Beyond The Sword

[Revent]

Oh okay, fair enough. I thought it might be a point to stop. From what I remember, sometimes the AI declares without getting into fist mode!

Anyway, I decided to take peace since Asoka piled a whole bunch of units into his city. For MC and Monotheism.


Alex is now in WHEOOH now though! We are his likely target.

 

[mystyfly]

If it's a point to stop, always attach a save. Not much intel to be gained from a s/s alone. But more important is the other stuff that happens (and not posted) here... I don't want to discourage you from stopping mid-set, but it's hard for me to form proper decisions with only half the facts

AFAIK the AI doesn't DOW without WHEOOH, BUT: They may be forced (AP) or bribed to declare OR they may pass the WHEOOH-check (and begin war preparations), on the same turn discover that their relative power is high enough and that their main attack force is in place to attack, in that case they DOW on the turn they went WHEOOH.

There is reason to be careful and not completely rely on the scoreboard indicator: There are a couple of reasons why the fist wouldn't be shown on the scoreboard when the AI still is in WHEOOH but I don't think any of those applies here. If I had a save I'd make sure though

 

[Revent]

Save attached. He is in that mode now. I made peace and took MC and Mono for it.

I also traded Silk for Pigs with De Gaulle so our happy cap is up by one.

 

[mystyfly]

I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, I'm just listing stuff here that I noticed in the save:

Vijay, where all our units are, should be connected by road... looks like he'll go for lagash. Better pump units there than start a NW that won't be finished anyway.
Why didn't you tech alpha?
Uruk is losing hammers, why not finish the vulture build?
Why isn't the corn worked? Even when at , the next pop should be reachable in 1t, in case it increases.
Eridu is working unimproved grass instead of plains hill mine.
We can't make a demand off Alex to buy 10t. Well we probably could, by gifting some of our resources but I somehow never got the AI to give in to resource demands.
There is a vult on go-to vijay, should be canceled.
Why are there NO workers in the northeastern part of our empire? That's the same problem we had last time... Workers need to be spread across all cities, patali also needs a road, there's a premined forrested hill.


I suggest we just try and absorb Alex' first wave of attack somehow. I doubt we can hold Lagash but maybe he wastes time bombarding...


edit: If Alex declares we lose all resources from the other civs.

 

[Revent]

That's fine, I know sometimes I make mistakes (sadly a lot).

Uruk-Will do
Alpha-Just got enough gold for it this turn for 100%
Capital-That's a good idea actually, will bear that in mind! I never thought of that
Eridu-Fixed. Sorry, I somehow keep missing on checking it's micro.
Vults-Cancelled them already
Worker is already roading to Ptali right now.

As for war:
I think losing Lagash is going to happen.
However, if we go for Argos (can get there in 5), we can perhaps create a distraction.

Anyway, off to watch Skyfall now, will come back and play

 

[mystyfly]

Everyone makes mistakes, I have no problems with that. Just want to make sure you don't think that I just want to bash you.

Well, depending on the next few turns we'll need more vultures now...

I think we should play defensively, try and recapture lagash if/when lost. Deffo switch to vult there and whip as many as you can. Retreat workers from the borders so we don't lose them.

I'd move the main stack from patali towards lagash. The secondary, up north at patali (all vults) could move south and depending on what alex does, head for lagash as well or try and attack argos. Primary objective is to keep (retain) our initial cities, not capture his. I'd like to fight as few uphill battles as possible...

Anyway, off to watch Skyfall now, will come back and play

Have fun! I don't know how long I'll stick around (I'm 1hr ahead of London), dunno what time it actually is to be honest, stupid DST Otherwise, catch you tmr

 

[Revent]

I did play on, Lagash was captured as expected.
Problems occurring were Ptali and Vijay decided to revolt so I was in strike for 2-3 turns and thus lost a unit or two. Went pretty rough but I managed to capture Lagash back.
Not going to lie, I feel completely out of my depth here with two early wars on Immortal.

Anyway, when I went on strike, I was almost done with Alpha so I managed to trade the rest of it off for Hunting and Alpha for Monotheism with Monty. I haven't traded MC away yet as I just got Alpha and didn't want to give it to Monty just yet!

We have lost a worker

I hope you don't mind if I hand it over to you now since you are the much more experienced player. However, if you wish, I can carry on. Sorry, no screenshots Completely slipped my mind.

Played until 225 AD.

The variant of research no greater than 10% is now in place. We want to fix up our game. I know there's been quite a bit of sloppy play from me sadly but it's not looking too bad I wouldn't be shocked if Monty came to declare on us as well

Also, we lost a worker in the first turn of the war (it was out of moves).

Argos is lightly defended. If we bring in an extra one or two vultures, we may be able to take it. Also, since that worker was dying, I saw that the city underneath Apache is also lightly defended. We could probably take them both and sue for peace.

 

[mystyfly]

I hope you don't mind if I hand it over to you now since you are the much more experienced player. However, if you wish, I can carry on. Sorry, no screenshots Completely slipped my mind.

No worries, war is what I like best How many turns did you play?

Surprised we didn't lose TRs with Monty/CdG.

I'll play later today, after I get your input on...

- Tech: We don't have a proper research rate lol but still need to pick something, either backfill small techs (like medi) or pick a more expensive one that nobody has yet and MAYBE could be traded around a little (like machinery). What do you prefer?

- Those cities that finish their forges (Uruk, Kish, Eridu) will build a few spies to finally get stuff off Asoka.

- I don't think we need more units, we should be able to get Argos and Apache with the things we have. If anything, a spear or two for stack protection against HA but I don't think that's necessary (vults have same base strength, there are no modifiers and we (unlike them) get terrain bonuses).

- All cities with zigs and a citizen to spare should run Spy specs. Especially Uruk.

 

[Revent]

I've played 14 turns.

Tech: I'm thinking Compass since it tends to be a low priority with the AI so if we get there first, we can eventually broker it.

Forge Cities: Spies, agreed. Perhaps whip out a spear in Kish to take Argos with the Vults?

I think we may need a few more units because his units are all pretty well promoted and we can't just finish them off yet because he's on a hill and we will suffer far too many casualties.

Spy citizens-agreed.

 

[mystyfly]

Not sure about that spear idea. Problem is, can't really tell where that HA is going. Our spear will take some time to get done, and since the HA is more mobile I don't think we'll get the spear to fight the HA.

OK I'll play sometime later.

 

[Revent]

Okay, that's fine by me.
Perhaps you could confuse Alex by getting those Vults two tiles away from both Argos and Sparta and whichever city is lightly defended can be taken, or feign for Sparta and take Argos?

We should find out about the HA next turn hopefully Hopefully he tries to take Lagash!

 

[mystyfly]

Played a few turns but didn't find time to play properly. Will do so tomorrow.

 

[mystyfly]

1 (125)
Taoism FIDL

Kill Alex' units around Lagash (4 killed 1 lost), GG spawned. Waiting for Uruk to finish forge to build a medic chariot afterwards.

2 (126)
Alex reinforces argos, 2 HA 2 archers 1 cat. Apache still only 1 phal 1 spear for defense. Colossus BIDL (unknown city with ToA, Hindu shrine and GLH).

3 (127)
Alex sends 1 phal 1 spear 2 cat to reinforce Apache. Fortounately for us he's one turn late.

2 losses, 2 kills.

IBT

3 units killed trying to recapture Apache

4 (128)

Vijay revolts

6 (130)

Argos falls, kill ratio 5:3. Painful victory, gotta regroup and heal...

8 (132)

Alex is willing to talk. If we return him Argos. No deal mate. Instead I capture Thebes AI really can't handle simultaneous attacks. 5:3 again though.

Also, a GS spawns

9 (133)

I hit enter to see how Alex' peace offer would change. Now he'll give us 5g Sparta was defended by 2 units and on flat terrain so I moved the 4 available vults towards it. Now he's reinforced it I doubt we can capture it. I'd suggest we take peace.

He also built MoM in Athenes.


---

Decisions/Notes:
- GS: I'd say settle. Only proper uses are GA (too early) or bulb (mathematics) won't work here.

- We captured like 3 spies during the set. Still we don't have built ONE ourselves

- Uruk just finished the forge so -cap increased. Checked F4 every turn, no resources available. After it grows it should grow by working cottages, and if necessary, switch them to specs. Don't think we need to work the mines now.

- We should whip a few chariots in vijay to reduce risk of revolts. Every turn vijay spends in revolt costs us 11g more.

- Asoka refuses to talk so we have no clue whether or not he's in WHEOOH

- Are we allowed to build research?

 

[Revent]

Wow, not only did you manage to keep Apache, you took Argos AND Thebes! I am very impressed

-GS; agree on settle, Bulbing Phil would've been strong but Taoism already founded.
-Spies are going to be our builds as soon as we get some peace. I think Gandhi has founded some island cities because the shape of that looks like it's the edge of the continent. So perhaps we could take Delhi and leave him to peace on his island (for now)?
-Alex, there's no RUSH to take him out, but he DOES have really good cities, such as a future GT city (Knosososs). What do you think about taking out Mycanea first? It's only got two archers and isn't a hill city.
-Chariots in Vijay, got that!
-Build research, sure.
-Asoka; we will deal with him, I think once we sort out our problems with Alex and Asoka, we should start spreading some religion around (enough to convert some AI at least). It'll give us some gold and cheaper espionage.
-Great play!

Will post a plan tomorrow.

 

[mystyfly]

Imo the only city worth taking is sparta, the core cities would cost too much and the western city is junk for now. I think we should't actively war on Alex until at least maces. Our eco is absolutely thrash, we have to get it purring ASAP. i suggest taking the offered peace deal. We probably could take sparta but we'd lose many high-xp vults, units that would help with revolts. Also all are injured, we'd take forever to have a proper attempt at sparta.


Not sure we can take peace with asoka if we take delhi. I'd say burn all our EPs on him (locate his 2nd city to see how they differ in EPcost). Steal the most expensive tech we can afford while we have EPs. Then eradicate him from the mainland. When we took peace he had no 3rd city iirc but if he has now he'll live, otherwise we get rid of the from his culture.

 

[Revent]

Ah okay, fair enough. The economy sucks balls right now

I did say a plan tomorrow, but I just about got home a little while back so tomorrow, the plan shall come for sure since I have the day off of work

Anyway, I did a test run just to see what Alex would do next turn and he still wants the city for peace!

 

[mystyfly]

That's really odd. I am sure he offered 5g for peace.

Well in that case we'll have to keep the war up for now. The stack of vults moving towards sparta is very vulnerable (only CR promotions) so they should probably stick to the jungle and heal, then try and attack the city while being reinforced if possible. On the other "front" (the vults that captured thebes) I don't see any cities worth capturing that are close enough. I'd move the one already in the city towards the CR-vulture-stack for protection.

If reasonnable, attack the city, if not then don't I don't think we should spend any more resources on this particular war (no more units) but check Alex' peace offer every turn and take it when it's a decent one. We don't need techs off him now (remember, it was he who started it ).

 

[Revent]

How about taking Mycenae and then giving it to him for peace? Just looking at the map right now and making some mental notes at the moment.

 

[mystyfly]

No. Don't give him cities. Going after Mycenae splits our forces, a small counterattack and thebes is lost, this is way too risky. We aren't much stronger than Alex (if we even are...)

 

[Revent]

Wow! Twice! I typed up my response and just as I'm almost done, my computer crashes. Anyway, here goes again