[Spoilers PB27] REM tries to get a handle on this mod

[GermanJoey]

Holy moly, now that's a hell of an NE city!!

Awesome update man! I love reading about this game. Good luck in your war!

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Holy moly, now that's a hell of an NE city!!

Awesome update man! I love reading about this game. Good luck in your war!

It's such a nice map position picking up a lot of floods, the pigs and all those deers. The nice thing is that switching the deer camps to forest preserves is good play as loosing the 2 food gives a specialist at less pop (so working sooner) with extra commerce on the tile and happy for other cities. Soon I'll cut out the hammer tiles for other cities and run pure specs. I will probably get the almost unused industrial park for those slots here. I reckon by the end of the game about 20 specialists in total? I can still farm over a watermill for 2 more food there.

Generally it's a great game. I do wonder how quickly I could have overran borsche. Without 33 I probably would have just thrown myself at him, but not bothering is probably the right call sadly. Probably about 40 turns left before I hope to shoot a spaceship off? I probably should read up on building the parts, but gut feeling is that the engine hammer sink should not be left to last tech.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Hi REM!
Just thought I'd send you a small fyi that while I started to play t202 tonight, sadly I didn't manage to finish turn before my eyelids gave up on me. As our peace treaty is soon to expire I thought it best to let you know that I haven't finished moving units yet and regretfully I doubt I'll be able to do so before you lose internet (according to pb31 tech thread).
Best regards,
taotao

So this pm I take either as A) I'm setting up for a return to war or B) I see you're setting up for a return to war, lets not double move. Perhaps he saw what happened in 33.

I'm pretty chill about him getting the first half. My main concernwas whether I would be able to get my defenders space out well enough a few turns ago and with me finishing RRs that's not gonna be as much of an issue.

However down south him having an extra turn of movement could be crucial in being able to raze enough... Ah well. He certainly won the rush to play logging in a few mins after the roll. I guess I'll settle for the ability to use my wooden ships to blockade and cause micro headaches :P

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

So looking in he has clearly set up to try and smack me down, which of course he can do without the fear of me getting the initiative this turn. HOWEVER I have a cheeky trick up my sleeve - a defensive pact! Again :P. There weren't many people who were gonna play after me. Only Borsche DZ and Gavagai. I do not want the unbreakable peace with DZ to be nullified here as I can cheekily use his culture as a way of not being able to be attacked (Almost like the US kinda not being allowed onto the pakistan side of the afghan border, except taotao cannot ignore this). Gavagi seems to possibly be lining up to have a go at the island I captured off him, I'm getting a few more troops there and flashing destroyers in the area which will cripple the wooden ships, so it has to be borsche.

This isn't that bad tbh. I'm using routes with everyone and he has a) a few more cities than me now and b) 1 less trading partner (no routes with DZ) so I think this will hurt him if he decides to preempt in the order of 70-80 commerce per turn. Or if he doesn't want to loose that then I can declare on him with no repercussions straight after! (Unless he borrows that trick) definitely cheeky. Only hope it doesn't annoy DZ too much, he could be lining up to hit borsche, it's difficult to read.

I've decided that I kinda need to get flight tech wise. I'm showing 3 turns, but I am only slightly off 2 turning it and I have 2 turns of GA left. I'm sure I can rejig myself to get it next turn. This with my radio tech unlocks bombers and fighters at the same time which is really nice, and with taotao just finishing democracy this turn I might get a 5 turn window where he has no fighters up.

Other than than, pulled back into cities with boats, holed up and moved the DZ stacks into position. Its time! I actually struggle to see this war ending before the game does now... I can't see one person wanting to pull out and the other person thinking it is a good idea to get peace off them. We shall see though.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

It's been a while since I updated here. But actually only like 4-5 turns.

A short summary - he got the drop on me in turn order. Damn.
My raid through DZ got caught and is holed up there, could do some damage depending how DZ railroads... Their peace is up soon.
I have lost most of my northeastern island, all of the northern. He had a lot of units I assume were in the various East Indiamen. Made a few mistakes also.
Easy gains for him will stop soon, although my North is a little weak.
I am really struggling against the dikes. Whilst they make hammer cities output less, they have turned multiple marginal sites into goldmines with 2/2/2 tiles, 2/2/3 with that quay building. He has a 30-40% production edge on me due to this.
However I have a better GNP by about 1500-2000, and am only 10-12 techs from a full spaceship tech compliment. Currently about 40-50k beakers ahead with more gold.
I can conduct asymetric warfare, with my commando pump set up last turn. I also think he is realing a little from WW. A lot of tiles I would expect to be worked seem to be not being worked.
I have an outside chance at a 4 person GA. Currently have a GS/GE and captive the great GP farm can pump a lot of points into artists/spys/merchant

In short, it is really touch and go here. I would never win a fight to the death, but I have a decent chance of holding out for a space win. My island cities were never that productive, but still irksome to loose them. I need to cause some real damage to him in our historic borders.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I was really struggling to see a winning move in this game. I am steadily loosing colonies to my north, although I have kept my last city there with the FP, stuffing it full of units. 

My core is strong and intact, although in a quirky move I had a midsized city razed this turn. My screenshot button is messing up so I missed the screenshot but it was smolensk, which was a marginal city although my 4th planted. It was killed by an infantry, and there is nowhere it could have been commandoed from, so I guess he used the promote to morale after landing the unit trick. Very few of my cities are vulernable to that and unlikely that he can do it again, however incredibly annoying. Did he however rename a unit? Although he does not have paratroopers for it to be them yet. I could have covered this and if he had paratroopers available I would of. 

So I started this turn pretty pessemistic about my chances and feeling I NEED to do something. Like throwing one last push. Sadly the pics I thought I took haven't all come. 

I had been eyeing Palva for a while. It is a sailient into my territory and where the infantry would have been launched from. He also is storing all his navy there. I had a few transports full of units but every turn he would match the potential available units to attack with... Until this one! It was really hard to count mainly because the unit names stretched out the information even on my 17" laptop screen, but I was adamant that I only counted 17 defenders to my 20 possible attackers.

I just went for it. Easy enough to remove the cultural defences with the boats, and he only had 2 fighters on intercept in there. 8 airships, 7 fighters and 2 bombers bombarded with only 3 intercepts. It was then seeing what odds I could get. I had a lot of marines, as from my PB33 experience I actually found them more useful than tanks a lot of the time. With everything having 2 promos, and going to pinch mostly I got 80-90% odds with most battles.

There were actually 18 units in there, 6 CG2 inf, a CG2 rifle, 3 machine guns, 5 CG2 muskets, 2 marines and a chariot. All killed. I debated in my head keeping the city, although I felt destroying it, and moving on was better. This could actually be the deciding game attack. Look at all those battleships scuttled in port... 20? A few fighters also, some older ships and possibly full transports waiting to do the same to me.

The reason why this is such a crucial raze is that I have still 19 units boarded on these transports covered with far more navy than he can counter and 3 carriers of airships. I can threaten huge amounts of cities down the coast now. I have another transport that can help threaten one site also too. But essentially they can almost enter his waterspace unchallenged due to sheer number and cause a headache. 

Sadly the pre and post demos didn't take, but I went from being around 2 million soldiers behind to half a million. Battleships are a lot of soldiers. Has there been a bloodier battle in real history, where 1.5million soldiers were killed along with a size 22 razing? 

I still haven't showed my commados yet either. Despite something like a 2800hpt v 3600hpt deficit I may be able to make this... I think I will take a happy hit next turn, thankfully I just built rock n roll for +2 happy per city with effiel tower. 

I haven't played the rest of the turn yet, I was playing rashly last turn and wanted to keep a level head (plus it is rather late here)

[Rowain]

Thanks for reporting

 and grats to that raze although you might have killed me there.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Thanks for reporting

 and grats to that raze although you might have killed me there.

It was nearing game over/concession for me without that really. It released a lot of troops to go up and defend the northern coast who would have been pinned down still in those cities, and in 2 turns if he acted aggressively we would have seen multiple razes. Now I have a lot of troops to spread over these cities to help cover them, and air support to make advancing the naval stack unwise. 


The naming of the battleships is a nice touch, although makes it really hard to read what is in cities. I have 2 more tricks up my sleeve now too - I have realised that my commando pump can actually pump out commando tanks!!!! Usually this isn't feasible as it relies on using the agg promo chain, but with the free drill 1 I have 17 XP armour coming out with drill 1 on them. Very delicious. That is gonna pin a lot of his units but I don't think he realises that is a threat yet. Much better than the Marines/paratroopers I was getting. Also makes it questionable whether pushing for Modern armour might be a way to end the game. I am also holding the line in the NE, and MIGHT be able to navally inflict decent damage on him defending the captures with the long revolt times. His army is still pinned in my territory.

All this however is tempered to the fact that I really need to get a spaceship out ASAP. Started the apollo program with a 5t completion in Novogorod, unable to build any other pieces just yet with my techs. Will get refrigeration for the free movement point on ships now as well. That will cause him concerns going forwards too.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

So a little update - I didn't take any photos as I was trying after the faff with the new PC to get the turn done quickly. Managed another 2 razes of 2 further cities on that little island, both size 17 and well developed. Less efficient hammer trade as a lot of damaged units on my part, but overall around 2 to 1 in my favour. I did debate keeping them, but in the end I decided against it (even more important when I found out later what had happened!) Fair chance I might be able to press on. He lacks fighter cover so my carriers are destroying his units pre attack. 1 of them had a military academy which was nice to burn.

No movements to the north, and in the NE he has made a slight backtracking and is trying to take my FP city. Might try and move to pack it from my 5 move galleons now.

However then I realised the gamechanging moment that made me have to pause for thought this turn - DZ declared war on me! Moderately surprised. I was twitched about a lack of forces on the border between him and taotao that something was up and they were all in the Borsche/DZ/me triangle, but I thought that was to counter the Borsche moves. I feel that taotao will be suffering a lot of WW and so will not want to reactivate the WW he has from fighting England. But I wasn't expecting a DoW.

Luckily I did realise that my army if it did happen would teleport in such a way to cover an attack, and although the cossacks are a little outdated vs taotao, they are perfect to defend against the English cavalry stack!

The bigger issue is that now taotao has the whole of DZ and Borsche that he has open borders to run around in and there is already a 10 odd tank stack in DZ. I can spread out my cavs somewhat but this is definitely not ideal.

If this had happened before that naval raze I would have been toast. Taotao is still around 1million soliders ahead of me, but can he bring that to bear?

I was planning on some offensive moves with transports but with the current development I really need to just take stock and make sure I don't loose my lightly defended eastern component.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I'm hoping I *might* get a concession perhaps this turn or perhaps in a few when I finish the apollo program. Annoyingly I had to run just after I had logged in as the Mrs finished early.

Taotao left a cheeky route open through the GULAG (I can't keep up with who's who now) and although I will probably loose my FP city (limited benefit now I have lost most of that island) I will be able to recapture 2 cities, raze a good s12 city and perhaps a new plant (not sure if it is worth it) maybe a possible recap again next turn is better.

Also should be able to clear out some more of that western island too.

Then I need to protect myself against the DZ/taotao armies mix and I should have a space victory there.


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