[SPOILERS] A new Thread [SPOILERS]

[Mardoc]

The civstats shows TBS and 2M changing a city and it is not in a log, so it was a trade. And then they trade it back. 2M wants to secure his east to go west.

I'm afraid there's another explanation: I hadn't scouted the city since TBS took it, and only scouted cities show up in the log.

Any big power drops?

Not yet. Bound to happen sooner or later. I think us and BaII are the only ones not currently in a war. Although Furungy-Jowy isn't likely to produce much in the way of losses for Furungy, granted .



Last turn of GA demos:



Here's the coal that should rightfully be mine

Those gems would be a nice bonus . Although I have to admit, it would be easier to raze Einstein's and found the fish/coal city than to hold Einstein's. Well, it's not first, we'll have to see how the war develops and what Zanth's other foes can accomplish.


The other profit I hope to acquire in the war.


And the cities I hope to raze. The unfortunate thing about those islands is that I haven't figured out a way to hit his mainland from the fog.



I hope to find time this weekend to formally count up everyone's techs, and also turn 'hit Zanth with rifles' into an actual plan. Got a bunch of chores to get out of the way first, though, and all those other games to keep moving, so it may or may not happen.

[flugauto]

Maybe we should settle the 2 east cities and push culture to grab the coal?

[Mardoc]

Maybe we should settle the 2 east cities and push culture

I think this is worth doing. But...

to grab the coal?

I don't think this bit is possible without taking or razing Einstein's. He's just got too much of a lead. He's already got one ring beyond the coal, and Einstein's is a strong city that can build more culture as necessary. It's his only coal, unless he can take Nakor's, so he's not going to just let it go.

OTOH, we're close to Airships, and don't currently have any cities close enough to Zanth to hit him with them. And when we push with cannon/cavalry, we'll want roads and culture. On top, if we do conquer, we'll need a path back to our core to railroad, if we want to hold it. So arguably settling the eastern cities does help us take the coal. Just - not on their own.

Finally, in State Property, more cities are always better. With trade, a new city probably pays for its maintenance from the first turn. So, yeah, now that we've got cannons around, I should push out another pair of settlers and give the bored workers something to do.

[Mardoc]

Got one settler in queue, and most of our workers migrating eastward. Should get the first city pretty soon.

It looks like Zanth may be settling the other one, he's just now roaded the hill it would be on. I don't mind terribly

Post GA demos are...still pretty good


For the time being, you can subtract 170 from the GNP row and add 50 to the MFG row - I keep performing one cannon upgrade a turn. Only have seven cats left, and I intend them all to be cannon.

More later, hopefully. Still want to make an actual invasion plan, and still want to count up techs, at a bare minimum. Anything in the empire lurkers particularly want to see?

Speaking of tech comparisons - anyone got an already-made spreadsheet for noting people's techs? I can't believe I'm the first to want to do this, but my google-fu is weak.

[flugauto]

Could you show GNP, MFG and Food graphs, please.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Maybe the victory screen too? And if you ask lurkers what they want to see, clarify by saying "besides blood" first.

[Mardoc]

Those are easy. (well, besides the blood bit).

Remember that graphs are a turn delayed, so the Ottoman line on both GNP and MFG is about to take a dip. I'd expect the rest of everyone to be in line with what the graphs show, though.

[Mardoc]

Took a first-draft quality stab at a plan. And, oy, this is going to be bigger than I thought. I think I need 13 full galleons - 52 Rifles - and even there, this plan relies heavily on taking Zanth by surprise.

Sadly, I can't find staging tiles that completely hide my advance. I'm thinking I may need to do my actual staging a turn further back from these spots. The reason I may not - well, Zanth's already got an absolute ton to watch with his current enemies. Maybe galleons showing up before war's declared, opposite his current wars, might be overlooked.

In the Sumerian sea, the only hidden spot is my own city. So Zanth is guaranteed at least one turn's warning on my advance. This is a place where I don't mind overkill out the wazoo - it's also my shield against counterattack, after all. Plus...if I can manage a lot of overkill, I could even keep the city, use it as a canal, and push in Zanth's lake to kill his Moai and another nice core city.



In the west, I've got three targets. I want the option of dumping 2 galleons full at each target, which seems to require 5/20 rifles. If I skimp anywhere, it'll probably be here. These are the cities that are least reinforceable.



To the east I've got four coastal targets, so six galleon loads seems a minimum. I'd like to boost this even further if I can figure out how to scrape up the troops - I'd love to add Least Action to the target list. And this is the portion closest to Zanth's field army.



On top, I need to keep back defensive forces, enough to make certain that Furungy, Gawdzak stay uninvolved, and enough to stop Zanth once he realizes he's got a fourth enemy. Although, the nice thing about galleons is that my forces will be something like five turns sailing time, max, from the land front, even though they're on the opposite side of the sea.

I can't decide if this is crazy-big, or shoe-string small. On the one hand: EIGHTY UNITS. For the offense-only portion of phase 1.

On the other hand: 4-6 amphibious Rifles/city. With enough warning that Zanth ought to be able to draft at least one unit for defense, probably an Infantry, plus whatever he's already got for garrisons, plus whatever he can naturally produce. It's only averaging three units produced per Ottoman city; I might be able to get this done in a five-turn Slavery dip, plus marching/sailing time.

Gotta keep thinking about this. My gut's saying that I need to go bigger. On the other hand, if I wait too long, Zanth will be able to end the Slow/2metra/Nakor distraction and it'll be just totally impossible. Even if I only achieve half my goals, it's still a major blow to the Babylonians. And there's bound to be a city or two that goes easier than expected - at least the ones I can hit by total surprise.

[flugauto]

1. Burn Scattering. Is 2east of Kimblee a good staging tile?
2. Take the 3 island cities.
3. Fork-burn Plain Wave, La, EqOfMotion. La has Colossus. Without Colossus, their GNP goes 30% down.

If this enough to stomp Gavagai/Zanth down?

[Mardoc]

1. Burn Scattering. Is 2east of Kimblee a good staging tile?

2 west you mean? I think that would work, yeah. Still out of sight, but would advance the schedule by a turn.

I'm considering keeping it long enough to use it as a canal, if I can find the forces to send through to the other side. I didn't show it, but Zanth's got a size 21 Moai and a size ~15 city on the lake that Scattering borders. It'd be nice to burn them down too...

2. Take the 3 island cities.

Yep! This is what I hope to be our main profit; that and hopefully the coal as well.

3. Fork-burn Plain Wave, La, EqOfMotion. La has Colossus. Without Colossus, their GNP goes 30% down.

I'm planning to also hit Free Boundary; debating if I give it to BaII or burn it. On the one hand, bringing BaII into the war would make the whole thing work easier. On the other, it's a really nice city that I want to be sure Zanth doesn't keep. BaII might not be ready to hold it, or might surrender it to a demand if he doesn't want a war.

If this enough to stomp Gavagai/Zanth down?

Losing colossus and eight core cities? I think it'll be more than 30% - definitely enough to leverage us up to first, assuming we can stop or deter a counteratttack. It probably won't be enough for Nakor/Slowcheetah to take back their land, but they might surprise me. Zanth will still have best or second-best tech, and a big empire to produce armies from. He'll still have his substantial cannon/cavalry/rifle stacks. He'll still have crippled neighbors, at least as long as Slowcheetah and Nakor survive. I don't expect this to drop him below fifth place, and that only if his current foes can keep armies in existence until my raiding parties show up.

So after your suggestions and my thinking on the commute:

First change: I'm going to move both staging tiles in the western theater 1W. That means I can't reach Plain Wave on the first turn of the war - but I think it also gets me out of sight. That ought to be worth it. There's a chance he'd overlook galleons with everything else going on, but it's better not to take the risk.

Second change: Move the east staging tile to where it can hit both PBC and Distrib. Tail on T1 of a war. I believe 5E 1S of Distrib. Tail would do that and still stay in the fog. That also moves the D-day tile 2W, which lets that stack account for Plain Wave in addition to its tasks - which in turn probably means I should try to add another galleon or two to this side and remove them from the west.

Third change: I think I need to add in 4-5 Frigates to the force, a couple to each major Galleon stack (skip the Sumerian sea ones). Zanth doesn't have Astro, but he does have Steam Power and might have built an ironclad or two by the time we show. Frigates plus Airships ought to be able to handle that - or at least soak up attacks until the Rifles have done their dirty work. Edit: Actually...if I can manage it, more is better. Frigates can also bombard city defenses, which ought to cut down on my Rifle casualties.

Fourth change: move Sumerian staging tile to where you suggested instead of inside Sinop.

Something for the future: I need to pick out airbases and count up how many Airships I can use. I ought to be able to fly from Sumerian and Persian cities at first, and Zanth's islands will work once they're captured, so maybe 20ish? Starting all my fights with the targets wounded ought to make this go a lot more smoothly.

Wait and see how it goes: Three secondary targets, if I can find the troops for them or if Zanth is totally out of position. First, there's Dirac and his capital. Best case, I can hit them turn three of a war. I think that's enough time for him to find reinforcements, between his cavalry, drafting, and building, but if he's slow, I will try to burn them too. Second, there's the cities by the inland lake. They require more galleons/rifles ready in the Sumerian sea. They also will have some time to reinforce. Third, there's Einstein's and B. Condition III. Can land next to them on T1 - again, if and only if I can find the forces. Fortunately I can do a lot of the prep work for items 2 and 3 by simply streaming troops to the Sinop area, where they can also be counterattack insurance.

If things work well, then I build a couple more boats and ship the Sinop area army forward instead of holding them on the defense. The more I can manage to do on T1 and T2 of the war, the better this will work. I want to give Zanth more to worry about than he can react to. Put him against the drafting limit, threaten too many places for him to defend them all, and things will start to crack. The tradeoff, of course, is that I also want to kick things off as soon as I can. So I think I'll move as soon as I've got the main razing force ready, and treat all the secondaries as 'nice if I can manage it' bonus items. Some should be possible, unless Zanth scatters his army to defend everywhere - and if he does that then he's not counterattacking.

Logistics-wise, it looks like the eastern galleon stack will take the longest to get in place, and the southwest one will be next longest. So those need to be my first priority. Airships can deploy the turn before the war if need be, so they're definitely last priority. Mid priority is sending everything I can to the Sinop area.

Edit2: I guess the most amazing thing about this, is that I feel eighty units in four stacks is just scratching the surface of what I could do. I could find places to use double this force, easy. My main limit is that I think I have to hurry to make this work - combined with there's only so much I can produce. Three 2-pop whips/city is as much as I want to stack in a non-existential situation