We continue to build up to take NHK next turn. If it does provide us with a courthouse, or a forge, we'll keep it and just build wealth, knowing it's indefensible - that rice tile is already 43% SD. Otherwise, burn and resettle on the hill.
Charriu has pulled what he has left back to Liquid Flame. It's not a huge amount, particularly for a flatland city, but that 100% culture would hurt Superdeath if he just runs over it again (glad to see Charriu making us of our stone, I guess). If SD's more cautious, we could look at getting our troops back from Magic Science's land in enough numbers to take it ourselves. If he's not cautious, we could always see if we could get into a position to hit his wounded stack this time. I could be tempted to lose count of turns since our "NAP" if the target was juicy enough.
On the other hand, we're taking advantage of the other players' losses to quietly get some infra up right now - a couple of courthouses, Sistine-boosted Hindu monasteries, even a temple or two. Plus all that wealth of course.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
We captured New Hong Kong. It cost us five catapults, but came with a granary, market and courthouse, so we kept it. We'll get a missionary in ASAP and see what we can do culturally. That's everything we want out of Magic Science, so we've offered peace. That at least lets Elkad know we're not planning on sniping Almaty.
I guess we had the option of keeping freedom of moveemnt and trying to shred his stack with ours, but - quite aside from practical difficulties - he's not our preferred target. Superdeath has dropped the Taj hammer. It's not lloking that big and scary right now (I don't think he's working half the tiles in his land), but he can probably get another GA straight afterwards, or else use the spare GP for some bulbs. Either way, he could be nearly at rifles by the time we're at cuirs if we're unlucky. We'll see if wealth builds can keep us close. Alternatively, if he does get careless attacking Charriu's cap, or if Elkad sees him as the bigger threat, maybe we can take him down.
Of course, that would imply I should have been building knights not wealth these last few turns...
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
NHK gets renamed to Tench. Sidon became PP2, by the way, because it dropped into PP's slot in the city roster. I didn't know that was a thing. I had a moment's worry when I saw Magic Science had moved his attack stack up against the city, but he accepted the peace offer last turn. Of course, that means he's free to pillage those four towns and that copper mine, if he so wants. Didn't think of that . Oh well, workshops remain a thing, and we'll be sending workers this way soon.
Superdeath is pushing GNP now, at 703 to our 577. Which is actually not that good, I think. He's changed to Caste/Mercantilism, but avoided Pacifism. He's also not moved towards Charriu, but hasn't made peace. Charriu's galleys are moving towards Magissa, which could make an attack there problematic, even with a trireme to escort. In any case, even although the galleys are loaded (partly so SD can see them, explaining what we're doing in this part of the world), we're not attacking yet. We're pulling collateral and some knights across towards Liquid Flame, but the 1-movers won't be anywhere near for a little while. The knights are playing hide-and-seek with Charriu's amusingly named "War Correspondent (Worker)", but the point is to keep them three moves from LF so that we can get there just after SD does if he moves (he hasn't yet).
So, we're in waiting mode. If SD moves and leaves himself open, we consider hitting him. If Elkad captures Almaty and makes peace (and why would MS accept? - his galleons rule the seas), we consider proposing an Iron-Iron deal and teaming up to pull in Taj-man. And if nothing else happens we look to finish Charriu. In the meantime, wealth pushing on to Nat and then Guns. Here's hoping that we can get some use out of former MS land soon. Elkad only has five collateral units with him if I read correctly, but he may simply be happy to throw Praets at the problem. And we get out of revolt in 2/3 turns.
Yes, I'm worried about SD screaming ahead in his GAs, but hope to pull one out ourselves before too long, and make use of fact we're working more tiles (he has 2/3 our city number) to catch up. Maybe I should have just built knights everywhere when I saw his power drop and run at him, but with Elkad still very much in the mix - and busy, just didn't feel up to it.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
The has been strong these last couple of turns. First, not realising that making peace with Magic Science allowed him to pillage freely. Second, not realising that the correct counter to that was to pillage the tiles myself, until Hitru pointed that out this turn. So, we've lost gold. I've sent troops in to pillage what I can, but I've been moving troops away from the front, so these are now a bit vulnerable. Most are ancient trash, but there are a few knights - and a GG medic (needed that extra move to finish off a cottage). Magic Science can't do anything, of course, but Elkad could - he's just capture Almaty and made peace. I think it would be more annoying than fatal, but we are relying on a mix of his goodwill and an awareness that he has mature cities within range of my big stack that I've moved towards Charriu's last city. Let's hope he's alert, sane, and not feeling like burning stuff for the sake of it. We shouldn't have been in this position. To add insult to injury, my new workshop at JS2 cut the irrigation to several farms . That's a bunch of wasted worker turns just as a we need more to fix PP2.
You don't get any screenshots of that mess though - too ugly . Have one of Superdeath's stack instead. He's shuffled towards Charriu border but hasn't done much. We probably declare on Charriu next turn or one after (he'll see our galleys heading for Magissa next turn, so might just make it official and pin down turn split), which might prod SD into action.
We're nearly matching SD for GNP, which is nice, but we're starting from behind by a margin (he's also well ahead in Mfg right now, of course). I'm filling food bars at AA and FD ready to push for a GA as soon as HH spits out it's GArt (2t). We'll definitely have three GP in 16t, but I'm sure we can do better. I need to calculate carefully tomorrow. Of course, because I was sloppy at FD, we have about a 15% chance of getting two GMerch. Let's hope the game takes pity on me .
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
Missed last turn's report, sorry. Anyway, had a wierd "demand" for crab from Superdeath. He had loads, so I'm guessing a misclick somewhere. We decided to echo back, and he has now ... echoed back. Love that AI diplo.
We sent Elkad cow-cow to make it clear that our troop movements weren't against him. No reply. In 2t. Hmm.
We have Nationalism. It does nothing for us right now. Our economy is back down at 25% break-even, putting Gunpowder 9t away, and Mil Trad 20t. Someone has a GNP of over 1000. Oh well. We're back to building "more knights". And why?
Next turn we have to decide whether to move to attack Charriu. In the absence of something clear from Elkad, that's ... risky. He is busily deploying his troops back towards our area of tension.
He also has force still left in Cuzco, which can one-turn PP2.
Despite this, we are thinking of declaring and threatening Not Rome next turn. We have serious force in the area, and if we offer it as a proper war-peace, he might just feel he has to take it.
By chance we have the workers in the area to road the key tile. I don't think Elkad's eight knights would be able to damage us before we took the city. After that - we couldn't hold it, not against those Praets, so it would burn, and we'd dance back towards Antium through our culture.
It's insane - pretty much guarantees SD the win - so Elkad would take peace, right? Don't get your popcorn out yet - we're definitely sleeping on this one.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
Got a key bit of "intelligence" this turn, which is that I had not been noting the number of pikes in the final row of Liquid Flame's garrison ticking up over time, from one, to four, to six. Ah. We'd definitely have to bombard down the defenses to start with, and resist an attack out too ... I'm not sure we have enough anti-melee cover, so we're less committed to an attack there than we were. We've brought our collateral up to QQ, but we may decide to let Elkad have a go instead. He is massing knights and praets near NR, but not in a way that threatens to 1t JS2. And, in addition to our 20 knights down by RR, we now have our other 20-odd just NW of the screenshot. So, this front seems covered.
The blue circle highlights the tile that combat workers would have been in a position to road next turn if I were competent and didn't have them walking in circles near GG instead.
We're still planning to push on Magissa by galley, even though it probably means having to build an aqueduct at the cap once we lose access to the corn. If nothing else, it might push Superdeath and Elkad into action against LF: maybe they'll even clash. We could be that lucky, but I'm not betting on it.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
Playing in a hurry between Christmas parties - let's hope that doesn't affect things too much. Superdeath has again demanded crab. He has 4, we have 6, I am confused. He may also be stretching the rules a bit - suggesting a "pincer" attack perhaps? I haven't got time for this ... maybe Hitru will have an idea.
We're set up to declare on Charriu next turn. Ideally we'd have used this turn to drop behind him in turn order, but real life is awkard this week. The attack at Magissa is real, the one near Liquid Flame more of a feint, trying to provoke a rush attack from Superdeath or Elkad that could cost them troops finishing off Charriu.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
Turns got a bit delayed, but the important news for us was that Charriu didn't whip anything in Magissa. So, that's granary, a lighthouse, a market and a ... forge for us. I guess that forge means that if we get Hinduism in there we could get a whole extra hammer per turn towards a building . Joking aside, that's a nice set of infra. It's shame that we still have no name for the city - I never did manage to find a title or character starting with "U". I'll have to make one up.
I also "risked" our trireme at 96% odds and we got another Great General out of it. He'll probably settle in JS2 - that makes for two promos on non-mounted units. We've held off moving on Liquid Flame. Charriu's stack has enough strength to worry me if it attacked out against our knights (even more so if he whips a cat or two, or more CKNs); we could really do with more x-bows. In detail, I'm paranoid that a CKN/suicide mace attack might damage the x-bows enough to expose the knights, at which point we lose a bunch. More than that, we still want to see what Elkad and Superdeath will do. If they don't bite, we might move in anyway - we're still clearly up in power. I'll try to get some graph/demo shots as part of a t200ish roundup.
We've had to turn off some wealth builds to get health buildings up in the absence of Charriu's corn. We're still making 600+ GNP as newer cities start to become productive, but SD is making 1200+ in his GA. We're ahead of Elkad in GNP and well ahead in production (I'm not quite sure why that is, but I don't mind). We've not really discussed things too much as a team, but my current thinking is to try to ride out SD's GA surge, and use our superior base demos to catch up. This kind of relies on getting one GA of our own, which in turn depends on getting a non-merchant out of FD, which is only going to be about 85% because I'm not good at GPP management . If that doesn't happen, we do ... something else. I guess I look into GMerch bulbs (we'll have a matched pair in ~8t if things don't work out), and use the GArt for a culture bomb somewhere. And then just build our best available units and try to persuade Elkad to hit SD before he gets to rifles.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
OK ... that's not good . Superdeath's GA has finished, we're running wealth at the cap and I just put our slider to 100% (EDIT - I put it back to 0% afterwards) - we could have Gunpowder in 3t, or 4t if we wait for enough cash to run 3t at 100%. With all that he's still well ahead in beakers, and that's with vassalage rather than Bureau. I think that taking him down soon may be our only option. Flipping techs tells us that someone (SD, natch) has Gunpowder already, but no-one has Paper. I guess the good news is that going into vassalage suggests he's still a bit nervous about our power. He also used his GPro for the Temple of Solomon, which is nice and all, but suggests he's not pushing hard for a three-man GA. Or is really confident of getting that anyway .
Tactically, we're waiting to see what Elkad and SD do about Liquid Flame. Elkad has moved his stack up (sorry, no screenshot! EDIT - I went back in and got one) and we're expecting him to move in next turn. We're holding back, partly to get more defenders into our stack, mostly to see if he, or - even better - SD can be persuaded to spend their troops on rushing the attack. If that happens, we could look to take advantage. Sadly, no sign of a move from SD.
What are our strategic options? We need to either pull in SD directly or take advantage of Elkad's comparative weakness to grab more land. The former seems clearly better to me. Elkad is weakening slowly over time, but hitting him now would be too painful, while waiting risks SD taking off.
As far as timing is concerned, my hope was to catch SD in tech with wealth builds a little after his GA, get to Cuirs. Ideally we'd also be in Rep by the end of the GA so that we could keep working towards Rifles even while at war, maybe reinforced by a Sankore build as we've pushed monasteries and temples a bit anyway. So, we're also waiting in the larger sense, to see if we get the right sort of GP out of Frank D in 2 turns. If we don't, our hands are forced, I think. SD's GNP strength after his GA is also reason for a rethink.
I'm going to do a t199 overview because I have more time today than tomorrow, and the demos lead into that nicely. Here are the graphs. Real life isn't quite as bad as they look because they don't include the end of the GA.
As you can see, it looks to me as if the story of the last 50t has been SD finally turning his land into food, hammers and commerce, as well as taking his share of Charriu while Elkad and ourselves ate Magic Science's mainland. Let's hope Elkad sees it the same way and is prepared to join in. Minor themes are us not turning our power to advantage, our slow rise in culture post Sistine and out ongoing espionage struggles.
An overview of our cities is on its way.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
A brief summary of the state of the cities of largest, most productive and most powerful empire in the world - this week at least. Not the richest though, nor the most advanced. Spoilered for length and burbling.
Here's the first six.
The inappropriately named (with hindsight) Bad Beginning is the glory of the empire. Now that it has been able to take all of its tiles and work them, it's a pretty decent Bureacadacap. One alternative to a death-or-glory charge against Superdeath is to get Oxford in here; we have stone, he doesn't.
Austere Academy suffers from having had to give up too many tiles to its neighbours and being occasionally starved, but will, with any luck, soon be providing our third GP for our third GA. It's never going to be a great site - too flat, no rivers - but if we leave it in peace to finish growing those villages it will keep contributing.
The (fairly) beautiful Beatrice B. Home to our only wonder so far; perhaps soon to be joined by the University of Sankore?
Carnivore Carny has topped out now that the capital has taken back the sugar, unable to work its desert quarry. It's still producing decent commerce though, as well as somehow being one of our three top cultural cities - I guess that was the early monastery.
Duncan Q never did get its wheat back long enough to let it grow properly. We'll be converting that river mine to a windmill and growing one more pop at some point. It's actually producing decent commerce and has been valuable in pumping out cats and pikes. Once the next generation of military tech comes in it will struggle for relevance though.
Evil End remains locked in culture war with Spiderman and Deadpool. That gem tile hass been at 47/52 (sic) since SD switched to caste. Maybe the Mandir will make the difference? Hindsight says that more worker labour should have been used to farm those cottages over: we could still do so, get the NE in here and get a GArt out for the four man GA, along with the Econ merchant, Physics scientist and Communism Spy. Sure we will.
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
. Oh well, workshops remain a thing, and we'll be sending workers this way soon.
. That's a bunch of wasted worker turns just as a we need more to fix PP2.
. Have one of Superdeath's stack instead. He's shuffled towards Charriu border but hasn't done much. We probably declare on Charriu next turn or one after (he'll see our galleys heading for Magissa next turn, so might just make it official and pin down turn split), which might prod SD into action.
.
. Joking aside, that's a nice set of infra. It's shame that we still have no name for the city - I never did manage to find a title or character starting with "U". I'll have to make one up.
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