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

[naufragar]

You'll be 100x more familiar with the situation, so go with your gut.

If we cut the road, we can't move the bowman to the gold hill with the rest of the stack if we want. If we don't cut the road and Thoth brings up another 2 or 3 axes, we could get stack wiped. (I don't think he has another 2 axes.)

What can we reinforce with? What's in Gruul Smash? If Thoth moves his stack 1S of the forest, can we make him scared we'll do an end run around and go for his capital or his iron?

If Thoth is going to take his city back anyway, I don't think we care if we retreat or stay in his borders.

[yuris125]

Right. I may be overthinking, but I'm so happy I can talk through my thoughts and get your input. Typically when I play solo, I tend to not be as thorough thinking through turns, and end up falling behind, and losing concentration and playing even worse as a result

I will move the bowman out of the city - thanks for the idea! It's a close call, but I don't know if it can trade well if we keep it in, so better to keep it with the stack

I will pillage the road

I will plan moving onto the gold if Thoth does move S of the forest

Gruul Smash has 2 bowmen; until now I felt they had to stay in the city to defend against a potential chariot attack, but if we pillage the gold mine and the road on the gold tile, at least one of them can join with the stack

[Tarkeel]

My inclination is to pillage the road and try holding the city. We can obviously hold it for a turn - we have more units. It won't be great odds - all combat is about 2:1 in Thoth's favour. It's hard to accurately sim though, because the bowman will contribute to the combat - but it will be wounded, and you cannot set unit hp in worldbuilder. In any case, if we try holding the city, it's imperative that we stop reinforcements (or at least make them more difficult), so the road has to go

As I said, simming is hard, I'm not a great simmer in any case, and a lot will depend on how good Thoth is at winning 67% combat rolls. But if we pillage the road, we cannot retreat any more, we have nowhere to go but into the city. So Nauf - how do you feel about it? You have much more experience than me by now

Have you tried Vodka?

[yuris125]

I'm not much of a drinker :P

Nope, didn't know about this - thank you!

[yuris125]

Thoth's stray axe moved onto the banana




I will finish the bowman in Big Red Dragons with a chop, and move the reinforcing axe on the flatland SW of the corn rather than into the jungle. With the oasis road finishing next turn, we should be able to clear the axe wherever Thoth moves it. If he chooses to camp in the forest, we work around it until a chariot is out. If he takes a potshot against the capital and wins (he has ~3% odds), such is life

Stand-off continues at the front, no movement and no new units this turn. See-scape should be out of resistance at the end of this turn. However....




I certainly am happy Thoth has one fewer city to work with, and we probably slowed down the praets by a turn or two by denying him the gold

I am not happy that Commodore seems to be getting away with lagging behind on the power graph. I did say it was a risk when we decided to go for an early invasion against Thoth.....

[yuris125]

Thoth is indeed camping on the banana




At the front, he actually moved the unpromoted axe elsewhere, just 3 units left in the stack. With this in mind, and with See-Scape out of resistance, I think we can move the bowman at the front back into the city. There's no more possibility of combat workers allowing 1-movers to get into the city, and the bowman can cover against chariots. Plus it will heal faster inside the city

I've been thinking, and at this point I actually suspect Thoth is not aiming to take See-Scape back. With our stack pinned down at See-Scape, I think he plans a praetorian attack on Gruul Smash. His stack on the gold can join in with the praets from the capital, and if he takes the city, our capital becomes exposed. The axe on the banana also contributes to that plan by complicating our reinforcements

That said, Gruul Smash is defended by two bowmen right now, and we can whip another at a moment's notice. Does Thoth have enough to crack the city, even with praets? If we're worried, we can try moving the bowman from Big Red Dragons over to Gruul Smash. On flatland, Thoth's axe will have ~67% odds against it, but presumably he will take some damage and we will get odds on the counter

My plan for this turn is - worker from the oasis onto the gold tile, cover the worker with axe + bowman. The worker in the north starts roading the tile N of Big Red Dragons in anticipation of AH research coming in (that's the horse tile). Capital goes back to a granary, but next turn I might switch to an axe to set up another double whip. Whip the workboat in Big Red Dragons and overflow into another bowman. Bowman at See-Scape moves back into the city as I said, and promotes to CG (I held its promotion in case the situation asked for guerilla or drill)

[yuris125]

Actually shuffled the tiles around to give the capital growth next turn, and switched straight to axe. Don't know if I'm being paranoid, but Thoth's acceptance of loss of See-Scape, moving the axe on the banana instead of bringing it back, and taking a unit away from the front, all make me thing that Gruul Smash may be his target. So I'd like to get a couple extra units out and over to Gruul Smash as fast as possible. Can't be long before Praets arrive now that Thoth has IW

[naufragar]

On phone and likely gonna be a while before I can dive in seriously. Defensive paranoia is always good. Whole heartedly agree.

Thoth will build praets, but we should be able to read his builds with laser precision thanks to the power graph. He doesn’t have many more units that us. That he moved one axe away is interesting. Even with praets, if we keep up with him in number of units, he’ll need to do something with his stack near see scape. If we’re sufficiently paranoid/defensive, we can effectively make those units dead weight.

[yuris125]

Here's the weird thing - Thoth does not have any praets yet. He has to have plans for getting them out, just like we did when building up a stack for our invasion. But so far since IW power jump he had two 4k power increases, not an 8k increase. Is he building chariots? Maybe we need more spears??




Also, you do make a great point that we're well ahead of him on units, we're ahead on power graph despite his graph being inflated from techs we don't have, IW and AH

Going to hold off on the axe whip in the capital. I've been a little whip happy and would rather stop stacking whip anger. Also we're already paying 3gpt in unit maintenance, so I'd rather wait on units we don't need right now

Once we do clear Thoth's axe, can we put together a stack and go punish Commodore's power graph a bit? I know we're Cre/Phi in the world of Agg leaders, we're supposed to be defensive and economy-focused. But sometimes an opportunity is just asking to be taken advantage of. Blue Moon is still undefended, his archer on the hill that's been there for 35 turns is the only things between us and that city - and a single archer on a hill has to be killable at this point of the game. We could even raze the city with chariots and resettle on the hill we originally planned for our 2nd city

No unit movement this turn, apart from Thoth's worker showing up in the forest S of his stack (getting ready to chop I assume)

[naufragar]

Once we do clear Thoth's axe, can we put together a stack and go punish Commodore's power graph a bit?

I know its galling to see somebody coast, but we're not the world police. I'd be hesitant at turning our back on Thoth. It's very difficult to dominate an equally-matched opponent in this era. If you think we can snipe a city, maybe? But honestly, Thoth still has a lot in the tank. Until we see him lose a city to Miguelito or if we ourselves can do more damage, I don't think its safe to split focus.

You mentioned that everybody else is Agg. We set up our game plan with the idea that if we keep pace, we can pull ahead thanks to Cre Libraries and Phi bulbs. We don't need to play their game.

Edit: All the above with the usual caveat that you know the gamestate better. I just don't see us producing yet another army in time to punish Comm while simultaneously winning the war against Thoth. If Comm's such a problem, let Mig deal with him.