Adventure Eleven: Divided We Fall

Well, take all that babbling about culture and civics and throw it out the window.

Sigh. OK, turn the research back on, to Steel. We need IRONCLADS, of all things, to prevent naval starvation sieges at our cities. So back to Representation, and along with that, Nationhood and Theology. I gotta draft some experienced units, LIKE RIGHT NOW.

I went shopping for aid, but the help store was fresh out. Catherine and Alexander said they'd have nothing to gain by helping me, and the 3-team said they had enough on their hands, refusing any thought of war against the 4-team. By the way, I'm absolutely convinced that military success in this Adventure would depend entirely on getting the two teams to fight each other. The player would have little chance against the full might of both blocs before the Sirian Doctrine came online -- and you couldn't go military while ignoring your economy as the teams of researching civs would leave you in the dust.

A mixed stack of Indian knights and cannons and German Grenadiers attacks Harappan (the ex-barb city in the south.) I draft a rifleman there on each turn of the war, and promote them to city garrison, but it goes for naught. India's first knight takes down a rifleman at 5% odds (!) and the city gets razed. Russia would replace it before I could even think about building a settler. Fortunately, I've still got Orenburg as that all-important ninth city to keep the roster of temples complete.

Another stack with trips knights and cannons lands next to Baghdad, but that's my National Epic city building riflemen nearly every turn. It drafts one rifle as well, and fights off that stack OK. Well, except for one rifleman that counterattacked a cannon, at 87% odds, 16.2 strength against 12, and won exactly one round out of eight.

The rest of the Harappan-razing Indian/German force gets whittled down, and poses no threat to Najran, except for the fact that the city was forced into drafting three riflemen so it'll have some serious anger-induced starvation. I researched Steel, and hit a snag in the ironclads plan: no iron. Greece had some up for trade, but wouldn't accept even 100 gold/turn for it...? Our maritime engineers try their hardest to come up with some copperclad ships, but they just keep sinking.

Anyway, I fight off all the immediate threats. And it's five turns since that previous set of civic swaps. Nationhood has outlived its usefulness since any more drafting will result in screaming protests on my college campuses, and I've got to get back to Free Speech's culture. But what other changes do I make? I can't turn off research -- there's no substitute for military readiness. So I need to keep Representation, though I'll still switch immediately to Hereditary if either teammate asks. And on the religion front... Can't keep Theocracy as I need to spread other religions to Orenburg now. Can't go to Free Religion as I need to keep the faith bonus with Alexander. Can't go to Pacifism while I'm at war, and it wouldn't be useful now anyway with my Globe Theater specialist city just having been heavily drafted and needing to work food to grow back. So good old Org Rel it is. And finally I see that Catherine has gone from Mercantilism to Free Market, so I do the same for the trade routes.

So that final verdict is a three-way swap from Nationhood/Mercantilism/Theocracy to Free Speech/Free Market/Org Rel. And that's after three-way swaps both five turns ago and ten turns ago. God, it's good to be Spiritual.

On defense, the city has three rifles (two unpromoted, one CG2) and a musket. Time for everybody's favorite skit: Will It ~~Float~~ Hold?

And the only defender to die was the musket -- all three rifles held! The combat log shows the attackers losing at 1%, 4% (retreat), 10%, 17%, 10%, winning at 87% (grenadier vs musket), and losing at 42%. One of the cannons bombarded instead of attacking, and one of the knights pillaged rather than doing any attacking at all. I think India could've taken this city with a smarter attack. With one more cannon dealing extra collateral and direct damage, Gandhi likely would've killed one of my three riflemen in one of the 10% range fights (being in the 25% range instead), a second in that last fight, and maybe could've gotten the decisive third additional victory by attacking with that pillaging knight.

I wonder what kind of effort would be needed with the AI SDK in order for it to do a true exhaustive heuristic analysis of the best procedure to take a city with a stack...

Anyway, I've got three more rifles closing in west of Kufah which handily mop up those survivors.

However, I've got an out. Three of the four team members still refuse to answer my calls, but good ole Gandhi picks up the phone. What Is The Price For Peace?

EGADS. That's HALF MY GNP. But I've got no choice. Let him raze Kufah, and the price will only escalate. Half a GNP for myself is still better than no GNP at all, which is the eventual alternative. We take it.