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

[Cornflakes]

I'm returning for a proper siege of BJ. I'm going to land 4 cannon and 5 Infantry next to BJ this coming turn, with enough movement on the galleons to return and pick up 9 Grenadiers. Next turn the Cannon will bombard the walls down while the Grenadiers land. The following turn I have 4 cannon for collateral, plus 14 killers. I'm also sending a dozen knights by land who can take care of the cleanup.

2metra gifted Railroad to Krill, so I have to be quick now.

What is the best counter to Machine Guns? (other than Bombers and Tanks?).

[Cornflakes]

Quick photo of the Krill Border.

My Galleons are unprotected because Krill only has Ships of the Line with 3MP, and not Frigates. I promoted the only 2-promo Galleon in the region to Sentry for 3 visibility range. I moved it one tile beyond their current position, spotted the Ships out of range of the tile behind and parked there. I'm going to land on the same tile and pick up Grenadiers from the little "peninsula" due east. I have more Infantry coming in from the east to take their places on defense.




Here's a depressing shot. The cowardice of my infantry regiment led to the route of my entire first strike force against BJ.




Here's a less depressing shot. 2metra standing up to Bigger. Bigger has drawn off the entire defenses of the cities near us I'm sorely tempted to hit him if the opportunity arises, but I'm content for now to focus on Krill while 2metra tries to knock Bigger down a notch.

[Cornflakes]

Quick photo of the Krill Border.

My Galleons are unprotected because Krill only has Ships of the Line with 3MP, and not Frigates. I promoted the only 2-promo Galleon in the region to Sentry for 3 visibility range. I moved it one tile beyond their current position, spotted the Ships out of range of the tile behind and parked there. I'm going to land on the same tile and pick up Grenadiers from the little "peninsula" due east. I have more Infantry coming in from the east to take their places on defense.




Here's a depressing shot. The cowardice of my infantry regiment led to the route of my entire first strike force against BJ.




Here's a less depressing shot. 2metra standing up to Bigger. Bigger has drawn off the entire defenses of the cities near us I'm sorely tempted to hit him if the opportunity arises, but I'm content for now to focus on Krill while 2metra tries to knock Bigger down a notch.

[Cornflakes]

Traded Assembly Line to 2metra for RR + 80gpt. My workers have been twiddling their thumbs for the past dozen turns with literally nothing to do. I have several farms within 1-turn of WS, and several WS within 1-turn of farms in case I want to make a quick foo/production swap anytime. I figured that was better than just skipping their turns. I have 30 workers according to the military advisor screen! Some may be fortified in cities because I don't remember giving orders to 30 workers every turn. But I haven't noticed any. Maybe it just feels like fewer because i have most of the working in groups of 2.

Anyway, on to the important stuff. I have a RR network quickly taking shape. Next turn I'll have a main artery from the Krill front up through Blimp -> Postos. Turn after that I'll have Paradigm and Blimp connected. Following turn I'll have a full connection to Sheep and the 2metra front. 3 turns of rail movement from the west to east fronts. 1.5 turns to Paradigm.




And the real meat of the turn. Death to Krill! I landed 5 Infantry and 4 Cannon this turn and picked up 9 infantry on the ships. As mentioned before, Krill only has Ships of the Line so I have more freedom with my Galleons. I have another Ironclad rolling off the drydocks next turn, and another one arriving through the fort canal shortly. 7 Infantry can reach the front next turn along the new rails to replace the ones loaded on the boats this turn.

If Krill parks his ships of the line on the RED tiles E/NE of BJ then I'll land the Infantry. If he does not block those tiles I'll likely just blast BJ this turn and attack amphibiously once I run out of landed attackers. The Galleons will have enough movement to finish turn in BJ after capture. Krill is able to build Machine Guns, so each turn I delay will be costly. I'm not sure how the war will progress from here. Likely amphibiously, either landing off galleons after feinting in the other direction, or attacking directly from ship. We'll see what happens when we get there though. Krill is good enough (and I am not) that the plans laid far in advance are not worth anything at all ... as seen by my failed first attempt at BJ.




Finally hit 10% own culture here and can add Walleye to the draft list. I'm numbering the cities with the turn number of their drafts so that I can somewhat keep track. I'm 5 turns into drafting now, and running out of cities. I don't want to draft Blimp or Porcupine. Everything else (including Grand Slam) will probably be drafted regularly.




Log from this turn. Notice the Lighthouse before Granary stunt this was clearly a mistake. Oh well, at this point a few turns of slower development in a single iceball fishing village don't matter much. It's just that I'm in a bit of a hurry to get it up to draftable size.




These are where the 2 cities were that 2metra captured. Obviously a naval invasion. I can't imagine why 2metra would keep these. There's no way he can hold them he'll soon be feeling the wrath of the musketeer. Unless he is able to upgrade enough machine guns? But Bigger has >100 musketeers and tons of cannon.

[Cornflakes]

Going to bed. Will need pause so I can play tomorrow night.

[Cornflakes]

Way too late for a real update, but Krill abandoned BJ. He either deleted all the units inside or somehow smuggled them away somewhere out of sight. It was completely empty. I've occupied BJ with 4 cannon + 14 Infantry. No chance he'll be able to recapture. Next turn I complete a rail connection to BJ, which is just in range to get units between BJ and Ash (the all-important hill fortress).

We're up to 40 Infantry now, most either on the Krill front of en route. Pentagon completes next turn. Bigger stole RR even through the Counterespionage (spent something like 8-10k EP).

[Cornflakes]

This is the beginning of the end for Krill. After debating the merits of trying to draw his forces off to one side and quickly strike a naval invasion in the other direction ... I counted forces ... and decided that it was time to put the hammer down and march in the Stack of Doom:




The infantry in the Galleons are planned to land join the other troops next turn on that town NW of the stack, and the Galleons will then load up the Machine Guns and straggling Infantry to land on the following turn next to the city. I'll have about 25 Infantry, 15 Grenadiers, 6 Machine Guns, 15 Cannon, and 20 Knights. I have vision on pretty much all of Krill's army, so I'll just give the military adviser's count for Krill's troops:




In terms of numbers Krill is about equal. Still I'm confident that with my better weaponry my forces will be able to sustain his full collateral from 10 Cannon and still have odds against everything he can throw at us ... I haven't simmed it though.




Here is 2metra's war progress. 2metra made a huge mistake in not razing those cities when he captured. He should have just struck, loaded back on his ships, and sued for peace. Bigger's power is at least 50% higher than his, and since most of that is 2-move knights or musketeers he only needed 3-4 turns to collect his forces and crush 2metra's attack. Yes, 2metra put a little speed bump in by forcing Bigger to react, but now that he has the two cities back he didn't really lose much.

I was sorely tempted to declare on 2metra to raze these cities. Bigger was logged in for at lest 20 minutes before I moved my scouting units to see that the cities were empty, and then he took another 20 minutes before he actually captured the cities! My finger went to the ALT key and my mouse was hovered over 2metra's name more than once in that 20 minute span. Ultimately i decided that I would lose more from a diplomatic standpoint than Bigger would gain from getting those cities back intact.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Awwww too bad, it would have been fun.

[Cornflakes]

I don't want to stir up trouble, either with 2metra or Bigger. My hope is to gobble everyone up one at a time while the others sit back and watch. I need "friends" right now, not ENEMIES :RAGE:!!!

Plus I'm getting an 80gpt paycheck from 2metra for another 7 turns (i sold Assembly Line for RR + 70gpt) and a ton of trade route income.

[Cornflakes]

Oddly enough, I have to thank 2metra for not ending turn and therefore forcing me to wait before playing the turn. I sandboxed the Krill vs. Us inevitable battle, and realized that I was underestimating his ability to do damage and headed for disaster. I'm going to hold for a turn to gather our complete strength into one mega stack. One turn more or less won't hurt us, and as-is Krill could wipe out about 50% of our stack. Yes, his stack would die in the counter attack, but still that's some HEAVY losses on our side. I'd rather wait since by waiting a single turn I can throw an additional 10 Infantry, 4 cannon, 9 Cavalry, 6 Machine Guns and and maybe a couple other odd units. These units were slated originally to be dropped off piecemeal via ship as the stack advanced, but Krill moved up his stack to where it could hit us next turn if we advance, so I'm going to be patient and wait.

More details later since the turn just rolled ... [EDIT: maybe not. Civstats hasn't registered the turn roll even though time has run out. Might have to wait a couple more minutes.]