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

[yuris125]

Looking at the map, I just realised, with Thoth's capital gone, the hill 3S of Gruul Smash is also a legal spot now - could be an even better option....

[yuris125]

So unless Nauf comes in and shouts at me before the turn arrives, and assuming nothing silly happens in the attack on Hard Luck, I will be settling 3S of Gruul Smash this turn. I need a defensible city to establish a firm border with Miguelito; I was planning to use Thoth's capital for it if I managed to take it, but now that it's gone, this spot is better in every respect. It is also on a hill, has fresh water, but also is way easier to reinforce (within 3 tiles of 2 other cities, so with Engineering units can be brought over in a single turn). And it's best to get it planted and start building up cultural defences while Miguelito's units still need to heal

I will also get another settler to claim the spot on the iron 1E of Hard Luck

The story of this game so far has been - just how difficult is it to pull off a successful attack in an always war game, where other players are on lookout for any weakness and are ready to punish you whenever you suffer losses. How many successful attacks did we have so far?

* My attack on Thoth early in the game, which claimed See-Scape. That worked out, but it happened early enough in the game that I didn't lost many units, and others didn't have the units to attack me while my stack was elsewhere. It also had a very real cost to it, I had to chop all my forests to make it happen, and basically ceded all wonders as a result (which Miguelito happily took advantage of, leveraging his Ind trait very well)
* Thoth's counter-attack with Praetorians, which never went ahead, as I managed to build up enough defences
* My attack on Thoth's capital - unsuccessful, as Commodore invaded immediately after I suffered the initial hit, and I had to pull back and defend
* Commodore's attack which razed Boros Buron. This didn't claim any land for Commodore, but he did deny me a build queue - guess this can count as limited success. It is possible that this would've been thwarted completely if I didn't try to continue the attack on Thoth after the initial hit - not only did I lose 6 catapults for nothing, but I couldn't get the stack back in time to defend Boros Burn, would've been different if I pulled back a turn sooner
* Miguelito's attack on Thoth - successful in that he managed to raze the capital and unlock potential city spots, but it looks like a lot of Thoth's land will go to me and not to him. Arguably this leaves Miguelito in worse position than before, as he lost a lot of his lead on the power graph, while opening up possibilities for me to advance my position. Miguelito likely isn't far enough ahead in tech to stop me from claiming the spoils (once Guilds finishes, his only advantage in units will be samurai - are they that much different than praets?). I do think Miguelito is still ahead in the game, but have to wonder if it would've been better for him to sit on his lead and force myself and Commodore to find a way to catch up

There likely were some skirmished between Commodore and Miguelito I don't know about, but ultimately, after my early attack on See-Scape, I don't think anyone pulled off an undisputed victory in a major engagement yet

[civac2]

Attacking is notoriously difficult in Civ4. With the small economy each of you have building up for a timing is more difficult than usual.

[yuris125]

Hard Luck razed without losses. Thoth actually managed to get his praetorian to get 66% odds attacking into our stack (a crossbow was a top defender), and lost the combat. Luck definitely didn't go his way this game

Temur Energy settled




But wait......




Commodore lost a big part of his stack against Miguelito

I spent a looong time hesitating, thinking if this is the moment to go after Blue Moon, or if I should wait a turn and see how the situation develops. But ultimately decided that we're unlikely to lose much if Commodore can get enough defenders in the city / bring his stack back, and if he cannot and Miguelito starts rolling over him, it's better to be in position to capitalise. So....




As I said, I'm ready to pull back if Commodore's power graph doesn't continue to fall, and if he can get his stack in position to defend in time. If he can't, we raze the city and resettle on the hill where our stack currently is

[yuris125]

Welp. Don't know if Commodore is on the way out, but this isn't looking good for him




Alas, I can't get an eye on what's going on, as he doesn't allow a scouting trireme through




Although I don't even know if I could see the main event from the inner sea, Yellow Comet doesn't seem to be under attack

No extra units to be seen around Blue Moon, apart from a freshly whipped longbow. So we continue, without Engineering Commodore can't hit the stack this turn




If we do take the city, I will consider keeping, depending on what's in it. But razing and resettling on the hill is a much safer, and almost certainly a better option. The biggest downside is that the hill spot blocks resettling Boros Burn. But don't think that city was ever good enough to worry about that

The great person born at eot is an engineer. So Gunpowder bulbing is a go

I wonder if civic switch is worth delaying, I would like extra XP from Vassalage / Theocracy, as well as free unit supply from Vassalage, but OR will help get the new cities online faster, and I may want to build Grocers in the core cities as well

[yuris125]

Maybe we should switch to Vassalage but not to Theocracy.... feels like a waste since we could've done it a good dozen turns ago, also feels like a waste eating anarchy for a single civic swap. But a dozen turns ago I thought Vassalage/Theocracy would be the civics we finish the game with... depending on how the next few turns go, I think it's very possible that we will find ourselves in a protracted duel with Miguelito, and another civic swap won't be out of the question. Also I didn't expect to be settling multiple new cities on turns 170-180, I thought we were well past OR's relevance, suddenly it's about to be very useful again

I don't know. Will think on it. Our main unit production is going to be knights for the upcoming turns, and we can build double promoted knights with barracks + stables, we don't need Vassalage for that. Probably not worth eating anarchy just for extra free unit support

[yuris125]

Blue Moon taken without losses




Commodore's culture extends far enough to make it impossible to defend, so I razed it and will settle on the hill (where we planned our 2nd city to be 150 turns ago) next turn

I think we need to go after Yellow Comet right away. Commodore's power did not go down this turn (well, not until we attacked his city), and judging by the culture graph, Miguelito didn't take any cities from him, despite killing off a large part of his stack. So perhaps their engagement was Commodore once again trying to take advantage of another player (Miguelito this time) suffering losses against Thoth. Clearly Miguelito was able to defend and cleaned up a large part of Commodore's stack, but I don't know if he's doing any attacking. In which case we definitely should try to take as much of Commodore's land as we can, before he has a chance to rebuild, and before Miguelito is in position to contest Commodore's land

[yuris125]

The more I think about it, the more unsure I am about whether going after Yellow Comet is the right play




* It is 5 tiles away from the closest city (Gruul Smash), and 9 tiles away from the main production city (Big Red Dragons). It won't be easy to reinforce
* It is not only close to Commodore's capital, and Commodore has nothing to lose at this point, but also close to Miguelito's border (we don't know where exactly his cities are, but we can see his colours). It is important strategically, but would we be able to hold it? There's value in having it in Commodore's hand as buffer between Miguelito and ourselves on this side of the map
* We're settling 3 new cities, 2 of them in the formerly Thoth's land, which Miguelito likely feels he has a claim for. I keep saying that he needs to heal the units, but how long does it really take in cities with a medic unit? 3-4 turns? Then he could well come after our baby cities in the southwest. And we're still well behind him in power. We probably can hold him off on defence, but not if our stack is busy attacking Yellow Comet, and then trying to hold it

I'm off to play Magic, so time to think about it, but it may be the case of going after Yellow Comet being too greedy, even if it may feel like we're letting Commodore off the hook by not continuing the attack. We substantially improve our position just by settling two new cities in Thothland and resettling Boros Burn in a better spot - should we risk throwing it away by sending our stack away on a risky conquest attempt?

[Tarkeel]

* We're settling 3 new cities, 2 of them in the formerly Thoth's land, which Miguelito likely feels he has a claim for. I keep saying that he needs to heal the units, but how long does it really take in cities with a medic unit? 3-4 turns? Then he could well come after our baby cities in the southwest. And we're still well behind him in power. We probably can hold him off on defence, but not if our stack is busy attacking Yellow Comet, and then trying to hold it

IIRC a unit in a city with Medic1 heals 30% per turn, so it has to be very redlined to need 4t.

[naufragar]

IIRC a unit in a city with Medic1 heals 30% per turn, so it has to be very redlined to need 4t.

I'm pretty sure this is right. Rule of thumb is 5/10/15/20 for enemy territory/neutral/allied territory/city. And then Medic is +10% on top.