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

[Coeurva]

CR3 is probably better saved on four swords and a different Great General; axes don't really succeed against fortified axes when attacking amphibiously, and IW isn't too far off. Either Joey or JR4 built TGLH, by the way. Target acquired.

I'll promote our galleys to NavI + sentry / NavII once they're finished. I'm also reminded by the Alphabet remark -- we have to find Gavagai, see what his plans are for Savant (his most likely target, just as we are Savant's). We'll also be assured a trade route with him, when there's no such security with anyone else we might try to meet.

You know, we could also aim to make Whitehall our Moai city. +4 culture will help to control these important waters, and there's a lot of useless coast tiles in the cross. It has enough production to build the thing in a reasonable timeframe with stone, which we might have access to, given that marble is also available on the islands. (Although most of the really good wonders lack a marble production bonus in the mod, like MoM.)

Another option is to settle Chandragupta in Sicil right now, which will produce the bulk of our northern units anyway. In fact, the library instead of barracks was something of a bad build, even though Sicil can nourish a lot of cottages and +2 culture helps to work the sheep faster -- a troop-producing hub in the north was always going to be necessary, and the capital has different tasks.

Bad news is that I forgot to set Savant's possible chariots to C1 + Shock when simming, which he might have available (C1 at minimum) since everything gets produced in barracks cities, increasing his chances of amphibious assault considerably (came out as 14.4% at 1000 iterations). Anything but a pair of chariots still gets horrible odds, though, no matter the promotions.

If he moves the galley into Fountain Head, obviously we take the city to sink it.

[Coeurva]

Time for an urgent decision: we need to ferry over the settler, but without an escort, Savant can just snipe him. If we send either of the units in Whitehall, though, we risk being boated because none of our units can reach Whitehall on this turn, barring a Morale stunt burning Chandragupta (not what we want, either).

Do we accept a 1t delay on the settler? If Savant has one, we lose the race anyway, so I guess we have to.

[Bacchus]

Yeah, a stronger argument for settling in Sicil would be if it had a Barracks, and if we were going for total war against Savant.

I considered Moai at Whitehall, it's very open to assault though, not even after razing Fountain Head would we be able to sleep peacefully.

[Bacchus]

Yeah, I think delay the settler.

Note that Savant would have exactly the same problem re Garrison.

Did Savant's galley go to Fountain?

[Coeurva]

Only just played T81. Yes it did, dropped off one spear (also promoed to Shock). Probably no settler since we could snipe the city (or Fount) depending on which units move.

Too tired for report (tomorrow instead) but gist of it, is that we can't take Cahokia, but yuris has aptly-timed barb troubles (a spear and axe pillaging everything east of the city, neither horse nor rice are connected and the city is working bad tiles) and 3 axes, 1 spr inside the capital (upgraded his warrior). 1 axe, 1 spr on oasis. I think we should feign a retreat by moving 9 next turn and wait for 3 axes, 1 chariot to reinforce, we're still forcing Yuri to keep quiet (attacking across the river really reduces his axes' chances of breaking us here; the Shock chariot getting drawn as a defender also helps; no roads without risking his units/workers to our attacks)

Oh and our capital is size9 on T82, Sicil and Lifeblood have finished their libraries (Sicil also has a cottage now, so the library actually contributes 1bpt) but more when I'll play that.

Power graphs show no increases from Savant still, I don't think he wants to fight us but he's also looking to defend and create opportunities

Might actually want to make peace with Yuri, we can't do much except maybe pillage his copper, and then he'll just connect the other one; on the other hand he builds mostly axes, maybe we can do stuff with chariots still

[Bacchus]

If we take Stonehenge, and then lose it, what happens to the monuments?

[Coeurva]

From what I tested earlier, they vanish.

Yuri is still too strong to take his cities, anyway. If he adds only two axes or archers, we have a 0% chance to take Cahokia with 6 axes, 4 chariots, 1 spear -- even if we don't attack across the river. Every other city is completely untenable. I'm quite sure we should just pull back the stack, then ask for peace around T84, and resettle the ruins before Yuri can get there. Hopefully building these units and upgrading the warrior has delayed him further.

[Coeurva]

T82

You're not going to like this, I think, but I used the Great General on a galley + axe pair, giving Flanking + NavII to the Galley, moving it 7713 from Whitehall, and loading axe + settler onto it. The axe will get Woodsman III. We land the pair on the plains forest hill next turn, then move the galley back and immediately load a chariot onto it, then repeat the same for a spear. Whip + chop second galley in Whitehall next turn (or granary? I'd actually prefer the granary, but see the immediate value in a galley).

EDIT: Actually, we could land the pair on the plains forest, and delay the settler by another turn (T85). Savant's settler inside Ironfist can't reach us on time.

The reason is that Savant has at least a chariot + spear pair at Fountain Head, and his galley is out of sight (1t north?), so landing a chariot makes no sense, but chariot/chariot vs. axe is a winning battle, even amphibiously. Unless the axe has Woody III, in which case it's 15% chances for C1 chariots. The chariot we can see isn't promoted to Shock yet (and from what I've seen, Savant really loves his Shock promotions, especially on spears -- 3 of them inside Fountain Head, all of them C1 Shock for reasons unknown). The units are covering two workers farming the wet corn, by the way. Fuck Fountain Head.

While NavII actually allows us to 2t Harmondale from inside Whitehall, it's a bit pointless since Savant will see it coming with his Sentry chariot, and we don't have enough units. Also, if he has any sense, the defenders of Harmondale are camping outside the city where our warrior can't observe them.

Savant has whipped Castle Ironfist for 2 pop. I'm guessing that's his eighth settler, but barring extraordinary events, we'll make it to X8 first.

We have 132,000 soldiers now, which is #1 (surprise) and yet feels like it's barely enough. I've offered Yuri peace for his map. There's no way we gain anything from this war, our stack is slow and at tech parity, with only a slight edge in numbers and promotions, and we can't stop Yuri from reinforcing his capital indefinitely (he can just usher in units via the cow tile and/or intelligent road-building, if nothing else). But Yuri should also want to end this war; he'll get just as stuck with his units. Also, the barbs are still pillaging his land. -- If he declines, I'll take peace without the map as well.

At Rhapsody, we're passing rice and horses to Westward for a while. At Vermin, we're building another grass hill mine to pass off the other one to Lifeblood, which needs some more production from tile yields (there's also a plains hill waiting to be mined once borders pop) and should grow to size9 (cap) now.

Vermin's settler for X9 comes out in 3t. Not sure if we should settle the eastern ruins or 4 of it; ruins get better production due to borrowing plains copper, though. 4 grabs whales from Yuri, starts with sheep and denies him western ruins (which I think we can't found sensibly) but is harder to defend, both against him and later in the game against naval attacks. Also much more reliant on the whip before library.

I'd think eastern ruins; if we can eat Yuri later, letting him resettle western ruins gives him something to do, and then something to defend.

Demographics are looking good, we're first in MFG (so Savant was Rival Best and whipped off two mines for the settler), second in Crop Yield, 5th in GNP (actually ahead of Yuris). Savant is crashing his economy, which makes X8 look very likely for him.

Whitehall's garrison is two chariots, one axe. Add a warrior (5XP, will promote to Shock) next turn. Axe and spear will trickle in across the next 5t.

EDIT: I've only just noticed, but I think Savant will also grow very concerned where our galley might have gone, and how it might have escaped his notice. He might remember the Great General, but perhaps not. It's annoying that I was last to play T81 (Savant was second-last, so I couldn't help it), because it's possible he'll think I've double-moved him. If I have time later today, I'll screenshot our galley.

[Bacchus]

I actually think Woody III is pretty sexy. I was worried that vine by landing units we can't prevent him landing and settling say banana, but Woody III makes everything really dangerous for him.

Hopefully the next islands are similarly forested.

Is the general attached to the galley or the axe?

[Coeurva]

To the galley -- which I think was a mistake, but allows us to take Morale if we ever break 13XP on that unit, which might well happen during the Renaissance if we gain a tech lead. The axe is probably more likely to see combat, though. On the other hand, one more free caravel/galleon is probably more useful than one more free land unit.

Yeah, I'm hoping that Dark Savant sees "2 first strikes, ~150% defense on forest + hill, -50% amphibious penalty" against our axe and just calls it off for now. Two chariots jumping off the galley seems unlikely in the first place, but you never know. Once we get a chariot and spear into that city and Whitehall, we're probably in the clear for a while.

I should note that Fountain Head's garrison is absurdly vulnerable to an axe stack with a single spear for cover against the chariot (those Shock spears have 10% odds against unpromoted axes), but I'm assuming that Savant will shepherd in a few axes before we could make use of that.