for a while, pillages resources, razing poorly defended cities, etc. 

I don't want to give up on the mainland and evacuate units yet. We are probably going to lose all of it, but I don't want to make things easy for Elkad and shallow_ru. If they want Incan cities, then they can feel free to come claim them over a mountain of dead Protective longbows. Also, I have a small amount of hope that Almaty or Cuzco (both coastal and on hills) can survive as a small mainland foothold. I might change my mind and start evacuating units once things really fall apart, though. I do plan to indulge in some piracy.  I hope you weren't counting on working improved seafood tiles ever again, Elkad...

[Magic Science]

Turns 179, 180 and 181 – 1190, 1200, and 1210 AD
   
Superdeath accepted a peace treaty for 50 gold per turn! Excellent! I think there is a decent chance that he will come to regret this decision, since it locks him out of being able to opportunistically sweep down on New Hong Kong or Almaty for ten turns, but it is certainly good for me. Now I can evacuate the majority of the garrison in both of those cities to help defend elsewhere. The open borders are nice as well. I don’t have much need of them for the purpose of accessing the far island anymore, especially because I can just go through Elkad’s territory now, but maintaining trade routes with Charson and getting a few to Superdeath’s bigger cities is nice. The bribe to Superdeath, the whipping spree, and the new island colonies are taking a heavy toll on my income. Even Charson has a higher GNP now.

   
Here’s Aquaman, Superdeath whale island city that I am thinking about taking away. Rough work with the combat calculator suggests that the combined efforts of three of my veteran swordmen should be able to kill the longbow, then two Combat I axemen can finish off the impi, and I can spare another two or three units besides those to make sure I win even if the RNG is against me. Aquaman is closer to the mainland than White bear is (Coeurva was actually very unlucky with his whale island; it’s cut off by ocean and requires fourth ring culture in the capital to reach), but it should be similarly easy to hold if it falls. Of course, Superdeath has all of the defender’s advantages now, and it would not take much effort on his part to put a stop to this. Wait a minute, how did the last plan like this one go again?

   
To the surprise of no one who has been paying any attention at all, the Unlucky Orphans charged in on Turn 179, so I get to keep my virtual internet hat. I left the most recently produced longbowman in the city to defend, along with the one that finished from the final 4-pop whip at the turn roll. I judged that the longbowmen would probably get a favorable hammer exchange because it would not be worth it to collateral them, and indeed they did kill 130 hammers (one catapult and two swordsmen) to their 100 hammers when the city fell on Turn 180, so I guess it worked out.

Meanwhile, in the north, Elkad continued his slower advance towards Cuzco. His praetorian doomstack was adjacent to the city, but most of his collateral was not, so I felt confident that the attack would not come next turn. Still, I went ahead and upgraded as many archers as I could, which was eight thanks to Uzbek capture gold, to longbowmen in Cuzco. I would feel very foolish if he did attack and kill eight archers that could have been longbows, and I want them to accrue some fortification bonus as well.

Also, an interesting sidenote in the top right of this screenshot is that the only unit defending Sofia is an Orphan immortal. I’m not sure why Elkad would be so careless with the defense of his prize. Maybe he feels like he needs every possible unit to capture Cuzco, knows that he can easily retake the city with the knights that are riding up as reinforcements, and doesn’t care very much about the population and infrastructure? Whatever his motive, the Xi Ling Shi did not have any units loaded, so I couldn’t do anything about it, and I doubt that such an opportunity will appear again.

   
On Turn 181, shallow_ru started moving their horde of knights west through the hills, probably so that they can fork New Hong Kong and Sidon. If they had just wanted to attack Sidon, then they could have done so faster by moving northwest from Lhasa. There isn’t much I can do about the fork, sadly. I don’t think that I have enough available units to hold either of the inland cities against the Orphans, let alone both of them. They are lost for sure. My goal is to do the dance of defense well enough that shallow_ru is not able to blitz either city just with knights; I want to force them to take their time, to advance one tile a turn and bombard the defenses at each city before attacking. That goal is more achievable with the resources I have, although it won’t be easy.

Meanwhile, Elkad collected his units east of Cuzco and bombarded the defenses down most of the way. I expect him to attack next turn. I have four crossbowmen and eighteen longbowmen, but Elkad seems to have brought more collateral than he did for the War on Foreigners, so things look uncertain for me. He probably has a better chance of victory. I did consider evacuating Cuzco, but if I can’t put up a fight here, then where am I going to fight back? If I retreated, then all I would see is this same scene again in Almaty in four turns. For better of for worse, we are actually going to fight to defend this city.

[Magic Science]

I just checked Civstats before playing Turn 182, and two things are clear from the score log:
Cuzco died.
CHARRIU TOOK A CITY FROM SHALLOW_THOUGHT!

[Magic Science]

Turn 182 – 1220 AD
   
BREAKING NEWS: CIV IV NOOB UNDERESTIMATES THE POWER OF COLLATERAL DAMAGE AND GETS SLAUGHTERED!

I did not take an exact count of the units lost by me and Elkad, but the Battle of Cuzco did not go well. He sacrificed almost every collateral unit he had, but then won the majority of the battles after that to completely wipe out the garrison and capture the city. Clearly, leaving so many units in the city to defend was a mistake. In retrospect, I think that maybe I should have tried to strike a balance between evacuating units and leaving units that would have forced Elkad to expend most of his collateral to capture Cuzco, but would have also preserved as many defenders as possible. If I had managed something like that, maybe I could have made an effective stand at the next city, or at least forced him to bring in some more collateral before capturing anything else. As is, I think that he may simply be able to brute force his way forward with veteran praetorians despite the lack of collateral.

Cape Town, at least, should fall next without much trouble. I don’t intend to even try to defend it. The defenders there would have a hard time evacuating if I wanted them to, they would be out of position to defend Sidon or New Hong Kong (more valuable), and Cape Town is on flat land.

Also, I did receive Charles Martel as a result of the Battle of Cuzco. I think that the best move is probably to settle him in one of the better island cities so I can produce City Garrison III longbows right out of the gate, but I will leave him with the mainland army for now. I might want to use him for experience sprinkling instead, and the island cities will be occupied building infrastructure for a little while longer, so there’s no rush to settle him. Maybe the Hammer can do what he does best and push back invading armies? Probably not...

   
The other big events of the turn are happening over in the Interdimensional Rift. As I mentioned already, Charson counterattacked the Unlucky Orphans. He reclaimed his city of Siren. Bravo! I hope that this distracts shallow_ru for at least a few turns, but I don’t have high hopes. They did retreat their knight stack back to Lhasa, but Charson’s is obviously much weaker than them, and I think that there is a decent chance they will be able to defeat him once their forces that are already closer west can organize, which will leave their knight stack free. Besides, I think that Sidon and New Hong Kong should be worth more to them than Siren and (city in the layer behind that, I forget what they renamed it) anyway.

   
Superdeath declared on Charson as well, leading to this amusing string pattern of wars. It remains to be seen rather or not this is real, but if it is, then shallow_ru will almost certainly be able to resume their attack on me immediately.

[Mr. Cairo]

Yeah, Longbows (and similar units) lose efficiency pretty fast when faced with mass catapults. Against enough Catapults you should either attack out with your own collateral, or leave only enough Longbows to force your enemy into using their Catapults, then fight elsewhere. I don't know what the exact number of Longbows one should leave when faced with lots of Catapults, but it surely isn't more than 8, and is probably closer to around 5 or 6. And of those it'll only be the top 2 or 3 defenders that do the actual killing. All defenders beyond those just get collateralled down to useless.

So what is the state of our own offensive stack of Catapults and Wellys and other ancient trash? Can we drag enough units over to Cuzco to make retaking it a possibility? Especially with Shallow Thought not threatening (those Knights aren't effective enough against a few Longbows behind walls without collateral, and ST isn't going to waste them with brute force).

[Magic Science]

   
Someone, I don’t know who, has illegally built and used a spy. My guess is that this has not had enough of an impact to be worth a reload or significant consequences for the rule-breaker besides being required to delete any other spies they may have, but I would appreciate if lurkers would look into this a little to make sure.

(A turn report and a response to Mr. Cairo are on the way)

[Magic Science]

Turns 183 through 185 – 1230 AD to 1250 AD
   
Superdeath built another longbow in Aquaman, so the attack is cancelled, at least for now. Five swordsmen plus a few ancient trash units are not enough to capture the city, and I can’t afford to produce more quality attackers right now. The mainland remnant cities are all desperately whipping longbows, and the islands are building infrastructure and work boats. I will keep the idea of one-tile island raids in mind, though, and I might build more swordsmen for an attempt in ten or twenty turns depending on what the situation is by then.

   
The situation over here in the Interdimensional Rift has been interesting to observe, although it isn’t really good for me and it also doesn’t look good for Charson. On Turn 182, he successfully recaptured his lost city of Siren from the Unlucky Orphans, and then they made peace with him on Turn 183! I guess I was right to say that shallow_ru values Sidon and New Hong Kong more than they value Siren. Unfortunately for Charson, later on the same turn as that awesome success, Superdeath swooped in and took Siren away from them again. The whiplash must have been brutal.

Now, Superdeath has charged in his knights to fork Exdeath and Wing Raptor while leaving a small garrison of longbows in Siren. Wing Raptor look certain to fall on Turn 186, but Exdeath’s fate is not so obvious, and that city is the one that matters anyway. Wing Raptor will be culturally crushed to the point of uselessness unless Exdeath is captured as well (the same relationship is true of Sandworm and Liquid Flame). THIRTY-TWO KNIGHTS should be enough to overwhelm the nine good defenders in Exdeath next turn, but it would not be a pretty battle for Superdeath if he did that. He might wait for collateral.

For me, the impact of all this excitement on the other side of the world is that shallow_ru is free to focus on me again while I am confident that Superdeath will not be joining the dogpile against the Incan League.

   
About those Orphans, this is what they have been up to. They retreated out of sight at Lhasa, and then they reappeared over here and moved to fork Sidon and New Hong Kong. Their knight stack looks weak in comparison to Superdeath’s, but it will still be enough to defeat me. My army is not good enough offensively to defeat their stack in the open, and it also isn’t good enough defensively to credibly defend both cities at once from a brute-force knight attack, so I had to choose between them.

As you can see, I chose to move my archers and longbowmen into Sidon. Neither city will hold when shallow_ru moves up his catapults and spends the time to bombard the defenses and inflict collateral, but I would prefer to hold Sidon for a few turns longer because it is making a lot more commerce, and I am already struggling to stave off strike until my bribe to Superdeath can be cancelled.

I am moving all of my axemen north. Knights will annihilate them due to the base strength difference, but they can put up a little more of a fight against praetorians because they get their melee bonus. Meanwhile, the war elephant and catapult stack moved one tile north to a spot that is safe from the knights but still in range to hit anything that makes a brute-force attack on either city.

   
In the north, this is what Elkad has been doing. He captured Cape Town, giving me a great general in the process when one of his knights died to the whipped spear, and then burned the city. That makes sense to me. I only founded it because I was desperately low on space, but he isn’t, so he can afford to have one fewer cities in exchange for making another city stronger with the sheep that Cape Town would have needed for food.

Now, his main army of 24 praetorians is camped one tile northwest of Cuzco, healing. A smaller stack of two-movers is stationed within range of Almaty, presumably to keep some of my units pinned there defending. A few other units are scattered around pillaging various tiles. It seemed odd that he would do that at first, but I think I understand it now. He probably intends to use a different improvement scheme than the one I was using, so he’s taking the opportunity to make some gold from improvements that he is going to replace anyway while they are still in my culture.

I expect his praetorian army to be sufficiently healed in one or two more turns, and then it will advance on Almaty. Once it does, I plan to retreat most of the rest of my units there. shallow_ru should be on the brink of capturing Sidon by then anyway, and Almaty is the best place to make my last stand. It’s on a hill for defense, and it’s on the coast so I can evacuate units if I decide I want to. I will probably lose again, but at least the Battle of Almaty should be a lot more painful for Elkad than the Battle for Cuzco was, unless he brings in more collateral. I still can’t see any coming.

   

So what is the state of our own offensive stack of Catapults and Wellys and other ancient trash? Can we drag enough units over to Cuzco to make retaking it a possibility? Especially with Shallow Thought not threatening (those Knights aren't effective enough against a few Longbows behind walls without collateral, and ST isn't going to waste them with brute force).

No, that is too many garrison units for our sad, weak army to defeat, especially now that shallow_thought is threatening again.
Thanks for the advice about dealing with enemy collateral. I doubt that I will be able to make much use of it this game, but maybe I can put it to use and do better in future games.

[Magic Science]

   
The Astronomy cities have been completely safe from attack during the war, but they have still been paying a price for it because of my efforts to avoid strike. Scythian here is the most developed of the island cities by far, but it still isn’t fun to build wealth instead of infrastructure there. None of the other island cities have needed to build wealth, but many of them did need to start working the silver tiles early, at the expense of their own development. I also had to build most of the workboats for the island seafood on the islands themselves, since the mainland cities have all been occupied with longbows.

The suffering of my island cities is nothing like the suffering of Elkad’s coast, though. I take great satisfaction from causing White bear to actually lose population due to starvation and rendering Moai mostly useless in Elkad’s Moai/Heroic Epic city of Nobiskrug.

[Magic Science]

Turn 186
   
Superdeath successfully attacked both Wing Raptor and the capital city of Exdeath this turn, but those captures came at a heavy cost. Last turn Jem could see 32 MarvelDC knights, and this turn he can only see 15! Sure, maybe some moved somewhere I can’t see them, but I am certain that Superdeath still lost many knights. I doubt that the Battle of Exdeath has weakened Superdeath’s forces enough for Charson to manage yet another very impressive counterattack, the power graphs show that the Interdimensional army is much weaker than even mine, but I wonder, could Superdeath have lost enough units to enable Charson to hold out on the mainland in Liquid Flame for a little while longer?

Whatever the consequences for the conflict over here, I am glad that Superdeath managed to capture Exdeath this turn for one simple reason: it reverts a lot of improved tiles to neutral territory. Now Jem can pillage them so that I don’t need to work as hard back home to stay above 0 gold, and Superdeath can’t kill him for a few more turns.

   
Meanwhile, back on the frontlines of my own war, shallow_ru declined to attack New Hong Kong and moved in on Sidon instead with his full stack. He also moved in another large stack of 17 knights (the one highlighted), but it isn’t in range to attack any cities yet. I’m amused by the contrast between the degree of caution shown by Superdeath versus the amount of caution visible in the Orphans’ moves. Superdeath was willing to charge right in against 3 pikemen and 5 cho-ko-nus on a hill, while the Orphans declined to attack 4 longbows and a spearman on flat ground.

I think that they will actually attack Sidon next turn, though. I have a lot of units in there, but most of them are useless archers, and even the longbows won’t do too well once their siege weapons have done some combination of bombardment and suicide attacks. I can’t stop them from taking the city next turn. I can only decide how many units I want them to be forced to kill to do it.

I don’t want to make it too easy on them, but I also would like to have enough units to make a good last stand in Almaty, especially now that Elkad has started advancing (off screen to the north). Any units in Sidon that I want to take part in the Battle of Almaty need to leave this turn. I decided to retreat all of the archers. They will be slightly more effective on a hill in Almaty, and I can also evacuate some of them on galleons to act as military police on the islands. We are going to need them once I lose all of the mainland luxuries. I also evacuated roughly half of the spears and longbows.

   
This is what the situation is on the coast. Elkad’s army is still partially wounded, but I guess he decided that it was healed enough to attack. We will see if he is correct in two turns. I should have 13 longbowmen, 5 spearmen, and a lot of axemen and archers to defend against 24 praetorians, 6 knights, 2 horse archers, and a few other units that aren’t well suited for attacking. Could things will go better this time?

The MAGELLAN sign over Quebec City is to remind me about my Great Merchant who has been sitting idle for a long time now. The golden age plan for him has fallen through now that Almaty, which was going to produce the non-merchant Great Person, isn’t going to last long enough, so I am thinking about sending him on a trade mission instead. Once Sidon and New Hong Kong fall, my capital will relocate to Valetta on the islands, so the intercontinental trade route bonus will apply if I do a trade mission in one of the nice, big mainland cities like Superman. The gold might be enough to propel me to another defensive technology, and I am also worried that we might need a gold influx to avoid strike on the islands. I have been playing under the assumption that the islands will be able to pay for themselves and my remaining units on their own once the payment to Superdeath ends, but now I’m not so sure. Without the -50 GPT in foreign expenses, we will only be making 39 GPT, and I feel that the remaining mainland cities are probably worth more net GPT than that. My exiled civilization might be facing negative GPT for a little while until I can finish a few courthouses and grow onto some coast.

[Magic Science]

Turns 187, 188, 189, 190 and 191
As I’m sure everyone expected, the Incan League is now on the brink of being driven off of the mainland for good. However, a few things of interest occurred along the way during the last few turns, so let’s look at those.

   
On Turn 187, I logged in to find that shallow_ru had not captured Sidon. They could have overwhelmed the four longbowmen I left behind if they wanted to, so I guess that the Orphans were more interested in an efficient hammer trade than a faster conquest. I can see the reasoning for that, but I would have thought a lot about accepting a few knight deaths to take the city this turn if I were them. For all they knew, I was going to do a gigantic four-pop whip this turn for one last longbowman, like I did in Lhasa, and I’m sure they want to acquire as many population points as they can in their conquered cities. Of course, I didn’t because I would have killed four citizens working riverside towns and villages, and I need money, but I could have.

The other great surprise of the turn was from Elkad: he retreated one tile! I’m still not sure why he decided to do this. There were reinforcements coming to Almaty and Cuzco from the east, but I don’t see why Elkad would have felt that the army already there needed to retreat to meet them. I didn’t have enough units to hurt it, so it might as well have stayed near Almaty to heal better and threaten me. Maybe he was worried that shallow_ru would use Engineering roads to attack Cuzco after Sidon’s culture fell away? Whatever it was, it does not seem to have mattered much despite the surprise. Those units all moved back towards Almaty next turn, and I doubt that he would have attacked before the collateral reinforcements arrived anyway.

   
Next, Superdeath gave me a nice luxury present of silks on Turn 188. I do not think that they will make much difference for me, but I guess that they are better than nothing, and the gift does bring up a component of what the relationship between the Incan League-in-Exile and its Northern Ocean neighbors will be like that I find interesting. Once my mainland cities fall, Elkad and Superdeath can do almost nothing to military threaten me until they research Astronomy but my galleons and caravels can bother them with impunity, at least until Optics. This means that Elkad and Superdeath need to give me a reason not do so, and that reason can’t be “I will hurt you if pillage me”, because they can’t. Open borders are a very good one, Superdeath’s open borders are worth 20 commerce or so, so I don't want to declare war on him, but if he cancels, or if Elkad doesn’t give them after the fall of Almaty, then their work boats and Moai tiles could be on the chopping block! Be afraid!  

   
My next diplomatic contact was on Turn 191, when Hitru sent me a peace treaty after capturing Sidon and New Hong Kong. Accepting was an easy choice. I do not have nearly enough units to threaten to recapture the cities they took from me, so I might as well take peace. Maybe they can go bother Elkad or Superdeath now, and we can also start rebuilding the peace bonus in case they ever open borders. It will also help with the safety of my little pillaging expedition.

   
It was not hard to decide what part most of my units should play in the last stand in Almaty. The longbows, axes, and spears should die defending the city, and the archers and Great Generals should retreat to the islands, but the war elephants and catapults didn’t seem to have anything good to do. For the whole war, they have been retreating tile by tile, waiting for a good chance to damage an enemy stack and hopefully to stall my defeat a turn or two by doing so. However, such an opportunity never appeared. I’m not sure if it is because I am not very good at this whole war thing and didn’t see one or if there never was one at all because of how outmatched I was from the start. Whatever it was, the elephants and catapults then found themselves outside of Almaty on what is likely the last turn before the city’s capture. They are awful defenders, so moving them into the city seemed bad. They could attack Elkad’s army to wound it and destroy some units, but I don’t think that such a move would preserve Almaty for even one more turn.

I decided to take a third option and send them south on a pillaging expedition. The goal is to gain some gold from my own former tiles to keep the islands afloat for the few more turns they need to become economically self-sufficient. I can also deny them to my enemies, and that’s fun too. I am aware that the expedition party will be in range of Elkad’s army over the Engineering-boosted roads once Almaty’s culture vanishes, but that is a risk that I am willing to accept. I hope that he will either be very careless with his Guerilla II longbow and not see them at all (unlikely), lose enough units taking the city that he can’t pursue right away, or decide that he doesn’t care if I pillage some tiles that will be Orphan in a few turns and let me go.

   
I lost my first, and hopefully last, unit to STRIKE on Turn 191. I really shouldn’t have lost any, but I adjusted some tiles in the islands before hitting end turn on Turn 190, and I didn’t notice that the amount of gold I was losing had increased too much for the treasury to cover. It was sad that it was Jem who died, but he was probably going to die soon anyway. The Orphans have open borders with Charson now, so there was nowhere in the area to hide. He only lived this long because an immortal miraculously left him alone when it could have killed him on Turns 189-90. I guess it had something better to do, but I doubt that Jem would have been so lucky the next time an Orphan unit stumbled along.

You can also see some of what Superdeath has been doing recently in this screenshot. He burned Sandworm in what I know was an easy battle because the city had been abandoned, but I don’t know if he moved in a large army to push on towards Liquid Flame or if he just wanted to clear the culture and plans to go no farther. He also finished the Taj Mahal in Superman for the Golden Age, though for some reason the event log puts effect before cause in this case.