[PB37 SPOILER] Coeurva, Bacchus -- Cyrus of Carthage

[chumchu]

How about using Numids to capture the barb city blocking the Ivory? They are fast to get there and back and have excellent odds against archers. Razing and replacing seems ineffcient if you are behind and need to catch up. Ivory is not crucial if the plan is to defend a choke point. Spears with fortify bonus, terrain bonus and culture will have good odds against knights, especially when you consider the hammer cost. 10 fortified spears should be a deterrent against any fast knight attack. Against a slower push with cats you will want elephants and cats but that should take more than 15 turns.

[Coeurva]

Agree on both the Numids and the spears. I think the Krill attack has the highest priority, but Numids that take Chehalis could also be ferried over into our prospective new cities. Problem with spears is that Yuri can build swords now, so we need some Numids in Zodiac Spire first.

Just not sure on the excellent odds; those barb archers get 100% def from being in a hill city :/

Thanks for sticking around with commentary and advice!

[Bacchus]

Numids not a solution to barbarian city, but good to have for active defense, it's the only unit that can hit knights productively and is worth building by itself. Also upgrades to knights, which is nice.

Spears are awful, against C2 knights they need to find another +100% just to draw, and even one catapult hit makes them completely irrelevant.

I'm not sure I would rush guilds for ourselves. What would knights do? Conquer Savant? Not with dtay on our border. Defense? Lbows do just as well. Much better active defense then Numids, to be sure, but if dtay brings a stack to our borders it means we've already failed in a sense.

Also, we definitely should trade visibly with Yuri, exactly because it will make dtay build more knights. Unless we are planning a major decapitation counterstrike at Cahokia, but now I've thought about it, I think it will be hard to pull off. If he attacks with two movers, he can just advance beyond the city and block our approach. And if he attacks with xbows, swords are pretty useless anyway.

Still trade with Gav for maps I say.

The naval strike force needs assembly regardless, at worst we'll clean up our bay from Ethiopian encroachment.

[Coeurva]

If not Guilds, then probably either Engineering or Optics, depending on dtay's targets.

I see the point about spears dying to slight collateral damage + knights due to how modifiers work.

Will try to give Yuri fish/fish and Gavagai map/map. Wanted to log in and offer this turn, but Yuri actually logged in the minute that I did, and I suppose we're on a turn split so I left. Civstats tells me that he used his galley to found his island city, not for an attack. I've thought about it and dtay probably doesn't know about our situation (doesn't have graphs) so he might overestimate our strength and be intimidated if we ally Yuri, or at least give us more time to research Feudalism etc.

[Coeurva]

T121

Krill finished Music for Duke Ellington (what good is melody? what good is Music?). In contrast to Savant's, who is building nothing but wealth/infra, I suppose (absolutely no soldiers increase for 10t), his power graph is climbing upwards and roughly at Savant's level (~240,000). We're still second in soldiers (why not), but dtay is ahead at 316,000. It's worth noting that Gavagai seems to have invested his EP into Krill more than Savant.

Well, I've sent map/map to Gavagai and copper/copper to Yuri. Let's see what comes of that. I didn't send iron/iron to Gavagai but maybe he'll notice our Heroic Epic close to Krill's islands, if he accepts. Regardless of what Gavagai does, I'll send him 1g after that, just to let him know that we're there. Iron/iron is too risky if he decides to refuse secrecy, Krill will probably not rest easy on the thought of Savant being the more likely target.

We should be able to build forts in the south to get three more galleys into the eastern sea, at the expense of losing all mobility in the west, but I don't think anyone will attack us there, and I anticipate that we'll need as many triremes as we can muster against Krill. Savant isn't building up, everyone else seems occupied with other opponents.

JR4 whipped gers in the major cities. I'm still thinking that he could also be dtay's target... dtay's GA has expired, but he's still atop the food graph and makes 170 gpt. Savant: ~120gpt. Us: 94gpt. Gavagai: 80gpt. Joey: 41gpt. Krill's GNP is very impressive, although his three world wonders might contribute a lot to that.


I'm thinking to take Compass next, actually; we'll need it anyway for our Astro bulb: might as well start collecting the payout, and it's better to whip cothons earlier than close to our Golden Age, since tile yields get boosted and trade routes don't. Instead of Numids, build cats, swords or wealth (?) in the north for a few turns. Probably swords at Sicil, trying to get a fifth galley for the attack. Metal Casting and HBR afterwards, then get Feudalism, then revolt to Vassalage in GA. Whitehall will produce the Great Person (currently on two merchants).

Krill's city of Mandrake (previously fogged, closest to us) has three improved first-ring food resources and no terrace yet. I think we can strike it from the fog, but we really need to check if he can see the clams tile from first-ring borders somehow. 1t of warning matters.

The GArtist is either for defense against Gavagai, to fire a Golden Age, or to bomb some target of conquest... Donovan, maybe? As a first-to bonus, it doesn't speak to the immediacy of Krill's plans. We'll see what he'll do. GA would thankfully expire just as we attack...

[Bacchus]

Krill's city of Mandrake (previously fogged, closest to us) has three improved first-ring food resources and no terrace yet. I think we can strike it from the fog, but we really need to check if he can see the clams tile from first-ring borders somehow. 1t of warning matters.

He's got music, so he will pop borders by building culture if he needs to. I wouldn't count on surprise.

[Coeurva]

T122

Gavagai accepted our map trade. It turns out he's even more constricted than us, just about every neighbour has taken a good deal of "his" islands (dtay, Krill, Savant, JR4), so no wonder he's remaining on 15 cities; there's nothing of note that he wants to build. Gavagai's map also included two of Yuri's cities (near dtay) and some info on Krill's islands.

Yuri has declined the copper/copper trade.


Whitehall works four specialists and its worthwhile tiles (corn, fish, dry hamlet) not currently taken by Sicil; this awards us a GP in 12t. The National Epic is due to finish in 11t from now, assuming we get the GLib. Sicil is working max hammers to finish the sword just in time to join the initial strike force. This will consist of seven CR2 swords, one CR1 sword, one unpromoted sword and a Shock chariot (Krill's currently visible garrisons are single axes, so it might be useful). Annoyingly, Lifeblood cannot 2t the first sword, but should get to that with overflow on the follow-up units. I should have checked more closely.

This force will need five galleys; we have two; I've double whipped the galley in Zodiac Spire with 20h overflow and immediate regrowth to 1-whip again on T124; the final vessel has to get whipped at Maudlin Sphinx (presently chopping a granary to completion, should have been ready this turn if we had another worker, but we didn't; oh well). Three more galleys will come via fort canal from the western sea, including Hebona (4-move GG galley).

4c trade routes are starting to crop up in the most relevant cities for cothons; excellent news, as that makes cothon profits 10c per city. The extra GA hammers might allow us to build a few settlers for backline fillers and stuff cothons into them (even before granaries), they'll be profitable instantly. Depends on what will happen in the war, I'm not sure if our Heroic Epic can carry all the weight (and Krill's capital has a Heroic Epic of its own, and isn't far from his western ports).

For tech I suggest Compass (eoT123) --> Metal Casting (eoT127 / 128, I hope cothons + GLib will make it a 2t tech at high slider) --> Code of Laws (Confu has fallen to JR4 as well; the city is on a one-tile island next to two Savant cities ). Maybe slot in Numids, but I'm actually not sure if they're all that helpful here; they have no special advantage in naval combat.

Then we could use the GA to tech Machinery and Optics while producing a GSci at the capital (maybe with Caste, maybe not) bulb Astro (how many beakers would we get from that, actually?) and roleplay the Knights of St. John.

I'm feeling a bit tired, I hope the report reads somewhat coherently.

[Bacchus]

Need Feudalism after MC.

[Coeurva]

Feudalism takes 8t, not counting its prereqs; it won't finish in time for the GA. Should we delay the GP, or just fire it anyway and revolt to Vassalage without Caste System (running 4 sci at Rhapsody will be enough for one GSci)? We can't afford to be in Caste upon expiration, I think.

Now I'm thinking my choice of Compass is a mistake, and we had better whip those cothons right after the Golden Age to work as much 203 coast as possible, and change research to Metal Casting instead for this turn.

We were #4 in food when the turn started, incidentally (308 CY) and #6 after the whip (301) -- It seems that there's two people quite close to us (I think they're Mongolia and Savant), our score there is not quite as awful as it had seemed, but dtay is far ahead.

EDIT: Alright, I've swapped research to Metal Casting. Takes 1t at 100% sci (372 bpt), which we can just afford (-191gpt) with a 1t wealth build in Boneless Foals. We will 1t Compass during the Golden Age instead, making our targets Machinery (2t? 3t?) / Compass (1t) / Optics (2t). Priesthood and Monarchy should take 3t each (Monarchy due to copious OF), so we can hopefully grab Feudalism and revolt into Vassalage right as the GA begins. (Maybe the first turn of the GA will have to finish Feud.)

Also, I worldbuildered to verfiy that the planned fort at Zodiac Spire (a tile I've just farmed, but never mind -- we'll be using the food to regrow the city onto more coast for the GA) does allow galleys to pass through the lake, then Spire, into the eastern sea. So we'll add three galleys around T130 to quickly get reinforcements to the captured islands. The worker mining the corn at Maud will assist.

[Bacchus]

Yeah, we kinda missed the point that now is not the time to be whipping. My bad too.