Turn 131
Under African Skies is down to no walls and 128/200 health.
What I don’t know here is whether or not the chariot would be able to disembark and attack in the same turn. I have no reason to believe that CMF would not have tested this before making the attempt, so I assume that he will wear down city defenses and raze the city next turn. The question is whether or not there’s anything to be done here. Not really. Moving the horseman up will only lose the unit and delay things a turn. The crossbow’s attack would get eaten by the frigate for not much damage.
The “best” bet here is to cede the city to a probable raze and then kill the chariot on the next turn as the crossbow will likely be able to one-shot it. I do shift the salt over to Graceland now – this will let me retain the salt in my territory, provide the slinger with a chance to upgrade if I kill the chariot without needing its attack and boosts Graceland’s production. That also takes a turn off the Harbor. The tile the horseman is on currently belongs to Fifty Ways so no need to deal with that there. I swap the archer and horseman locations, move the crossbow to the Commercial Hub and the spearman up north onto the iron. If he’s miscalculated and the chariot can’t take the city next turn I’ll be able to kill it without issue and then we wait for something bigger and healthier to come along.
If he doesn’t raze I don’t know that I’ll be able to recapture. In that case the city might fall with loyalty, though with a governor he’d likely hold it long enough to wait out the remainder of my golden age and then keep it when I go dark. Big Island definitely has issues.
I send a request to China for 400
to upgrade the horseman, slinger, archer and spearman. Roland, send what you can – the spearman and archer will be 125 each, the slinger 150 and the horseman 120. I’ll have about 150 to start the next turn.
Builder stays put, ready to harvest the jungle next turn. Jong at Hearts and Bones checks southeast, finds nothing. New galley at Have a Good Time heads west. Injured galley pokes its head out, sees the Russians and goes back where it’s warm and cozy. Repairing the Harbor is OOTQ and I’m not about to
purchase walls here. A Harbor repair is also wasteful as it’ll just get pillaged (though I’d get to kill a unit in the process). I start Medieval Walls the hard way.
Back on the mainland Al has finished its fourth galley and starts a jong. The galleys will be 180
each, not sure how fast we’ll be able to accumulate that much cash. I have to assume there are Russian frigates around...somewhere. Fleeing chariot reaches a coastal dead-end with Japanese borders but will be able to navigate the open seas next turn. Jong is plying the open coast southwest of Freya. As for Confucius:
Next up, World Congress.
Archduke lost 440 milpower last turn
. Given that my DoF with Kaiser and Archduke have ended I offer a DoF to Archduke. One momentary
in the gossip:
The good news is that the game is misinterpreting that for some reason. We know that was originally an English city and that Cuneiform is the Phoenicia capital. Archduke will still lose Writing on the Wall to loyalty in 6 turns. The only city providing pressure is Phoenician and WotW is only 1 population.
Roland, on your World Congress turn please do the following BEFORE YOU VOTE. “X” out of the WC screen, open the cultural victory screen, hover over the suitcase for each of our opponents and let me know what the numbers are for both “current” and “lifetime” tourism. You’ve actually been accumulating some foreign tourists (you’ve got 6/54) and I want to see how the rates compare against our opponent’s cultural yields. I assume you’ve got two vs. Marcopolo, zero vs CMF and 1 against everyone else.
