[Spoiler] Master Auro Has A Living Army

[Aurorarcher]

This turn brought us some happy news.

First, the turtle attacked but my galley survived!  



It can now take another promotion, it's a shame I had to promote to c1, otherwise I could get more movement points for this galley.

And other news, FoT is still there and... it's fun when the plan works.



I'm preparing to load couple units on t108: C4, two sons, one with c3 + shock and promo available + beastman + shaman. If I place my galley in risky area (still not visible to Dave) then I could attack PiranhaBrothers on T109. I might not do that but instead burn that island city Dave settled. We'll see...

I think I'll grab RoK, it's not the greatest religion, but it has one great use; it gives me cash - and that's what I need. Later Arete (the tech and civic) is good too with Bambur, MoG is probably too expensive to be worth it. I will probably head for Alternation next after that for Enchantment, which I could get from Bambur as well... but I think mages are the thing I'll need to be able to fight against Dave for real. Once he gets his WS from Optics (also better ships) and starts to attack I need to be prepared. Lanun WS is so deadly, it can kill any unit (I think?) next to coast and destroy any improvement next to coast. So annoying on a map like this when everyone has lots of coastal cities/improvements...

[Aurorarcher]

Plans for future:



I am going to hide on t109, hopefully those 2 Griffons seen nearby won't be here next turn. Otherwise I'll need to do something else. Queen pops borders t110 so I can just sneak to the other side before that. If Dave won't see me I have a chance to raze Election night or PiranhaBrothers. He might have ships around (I'm sure he does, but unfortunately no idea how many). Hopefully not more than 2. You might say it's crazy to attack a guy with 300k power while I have about 190k, of course he has more pop but still.

Cairo is settling for gold.



He also got RoK last turn. I wonder what he is planning to, grabbing both AV and RoK. Maybe he has a plan to win this game by culture? Anyway, I decided to not go for RoK then, going to 1-turn Festivals next turn for Markets.

[Aurorarcher]

Well, it turns out I calculated wrong the turn when Queen pops its borders. Dave had Religion civic so he got 1.8 culture per turn, instead of 1.6 (like me) with only City States.



So I decided to declare and raze Queen.



Both wins over 85% odds.

Notice Dave has galley nearby and Drown as well. I think I offered Cease Fire, but now I don't actually remember if I did it for real or did I exit... . That was mostly to say: "hey Dave that city was not okay but we can be friends now" - which is a lie of course, I don't want to be friends. If he offers back Peace Treaty 10 turns I think he wants peace for real now (to build his army). We'll see. If he doesn't offer anything back he wants revenge early. If he accepts Cease Fire he doesn't think he needs Peace Treaty and has enough units in those coastal cities. The surprise attack on PiranhaBrother is now gone obviously, but at least he doesn't know how many ships I have here (actually I got 4 galleys nearby). Dave is whipping some, haven't seen much of whipping in any EitB game. It works well with the food he has.

Dave has some Drowns east too. If they step on my Fish I'll kill one of them.



I got Festivals EoT. Now I probably will get Masonry next for Forts.

[Aurorarcher]

T110.

Drowns moved on my Fish.



So I killed one at 78% odds. Gained 6 xp. That galley can now take Nav I or promote to c3.



If he wants to pillage the Fish then the other drown will die too. I have another galley build in Klein on T111.

In the NW I can't take the city in any way, but the plan was anyway to slow down Dave's Bone Palace plans, so why not just pillage the marble. That'll do something. I got a great vision of the area as well. I moved all other units away.



24 gold, thank you. It's fun to use Haste with Commandos. Dave can kill it, but he won't get too good odds with those Drowns. Only 37,70 % to win if he chooses so.

[Aurorarcher]

Well, opening T111 didn't come with much of a surprise. Klein was razed with a attack from fog by Cultists (IIRC I predicted this to happen earlier). I just hate those guys... I don't think he'll make any more progress (yet) but this side of sea is now his. Luckily for me, no more coastal cities here.



3 cultists and warrior were in that galley.

I probably won't re-settle ever. Should've put that city 1S anyway.

Also, Dave has Optics now. His GNP is just crazy, even superjm in GA doesn't have as high GNP as him. Also, that's bye bye to any advantage I might have had in the sea in NW corner (I have 5 galleys there). I unloaded all units back to my own territory. Not to mention now he has his super spell...



Demos. Dave's power keeps going, if he gets Bone Palace I'm dead.

[Aurorarcher]

T112. Dave's stack of Drowns is moving closer. I believe those Drowns were in the galley but he unloaded them when he saw my galleys. If he has 4 Cultists in that Galley my whole west coast will collapse in a minute. I guarded my city ports with Galleys but he can just go through those if he has Cultists. I am almost 95% sure there's nothing else than those Drowns though. Better to be safe than sorry, I guess (should've been earlier too). I hope he doesn't have more ships behind. I could've attacked one of his drowns at about 70% odds but I didn't want to, he would've killed my galley even if I had won the battle.



In the east things are stable for a moment. Those annoying Cultists are using Tsunami to destroy my improvements... Even my Gems mine was wiped off like nothing . That really sucks because now bunch of my cities are unhappy. Sadly Cairo and superjm have no extra happy resources I could beg for either. I am already seeing a slow, painful death but I'll try to fight as well as I can. Yeah... sure it was a mistake to make the game leader choose me as a target but I think even without declaring first, I believe he would've attacked me shortly anyway.

At the moment the chances to win the game per player are:
Dave: 85%
Cairo: 10%
superjm: 5%
Me: anything left?

[Aurorarcher]

So the rampage continues...



And what's even worse is that Dave got Bone Palace. I tried so hard to make superjm build it before, he had Marble too... bah. This is the beginning of the end. Cairo should join us immediately, and even then we wouldn't have much of a chance...

In the west my galleys got raped. I think Dave is using multiple galleys to bring Cultists quickly to the scene. They can't attack if they're loaded to new ship during the turn (well they can if they have mobility promotion still not used), but they can use tsunami. And that's what they did.



I took my shot at galley hoping there would be something still in it...





According to demos his power went down by 8k. So the galley was empty.

I thought I could hide here but oh well, at least I found another galley. I didn't delete the unit, if he kills it at least it may slow one of his units down... desperate thoughts.



Now that I think of it I could've moved back to da Vinci. But finding the 2nd galley behind there it turns out that it wouldn't have mattered much. The city will burn next turn.

[Aurorarcher]

No report for T114 because I was on a trip with my crappy laptop. But da Vinci was razed, and that galley killed.

T115.

This pic tells a lot.



I had foolishly placed one galley 1SE of that Pirate ship of Dave. He also built TGL... not that he needs it to win but yeah. At least now Cairo canceled OBs with him. Cairo is also giving me 2 happy (Fine Clothes + Silk) for my Gems. Nice of him. I tried to get his Spirit mana on T114 because I could really use it to keep my troops healthy but he didn't want to lose +5% GP input. I understand that.

Acoording to the log I believe my galley got Tsunamid twice. Which hopefully means there's only 2 Cultists on board. It's likely because of those two Drowns. But he might have more galleys behind so could easily hit Witt. And I really really can't lose that city, it's my only very good production city on west coast that can produce galleys once every 2 turns (roughly). So I will fight for it. I might even use my WS at some point to get enough wolves to use as shields to buy time.

So I thought, well, I have to attack now, I can't just let that Pirate wait for more ships. So I attacked, and the first attack the odds weren't that great. But I did it anyway.





Down to 1.7, that's good. It'll probably get a promotion... I forgot how much xp does the defender/attacker get from combat? I'm sure there's a formula for that somewhere. It'll probably be able to promote but it'll still be badly injuried.

I attacked with 2nd galley to kill Drown, and succeeded. Got a juicy amount of xp and down to 82 hp and can now take 2 promotions next turn.



Leaving the stack like this.



My units in Witt:



Not going to fall in any case.

I managed to finish fort 1SW of Witt (hard to see in pic because all the signs, oops). But I moved my hero galley there. If Dave moves forward and parks his units close enough it can attack next turn very easily to kill anything. Also I finished another galley in Witt end of turn. So if Dave doesn't have anything behind close enough to reach Witt, I don't think he'll do any attack moves. We'll see. Notice all the signs saying "fort". I have a plan to bring more galleys west to surprise Dave. I have 10 workers on the western front to do some quick Forts.

In the east Pythagoras is well defended, I could do some forts here as well to get rid of Dave's units. But I don't have enough workers to do it quickly enough. Also, this part of the world is not that much in danger because I have no more coastal cities left here. He'll bring Chariots at some point, I'm sure. He has been destroying most of the improvements on coast, which sucks but there's nothing I can do about that.



Notice the pic has been rotated by 90 degrees.

I'm getting great person out of Pythagoras in 3 or 4 turns (I forgot already). That GP is definitely going to be a GA. And I'm trying to get MS by then or so, then I'll swap to military state to save a lot of money, right now my army upkeep is over 30 gpt. Then I'll try to research Alternation for Enchantment mana. After that not sure, if I'll even live till then. Dave's army is getting bigger and bigger every turn and his GNP has gone through the roof. Dave is currently AGG/SPI/FIN, free mobility and C1 for his Cultists... Superjm at least used his WS and got a lot of Cultists but he'd need to use them very smartly. Dave has been razing a lot of his coastal cities.

Even though the game is a bit depressing as I don't see any way to win, it's still a lot of fun to play. It's interesting trying to find ways to survive as well as I can and do as much damage to Dave as possible. Playing defense can actually be very interesting.

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the update and thoughts! It has been interesting to follow this game, and see the various strategies in play. And of course us lurkers love to see some action.

[Aurorarcher]

T116.

Dave moved forward, landed 1W of Witt and destroyed my fort with Tsunami. I used my WS to protect my coastal cities. Mostly just buying time here. I managed to kill Dave's Pirate also at 60% odds.

Dave's units left next to Witt:



Notice I have almost only wolves in the city. Doesn't matter if I lose them, if he however stays close to city and doesn't escape or bring more ships I have cunning plan, or so I think anyway



In Riemann I have one galley full health, that town will be replaced with Fort on T117.

I will also fort the tile 1E of Witt, I have two galleys in Poisson that I can bring to the battle. Then I also have a injuried galley in Witt but it can take two promotions on turn 117. I want that stack dead!

Using my WS didn't do good for my already dying economy. I had to delete a lot of wolves. Annoyingly some of them were spawned under galleys in the sea + being unable to move or load to ships...



Those unit costs...   Military State come soon!



Power graph doesn't look promising. Superjm lost a lot of power last turn, hopefully not all of those were Cultists...



He lost about 50% of the spike he got earlier, so that could be half of his Cultists...