[SPOILERS] Magic Science and Mr. Cairo in Pitboss 40

[Commodore]

Nope, pre-whipping works just as well.

[Magic Science]

Turns 168 to 170 – 1080 to 1100 AD
   
There have been some interesting developments on the Traumhaft front of the War on Foreigners in the last few turns, the end result of which is what you see before you. Sandworm was captured by Elkad two times and Wing Raptor once, but both cities are safely back in Interdimensional hands now. Good job, Charriu. Drive those insolent partygoers out of your house! What was especially interesting about this was that no grand battle between stacks occurred during this process. Elkad voluntarily abandoned the cities and retreated. I think that he is suffering from having too many praetorians and not enough supporting unit types. Praetorians are good, but they won’t win against macemen and crossbowmen, which is exactly what Charson is fielding en masse. Maybe Elkad could have won from sheer numbers, but it would have been expensive and bloody. I think that he recognized this and that is why he retreated.

That is making me worried about his army again. Engineering means the doomstack could all the way across the Reich der Traume and ready to advance on Sofia in about 5-6 turns if he wants to. Of course, he might not, but that doesn’t stop me from worrying. The period of safety when everyone else was distracted with distant wars is coming to an end, and I need to be on my guard again.

   
On that note, my paranoia went into overdrive when Superdeath moved a worker onto the tile two northwest of New Hong Kong. That is an aggressive tile. It is the one that will, if roaded, enable a two-mover alpha strike on New Hong Kong. So, when I saw Superdeath prioritize sending a worker to that tile over improving the SOMEHOW STILL UNIMPROVED dyes, I was very worried. I shifted my war elephant/catapult stack into a position where it could hit the tiles adjacent to New Hong Kong in one turn of movement and I promoted the entire garrison. The swordsmen came along for the journey because they didn’t have anything else to do quite yet.

I strongly considered declaring war on Superdeath to kill that worker and see if there was anything over the hill. I chose not too because I want to leave the option of declaring war on him open for the next few turns, but I also wouldn’t want to refuse a peace treaty if he offered one in the scenario that I declare war. The reason I want to leave my options open is that the fleet sailing to take over Uzbek’s island needs to pass through his culture to get there, and he might not want to give open borders. Also, if he is grossly negligent and leaves a weak coastal garrison, I want to have the choice of killing it.

   
RFS-81 and haphazard1, the Psychedelic Warlords, were finally eliminated on Turn 168. Good game, you two! Thanks for playing.

In the immediate aftermath, shallow_ru settled Reptile Room and the culture mechanics went weird again. There are dark magics at work here, of that there is no doubt. I think that what is going on is that Not Rome’s culture should control those blank tiles, but it doesn’t actually do so until the end of the turn, but Reptile Room isn’t allowed to have them in the meantime either. Whatever was going on, Not Rome took the pigs and rice at the end of the turn. I wonder why shallow_ru didn’t settle it two tiles south for the crabs instead? It is going to a very long time before their city can claim the rice or pigs, if it ever can, and until then it is very vulnerable and foodless.

   
When scouting out the last few patches of fog in the Northern Ocean, Moncacht-Ape discovered a creepy, mysterious sign. Who put it there? What is its purpose? What does the string of numbers and letters mean? Why is it hiding in the northern ice? Is there another one in the southern ice? Nobody knows.

Perhaps more relevant to the game is what Superdeath has been up to. He just now settled the little city spot the north of Superman that should have been settled ages ago. At least it is sure to develop quickly thanks to all the prebuilt improvements around it. He might want to consider putting some defenders in there, though.

Also, Superdeath is researching Nationalism! It will probably be a while before he gets there, but it is still something to keep in mind. It’s good that the best unit he can draft is a maceman. Maybe the Taj Mahal is a bigger motivation for researching it, or maybe he wants to start on the path to cuirassiers?

   

Nope, pre-whipping works just as well.

Thanks, Commodore. I was worried that pitboss might do something weird with the timing of research and production resolution.

One turn left before the next phase of the master plan begins! In preparation, the people of the Incan League felt the cruel lash of the whip on a scale unseen since the panic of the One Turn’s War: four whips for four galleons next turn. I checked and double-checked to make sure I didn’t do anything dumb with city micromanagement. Every land unit, with the exception of the two incomplete settlers, took their final places for boarding. Next turn is going to be great fun…unless I messed up my planning in some stupid way, in which case I am going to spit blood.

[Magic Science]

Turns 171 and 172 – 1110 and 1120 AD
   
The invasion of this island has begun, and everything is now going perfectly so far. On the eastern end, the barbarians have been very cooperative. The windmill tile is where I will settle Valetta, so it is the ideal place to disembark. The barbarians could have blocked me from doing so if some of them had been there the turn my galleon arrived, but they left the tile clear and I was able to land where I wanted without incident. Hopefully, they will all make suicidal attacks against my crossbow and axeman and die at the turn roll.

On the western end, the three catapults landed adjacent to Scythian this turn. It may seem foolish to land undefended catapults first, but in this case, it shouldn’t be a problem. The archers have terrible odds of victory on the attack, and the barbarian units that could pose a threat, the axeman and the swordsman, are on the other end of the island and can’t possibly reach the catapults to attack before the other units arrive to defend them. The benefit of landing them first is that it gives them time to bombard the defenses of the city almost to 0% before the attack happens on Turn 176. Note that the defenses of the city are actually 50%, not 20%. I think that the game counts galleons as gunpowder units, so it doesn’t count the walls when they are selected.

   
Meanwhile, the colonization of this island is going perfectly as well. There are no barbarians to deal with here, so the only way for anything to go wrong is if I made a mistake in planning or misclicked something. I did neither, so both Riga and Ragusa will be settled next turn without any trouble. They are going to be grow and build so fast. These island cities will be great in no time at all.

Next turn, most of the forces bound for the far island board their galleons and head west. The rest will board the galleon from Cuzco when it is done on Turn 175 and follow behind. I don’t think you will be able to see it due to the interface bar at the bottom, but shallow_ru has an immortal by Almaty watching the proceedings, so they now know what is going on as well.

What you should be able to see are the work boats under construction in Almaty and Cape Town. Based on memory, there are nine seafood sources that will need to be improved. I don’t want the island to need to improve their own, and I don’t have any work boats prebuilt. That shouldn’t matter, though, because the land tiles are all so good that I won’t want to work the seafood in the initial turns anyway.

   
The War on Foreigners has been reduced from a full dogpile to a one vs. one fight between Charson and Elkad. I guess that shallow_ru did not want to attempt capturing Exdeath, which I find to be a reasonable decision considering how many units are holed up in there. I think that Elkad and Charson will probably make peace very soon as well. Elkad has clearly retreated, and I don’t think that Charson will try a counter-invasion. I am not quite sure why they haven’t made peace already, actually. My current paranoid theory is that Elkad is moving to attack me and wants me to think he is still distracted fighting Charriu. I should also remain wary of an Orphan attack; they do not seem to have lost very many units in the fighting. They even have another great general healer now!

   
That ties in to some of the bigger-picture strategic thinking I have been doing recently. The lesson I have learned from the War on Music and the War on Foreigners is that this map is very conducive to fast, brutal dogpiles against weaker players. Elkad declared war on Charson and took a city on Turn 160. By Turn 162 Charson was at war with three of his neighbors, and by Turn 167 he had been reduced to three cities. Of course, he did take two of those cities back and seems to have stabilized the situation, but I think that the point still stands. Dogpiles are scary!

I am very aware of the fact that what just happened to Charson could just as easily have happened to me. If Elkad had attacked me at Sofia instead of Charson at Forza, I don’t think I would have fared any better than Charson did. Probably worse, actually, since I have less room to backpedal, less cities to whip defenders out of, and no macemen to stop praetorians. I got lucky that Elkad didn’t attack me. If he, or someone else, attacks me now, then we are probably going to see the War on Foreigners happen again, except it will be against me. I don’t think that building more defenders is going to change that, which brings me to the screenshot above.

I have a very low-effort, minimal-investment plan to try to avoid a dogpile that I will put into action if Superdeath gives me the chance. I might not be able to raise up my own civilization high enough to deter or survive attack…but maybe I could knock down someone else far enough that they become the dogpile target? Last time I checked, Superdeath had one warrior in Superman, one warrior in Batman, and nothing in Shazam. On Turn 175, the forces moving to capture Uzbek will be in range to attack, and if Superdeath hasn’t improved his coastal garrison by enough, then I will. Then I would use my absolute naval superiority (my in-theater fleet would be three galleons, two caravels, and one galley vs. his one galley) to destroy every seafood improvement he has and blockade the cities that are working a lot of coastal tiles. Hopefully this would be enough to convince shallow_ru or Elkad to attack him, at which point I could make peace and .
The reason I am not putting more effort into this plan is that it relies on so much luck to work. Even if I had sent off nine swordsmen on my galleons right away, Superdeath could easily stop this from working just by putting two or three longbows in all of his coastal cities. He needs to be very negligent for my plan to have a chance, so I think that it is better to put more focus on what is more likely to happen, which is that I sail peacefully by to take over Uzbek.

[Mr. Cairo]

Now that he's seen the galleons I doubt he'd keep those coastal cities so undefended, but it's still worth it. But even just forcing him to garrison those cities is a good result, and should at the very least make him think twice before attacking.

Those islands look nice, and as long as we can not get attacked in the next 10 turns or so, they might just get us back into the game.

How do the demos look?

[Magic Science]

Now that he's seen the galleons I doubt he'd keep those coastal cities so undefended, but it's still worth it. But even just forcing him to garrison those cities is a good result, and should at the very least make him think twice before attacking.

I agree that the most likely outcome is that Superdeath increases his coastal garrison before we can attack, but he is playing four games at once and only spends 10-20 minutes a turn, so he might miss a detail like that. I hope he does.

Those islands look nice, and as long as we can not get attacked in the next 10 turns or so, they might just get us back into the game.

How do the demos look?

The most recent demographic screenshot I have is this one:
   
We can look back to this as a baseline to see how much we improve once the new cities are established. Something like an increase of fifty crop yield and fifty MFG may be achievable in the next twenty turns or so.

[Magic Science]

Turns 173 through 175 – 1130 to 1150 AD
   
Cutting it a bit close, aren’t we, Superdeath? The longbow’s unused promotion and the way he is facing suggest that Superman just completed it at the end of Turn 174, in the nick of time. In any case, the plan to burn Superman was called off. I could have declared war and started moving across MarvelDC waters immediately anyway, but I would like to be friendly to Superdeath and avoid shallow_ru or Elkad thinking I am distracted in a war, so I stopped the galleons one tile short and offered a deal of open borders and crabs for crabs.

   
Superdeath offered back crabs for crabs but not open borders. I thought about delaying another turn to try to negotiate free passage, but decided not to. Charson and shallow_ru provide more than enough foreign routes, even accounting for the island cities that have yet to be settled, so peace-boosted routes with Superdeath don’t matter. Hopefully Superdeath recognizes my restraint and realizes that this is not a hostile act at all. I could have burned down all his seafood for fun on the way, but I didn’t. I didn’t even succumb to temptation and have the swordsmen DIRECTLY ADJACENT to a city with ONE ARCHER attack. Behold my magnanimity! (also getting into a real war over work boats and a baby city would be dumb). I do hope that he is willing to accept open borders soon, though. I will be sailing galleons and work boats to and from Uzbek’s island for the next ten turns or so, and I would rather not be in a phony war the entire time.

   
Meanwhile, Charson reminded me that I actually don’t know what I am talking about and counter-attacked Elkad, burning one of his replants in the former land of Forza. Way to go! Unfortunately, he made peace immediately afterwards, so Elkad isn’t going to be distracted dealing with a counter-invasion like I hoped when I saw Oasis razed. Also, judging by the low number of Interdimensional units next to the ruins, it does not look like Elkad put up much of a fight here. It makes me worried that all of his units are doing something else, like travelling towards Sofia. Ironically, now that the world is relatively peaceful again, I have even more to be worried about.

[Magic Science]

   
Here we go again! That’s 2 knights, 2 war elephants, 32 praetorians (one of which is a great general medic), 7 axemen, 1 spearman, 2 pikemen, 2 longbowman, 2 crossbowmen, 2 horse archers, 15 catapults, 2 trebuchets, and 1 worker. More thoughts from me coming soon.

[Magic Science]

Turns 176 through 178 – 1160 to 1180 AD
So, Elkad has attacked. This is the beginning of the end for my poor little civilization. Now what am I going to do about it?

   
Let’s start with Superdeath. In response to Elkad’s attack, I decided to start harassing the MarvelDC coastline by killing Superdeath’s lone galley and advancing my units to pillage his seafood. I had planned for the caravel to join the pillaging, but it turns out that they can’t destroy improvements, so Scout is just blocking tiles instead.

I am doing this because I think that it is the best path to secure peace with Superdeath and also the best path in the more likely case that he attacks. If Superdeath is planning to take an Almaty and/or New Hong Kong-shaped bite out of the Incan League, then I think he will simply suffer through having his coast wrecked and carry on to claim his prizes. However, if he is not planning to do so, or if he’s feeling so-so about it, then the threat of having his water improvements ruined might be the nudge he needs to offer me a ten-turn peace treaty. I will not be accepting any worthless cease fires, of which he has already offered a few. In the case that he is planning to attack, getting the first blow in is obviously the right move.

I do worry about the possibility that my raids swing him from “undecided” to “attack” out of anger, but I think that is unlikely. One galley and a few workboats are not very much to be angry about at this stage of the game. Besides, if I can live besides the killer of my game in relative peace for 130 turns, surely Superdeath can handle this. Right?

   
After logging in on Turn 178 and rejecting another cease fire from Superdeath, I found this offer, which is much more interesting. I think it indicates that he is not planning to attack. New Hong Kong and Almaty are each easily worth more than 500 gold, so I see this offer more as an attempt to profit from my struggle without exerting any effort. That said, it was very tempting. My read of Superdeath might be wrong, and he ties down a lot of units in New Hong Kong and Almaty, units that I could use elsewhere, simply by the threat of an attack. I decided to reject it and re-offer with me giving 50 gold per turn instead of 500 gold. This way, I can keep my treasury to use for upgrading archers to longbows, which may be important.

   
On the other side of the Northern Ocean, I am doing a similar pillaging campaign to Elkad’s coast, because we’re at war and he can’t stop me. He may have superiority in every other way, but at least my navy rules the seas with no credible opposition. It gives me something fun to distract myself with while my mainland dies. Sadly, all of his coastal cities are too well guarded to raze any of them.

The Siege of Uzbek, the last barbarian stronghold remaining in the northern hemisphere, is also visible in the top left of the screenshot. It looked like it would be an easy conquest, but then the barbarians built two swordsmen immediately before I could attack. Why not build infrastructure like the Scythians? I captured a terrace and a lighthouse there! As a result of the swordsmen, the city did not fall this turn. I went 3 for 5 on battles, but one of the defending swords was very lucky and received no hits, so it remains uncertain if my wounded units can take the city next turn. Oh well, if they fail, then the units the Magellan is carrying along during its pillaging can finish the job in a turn or three.

   
Unsurprisingly, the Unlucky Orphans are gathering in Duncan Q and Jacques S II, attack position. It’s a dogpile for sure, just like the War on Music and the War on Foreigners. If those knights are not inside my borders when I log in next turn, I will eat my virtual internet hat. I hope that Tank, Quechua Two, and Jem are all placed somewhere safe by the vagaries of the dark arts, but chances are they are going to die.

   
Elkad did not raze Sofia, which is not good news. I had already felt certain that this war was intended to be a war of conquest, not like the One Turn’s War to burn Geneva, but this confirms it to me. Sofia is an awful city unless you control Cuzco’s culture as well, so Elkad must be planning to attack the capital next. If he marches directly on Cuzco, then the attack could have started as soon as his half of Turn 181. However, I expect to take it a turn or two longer than that, because he needs to knock down the culture and inflict collateral damage first. In the meantime, units from all around the empire are converging to defend Cuzco. Sofia’s garrison evacuated to avoid being slaughtered on flat ground and is already in the city, and detachments from Lhasa, Almaty, New Hong Kong, and the war elephant/catapult stack will be arriving shortly. I am also racing some a few units back from the Battle of Scythian to help. The only reason Elkad’s galley is still alive is that I prioritized delivering them quickly over killing his ship. I expect it to hide in Sofia next turn to survive, but if it sticks its head out again, then Xi Ling Shi will sink it.

[Magic Science]

   
In the south, I preemptively evacuated Lhasa’s garrison. Due to shallow_ru’s Engineering and the culture situation, the Orphan catapults in Jacques S II will be able to knock down the walls during the second turn of attack, and then the knights get easy wins against even the longbows, let alone all the random ancient trash. I think that I could make a credible attempt to hold the city if I converged the units that I am sending to Cuzco in Lhasa instead, but I want to keep Cuzco a lot more than I want to keep Lhasa.

[Mr. Cairo]

Any chance of grabbing Elkad's island city? It seems as though you'll rule the northern ocean long after all the mainland cities fall, so might as well grab that island. It looks pretty tough with a castle and a longbow on a hill, but enough ancient trash to weaken it and it'll fall.

In fact, might it be worthwhile to try and evacuate as many good units as possible from the mainland to the islands? That way you can remain a threat to Elkad and Superdeath for a while, pillages resources, razing poorly defended cities, etc.