[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[scooter]

If the game keeps going what do you plan to do?

It's difficult to answer this question right now. I have a few different plans (more like contingencies), but the way other players react may vary that a little bit. If mackoti actually tries to fight on the seas again next turn when we can cancel peace (I doubt he will, but it's still a question), that may adjust my plans. I have plans in place to counter-attack him should he pressure me, and I have a plan in place to make use of many of those boats/units if he gives me 10T of peace again.

If Lewwyn actually makes headway (not impossible), that will adjust my plans (think early Railroad for Machine Guns as something I'm considering). Or if he makes a big tactical mistake, he could find his army demolished by cannons, opening me up to counter-attack him if I play my cards right. So I'm trying not to commit to any specific plan just yet because I don't need to for several more turns.

Generally, I'm probably going to focus a bit on "keeping everything in front of me" by taking paths pretty similar to mackoti, also focusing heavily on prioritizing techs that increase tile yields (Biology for starters) since total tiles in play is my main advantage over the field. Biology for instance is worth more food/turn to me than any other player on the map right now by a fair margin (even mackoti). The longterm goal will be the Assembly Line tech path, but as discussed recently, there's quite a few techs between now and then I need to grab.

In the short-term, I'm going to be running a great merchant mission to Plako that should net me around 3k gold. I'll have to do it pretty carefully so as to not lose the merchant, but I could really use the gold to deficit tech, considering I am missing some crucial techs still. I believe that'll be a large boost. I'm also prioritizing the trade route boosting buildings (Harbors + Custom Houses) on the eastern coastal cities that have less of a need to be cranking navy, since those buildings are immensely profitable to me in free market. To go along with that, Corporation is alongside Biology are my next two most crucial tech targets, barring my opponents doing anything to change that as mentioned earlier in this post.

[SevenSpirits]

Lurkers are paying attention to interest levels, don't worry about that. Maybe you could advertise for a replacement teammate, or just play a little bit sloppier so it's not as big of a timesink?

[Ceiliazul]

or just play a little bit sloppier so it's not as big of a timesink?

Don't cheapen the game just cuz you put $10 on an Azza'an victory!

Edit: This may or may not be a wholesale fiction...

[Cyneheard]

I'm still eligible to play, but I need a few days before I can take over and some guidance from Scooter.

[Dhalphir]

To echo Seven, while we can't go into detail, there is plenty of interest from many players.

[scooter]

Lurkers are paying attention to interest levels, don't worry about that. Maybe you could advertise for a replacement teammate, or just play a little bit sloppier so it's not as big of a timesink?

To echo Seven, while we can't go into detail, there is plenty of interest from many players.

Noted, thanks guys.

I'm still eligible to play, but I need a few days before I can take over and some guidance from Scooter.

I may take you up on this soon, but I went back and forth and decided I do at least want to see out this Lewwyn conflict since I think I can do some fun stuff. Also my feelings on time available is at least a tad distorted by the fact that this week is unusually hectic for me. So I think I can manage a bit longer.

Speaking of, the treaty with Mack expired. I logged in, declared war, offered a straight 10T peace without moving anything. Mackoti accepted and ended turn as hoped. So that means I can go nuts on transferring even more stuff to the Lewwyn front.

[scooter]

Turn 201-202

I actually found a little time today that I wasn't expecting, so I decided to put together a decent report. I'm not sure if I'll have time for another quality report this side of the upcoming Lewwyn war, so this will have to do. First, I didn't mention this yet:



I'm trying hard to get Azza to join in. He's already at war with Lewwyn and has a sizable force, but he can't see right now like I can that Lewwyn's south is completely empty. His 60gpt (pre-modifiers) shrine is 3 tiles from Azzaland and defended by an archer and a CKN right now. Bacon Jane was the former Azza city Bigger took (and I got in the peace deal). I get some cash in return, and Azza gets the resources he needs to start whipping Knights again. I'm actually a little disappointed in myself that I didn't get those to him sooner (I really thought I or someone else had done that already), but he has them now.



That's the major news of the turn - 0 shots fired. I'm not surprised given that mack has clearly been setting his troops up in a defensive manner for the duration of the peace deal AND he hasn't been building more units, but it was still significant. Seems he's fine with this split of TBS island. I did vote for mackoti as apostolic palace leader last turn (a meaningless gesture since Commodore has enough votes to elect himself) just to try to reinforce friendly terms with mackoti. Really doubt that made a difference, but why not. Plako has cannons now:



I suspect that means Bacchus' days are numbered. One option I have in my back pocket is razing some of these Bacchus cities myself:



As of right now it's just a rough idea since my eastern navy will be heavily tied up with Lewwyn, but it's worth considering this down the line. The goal wouldn't be to help Plako, just to 1) steal capture gold from him by getting it myself and 2) burn the cities so that Plako has to rebuild them from scratch. That may be a worthwhile exercise just for the value of slowing Plako's inevitable rise down an bit. I'm thinking about it anyway, it really depends on how much Bacchus is able to hold out. The alternative is trying to prop him up a bit, but I can't really afford to funnel him signficant chunks of gold like we did with Old Harry earlier. Also speaking of Plako, I'm running the trade mission to his capital since it's the best city for it (around 3k gold), but it's kinda tricky to do without freaking Plako out:



(stack is on far west side of this picture)

Appears as if he'll see the Galleon + 3 Frigate stack. My main concern is he'll think I'm aiming to raze a city of his and he'll try to kill this stack OR he'll figure out what it contains and decide it's worth killing. Alternatively I could use a Caravel, but that'll make it even more obvious what I'm actually doing. I'm gonna see if there's a south passage below that island (for now I'm trying to make it look like that Galleon is looping around to hurt Lewwyn), and we'll see what happens from there.

Let's talk about Lewwyn. First, my heavy usage of artists specialists is about to pay off a bit further:



It appears as though that tile being highlighted is scheduled to flip to my control at end of this turn. The main perk there is it'll allow me to stage defensive/counter troops on the hill 2W of it without being spotted by Lewwyn's culture (I moved those Knights off the hill during my turn). He has two main stacks:



The main group is 20 Knights. Their placement here means 1 of 2 things: 1) he thinks I can't see this tile or 2) it's tipping his intentions to attack Gators on the first turn of the war. That tile right there can hit Gators, but it cannot hit Bakon (I renamed it after I took these screenshots), so if the stacks remain, it potentially suggests what his intentions are.



This stack is his 1 movers. It doesn't have any scary hitters, but it's extremely heavy on siege and Pikes, which means I'm giong to want to hit this one mostly with Grens rather than Knights. The upside here is he'll have to broadcast his intentions before he can move in on me since it's a 1-moving stack, so I'll be able to adjust defenses accordingly. The downside is he can definitely upgrade a few of these units to Rifles (all the more reason to shadow this stack with Grens) which means I won't immediately get odds with my cannons like I would on all of his other units. Now, granted, I have a lot of cannons, but it's still worth noting. THe main question is whether he'll combine these two stacks into one super-stack, or if he'll try to hit Gators with his Knights while sieging Bakon with this stack. I think I prefer the splitting, but we'll see what he decides. 4T until this treaty is up, so I have several days to sort out how I'm going to arrange my defenses. I'm going to try to hide my total unit count a bit so he thinks I'm more vulnerable than I am. I don't really want to scare him out of making this attack - this could well be a golden opportunity to demolish his army if he screws up, so I kinda want him to attack. We'll see if I can bait it without costing myself a city.

FWIW, if Bakon falls, no tears will be shed. Anything else would be a disappointing city to lose.



23 more population comes out of revolt next turn, and 14 more population 2T after that. I especially enjoyed naming one of the Bacon cities "Razorbacks" . In other domestics, this will be a nice boost soon:



Almost done with this slog. The additional 50% with Coal is yet another reason to get myself Steam Power soonly. Here's what's building in my oldest cities:



I queued 2 Airships this turn, and I'll add a few more next turn. Those will be useful, especially if Lewwyn figures out I have full vision and starts running EP slider or something.



Mack and I are quite close in the food/mfg demos. He's about to surge ahead in food thanks to Biology, I'm about to jump ahead in MFG thanks to more cities coming out of revolt. I wouldn't read too much into the GNP since I have tech off. Here's demos with tech on for comparison:

In this case it vaults me well ahead of Commodore's GA-enhanced lead, although that's also artificially high with prereq bonuses. Anyway, the short of it is I'm neck-and-neck with mackoti if not slightly ahead of him in raw tech pace, and probably a tad behind Commodore, although his true pace is hard to measure right now with no tech visibility and him running a golden age.

I'm happy with the soldier count too.



Despite Lewwyn's heavy, heavy whipping, I'm still gaining power at a faster (or at least equivalent) pace. Any burning questions?

[Ceiliazul]

feel like giving us a power ranking? It wont be the same without Pin, but the ranking system is intellectual property of the "Sporting Try", so you could still do one!

[antisocialmunky]

If the teams were NCAA Basketball teams, who would they be and why. Bonus points for calling the final score ranking when this game is over.

[spacetyrantxenu]

If the teams were NCAA Basketball teams, who would they be and why. Bonus points for calling the final score ranking when this game is over.

Oh hey, Gators doesn't suck in this scenario! Yay!