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

[Krill]

Turn 184 - The end of the world as we know it (goodbye Pax Sumeria).




Bing has decided he wants to try and exact vengance for razing Akkad. He will get Blackberry but this is all junk. I need to move units from Cherry but Raspberry is safe. I need to clear these units out and then reposition to defend against Commodore, and I will resettle when ready...

















...And Pindicator and Thoth are not happy with each other. To be clear, this is not a close fight, unless Pindicator has 10 knights popped out in the fog. And even then, both of them lose. Just so long as Pindicator doesn't invade me, I don't care. I'd actually gift him a much of resources but I don't have a trade route with anyone as of this turn. I will have vision on most of Thoths cities in the next three to four turns.











I'm going in relatively hard now. I need to clear out each front one at a time to be safe.

I don't actually need catapults for this, because I should get odds on everything. I've not cut the road to Yuri, I will do this next turn. I lost one HA as expected taking Sippar (came close to winning on the first battle though).

To understand just how nasty this can be for Yuri, I was getting over 98% odds with an unpromoted pike against his WE. I can see a couple of ways he can play this, essentially trying to maintain his forces and ensure he gets the first attack by hiding behind Bings culture. Unfortunately for him that means he can't move anywhere, and I think he has to put everything into Nippur to keep it safe.





I have to keep units around in the south to defend if Commodore drops off a stack. I have 20 units around here and castles, and Yuri has nothing I can see (I seriously doubt he has anything). But Potato is now churning out a unit every two turns, so this area is essentially self sufficient. Lime is settled and all the grasslands are farms, so Onion is getting up to a respectable output, and Lingonberry will be settled next turn to suck up the spare farms from Potato.





Provided without comment for vision.





You can see the 10 hitters (and 6 cats moving towards Raspberry to cover. With a few HA lying around and with what I can build I can clear out the entire Bing stack in one turn regardless of what tile it is on. I'll be leading with four 10XP maces after 6 cats. I'm attacking into axes and spears. I don't even need collateral to get odds on those units. Pindicator has fewer units defending his border cities than I do so I suspect he just wants to keep a safe border (and let's be clear: I have done nothing aggressive towards him all game and I will value a secure border extremely highly in the current game state).








OK, this remains the crack: I lose this game if I give Commodore an opening. Commodore has not been building units, and I have perfect vision on his front. Cherry is putting out a unit per turn (so not a knight) trying to restock, but even with all cities on units it's not enough IMO. But I have a plan.

I know how many units he has. The spears aren't a problem now, given I don't rely on HA. In reality, Commodore is still relying on ancient era junk so I wonder what he thinks is achievable?








So here is the plan: Pop out the 100% GS from Apple eot185, and then an "Anything except a GS" from Pear eot188. Just time Banking to complete by then (easy), and then revolt into Police State and Mercantilism. Then use the GA commerce to push to Gunpowder whilst I build up the army. Revolt back into Rep at the end of the GA.

This is not a complex situation. This problem is solved with just having more units.

I'm going to list the expected merc specs here so I can refer back later.

Apple: Scientist spec

Pear: Spy specialist (I really want to explore Commodore and I'm too lazy to build a spy!)





If this game goes long I will cram in the cathedral but just building units. I have enough pikes, but trying to keep up the one unit per turn output means I'm going to have to build a cat or longbow every few turns to keep up the 70hp. Maybe an Xbow. In a GA it will be a knight per turn.

Cherry: Engineer





I'll be settling Date location next turn and leveling the city off at size 12. I've probably miscounted though, but this will be a 20hpt city. Excellent for a city with no food resources.

Pomegranate: Engineer or merchant.




Rhubarb goes back onto military next turn. It is no longer a great city but should level off as a good city.

Spec: Artist (trying to get those three tiles from Staunton), but need to keep a 100% artist pool as a possible third GA great person).





...is there anything to say except: grow, benefit from GA hammers, finish at size 14 if I chop a forest to farm a plains tile. That gives 20hpt witha free engineer.

Olive: Engineer (merchant whilst growing).





Plum has been relegated to settler pump, and makes an easy 25hpt. It does not need to grow, and can pretty much stay in this configuration (except to move to a plains hill forest lumber mill at some point to be able and swap the current mine to a windmill to open up a lumber mill elsewhere.

Plum: Scientist (would be merchant but no market).





...Who cares. I want to farm all the plains to grow but the workers have other duties right now (combat duties is really making it awkward). Needs a forge.

Raspberry: Spy or merchant (depends on how much EP I need to get city vision).





Unit pump. Maybe a settler at some point.

Fig: Engineer (no other choice)





Going to cram in the grocer when I can, I want to build knights out of here ASAP (get a stable and it's triple promoted knights due to the settled GG).

Potato: merchant





Unit pump. Whatever is needed, grows on whatever is left from Potato. Need a forge.

Carrot: Spy





Need to get to size 13. Windmill everything (might mine afterwards to line things up a bit better. Even want to windmill the ice hill).

Needs a forge though.

Onion: Spy (no other choice).





Going to windmill both remaining hills, but grows whenever it does, and it another unit pump now.

Lemon: Spy or engineer depending on forge rounding.





Who cares, only interesting point is it needs to work a citizen for 1 hammer, three beakers and two culture.

[Qgqqqqq]

Thanks for the update!

[Krill]

You're welcome. If anyone has any questions, ask them here and I'll answer, or put them in the lurker thread and I'll try and answer after the game. This is probably the last great chance for the other players to drag me back, so the game might end soon depending on what happens. I'm not sure if I want the game to end though? If anything it's enjoyable not playing a game where knight stacks are running rampage over everything and we can use mixed arms.

Pikes are awesome and it's just nice to get to use them aggressively for once.

[Krill]

Turn played. Full report to come later with the combat logs.

It was a bloodbath.

[Krill]

Turn 185

If you want to see the combat log, scroll to the end of the post.




Yuri played his turn after midnight, and even though it was quite a short turn I don't think Yuri had many choiuces beyond what he did: pillage the road. But I have combat workers and he didn't know. Even if he didn't pillage the road it wouldn't have made any difference.





I decided to road around the pillaging war elephant and catapult because if this goes wrong later on, I want as many units available as possible. I would have had to use a pike to kill a catapult and that is a waste of a pike-turn.





Here is the problem Yuri had: my pikes have odds on every single one of his units. There was no way for him to defend, and pushing past Sippar was a tactical mistake. Invading at all was a strategic mistake. The pike won but was knocked down to minimum health.





After that it became a massacre. I micro'd in an attack on the war elephant that pillaged to ensure I don't have to deal with any units that could counter attack next turn (C2 WE v. C1 WE, I won). I did this late enough that I was more sure of the rest of the battle (and after I moved a sentry chariot to see if there were any units behind teh city I could attack once the city fell.





Behind the city were two 60ish hp war elephants, and a lot of cats. I still had no vision on Nippur but I haven't seen anything else move up this way so I know it's mostly empty.





I'm not razing the GLH even if it can never give me more than 5cpt.





Things were getting worse for Yuri. Even without pikes, I'm getting decent odds with generic units.





This was the one battle I lost this turn. I decided to expend a C2 HA instead of a more highly promoted HA (a C3 formation HA wasn't quite at full health but got 75% odds rather than the 68%). I don't know if it would have saved the HA. It did mean that one Yuri unit was left alive and in reach this turn: the cat south of the city.





Bing has nothing in the north, because he has invaded me. If he had been more defensive he might have gotten all his cities back, but now he isn't a threat in the coastal area.





I can take the city next turn, at the likely cost of one HA, or wait and use the Xbow to murder the spear.





Commodore hasn't moved yet. He probably needs to move in the next few turns to have the best chance against me.





Two HA and a chariot is not a threat when I have pikes. I pillaged the road with the chariot and retreated. The north is cut off for him.








They backed down. Pin moved units from my front towards Thoth. My greatest concern is if they immediately bury the hachet and invade me. I would struggle to defend against Thoth, Commodore and Pindi at the same time. I'd probably lose Rhubarb, but I'm almost certain that I'd hold Cherry because of vision in Commodores cities giving me warning.





I need to re-evaluate unit positions once I see yuris power dive, and I get teh border pop in Carrot end of turn.











The green lines denote different turns, and the event log misses the first attack (but it is included in the combat log).

[Krill]

I'm safe, if Thoth is taking the eastern lands from Pindi neither of them are going to plow into me in a fit of localised peace. With that in mind, time to avenge Blackberry!

[Krill]

Nothing much happened this turn. Thoth captured PIndicators eastern front city, I'll have vision on his cities once the turn rolls, and I'm moving the sentry chariot to go and see what is happening. BUt Thoth is also being tricky and has withdrawn his western stack behind a hill, he is almost certain to dive in with it in a few turns.

Commodore hasn't made any moves yet, Yuri has backed away with his two HA. I've decided against risking HA to capture Nippur, I've moved over a pike and Xbow, I should take the city in a few turns. I have a G2 longbow going to stake out the hills towards Babylon and shove a sentry chariot underneath. I've put EP against Yuri, I'll have vision on all his cities in 10 turns.

Bings invading stack didn't raze Blackberry. Let's be clear: that's a mistake. His stack dies next turn unless he basically runs away. I've got a couple of different ways to play it, but I'll probably just sacrifice the catapults and aim for the total wipe immediately for safety purposes (the cats matter for invading Bing, but I can replace 6 cats easily enough. The positioning of them would actually be easier to deal with if I built new units). I also laid a trap, it's actually superfluous in a lot of cases and it had it's costs, but it might be a bit of fun if I can pull it off.

At this point I'm pretty much fine for building units, hammer output is solid throughout the empire, but I'm looking forward to merc balancing out my suddenly trash research ability (in comparison, I'm still generating over 100bpt whilst saving gold). I don't think the game is over just yet, because Thoth might roll around Pindicator and there is no one to interfere with his sledgehammer, whilst he uses his stack outside Alekhine as an anvil. And if Pindicator moves his units away from Alekhine, well, Thoth drops his anvil from a great height onto Pins head and his core will disappear. And he will have his second MoM powered GA soon, which should put him into a decent tech position.

I will note, though, that if Pindicator had researched Engineering before Guilds, he'd have been able to build quite a few pikes, much cheaper units to deal with war elephants than knights...people need to stop focusing on Guilds so much. Pikes are great on a map like this and hte road movement would have made it far easier to hold his east. Plus castles! Unfortunately for Thoth, he can't hold Staunton because the moment it falls my culture from Rhubarb will crush the city. This also stops Commodore moving north (that plus the indefensible border past Staunton, so another benefit torebuilding my stack at Cherry is that I may be able to nab a shrine (plus Colossus) if Pindi takes an absolute beating (for the third time!)

I hope he holds out though. Id rather he stick around and slow down Thoth. Let them have a bit of a brawl. It'll be fun to watch.

[Tarkeel]

Pikes are a criminally underrated unit on the counter-offensive.

[Krill]

Retook Blackberry and destroyed Bings stack except for 1 axe. Lost 6 cats, a knight and a mace (both on high odds) and a vulture on reasonably high odds. Not a great battle but good enough at this point. Both of us got a GG.

I need to mull over how to finish him off. He has walls in every city and I've got no siege near him. I think I'm just going to have to scout him, stack up and roll over him AI style, with his three remaining cities. Knights are not the answer, but I do need a couple to help with clear up. probably going to build them out of Potato as 3 promo and let the other cities build the none mounted units.

[Krill]

Oh, I forgot to mention: It looks to me like Thoth invaded towards Alekhine (ignore my worker, this was simply the safest way to create a road connect to PIndicator, so it doesn't look like I'm a vulture).







Losing my first knight is unsurprising. It's not a great victory but enough in the grand scheme of things. Bing promoted everything up woodsman, but it's dead now. I've stacked two warriors in Raspberry in case the remaining axe can take W2 to it can't raze the city.