[SPOILERS] Out of retirement and into the fires of war. yuris125, Pitboss 68

[yuris125]

Commodore does move back. Gruul Smash settled

Thoth's spear killed our scout - so now everyone but Commodore lost their starting scout

[naufragar]

Alrighty. Battle lines drawn. Now Operation Stop Thoth from Getting Praets?

[yuris125]

Yep, I think the plan from here is to settle the 3rd city on the hill NW of the gold, and then whip/chop 6-8 bowmen and axes and go take Thoth's second city off him

We still have the option to settle SE of the wheat if we want another city, but doesn't seem like a high priority. I said on the spices was an option worth considering, but fully expect Commodore to settle on the hill SW of his oasis and invalidate that spot before we get a chance

Question - do we want to build cottages at all this game? Feels like the game is likely to be too short for them to pay off

[naufragar]

Question - do we want to build cottages at all this game? Feels like the game is likely to be too short for them to pay off

I don't have a good feel for tech costs in this game. It could be that coast + capital Academy propels us enough. The floodplains at least probably wants one.

We want to be working high food tiles because of slavery, so working cottages is likely going to happen just because they are 2food tiles and we'll want to work those, so we might as well improve them. But, yeah, we'll likely skimp on workers this game, and what workers we do have will likely be too busy chopping.

[yuris125]

A bit of a nothing turn. Thoth's axe chases our axe that killed his warrior, but he probably won't move onto flatland. Chop came in for the workboat in Gruul Smash, which I will probably 1-pop-whip as soon as city grows to 2, with an overflow into a bowman. Capital grew to 4 at the end of the turn, undecided if I should switch to 2nd worker or a settler for the gold city, or finish the axe first. Partly will depend on what Thoth does, I'm assuming he retreats, but maybe he thinks we could be vulnerable while our axe is wounded?

[yuris125]

Thoth fortified on the jungle tile next to our gold. Guess this way he makes it easier for himself to improve the ivory, while making it annoying for us to improve the gold? Seems a little dangerous to leave his second city unguarded, the chokepoint is not as strong as the one between us and Commodore




I gave a brief thought to the idea of marching the axe from Gruul Smash south and threatening Thoth's second city from his territory. But it feels more fancy than good, especially with the desert tile 2S of the city being in range of his capital and exposed. Doesn't seem like a good plan. Worth contemplating for about 5 second, but not more than that

In the capital, I decided to build a 2nd worker (only takes 4 turns) and get chopping. Chop/whip a settler, finish the axe with overflow, and start working on a swarm of bowmen

F6 screen suggests that for all my trashtalking of AH, someone already researched it. If it was Miguelito, could be the reason for Thoth's Spear build?




Someone also researched Mysticism, I expect it was Commodore for his UB

For our own research, Archery finished at the end of the turn, Pottery planned next. Nauf - any objections on the tech path?

[naufragar]

That tech path seems good. The question now is how much do we commit to a bowmen attack/when?

[yuris125]

I'd say we have to commit enough to take and hold Thoth's second city, so depends on how much defence he can muster. If we don't, we will be stuck on 3 cities while everyone else gets at least 4. After the chop goes into the settler, we will have 3 forests to chop into units (while keeping the one on the banana) - that's 2 Bowmen just from chops. Add the one from Gruul Smash, that's 3 (or potentially leave the bowman on defence there and take the axe currently in the city). Plus we can do the classic double whip an axe into another axe, and take the promoted axe with us. As I said before, I'm very lazy about simming, but eyeballing it, I think we realistically can get 6 units ready to strike around T50

An alternative play would be to try to settle on the spices instead of going for the gold with the 3rd city. That probably would upset Commodore, and since I don't expect a quiet border of Thoth (his praets have to go somewhere), I'd rather keep our other border as peaceful as possible. That said, since Miguelito settled 2nd city towards Thoth, if we go into hot conflict with Thoth as well, it may give Commodore too much uncontested land to settle. That's my biggest concern about our plan. But I don't see a way around it - Commodore getting early access to archery makes him way less vulnerable than Thoth to an early attack

[yuris125]

Random thought - it may be better to whip a bowman in Gruul Smash as soon as it grows to 2, and let the workboat finish naturally. Otherwise if Thoth shows up with a single chariot, that city is very dead. This will slow the city down, and I'm probably just paranoid - I don't think Thoth is the one with AH, I don't see the bump the tech would give him on the power graph - but I'd rather be paranoid than lose a city to an oversight

[naufragar]

On phone, so don’t know the whole situation, but falling behind in development is also dangerous. Is there any way to hedge? Perhaps by putting a hammer into the bowman while waiting for the power graph to update?