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

[Bacchus]

I am quite set on spending a general on attachment, if only because it gives us a second NavII galleon the second we tech Astro. The ability to unload 6 units pretty much anywhere before anyone realises that's possible is huge. Also saves us 110 gold. Finally, for a long while the units that we would like to build in Vermin would be knights, cuirs and cavalry, and they can all get to 8 with a stable.

Guerilla III does not give a further defense bonus.

Gavagai seems to be in a great position to win this. One could say that we are helping him with attack on Krill, but realistically Krill wasn't going to mess with Gav until 1) finishing off China, 2) settling the islands, 3) bolstering the islands. And that's just too long.

[Coeurva]

I see the point on attachment; we'll be doing that.

Gavagai definitely looks strong here, but getting into a position to win involves him weakening Mongolia, which borders the other two front-runners, Joey and dtay, who could split their mainland in a successful campaign -- in that case, Gavagai will be threatened and threatening alike. In the second tier of nations, there's us, Krill, Savant (deceptively low score -- his demos are good and he's clearly catching up fast in tech) and JR4/Ref. All of us might yet get into a similarly strong position as the three leaders -- depending on the outcomes of wars between us.

Our diplomacy towards Savant will be rather ambiguous. We need him to be dangerous to Gavagai, but not to us; then we might also need to try and conquer his islands later. I'm not sure how to approach him going forward.

[Coeurva]

T126

0% sci, but overflow actually completes Monarchy eot. We should be on track to complete Feudalism eoT133. Galleys are gathering; I want to decrease the chances of Krill's chariot spotting them, so they're still mostly hovering around the coast east of Zodiac Spire (I think we can avoid exposure altogether). Confirming two triremes for cover, and one being built at Zodiac that can join with our fleet at Foxglove. If Krill pours everything into Mandrake during these turns, we should try to besiege the island with triremes (producing more of them at Maud) to trap the garrison, and move the galleys to the next one. Sentry chariot will spot the garrison T129 (maybe T128; depends).

Krill moved the chariot down from the hill (and saw nothing but quiet waters from both spots), but it's no matter whether we kill it on T128 or put the spear atop the forest hill, control of the tile is what's actually important. I hope that he'll be worried that we're trying to be clever and strike at Foxglove first, just because he hasn't seen ships around Maud lately, while Spire is visibly 2-whipping "things" (and because Krill is a good player, he'll spot this, and know instantly what these are).

The first forge finishes eot128, it just happens to work out that way, which means that if Krill has a map of us (I think he does, from Savant), he'll see forges (implying access to triremes) only as we'll be moving in anyway.

Diplomacy:
* Krill counter-offered exactly the same "go screw yourself" peace treaty, demanding all our gold. Which hilariously showed up as 1g, because that was all we had left on the beginning of this turn, but the spirit came across no doubt: He's going to fight us (and probably considers us stupid or arrogant about the game now, which can only help us; he might also be factually right ). His power is above Savant's by now, while we're still the second toughest in the infants (360,000); dtay, however, has reached 376,000. Damn, son.
* Gavagai has sent back nothing. Nor did he accept the offer. He might change his mind if we can make visible progress, or if he runs out of Mongol islands to seize.
* Donovan accepted OB, and counter-offered map/map. Took it, not expecting much, but of interest is that Yuri has another island (quite a good one) to his west, and we now know that Krill's Nightshade is nowhere near us (i.e. naming scheme doesn't betray locations). Donovan has founded his sixth city (we knew that) and might have a chance to grab a stone island. I'd happily trade him marble and other stuff for it.
* Yuri hastened to move all of his units into Rostov when he saw Hebona approaching in the west. I've sent him whale + silver for ivory (Yuri is the only one without whales, which we took from him, and cannot settle for silver either). Yeah, he can be our ally if he wants to. He can also see the galley inside the lake at Spire, although I'm not sure about the fort. Maybe he'll be amused by that.

[Bacchus]

I'm really not sure what's going through Yuri's mind, why oh earth would we wade to take his cities just as dtay is powering up. He's had that ancient infantry sit on a hit next to Zodiac for a while, it's pretty puzzling. I hope he doesn't give our map to Krill.

Anyway, quite excited, just three turns till stuff explodes. It's worth tracking pop in all of Krills coastal cities to have a handle on unit positions and quantity.

[Coeurva]

In fact, I'm concerned that 3t will be far too much time for Krill to prepare; he's already whipped four items on this turn and the one before; I'm hoping that a more immediate need for galleys and garrisons will delay his potential triremes until we can grab Optics in the GA. (Compass before Machinery, I think; that gives those GA hammers something to do. Don't think we'll be going to run Serfdom or Caste with an arduous war on our hands.) Caravels should give us an advantage.

We might have to abandon any designs of advancing further than Foxglove, too. If we can hold that against Krill and settle two more cities on islands close to us, as well as take Chehalis, we'll have a good position in this sea come Astronomy, at which point we'll have offensive power again.

I'll start tracking pop numbers, but since we're first to play, he can obfuscate 1-whips pretty well (although cities not growing for a while would become suspicious).

I figured Yuri placed those units to prevent a fork on said tile. He might not know that we lack Horseback Riding; he only gained research vision around T100. If we can get ivory from him, HBR will have high priority -- 8XP elephants from all Colosseum cities with stables? Yes please.

EDIT: Fact- we could make Amphibious War Elephants. The evidence is clear

EDIT: At ~150 total pop on Large Monarch, we can expect 2000 beakers from an Astronomy bulb. That still leaves about half of the tech. The other option is to double bulb by running Caste System + 6 sci in a city like Pomewater or Sherry for a second GSci during the GA, and I think it's what we should prefer. We'll just have to slot in CoL before the Golden Age begins. Cowish will also have to run ~4-5 sci in addition to the free guys, which means we need to settle a filler (build settler in Sicil) to run some of the tiles. Probably the one between Cowish and Shag Vermin.

[Bacchus]

Well, he can whip units, boats, and walls, and kind of has to do all of that together to make an impact, probably too much for 3t, but we'll see. Joey spawned an artist, so Krill might have to keep his for a bomb rather than GA, that would be very strong for us.

I think it's too late for elephants really, only as counters to knights, or if someone builds a lot of crossbows.

[Bacchus]

What if the fleet goes directly for foxglove, from say a tile 4S of Sphinx, would that save turns on getting to the triple fork position?

[Coeurva]

I think we're not gaining enough from this war if we ignore Mandrake (which is a fine city in its own right; three food resources), particularly if the goal is to prevent Krill from threatening our mainland later by pushing the front line. 4S doesn't work because we still have to load the swordsmen on T128.

T127

Strange behaviour from the game, lost connection to the PB server twice while playing and then the game briefly thought I was still logged in (?!), which will probably look suspicious to Krill... bad timing there.

Yuri has accepted our trade for ivory; good news. I think he's realizing that our enemy is Krill, not him. Besides the immediate use (happiness), it might drive a wedge between Krill and him, as well as leaving Krill to ponder the possibility of elephants.

Founded Toledo as the Lifeblood filler. Steals sheep from Lifeblood, chops granary, builds lighthouse. Or maybe even lighthouse first, but I think we want to work the grass horses before the 302 lakes, and it can take Rhapsody's iron.

Savant has whipped EXP markets everywhere lately; Joey has whipped lots of courthouses and will gain our graphs next turn (good); Gavagai took another Mongol city (that's #4); Krill's chariot is back on the hill and still sees nothing (right...?) -- In case the C1 spear doesn't win (91% odds), we have a Shock chariot for backup.

[Bacchus]

Just looked in the game, Mandrake has walls. Also a ton of units, I would imagine. I think we are going to have to come back to it with catapults and such, there is no reason to take it now, destroying the production centres if possible is more valuable.

[Coeurva]

Then we stage from 4S of Sphinx next turn (loading on the tile 7 of it), to fork Foxglove/Mandrake by moving 36 on T129, as you've suggested. This means one less galley in the attack (on Foxglove) and no triremes for cover on the main stack, but the threat might well prove more potent to a prepared enemy.

And then we might as well peer into Mandrake on T128 by moving our Sphinx galley (with Sentry chariot + sword loaded; trireme providing cover) onto the clams, too. Krill might have built walls specifically because we could see them, so as to bluff a strong garrison and deter us from attacking his weak point. Whatever the case, better reveal his hand.