SGOTM 22 - Anti-TSR

Time to continue, I think. I have a few hours.

Yes, Buro is a good idea. I had been thinking about Vassalage instead, but the extra hammers/gold will be useful.

The culture near Shuruppak is real. I assume it's a WB artifact of some kind. Maybe flatland-level coast if that's possible - we might be able to tell if we see any vision anomalies.

Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LowtherCastle said:

You mean there's a goofy-assed bug in the code that says that when Shuru is at 100 its own culture doesn't go to the 3rd ring, but then again it does if another city put some tile culture there once upon a time?

Because he can't own a tile if current city culture isn't on it.

I'm betting the culture vanishes once we defog it.

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You'll lose that bet. You can call it a bug, or worldbuilder effect, but it's not. (well, ok, it could be a bug.) When I play score games on tiny island maps. You learn this effect because you don't want to trip the domination limit. If you capture and even immediately raze a city on an island, those tiles will be owned by you if a nearby island's 3rd, 4th, etc ring includes it.

Mil Academy analysis

Turnset Report, t204-onwards

t204
Most of the moves were made last time.
Our Damascus GG moves towards Rome.

IBT:
Brennus Culture bombs Calleva. o.O
Gil founds a new city near Uruk.
Brennus catapults from Vienne are moving over towards Nibru!

t205
We revolt to Hinduism.
Our spy successfully steals MilSci.
Now that Calleva "isn't" threatened (there's a curiously roadless tile which can fix that), I hope a few of its units will try to hit a sacrificial warrior and archer.
The fleet departs Nibru. I can't send a galley to Nemet - there's definitely a caravel around - but will try and get back for Durocortorum.
Most of our units heal in 1 or 2 turns, at Bovino. This is the calm before the storm.

t206
Calleva is razed
It cost us 6 Cuirs, but I feel we needed to open the way for our units to get deeper.
We can now threaten Nemet and Duroc with a mini-stack each.

Our units can't threaten Vienne as I'd like - there's a Caravel in the way, and it's killed our trireme.
The mounted units land at Vienne 1-N. The 1-movers will wait until next turn so they can heal a little.
Vienne is well defended, but we can take it. The Cuirs will peek at Bibracte to see if it's an easy target next turn.

t207
Vienne might be too spicy for us.
18 units reside there (2muskets, 4WEs, 4cats, 3LBs, 1xbow, 2mace, 2knight)
Bibracte has 3 knights, 3 pikes, 2WEs, 1 musket and 1 Gallic warrior.

I think the best option here is to hole up on a hill and bombard Vienne while the grens heal properly (healing on a boat with a super medic doesn't seem to be working properly).

Durocortorum is razed
It only had 2 units inside. We lost 2 cuirs - one good odds, one poor.

Isca has 5 mixed units including an axe and a treb. We have a chariot outside it guarding 6 captured workers.

Gergovia has 4 units - only 1 musket - so we should be able to capture it next turn.

Nemocetenna has 9 units, so it will merely get pillaged this turn, but we'll have enough to capture it next turn.

Mil Acad conclusions

1. 2 Mil acads get two cities up to 1 cuirs every 2 turns.
2. Maybe we should put them in cities closest to Darius, where we'll need them most at the end-game.
3. Or cities we're least likely to draft rifles at, so not quite so close to Darius.
4. In Damascus we get 2 Cuirs every 3t. Best?

Note: I don't see us having any Cuirs anywhere close to Commando...

MilSci:

ZPV said:

I can't send a galley to Nemet - there's definitely a caravel around - but will try and get back for Durocortorum.

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I would sacrifice the tri or even a covering galley to get those trebs over there, as soon as possible. But that's also the reason to get the healed Cuirs down to Duroc asap, prefereably with a sentry promotion, to scout out the water and await the arrival of the trebs. (Or take Duroc if underdefneded.)

I think the 6 Cuir sacrifice was a wise choice although a little painful. It probably would have cost us 2t to get a couple trebs there, and then bombard. We coulda had only ~3 losses, but faster is better.

Let's put spies in HaGift for Optics, Paper, ...

Is the cat stack going toward Nibru without any kill units?

Do you have any idea where that knight stack that left Calleva is?

What healing attempt is not working for you? I learned in my turnset of a healing issue too. I think I had a super-healer on land and it was not healing boat-units in an adjacent tile. But when the healer was on the same tile, in a boat, it worked.

Vienne seems like a waste of units. Bibrachte too with those pikes. Brennus must have emptied other cities like Verlamion and Camulo, or he just had a ton more units as the Demo power screen indicated.

It's not a bad idea to heal then move on Verlamion and Tolosa?, the other cities behind Bibrachte, leaving us only Vienne, Bibrachte and Camulo to clean up, because they are close to the galley chain from Nemet to VIenne.

How exciting! We don't even know if the Rifling clock is ticking, right? So do you start each turn by checking if he got it? With each razed city, doomsday has a chance to move farther into the future.
I assume he will talk any time we want a CF, or no?

WastinTime said:

What healing attempt is not working for you? I learned in my turnset of a healing issue too. I think I had a super-healer on land and it was not healing boat-units in an adjacent tile. But when the healer was on the same tile, in a boat, it worked.

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Yeah, I landed my 2-movers (including the medic) so that there would be some empty boats in case Brennus's wounded caravel got frisky.

LowtherCastle said:

Vienne seems like a waste of units. Bibrachte too with those pikes. Brennus must have emptied other cities like Verlamion and Camulo, or he just had a ton more units as the Demo power screen indicated.

It's not a bad idea to heal then move on Verlamion and Tolosa?, the other cities behind Bibrachte, leaving us only Vienne, Bibrachte and Camulo to clean up, because they are close to the galley chain from Nemet to VIenne.

Click to expand...

I don't think we can take the time to move around there. Not even sure how you're thinking we'd get there.

Could we get him to send units to Nibru? Another bait perhaps?

Killing a pike now is better than a Rifle later.

I'm umming and ahhing about Vienne, so I'm going to upload.

EDIT: I have the wrong Cuirassier stack selected in the screenshot. The one near Vienne is mostly healthy.

I think the thing to do is put the medic back on the boat, and have the boats retreat out to neutral waters this turn (only 1 caravel in range).

The Cuirs do something, I'm not sure what. Probably try to hole up somewhere inconvenient, to freeze Brennus's units away from his southern coastal cities.
Then next turn I can think again about landing somewhere like Caumulodunum (or on the roads near Isca.

The war is going well on the other fronts...

In other news, I think my turnset is coming to an end soon (I've nearly done 20 turns now), so it'll be time to hand off to someone else, if they're willing. Probably I should make the save (and the land!) a little less messy tomorrow though.

WastinTime said:

I don't think we can take the time to move around there. Not even sure how you're thinking we'd get there.

Could we get him to send units to Nibru? Another bait perhaps?

Killing a pike now is better than a Rifle later.

Click to expand...

I was thinking just hike past Bibrachte. Our Vienne stack could meet up with our Gergovia stack. Just an idea without counting tiles.

The problem with the pikes is that with all the defenses they have in Bibrachte, they crush our Cuirs. So it's not necessarily a question of a pike now versus a rifle later. It's likely a question of suiciding our SoD to no avail or waiting for cannons later.


Speaking of which, since we didn't use the trebs for Nemet and Duroc, maybe best to upgrade them in Nibru, if they can safely remain there.

xpost

Darius has Astronomy. Let's steal Optics and Astro asap and whip a frigate and maybe a privateer in Nibru.

Are we considering the Pinch promotion occasionally? or have the muskets not been there?