[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Chevalier and williams on the walls of Bruins, ca. turn 80, colorized: 

[williams482]

Turn 79, continued:

All right, lets make the tough choices. 

Settling Wild is unfortunately a lost cause. If the loyalty situation was manageable or we weren't about to be assaulted by the Egyption horde, it could be settled safely. Unfortunately both things are problems and dealing with one hurts our ability to deal with the others. 

I mentioned Red Wings as the fallback previously, but Lightning seems the superior choice. It's closer, it's initial housing situation is only slightly worse, and it's got more chops available. Two plantations for cash+housing and chopping a flat jungle into a granary, then pumping military seems appropriate. Moving the settler thataways reveals and English horseman:



Also pinned: Lightning B. This possible city site invalidates the original Lightning and Wild sites, and doesn't have that nice 1/3 PFH that Dry Lightning could work, but it does grab the 3/2/1 wines and the horses first ring, and it's on fresh water. That chop could go into a unit instead of a granary, but the base production after the chop will be worse. Decisions, decisions. 

(EDIT: I should have called it Wild B. A different Lightning spot northeast of the current pin would still be possible if it was settled, while nothing close to Wild would be an option. Will change next time)

At Blues, I start production on a horseman. Investing one turn drops our stockpile and allows us to start accumulating again. After one turn, I'll switch back to walls, then start pumping horses until the end of time. My goal is to have the walls done in Kings and Blues before our next policy swap, which is too soon to get the horse out of Blues first, but I also want more units on the field fast enough to hit Kaiser before our freebie window closes. Thus, Kings will also resume it's horse, which will be chopped into either another horse or walls, depending on how much overflow is generated. 

I requested 100g from both Woden and Ichabod, we'll see if they are willing to prop us up. We look quite weak, weaker than we actually are (I hope) so they do have some incentive to assist us. 

Great person screen and map observation reveals that Kaiser completed a library. All other score observations will wait for later, but here are the pictures: 




Chevalier, when do you want to take over turnplaying? This is your game, Operation Corsi is dead, and you've got significantly more experience warring against humans than I do. Selfishly, I suspect I'd enjoy reading your reports more than playing out the demise of Canada myself, but I am fine continuing as well.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Up to you! I enjoy your turn reports, as well - you've really gone above and beyond. I can resume whenever you want, if you want to fight the war, if you want me to take over this evening, all good.

One key consideration for Wild B: Wild A is obviously impossible, and Dry Lightning can still be shifted southeast, at the cost of orphaning the PFH and a set of wines, BUT we instantly have a new set of horses to improve. In GS warfare, from what I've found, unit attrition can be heavy, and replacing those units requires a steady supply of strategic resources. An extra source of horses would be really helpful, the city would be a little faster to start given its housing, and it's safely behind Bruins. It'll be target #1 for sub, of course, but we just have to look sufficiently prickly that he doesn't want us to tank his game like we're going to Kaiser's, so no worries!

[williams482]

The additional two horses per turn for Wild B is a pretty big deal. Good point. Right now we have horse income sufficient for a new unit every five turns, annother two per turn brings us to three units every ten turns. That's a noteworthy improvement even with our limited window for building things.

A jungle chop into walls with Limes active would be worth 27 * 2 = 54/80, and at 4 * 2 = 8h per turn at pop 1 we can knock them out in four turns. Suboptimal has no iron yet, so he's a ways off from being able to batter down a 26 strength walled city in any reasonable timeframe. That should be sufficient deterrence for the moment, and our Canadian immunity to surprises will offer some protection there as well. I'm more worried about loyalty, honestly: Suboptimal can settle Avalanche himself, work some high food tiles, and attack us in a way we can't prevent with military force. That Avalanche tile may still be the best place to park our warrior, to make sure he can't settle it on us without a war declaration.

I guess I'll hold on to the turnplayer role for the moment. This should be useful experience if I do pick up another one of these games some time later. Do be ready for an abrupt handoff at some point though, as there's a real chance I'll need to do that.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

agreed. Park a warrior there, he won't be much help against horsemen anyway on the Kaiser front.

[williams482]

Turn 80:

Apprenticeship is in:



Ichabod presents a counteroffer, which I am totally down for: 



Suboptimal offers a puzzle:

[well damn, this one didn't take. He offered one gold for one gold]

So, he's going to do something in one turn which merits a warning. Both of us are shy of our horse stockpile limits but completely without iron, so he could have sent a horse for horse deal if he wanted to. Is this a threat? A show of support? What could he possibly have in mind? Unfortunately I can't even check our border for hints as to his intentions, as I already opened this screen and cannot close without a decision because the Civ VI UI still sucks. I decide to decline, which seems marginally more noncommittal than accepting, and take a gander at our border:



That horse next to Bruins could be considered quite threatening to any civ except Canada. Is Suboptimal attempting to discourage me from settling, as I had planned to discourage him? Good luck with that; unless you can take the city in one turn or you're willing to try battering down walls with a horse, that won't work out very well for you. Alternately, he could be offering military aid against Kaiser. I send him a deal of my own: one gold and one horse for the same in return. We'll see what he does next. 

Woden also has a proposal. After taking a quick look around for possibly relevant Phoenician units, I open to find this: 



Oh, I like this very much. Thanks bud!

I move our various civilian and military units closer to their intended destinations. Here's a look at the battlefield as it stands now:



That horse is not placed there permanently, he'll dodge out of the Archer's view shortly. Next turn I can upgrade the warrior northwest of Kings to a sword, and on the following turn both that sword and a new horse out of Kings will be able to move. That's our bag of hammers, if Kaiser remains foolish enough to let himself be hit by them. The Sword upgrade will likely be a wakeup call for him, so is it worth trying to strike before that? Our Warrior and Horseman together have a very good (but not 100%) shot of killing that archer near Bortus next turn if it holds it's current position. That will expose our newly-upgraded sword to fire from one archer if Kaiser is stupid, and encourage him to withdraw across the Saint Lawrence if he is smart. I don't see a way to get enough units in theater to outright kill someone from that eastern group even the turn after the Sword is upgraded, so killing that archer next turn seems the best way to go. I move the horse behind the copper hill, and advance the warrior. Kaiser's response will be important here. 

The absence of Kaiser's mobile force is noteworthy, and somewhat unnerving. He has also been taking damage; 10 milpower last turn, one milpower this turn, which suggests a fight with barbarians that certainly wouldn't merit the attention of three horses and two chariot archers. He also has not parked any of his horses in cities, which might be a deliberate effort to hide their presence. Advancing through his territory seems the most likely spot for them, but the possibility of some sweeping sneak attack from west of Blackhawks cannot be completely discounted. Right now I have a badly injured horse healing in what will be Blackhawks' first ring, clearly inadequate protection against that hypothetical strike. 

I put research into Construction, due on three turns. I don't love plowing through a normally manageable Eureka here, but we badly need our hammers for units and defenses and opening up Machinery will be a massive power spike for us. Kaiser can't be to terribly far from crossbows himself, one of the reason we want as many dead archers as possible. 

Oh, and we get a Great Scientist:



He provides three random boosts from the classical or medieval era. That's actually important. Is this potential source of boosts worth switching off Construction? I think probably not. The plan for him will be to wait until we boost Iron Working and The Wheel with an iron mine at Penguins, Engineering with Ancient Walls (due sooner than that) and possibly Machinery with a new Archer out of Bruins or Kings (that one merits further thought, currently takes 7 or 5 turns, respectively, or 240g). Then, spin the genius wheel and see what we get. 

Blues starts work on Ancient Walls. I'll put in two turns to be at 72/80, then switch back to units and complete the walls (regardless of Limes) when I anticipate a need for them. 

The Great Person screen reveals that Kaiser has completed a Holy Site in Isaac and set to work on a Shrine. Not the most militaristic project. He also completed what looks to be a third Campus, most likely second ring in Kelly Grayson, and he is on track to beat Suboptimal to Hypatia. 

I will be pausing updates of the non-military portions of the spreadsheet because they may not be relevant if Kaiser does run us over, but I will continue to take the screenshots and Great Person observations required to fill them later.

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Keep an eye on Kaiser's gold reserves, too. I dont' think he has the muscle to overwhelm us with numbers, especially not with the support we're receiving from abroad. However, he might use his science advantage to out-quality us. Is he close to Muskets, Knights (do his Chariots upgrade into Knights?), or, uh, the light cavalry upgrade on the tech tree? Could a timing attack like that be inbound, and if so, what can we do to prepare/prevent it?

[williams482]

Gold I have been keeping an eye on, same with resource stockpiles. Both have steadily increased over the last few turns, but not at any extra ordinary rate or to any kind of terrifying total.

Kaiser has 15 techs, three more than we do. He mined his first iron tile eons ago, and has been placing a whole bunch of aqueducts (???), so he has Iron Working, The Wheel, and Engineering (all of which we lack). This puts him in reasonable striking distance of Knights, Crossbows, and Coursers (the medieval light cavalry unit, unlocked at Castles), so good thinking on that. His special chariot archers upgrade into crossbows, and although he can build regular chariots (a buff added in Gathering Storm) I do not believe he has any. Thus, Coursers and Crossbows are the scary units for us to worry about.

As for how to stop Coursers, hmm. We could build spears and upgrade to pikes, which do offer a unit type bonus against Coursers, with the only downsides being that we don't have any yet, they are slow, and they aren't very good in general. 41 strength, with a +10 against cavalry does beat 44 strength Coursers pretty handily, and they would benefit further from Oligarchic Legacy, so maybe a spear or two wouldn't be the worst call.

Is that worth preemptively trading Maneuver for Agoge? I'm not sure it is, and if we're running Maneuver, we may be better off with relatively cheaper and much more mobile units. Worth noting that it's going to be a while before we get another policy swap after Theology, as Feudalism is not getting the boost I hoped for (to hell with farms, Blackhawks is getting two mines and a plantation) so our next policy set will be the one we want to war with. My inclination is to go with Conscription/unit-production-booster/Urban Planning/Oligarchic Legacy, but we can trade the Oligarchy boost for another unit producer card if we think that's best.

There's the psychological side to think about here as well. If we can get Pikes and horsemen in the field, no cavalry based attack will defeat our army. Kaiser may still be able to outmaneuver us and snag Blackhawks, but we could take the offensive ourselves and threaten Bortus. Pikes do seem like the quickest path to being scary enough not to mess with for a bit, and there lies that minuscule sliver of hope that we could maybe possibly eventually return to relevance in this game.

In conclusion, I have none. Further thought required.

[williams482]

Turn 81: 

No response (rejection or acceptance) from Suboptimal to our 1g/1h for 1g/1h offer last turn. Curious. Did suboptimal open the offer, then exit the screen via the escape key? I've reloaded saves after doing that by accident, it appears to process as a rejection but maybe it doesn't produce a message for the deal sender. I can only hope this idle speculation will be answered when I read suboptimal's thread some time this fall. 

Civilian movements first today, nothing fancy. Settlers advance towards their sites, the builder reaches the Aqueduct forest and will chop through one horse and into another next turn. 

Kaiser was not so foolish as to leave his archer in striking distance of both the Warrior and horse near Bortus, planting it on a hill in Bortus' second ring. I swing the horse closer to the main accumulation of forces but still in striking range of the archer, then advance the warrior, revealing this fellow here:



That unit could endanger the Blackhawks settler if it takes just the right path to it. I suspect there are other horses around Bortus, although interesting that Kaiser has chosen to show us an injured unit. No way to see support bonuses without declaring war, and as I'm not in position for a useful alpha strike just yet, I hold off. I do withdraw my archer to Bruins' encampment, and get ready to upgrade the warrior near kings to a sword...

which I can't do because we don't have iron working. God damn do I feel dumb. 

It will take two turns to research, or five turns to boost to completion. that research time is too late to involve the sword in a meaningful alpha strike, so waiting for the boost is reasonable enough. I'll have four horses on the field by then, although barring some gross mismanagement by Kaiser (say, keeping his archers hanging around in that floodplain despite multiple visible horses) I won't be able to drop a proper alpha strike on him without that sword. Damn, damn, damn. 

Plusses: Kaiser's milpower remains unchanged, as do his resource stockpiles. He did complete another tech this turn, so that much closer to coursers and/or crossbows. 

Is Kaiser trying to bait us? Leaving those archers there seems really ill advised, as better management on my part, or better timing from wall completions or reinforcements returning would definitely allow us to kill at least one with little apparent risk of retribution. Does he have an army hiding just out of sight, waiting to counterattack? Is he trying to draw my eyes away from my easter border, which he hopes to send a mobile force through? Is this sloppy play, or cunning setup? No clue!

Nothing new on the GP screen. 

Scores: 

[TheArchduke]

I do not envy you, but an armed engagement which you start should perhaps enable you to secure Bortus and then you could settle down and wait for someone to intervene on your behalf.