[spoilers] OT4E is gonna try something special

[OT4E]

This turn I found that pindicator has declared me and killed  2 scouting chariots and captured 1 worker. I rejects peace offer from him because it doesnt work this way and there is nothing for me to worry about.

I also hope it will be a sign for Nyles that we are both busy and it is his chance. Nyles, my friend, do not disappoint me!

4 more full turns of GA, I will switch on the org religion as soon as I can because theocracy is simply unnecessary with vassalage. I switched to it because I was going to whip 50 more pop into knights and for a moment stopped building any infrastructure.

I declared war to Stardoors, so we are in 3 phase turnsplit suddenly.

It is really interesting what will pindicator do. I simply let captured worker go and still hiding knights. Is it possible that he eats this bait and comes in. His stack is near, I do not see it now but I smell it.

And what I have learned more is that I will never open borders with any of them. Lets make them worry a bit about where my power is.

[OT4E]

Not much to report since the game is moving very slowly. I am still in GA, pindicator has popped GS so I expect he will run his GA asap. Mr Cairo is probably heading to Constitution.

I have 30 knights and have just started building Janissaries. I am not rushing during GA, but I am going to run a few circles of whips in the most cities. Somewhere I will push some infrustructure. I need courthouses, thats a real problem now, because almost each city of mine eats 10 coins just for maintance.

I have 5 more turns of peace with Nyles and I give him 2-3 turns to attack pindicator. If he does I join him otherwise I turn everything back on Nyles because he is much better target. Then I will hope I can pull pindicator on the wrong move against me. If he just waits there and does nothing then so be it. Though I have an idea to flood him with spies to see what is he doing, but now I only have 1 spy.

[OT4E]

T139

Nothing is happening between Nyles and pindicator. This is disappointing, but not unexpected. So I am turning my forces to the western borders.




I am 2 turns from Enginerring, so they will be there right when our peace treaty expires. I prepared some barracks and started to spam janissaries.

I started catching up in food, thanks that Mr.Cairo started slaving. Not sure that is good for me because he couldnt complete main buildings without it.

Pindicator is in golden age, even if he doesnt have Guilds yet, he is close to it, so there is no point to start active war with him. There is still some chance that I pull him out, but I will propose him peace treaty in a few turns.

[OT4E]

So I aligned 27 knights to enter Nyles borders next turn. I am not sure I will do it though. Pindicator didnt accept peace treaty and offered caesic fire. I dont think he dares to attack but I need to be carefull. I put 10% espionage on Nyles to get visibility of his graphs back. So far he managed to spent 300+ points on me and his altars has started doing their job.



It is inevitable thing to make basic surveillance even if you are sure your target is weak. I scorched on this several times in my experience. So this time I will try to estimate how much reinfocements could Nyles build.



The plan is simple. I take that forest hill and check what is in the city. Unfortunately I can only bring 2 janissaries now, but I hope that's enough for the first move. He must be really well prepared to break through 30 modern units. I build some more janissaries and then switch back on Knights, because 2 movers are much easier to collect. May be I need to consider opening 2nd front, but the land between us is so wild.




Mr. Cairo has declared war on DTG. This is becoming interesting.
Also he has got Paper.


Nothing surprising except that he hasnt gone for Constitution yet, but with Taj GA he has plenty of time to switch.

And graphs:

[OT4E]

Taj is done and Mr. Cairo made peace with DTG. So I guess he just wanted to make his back secure while making pragmatic attack on chumchu. This is boring, but I believe its right play from him. Conflict with DTG, one of the leaders from tier 2 promises him nothing good.

But it spoils all my thoughts how to get involved into it.

The other bad thing for me is that I am probably losing UoS. Mr. Cairo is in GA and it is worth for him just to deny this wonder from me. Anyway I will try to compete for it. My chances are low but I am industrial and I dont know how much efforts will Mr. Cairo put in it. No stone and his recent switch on theocracy is promising.

My main question is shall I invest more into military or try to reap something with what I've got and change focus on economy.

The main problem of my economy is that I do not let my cities grow. I am stuck on 200 pop, while my cities can easily rise to 300, but I never give them "easy" life.

[OT4E]

Here is the picture that I saw at the beginning of the turn:


Nyles economy was bad but good enough to reach feudalism, so he put his bet on LBs. It is not good for me since for some reason I left all trebutchets on pindicator's fron. And he is protective. Damn..

After making some tests I decided to attack the city of DragonStone. All the LB's had no fortify yet and I got 25% on them. I also knew that after getting rid of LBs, archers and axes I get good odds against his HA's, about 90%. Those I could kill and promote after which is very important for surviving his counter attack.

I know that Nyles has at least 10 HA's more but after examining his power graph I came to the conclusion that he couldnt make much more. He made catapults and longbowman and I believe he doesnt have enough hitters to finish my stack. I hope, because I am not sure.


The reasons I took this risk are the following:
1) I needed GG to settle in HE+Zeus city and start spamming 3-promo janissaries.
2) There is a chance that he over-estimates his odds on counter attack and wastes units
3) The only other option was to wait 10 turns more for trebutchets.

So.

I got lucky in attack and lost only 3 knights on 6 LBs, but I lost a few later on HA's. Here is the situation after attack:


There are still many of aztec catapults, but what I have:
- 2 janissaries
- 3 knights with charge (+25% against siege), so I expect them to consume direct damage from catapults. People do not use this promotion often, but I really value it.
- 1 spearman
- knights with varius number of str left including some full hp knights with 2 stars
- more than 20 units total to share collatherial damage

Lets see what happens.

[OT4E]

This turn brought me 2 news. 
1) my plan to provoke Nyles on counter-attack worked
2) my stack is dead

Wait a minute! And which is the good one?
I was right in assumption that he didnt make much more HA. Also I was close expectations that I could survive it. My stack indeed ate 10 catapults without much problems, but the luck turned from me after. In 10 battles with 55-60% odds for Nyles he has only lost 1. Needless to say that in the other 10 combats of 75%-90% he has lost nothing at all. Talking about luck I lost 2x 90% battles last turn... So he literally attack me with everything and it could turn completely different if he didnt get that luck with the first 10 combats.

Ok the minute of complaining is over. Lets say that luck favored to novices and Nyles had literally nothing to lose. Probably I underestimated his catapults also it was stupid not to bring my own trebutchets. Did I really build them for the defense?

But the lesson is learnt and the game continues.

[OT4E]

My mistakes open wonderful opportunity for pindicator. He has an option to attack me and an option to attack Nyles, because he literally has nothing left after our exchanges. 

I will have to take counter measures to become though target again. After this I return to domestic things. My main mistake is that I am not occupying the whole available land. If I did I could make full scale invasion from several sides. Now with some courthouses and markets I can afford being big. 

Also I need lots of workers! It is a shame that I have that few!

[OT4E]

Paper discovered and it brought me some shocking info. Pindicator has Astronomy! I checked civstat and indeed noticed that he has picked it with GS 2 turns ago. This is the worst possible thing that could actually happen.

First of all I have 4 core cities in the inner sea, which I can no longer leave unprotected. Then if pindicator wants he can pillage my sea food and block plenty of good tiles and prevent me from using my Colossus effective. If I tech Astro I lose comparable amount of income, so these both are bad and worse options.

Also after capturing Stardoors cities Pindicator has access to another sea withsome important cities.

Time to reconsider the situation.

[OT4E]

Unfortunately I didnt track pindicator's gold. Possibly he could upgrade 2-3 galleys and fill them with knights. Where can they be?

Anyway I will distribute Janissaries I have among my cities and probably build walls + castles everywhere. It must demotivate him from attacking cities directl and also bring me some more commerce. I started teching Compass and I will proceed to Optics immediately. Swarming caravels is the first reasonable idea. I used this in some games, caravels are good against galleons, except they are very slow.