[Spoilers] This Perfect Place

[Mr. Cairo]

quick update: Construction should arrive in 5 turns, in that time I think I'll be making 12 HAs, hopefully more. Also founded another island city, this will be the last city I found for a while.

I had a galley stuck behind Adrien's borders thanks to his new island city, so I declared war, moved through the borders, then offered peace. I also took out a scouting WB of theirs that was about to meet Gawdzak. If I can, I don't want them to meet, because in all likelihood they'll end up signing OB, Gawdzak will see that the trade routes are IC, and know that I do not have a land border with Adrien, which means that there'll be little doubt that my power spike is aimed in Gawdzak's direction. If I keep them from meeting, then Gawdzak, having seen me take a city from Adrien before, will always have to assume that I may attack them, instead of him. And considering their relative places on the scoreboard, I imagine that Gawdzak will think it more likely that I'm planning an attack on Adrien than on him, the game leader.
I do hope that they (Adrien & Mardoc) don't take exception to this particular incident and overreact, but if they do, well, so be it. I can always switch gears, build 10 galleys, and invade them.

Edit: think I messed up a bit here. Adrien has a galley on the other coast from the WB I killed, and he has OB with Dreylin, so he may end up meeting Gawdzak with that, and if so, and they accept the peace treaty, then Gawdzak will see the enforced peace between us.

[Mr. Cairo]

Adrien accepted the peace, so at least that went according to plan. Also according to plan, Gawdzak either hasn't noticed or doesn't care about my power graph, since I've seen no significant increase in power out of him lately. He whipped quite a lot last turn, which might have been units. I'll find out soon enough I suppose.

[Mr. Cairo]

Gawdzak did the worst possible thing he could have done last turn. First, he declared war on me, then offered a peace treaty. Secondly, he built walls in Ecbatana.

What to do? If I accept the treaty, then he has another ten turns to catch up to me in military tech and power, he's already started Construction. If I don't accept then he knows that I am planning to attack him in less than 10 turns, and can basically make it impossible for me to succeed.

It's already looking unlikely to succeed thanks to those walls. My plan had always been to throw HA's at the spears to weaken them enough so that the axes defend against the chariots. But it would take way too many HAs to get through even the 2 spears they have there now, and there's probably more on the way, and thanks to the walls, the axes would even have odds on my attacking chariots. I could go in with a large stack, my cats and axes and stuff, but then I would be unlikely to take anything else. The invasion would just be too slow.

So, after thinking about it, I really only have two options.

Option 1: Accept Gawdzak's peace, realize that I lost my opportunity to attack Gawdzak, and instead invade Adrien, properly this time. I have 9 turns of peace left with him, if in that time I can build 8-10 galleys and enough units to make a decent sized invasion force, it shouldn't be a problem. His power is about the same as Gawdzak's but he has so few cities, and is not in a GA right now. He can see my power spike, but unlike Gawdzak, will not be able to respond to it well enough. I hope.

Option 2: Accept Gawdzak's peace, rush knights. I don't know how to do a proper knight rush, from what I understand I would have had to have it in mind from the get go. But from where I am now, if I stop unit production, focus entirely on commerce, I might be able to get to knights fast enough to hurt Gawdzak. But I simply don't have the production base to compete with Gawdzak 20+ turns from now. So I may well be able to get to knights before Gawdzak can get pikes or even longbows. But I doubt I'd be able to build enough of them to do enough damage.

In the end I decided to go for Option 1. I offered peace back to Gawdzak, but I'm still building units. I have 9ish turns to get everything ready. This is I think the best option, not only for my own survival, but also just in terms of winning the game. Obviously it will be a lot harder to win with an empire spread over 2 continents, but, it can also present opportunities, such as attacking Dreylin once I have some land over there. Sitting with a small little empire next to Gawdzak for the rest of the game would be pointless and boring. I'd just end up either doing nothing all game, or I'd get eaten by Gawdzak. And I think that the latter is far more likely, all things considered. At least this way, if/when Gawdzak does decide to eat me, and I can't defeat him, I can escape to the other continent.

One problem I do have is visibility. I need to find a place two tiles from Adrien's coast that is not visible to him to stage the attack. Fortunately, the borders of that island city I took from him earlier are about to pop, it has a monument and Judaism spread recently.

Ideally I'd land on the cows, that way I can hit Crepes and Bouillabaisse. However, I don't want there to be any warning. I can reach that tile in 2 moves from May It Be itself, or from the coast tile 2S of MIB. The second option is probably the best, as far as I know, since all coast tiles are on the same "height level" a unit/borders that are on a coat tile can't see coast 2 tiles away. They can see land, since it is "higher" than the sea, and land can see coast/ocean that's two tiles away since it is "lower" than the land. So if MIB can take the tile 1E of that staging tile, it will be invisible. I think. I'll test it in a sim to make sure anyway.

[Mr. Cairo]

Option 1: Accept Gawdzak's peace, realize that I lost my opportunity to attack Gawdzak, and instead invade Adrien, properly this time. I have 9 turns of peace left with him, if in that time I can build 8-10 galleys and enough units to make a decent sized invasion force, it shouldn't be a problem. His power is about the same as Gawdzak's but he has so few cities, and is not in a GA right now. He can see my power spike, but unlike Gawdzak, will not be able to respond to it well enough. I hope.

I spoke too soon, Adrien and AT popped GA's. Adrien timed his perfectly to end just as our peace treaty ends though, so there's that. Also, as I said before, he lacks the cities, and especially the production. I'm still third in production, after Gawdzak and now probably AT, both of whom are in GA's. Adrien's production pre-GA was around half mine, if not less, so I'm still confident. Certainly I'm a lot more positive about this invasion than I was about invading Gawdzak.

Re: invasion plans, I have realized that there's a better place to stage my fleet before invading, a few tiles to the S of where I had discussed it before. As long as Bouillabaisse doesn't get any culture in it, and right now it has none, it will be invisible to Adrien. It will be visible to Dreylin, and already I am having to try and disguise my intentions from Dreyln, since he has a scouting WC in my lands. So I'm continuing to send my HAs south, as though they're destined for Gawdzak. Hopefully, Dreylin will leave before I have to move them north.

In case anyone is interested, here's what my build up currently looks like:



Most of the galleys are going to be whipped over the next 3-4 turns. Construction is going to take 1 turn longer than planned to reach, presumably because my expenses have gone up with all these units.


I wonder if I am somewhat behind current Civ thought? All these GAs make me think that using that first GS for an Academy is no longer the "thing to do".

[Mr. Cairo]

Re: invasion plans, I have realized that there's a better place to stage my fleet before invading, a few tiles to the S of where I had discussed it before. As long as Bouillabaisse doesn't get any culture in it, and right now it has none, it will be invisible to Adrien. It will be visible to Dreylin, and already I am having to try and disguise my intentions from Dreyln, since he has a scouting WC in my lands. So I'm continuing to send my HAs south, as though they're destined for Gawdzak. Hopefully, Dreylin will leave before I have to move them north.

Scratch this, I apparently can't see or something cause those tiles are not out of Adrien's visibility.

I made a proper map with potential invasion routes:


First, the dots:
Pink dot: ideal landing tile
Blue dot: ideal staging tile
Red dot: tile I need to take over to make this work
I don't know if I will take that tile in the next 8-9 turns before I attack (timetable based on when most distantly built galley gets there). Starting this turn I'm going to track exactly the balance of control between us, but I also don't fully understand how that particular mechanic works anyway.
Edit: I am blind, forget about all this.

The other plan is outlined by the black lines. Although in this plan my invasion force is split up, I can land cats next to both cities, which may be important. Also, fog-gazing has not confirmed whether the tile 1SE of PD is flat or not. Next turn I'll have a look at what is inside Bouillabaisse, which will hopefully guide my decision. Of course, if I can't gain control of that one tile, I'll have to go the "black arrow" route.

[OT4E]

How are you going to deal with the tile below red dot?

[Mr. Cairo]

How are you going to deal with the tile below red dot?

hahaha. Wow, I must be blind. In any case, you are of course right, the "dot" plan cannot work, so I'll have to go with the "arrow" plan.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

How many galleys of troops will you have/composition?

[Mr. Cairo]

How many galleys of troops will you have/composition?

10 galleys. I could have more if I wait longer, but it's not a very long distance, so reinforcements wont take that long, and the sooner I do this, the better. In those galleys will be at least 10 HAs. The other ten units I do not yet know. Next turn, I'll have a look at Bouillabaisse to get an idea of what I may be facing. If there's lots of axes, then I'll add some chariots. But I think generally, the other 10 units will be a mix of catapults and axes, maybe 1 spear with each attacking force. The idea will be that Crepes and Bouillabaisse fall to the cats and the 1-movers, with the HA's then rushing into the (hopefully) poorly defended cities behind. I am also going to send a scouting chariot over to Dreyland to have a look at what Adrien might be having on his land border with Dreylin, and maybe even having a look at the border with Jowy. What I see will help me to decide exactly what the composition off the invasion force will be.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

How many galleys of troops will you have/composition?

10 galleys. I could have more if I wait longer, but it's not a very long distance, so reinforcements wont take that long, and the sooner I do this, the better. In those galleys will be at least 10 HAs. The other ten units I do not yet know. Next turn, I'll have a look at Bouillabaisse to get an idea of what I may be facing. If there's lots of axes, then I'll add some chariots. But I think generally, the other 10 units will be a mix of catapults and axes, maybe 1 spear with each attacking force. The idea will be that Crepes and Bouillabaisse fall to the cats and the 1-movers, with the HA's then rushing into the (hopefully) poorly defended cities behind. I am also going to send a scouting chariot over to Dreyland to have a look at what Adrien might be having on his land border with Dreylin, and maybe even having a look at the border with Jowy. What I see will help me to decide exactly what the composition off the invasion force will be.

Always difficult to time an attack. How much you can build vs they can.

Have you got stables or straight building HAs?