[SPOILERS PB71]Krill: By the numbers, when the walls fell (on everyone else)

[Krill]

Minor update: Yuri declaredon Bing the other turn, and this turn (T174) he moved a decent stack (for him) towards Bing. The stack comprises of war elephants and cats, so pikes (especially 5XP AGG pikes) kill everything without collateral support

I'm just watching now, but if I do intervene it will to kick Yuri out and take all of Bings lands. FWIW Yuri can't make this move because it just makes it easier for me to win, as it reduces the amount of defence I need to overcome to take Bings cities, which means I can keep a stronger defence in my west. To me this is either a rookie mistake, or we're just giving up all pretense that this is a competitive game at this point.

Regarding Guilds: Pindi is showing Guilds in five turns. He has three turns of golden age left and is running a deficit but I don't think it's a large one, but he will not get Guilds in 5, maybe in 7. I think I need four turns of research to get Feudalism and Guilds. In four turns I will have slightly over 900 gold saved. I need to revise my estimate, that Pindi will get Guilds a turn or so before me. It's doesn't matter, I have about 70% more power than him at the moment, and castles are going down, and he lacks collateral.

[Krill]

Two turns today. Bing is retreating from his front city.

Bing has three things I want. Fish, Banana, and a holy city.

Now, I'm not interested in fighting for them, but I am unsure where Bing will try to make a stand. I am going to start repositioning units from next turn incase Bing collapses.

[Krill]

Another two turns, Yuri continues to wander up the coast. I recounted units and decided that the easiest way to lose was to overcommit to the west and leave myself open in the east to Commodore and Pindi, so I'm playing this more cautious than I would like. Cherry continues to build units to the east, Potato will need to build units for the south and to threaten Yuris' core, but I need to build a new stack for Bing.

There is another problem, if Yuri starts either razing stuff, or continues around I'm theoretically flanked in a weak area and he might threaten Pear. With that in mind I am somewhat forced to go in and clear out everything Yuri has, even if Bing refuses to engage and just gives up all his cities.

This is no where near as challenging to play as the first samurai invasion, or the second follow up. I just need more units.

[Krill]

There are two issues with Yuri needs to be aware of in this screenshot, one incredibly obvious, another that lurkers may want to take some time trying to find out.

[Krill]

Played the afternoon turn when I really shouldn't have done, and misplayed it in several different ways. In the end I declared war on Yuri with a half decent stack, but it is one tile further away from where it should be (should be on the tile 1NE of Sippar) but I placed the stack there, then realised it would get bounced by the city coming out of revolt, so had to declare and the whole stack was bounced back a tile because there was a catapult there.

I didn't want to do this but Bing will not fight Yuri, he just keeps on retreating. So next turn I'm going to take Sippar and bottle Yuri up, with a massive mobility advantage (OB, Engineering verus a slow mover stack).

[greenline]

Can you explain the motivation for fighting Yuri in this case, rather than trying to split Bing?

[Krill]

No motivation. I've not really thought this through.

But holding Sippar gives me a straight forward defensive border and more than enough land to win. Yuri will get eaten by Thoth and he can't stop Thoths attack. Yuri won't retreat either, so I have to kill his units at some point and doing it before anyone else has knights on the board is more sensible than the alternative.

I wish Yuri hadn't done this but I didn't stop it. Now I'll just need to take everything and deal with the always war aspect of the game with no allies. Good job I don't need OB in 5 turns.

[Krill]

Jesus Christ the game has just gone berserk in the space of one turn.

Bing, for future reference: I was wondering if I could liberate your cities back to you.

[Krill]

I'm going to try and put a full report together later when the day is hot, but I need to go and do yard work whilst it's still kind of cool.

I imagine the lurkers already know that Thoth and Pidicator are about to slam into each other, but what you might not know (Pin may or may not have reported it) is that Bing is about to hit my north with a 20 unit stack of ancient era junk. I'll lose Blackberry (size 3 city claiming deer and silk) for a few turns, I espect it gets razed. But Commodore has not seen the turn yet and if he decides to invade I'm going to have a three front war to manage.

[Krill]

Anyone that wants to watch an hour long video of me talking to myself, feel free. Written report later.