[SPOLERS] yuris125, Pitboss 71. The battle Warrior of Light is unlikely to win

[yuris125]

If Charriu is around - how would deterministic barb combat work with these odds?

[Charriu]

It should be victory, because the victory odds (49%) are higher then the defeat odds (45%).

No wrong. This is handled by standard combat. The new option is only when you are defending against barbs.

[yuris125]

Oh I see, that certainly changes how I defend against barbs thanks!

(For those curious, I didn't take this attack. I expect the barb will move NW onto the forested hill, and put my archer on the sheep hill where it should defeat the barb on defence)

[yuris125]

Well, never mind that attack on Thoth




Guess geographically I was the most logical target for SD, even if my land is crap

The capital has archer + spear + freshly built axe. Dry whipped another spear, and with an overflow into archer, and by bringing the chariots from Ishgard, I think I'm holding. If SD goes for Ishgard, I should have time to build at least 2 catapults. Ala Mhigo will fall if SD goes for that, but who cares. As this war goes, it's already done its job - without it I would've seen this stack a turn or two later, which could've made all the difference

Sent fish-for-fish to Thoth; my road between cities goes along our border, and I now have a lot of units on that border. I'm sure he understands what's going on (and might well take the chance to jump in on the attack), but just want to reassure him that units on the border are (presently) not coming for him

[yuris125]

Annoyingly, even if I win this war, I don't think there's a way to send units to SD land and try to take some of his cities. Nothing but keshiks can realistically go across the land between us. My expansion path still lies through Thoth. But now I can't expect to hit him in the next 10 turns, hence the fish-for-fish offer

Also, I may have to divert some hammers into walls in Ishgard, depending on what SD does

This attack very much disrupts me and gives Thoth time to get catapults of his own. On the other hand, it's probably for the best that it comes before I send my units away

[yuris125]

Even more annoying that if Superdeath's attack against me doesn't go well, Krill is the one best-positioned to benefit, and he's already one of the game's leaders

Oh well, certainly not something I had any control over

[yuris125]

SD is going for the capital as expected




(one more keshik is off screen on the corn)

As I said, I would be very unlucky to lose it - not this turn at least







SD can try moving onto Ishgard, but can't get his entire stack there fast enough (oh the beauty of cities so far apart, keshiks can't fork them. it was totally by design!)

That said, I did move the archer out of Kugane towards Ishgard, just to have an extra body to throw there if needed. Kugane had to work an unimproved plains tile anyway to set up another axe double whip, losing that tile to an unhappy citizen demanding military protection was not a big deal. And don't think Thoth can capitalise on the city being empty for a turn

Unless SD has some surprises yet to show, I think the worst outcome of this war is me losing Ala Mhigo, and SD pillaging all my tile improvements. And if he gets careless, his stack will be cleaned up once my catapults are out

[yuris125]

SD did decide to go for Ishgard




Went ahead and built walls for safety, numbers were looking questionable without it. Ala Mhigo is toast (defended by a third-health archer), I turned avoid growth on to force auto-raze, it was a close decision, but giving SD an extra build queue with the hope of retaking it seemed to have more downside than having to resettle after the war

At the capital, was able to kill 2 keshiks at the cost of a spear

[yuris125]

I need to decide what to do after the war. As you can see from the scoreboard on the screenshots, people are settling their 6th cities, while I'm about to be down to 3. SD is committed to getting value out of keshiks, which makes the plan of sending my units in the opposite direction, against Thoth, very unsafe (kinda depends on whether I can kill SD's stack). Doesn't help that I don't really have a wealth of tactical options for an attack on Thoth, with only a single border city, and I had to show him most of my army due to the road going along the border

One alternative is retaliating against SD - but, as I said, it's not very appealing, with how poor and difficult to navigate the land between us is, and how likely he is to keep building units with his commitment to keshiks

Another alternative is to research IW and Calendar, claim the banana spot on the coast to the north of the capital, and then maybe try something against Bing, who is further north

All in all, there's not a lot of good options, I was already behind due to limited expansion options, and SD's attack set me back further, even if I think I'm handling it reasonably well

I'm assuming Ala Mhigo will be the only big loss, and no one else gets involved; there's a possibility that Thoth sees me losing a city as a sign of weakness and decides to jump in. Krill also has a scout in the area, and could well join the war on my side if he sees SD suffering severe losses. I could send some kind of diplo encouraging him to do so, but with him already being in the lead, him joining the war and making gains against SD would only let him pull further ahead

[Tarkeel]

At the capital, was able to kill 2 keshiks at the cost of a spear

Are those all the losses so far?