[Spoilers] This Perfect Place

[Mr. Cairo]

My trade routes are from Dreylin and AT, so they're all IC.
News for the turn: Peace in our time!* Gawdzak reoffered, and from what I could see nothing happened so I accepted. 10 more turns of peace with him. That means that I will land 20 units on Adrien's shore in 6 turns, with plenty more to follow. I also swapped all my cities back to max commerce and max food, and infrastructure builds: stables for my hammer cities and lighthouses for my coastal filler cities. I'm not going to whip for a while, so as to grow as much as possible in preparation for Monarchy, which I should get in 4-5 turns.

*about at accurate here as it was in 1938

[Mr. Cairo]

Well, I've been overtaken in power by Gawdzak, who is at war with BGN now, although it was BGN who DOW'd him.


I wonder if BGN tried the old declare war -> ask for peace thing, since it worked for me. It didn't for him, so I imagine that BGN isn't long for this world, although I don't think he'd complain much considering. Good news for me, though, as my invasion of Adrien approaches, and I don't have to fear an immediate invasion from the south when our peace wears off.


My long term plan is do most of my expanding over on the other continent, while making my homeland look as unpalatable to Gawdzak as possible. For that reason I'm going for Fuedalism right now, to fill up my border cities with protective longbows. I also flashed my WE at Gawdzak. It's the only one I've got, but he doesn't know that, and Ivory is one advantage over Gawdzak I do have.

[Mr. Cairo]

Now BGN has whipped four times, so it certainly looks like real war down there. Well, all I can say is good luck to Boldly, I doubt you'll be able to win, but I (somewhat selfishly) hope that you put up a long fight.

[Mr. Cairo]

Next turn I get Monarchy, and I'm going to revolt into HR immediately. I don't have a GP coming for another 20 turns atm, and I can't wait that long. Gawdzak pulled more units out of Ecbatana, and Adrien's power is still really low, so I'm going to use this time to grow all my cities as much as possible. I've improved basically every workable tile in my empire, excepting a few on the border with Gawdzak that I'm doing now, so I have plenty to grow onto, and I'll start building a lot of archers for MP purposes.

The first wave of my invasion lands in two turns.

[Mr. Cairo]

invade next turn, with 8 HAs, 6 axes, 4 cats, and 2 spears. I have more HAs and axes and spears waiting.

I'm really hoping that he doesn't put that galley somewhere obnoxious. But if he does I'll just unload some units on the island and kill it, probably having to sac a galley to do so.


Here's the power graph:


I do not think that Adrien is expecting this in the slightest.

[Mr. Cairo]

I did some simming and unless he adds any more units into Crepes, I should be able to take it with the loss of a single axe. The 4 cats bombard cultural defenses down to 8% and then I attack with city raider axes. First one dies to the defender axe, but wounds it enough for the rest to clean up. Then the HAs run into the interior and N. Coast. The Jewish Holy City is a big target. I have those reinforcements, although not a lot of units after that, but what I have will hopefully last until I get my core starting on military again after it grows.

With the new HR happiness I'm going to whip out a round of catapults, and overflow into a mix of axes to send to Aztecia and archers to use for MP.
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Kinda glad none of my neighbors are playing as European countries, might make things a bit awkward.

[Mr. Cairo]

I sent this to BGN. I doubt he'll accept it as it is, but send a counter-offer.

[Mr. Cairo]

Well, BGN's answer was a war dec, didn't kill my chariot that was in his territory, so I got the message. I had hoped that he would see that I was making an obviously unfair offer so that he could offer back what he thought was fair, but maybe I went too far.

I'll make a more reasonable offer in a few turns, maybe 1 luxury and 10 g/t, or maybe a lump sum.

edit: it'll probs confuse the hell out of Gawdzak though....

[Mr. Cairo]

Attack went well enough, he upgraded that warrior to an axe, so I ended up saccing two axes and 20% and 30%, before winning good odds battles after that. Also killed a galley, had to sac one of my own, as expected, but that's fine, I'll trade galleys one for one with him all day, he doesn't have enough.


Here's the situation. I'm hoping that he doesn't have another 2 or 3 chariots within striking distance of either my cats or the city. I decided to unload the 4 chariots by Bouillabaisse since it wasn't all that likely I would be able to take the city attacking from the boats. Maybe that was a mistake and I should have tried anyway, but oh well. At least it will force him to divide his units somewhat. If he does reinforce it a lot, I'll just load back onto the galleys and head further up that inlet, always remaining a threat. It's not a city I'm interested in taking right away, the main prize right now is the Jewish Holy city. There'll probably be a whipped spear in there next turn, but he will not be able to upgrade the warrior:

He'll have 79 gold next turn, not enough to upgrade a warrior. Unless he logs back in to change stuff around.

Overall, I'll be happy if these first two waves net me Crepes, Bouillabaisse, Bourguignon, and the city I'm assuming is inland from Crepes. It'll be a good base from which to launch follow up attacks.

[Mr. Cairo]

Took the Holy City, he had evacuated the spear, I think on a boat to the islands, so there was only an axe and warrior. 1 HA died wounding the axe, and then I cleaned up. I then sent out a HA into the fog, and found myself next to his capital:


I moved the whole stack there to "threaten" the city if he decides to do anything, but its cultural defenses are such that 5 HAs are not going to be enough, I need the cats. He moved that warrior-chariot pair back into Bouillabaisse, so I sent my chariots back into the galleys to head further in, only to realise that Dreylin had canceled our OB. I also messed up moving my galleys back to pick up the reinforcements, they should be 1 tile S of that position, so they could unload on the rice next turn. I hope that the 4 chariots, 2 axes, and spear are enough to take that city, but with whipping, it could end up being a lot harder, I may even just "siege" it while I take the capital with the cats, then use the cats that survive and reinforcement cats to take Bouillabaisse.

After that will depend, if I can keep going with the HAs, then I will, but if I need more cats to continue taking cities, I'll take a breather there, wait for reinforcements before continuing. I will of course keep my HAs at the ready in case Dreylin or Jowy join in against Adrien. There's also the islands to consider.

Re: losing OB with Dreylin, it'll cost me a grand total of 4 gold this turn, since AT has enough cities that most of my routes with Dreylin can be replaced with ones with AT, and I also have some routes with some of Bricks cities that count as IC, probably islands. I re-offered OB to Dreylin with a little bribe, but I doubt he'll take it, and I also offered to Yuri, who probably also has some island cities that I can get IC routes from.

Capture gold is also filling up my coffers nicely, and BGN offered OB.

Everything is going, more or less, well.