[SPOILERS] Parkin brings the rain down in Africa: Churchill of Zulu

[Grimace]

build a fort on the oil...

I considered that, but I have enough workers near there to 2-turn build the oil field, and I'd rather not lose the commerce from the fully mature cottage any sooner than I need to. Plus that will give me 2 turns to build cash so I can do the upgrades...won't help me to have oil and not be able to do anything with it.

[Grimace]

Turn 222

Gawdzak sent me another gift -- World Map + 1 gold, so it definitely seems like it's a countdown, and the only reason I can think of for him to send that is either he plans to invade me through mackoti and is giving me a warning, or he's going after mackoti and wants me to pile on. He only has wetbandit & mackoti on his borders and of those two I only border mackoti, so if he was going after WB there'd be no point in letting me know.

Speaking of wetbandit, he nabbed a Great Artist this turn. I'm 8 turns from my next GP which will hopefully be something besides a Great Scientist so I can kick off a Golden Age.

I did start moving some cavalry and cannons up towards mackoti on the chance I'm right, though I did leave decent forces facing Seven & haram. They may get opportunistic as well.

EDIT: Chance that WE'RE right. I can't take full credit because Harry was the one who thought of it first.

[Grimace]

Turn 223

...and the pot boils over! What an unexpected turn of events.

First off, Gawdzak declared against wetbandit, which is not a huge surprise. As a result, both Seven and I declared against him, honoring our DP with wetbandit. Unfortunately, I have no way to attack Gawdzak short of going the long way through either Seven's territory or mackoti's territory, neither of which would probably maintain an OB if I started sending large quantities of troops through. So when Gawdzak offered me peace I accepted. Interestingly enough, so did Seven. I thought that because he shared a border with Gawdzak he might actually honor it and engage, but then again his power isn't so hot right now, though he's growing it quickly. Check it out:



Of course this doesn't reflect Gawdzak/wetbandit's losses this turn, but you can see Seven with a massive increase. I would suspect we'll see lots of aircraft soon.

But there's more! mackoti declared war on Seven! Which on the face of it makes no sense. They don't share a border -- mack would have to either go through me or wetbandit to get to him. So I don't know what the heck is going on there. Mack was taking his turn when I took mine, so I'll log in when he's done and see if I see any of his units.

Wetbandit put up a good defense of his city (getting himself a GG), but he couldn't stand up to the might of the Twitch Legion.



So far he's just lost one city, but given the power disparity I can't see this ending well for wetbandit unless he can get help.

Domestically, we got Combustion this round (woo hoo!). I started building the oil well and will have it in 2 turns. Until then, I went to 0% and switched to Biology. Railroad has been helping a lot with production, and Bio should help with growth. Check out the Production graph:


Nothing like Mackoti's rise, but a pretty good uptick as I railroad all of my hill mines.

So near-term plans are to upgrade my navy from frigates and galleys/galleons to destroyers and transports and wait and see what happens with Seven and mack.

[Grimace]

I logged in again to look at things and was able to see some new research. Mackoti is teching Industrialism, while Seven is going after Refridgeration.

As far as I can tell, neither one is moving troops through any territory I can see, so I'm not sure what's up with the war declaration.

[Old Harry]

Probably best to assume misdirection from Mack - how long is left on your "NAP"?

[Grimace]

Probably best to assume misdirection from Mack - how long is left on your "NAP"?

Oh, it's been gone a while now.

Turn 224

The war continues in favor of Gawdzak. He captured two more of wetbandit's cities, getting a GG from the battles. Seven's Golden Age ended, but not before he generated a GM.

Gawdzak offered me an OB treaty (which we had prior to his declaration of war, anyway), so I accepted. I'm going to move a chariot over and see what kind of stacks he has. He's still putting a lot of espionage into me to keep me from getting his research, the big jerk.

Our oil was actually hooked up this turn, because I didn't remember that two turns of worker effort actually means it's done AFTER they act on the second turn, so I was able to start upgrading some frigates to destroyers. I also have a couple of frigate builds that should automatically upgrade to destroyers when the turn rolls.

Our miners found a silver vein in a hill near the captured cities from haram this turn, which is not a great occurrence because I lost 2 hammers of production (1h from the hill, 1h from Productive because it fell below 4h total). It's an extra happy face, because I didn't have silver before, but frankly I don't need as much as I need .


And before you harangue me for building a Grocer, I need the health in that city and it's producing a fair amount of commerce, so it seemed a better investment than an aqueduct because it gives me 3 health and the +25% bonus to money for 50% more hammers.

The graphs haven't changed much yet, but I'll post again in a few turns. I've switched to hard-core war prep now, building units in every city except the very young (and still needing the basic infrastructure and too small to build them reasonably quickly). A number of cities are still finishing their previous builds, but 90% of the empire should be building units in 3 turns. Duiker is building Ironworks (15 turns to go), but other than that, the rest of my cities will be building rifles, cav, destroyers, or machine guns. With the new wars breaking out, best to be prepared for the worst!

[Old Harry]

Hey! I like Grocers in big cities. Although have you got a harbour there already?

Let's hope that Mack is planning on hitting Wetbandit... I guess your chances for the win have slipped away now, but you had a pretty good run - including a successful war against a decent player! What are your goals for the rest of the game? Survive to the end? Make someone bleed when they attack you?

[Grimace]

Hey! I like Grocers in big cities. Although have you got a harbour there already?

Yes, it has a harbor already. Only health buildings that were left were aqueduct and grocer.

Let's hope that Mack is planning on hitting Wetbandit... I guess your chances for the win have slipped away now, but you had a pretty good run - including a successful war against a decent player! What are your goals for the rest of the game? Survive to the end? Make someone bleed when they attack you?

Considering it was my very first time playing MP civ, I don't think I did terribly. I have definitely learned a lot about how MP works compared to SP. I especially appreciate all of your advice. I didn't always follow it 100%, but if I'd had to go it alone I would have been much worse off.

Essentially my goal right now is last as long as possible. If I'm able to hit 4th place I'd be thrilled (figuring 1/2/3 go to Seven/Gawd/mack in some order). And then whoever does end up attacking me I want to do my best to make sure they're not the winner.

Loosely my plan is that assuming someone does eventually attack me, whether it be mack or Seven (since it's not going to be haram), I will leave just enough force where they're attacking to keep it from being a total pushover and take everything else I have and counter-attack at a different (hopefully weakly defended) location and just start razing every city of theirs I can. A sort of "I can't win, but I can make you lose too!" attack.

[Old Harry]

Ha! It would be great if that worked, but it sounds like a recipe to get your army shredded and make you a walk-over... Have you got any ideas where you'd do that to Mack or Seven? I presume with boats for Mackoti? Maybe you've got a plan I can't see...

[Grimace]

Yeah, I have 8 galleons (soon to be transports, and building some more) stashed in a city near the north of my empire that's definitely outside of the visibility of mack or Seven (they don't have enough EPs against me to see my cities). And I shuffled my forces around so I have a strong force at my border with mackoti, two fairly strong forces at the two points I touch haram and the one I touch Seven, and three other nodal reaction forces of ~10 cavs each. The nodal reaction forces are stationed in interior areas where at least one is able to respond to any point of my empire in no more than 2 turns.

For example, I saw a lot of mack's interior cities when my chariot was wandering around scouting right after the war with retep, and most of his cities (even some of his coastal ones that aren't close to me or haram) have 1 or 2 old units in them (a couple are even completely without defenders). If I could get a force of 40-50 cavalry into the squishy part of his empire, I don't see why I couldn't raze several cities before he could mass enough force to take them out. Yeah, that would make it easier for him to conquer my territory, but I'm going to lose a war with him anyway, so why not take out a couple of his older, more mature cities?

Seven's the same way, though it would be less effective against him because he has flight now. Without aircraft of my own, there's basically no way to effectively defend. Bombers are just so brutal, and with them he could pound and weaken any force I sent against him. I'd almost like to resume the war against haram -- though he's roughly on par power-wise, he's falling farther and farther behind in tech.