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

[naufragar]

Do Boudica's dog soldiers beat everyone else's axes? Iirc from vanilla experience, dog soldiers have lower power than axes, but don't require copper. Don't see any changes to it in CtH changelog

They are strength 4 but get +100% vs melee. (Honestly, Comm might've teched Archery because our Bowmen would absolutely demolish his copper units and he worried about an Archery rush by us.)

However just by getting one archer he can contest whatever city location he wants for himself. And ceding our chosen 2nd city spot to him is something I really don't want to do

Agreed. I haven't simmed out a Commodore start, but I would guess that if he really, really wanted to, he could get an archer and march it all the way to our 2nd city spot. We would have a hell of a hard time dislodging it.

With that in mind, here's a very reckless plan that gets our 2nd city founded on turn 26:



The way this works is by going worker->warrior->settler at size 2. Immediately revolt into Slavery and chop a forest. We whip the settler and the overflow completes the second warrior. We can't research Hunting before the warrior is done, otherwise it queue upgrades into a spear. Our first warrior can post up on the wooded hill we want and can claim that spot reasonably effectively. The problem with the plan is that our defense against a choke is basically nothing. But then, against an Agg warrior we would need two warriors anyway and couldn't spare any for settler escort duty if we're being choked.

[yuris125]

They are strength 4 but get +100% vs melee. (Honestly, Comm might've teched Archery because our Bowmen would absolutely demolish his copper units and he worried about an Archery rush by us.)

Ohhhh that's what I was missing. I played with them in a game vs AI and they were awful vs archers, so I didn't realise they got an extra bonus vs melee

Thanks a lot for the sim! Sounds like a risky plan, but we may have to go for it. Thing is, Commodore doesn't even have to plant an archer on our hill, just settling on the tile E of the furs and sticking an archer there is a decent 2nd city spot for him, which we wouldn't be able to contest, and which would invalidate our hill city. If he settles that spot, we're basically forced to claim ivory from Thoth and focus our expansion southward in general - and that likely pushes us into an early hot war vs Rome, which is not what we want. So while the faster settler plan you came up with requires some sacrifice from the capital, we may have to go for it. I'd be anxious if the city was protected by a single warrior, Commodore would have a good chance of razing it with an archer. But I see from your screenshot that you get a 2nd warrior as well, and that gives us significantly better odds of holding it

I'll think about it - I assume the opening is the same in any case until the capital grows to 2, so there's time to consider options, and perhaps we will get more info regarding Commodore's intentions by then

[Charriu]

But yes dog soldiers beat most other axes. They even beat Praetorians.

[yuris125]

So the million dollar question

Commodore opened with a workboat - Will he build a settler before the first worker?

If not, my feeling is that we should be ok with the T28 2nd city timing which is safer and doesn't require early whipping the capital

If yes, even T26 may be too slow as he gets a 6 food tile to build a settler off. Probably worth simming his start to see how fast he can get a settler out if he starts one immediately after growing to 2

As Nauf noted during start analysis, Commodore has 3 land tiles which can produce 4 foodhammers unimproved. He certainly can get away with not building a worker for a while. However him teching Archery first suggests that he also wants to get an archer out early, probably before the settler, otherwise these are early beakers he's not benefitting from right away

This week seems relatively relaxed with work, hopefully I'll be able to try things out

[yuris125]

While I'm in the "posting random thoughts" mode, here's another one. I don't like the no score mode. I didn't want to oppose it strongly during setup when I never played with it before. But my impression from the first turns is that information which can be derived from the score is still in the game - available through demo screen, and later through graphs. But getting it takes a lot more time and requires engaging with systems which I find tedious. In a game with normal scoring, I would be content with taking stabs at interpreting score changes the best I could. Here, without doing C&D, I would be completely in the dark - I have to do it to avoid being at tremendous disadvantage.

Bottom line is - in my opinion, the no score mode doesn't truly conceal relevant information and doesn't add any interesting decisions, but makes the game more tedious. If I sign up for future games, I will be arguing against it more strongly

[Mjmd]

I think no score makes more sense for larger games. I can see how it would be frustrating in a small tight death match.

[Tarkeel]

Personally I don't like no-score even in big games. I get the argument that it disguises large whips later in the game, but if you have unfogged your opponents' cities you can still deduce whippings.

[Mjmd]

IF is a key word. I think its actually best earlier in the game. Earlier you probably don't have map information of opponents empire. Its a time where an attacker can use delay in graph information to actually effectively attack. VS see enemy whipping, welp I guess I should start preparing.

[yuris125]

With regard to our start, I tried the sim, and think we don't need a chop to get the second city settled on T26? If we just switch to slavery the turn BW is researched and finish the wheat farm, we can 1-pop-whip the settler on T24. This gives us just enough time to finish the road, so that we move the settler on T25 and settle T26

With regards to Commodore, I confirmed that if he goes workboat straight into settler, he can get one out on T21. Although honestly, if he goes straight into settler without building a defender, we just raze his city

If he builds an archer while growing to size 4 and then builds a settler working the fish and the three 4 foodhammer tiles, his settler finishes T25. So we do need the T26 plan

[yuris125]

Commodore's scout came for a visit




What will be really telling is if Commodore parks the scout on the hill where we want the second city. A scout fortified on a forested hill will not be easy to dislodge with a warrior

Global power went up by 2k this turn - I believe that's Miguelito teching Mining