If Charly have gotten into his head that you are not a true believer, his plans almost certainly involves marching in a doomstack and then spening 20 turns bombarding your capital down, so there will likely be plenty of warning.
Shadow game
- Thread starter 5tephen
- Start date
Looking at the map this morning, I am unsure what to do about Charlie. Feels like a big gamble to ignore the possibility he's plotting on me entirely but it's possible he's not. He has a couple of HAs on my border and the 3 bordering cities each have 6-7 units in them - no definite evidence of his SoD...
My capital has only a warrior in it - vulnerable to HAs on T2 of a war. In the 3 turns until peace treaty expires I could build a spearman or walls. I could put hammers into walls and whip them into a spearman. I could move some units out my stack and reinforce my capital but by the time I have defended Pacal's former cities with a couple of units this will leave my SoD a bit short of melee units.
What I fear happening is ceasefire with Pacal. DOW Pacal a turn later. Get my SoD to Pacal's capital and Charlie DOWs me and Zara joins in the next turn and I can't peace out with anyone...
Attacking Charlie seems worse as then everyone will hate me and likely similar result. I've not got anything to trade to alter diplomacy outlook.
My SoD is costing considerable upkeep and can't sit idle for long plus isn't going to be very good once Pacal gets longbows in 3 turns.
Perhaps I ceasefire Pacal, consolidate my stack and redeclare ASAP. Put hammers into walls and start on a spearman in capital so I can whip walls into spearman if Charlie DOWs me. Can try repeat begging off Charlie when peace treaty expires but reasonable chance this fails.
My capital has only a warrior in it - vulnerable to HAs on T2 of a war. In the 3 turns until peace treaty expires I could build a spearman or walls. I could put hammers into walls and whip them into a spearman. I could move some units out my stack and reinforce my capital but by the time I have defended Pacal's former cities with a couple of units this will leave my SoD a bit short of melee units.
What I fear happening is ceasefire with Pacal. DOW Pacal a turn later. Get my SoD to Pacal's capital and Charlie DOWs me and Zara joins in the next turn and I can't peace out with anyone...
Attacking Charlie seems worse as then everyone will hate me and likely similar result. I've not got anything to trade to alter diplomacy outlook.
My SoD is costing considerable upkeep and can't sit idle for long plus isn't going to be very good once Pacal gets longbows in 3 turns.
Perhaps I ceasefire Pacal, consolidate my stack and redeclare ASAP. Put hammers into walls and start on a spearman in capital so I can whip walls into spearman if Charlie DOWs me. Can try repeat begging off Charlie when peace treaty expires but reasonable chance this fails.
Significant progress I think.
Ceasefired with Pacal. Healed up a bit and moved units around to consolidate.
Put 19 hammers into Dun in capital so could whip into spearman and built a spearman on top of that and had an axe ready to reinforce so capital shouldn't fall on turn 2 if Charlie DOWs me - all a waste if he doesn't but bet on defending the capital with one warrior seems like a surefire way to lose the map...
I think I should probably bombard some more before suiciding catapults? I've not been able to keep up with production of them as much as I would have liked due to keeping half an eye on Charlie. After this city, I'm not sure Pacal has anything worth taking - would people finish him off for capture gold, XP and stopping him vassaling to someone else or try and peace out with tech extortion? I'm inclined to stop war as soon as I can get a good deal if I can take the capital as I worry about him peace vassaling to someone I can't fight and his remaining land looks like garbage to me.
Having waited 2-3 turns for the hammer to drop from Charlie, I think I've worked out his target to be Mansa? My tentative suspicion is that Hannibal (who is being destroyed by Isabella) neighbours Mansa and has closed borders with Charlie hence the galleys in Prague and that Charlie is milling his units around as he can't attack Mansa... Hope I'm right!
Going to pause for a bit now to take any advice on attacking Pacal's capital or any other thoughts. Thanks.
As a side note, this game has been really helpful for my progression. I've learned loads from this forum but one of the lessons this game has unlearned is only doing 2+ pop whips - this game has taught me to 1 pop whip on occasion and my early game has improved a lot for getting more workers out sooner and my appreciation of how many workers I need has improved for the discussion of worker turns. I've never previously got anywhere from sticking with 3 cities in the early game and the size of army I've managed to get out and progress I've made so far from that position has been really instructive.
Edit:
Scout can become great medic - I think scouting Charlie's land is no longer an incredible move - either he'll attack me or he won't - I think less likely given he has had ample opportunity which he hasn't taken but if he does I'm sort of ready for it now...
Edit 2: might be possible to trade Isabella peace with Hannibal next turn for HBR - I think this would be good- he's a weak target for me and I don’t want Isabella getting many more cities or she'll be a behemoth
Ceasefired with Pacal. Healed up a bit and moved units around to consolidate.
Put 19 hammers into Dun in capital so could whip into spearman and built a spearman on top of that and had an axe ready to reinforce so capital shouldn't fall on turn 2 if Charlie DOWs me - all a waste if he doesn't but bet on defending the capital with one warrior seems like a surefire way to lose the map...
Spoiler Tried to beg Charlie before DOW but no dice :
I think I should probably bombard some more before suiciding catapults? I've not been able to keep up with production of them as much as I would have liked due to keeping half an eye on Charlie. After this city, I'm not sure Pacal has anything worth taking - would people finish him off for capture gold, XP and stopping him vassaling to someone else or try and peace out with tech extortion? I'm inclined to stop war as soon as I can get a good deal if I can take the capital as I worry about him peace vassaling to someone I can't fight and his remaining land looks like garbage to me.
Spoiler Pacal's capital :
Spoiler Southwest of my empire :
Spoiler Charlie's forces - considerable but not co-ordinated :
Having waited 2-3 turns for the hammer to drop from Charlie, I think I've worked out his target to be Mansa? My tentative suspicion is that Hannibal (who is being destroyed by Isabella) neighbours Mansa and has closed borders with Charlie hence the galleys in Prague and that Charlie is milling his units around as he can't attack Mansa... Hope I'm right!
Spoiler Charlie vs Mansa? :
Going to pause for a bit now to take any advice on attacking Pacal's capital or any other thoughts. Thanks.
As a side note, this game has been really helpful for my progression. I've learned loads from this forum but one of the lessons this game has unlearned is only doing 2+ pop whips - this game has taught me to 1 pop whip on occasion and my early game has improved a lot for getting more workers out sooner and my appreciation of how many workers I need has improved for the discussion of worker turns. I've never previously got anywhere from sticking with 3 cities in the early game and the size of army I've managed to get out and progress I've made so far from that position has been really instructive.
Edit:
Scout can become great medic - I think scouting Charlie's land is no longer an incredible move - either he'll attack me or he won't - I think less likely given he has had ample opportunity which he hasn't taken but if he does I'm sort of ready for it now...
Edit 2: might be possible to trade Isabella peace with Hannibal next turn for HBR - I think this would be good- he's a weak target for me and I don’t want Isabella getting many more cities or she'll be a behemoth
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@5tephen You should have begged 1gpt, not the clam. 
Clam for 10 turns it worth kind of much.
I would probably bombard with about 3 of those catapults, then promote 1-2 with colatteral and suicide them, then run some more at CR and hopefully get OK odds, then kill the rest.
Would for sure not wait another turn and let him heal and/or whip more units or reinforce.
You might be right about peacing out and getting some tech after that, land does look kind of bad.
Still, cities are cities and eliminating him makes motherland anger go away... But that might be for the next 10 turns.
The preparations you did with dun/spear sounds nice, I think I would continue to chip away at Pacal untill charly commits. Going at Pacal, your army is still within reasonable distance to turn against charly.
If you peace out with Pacal, it's more risky to move toward some distant foe.
I have never had much success with bribing for peace... What usually happens to me is that they take my tech, then 2 turns later they redeclare.
But maybe a timely bribe to get her off Hannibal could buy you time to crush Hannibal for yourself.
You are right to assess that she might become a threat though, it's a good thing Bella and Charly looks like they have some balance.
You might not get much help from Zara, both he and her looooove theocracy, so even though they are different religions they might actually be on OK terms diplo wise.
Anything other yummy you can get from HBR perhaps?
Good thing elephants are soon comming.
One option to the scout supermedic is to attach the GGeneral to an axe that has reached a reasonable amount of XP along with boosting a whole bunch of catapults to either CR2 or CR3. That axe can then either go for woody3 and do an OK job as a medic, or perhaps go for c1+m1+m2+m3, it's rather quick with CHA.
If you continue to wage war, next GGeneral will come quick enough, and then you can pair that boosted axe with some other unit and rain down 10 more xp to the axe. Might get a woody3+medic3 supermedic soon enough.
Clam for 10 turns it worth kind of much.I would probably bombard with about 3 of those catapults, then promote 1-2 with colatteral and suicide them, then run some more at CR and hopefully get OK odds, then kill the rest.
Would for sure not wait another turn and let him heal and/or whip more units or reinforce.
You might be right about peacing out and getting some tech after that, land does look kind of bad.
Still, cities are cities and eliminating him makes motherland anger go away... But that might be for the next 10 turns.
The preparations you did with dun/spear sounds nice, I think I would continue to chip away at Pacal untill charly commits. Going at Pacal, your army is still within reasonable distance to turn against charly.
If you peace out with Pacal, it's more risky to move toward some distant foe.
I have never had much success with bribing for peace... What usually happens to me is that they take my tech, then 2 turns later they redeclare.
But maybe a timely bribe to get her off Hannibal could buy you time to crush Hannibal for yourself.
You are right to assess that she might become a threat though, it's a good thing Bella and Charly looks like they have some balance.
You might not get much help from Zara, both he and her looooove theocracy, so even though they are different religions they might actually be on OK terms diplo wise.
Anything other yummy you can get from HBR perhaps?
Good thing elephants are soon comming.
One option to the scout supermedic is to attach the GGeneral to an axe that has reached a reasonable amount of XP along with boosting a whole bunch of catapults to either CR2 or CR3. That axe can then either go for woody3 and do an OK job as a medic, or perhaps go for c1+m1+m2+m3, it's rather quick with CHA.
If you continue to wage war, next GGeneral will come quick enough, and then you can pair that boosted axe with some other unit and rain down 10 more xp to the axe. Might get a woody3+medic3 supermedic soon enough.
Thanks Krikav for answering my questions. Didn’t realise 1gpt was worth less tha Clam - another learning point from this exercise.
Won't bribe Isabella for peace then - have had similar results myself.
HBR can only go to Hannibal/Isabella neither of whom will trade with me.
Will continue to pause until similar time tomorrow in case of further opinions/suggestions.
Won't bribe Isabella for peace then - have had similar results myself.
HBR can only go to Hannibal/Isabella neither of whom will trade with me.
Will continue to pause until similar time tomorrow in case of further opinions/suggestions.
Mr_Trotsky
Warlord
- Joined
- May 14, 2021
- Messages
- 204
Another reason to keep going at Pacal is that he looks like a peace vassal risk to me. I assume he’s either friendly or very nearly friendly with Charlie now. If you can even just take another couple of cities to push his culture back from the useful ones you’ve captured and leave him with a few garbage cities, him peace vassaling to Charlie some point down the line would be much less of an issue. It would be very annoying at the moment because of the culture and he’ll still tech well (for Charlie) even with five cities.
I would consider bribing Izzy off if you can’t get anything else with HBR. I’ve had the AI redeclare next turn but often it works and it would be nice to get some of Hannibal later rather than let Izzy take everything.
I would consider bribing Izzy off if you can’t get anything else with HBR. I’ve had the AI redeclare next turn but often it works and it would be nice to get some of Hannibal later rather than let Izzy take everything.
BornInCantaloup
Agent of Chaos
I'd try to take peace for techs after Mutal is captured. It doesn't really matter if he peace vassals after that, because you won't be under his cultural pressure much and you could target Carthage next, which would free up Minoan. (It will matter if Charlie DoWs you, though.)
There are 3 units in Lakamha. City comes out of revolt next turn. Pacal doesn't have horses. 2 of those units can move out right now and reinforce your stack. 2 units in Minoan, 1 of those can move out NE.
Mutal has 6 defenders. Bombard all this turn. Bombard all next turn. You'll have 9 attackers the following turns. It is acceptable to capture Mutal over the course of 2 attacking turns.
You can cancel the spear in Tolosa, that unit won't be completed.
With WE unlocked next turn, preparing extra Cats is a good move. But the Mutal experience (2 turns to capture) should incite you to raise your non-siege units count.
NB : I didn't load the save. I might be off in my comments. It certainly is an interesting situation you have on your hands, though
I like that you didn't go overboard with whipping and saved some population points.
There are 3 units in Lakamha. City comes out of revolt next turn. Pacal doesn't have horses. 2 of those units can move out right now and reinforce your stack. 2 units in Minoan, 1 of those can move out NE.
Mutal has 6 defenders. Bombard all this turn. Bombard all next turn. You'll have 9 attackers the following turns. It is acceptable to capture Mutal over the course of 2 attacking turns.
You can cancel the spear in Tolosa, that unit won't be completed.
With WE unlocked next turn, preparing extra Cats is a good move. But the Mutal experience (2 turns to capture) should incite you to raise your non-siege units count.
NB : I didn't load the save. I might be off in my comments. It certainly is an interesting situation you have on your hands, though
I like that you didn't go overboard with whipping and saved some population points.
Wow, lots to think about.
I can see merits in both suggestions. I’m going to have a think about it. Isabella and Hannibal are the only ones lacking HBR and I'll never be able to trade with them anyway so it'd be a case of giving away an outdated tech (although absolutely crucial to me that I've got to it for WEs!) I think the probable deciding factor is what it does to the diplo situation - if it doesn’t mess up my diplo, even if it doesn’t work well, it’s probably no loss.
Peace vassaling has messed me up before. My big fear is peace vassal war bribe to Zara - any views on this? I think it can be done as Zara plots at pleased. I guess I’ll see what the situation is after taking Mutal but if there’s some decent tech on offer I like the idea of peace out and go take some of Hannibal's nice land and leave Pacal to be king of the tundra.
Correct but how do you even know this without opening the save?! There was a holkan buzzing around Minoan and there are roads north east of Lakamha - I can’t count the number of times I’ve foolishly lost recently captured cities in total disasters - is the lack of AI mounted units and my stack outside his capital more or less a guarantee this won’t happen? My military tactics are a major weakness so input on this would help.
This is a challenging difference of opinion for me - see above comment on my war skills. Unless he settles it (which would be an indication to wait) he will cash in that great general to heal his elephant this turn so his stack will be stronger with weaker tile defence next turn Edit: Robert E Lee is already a longbowman - my mistake. My stack might be weaker if he hits me with the catapult again. I don’t have the experience/decision making framework for this - offline I'd probably suicide my catapults but I have an unhealthy tendency to lose big SoDs when I was doing well…
Because elephants are in next turn and after that there’s no point in a spearman - forward planning for this sort of thing is still a challenge for me - I should have worked that out. The spear was going to sit in my capital alongside the one already there just in case.
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The GGeneral is already attached to a longbow.
I think BiCs idea is to marsh onwards with more attackers from Lakamba, I'm not certain thats safe, pacal has construction and might just jump over the river with some nasty units in the shadows.
Haven't studied in detail, and not at computer now so can't look further.
I think BiCs idea is to marsh onwards with more attackers from Lakamba, I'm not certain thats safe, pacal has construction and might just jump over the river with some nasty units in the shadows.
Haven't studied in detail, and not at computer now so can't look further.
BornInCantaloup
Agent of Chaos
We can see the number of units on the screens. And unit composition tells : no horses.
I opened the save and there are a few things I didn't realize.
- Lakamha : Pacal has more than I thought to the North-West (at least 2 large cities - Krikav is right about Construction and roads) and you have 2 non-promoted + 1 wounded axe. Yeah, not safe to move them all out.
My thinking was you could cold whip an Elephant next turn but it's probably better to wait until you do that. Moving out next turn still let's you reinforce the Mutal's stack on the 2nd attacking turn.
- Roaming Holkan is a different issue. 1 axe in Minoan is definitely enough.
- You have many Cats near Chichten Itza, I'd move them north into Mayan territory. That city is out of range and those 3 cats can also be active by Mutal on the 2nd attacking turn.
- I didn't realize Charlie was at war with Pacal, this is actually very nice. Charlie doesn't have Feud, yet. But he probably will soon ? Taking peace for techs before then is important, I would think.
With Charlie being at war, there is little risk that Zara will accept Pacal as a vassal. The risk is that Charlie gets Feud and Pacal caps, leaving you without techs. If you think you can prolong the war and get more cities, well, that's an option.
- You're sending an Axe back to Bibracte, it should head to the front. Every unit counts.
On bombarding all vs attacking sooner :
42% defenses + 2 Longbows means a very bloody attack. It takes 2 turns to tear down the defenses, you can have reinforcements in 3 turns (3 cats and 2 axemen).
Your stack is already on the thin side : 7 attacking units vs 6 defenders. You cannot afford a bloody attack. Losing catapults is fine but losing axemen is not. You won't be able to capture Mutal if you lose too many axemen on the 1st attacking turn.
To me, this is a clear situation of bombard all, you will lose enough units as it is. You want good odds and max collateral when you send your dudes.
Note that this is a situation where Mutal has a wide discrepancy between Top Defenders (General E Lee) and others (wounded catapult) : Checking the odds of your Axemen against the Top Defender, in between Catapult suicides, makes a lot of sense, since a win would ease up all ulterior attacks.
Finally : his Elephant and Catapult are wounded : he will heal before attacking you again with those units (while you bombard). It's possible he has other cats, yes.
Hope that helps. This is not an easy situation.
Thanks for looking at the save and the detailed response @BornInCantaloup
Will take the advice around Lakamha, Minoan and Chichen Itza.
Not sure if you've progressed to the next turn or something but Charlie is definitely not at war at war in my save - I even downloaded the one I'd uploaded to make sure. The axe between Bibracate and the other city was in case I'm Charlie's target - it's not so much actively moving towards the capital as sitting between two cities in case one needs an emergency unit because of a DOW from Charlie who is plotting - could be this isn't good thinking though... If Charlie does go to war with Pacal I agree with your logic for peace and will seek that if good tech offer in place.
I'm convinced with the bombard and attack over a few turns advice - it's actually 7 units against 7 if I go in this turn - would be gambling on all successful dice rolls and probably no catapults with decent health left to have a second attempt if I failed.
Edit: I don't mean to seem really stupid but how do you tell how many units in Lakamha and Minoan from screenshots? I've looked through all the screenshots and I can't see any in which I've got the city selected or the mouse hovering over them - perhaps I haven't looked hard enough - am I missing something like when the tile yields look slightly bigger on tiles that are being worked or just overthinking this? The reason I ask is it would speed up my gameplay if this information is available without interrogating the tile. Plus I'd be a bit jealous if there's some magic I'm missing
Will take the advice around Lakamha, Minoan and Chichen Itza.
Not sure if you've progressed to the next turn or something but Charlie is definitely not at war at war in my save - I even downloaded the one I'd uploaded to make sure
. The axe between Bibracate and the other city was in case I'm Charlie's target - it's not so much actively moving towards the capital as sitting between two cities in case one needs an emergency unit because of a DOW from Charlie who is plotting - could be this isn't good thinking though... If Charlie does go to war with Pacal I agree with your logic for peace and will seek that if good tech offer in place.I'm convinced with the bombard and attack over a few turns advice - it's actually 7 units against 7 if I go in this turn - would be gambling on all successful dice rolls and probably no catapults with decent health left to have a second attempt if I failed.
This is really useful to know - I'm not very good at anticipating the AIs behaviour in these situations.
Will do.
Edit: I don't mean to seem really stupid but how do you tell how many units in Lakamha and Minoan from screenshots? I've looked through all the screenshots and I can't see any in which I've got the city selected or the mouse hovering over them - perhaps I haven't looked hard enough - am I missing something like when the tile yields look slightly bigger on tiles that are being worked or just overthinking this? The reason I ask is it would speed up my gameplay if this information is available without interrogating the tile. Plus I'd be a bit jealous if there's some magic I'm missing
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BornInCantaloup
Agent of Chaos
I did click indeed as I was curious about the siege of Mutal :/ I am very sorry about that 
There is nothing wrong about your question on the interface :
There is nothing wrong about your question on the interface :
Spoiler :
No worries - honest mistakes happen and I found out soon enough! I just appreciate the input and advice anywayI did click indeed as I was curious about the siege of Mutal :/ I am very sorry about that
Thanks! I'm amazed there's something this simple about the game still to learn after all these years.
I played on. Economy went pretty bad with unit supply and cities coming out of revolt.
Spoiler Almost had to do this before maintenance fell after cold whipping an elephant in one of the former Mayan cities... :
Spoiler No dice with Izzy :
Despite bombarding Mutal down I got some pretty unlucky dice rolls and lost 4 catapults and 2 axes.
Spoiler Taking of Mutal :
Spoiler Mutal's a pretty good city :
Note Charlie DOW on Pacal T114.
Spoiler Pacal's best offer for peace is underwhelming :
Spoiler Lost quite a few units in total :
Stopping here for 24 hours or so to allow any advice.
My plan which I'll think about more would be to peace out with Pacal for either 80 gold or IW - whichever his best offer is. I think I'm better off getting some of Hannibal's good cities (no longbows yet) than chasing the Tundra King north - Charlie can deal with him and I'll lose the war weariness.
Scout will become great medic - he no longer has to scout Charlie's land and I haven't managed to get an axe with much experience that hasn't required city raider promotions - woodsman 3, medic 3 was a cute idea though.
Tech wise my economy is garbage and I'm going nowhere. Currency would be my next target. In my deity games that go well offline I'd have beaurocracy by now - I guess I need to keep the faith that this can be turned around!
Will probably trade elephants to Charlie for 7gpt now he's not DOWing me.
The city NW of Lakamba would probably be my target, even if it's bad, it still removes Pacals culture from corn and other tiles.
Building shared war bonus with Charly is also nice, and the offer for peace from Pacal is likely to only go up.
Do pillage mines and other useless improvements for extra gold, and cottage up abit where you can and where it's sensible.
Problem with currency is that it likely will lack any trade value... Need to figure out some nice tech or bulb that could get you into a trading spree...
Compass is usually a nice candidate for such ventures.
Question is how badly whipped down your empire is. Can it take the pain of whipping out 6-8 elephants and catapults more? Looks abit difficult, doens't it?
But getting something more of Pacal, or A piece of Hannibals empire is likely required to gain an edge.
But 7 cities, an OK army and almost rock solid diplo at 1AD is not to be sneezed at, even though economy is garbage and infrastructure is lagging.
There are alot of tiny decisions that where made over the course of the game that could have made the situation much stronger, but it's OK as it is too.
Building shared war bonus with Charly is also nice, and the offer for peace from Pacal is likely to only go up.
Do pillage mines and other useless improvements for extra gold, and cottage up abit where you can and where it's sensible.
Problem with currency is that it likely will lack any trade value... Need to figure out some nice tech or bulb that could get you into a trading spree...
Compass is usually a nice candidate for such ventures.
Question is how badly whipped down your empire is. Can it take the pain of whipping out 6-8 elephants and catapults more? Looks abit difficult, doens't it?
But getting something more of Pacal, or A piece of Hannibals empire is likely required to gain an edge.
But 7 cities, an OK army and almost rock solid diplo at 1AD is not to be sneezed at, even though economy is garbage and infrastructure is lagging.
There are alot of tiny decisions that where made over the course of the game that could have made the situation much stronger, but it's OK as it is too.
OK, will provisionally go for this.
Not one of my (limited) strengths - will try.
I guess CoL and bulb philosophy is wildly optimistic… Monarchy and calendar in trades would be really nice given the resources around.
Are we looking for 6-8 catapults and 6-8 elephants or a combination? Combination I think is doable. 12-16 units looks difficult.
Any particular ones that haven’t been mentioned? Aim of this exercise is improvement so keen to know if anything I should change. Key things for me are I should have got something out of maths in trade, library in Bibricate earlier would have helped a lot, too many units too early relative to tech pace, reading to Charlie earlier might well have helped,
Have I reached a stage where I've effectively lost and should look to consolidate my learning rather than find out how badly I lost?
With 6 elephants and 6 more catapults, you have a very strong army, maybe overkill, don't know. But thats a rough number to aim for I think.
Yes, philo bulb sounds way to optimistic, economy is in the toilet.
With conquest/pillage and some cottages, getting compass and then getting math/calendar/monarchy or such from that might be doable.
No, I don't know of any other key mistakes, I think you found the most important ones.
Don't think the situation is lost at all.
Thinking of hard maps where you really have to duke it out from start to finish, the situation you have established here would be very good.
If you fail to get more of pacal, and if you fail getting any of Hanibals, you can still just consolidate and make another push later on.
The GPeople well is still untapped, likewise GA utilization... There is alot of aces up your sleeve still.
Being behind in tech like you are now, while facing strong opponents who have made vassals of the others, when you have already played 8 GPeople and have done 2 GAs... well, then the situation might be lost.
Yes, philo bulb sounds way to optimistic, economy is in the toilet.
With conquest/pillage and some cottages, getting compass and then getting math/calendar/monarchy or such from that might be doable.
No, I don't know of any other key mistakes, I think you found the most important ones.
Don't think the situation is lost at all.
Thinking of hard maps where you really have to duke it out from start to finish, the situation you have established here would be very good.
If you fail to get more of pacal, and if you fail getting any of Hanibals, you can still just consolidate and make another push later on.
The GPeople well is still untapped, likewise GA utilization... There is alot of aces up your sleeve still.
Being behind in tech like you are now, while facing strong opponents who have made vassals of the others, when you have already played 8 GPeople and have done 2 GAs... well, then the situation might be lost.
BornInCantaloup
Agent of Chaos
Thank you
Still sorry Yes, this is a situation where you need to multitask.
You need to maintain your army / mass more. For reference, against Walls, you need 8 cats to tear down Walls defences in 2 turns. I think ? This is very much iirc.
This is the first front. Having a constant 15+ units stack (20 would be safer but 15 is acceptable).
It's actually even better news that Charlie wasn't at war at that moment
, because it means he still has 0 war success. I'd ask him to target Calakmul or so, so his units get in the wasteland and Pacal diverts troops to defend.Second front is tech front.
My first thought is Compass bulb (Krikav agrees). You're extremely behind and need to get in the trading game.
The usual receipe is : "get a GP to get out of the hole". What is the affordable tech ? Compass. So, you should resume
production in Bibracte.You can't bank on research, here. You can trade for IW, right, right ? You can research Sailing but researching Currency is way out of range. Hence limited bulb, trades, boom !
If you're going for the bulb solution and you need units, you can whip Vienne 5->3, just keeping the food positive tiles.
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Thanks both.
Will pump the elepults.
I'll ask Pacal to attack Calakmul - ages since I tried something like that - will be interested to see if he does it.
For anyone who doesn’t know, I have a great scientist out and ready to use. Will run some more scientists to limp to sailing and IW and resume GP generation. I have nothing to trade for IW unless DOW on Hannibal persuades Isabella she’s happy to trade with me again for HBR.
A thought I have in development is whether to massage production by getting a granary in Tolosa. I really don’t want to afford 60
but happiness is running out in Vienne which has reasonable food from floodplains alone and sharing the corn would help me whip more with fairly rapid payback. Overall I think granary probably isn’t affordable now given the very immediate unit production priorities but will have to look at how many are invested in units already and where will whip more to make a plan for the 12 units I need before reaching a final decision.
Will pump the elepults.
I'll ask Pacal to attack Calakmul - ages since I tried something like that - will be interested to see if he does it.
For anyone who doesn’t know, I have a great scientist out and ready to use. Will run some more scientists to limp to sailing and IW and resume GP generation. I have nothing to trade for IW unless DOW on Hannibal persuades Isabella she’s happy to trade with me again for HBR.
A thought I have in development is whether to massage production by getting a granary in Tolosa. I really don’t want to afford 60
but happiness is running out in Vienne which has reasonable food from floodplains alone and sharing the corn would help me whip more with fairly rapid payback. Overall I think granary probably isn’t affordable now given the very immediate unit production priorities but will have to look at how many are invested in units already and where will whip more to make a plan for the 12 units I need before reaching a final decision.It's abit awkward but getting the granary there now is probably the way.
Vienne is closing in on what maximum it can give whip-wise, so the food should be diverted.
No IW is troublesome.. And alpha is also ahead in the bulb path, aestethics too possibly.
But it's still possible or likely even, that Pacal will soon give you a handfull of tech to save his life.
So maybe you get the tech you need to open up compass bulb after the next city of Pacal falls.
Or if not.. Then it might be the case for a GA.
If so, I would stock up the army abit still, but also work toward growing all cities up in size abit (more tiles, more pop, more useful GA).
Highest prio from Pacal I would say is IW, but you would benefit alot from alpha and being able to build research.
In any case, take it slow and steady with Pacal now, try not use units, they are needed later and you don't want Pacal to have any victories that give him war success against you.
Vienne is closing in on what maximum it can give whip-wise, so the food should be diverted.
No IW is troublesome.. And alpha is also ahead in the bulb path, aestethics too possibly.
But it's still possible or likely even, that Pacal will soon give you a handfull of tech to save his life.
So maybe you get the tech you need to open up compass bulb after the next city of Pacal falls.
Or if not.. Then it might be the case for a GA.
If so, I would stock up the army abit still, but also work toward growing all cities up in size abit (more tiles, more pop, more useful GA).
Highest prio from Pacal I would say is IW, but you would benefit alot from alpha and being able to build research.
In any case, take it slow and steady with Pacal now, try not use units, they are needed later and you don't want Pacal to have any victories that give him war success against you.
