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

[Coeurva]

Yeah, I know Yuri can't hit our stack on his turn yet (chariots in the fog would just die to the spear, no way he has more than two, if any), I meant that in a general sense.

I'm not convinced we should declare and sit on the clams -- he can pass through our borders as well after we declare, and he has the better position in a war if he wants to get serious about it. Maybe Gavagai ties him up in the north, but we can't rely on that. Our defenses are one spear across three cities, and we got away with that because Savant has about the same level of military presence on his side of the border, but that's already changing and will only change in the following turns.

I realize that sitting on their clams forces his galleys into the open after they move from the "x" tile, but we can already assuredly strike at his ships there with galleys sitting in our own territorial waters, now that we have a turn split. I'd rather take Morale + Combat 4 with Chandragupta on this galley right now than declare on Savant and risk him going total war.

We're absolutely not giving up Whitehall unless I just opened the door to Savant, and not X8 either -- but we'll have to concede that he's keeping Fountain Head, which is trouble enough.

I know the unit placement is shit, and that I should have checked that the galley can't see two tiles over water.

[Bacchus]

Yeah, Fountain Head is a longer-term prospect, but obviously one of us will eventually end-up controlling both cities, either via culture or military means. Fucking steles.

Not triggering total war is maybe reasonable, your call, it's very difficult to judge the risk of that happening. If we stay quieter, galley can sit at 1NE of Whitehall, that also prevents a sudden assault.

Because of the coastal defense bonus, one basically wants to avoid attacking at sea, blocking is just so much better. Longer term though, we are going to need Triremes.

[Coeurva]

Looks like we'll have to produce a Great Artist, then.

I'm afraid of total war because Savant only has about 10,000 less power, but knows where most of our units must be, due to Civstats gossiping about Atlantic City, whereas we don't know anything about his border with Gavagai (and need to change that if we can). He might realize that we can, at most, defend. Even with our present build-up, I'm not convinced it would scare him away.

Agree that we need triremes. Maybe directly after Currency, even, if IW isn't the bigger opportunity. Great General galleys should carry us before then.

The worker on the cow will chop the last forest at Whitehall into the second galley as you suggested.

[Bacchus]

I've taken the time to process the last screenshot a bit more, and maybe have a more balanced view now. Due to pressure on Yuri, it seems that we can at least fully take initiative on that sea. Found three cities, two on the ruins, one on the island (on marble), and our position will be pretty strong.

In the north, we might even, grudgingly, eventually give up X8, depending how hard Savant pushes. But for now yeah, two promoted Galleys will be probably enough to defend that sea and stop Savant's progress, so that at least it remains something of a no-man's land. Too bad we absolutely have to found X8 for the economy though, we can't really shift that settler to Yuri's border and the Southern Strategy.

[Coeurva]

I've taken the time to process the last screenshot a bit more, and maybe have a more balanced view now. Due to pressure on Yuri, it seems that we can at least fully take initiative on that sea. Found three cities, two on the ruins, one on the island (on marble), and our position will be pretty strong.

Sounds good. I'm not sure if it's indicated in that screenshot, but CML pre-chopped the forest at Atlantic City for us, which means we can build a work boat at the eastern ruins very quickly by borrowing Vermin's copper (worker labour in the south is fine). Founding two cities here probably surpasses founding one of them, even though we lose the first-ring sheep (unless we settle the western ruins first, but that's risky and probably ties up more units, since ours will roam the space between Utica (Stonehenge city) and Cahokia).

Will need to think about when Vermin can produce settlers and when it has to produce units. With IMP and plains copper, it should produce 4t settlers (15 -> 22hpt, add some food). Probably on T84 or 86, depending on how many chariots we'll need.

The galley I'll whip at Lifeblood to deny Yuri's second copper probably won't ferry any units back, so we might want to use it as a scout after the landing. If so, where to head? I'm no longer sure we should aim to find dtay, who has become a rival for control of Yuri's land already; maybe steer further north-west and try to meet JR4 (who seems to be doing very well, I'd like to find out what's going on) or GermanJoey instead.

In the north, we might even, grudgingly, eventually give up X8, depending how hard Savant pushes. But for now yeah, two promoted Galleys will be probably enough to defend that sea and stop Savant's progress, so that at least it remains something of a no-man's land. Too bad we absolutely have to found X8 for the economy though, we can't really  shift that settler to Yuri's border and the Southern Strategy.

If Savant founds X8 before we can do it, I think we should settle the western half-scouted banana island -- which hopefully isn't as foodless as it appears -- to accomplish our immediate goal.

In any case, I'll move our chariot onto the superior island and whip the axe in Whitehall, adding another from Sicil right after. We should be able to control the island with a chariot-axe pair as you suggested, and keep it as a garrison; should be enough for now.

Savant didn't raze Whitehall (Civstats shows no decrease for us). In turn, I won't raze Fountain Head, not that I could if I wanted to. I'm quite sure he feels the tension as well as I do here.

I'm hoping that this maneuver ends up projecting greater military strength to Savant than what we actually have in the north -- but without making him feel threatened. Difficult line to toe.

I like that our Southern Strategy will begin with a Watergate.

[Bacchus]

How long till our next general? I ask to see whether we can realistically aim for maybe 2 Combat4-Morale galleys.

[Coeurva]

26/60, so probably not within the next 5t, unless Yuri decides to attack us and has more units than we can see. In fact, Rival Worst has 59,000 soldiers, so I'm glad for our reinforcements on the way; hope they're not 1t too late.

T80

EDIT: Research is turned off. The screenshots are ambiguous on the matter to provide more information.


Faced with a galley carrying a phantom chariot, Savant has upgraded his warrior to a spear. I'm not sure if the Shock promo was on the unit before, although I think it was, because promoting a spear to Shock makes no sense.

Because heart-stopping threats are best enjoyed when shared (I think my almanac of proverbs is faulty), there is, in fact, a galley on the marked tile... one turn late. Moving the chariot out of Whitehall was extremely hazardous, and just happened to work out well. Not doing anything like that again.

If I had to guess, it just carries another spear (because Savant saw two chariots in the area when he scouted us earlier, and Harmondale had a spear that's gone now -- 1 warrior, 1 chariot inside). I moved our galley out of range, because 1/3 chances aren't that great; we can decide next turn if we want to upgrade it with Chandragupta, or wait for the second galley.

But if that galley carries a settler, Savant beats us by a half-turn (our settler is inside Sicil) because he plays first. No comment. We can absolutely raze that city, though, and I think we should, if that happens.

EoT Sicil and Whitehall each produce an axe. Rhapsody goes axe eoT81, library eoT82, turn on Alpha research T83. (Whales also complete T82, Rhapsody hits size9 on T83, and that's also when we settle X8 -- hopefully -- so I think that's the best time to turn on research again. Academy eta T93.)

Our chariot defeated the barb axe flawlessly, to make me look bad for complaining about barbs. 2XP now. It can go south to provide MP happiness, or into Sicil to reinforce vs. Savant; not sure yet.


Yuri's units are currently fucked cucked in logistic troubles as they can't reach the capital, and what we see isn't enough to break our guys, unless he has more of them in the fog, which is always possible. The axe 78 could attack our axes at coinflip odds if Yuri sends two workers onto its present tile to road, but Yuri would lose spear + axe afterwards if we attack.

Two chariots (one 7XP Shock, one 3XP unpromoted) and one axe (4.3 str, 3XP unpromoted) are on their way to reinforce our very unimpressive stack; the third chariot arrives along with the axe within 2t, the chariots within 1t (if we don't move). I've also cancelled Lifeblood's galley and assorted operations, because Yuri's northern copper is actually not connected right now, and it doesn't make sense to split up our units here -- I'll send Vermin's veteran axes once they're fully healed (next turn). Better to improve Lifeblood's food surplus further (library -> work boat -> lighthouse).


Savant's Crop Yield is just below ours, his MFG is probably Rival Best, his GNP is not looking so good now (telling me that the spear upgrade must have hurt even more). We'll add some 16,000 soldiers next turn.

TGLH fell "in a distant land" last turn.

[Bacchus]

We may have been too clever with the general, maybe the best thing was to give the galley the promotions straight out, and just sit it there, so the Savant doesn't even attempt any sorties until he has a second galley. I'm also not sure of avoiding a 32% chance loss at the cost of leaving Whitehall open to amphibious assault, even with the axe coming out EOT. I guess we have the cultural +20%. Would the axe also get a +5% fortify? I assume not, if I haven't heard of this feature before.

[Coeurva]

I doubt Savant would try and go for the ~5% chance of taking Whitehall amphibiously if there's two chariots on the galley, and that's the best case I can think of (chariot/axe, axe/spear, chariot/spear or axe/axe each get about 1% odds). (I thought 10% chance of not losing a city is sufficient?) He didn't even take the 50% odds to raze Ignis some ten turns ago, and probably didn't consider Fountain Head an aggressive plant (although it is), but rather a vital canal so that ships from Harmondale don't get stuck in the bay for the rest of the game, and 3-move galleys are just his fastest way to get units into it. If he lands two units, we have up to four units (that we can even GG-promote if needed) that can hit his force.

I'll eat my words if he does and makes it...

The axe only begins to fortify on the next turn. (For each turn that a unit stands still from beginning to end, it gains 5% fortification up to a limit of 25%, if that's the feature you meant.)

That said, I could have left the galley 9 of Whitehall, yeah. Do we promote it on this turn, by the way? If so, to Morale-C4 or something else?

[Bacchus]

Yeah, my brain forgot that if he has a chariot/spear combo on the ship, the chariot would face the chariot, and not the axe. And this isn't RtR 3, with promotion changes and lowered cap on things like amphibious and march, as we established earlier.

As for the galley, I'm really torn now. If he moves his own galley to Fountain, we basically can't prevent him from using at as he sees fit, it should never be exposed to an assassin en route to anywhere that matters. Also even a very combat-heavy galley still dies to Trireme, and upgrades into Galleon, which again can't stand up against a real ship even with all the combat promos in the world.

Conversely, if we sit down 2 military instructors in a Moai city, we can make NavI units in any amount, which seems nice.

NavI-Sentry seems very strong to make up for our early dead scout, and plays well with Alphabet.

If spent on 4 land units produced with Barracks, we could make 4 CR3 axes (even better when attacking cities from boats than C2-Amphibious axes).

This isn't helping, is it.

Let's wait for the second boat, and makem the NavI-Sentry and NavII.