[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[williams482]

Turn 105:

Pop growth in Penguins and a monument completing in Blackhawks shaves a turn off Civil Service, now due in 5. At Blackhawks, I place a Commercial Hub on the recently claimed wheat tile*, but put my hammers into prebuilding a builder, due in 7. The builder in wild is 3 turns away, I'll need to remember to swap off in in two turns. Both cities will switch over to military anyway once I have the proper cards in place, but for now these are safe spots for hopes and dreams. 

*This apparently no longer destroys the wheat resource, which seems like a bug, but the devs explicitly fixed it for just Canal districts in the latest patch. Lurkers, if I were in position to harvest that wheat from beneath the Commercial Hub later this game (something I have done in single player), would that be legit?

Over at Bruins, Kaiser makes a show of his mighty boomstick-wielder:





Bruins' encampment is exactly one hammer shy of completion, and will stay that way until the musket or some other significant force is one tile away from the city center. A crossbow will do roughly 15 damage to a healthy Musket on defensive terrain, and our Bastions-boosted city strikes will do about 19. With two rounds of ranged strikes and a few expensive hits by the horsemen in the area, I should be able to kill that unit. If kaiser is waiting for that encampment to complete so he can crush it again before advancing, all the better: time is on his side for the long haul in this war, perhaps, but six turns from now (five if I don't stall for the second chariot) I'll have a knight stuffed into this city, and delay certainly won't favor him in the game as a whole. I put my hammers into the half-completed horse for now. The one fully healthy horse advances in this direction, while the rest remain in formation around blues. The pike is present and ready to assist against any significant force attempting to cross the river, but at an effective strength of 31 against the Musket, it will stay out of that fight unless absolutely necessary. 

A temporary advance on the Western front reveals some retreating spears, and an old friend:



If that Courser chooses to advance, we can swarm and kill it next turn. If it stays where it is, we can advance a few units and be in position to swarm it next turn. I'm guessing Kaiser will withdraw, but hope springs eternal. 

On that note, with our two fresh horses last turn followed by a wave of healing, we have actually passed Kaiser in milpower, 458 to 522. That's not great for our chances off begging our way to a second knight, but it might drive home the point to Kaiser that he ain't gonna get shit out of this war. 

I consider taking a ~50HP potshot at a chariot archer with the crossbow out of Kings, but without the ability to kill, it's pointless and leaves some risk of being swarmed and killed. I'll wait for Kaiser to try to close with the city. The barb-buster units retreat back towards civilization, but I will probably leave the warrior out here to fogbust. 

Kaiser adds a 7th Scientist point, presumably from a new campus. He is also obviously running Natural Philosophy, bringing him to a very respectable 96 beakers per turn, one behind Woden's leading 97. He probably believes he has a real shot, and if he does succeed in smashing his way into our cities, he'll be right. Bring it, Kaiser. 

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

One thing to beware of - if an enemy unit is occupying a district, you can't build in it. I've had numerous district builds in SP interrupted when a wandering barb stepped on the tile. I don't know how that willa ffect the Encampment repair, but it's a danger to keep in mind. Might be worth testing in a hotseat game. 

Also, in regards to

Over at Bruins, Kaiser makes a show of his mighty boomstick-wielder:

Kaiser's musketman outside Bruins, 2020, colorized

[williams482]

One thing to beware of - if an enemy unit is occupying a district, you can't build in it. I've had numerous district builds in SP interrupted when a wandering barb stepped on the tile. I don't know how that will affect the Encampment repair, but it's a danger to keep in mind. Might be worth testing in a hotseat game. 

Oh, yikes. I had not encountered that before, and if applicable here that does change the strategy considerably. I'll have to test before next turn, and hope Kaiser doesn't march a unit onto that tile.

[williams482]

Turn 106:

After testing in a hotseat game, I can confirm that yes, enemy units camping on a district do prevent it from being repaired, and thus I've been too clever by half. Lets see if I'm going to get burned for it:



No, but there's annother guy with a gun. Not great. Looking at Kaiser's gold and Niter reserves again (now down to 4) I believe he upgraded two swords to muskets with both discount cards in on t104, and a third last turn. Unfortunately, that's enough concentrated punch to give him a genuine shot at taking down Bruins, Bastions and all. Deplaying Stirrups for that extra chariot will continue to be a last minute call, but it's getting a lot less likely. Fortunately, support bonuses indicate that there are no adjacent units in the fog. What we see is what we get, for now.

Bruins strikes the musket on the Wheat for 25, and the crossbow strikes for 15. Next turn the encampment will complete, giving us three strikes, plus the two will-be-healthy horses. Actually, a better use for the currently healthy horse is probably to occupy the jungle hill adjacent to Bruins. Kaiser can kill it, but he will have to attack with both muskets and at least one, probably two catapults, making it much more likely that my counterattack can kill one of the muskets and that all-important ram. 

Quick review on how siege support units work: Rams allow melee and anti-cav units to attack walls directly, destroying them first before moving on to the city itself. They are obsoleted at Machinery (which Kaiser must have by now) and replaced with Siege Towers, which allow melee and anti-cav units to ignore the walls and attack the city directly as if the wall was not there, dealing incidental damage to the walls in the process. Siege Towers are therefore worse than rams, for two reasons: 
1) ranged units always attack the walls first until they are destroyed. As attacking with a siege tower will leave the walls functioning for much longer, ranged units offer almost no additional assistance for the early rounds of an assault.
2) city attacks are tied to the walls themselves, and as long as the walls stay up, the city can keep shooting. For any kind of prolonged siege, that extra ranged strike for the defenders makes a substantial difference, which a ram can eliminate quickly, but a siege tower will leave active essentially until the city is captured. 

Thus, although the short term benefits of killing this ram are substantial, there's a major medium term benefit as well: unless Kaiser has a second ram just kinda hanging out, destroying this one will force him to stop and build annother, more expensive, and inferior siege support unit before he can make any progress against our cities. That should be more than enough delay for us to get medieval walls up in our stronger frontline cities, and merits taking some drastic risks if necessary to destroy that unit. I advance the sacrifice:



A brief advance outside Blues shows us this:



One spear, with two units in the fog behind it. Presumably healing up for another strike, which gives us a little time. I have two fully healthy horses here, and moved them towards Kings. I want to be able to whack any ranged units that cross the river between Kings and Bruins next turn.

In domestic news, I realize I'm kinda dumb and didn't make any effort to micro Kings to speed up the chariot. Swapping off the rice to a grass forest gives it juuuuust enough production to complete it's chariot in two turns, just in time to complete Stirrups on schedule. That might be a big deal. Wild is also two turns away from completing a builder, which means I'll swap off next turn. I'll admit the infrastructure builds in my backline cities are fairly aimless, but there's really nothing better to do with 10 hammers per turn at this point in the game, and investing in some future lumber mills gives me a fool's hope for the future. 

Internationally, Ichabod has completed the Oracle, which should help him get even more great people. Suboptimal in PBEM whichever-it-was-where-Woden-rushed-Jester got plenty of great person points by combining Oracle and Pingala's +100% GPP promotion, a popular single player strategy, but I admit considerable scepticism about it's utility relative to 290h (plus policy card boosts) worth of killin' power at this point in the game. Woden is now up to 652 milpower and rising steadily, and although Ichabod's 502 isn't exactly bad, one of those numbers is appreciably bigger than the other. I'll be interested to see how that works out for them. 

Scores:

[williams482]

Kaiser has 480 milpower. How much of it do we know about?

Muskets: 3 x 55 = 165
Archers: 1 x 25
Chariot Archers: 2 x 35 = 70
Spearmen: 3 x 25 x ~75HP each = 56
Swordsmen: 1 x 36
Catapults: 2 x 35 = 70
Coursers: 2 x 44, one at ~75HP = 77

That sums to 499, 19 more than Kaiser's listed milpower. That's a reasonable margin of error for injury estimates, and a very encouraging sign for the war. What we see really is what we get, and if we can withstand the trio of muskets at Bruins, we've got this.

[williams482]

Turn 107:

Well actually yes, we ARE going to pay for my mistake. 



Apparently a unit moving onto the district doesn't just stop you from starting to repair the district, it prevents you from finishing it as well. In retrospect, terminating my test before determining that was a foolish error, although by then the damage was already done. Additionally, judging by the completion time on the horse, all the production invested is wasted. Equal helpings of "oops", "we're doomed", and "WTF Firaxis" here. 

Without the help of the second encampment strike, this is a far nastier situation. I have a chance to kill the injured musket if I sacrifice a horse, but the ram is completely safe, sheltering behind a mostly healthy musket on a jungle hill. I can easily kill either the archer or the cat, but either unit will be quickly replaced. Fortunately, Kaiser will need some time to eliminate the walls. With the pike serving as a garrison, the city has a defensive strength of 50, only barely lower than the attacking musket. I expect that unit to do about 35 damage if it attacks, and take 26. Backing up the crossbow to the tile that injured horse is on prevents it from firing at Kaiser's ranged units, but they can barely do relevant damage against a walled city anyway (highest is the cat, who will average 16), and given that Kaiser has nothing unrevealed that could possibly take Blues or Blackhawks before we can respond, we can commit our full cavalry force to this theater and have them worry about the squishy ranged attackers later. Our priority is the muskets. 

The injured Musket is definitely redlineable, and killable with extreme luck, but do we need to worry about a promotion? A surprise Tortise would be a back breaker. This unit has taken two ranged strikes, worth a combined 4 EXP. two more will bring the unit to 8 total, and a probably-suicidal horseman attack will bring it to 11. If that unit already had 4 EXP, it could then promote. That plus the dead horse seems enough reason to settle for redlining without a suicide strike. The city strikes for 24, the crossbow for 15. The horse would average 12 dealt and a lethal return, which looks like 2/3rds of the remaining health, not worth it. An attack on the city by this musket would be obvious suicide, and Kaiser will likely feel compelled to withdraw it. The injured horse steps back, still in view of the musket but requiring a risky advance by ranged units to hit it. 



I commit the horses to this theater, and with cover from one of them, my crossbow steps out of Kings and takes a 27 damage potshot at the already injured Courser:

[I missed the screenshot button, apparently. Use your imagination!]

These next couple of turns are huge, and will likely prove decisive in the war. I can't imagine Kaiser will still have an appetite for battle if we can kill his muskets, which is critical because we have other battles on the horizon. 

Suboptimal has settled the Hurricanes location, granting it the obviously inferior moniker "Smiler" and setting to work on a Theater Square. With Eleanor, that's tantamount to an attack, admittedly an attack which will come after quite a bit of time has passed. If and when we secure peace with Kaiser, I will strongly consider smacking him for his impudence. If nothing else, these trials have granted us an army well beyond what he's trotting out, plenty to smack down an un-walled city. 



Speaking of, Suboptimal has seen his milpower drop over 100 points between t104 and t106 (he jumped up a bit in the last turn, presumably from healing), and Yerevan after taking some damage is back to full health and starting on walls. It seems some of these city states can fend for themselves, at least briefly. 

Wild swaps off the builder and starts dumping hammers into a Commercial Hub, theoretically due in 16. Both Blues and Kings will get chariots out next turn, Stirrups will complete the turn after, and at the end of that turn I'll have a shiny new Knight. I decide a last round of begging can't hurt, and ask both Woden and Ichabod for 50g. If we get both (I don't expect to get either) we'll have two knights upgraded at the end of t109. That will secure a victory if we can kill Kaiser's muskets here, or give us a fighting chance at recapturing Bruins if things go very poorly in the next few turns. 

Ichabod has 6 merchant points, 24 prophet points, and 8 scientist points. No doubt that's Oracle at work. 

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Damn, my fault. I noticed your Encampment plan earlier and I should have mentioned the occupation possibility. You might be able to kill the occupying force and then repair? The production is just banked, I think, but I've never tested that since I've no head for micro.

[williams482]

Damn, my fault. I noticed your Encampment plan earlier and I should have mentioned the occupation possibility. You might be able to kill the occupying force and then repair? The production is just banked, I think, but I've never tested that since I've no head for micro.

Unfortunately, I need Kasier to abandon the tile for two consecutive turns, one to start the repair and a second to finish it. That hill tile is one of the obvious ones for shooting at the city, so he'll keep it occupied as long as he's attempting to attack, regardless of if encampment repairs are on his mind. 

With the relative dearth of non-ranged attackers, I might be able to kill the occupant and then protect the tile with a horse for a turn, but that would require diverting a range strike that is desperately needed against these muskets. 

As for the production expended, it does seem to be gone. The horse in Bruins was three turns from completion when I opened the t106 save, and is three turns from completion now on t107. What else would we expect, sensible overflow management?

[williams482]

Turn 108:

The situation at Bruins:



Kaiser has killed the frontmost of my horses, exposing his injured musketman to certain death. His other musket and cat dealt a combined 34 damage to the walls, and that musket looks to have ~60 HP remaining. The ram has also withdrawn a tile, apparently fearing that I could kill that musket this turn. Let's see if we can justify Kaiser's concerns. 

First, the farthest back horse can guarantee a kill of the crippled musket:



He delivers the blow, taking 48 in return. The other musket can probably take more than just the city strike (~20 dmg) + crossbow strike (~16) + horseman attack (~14), but we can get real close, and the Courser and Archer are vulnerable. I advance the crossbow to the fissure tile and shoot the courser for 29. The adjacent horse advances for the kill, taking 28 and a promotion. The pike in Bruins attacks out at the archer, dealing 49, and the injured horse strikes it for 49 as well, leaving the unit alive with all of two hit points. 

That cuts into our slim chances of killing the musket, but we'll still hurt it. The city strike deals 19, the crossbow 14, earning itself a promotion. Both are slightly substandard damage rolls, and attacking with the horse would only knock off half the muskets remaining hit points while taking about 70 in return, not worth it. That leaves us with this:



With the terrain as it is, that musket is dead meat next turn unless it has a promotion or Kaiser forces me to shoot something else. With the walls still mostly intact and that crippled Musket the only melee unit in sight, Kaiser has no chance of taking Bruins before we have knights in the field. There is still a sword and a courser sulking around somewhere, and Kaiser clearly just upgraded a sword to a musket (with the resource discount) last turn. 

I believe I made a mistake in assuming that Kaiser had upgraded three muskets prior to his attack on me, because I can't imagine he would be foolish enough to only bring two if he had three, and my compiled milpower estimates were off by 19, exactly the strength difference between a musket and a sword. The source of my confusion is that the timing seemed impossible for the most recent upgrade to reach Bruins so quickly: to be 2NW of Bruins on my t106, Kaiser (who plays directly after us) had to move him there on his t105, meaning he could have been upgraded from the tile tSW of Isaac on Kaiser's t104. Kaiser had 6 Niter on our t104, and 0 on our t105. Yeah, hang on. That works out fine. Two muskets! 

Is the sword we saw on t106 the same one Kaiser just upgraded? he could have moved adjacent to the southern stone on Kaiser's t106, the moved into his territory and upgraded on Kaiser's t107. Seems pretty likely! We'd have a tough time killing that unit in the field, but we'll be ready for it if it decides to move against us. With that upgrade, Kaiser's considerable gold reserves are spent, and his picking up a civic last turn plus having income again indicates that he swapped off the cheaper upgrade cards for conscription. Any new muskets will have to be slow built at an effective cost of 160h with the policy card. That's within Kaiser's means, but we'll see it coming via 55 point milpower bumps. 

Ichabod has a counterproposal: 



Sounds fair to me! That leaves us with 37 iron, +4 next turn. We need 40 total to upgrade both Knights. Woden was not so accommodating, unfortunately, but landing the 50g is still a better return than I expected. That puts us at 248, making +15 per turn. We'll have 278 when Civil Service completes in two turns and we have to swap off Professional army, and would need another four turns to get the 320 needed to upgrade both knights. Our next civic target is Monarchy, which takes 9 turns unboosted and requires Civil Service, so delaying to upgrade both units is definitely not worth it. 

Blues starts production on it's Commercial Hub (8t), Kings begins a builder (6t). Penguins is two turns from completing Ancient Walls and switches to working on it's Campus. I'll complete those walls when I swap to Limes for Medieval walls, if necessary. 

Phoenicia had a general point, 11 admiral points, and three scientist points. Egypt has three Merchant points from a Market in Bortus. Suboptimal now has two GWAM points. 

Strategy talk in a subsequent post. 

Scores: 

[williams482]

This seems a good time to talk long term strategy. With the combat results of the last two turns and our knights about to come online, I see no reasonable chance that Kaiser can take Bruins. He may have an outside shot at sniping Blackhawks with the two muskets and the courser in the fog somewhere, plus whatever units he might have under construction (milpower tracking does not indicate any large recent builds), but we'll be ready for that. As Chevalier noted earlier, he just hit his biggest military tech spike (muskets) for some time unless he plans on beelining Ballistics for cuirassiers and field cannons. Most likely, he'll be willing to talk peace. Should we?

The most important question there is if we think we can take Bortus, and regrettably I think the answer is no. We have, right now, two crossbows, two swords, one soon-to-be knight, one slightly-later-to-be knight, and a bevy of horsemen. The only units in that group that could be described as both "modern" and "useful against walled cities" are the crossbows. We would need to build a siege tower to deal melee damage through the walls, and we would be dealign that damage with 36 strength swords against a 50 strength city, and given that we just smacked down an attack involving catapults and muskets in an equally strong city, I just can't imagine that going well. Our own muskets are a considerable ways away, and Kaiser will likely get Medieval walls up and a musket in the city long before that. A military alliance for +5 strength would help, but not enough. This is not a winnable battle even if we sweep the remainder of his ranged attacking force from the field in the next few turns.

Are we better off maintaining a phony war and trying to build infrastructure, or taking a peace treaty? I don't believe the war between Ichabod and Kaiser is hot right now, given the tiny number of Egyptian units unaccounted for, so I doubt that making peace would be leaving Ichabod out to dry or denying us the chance to snatch a few pieces for ourselves if Kaiser is overrun. Peace restores our 5 turn warning window, and allows us to go all in on catch-up infrastructure, something I personally would like to do. It also allows us to be aggressive on another front, if so inclined.

I see a real danger from Suboptimal's passive-aggressive city flipping abilities, albeit a slow developing one. As Canada, if we're going to take any aggression against another civ, it has to be carefully timed and well considered, because we will not have the element of surprise. Against anyone but Eleanor, I consider that mini-DoF more a strength than a weakness, but unfortunately we border the one civ that can conquer our cities without declaring war, and we need to be able to take offensive action if necessary to prevent that. Conquering Smiler is not necessary for that goal, as I think a cavalry pillaging spree would be sufficient to eliminate the effects of any great works, and although of course taking territory is always nice, it would be hard to keep for the same reasons we'd attack in the first place.

Noteworthy that while Suboptimal is currently crushing us in beakers (97 to 44) he is only up two techs on us right now. Those are probably important techs, but if we wanted to hit him, we will want to do it soon. Personally I'd rather build up and try to be a little less of a rump state in hopes that the others can tear eachother down, but I think the aggressive option is worth some thought.

So, what's the smartest course of action here? Try to peace out with Egypt? And if we do get that peace, should we keep it, or try to smack Suboptimal around a bit before he can pull of any hoity toity loyalty shenanigans?