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The things... they're happening
Settling party is on the way on settle the 4th city next turn (scooter is up to 6 btw, this is upsetting), but that message in the event log is a lot more noteworthy. Scooter's now has easy access to 4-move galleys. That's super scary
Also, thanks to him making contact with other and me keeping EP on him (I have to be close to making contact with others, but did not get there yet), I got research visibility, and he's on HBR?! Then I looked at his resources, which reminded me that he has ivory
With his fast start, it's very much a possibilty that he's going for war elephants as answer to phracts, maybe getting Construction from Oracle. Phracts still trade ok, and I do have mobility advantage, but he probably found the best answer to this problem
On the other hand, he doesn't have copper connected?! That idea of sending some axes his way is getting more and more tempting by the minute. In fact, I was worried about an axe rush early on, but maybe I should've considered one myself.... Also makes me wonder what was his power graph increase which I read as him building an axe in the early game
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Scooter turned on research, and HBR will take him 4 turns to complete. This is very very scary - for me it will be 7 at 100% research, but I will need to save gold first
He seems to be expanding away from me (and probably to the islands, given that he built the Great Lighthouse), seemingly happy to give up the entire north - but of course, with his snowball much bigger than mine, peace is not an option
Iron popped next to Constantinople, at least I don't have to worry about that
August 9th, 2023, 12:07
(This post was last modified: August 9th, 2023, 12:07 by yuris125.)
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By the way, I will be trying to finish barracks in time for cataphracts, I thought it wouldn't be necessary and phracts would roll over anything, but if my read is correct and Scooter is going for war elephants, having C1 on cataphracts will actually make a difference, unpromoted phract vs unpromoted elephant is a 50/50, with C1 on each phract's odds impove to ~64%
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HBR eta - T69 (nice). Might be a turn earlier when scooter researches it thanks to ktb
Improving the horses at Nicaea before pigs, so that I can start prebuilding chariots
No time for the 5th city unfortunately, will have to make do with 4
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Start of war preparations
Constantinople is going to start a worker and whip it, overflowing into chariot prebuild. Just have to be careful not to overflow too much. I really need that worker too, there's so much to do and the 4 I have are working overtime to complete all the improvements
Thessalonica can get up to 13hpt working all the mines, so don't have to worry about much there, it will finish the barracks and start getting ready. I would like to get an actual chariot for scouting before the pre-build, should be able to pull it off. Biggest concern there will be regrowing the city after the initial whip for the second round
Adrianople started an axe this turn, which will be whipped next turn with overflow into chariot prebuild. With 2hpt in the city going into an axe, overflow should give me 27, which with natural production will bring me to perfect 29. Doing the whip early so that it can regrow and wear off whip anger in time for the second round. Hopefully it can regrow onto the second wheat too, borders popped at the end of the turn - but I don't have the workers to build the farm right now! That's what I mean when saying that I don't have enough workers
Nicaea.... man, not sure if it's skill issue, but my cities are just taking too long to come online. There are 3 workers improving the city, and I'm still not sure if it can to size 4 needed for phract whip in time. Plan is to improve the pig asap, then chop the granary
So to summarise, for worker labour I need iron mine at Constantinople, second wheat farm at Adrianople, and horse road + pig pasture + chop in Nicaea. And all of it is needed right away
In terms of attack plan, the jungle belt between Scooter and me is limiting my options. Attacking a city out of nowhere seems to be out of question, this is the best I could come up with
In theory the starting tile is out of Scooter's view, especially if I kill his scouting units snooping around, so I could even assemble the stack in my territory, road that jungle, and road the unjungled tile. Even if it won't make a difference for the initial attack, it will make reinforcements easier. Then I fork the two cities (one of them I can't see, but it's there), and then we see what Scooter has for an answer
An extra concern is that Scooter still doesn't have copper connected, but he does have horses, in theory he could send chariots for a counter-attack (or even horse archers - actually should check if he has Archery). My defences are all axes. Would be good to get a spear or two, if I can fit them in the queues
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I'm getting excited for this, this is what we were promised with the game concept 
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To be fair, Scooter has been very effectively showing the power of T0 Bureaucracy. 6 cities pre-T60, Great Lighthouse, and a huge tech lead is nothing to scoff at - it's just less flashy than a cataphract attack in the 70s 
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The thing I was worried about, with Scooter attacking me with chariots... it happened
Well, at least with one chariot
Nicaea is going to fall, that's unavoidable (well, technically I could put an axe into the city and hope that chariot loses a 97% attack and the axe doesn't lose so much hp that it isn't cleaned up by a warrior....). Surprisingly, it's not as bad as it sounds, as the city isn't contributing much yet. Losing horses will mess up the prebuilds, but apart from that, it's only a bump in the road
(actually I already messed up prebuilds a bit - remember how I talked about getting a perfect 29h prebuild in Adrianople? this is where my lack of experience with this showed - I forgot about 2 hammers coming in on the whip turn itself. will have to do it again later, with a more expensive whip - probably barracks)
The best play seemed to be to attack the chariot with an axe, hope the 70% odds work in my favour, and build a new settler for the city
I did win the attack on the chariot
In Adrianople I had a choice between finishing a spear and building a chariot while I could, decided that it would be nice to have a high mobility unit. Forests / jungles are once again working out in such a way that it's difficult to attack out of nowhere (I wonder how many turns it took Scooter to get in position for an attack on Nicaea), so I can get a spear if it's needed. I wanted a scouting chariot in any case, plan was to build it in Thessalonica, but that won't be possible after I lose horses, and that city will be the one building the replacement settler
The aftermath
In other news, the scouting workboat found Mr. Cairo. He has Writing, so sent OB offer to him right away
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At least you killed the chariot, that should help. Also, congratulations on foreign contact.
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Yeah it's insane how impactful these combat rolls can be with small armies
This attack does make sense for Scooter even if he loses all his units while killing the city, now Nicaea has no chance of contributing phracts for the first wave, and if he did take Construction from Oracle, he gets a few more turns for war elephant building. I do think at least one of those axes I built should've been a spear, it's been a fair few turns since I realised Scooter didn't have copper connected, so defaulting to axes for military builds was a big mistake
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