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

[yuris125]

The problem is that I planned to whip the workboat from size 2 to 1, so we wouldn't have another whip available anyway

Actually you know... Thoth IS the one with AH. I just noticed the hammer on the tile SW of his gold - that's the horse tile

I don't think he had a chance to build a chariot yet, we saw his worker on the gold on T33 so he hasn't had enough time to build a pasture yet, but we do need that bowman faster than the workboat I'm pretty sure

[yuris125]

So here's the power graph. The dip Thoth's graph is us killing the warrior, and I think the bump next turn is his AH research. Didn't realise AH was only worth 2k points when I was checking last turn




We do have at least one more turn before he can complete the pasture, whip a chariot, and bring it to Gruul Smash. So next turn I'm going to switch to bowman, but won't whip it until we hit size 3. This way we can overflow into a workboat and finish it the following turn

Thing is, I'm happy with Thoth building a chariot, it is another unit which will not significantly contribute to his defence against our planned attack. So not whipping the bowman immediately and looking like we would be vulnerable to a chariot is not a bad plan. I just don't want to lose the city to being stupid

Speaking of being stupid, I was completely misreading the research. Miguelito founded Buddhism, so he is the one with Mysticism. Whereas this turn someone has Pottery, and given that both Miguelito and Thoth wouldn't have time to research it (at least if I'm right about Thoth's AH timing), it had to be Commodore

I do wonder if our plan of attacking Thoth hands Commodore a big advantage, I think he played the strongest opening, and neither us nor Miguelito seem interested in action against him. Is early Archery + agg dog soldiers that much of a deterrent?

[yuris125]

Thoth double-whipped the capital this turn. By my count this is the turn when he would have horses connected if he started a pasture on T34. Dry whipping a chariot? Probably not. More likely something else, with an overflow into a chariot

Regardless, switched Gruul Smash to bowman as planned. Turns out bowman costs 25h and not 30 as I thought. Man, I keep being reminded how rusty I am

Speaking of rusty, I kept looking at the totem pole-looking building in Commodore's 2nd city and wondering what it was




I was like, it looks like a totem pole, but doesn't he need Mysticism for that? We know he doesn't have it, only one person has Mysticism and that's Miguelito. Then it hit me. I re-checked the changelog - and yeah, Native America UB was moved from Mysticism to Archery. Commodore never needed Mysticism

Derp, what can I say. You can expect more of them

Thoth is moving the axe that was next to our gold back to his 2nd city. He's also focusing EP spending on us, now that everyone has everyone's graphs

I keep doubting our decision to attack Thoth, but it has to be the right one. Both Miguelito and ourselves expanded towards us, he can feel squeezed, just as we were when Commodore denied us the eastern city. Thoth now has Buddhist holy city on his eastern border, it's in a choke point and will have strong culture defences. That pushes Thoth to expand in our direction - as we were pushed in his by Commodore's city. Thoth and us are going to have a confrontation, that's unavoidable. In which case striking before the Praet time has to be the play. We'll worry about Commodore and how far ahead he is (if at all) after this confrontation

[Mjmd]

To be fair, Native America has not been a popular choice of civ in CtH even with the changes, so that is actually my first time seeing a close up of it as well.

[yuris125]

Thoth's power went up by 4k last turn, so his whip wasn't an axe. Wasn't a civilian unit though, with the power increase. Could've been a dry whip of a chariot after all (don't have a good enough feel to know if a chariot can be 2-pop dry-whipped). In any case, there's no chariot on Gruul Smash doorsteps yet

Two people know Potterry now - I think Thoth is the other one, too soon for Miguelito to get it after his Buddhism research. But I misread the game too often to be certain

Whipped a workboat with overflow into bowman in Gruul Smash. Also moved an extra axe towards the city just in case

Here's a screenshot since I haven't posted one in a while, but not much changed




No one has the 3rd city yet. We just finished the 2nd worker in the capital and will start a settler next turn, with a chop coming in right away. Then we do 3 chops into units - even before improving the gold. Would need to get food into the 3rd city anyway before it can work the gold, it just gets the forested banana to work at the start

[naufragar]

On phone again. My rule of thumb is dry whips give 20 hammers. There’s a civfanatics article on whipping and it might also be in Charriu’s curious civ player thread.

Perhaps a spear or chariot but why in the world dry whipped? Actually, dry whipping the moment pasture completes is what one might do for a chariot rush.

[yuris125]

A spear doesn't make sense, Thoth already has one and he's the only one with AH. Dry whipping a chariot is consistent with his power jump, but I agree it is puzzling and scary

The possibility of him bringing two chariots to Gruul Smash is why I'm bringing an extra axe over. Yes axes are bad against chariots, but just having an extra unit will be useful

That said, maybe the next build in Gruul Smash should be a spear, just to be on the safe side. It is a relatively advanced city next to a neighbour with access to horses after all

[yuris125]

Nevermind, Gruul Smash is not connected to trade network so cannot build a spear. Will just start another bowman and hope it's enough to hold against a focused attack

Do I remember right that roads cannot be built on oasis tiles?

Could be worth thinking about researching Masonry for walls some time soon

[Cornflakes]

Roads can be built on oasis tiles but the oasis still uses up all movement points. EDIT: Thanks RefSteel for the correction. Roads act normally on oasis tiles.

[naufragar]

Could be worth thinking about researching Masonry for walls some time soon

Masonry's on the path to Construction, so I don't hate it. Walls are only +30% defense, because we're Creative. Might be worth it to just get more and better units. We're going to want a library eventually to activate Phi.

How do we win? Do we get a unit quantity advantage? (Doubtful.) Quality? I think everybody can get to Horse Archers in the same time frame. We can probably get to Cats before everybody but it'll still be tricky with Praets and Horse Archers on the field. Most likely scenario is somebody gets double teamed. I don't think walls activates any of our win conditions. Maybe they prevent a double team, but I think 2 bowmen are going to be better than 1 wall for a long time.