AT loves it when a plan comes together!! [Spoilers]

[MindyMcCready]

Since we're likely going down the path of holding Noveria and sooner or later taking a stab at Eden Prime or Citadel. I think that we really want that city SSSWWW of LALaw. Maybe before that city site that you wanted. Short term that will allow troops in that city to cover either Noveria or Horizon and threaten Eden Prime and Citadel either before or after we get a fort 1 tile W of that.

We might be in a long haul militarily with Jowy so we would benefit from that mobility. If not our immediate city, then our very next city. However, having said that, if we get lucky and manage to raze Citadel, then planting that city 1W is better for the extra lake and the 2 mines. We lose the Clams, but LALaw probably needs them full-time.

[AutomatedTeller]

the clam site has the advantage of more woods, and an improved horse tile to use, though. I think I prefer that, to close off the border with TT some. Right now, TT has no coastal cities on Lake Tangyanika... I'd like that to stay that way, if we can. he'll get one eventually, I'm sure, but he can't make much of a navy with one city.

I think it is a long-haul, yes - maybe 20 turns. Thing is, he is behind technologically and he's losing production. And there's only so long the whip can work.

[AutomatedTeller]

Figured I should do a Turn 151 overview:

A-Team - bureau commerce cap - I assume this is the biggest commerce city in the game.


MASH


























We will get 3 more in the next 3-5 turns - a build, Noveria and the barb city (assuming it grows and I don't screw it up)

[MindyMcCready]

the clam site has the advantage of more woods, and an improved horse tile to use, though. I think I prefer that, to close off the border with TT some. Right now, TT has no coastal cities on Lake Tangyanika... I'd like that to stay that way, if we can. he'll get one eventually, I'm sure, but he can't make much of a navy with one city.

I think it is a long-haul, yes - maybe 20 turns. Thing is, he is behind technologically and he's losing production. And there's only so long the whip can work.

Wow, it looks like we really do have the Great Lakes. The lake volume in our territory exceeds anyone elses. I guess that's why mfg is hard to come by for us. Given that we seem to own the greatest amount of water, we might find our ability to boat other limited (althought we did ponder at Cornflakes in the past) but I think that our tactical placements likely saved us a huge amount of being boated.

Commodore's the only real risk right now.

I apologize for criticizing your lack of mfg focus earlier. Workshops are still soooo sucky that its not even funny. It feels very unwarranted looking at the map now. Sry.

So did you build an Academy with the GS? No GA then?

Will we be switching to military civics? From the look of your city builds, it looks like we're in Defcon 3, which is probably appropriate given that we're likely in more of a long-haul with Jowy. OR still has some value in Defcon3.

I'm ok with this by the way. I think at this point we should research military tech to take Jowy out a little more easily.

Yeah, TT's looking like a real contender. Cornflakes is dropping off a little but could catch up. TT's progress is making me want to take that city off of his hands on top of already wanting to take that city off his hands. I'd say take that deal though unless there's any obvious risks (Astronomy?)

Do you think having Education will put TT into builder mode. I really want to prevent him from taking our Jowy cities. But I only want to do this if we think that the fallout and risk won't be too severe. So conflicted.

[AutomatedTeller]

TT declared war after getting education, so I doubt it. But I'm not really worried about him getting jowy's core - I don't see how he can project that much power.

I did build an academy - I'm not sure it was the right move, but we do want one, and this GS exists, while the next GP might not be a GS at all.

We have a ton of lakes. Honestly, our lack of MFG focus is at least as much because we spend so many hammers on workboats - I think we have 13 workboats out - 2 whales, 4 clam, 7 fish - that's 390 hammers, or 6 workers. Plus, of course, we had to plant 2 cities on hills, for defense.

I think we have more boating possibiltiies than it may seem, but they require workers, and lot's of 'em.

For instance:


Either the yellow or red lines put boats into Lake Binh Dinh, allowing us to boat Potos Village directly. There's no defense against it, since you can't build naval units on a lake. If we take blimp, we can then get boats in that big lake up there and then cornfalkes is kind of screwed.

I think we should not switch out to mil civics - not yet. There may come a time to swtich out of OR, but there are still some good sites and I don't think cornflakes is a short term issue - he has a lot of azza land to settle, so I think he'll go that way.

I think short wars are the order of the day, and I'd prefer to not have them against cornflakes, not right now - I could see taking commodores two lake superior cities



or waging a war on TT for Rannoch and other Jowy cities, but continued peaceful expansion (we really should build some courts) is, I think, the order of the day. And I really do want to build Oxford at some point.

[AutomatedTeller]

so - education. I think we need 7 unis to be able to build Oxford (and we aren't even close)

We have 3 libs - A-Team, CHiPs and SWAT (forgot about that one)

MASH, The OC and V are 3 of the others. the 7th is harder - none of the other possibilities (NCIS, Magnum) have good hammers. We could use LA Law - it has good hammers and some commerce from the lake tiles - but I'd rather it stay on military. NYPD blue is right out.

We could, fairly easily, start building unis, and I think a slowdown in the Jowy way may be a reason to do that - if we can't take Eden Prime, then I think we will look for peace and just try to reinforce Noveria.

Long term, the best place for Uni #7 is Quincy - good food, strong commerce, some hammers. It will take while before we can do it - but maybe it's still better than NCIS or Magnum.

I dunno.

[AutomatedTeller]

I did run some sims -one included extra LB after I took the defenses down. In basically every sim, we ripped him apart pretty well. Now, that's before I understand his promos and those could make a difference. In any case, we won't take the city the first turn, but we might take it the 2nd. or, of course, everything could die a horrible death, of course.

Anyway - it was enough for me to think that we have a chance to take eden prime.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I just caught up on this thread, I like it. It's a home invasion gone wrong -- there's blood everywhere and most of it is outside your house. Looks like you shot up the invader pretty bad when he ran away.

A nitpick on some recent discussion, though:

Oh well, with whatever minimal little influence Jowy has left on this game he's going to determine that TT gets the cities not us. After all we deserve it because we killed his stack,...in our territory. Its a little like the PB7 game where Seven was pisssed with Xenu. He complained that Xenu was defending only against Seven,....but I don't think that Xenu was offered peace,...

Well, it's a bit like PB7 in that Jowy is being attacked by two neighbors at the same time. That's about as far as the similarity goes, I think. Specifics below, feel free to skip the spoiler if PB7 flashbacks give you nausea, as they do to me, and also because this is a minor thread hijack. Keep up the good reporting and, of course, the bloodletting!

At the time of the scenario below I was being attacked on two sides, I was in full asshole/grudge mode against Seven, and I was determined to not let him take cities if I could prevent it (and I wasn't able to prevent much of anything, but I tried anyway). That didn't mean I wasn't defending my other fronts when possible, though.

The picture below is from two turns before Mack/Seven helped themselves to a fairly decently (but as it turned out inadequately) defended city on the northeast edge of my territory. Plako's small incursion, seen in the picture on the approach, was ultimately unsuccessful as he didn't take the city in the attempt. So Seven's complaints that I stacked my defense against him was just whining. And yeah, my response to his whining was distasteful, but meh. His complaint that I wasn't trying to defend against other players was simply incorrect. I hope that's not part of my reputation from PB7; just because he said it doesn't make it true.



Oh, and the bit about offering peace was impossible in an AW game. But I wouldn't have taken it anyway even if it was possible, grudge holding and all that.

[AutomatedTeller]

yeah - I think I'm mainly surprised, here, that Jowy didn't take peace and figure out how to repel TT. I dunno - maybe TT has a huge army, but it's hard to believe. also, his force composition isn't very good for defense, though maybe he had all those elephants being built from before.

If he's staying at war, I think his decision to pull into his core isn't a bad one, though. depends on how well he can pull it off, I may end up walking away after swiping Noveria....

I like the home invasion metaphor - but, it was more like they kind of strolled up to my house, watching me board up the doors and giving me time to buy better guns and recruit the neighbors, then decided to break the gazebo, mess up the flower beds and throw stuff into the pool and lining me up to blow them away. I think his invasion wasn't a bad idea, but it was poorly executed - and, in his defense, having me get Feudalism just before he entered my territory AND be able to upgrade units couldn't have done a lot for his confidence.

[AutomatedTeller]

Can someone tell me what this means?



I mean - why, in god's name, does he think it's reasonable for me to PAY him for peace? Clearly, he does, or he wouldn';t have offered. I really don't understand. Does he think that something is going to change and he's going to destroy me?

Seriously - I assume he's got a reason - what am I missing about the way the game is going?


Also got a 1 gold for 1 gold offer from Cornflakes, which I accepted, and an offer from cornflakes for nationalism, which I did not, since it required gold and I need that for guilds.





Founded ER, north of ALF:



Eden Prime's defense:




I moved before checking tech - I don't know that I would have, had I seen this:



Someone is feeding jowy tech. I am pretty sure TT researched engineering, so he's not going to give him that. But it's possible he'll have it next turn, which will cause issues.

Naval situation:



Guess the surprise isn't going to be much of one - I should have moved the 2nd galley into port, but I didn't - Jowy will be able see the one.