[SPOILERS] Cornflakes and Q Eat 'Em for Breakfast!

[Cornflakes]

PEACE!




According to civstats I took a whole 14 minutes to decide whether to accept this. On the one hand I get ...
– 3 cities with no fighting, no lost units, and buildings intact
– 10 turns without WW (which was becoming a noticeable problem)
– time to buildup without worrying about tactical movements
– the possibility that he'll press Bigger more in the peace window

Against these are ...
– No shot at capturing BJ with knights from the tundra. But as already mentioned, Krill can get 4 units inside even if the city was empty with 1-turn of notice. I'd lose at least 4 of my elite knights. I'll wait and probably snap it up after bashing our stacks together on the main continent.
– If krill resettles a city near my borders during the peace he'll instantly regain access to any tiles within it's sphere of influence. He can build culture to expand to the BFC in 2 turns. If he replanted a city 3 tiles from MASH he's have 1-move ability with his MegaStack, while I'd now have culture to slog through again. The loss of culture from AT's capital was as big a benefit to the war effort as killing the production of the capital itself.

The last point was what really worried me. If AT settles close then my stack is teleported away while we're at peace. As long as we're at war he wouldn't be able to get a city close enough to regain 1st ring control over MASH. Ultimately I decided to take the city since the benefits far outweigh the costs otherwise.

Spoiler has pictures of the cities from the peace deal

Even though the peace deal transferred O.C to me, the units that were around O.C last turn were still teleported out with the peace deal. I find this rather odd, but it doesn't have much effect really.




A city built on that GREEN box eliminates Krill's ability to settle within 3 tiles of that location. GREEN box is also outside NCIS's 4th ring, so if the borders were to pop in the next turn or two I'd still be able to settle the site. Once NCIS gets to 4th ring I'll obviously lose control over the 1st ring tiles, but I'd be ok if Krill attacks my stack on a hill with full fortify bonus.

Maybe this is unneccesary paranoia, but this really did play a large part in me ultimately accepting the peace deal. I knew that I'd have enough overflow in Blimp to complete a settler in 1-turn. I can get halfway to the city site in one turn, and there with just enough movement left to settle on the following turn. This turn is the only turn that Krill could beat me to that hill since he moves after me and I doubt he has a settler handy. Just to be completely safe I'm going to move 2 workers to that hill tile next turn and pillage the road. My workers will be able to repair the road again before the settler settles. Actually, now that I think about it I can do this with just one worker. Move the worker there > pillage road > road with worker (1/2). Then the following turn that one worker will be sufficient to finish the road.




Further west ... Bigger better watch out. His stack has been sitting in the same position for a while. I'm hoping that he is waiting for a stack of cannon/cats to arrive, and I'm really hoping that those cannon arrive this turn! If those units stay in place they'll be dead dead dead. Bigger may also have made peace with Krill though.

[Qgqqqqq]

Awesome!
And yeah, I can totally get the paranoia - better string up some settler builds.
Why are the cities - especially CSI - so unhappy? Please tell me draft/whip unhappiness didn't carry over :rollseye:

[Cornflakes]

I checked. Draft/whip carries over Triple draft at CSI plus quadruple whip. The top whips/drafts wear off in the next 3 turns. It's almost 10 turns since we declared war. We're not in slavery so the whip counter carryover isn't toooo crippling.

[Qgqqqqq]

Damn, I thought each Civ got counters

[Cornflakes]

Maintenance is getting to be an issue in the further cities especially now. The peace-deal cities cost collectively 6 + 10 + 14 = 30gpt! Chips will be coming out of revolt soon and MASH, but MASH does have Shrine + Bank for +30gpt to offset the maintenance. Ikhanada does provide its 20% maintenance reduction though, and I'm pretty sure that's additive with the Courthouse for a total of -70%.

I still have to deal with Krill in 10 turns. It's not like this peace deal is the end of hostilities I'm going to focus on Cannon and knight production.

It's been a long time since anybody except Bigger has researched anything. Bigger got Steel + Corporation and traded corporation to 2metra for roughly 1k gold. I'm still slightly puzzled over how Bigger got Steel. I've had research visibility on Bigger for a bit and didn't see it come up. I may have traded it to him at some point??? I don't remember doing that though because I was holding on to that advantage tightly. Or maybe he got it just before I got research visibility. Otherwise we are still ahead Steel on 2metra and I think Commodore, but he may have stolen that from us or traded for it with Bigger. I should just stop talking about the tech situation since I don't have much concrete fact to tell

[Cornflakes]

Damn, I thought each Civ got counters

Apparently gifting transfers the counters to the new owner. I don't know about captured cities though. MASH comes out of resistance next turn so I'll check.

[Qgqqqqq]

Ikhandas are additive.
As to Krill, remember that Krill offered peace because it would be beneficial to him. That means a) he thought you'd take them easily anyway and b) that he thought the peace period and letting you fortify and build up arms and consolidate troops would be more beneficial to him then to those against him. How?
Firstly there were troops in those cities that would be supplementary, but I don't get the feeling there were many, secondly there's the economicbenefit to losing those cities - which would be costing a lot and not contributing given unhappiness, and no units produced there couldsupport what currently remains of the empire - and thirdly, that he wanted the peace to keep that area secure to his cities militarily and cannot defend against your troops whilst slowing the advance of Bigger, I.e. he is afraid if you.
Of these I think the final to be the largest factor, meaning that he is not confident that his troops can hold back both you and Bigger, and therefore I find a attack by Krill after 10 turns to be extremely unlikely - I suspect you will initiate any further wars between Zulu and Native America. This means we should focus on shoring up defences/borders and economic growth, only going into the war if there are potential gains to be made (which seems likely given the production disparity between Krill and Bigger, but you don't need to be pouring everything into it) but not need to assume a hostile Krill in ten turns time - if we see it try and stop it of course, but don't be over cautious.
Tldr? Build settlers damnit!

Perhaps Bigger stole from you, or BC stole and traded?

[Nicolae Carpathia]

National Epic looks like a little Triumphal Arch. Just squint a little.

Also, has anyone told you that you're a terrifying monster? How many people have you killed or crippled this game?

[Cornflakes]

National Epic looks like a little Triumphal Arch. Just squint a little.

Are you hinting that the NE is the key to my victory (er, triumph)?




I decided to convert the Globe city for the NE since it's food heavy. Perhaps this is a waste of the "free" musket each turn, but I can get breakeven with 9 specialists at size 18! Once I pop out a couple GP I can always go back to drafting. Health will be the issue here since happiness is unlimited.

Also, has anyone told you that you're a terrifying monster? How many people have you killed or crippled this game?

I'm really not a bloodthirsty vampire, more of a cornered boar. I like theorizing about war plans though (as you've probably seen throughout the thread) and once committed to war I'd hope that my enemies find me terrifying and monsterish. But I've only eliminated 1 (Azza) and crippled one (AT) although I did also kill a giant invasion stack from each of 2metra and Commodore. I really do feel bad in a way about smashing AT. I would have been ok just claiming SWAT for security on that flank and then throwing my army at 2metra (taking the land to my north) or Bigger. The Commodore invasion must wait until Astronomy + 20 turns.

... Which leads me to our first piece of good news. AT gifted us Iron This means that we can continue building knights in our production centers. [...]

AT accepted my Horses request (for his only source too)! Thanks AT, if we survive long enough to lend you some assistance in the future we definitely owe you.

If this was a diplo game I'd feel like this was a major backstab. Some may still consider it a backstab, but MASH was just too tempting with it's Colossus + Shrine and defended by a single archer while I had ability for a GG Commando knight. If AT had put even one more unit of any type (even a warrior or scout) inside MASH I would likely have stopped at SWAT, taken peace, and then tried either for Commodore's iron city or 2metra's northwest or MY Azzaland.

But after these recent turn of events I'm climbing back into the game I checked the trade screens and I actually have 1 more city then Bigger now! ... Although his (my) Azzaland cities are more productive than AT's newly captured cities. Walleye alone (formerly MASH) is a powerhouse, hitting 87gpt on this it's first turn out of resistance.




Try as I would I could not prevent this city from starving, so I put it into what I considered the best configuration. Food is absolutely worthless if the city is starving anyway, but the 4C from the coast still beats a Merchant since I'm not planning to get a GP from here any time soon.




Rival average values are irrelevant for comparison purposes since Jowy and especially AT skew these numbers south. The averages for the competitive teams are higher. Check out that power! Just topped 1.5 million soldiers. I'm not taking any chances on finishing off AT. Walleye is going to be pumping out spies throughout the peace, and I'm going to add hopefully 10 Cannon to my ranks, bringing me up to about 25 on that front. Those units will have to go somewhere after this war, so I might immediately march on up into Azzaland.

[Cornflakes]

This will be the last post of substance on this or any other thread until Sunday. I'll be covering the turns but no reporting. Situation is peace and buildup for the final deathblow so you won't miss much (i hope ). Commodore is probably planning to strike Postos ruin me once again, but I'll be optimistic. I'll also discreetly increase the garrison over the next few turns just to be safe. Nothing to alarm him about invasion (especially since I'm not planning one) but enough that he'll have to bring in siege and give me some time.

I just had a though. I should put Sistine in Postos. Maybe I'll be able to wrestle another culture ring from Commodore. It'll also prevent him or anyone else from plopping it in an inconvenient location. I'll take something like 10 turn to construct and be about as costly as 3 cannon. Maybe I need the cannon more in the short term though.