[SPOILERS] Cheater Hater hates bad advice. BGN gives only bad advice.

[Cheater Hater]

At least johns is playing early so I can get my turns played. I missed T200, so here are T201's separate folders: Adrien, johns, Whosit, domestic.

The big news here is that Adrien moved up his stack, so I hit it with a bunch of Cats, then cleaned out a bunch of units. Obviously I couldn't kill the entire stack (there were just too many units in it), but I did manage to kill enough units that combined with moving up a couple units (most notably the roving Chariot stack) he can't take Luxemburg this turn.

Right now I'm setting up for three main fronts I want to attack on:
1. Once Adrien's current stack is decimated, I should be able to not only easily take back Strassburg, but also push in a bit to take a couple cities.
2. All my spare Rifles and Cats in the east are headed south to Augsburg, and once I have enough I'll slowly move down to Cera una Volta and take that along with Il Mercario (which each have relatively few units; only 9 in CuV (though it is on a hill) and 2 in IM)
3. A lot of 2-movers are headed towards Vienna--johns has a big stack of Cats guarded by only 2 Pikes, and my hope is to move a bunch of Cavs out of the fog (though Knights could work too once the Pikes are dead; we'll see how much spare gold I have for Knight->Cav upgrades) to flank away the Cats. Is there a detailed reference of exactly how Flanking works, and how many Knights/Cavs I'll need to kill the entire stack (and how that's changed in RTR)?

Of course, the biggest problem with all of this is the MIA Whosit--how can I try to signify I want peace? Should I just make an offer of peace for X Gold? What about one of my garbage cities on the border (if city trading is even legal)? I know you aren't particularly good at AI Diplo foreign policy BGN, but you're all I have

Other than that, my next questions are what I should research next (and how much gold I should use for more upgrades) and which civics should I switch to at the end of the Golden Age. I only have 5 available techs right now, and only 3 are realistic: Constitution (Jails to handle my slight WW/get espionage, as well as to head to Corporation for the trade route and Wall Street), Astronomy (Observatories domestically, Galleons to completely dominate johns), and Chemistry (leading to Military Science to get Grenadiers to combat the Rifles both johns and Adrien are beelining--no clue why Whosit is going Military Tradition--as well as Commando, which I'll need lessons on how to use most effectively). Another domestic question that is still unresolved is where I want to build HE and West Point (assuming I want to put them together), and when I want to build them.

Finally, if I do have any non-BGN lurkers, what do you want to see for the ~T200 overview? I know I haven't been posting many pictures to the thread lately, but at least I'm updating, and I'm hoping separating the pictures into various folders has been at least a little helpful.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Ha. I'm apparently the worst at diplomacy, so I am not sure how to signal your peaceful intent other than to offer peace. If he declines, can you posture in a menacing way and then offer peace again? Or, there is always the possibility of paying some gold and giving a financial incentive. If you can secure the front that would free you significantly to knock the heads of your other two neighbors, which would be profitable. So it is an investment to pay, even though it sucks to pay for peace at any price. Maybe this is why I get sucked into so many wars and never get out. I just don't like to pay the blood money and I don't really mind the blood.

[Cheater Hater]

Another couple turns played: T202, then the four T203's: Adrien, johns, Whosit, Domestic

Adrien: Adrien asked for straight peace last turn--uh, no, not when I might be able to take everything in the area of your capital (all his troops are south by the johns border). I've almost completely obliterated the initial invading stack, though it has cost me basically all of my cats. All my troops are damaged, but I was still getting decent odds--after Strassburg was attacked, other than Cats I think I've lost only one Rifle. My Medic Cav is on the way, and then once my stack is healed I'll be able to take a bunch of cities (I'm not even sure how many I will be able to take).

johns: Not much action from him so far, but I'm getting my stacks ready. On the western front I moved my stack up, and next turn I'll be attacking the Cat stack (though it does have a couple more defenders, I have a bunch of Cavs and a Morale Rifle to clear stuff out). The eastern front is more uncertain--I'm putting a bunch of Rifles in Augsburg, but johns has some more units in CuV. No real action on the other two fronts--we'll see what happens once I make my move in the west.

Whosit: I made an offer of peace for 30 GPT (300 gold total), and apparently Whosit didn't like that--he razed Pisa (I had left only a single LK in it, since I assumed Whosit couldn't take it from the fog due to the hills/forest--I forgot/didn't know that Keshiks ignored terrain costs ), then offered peace for 30 GPT as well as both Brandenburg and Florence. I reoffered 50 GPT (500 gold) and Brandenburg (my crappy northern city), we'll see if he does anything with that. Other than that, no movement there.

Yes, losing a city was very, very sloppy--I've pretty much written off Whosit at this point, assuming that if Whosit makes a real move on me I've lost completely. Here's part of the reason for that:


Why yes, that is 26 Rifles, 20 Knights, and 22 Cats, and that's just in the one stack I can see after taking a couple cities--it's like he has a massive production advantage or something and is the real threat Whosit...

[spacetyrantxenu]

Ha, is he a threat to Whosit as long as he's away conquering someone else?

Nice job rallying so far, keep at it.

[Cheater Hater]

Ha, is he a threat to Whosit as long as he's away conquering someone else?

Nice job rallying so far, keep at it.

I don't know if it's "rallying" as much as "not caring since I've already lost", but I'm still playing :/
Based on CivStats I think Whosit accepted my deal--of course, I can't play until johns does

[Cheater Hater]

I've been slacking on the reports a bit--here's T204 and T205, both separated into the normal folders.

Obvious news is that Whosit accepted me peace deal, now I'm free to focus everything on johns and Adrien. I finally took another city (The Ugly) from johns, but I'm going to lose it in the interturn since I couldn't get my Rifles there, and he has both a stack of Knights and a stack of Cats in range. Hopefully I'll have enough units to take it back.

That's not the only front I'm attacking johns on--not only do I have the eastern front at CuV, I've started to approach Fistful of USD in the north with Rifles from both Johnny Oro and Aachen. I don't know if I'll be able to take the city, but at the very least it should serve as a diversion.

The problem with pushing against johns is that I haven't been able to add many new forces to the Adrien front. I'm certainly not going to lose anything, but my attack is starting to lose steam since all my units are injured. I'm still trying to attack Strassburg since it doesn't have any defenses yet, but Adrien is getting a decent number of troops shuttled into it, and I lost two Rifles since I've been trying a bunch of 75-80% battles. My GG Medic is finally to the big stack, so I hopefully can heal quickly enough, and then a couple of Cavs can join the front (both new builds and Chariot upgrades).

[Cheater Hater]

Well, I missed last turn's report, mainly since johns finally got me back on a normal schedule by playing this turn before I went back to bed, so here are the three folders: Adrien, johns, and domestic. Normally this is where I'd link this turn's pictures, but you're in for a treat--I have an actual report, complete with troop diagrams! I'll still cover all 4 fronts I'm currently fighting on, in order--I don't even know if PB18's players are fighting on so many distinct fronts at once.

Let's start with Adrien, since I only have the one front against him (at the moment--more on that later). We'll start with peace talks. Last turn he tried to get straight peace again, so I offered peace for three cities (Strassburg, Tungelae, and Mtunzinia), mainly since my troops were beat up and I assumed I would get some WW relief. Adrien then countered with this:


Uh no, try again. In all honesty, my last offer was probably too low, considering my units healed much faster than I expected (they're still in my territory, and I don't have a feel for how fast a GG Medic heals stuff) and I don't have much WW with Adrien (since not only am I not losing that many units, either Strassburg is primarily my culture or the battles are taking place on my territory, so I'm not accruing that much for all my suicide Cats). As such, another round of attacks:


Turns out Cavalry are good, especially when your opponent is promoting all their units to Pinch--who knew?
Heck, even my leftover stack of Chariots got some use, since I was running low on units, wanted to save some Rifles to move into the city, and the last couple defenders were all Axes

So, yeah--most of Adrien's troops are completely gone, at least in the area where I'm invading. I'm almost assuredly taking Tungelae next turn since I have a million Cavs, and then I don't know how much else I'll be able to take--I might even be able to get the entire northern part of Adrien's empire if I want to. The problem is over-extension, and that will come up more later.

Next, we have all the fighting with johns, and before I get to the three fronts, there's that mysterious gain by Whosit during johns's turn. It appears that johns traded that city stuck in the middle of Whosit's territory to him; presumably he sold it for gold to either fund some upgrades or try to get to Rifling in enough time to matter. The current research ticker says 7 turns, but I'm pretty sure johns can't sustain that without more influxes of gold (even ignoring me taking all his cities). Let's start with the original front in the southwest:


Lots of stacks are here, but the main idea is simple: I'm not heading for johns's core just yet, but instead am cleaning up at Badman's River (and Tepapa, technically) and possibly will head to Adrien's southern cities. Right now I don't expect that much resistance at Badman's River (because again, Cavs are awesome when not facing Rifles), and then Adrien's troops are even less advanced. The biggest problem is johns's stack of Knights, one of the two big stacks left at this point. If you looked at last turn's pictures you saw that johns had a Cat stack that's missing in this picture (which caused me to move my troops weirdly--I still don't know if that was right). That stack hasn't completely disappeared yet, we'll see it later. Next, we have the southeast front:


The first impression is that I'm actually not doing so poorly here, assuming the Knight stack doesn't show up--Il Mercenario only has 5 units in it (including an Impi) and I have a decent number of Cavs and Rifles (16 total by my count). The problem is that it has 60% culture defenses, along with the Musket with max fortify bonus. I'm probably going to lose a unit or two weakening the top defenders, and that's if johns doesn't reinforce it with a bunch of Knights. Still, I'm advantaged here just based on pure numbers (and I can pull up more Rifles from my cities if disaster strikes). Finally, we have the northern front, which is the most interesting:


It started on an odd note: Fistful of USD was abandoned, and the Cat stack was now threatening this front. (Have I mentioned how powerful having city visibility is recently?) As such, that meant I didn't want to just pile all the troops into the city, so I split the stack of Rifles into a city guard and a stack moving up the coast towards The Bad. However, then I realized the big stack was within range of my backup Cavs and I was getting good odds, so I couldn't resist the urge to attack the stack and flank yet more Cats (which does reduce the collateral they do, I hope?) After that, I decided to divert a couple Rifles to guard those Cavs, splitting up the stack a bit more. As such, I'm assuming johns can take back Fistful of USD if he wanted to, but I'm not sure he will--he seems to prioritize being flexible at this point, and isn't making a final stand quite yet (unlike Adrien, who piled almost all his troops into Strassburg and doesn't have much of a follow-up).

So overall, it looks like things are overall good, right? Well, it isn't all roses, but unfortunately I'm running a bit low on time and have to cut the report into two parts. My plan is to finish it tomorrow, as I just have the domestic portion and a bunch of overall thoughts. If you want spoilers (or if you're BGN and want to respond to my stuff) I have all the domestic pictures here, but I'll give the pictures context in part 2.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Looks good! You don't even need me! It looks like Elum is running away with the game, but there isn't much that you can do about it. Just keep banging away against these weaklings and hope that Elum makes a mistake. You've done a good job managing the war. Getting dogpiled sucks, but dogpiling someone and then having it backfire sucks even worse, so make them pay.

I don't have any advice to give right now. You're in a hotly contested war, so just keep churning out units. Once you break their stacks and can overrun them you can turn your promoted veterans on Whosit and make him pay for his opportunism. I don't know anything about his situation except he may just be playing for second rather than trying to win since he attacked you when the obvious leader was pulling away. Different things motivate different people though so I don't know what to say, it may not have even been a bad move on his part. It just depends on what he wants to achieve. But he's second on the scoreboard and 700 points behind the leader. If he's going for the win, it's looking a little desperate at this point and he ought to be fighting Elum. I don't think that's going to happen though.

[Cheater Hater]

Looks good! You don't even need me! It looks like Elum is running away with the game, but there isn't much that you can do about it. Just keep banging away against these weaklings and hope that Elum makes a mistake. You've done a good job managing the war. Getting dogpiled sucks, but dogpiling someone and then having it backfire sucks even worse, so make them pay.

I don't have any advice to give right now. You're in a hotly contested war, so just keep churning out units. Once you break their stacks and can overrun them you can turn your promoted veterans on Whosit and make him pay for his opportunism. I don't know anything about his situation except he may just be playing for second rather than trying to win since he attacked you when the obvious leader was pulling away. Different things motivate different people though so I don't know what to say, it may not have even been a bad move on his part. It just depends on what he wants to achieve. But he's second on the scoreboard and 700 points behind the leader. If he's going for the win, it's looking a little desperate at this point and he ought to be fighting Elum. I don't think that's going to happen though.

Yeah, everything feels like it's going well now--the problem is that WW is piling up in my empire, I needed to whip/draft all my cities to get my army, and I'm still on a timer to finish up all my conquests before Whosit comes knocking in ~8 turns (assuming he doesn't finally get a clue and attack Elum while his army's conquering ipecac and he has guaranteed peace with me). I also don't know how much I can afford to take and not still be over-extending--I could probably take all of johns's mainland cities and all of Adrien's cities outside the western peninsula (basically the area north of the capital, as well as all the stuff bordering me and johns), but not only would that take me past the limits of the peace treaty, I don't know if I can support that many cities overall. Heck, I'm not even sure how many cities that would be--I have 20 cities right now, johns has 9 mainland cities left (though I don't know if I'd keep all of them, or even take them), Adrien has ~9 cities I want, I have to replace 4 cities that were burned in the war (though I don't know how much I want to prioritize the Whosit border cities, for obvious reasons), and there are even a couple other cities I'm considering founding (not just bad filler either--F7 by Johnny Oro/Fistful of USD actually seems decent). I don't know how many of those cities I can actually support--obviously all of them once they get going, but I don't know how much they'll be able to grow if I'm moving right to the Whosit war (or even just keeping a standing army around on both the Whosit fronts and the ipecac (soon to be Elum) front, though part of my plan leave Adrien as a buffer for exactly this reason.

I also don't know when I should turn research back on, and which tech I should head toward (Astro, Chemistry, or Constitution). Each has their purpose: Astro lets me more-efficiently invade johns if necessary while giving me Observatories, Chemistry lets me move to either Military Science or Steel, and Constitution gives me Jails to help my WW problems (and possibly move me back towards getting city visibility on Whosit in the long term) and moves me towards Corporation (both for the trade route and Wall Street in my shrine city). Can you help with that, BGN?

(BTW, this post is mostly what my domestic post would have been, minus the pictures--I linked them in the previous post if you want them)

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

If it looks like a lot of war is in your future I'd head for Steel. Cannons make a huge difference and are difficult for technologically inferior opponents to dislodge because they can't be flanked by knights. Does Chemistry still give the hammer bonus to workshops or has that bonus been moved earlier in the tech tree? Anyway, I'd focus on improving your military capacity. It looks like wars are the way of the future, not peaceful development. Astronomy is good for the galleons, but how many cities do you need to attack with boats? I don't know the answer to this, so this could be a good option. But the Observatories are not going to be all that helpful to you. They're expensive (you're not CRE, right?) and you're probably running a low slider at the moment anyway. Best to ignore these for now, except probably in your capital. I would suggest ignoring Constitution too. Focus on the war. If you're suffering WW, your enemies are likely suffering too. If you're winning the war, WW is probably worse for them.

As far as overextending, just keep conquering cities as long as your army has the means to do so and you aren't at risk of losing ground to a counter attack. As cities come out of revolt they'll contribute economically. If you can't complete the conquest you'll want to hold the line in a place that makes sense defensively so keep an eye on where you can draw up a border that will be stable. To give specific info I'd have to log in.