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

[Coeurva]

I'm a third-semester student of Computational Informatics.

T139

Savant revolted back to Slavery. Sorpigal has walls now, but it already had third-ring culture before that, so that's none too bad really. We're moving in our stack starting next turn (upgraded good old Arithmetician to an axe, too: I think we'll need every unit). All our northern cities are producing double-promotable NumCav (no time for stables here).

Took Emerald Isle: four swords, Sentry chariot, and Medic axe still alive (sadly, chanced upon a 0-damage roll on the first CR2 sword). We can (a) shuffle three of the swords and the chariot towards Sorpigal in time to join up with the land stack (amphibiously, but still: three more swords), (b) heal up and try to play for Sandcaster, the next island (Shock axe + CG1 archer currently inside). This led to stout Cortés being born in Sicil, as if we didn't have enough of a Keats sub-theme going on; see also:

I saw parch'd Abyssinia rouse and sing
To the silver cymbals' ring!
I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce
Old Tartary the fierce!
The kings of Ind their jewel-sceptres vail,
And from their treasures scatter pearled hail;
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,
And all his priesthood moans,
Before young Bacchus' eye-wink turning pale.

(alright, Russia as "Tartary" might be a bit of a stretch...)

Still need triremes to guard Hebona's eot positions, because Krill sure isn't moving his damn triremes (or if he is, then such that it's quite annoying). We can see inside Bracken now via Chehalis' expanded borders, and it's empty: I think Krill really threw every land unit towards Mandrake and planned to defend all other cities with triremes. Makes sense, but that's good news regarding his vulnerability to galleons.

JR4 made peace with Savant, which I think was a mistake, because presumably, he could have taken Tularian Forest (archer + spear + walls) as well (although maybe, he really doesn't have enough units in-theatre). His new acquisition of Vulcania will probably get locked out of its most useful tiles by Savant's own culture. And it makes sense for them to strengthen us against their land neighbour, since we have no targets among their own cities. Well, Savant is only fighting us now, and I'm not sure if he'll accept peace any time soon; we need to prioritize Sorpigal because I hope this will flare a beacon in Gavagai's mind.

For the record, the gap between Savant's power and ours is currently as big as that between his power and Yuri's. We have 587,000 soldiers. dtay, however, has 660,000. There will be seven longbows inside Zodiac Spire, but now I've switched Vermin to producing 8XP NumCav instead, for our strike at Rostov.

Joey has two horse archers, a galley, and an archer inside his newly-acquired Yekaterinburg. I think we need to bolster Crested Eyrie with a whipped longbow. In the worst case, we'll have to upgrade the archer inside the city (there's also two chariots, but they don't help much).

I've only now spotted those signs across Joey's westernmost cities. "Was ist das? Es ist ein Grieche. Wir brauchen Troika" Meneh, meneh, tekel, Peres!

EDIT: Cortés, of course, is heading southward to attach himself to a few 2XP galleys (in queue). VERA CRUZ


Cowish swaps in another scientist next turn (passing iron to Toledo hitting size3) to reach exactly 400/400 GPP eot. Finish Mono next turn, OF into Machinery, OF into Optics. Revolt to Slavery, OrgRel on the last turn of the GA.

We've lost Yuri's ivory but will soon add our own. No Savantine ships spotted near our cities (we can see everything relevant except the northern/eastern coast of Regna's island).

[Bacchus]

Are there more fillers we want to settle? May as well use the extra base hammers we have for our IMP bonus and build our remaining settlers now.

Regarding the swords, I think I would push on to Sorpigal, we want to bring this to an end quickly, before crossbows appear in sizeable numbers. We can then accumulate our cavalry there in relative peace, as his other cities are pretty far. I would prefer our further advance north, to come after Gavagai shows his hand. But I need to look at Savant's land again -- it's basically a matter of where he will choose to make the last stand, and what he will choose to cede.

[Coeurva]

Two or three more fillers are possible: one on the west coast (but that would steal Sicil's 6f resource, which gimps Sicil's production, which I really don't want), one between Vermin and Rhapsody (maybe, that city is already quite weak and adds no cothon either) and one banana island towards Joey (mostly so that Joey doesn't get it). None of these cities are particularly impressive, even with cothons, and I'd rather capture cities in war instead: even the marginal Sweet Water is better than any of those spots, and we got it essentially for free. I'd actually rather try and use the other effect of IMP right now.

Alright, Swords will skip Sandcaster and attack Sorpigal, except for the 0.8 sword, which might as well stay behind and heal. The reinforcements will consist of three 4.0/6 str CR2/3 swords and a Sentry chariot. The third galley will start ferrying around garrisons. Also agree that we want to stop at Sorpigal and defend the city with NumCav.

If we get that Great Artist at 4% odds instead of the Great Scientist, what's the back-up plan? Wait for whether we capture Sorpigal and, if so, culture-bomb the city to skip the revolt and gain defensive control? Chain a second GA and tech Guilds/Engineering/Gunpowder instead of Astro?

Unfortunately for us, Savant isn't close to out of the fight yet, despite having lost seven cities in the last 15t (one to dtay, two to Joey, one to JR4, three to us). We may have a lot of power, but half of it is tied up in garrisons (Zodiac Spire and the north-western island chain), and he's back in Slavery. If he doesn't have horse archers, he might have logistical problems reinforcing Sorpigal right now, but I think we can't afford to skip building NumCav, because organizing a counter-attacking force at Harmondale or Ironfist will be easier for him. I wish we could hit Fountain Head / Tularian Forest, and I'll try to assemble a force there right after cothons have been whipped everywhere (we do need to cushion the loss of commerce), and if it has to be empty galleons; trouble is that Joey (or JR4) can attack us at any time and we need to add some defenses against him as well; the garrisons of Foals and Eyrie might not cut it anymore.

I've forgotten to mention that Savant revolted to Hereditary Rule along with Slavery on T139, but not Vassalage (which he can't do for another 4t now). Evidently, we've screwed up his planning quite well, but longbows are imminent.

Once we're out of the GA, I think we should try to buy stone from JR4/Ref.

[Bacchus]

If we get the artist, I would run a second GA, yeah.

I think you are right to keep building NumCav (and maybe a just a couple of LBows for Sorpi garrison), the war will continue for a pretty long time and we will need more forces.

[Coeurva]

T140: Savant will shuffle another xbow into Sorpigal and probably whip another one. The biggest complication is that he has added a galley and xbow in Sandcaster, which forces us to keep a bit of a garrison in Emerald Isle (and Regna) -- I think we have to move away 1-2 triremes from escorting the stack. On the other hand, Savant can't move out that xbow to Sorpigal without losing Sandcaster. Our swords get a turn to heal before we load them next turn. There's also a single trireme west of Sandcaster (and another one of Krill's, already mentioned), but that's none too scary.

Bad news: dtay has opened borders with Joey. These are dtay's only foreign trade routes. I'm mindful of a coalition between them against us, or Mongolia (and this could be a good reason why JR4 signed peace with Savant; his power is on par with Gavagai's right now).

Switched most city builds that were on cothons to wealth (Sherry to forge, because its future will involve a lot of whips -- beginning with said forge); we have immediate uses for the gold: research, OrgRel, and upgrades as needed. Those cothons will be whipped once the GA has expired. (We're also very close to being able to finance two turns of 100% research in a row -- which would all but complete Optics and Astro by themselves while we're saving cash for Guilds).

No vision on Sorpigal yet, unfortunately. I could have promoted a NumCav to Sentry, but I think we'll need a battle promotion; next turn we'll see what's inside (at least two crossbows and two spears). Also building a stable in Sicil now; this conflicts with OrgRel, but we can use Whitehall to whip a few missionaries instead.

Need Guilds right after Astronomy.

[Coeurva]

Not the most efficient implementation, but since I'm also trying to get back into Haskell -- and to demonstrate further why it's so beautiful; not like the thread doesn't derail enough already:

Code:

sieve :: [Int] -> [Int]
sieve [] = []
sieve (x:xs) = x : (sieve . filter (f x) $ xs) where
    f x y = not $ y `elem` [x*x, (x+1)*x .. last xs]

How come you got interested in that language, by the way?

[Coeurva]

T141



That's about 33% more than I'd expected; I think we're not taking that city, even with the (5.8 str) CR3/2 swords, axe, and chariot reinforcing our attack next turn. I've sent Savant an offer of peace, expect him to reject, and hope that he'll overconfidently throw the Sorpigal stack into ours across the river and onto the hill, which wouldn't end well for him (treb collateral damage is too low and he doesn't have enough xbows to bypass the lbow / NC cover). He can also move the units out of the city (1) and attack northward to avoid the river, in which case he'd also better make sure that he kills our stack completely dead for obvious reasons. I'm fine with him accepting, though. Problem is also that we can't improve our odds by moving across the river without allowing Savant to hit our stack a lot harder.

One reason for him to take peace is that we have good chances to take Sandcaster with our veterans after landing if he doesn't. Should that not happen, we'll retreat to Ignis and defend our cities as best as we can -- galleons should ensure that we have the logistics to defend our islands -- until we reach substantial numbers of knights, NumCav, and trebuchets to move in again. There will also be opportunities to threaten Savant's western islands.

Another reason for Savant to make peace is that Gavagai has fired a Golden Age, obviously driving his MFG through the roof (366 to our 317), and didn't revolt to Caste System. I assume that either Krill or Savant will be the target. We would benefit from either.

Thought about veering off towards Harmondale instead, which must be all but empty. Savant's units in Sorpigal are a motley crew of Shock-promoted Ancient stuff, not an xbow force, suggesting that they were assembled in a haste; those trebuchets (one promoted to CR1) are quite curious too, because he definitely has Construction -- maybe he thought he could hit Ignis easily? But if we move towards Harmondale, we give Savant the option to march his stack towards Ignis, which we can't allow.

Krill continues to drive a lot of triremes around our units; four are currently visible. Two are within range to hit our fleet, along with Savant's visible trireme; however, we have three triremes covering the fleet ourselves. I'm not sure if he's going to aid Savant or not. One of the triremes could pillage the crabs in "neutral waters" around Emerald Isle on Krill's half but that's better than losing Hebona just before galleon upgrades.

I've moved a galley/trireme pair in such a way that, were the galley loaded, it could hit Krill's empty city of Bracken next turn, which might deter him from declaring on his half right away or at least force a whip of some unpromoted unit there. Also sent a galley to the northern shore of Regna as a lure for Krill (it's three tiles from the closest visible trireme) and sentry against Joey.

Incidentally, on how many 2XP galleys / galleons should we spend Cortés? Two? Three? In either event, we'll have a good surprise in store for the triremes at Mandrake...

Revolted to Slavery and OrgRel. Our soldiers: 642,000 (dtay ~680,000). Will whip cothons, forges, courthouses, building missionaries (if possible) before most of those. Also shouldn't whip too much before the Astro bulb (we did get the second GSci), since I'm pretty sure bulb beakers scale with total population.

EDIT: Savant has created a Great Artist, by the way...

[Bacchus]

Three galleys for Cortes.

Can we reinforce the Sorpigal Stack with a longbow soonish, and then maybe bring a couple of trebs? I guess we also need lbows on islands to protect against xbows.

What's the garrison in Zodiac? Should bring know count there up to 7-8 over time, and maybe 3 flankingII numids.

[Coeurva]

There's a longbow on the way already, and if Savant doesn't attack or sign peace, the stack will just move 1 (after the two NumCav pillage the mine and road) to add two more NumCav and one axe for cover. Or do you think we can make progress?

Re trebuchets: Probably not, because of the ridiculous travel times from our cities, even if we road that hill 99 of Ignis (which I've been meaning to do, but until now, I was afraid of Savant hitting the workers with horse archers from the fog). I'm quite sure Savant can put about a dozen more units inside Sorpigal by the time 3-4 trebs arrive, at which point he'll outnumber our units that can actually kill his guys 2-to-1; the strong cities of Middlegate and Ironfist are both only 4 tiles away. All I can see for offensive chances is to throw all the swords in the Sorpigal stack plus one NumCav against Sandcaster amphibiously on T143, in addition to what we have on the galleys right now (which will land T142) -- unless Savant takes the peace. Which wouldn't be too bad. We really don't want Gavagai to make easy progress any time soon, and preparing for galleons and amphi knights will give us very good options for Savant Round Two, both in the west and against Sandcaster if he signs peace now.

Because Savant's stack is slow-moving (does he even have HBR?), by trickling in more siege and thereby forcing him to add even more units to his Schwerpunkt, we'd just open the door for Gavagai to take his entire north with 40 horse archers or whatever he's going to build (you be the oracle), specifically the Mausoleum -- which I'd very much prefer to stay with Savant. How much of a garrison can there be inside Castleview? What's visible in the screenshot is at least a third of Savant's power rating.

I assume knights/NumCav with Engineering and galleons for much-improved logistics is probably our best bet against Savant.

Zodiac Spire currently has a garrison of seven Guerilla2 longbows, two 8XP Numidian Cavalry, a 4XP catapult, and assorted ancient junk (three axes, one spear, one archer, I think). I don't think Savant has more than one galley in the eastern sea, actually, and we can take Sandcaster, which looks to be his last island of relevance in the area. Vermin is currently slated to build lbows/xbows for the east (and set on a forge for this turn only, due to all-too copious OF; I want to have it installed once we unlock knights).

Our western-sea islands all have lbows and lots of archers already; there's a Savantian galley visible near Styx, which I presume will ferry an xbow into Tularian Forest. I'll increase the garrisons of Styx and Whitehall as well if we can't get peace.

One of Cortés' galleys will be a galleon, in fact. Complications might arise if Krill declares, since one of the galleys is positioned to put a longbow + catapult into either Sphinx or Chehalis as the situation demands, and such that Krill's triremes can't hit it.

[Bacchus]

Fine, let's fall back. I think you are right that Savant will now swing into the opposite mode of overwhipping defenders, and he can do that for a while yet. And do let's take the remaining island, no reason no leave him with an extra port and production queue. It's too bad we can't get Sorpigal too, but our gains have been pretty sizeable at a low cost, so can't really complain.

If we attach Cortes sooner rather than later, we can extract these troops pretty rapidly, and throw them via the channel to mess around with Yuri/Dtay or be on hand to respond to Krill's potential opportunism.

Not sure whether Engineering will be enough, but we need to get it anyway, as it's on the way to Chemistry, which we definitely want, Frigates are great. Which I guess means that we are not getting Nationalism and MilTrad. Difficult trade-off actually. With all these islands Nationhood is pretty valuable, makes garrisoning much easier, and maintenance saving is no joke.