The Hills Send Back The Cry [SPOILERS]

[El Grillo]

T73 & T74:





Iron Working came in, and we have two sources, one near a newly founded city, and another that justifies a filler. We can 2t Calendar while keeping some gold on hand for emergency upgrades, and our gold/beaker multiplier ratio is close to 1:1, so I don't mind running break-even. Continuity is going to build Work Boats for the entire east coast before it gets around to hooking its own Fish, while the Iron at Mark Time makes its role as a military pump even clearer. We're chop+mining to finish the Market/Stable at Initial 64, and then it will finally build some Horse Archers.



Ginger's land has a lot of new Cottages, and I'm guessing most of his troops and Workers are in the middle of the map. I know that Khan has a Skirmisher on his Galley, so I've moved an Impi to cover Onramp in case of an attack. He also has two Workers, ostensibly Mining, but they could road the Sheep at any time. I'm not particularly concerned with the Skirmishers he's shown so far, and Khan doesn't yet have Horses connected (though he'll have access to the one in the middle), so I'm not feeling too threatened. More Galleys could also be a problem, but we've only seen one from him so far.



Adrien and Ginger are both adding more units, and Khan never really stopped building Skirmishers, from the looks of it. Khan just finished Currency, and Adrien is saving 50gpt with tech set to Metal Casting. Ginger has 151g on hand and is making 2gpt, and we'll have research visibility on him at EOT76. Adrien's putting all of his EP on me, so I'll have to split my spending occasionally.

Graphs:

[El Grillo]

T75 & T76:

Welcome to 1AD! Time for a grand strategic overview.



The game continues at a brisk 2t/day pace. Adrien started his 1-man GA with his Prophet, which will put him in a strong position to tech Metal Casting through Monarchy and swap. Khan has a Great Scientist in reserve. No sign of any GPs from Ginger yet. Our own GP out of Initial 64 will be born EOT79, in contrast. I was considering trying for the Mausoleum there with 75% modifiers, but Khan is teching Calendar now, and I trust that he has chops and overflow set up to 1-turn it with 150% modifiers, so we'll build some 5xp Horse Archers instead and look to make a play. The two settlers just finishing production are going to make my belated claim to the middle, where Khan has crammed another city. It's going to be a real powder keg in there, with no one wanting to make the first move at the current tech levels.



It looks like Ginger has another city or two on the southern coast. We'll get tech visibility on him EOT78. I still haven't seen more than a single Worker and very few units in general in the area.



Moving north, I've marked the two cities I'd like to settle on Ginger's border. The plan is that Tellefsen Hall will provide 2 Missionaries, Onramp and Silent Walk will build two more Settlers, and Initial 64 will supply the garrisons. My read on Ginger is that he has no intention or ability to contest those sites, between his lack of roads, his forces being concentrated elsewhere, and his economic priorities.



I've moved Purple Dot one tile east so it can grow using the Bananas and Clams, and so that I can settle 3W in an as yet unsigned forward site (let's call it Gold Dot). As an aside, ignore the 2t Metal Casting research for now - I don't need it just yet, and I can wait a few turns to get KTB from Adrien. Instead, my plan is to nab the Music Artist and make enough Horse Archers to one-turn Mount Pleasant from the not-visible Gold city tile, then move in the Artist to end the revolt and flip the borders on the ~3 nearby enemy cities, which will give enough time to move in defenders and maneuver.



Now, this attack is going to draw a lot of ire from Khan, so we're going to make it extra spicy. By forting one of the tiles N/NE/NW of Sproul Steps, and the desert hill leading to the middle, we can shift Galleys between the two inner seas and, more importantly, the outer sea. One of the usually-trivial things teching Calendar did is center the map, revealing that there are indeed more tiles in the outer sea. This would explain where the extra, unaccounted-for land tiles are, and it means that there must be Galley-traversable Coast beyond the vision of the mainland. The second component of the plan is 3 Galleys loaded with Horse Archers and Impi, dropped into the RAF back lines from the fog to raze cities, pillage improvements, and cause a bit of a bother.



Adrien's GA demos look good, but I could actually overtake him in GNP by teching harder. I'm more concerned about a wave of 2-pop IND Mint whips, which will be a boost I cannot match for now. The good news is that I doubt he'd attack me over Ginger, and later I hope to convert my tech advantage to a lopsided military matchup (perhaps Guilds -> Banking -> Gunpowder).

Graphs:

[El Grillo]

T77, T78, T79, T80, & T81:

I was out of town for a day and a half, and we've gone through 5 turns?!

Lots to do today, so here's Aabit of a global affairs overview in lieu of a full report:
- T77: We found a city on the Purple site. Adrien builds The Great Lighthouse. A strong wonder as always, and hopefully a prompt to Khan to cancel their trade routes. We found more of Ginger's new cities, hugging the south-eastern coastline.
- T78: We get a Great Prophet at 71% odds.
- T79: Ginger finishes Calendar and shows 2t to Currency.
- T80: We sent our settling parties towards the middle and to the south.
- T81: We get the Great Artist from Music. Khan declares war and threatens our settling party and some mines in the north. I don't think he can inflict any lasting damage - at most forcing a swap into Slavery, as I finished Construction at EOT. I finished my road to the center (had to delete the Worker to avoid tempting his Galley to land a Skirmisher on the desert hill), showed him a Horse Archer and offered peace.

I know Khan lacks HBR tech, and I haven't seen any Chariots from him, nor would I expect him to have that many built over Skirmishers (and against Impi). So no surprises, for now.



He has 4 Skirmishers that can attack into a forest defended by 2 Woodsman Impi, a Combat 2 Horse Archer, and an as yet unpromoted Archer. I can get another Archer into the city next turn, and 2 Horse Archers the turn after, at a minimum. I didn't sim a battle in detail, but I don't expect Khan to attack here. The worst case would be him doing enough damage to the HA to be able to threaten my reinforcements, while moving more of the Mount Pleasant garrison into the field. Unfortunately, if we hadn't promoted the HA, I believe the Impi would've defended before it, but it is what it is.



To the north, Khan has a lot more units, but we have a tough nut of a city, and I expect that he just wants to pillage the Gems.




I'm starting to run low on gold, but the next tech target is Engineering, via Metal Casting and Machinery.

Graphs:

[El Grillo]

T82 & T83:

War? What is it good for, anyways?




On T82, we founded Full-Field Spread (shortened to FF Spread by the city name limit) and used the combination of a Caste Artist and Build Culture to get +20% cultural borders the same turn. Of the units in range to make it into the city, my best defenders were CG Archers (5.7 effective STR) and Combat 2 HAs (7.2 effective STR). The Impi were useful last turn while defending the Forest, but they've lost most of their value now, except for deterring Spearman attacks, and Khan's forces are overwhelmingly Skirmishers. Khan actually landed two Skirmishers on the desert hill, but a trailing Horse Archer and the two Impi were able to clear them out so that the Archer could take City Garrison and move in.

It looks like Khan really doesn't want us to have a striking foothold in the center, as he's mobilized almost all of his garrisons in the area to press the attack. You can see the units in theater via the signs in the above screenshot - I was defending with a full-health Combat 2 HA, two CG Archers, and a half-health Impi. However, with our promoted Impi/HA reinforcements arriving in 1t from Onramp and 2t from Initial 64/Silent Walk, I believe we can hold the position, especially with some Catapults to shove his units off the defensive terrain.

Khan also sent in a party of 1 Skirmisher/Axeman/Spearman in the north, which I assumed was to pillage the Gems at Marchup Cadence. Instead, he went for a direct attack:

Combat results:

Read bottom up:

Khan gets these results in the north:
- Axe vs Axe at 1.3% - LOSS
- Spear vs Axe at 0.1% - LOSS
- Skirmisher vs Axe at 0.6% - LOSS

Then he gets these results in the center:
- Spear vs Archer at 18.3% - WIN (Great General born)
- Skirmisher vs HA at 3% - LOSS
- Skirmisher vs HA at 9.5% - WIN
- Skirmisher vs Archer at 13.1% - LOSS
- Skirmisher vs Impi at 99.8% - WIN

I wasn't expecting him to actually attack, but I can definitely see the argument for making the attacks as soon as possible in the center, in that he has a local superiority in numbers, while I have superiority of reinforcements. Maybe he thought he could just overwhelm my wounded units next turn with the forces he had in the area, before I could bring in more defenders. In fact, I was able to move 3 more defenders in this turn, for a total of 4 defenders facing his 6 available attackers next turn.

The reasoning for the three attacks in the north is a bit harder to understand, but it's possible Khan was trying to get a Great General spawned before starting the assault in the center. I'm certainly glad he didn't pillage the Mines, which would be a real pain to improve again if he wanted to keep up the pressure. The goods news is that once I have a couple of Catapults in position, he shouldn't be able to threaten the city itself.

The situation at EOT is:

Attackers:
- 4x 4.0 Skirmisher
- 0.5 Spear (5xp from winning 4.4 vs 5.7) - will promote/heal twice and attack at 3.1 base STR
- 2.0 Skirmisher (5xp from winning 4 vs 6.12) - will promote/heal twice and attack at 3.5 base STR

Defenders: +20% cultural defense
- 6.0 HA with Combat 2
- 5.8 HA with Combat 2
- 4.0 Impi
- 0.1 Archer with CG

This is before natural healing, which should boost my Archer by 0.7.

On average, I'd expect each of my defenders to require 2 units to kill (the HAs defend against the skirmishers at 7.2 vs 4, which should shield the Spear from defending against chipping Skirmishers long enough to do his job in preventing his Spear from attacking a HA at favorable odds), leaving me with the redlined Archer and the city standing, with another HA and two Impi in range to reach it. As I mentioned earlier, Khan's travel time from his production centers is far longer, and though he certainly can whip unpromoted Skirmishers from his center cities, I still think that if I can hold this next turn, my city is safe.




Domestically, we settled one of the two planned border cities with Ginger, but he has a Settler that looks like it'll claim the other. We also used our Prophet for the Kong Miao at Tellefsen Hall, with our Great Artist in reserve at Onramp.




Meanwhile, Adrien has used his Golden Age to power out the Great Lighthouse and the Colossus, which seems especially powerful on this map, where the oceans are only knee-deep 4-commerce Coast :D I'm not confident on his post-GA break-even tech rate, but I'd guess that it's very close to beating mine. He's saving +200gpt towards Feudalism now, presumably for the discount on Civil Service, or maybe a beeline to Knights. If I'm to interact with him at all, I expect it to be through early Astronomy and threatening razes along the outer sea. In the meantime, Maces and Crossbows should put a definitive end to Khan's Skirmisher threat.

Graphs:

Khan still lacks HBR, Construction, and Iron Working, but his power is rising sharply nonetheless.

[El Grillo]

No turn today, sadly, but my friend and I had a discussion about Golden Age timing (specifically, should we use our Great Artist to start one now, or save it for a Great Work in the middle, and use one of our upcoming Great Scientists). This is a tricky question, because we don't have civics changes to use as a rough guideline, and to be honest neither of us have much experience in multiplayer games.

I'd plan to tech to Guilds and improve a bunch of Workshops before starting a Golden Age, where we'd return all of our population to tiles that benefit from the GA bonus and build infrastructure everywhere (Forges and Ikhandas and Stables). The tech target would be Astronomy (admittedly, the bulbs available to us would be in the wrong direction, Paper->Education). The strategic plan would be to swap into Police State/Vassalage/Caste/Theocracy, hold the culture-bombed middle with Knights/Pikes/collateral, build a cutting-edge navy in the outer sea, and raze Khan/Adrien cities until concession. That's right, I'd like to bring Ginger into the winners' bracket He's been consistently non-aggressive towards me and seems less experienced mechanically, much better competition than the competent builder's game Adrien has played and the unpredictable aggression of Khan.

My friend has yet to talk me out of this, and I think Khan would have to make significant inroads before I'd consider throwing the GA earlier and using it mostly for unit production and upgrades. My main worry right now is that Adrien gets a decisive first strike with Knights in the next 10 turns, while we're still locked in combat with Khan and unable to make gains of our own. Ginger could be especially vulnerable, he still needs time to recover from his latest burst of expansion.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

No turn today, sadly, but my friend and I had a discussion about Golden Age timing (specifically, should we use our Great Artist to start one now, or save it for a Great Work in the middle, and use one of our upcoming Great Scientists). This is a tricky question, because we don't have civics changes to use as a rough guideline, and to be honest neither of us have much experience in multiplayer games.

I'd plan to tech to Guilds and improve a bunch of Workshops before starting a Golden Age, where we'd return all of our population to tiles that benefit from the GA bonus and build infrastructure everywhere (Forges and Ikhandas and Stables). The tech target would be Astronomy (admittedly, the bulbs available to us would be in the wrong direction, Paper->Education). The strategic plan would be to swap into Police State/Vassalage/Caste/Theocracy, hold the culture-bombed middle with Knights/Pikes/collateral, build a cutting-edge navy in the outer sea, and raze Khan/Adrien cities until concession. That's right, I'd like to bring Ginger into the winners' bracket He's been consistently non-aggressive towards me and seems less experienced mechanically, much better competition than the competent builder's game Adrien has played and the unpredictable aggression of Khan.

My friend has yet to talk me out of this, and I think Khan would have to make significant inroads before I'd consider throwing the GA earlier and using it mostly for unit production and upgrades. My main worry right now is that Adrien gets a decisive first strike with Knights in the next 10 turns, while we're still locked in combat with Khan and unable to make gains of our own. Ginger could be especially vulnerable, he still needs time to recover from his latest burst of expansion.

GAs are usually planned with civic changes in mind. Being Spi you're free to take them whenever. I throw them very late compared to most here, and will usually burn a turn of anarchy for beuro if it is worth it. I like to have large cities I have not whipped for a while and to get the most out of it like you. But speeding to get a crucial tech a few turns early is a good plan, as is using it as a deterrent that your MFG if diverted is high.

I would read up on culture bomb mechanics if you are thinking of using one. They don't add anywhere near as much plot culture as people think and often give a disappointing result.

[El Grillo]

I've read up on the mechanics, though admittedly I have no practical experience outside of a few tests. I was hoping mainly to make use of the immediate (and unexpected) +80% city defense and ending the revolt after capture.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Tile culture (and therefore ownership) is very different to city culture. It is hard for a bomb to shift old culture from cities that have been there a while.

[El Grillo]

Just to be clear, and to reiterate how fun this will be, the plan isn't to bomb one of my new cities (either FF Spread or its replacement if its razed) and try to flip Mount Pleasant, it's to:

1. tech to Engineering
2. road the jungle hill SW of my city
3. capture Mount Pleasant with a hidden 2-mover stack (the city tile will be hidden once I flip the Horse tile, which in 1st-ring vs 2nd-ring will be very soon)
4. if Odiham has popped borders AND there's still Khan's culture on the floodplains NE of Mount Pleasant, raze Odiham (to the best of my knowledge, the culture receding bug renders this unnecessary in any case, but if nothing else it'll serve as a reminder to bring more 2-movers than I think I'll need )
5. road the floodplains and move in the Great Artist to bomb the city to end the revolt
6. move in 1-move defenders from FF Spread into Mount Pleasant, where they'll be on a hill, behind a river, and have 80% cultural defenses

Khan won't have any warning, and by the time the other players next get the turn, there'll be no window for a counterattack. This plan does take priority over the Galley raze plan, if only because I lack the map info to do target selection. A map trade with Ginger or Adrien would be very handy, but I doubt they'll agree to it while I have the EP lead.

[El Grillo]

In brief:
- Teched Metal Casting
- Khan accepted peace
- Offered Ginger Sugar for Dye
- Thinking of using the Great General for a 5-move Galley on the outer sea