Depraved Danish Debauchery - Catwalk cooking up a storm [SPOILERS]

[Catwalk]

I thought about making a dash for MoM, but I doubt I'd make it there. I'm going to speed up Monarchy and speed up Shwedagon with two chops, giving me the happiness bonuses sooner. After Monarchy I think I may need to start getting some proper military tech, such as horse archers and catapults. I think this will shape up to be a fairly conventional builder game, noone is showing much interest in harrassment. To my knowledge, noone has made any actual hostile moves yet. I will keep riding a little below the power curve and build my economy, this is still a good position. I plan to continue with my culture plans, getting multiple religions and monasteries in border cities to get to 3rd and 4th ring fast.

[Catwalk]

I'm set to settle the gems city, got monarchy this turn and getting Shwedagon Paya end of next turn. I'm strongly considering Theology next, gives me another holy city and another religion. With Free Religion, controlling another religion sounds appealing. Will also give me a leg up on Islam later. One problem with that plan is that missionary spread becomes a lot more difficult after two religions are in a city. I don't know if that goes for natural spread as well. If it does, I'm unlikely to get more than 3 religions in a city and may as well settle for the 3 I have already. If anyone is reading this, care to comment without spoiling?

[Catwalk]

AT's comment in the banter thread may refer to his troops that are poised to hit my new city of Agra. He has 2 axes with C1 and Shock as well as a war chariot and two archers. I have an axe with C2 and Shock and 25% fortification, an axe with C1 and 10% fortification and a spearman with 25% fortification. I'm on a hill.

If he has indeed attacked, I imagine that he's thrown away his archers first in an attempt at weakening my top axe. That'll be a 3 vs 8.5 battle, hopefully doing minimal damage. While it's still undamaged, his axe will be 5.5 vs 8.5 if I disregard the melee bonus. I know that's not entirely correct, but I think it's close. That suggests that he'll have weak odds on my top axe with his first axe. Assuming he manages to kill it anyway, my second axe will have a 10% advantage over his second axe. If he also wins this one, he still needs to kill my spearman with his war chariot (doesn't matter if he does this earlier in the sequence). He will have very poor odds in this combat. However, should he manage to kill both axes and survive with both of his, he may be able to heal them with a promotion. I'd say his odds are not good, but on the other hand the payoff if he wins is a good amount bigger than the cost if he loses. Maybe combined odds of 20% would make it worthwhile, he's got plenty troops to throw away. Crossing my fingers that he didn't take the gamble and win, I'm relying heavily on fortifying my borders down there.

If any lurkers want to comment on my odds calculations, please feel free.

[Catwalk]

Crap on a stick! My defenders fought well, but he was able to bring another axe and another war chariot against me and he razed Acra. I think I want to send more troops and a new settler there and queue up Theology for later, I have no need to land it in another city and I don't think anyone else will get it right away. My position is still good, but this sucked

[Catwalk]

My game is going south, I played the last 5t or so quite badly. Everybody else kept pumping military like crazy, and I started getting lax. I had to whip 3 spears this turn, two of them dry whipped. I still think my macro has been sound and put me in a good position, but if I ever was in a leading position I'm certainly not anymore. I think I will get Feudalism next for longbows, I need something fast to counter maces and crossbows in case they start showing up. Researched Archery this turn, can go for Horseback Riding instead if I decide horse archers serve me better. Given how far my culture has spread, that might be the better option.

I still have Theology waiting to be completed, so I need to found a new city quite fast or I will lose out on a big advantage. My preferred position is where my old one was, I want those gems and I want to deny AT control of the entire area. He's definitely my #1 rival, need to make sure he doesn't start snowballing. I'm going to pump lots of military over the next several turns and shift my current army south. It takes a while for him to approach my other cities, so I will be able to whip in emergency defenders. 60% cultural defenses also helps a lot.

[Catwalk]

I'm mostly done pouting now, back to fighting! Trained another 4 units this turn, starting a settler next turn and researching Horseback Riding. After that I will get an army of horse archers! And after that, I will figure out how to use horse archers. I also plan on pink dotting AT some more, there's a nice PH location 4S of his capital that I have cultural control over. That actually gives me a total of 7 filler/pink dot cities to found, and I control all those sites culturally. I still like my chances of winning this game, just need to get my military needs sorted out and take advantage of my awesome happy cap.

[Catwalk]

I keep having the worst timing in this game. I have a settler ready to refound the gems city next turn, and kjn just researched Theology. Not only did I lose my awesome border control measure, I also dumped a lot of beakers into a now useless tech. Oh well, adversity supposedly builds a lot of character. I want to spread two religions there fast and chop a granary halfway, should get the city up and running pretty fast. AT has two workers hanging out on the gems, looks like he wasn't expecting me to return with a large army: 2 axes + 3 spears visible, with 2 axes + 1 spear + 1 archer 2t away.

This game is definitely teaching me the value of good micro. With better decision making I could have both landed the Great Library and held that city, I even had enough troops down there but allowed myself to get tempted into chasing a war chariot with one of my spears. I did intend for this to be a more casual game with less effort put into it, I wanted to see how well I'd fare if I played quickly and by gut feel. I probably won't be playing this way again, already this game is lesser effort because of the map size so I could have made extra time quite easily.

[Catwalk]

AT has 3 war chariots and 3 axes parked on the gems hill 1N of my city site. I have 2 axes and 3 spears, all C1. Another 2 axes, a spear and an archer will arrive next turn. I decided to delay founding 1t, preferring not to risk the settler until all troops arrive. I think he'll have weak odds if he goes after me this turn, but he might have more chariots lurking like last time. A missionary will spread buddhism same turn it's founded.

[Qgqqqqq]

Are you stisfied with your position in-game?
How do you feel you compare to others there?

[Catwalk]

I'm very dissatisfied with my position, as I felt I played a good opening and squandered it over the last 10-12 turns. AT is definitely in a stronger position than me now, possibly kjn as well depending on how strong his demos are. I feel I have a winning chance still, but I will need to improve both economically and militarily. My ace in the hole is still that I have made a very large culture claim, letting me found several new cities as soon as I can afford it and putting several monasteries in each border city for extra culture.

Big mistakes so far:
1) Missing Great Library by 1t, was possible to speed it up if I'd paid more attention
2) Allowing my southern gems expansion to be razed by AT, I actually brought enough troops but allowed 1 spearman be distracted into chasing a war chariot
3) As a result of the above raze, missing out on founding Christianity by 1t. This would have been awesome for border control, no such luck now and my investment in Theology is mostly razed.
4) I have not really taken advantage of my PHI trait yet, I should have taken IND, SPI, EXP or AGG instead.

Good plays so far IMO:
1) I really like my culture focus with 3 early religions founded, early culture is awesome on a map this tight
2) I think my banana expansion was a really good location, it's nice to have flexibility with a 0/6/0 tile and it was great to have 3 starting food and a 3/1/0 deer tile to use right away.
3) Other than the blunder with the raze mentioned above, I think I have done a good job of defending my territory with fewer troops than my opponents.