[spoilers] Commodore takes Advanced Starting

[superdeath]

Wanting to help him instead of split him with Scooter? Interesting

[Commodore]

Wanting to help him instead of split him with Scooter? Interesting

Scooter is winning the game and has a great line on the majority of AT's land with the capture of his capital, Sack. And barring intervention, that capture is about three turns away:


I lost graphs on Scooter briefly but he's #1 on power, so it's easy enough to track. He's saving gold in his golden age at the moment, going to pop his way up to whatever the heck he wants. Guilds is coming in too slow for my taste, thus the 1-turn Construction...9xp war elephants cover a multitude of sins, and counter both chucklenaughts and knights handily. If I'm going to be fighting mainly in friendly culture, I think I might actually go for Engineering next, for the all-important road warrior effect. Scooter lacks bridges that I can see, so I think it's just Cornflakes on Engineering thus far.

[Commodore]

It occurs to me that Scooter is worried about my making peace and then gifting units to AT; no worries. I'll be fighting him this turn on multiple fronts. I gave AT a pair of spears hoping to get back his workers, who looked to be going south, but no, I'm not jumping my advanced units anywhere but in my own hot little hands.

[Hitru]

Yeah, that was his main concern. Would you like me to pm him that he should not worry about that as you are going to attack him next turn . I guess we lurkers will just let you agree on this in tech thread. Thus game us good reminder for me to always check rules before the game starts.

[Commodore]

A fundamental Law of Scooter: Scooter is cautious. Seeing my technologically inferior force of longbows and horse archers...

...Scooter has scooted, his KNIGHTS and CHUCKLENAUGHTS fleeing back to his new capture.

I pushed up to threaten him with my little HA stack; I'm betting he was laggardly about bringing up spears.

I do really need to keep his nice forces locked up here, because the center is in danger. He popped my worker being guarded by just a chariot and a spear, and covered with...huh, two other chucklenaughts?

Cleaned that up without too much worry then, just cost two HA. And then this turn, he didn't even recapture the worker.

All the more time for 7xp longbows and 9xp war elephants to reach the front. The War to Give TBS Hope is looking pretty solid, now.

[Hitru]

Is there some way for you to profit or is this just zero sum war for you?

[Commodore]

Is there some way for you to profit or is this just zero sum war for you?

Well, if AT can stall Scooter out or even better recapture cities, that's worth it. But I have a lurking Great Artist that I can use to bomb if I see an opening in the center, I'm hoping to take the luxurious middle cities from Scooter here and be able to lock them down with the Janissary Corps.

[Commodore]

Eventful turn...for other people. Welcome to the Golden Age club, TBS and Cornflakes. It would still be hopeless for you guys if #1 and #2 weren't set to bash each other back into the pack.


Scooter is set up rather defensively here in the center, he's aware of potential G2 longbow tricks. His technologically superior forces can break through here...if he can consolidate a stack. If he wanted to be brutal, a big mass of G2 chucks would be completely irresistible, using Engineering to strike out from Bigfoot. Thankfully, he seems to be using knights, and he's under-barracksed.


It's a coordination issue out east with AT; he absolutely has enough stuff to retake Pillage if he joins up with me. How do I message him about this? As badass as those chucklenaughts are, his megastack complete with catapults would pop that city easily...if he joins with the nice stack of two longbows and eight horse archers. I don't know if AT has lapsed into passivity, alas. Come forth, dude, and reclaim your henge of stone.


My military power rating is rapidly gaining on Scooter thanks to the whip. Only sixteen horse archers and a handful of longbows, so what you see with Scooter is actually largely what you get, I'm shocked to be this close to Knighty McChuck.


Demos look...not bad, considering TBS and Cornflakes are in their golden ages. I'm particularly pleased with that MFG number, given TBS with his similar-sized empire is in a golden age, as is forges-everywhere Cornflakes. Is Scooter...4th place MFG? With that GNP of his, does it matter?


Graphs, sorry I missed GNP but it's a little incoherent. Power of AT actually matters now thanks to catapults. Dunno what MFG will look like but CY will flip over to Scooter with his conquests if he's allowed to consolidate.




How am I keeping pace at all? I think I have an example:

Infrastructure. Scooter's been scrimping on his infrastructure and it shows. This is actually one of the rare cities without stables, too, which is part of my soldiers number, true, but it does matter to be able to take Formation out the gate on horse archers and war elephants. The Theology diversion was expensive, but I think it was worthwhile.

[Hitru]

How many turns to knights and will those change your war objectives?

[Commodore]

Scooter offered me....something. War with Cairo, 20gp, -20gp, 300gp. I think it means he'll pay me to leave and go bother Mr. Cairo? But Mr. Cairo just fired his golden age and revolted to Fuedalism, so I have no idea how Scooter thinks I'll just eat him casually.

How many turns to knights and will those change your war objectives?

I don't know. Either five or fifteen; really depends on if I prefer Engineering. I'm just going to hang out here, crushed.

Blew a culture bomb trying to flip the gems tile in the hopes of being able to burn Beifield. The it's a simple offer of peace for Bigfoot, and I'm content. But the culture mechanics betrayed me and as you see, I didn't get the chance to destroy the city. ALL OF THOSE BATTLES? COINFLIPS TO WIN. Just not enough horse archers left to kill the city, and because I didn't flip the gems, my spear/longbows that I was going to use to clean up couldn't clean up.   So I ceased attacking. Still offered peace for Bigfoot, but doubt he'll take it.


In any case, looks like AT is charging forward to retake Pillage. It's...going to be very, very close.

Normally I'd say that's not enough knights to flank away the catapults, HOWEVER, chucklenaughts' collateral hits siege units. So...going to be very dicey. Curious to see what next turn brings. If Scooter does take peace for Bigfoot, he'll annihilate that stack, and I'll just have to eat the bottom of AT's empire for strategic depth.