[SPOILERS] JR4 and RefSteel have a plan

[JR4]

Or instead of throwing everything at Zilnius next turn we could move next to the city instead. Artillery are very good at taking down cities. It is important that our army stays intact, though. We can`t really afford to lose our entire stack here.

[Cornflakes]

Still making it through your thread (excellent reporting by the way, thanks!) but I want to comment on this.

As for making multiple, possibly mutually contradictory, promises of military help - well, there are always going to be misunderstandings with such a limited system .

Well, sending back the Iron for Iron offer to Cornflakes could backfire in the long run as I`m not convinced that he`d want to help us out when/if we`re ready to go on the offensive. I still don`t think Cornflakes is very upset and he might be swayed to join in when we start taking cities off Superdeath.. That`s the best case scenario for us but we could easily get into trouble if someone attacks us soon or if Superdeath manages to clear out our Knight invasion.

We could turn east instead but Wetbandit looks like a tough target indeed. I don`t see much point in attacking Cornflakes short term or long term as our border is very safe and secure for both parties. BGN/Cairo is another possible target. I`d rather not hit Team Florida first but if they get involved in a hot war somewhere we should at the very least consider piling on.

As we`re going for Construction, building a few Catapults sounds worthwhile. They are good on defense as well of course - and you can`t really have enough collateral. I think we need two Sentry Chariot/Horse Archers minimum. And having a medic or two would be nice. Hmm, it`s not easy to say what the right unit mix is. Trebuchets are awesome at attacking cities but are very expensive..

How many Knights do we need before attacking? Perhaps 20? But building all those Knights will take some time. If we want to go for speed perhaps 10 Knights could be enough. It`s really hard to say.

You did incur some non-trivial negative diplo points by mirroring back the trades but not putting up the slightest indication of assistance. I wasn't actually expecting an active war from you, but at least some encouragement by declaring war and drawing some troops away from my front would have been nice ... and would have allowed you to pile on as 2nd attacker for real a little later, instead of falling flat in your solo attack vs. Superdeath.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Congratulations on hitting 100 pages!

[JR4]

TURN 336

Wow, Donovan evacuated Zilnius AND his western border cities with Wetbandit (their peace treaty is up this turn). We razed Zilnius and Ziev with Knights. I`m quite happy to trade a Knight for a city any time. Donovan has whipped hard over the last couple of turns. He`s clearly in desperation mode.

   

We built a city on a hill right next to the Copper so that the former Zucharest city site is invalidated. I fully expect Wetbandit to capture Zopenhagen this turn. I`m not sure if he`s going further than Zerlin. We`re in some long-term danger as we don`t control the first ring tile NE of Tlatelolco but I think building on a hill is key here. For now our army is pretty safe and we`re saving a ton of gold every turn by not paying maintenance for units in enemy culture. I think we should be able to raze Zima next turn and perhaps we`ll build yet another city somewhere NE of Tlatelolco.

In other news, Superdeath is busy building units. He`s got a massive 27 Battleships and building more every turn. I don`t think that Mr. Cairo`s Sistine city has too impressive a garrison (I forgot to take a screenshot of it) and Mr. Cairo has hidden his navy inside the city. Hmm, if Superdeath can somehow overwhelm Mr. Cairo with his superior production base we might even see the t400 mark in this game. I think that`s more wishful thinking that anything but Superdeath does need to react - and quickly - if he wants to have a chance of winning. I`m not sure if we`re in position to do much anyway. But, hey, razing random cities off a player that stabbed us is kind of fun.

[JR4]

@Cornflakes: I`m glad you`re enjoying this thread. 

To address your points - I fully understand why you were frustrated about the lack of support against Superdeath a long time ago. I had blind faith in the power of Knights and thought the window to attack Superdeath was big enough to get almost all of the spoils for ourselves. That was a glorious failure. As for the Iron for Iron deals - well, I just wanted to see which way the wind was blowing before actually committing to war. But it was a good opportunity to get a 2 against 1 going and I do agree that we could have benefited too. It is just incredibly hard to get a conquest on this map with little incentive to build ships and easily defended fortresses and I didn`t fully understand that for a long time.

Part of the reason why I was reluctant to join in against Superdeath (and later Wetbandit) was the extremely annoying placement of Woolly Mammoth. It neatly invalidated any city west of Antiochus (that was placed at minimum distance from our capital). The border wasn`t too bad in itself but we just had a stupid lack of territory and was left at 11 cities crammed in for a long time. Mr. Cairo also settled up on us so the mad scramble for land in the early game was not a success for us. Did I mention that I dislike being settled up on? 

I guess that we were more at cordial terms ever than friendly. But at least we didn`t have reason to attack each other until much later.

@Chevalier Mal Fet: I do like to report my games in detail. I think it`s important for posterity and hopefully there are a few people out there who are enjoying this game. It`s the longest running PB in the history of Realms Beyond after all.

[Cornflakes]

Part of the reason why I was reluctant to join in against Superdeath (and later Wetbandit) was the extremely annoying placement of Woolly Mammoth. It neatly invalidated any city west of Antiochus (that was placed at minimum distance from our capital). The border wasn`t too bad in itself but we just had a stupid lack of territory and was left at 11 cities crammed in for a long time. Mr. Cairo also settled up on us so the mad scramble for land in the early game was not a success for us. Did I mention that I dislike being settled up on?

I guess that we were more at cordial terms ever than friendly. But at least we didn`t have reason to attack each other until much later.

Blame the barbs for Wolly Mammoth's placement I only had 8 cities until I conquered Elkad! (And DNA I only grabbed by killing an Elkad settler in our first brief war). My cities were more spread out though so in # land tiles I may have been ahead. 

I felt like we had a cordial relationship throughout the game. Our border wasn't cramped, and we enjoyed mutually beneficial trade throughout the game. I kept a sentry poking around your territory but never felt threatened or worried about that border.

[JR4]

TURN 337

Wetbandit did declare war on Donovan last turn and captured Zopenhagen. Donovan retook the city right away but it only has a single unit in it now. Zerlin has a similar garrison (maybe it was two units, but nowhere enough to stop a ton of Tanks).

   

A bit further south, Wetbandit lined up against Zima. He bombarded down the defenses with Destroyers and wounded a Guerrilla Infantry. He`s clearly telling us to back off. I thought about it.. and decided to attack regardless of the consequences. We`re quite well positioned to make Wetbandit pay if he decides to have a go. My read on Wetbandit as a competent and very much rational player also comes into consideration.

We somehow lost a City Raider 3 Tank without getting in a single hit. Total losses were 3 Tanks on our side and 2 Anti Tanks, a Machine Gun and an Infantry on Donovan`s side. Hey, we`re up to 16 cities. Not bad. But three of our cities are size 1 cities without even a single building so we`ll need some time before they start paying back.

[JR4]

@Cornflakes: The barbs did indeed build Woolly Mammoth in the first place. It was just so extremely annoying to lose out on prime land because the city site invalidated a whole lot of potential sites for us. I think that building directly on the Copper tile was a strong play as you saved 6 Worker turns in the early game plus instant access to Axes, of course. When you started to march those Axes towards WM we still hadn`t connected Copper iirc.

One thing that puzzled me a bit was that you controlled a lot of land and still didn`t have a city count edge. Surely, it would have been worthwhile to put a city or two between your capital and WM? Also, there were a hilarious amount of available tiles to the NE of your Copper city. A city in that area still wouldn`t have created much tension with Donovan, I think. Plus, all those forests around could be have been turned into a free wonder.

[Cornflakes]

This map had a huge amount of happiness available including early, so I decided to build my cities loose and grow them rather than cramming them in. I could have stuck a filler in south of my capital to claim couple land tiles (no new resources) where I eventually put one after the collapse. The one NE towards Donovan would have claimed no new resources and no food. It would have had 6 forests and I considered chopping several times, but I really liked that secure stress-free border with Donovan. I was quite happy to sit back at a distance and watch Elkad and Donovan bloody their noses over their tight border just a few tiles to the north.

[JR4]

TURN 338

Wetbandit captured three cities from Donovan last turn. Zopenhagen is no longer swamped in Zulu culture as Zerlin was razed. The last city capture was Zeijing. Now, that`s a bit surprising to me but I guess Wetbandit is really going for the kill. We`re holding off on entering Donovan`s border with our big stack as I want Wetbandit to take the hit from Donovan`s last units. Infantry and Artillery are still no joke.