Soul of a Nameless Civ Player

[Old Harry]

Ha! That all fits - except that - being French - Adrian should really be your France. Conquering Molach was the Italian/Austrian adventures where you came to prominence as a general, then your coup takes over France (Adrian) before annexing Prussia (Barteq), Spain (Boak) and Portugal (HAK) to rule over a magnificent empire of 70 million souls.

Although the occupation of Prussia did cause a lot of tension with Russia (which totally has to be Gavagai ) so your partition of Adrian with Barteq might be more diplomatic. Hey, if you can keep Dtay and Gav from allying against you maybe you can do better than Napoleon did?

[Ichabod]

Ha! That all fits - except that - being French - Adrian should really be your France. Conquering Molach was the Italian/Austrian adventures where you came to prominence as a general, then your coup takes over France (Adrian) before annexing Prussia (Barteq), Spain (Boak) and Portugal (HAK) to rule over a magnificent empire of 70 million souls.

Although the occupation of Prussia did cause a lot of tension with Russia (which totally has to be Gavagai ) so your partition of Adrian with Barteq might be more diplomatic. Hey, if you can keep Dtay and Gav from allying against you maybe you can do better than Napoleon did?

I hope so!

I just got city visibility on Adrien, after investing 40% in the EP slider. I also found out that it takes 1 turn before the visibility kicks in.

His defenses are really scattered and most of it is near Barteq (his promoted knight stack). That's very good news, because it shows Adrien doesn't hold a grudge, but rather is trying his best to defend.

I'll post pictures later tonight and try to plan a bit more... Barteq's army is really huge, so I don't want to get in his bad side. The half of Adrien -> boak -> HAK expansion route seems way better. By the way, if I conquer HAK, I'll have the Buddhist Shrine as well as the Hindu one!

I also need to focus on coastal defense of my core and get some naval tech going (and an economy civic for my next golden age... so much stuff to do).

Interestingly, Liberalism was discovered like 5 turns ago. Like I've said, tech costs are huge in this game.

[Ichabod]

Pictures of Adrien's defenses. The signs are all accurate and the stacks are on the highlighted tiles:







I'm unsure about what to do. I could attack the size 5 city defended by a minor stack this turn and take it for sure (and if I understand culture correctly, that would open up an attack on a small catapult stack 1E of the city). Then, I'd have Adrien's eastern cities completely open for me and I could quickly capture them, while leaving the big stack for Barteq to deal with. But the big knight stack can hit Kearney, Adrien's past Capital, so it makes things a bit complicated. It's a suicide move for Adrien to attack there, but there really isn't much he can do right now...

I'm still debating about this. I'm probably going to wait to see what Barteq does before playing.




My plan is still to raze Mitchell. I'm considering planting a city 2N of it, on the sign. It would act as a defense unit for me against Barteq, protecting Kearney and the eastern cities. But it also feels like a big threat to Barteq, which may end up being a bad thing. I don't like the idea of making him feel threatened, he has a big army and a good production base.




Finally, my NE is done. I'm not running the second scientist begause I already have a GSci and I want a GAge. I'll have to risk getting one either way, because even with the NE, I don't have the spec slots required here... I'll need a bit of luck!

[Ichabod]

Where's the reports? (my thanks to the two of you who have posted something in the last week. )

In a unexpected turn of events, I'm one of the guys that reported.

By the way, I didn't attack Adrien last turn, due to being too tired when playing the turn + afraid of a possible counterattack + hoping he'll focus on Barteq more than on me.

I made a plan to capture a size 15 city using a galley. The plan is explained as follows:

Step 1. Hope Adrien makes a mistake.

And that's it. Hopefully it'll work!

[BRickAstley]

Such plan, much wow

[Ichabod]

Such plan, much wow

To all the haters out there, let it be known that the plan worked perfectly (well, I haven't made the attacks yet, so it still may fail).

Here's the current situation:



Adrien's stack is in the highlighted tile. It's a stack that can hurt a lot, if given the chance. Adrien abandoned Slimani and pulled back, while Barteq comes forward with his siege heavy stack. My army is still positioned in Kearney, with a lot of knights, very few defenders and siege.

So, what to do? After thinking about it, I decided that I want to make Adrien abandon his east and focus on defending his southwest, where most of his developed cities are. Like I've said in previous posts, I don't care about leaving that land to Barteq: I don't want to get into his bad side, nor do I want to border Gavagai.

Davies and Nonu are the 2 cities in Adrien' east that are worth defending. The rest is recently captured from Boak and Adrien kind of abandoned them already. If I take these 2 cities, i'm positive Adrien will focus on defending where I want him to defend, against Barteq.

As you can see above, there's a Galley near Davies. I moved that galley on Adrien's seas two turns ago and backtracked him last turn, hoping to bluff that it was empty and make Adrien move one of the defenders away. Adrien acted like I wanted him to and now the city is defended only by a pike. I have a C1, CR3 sword (73% odds) and a 14xp knight on the boat (hopefully high odds). If I win one of this combats, I'll take Davies, which is a huge deal, since I couldn't do it by land.

Afterwards, I'll raze Laidlaw (can't defend it, it's in range of the full Adrien stack) and move some knights to Davies. Adrien can reach Davies with his knights, but I don't think he'd want to attack me there. He'd be separating his big stack and leaving most of his southwest for Barteq. An attack on Davies would be totally out of line with how Adrien defended so far, I think.

If Mitchell is razed, I can resettle Laidlaw 1SW, which I think is a good idea, better than the city 2N of Mitchell.

If everything goes according to the plan, I'll levae Barteq to deal with Adrien's big stack and I'll have most of the land I want already secured, with the exception of Picamoles.

Barteq's army:

[Ichabod]

This is how culture will shape out, after I capture Laidlaw and Davies. Can someone help me to understand how the culture bug works? I really want to place my units on Davies this turn after capturing it, and the culture bug can really hurt me.

I wonder in which order is best to capture the cities, so as to avoid the bug.

[Old Harry]

I *think* that the immediate BFC of a city gets recalculated when you capture it. So the 3rd ring culture from Davies will persist when you capture it. (As will any culture covered by another city.)

TBH I spent ages in world builder getting culture stuff figured out for PB18 and it still bit us on the ass.

[Ichabod]

I *think* that the immediate BFC of a city gets recalculated when you capture it. So the 3rd ring culture from Davies will persist when you capture it. (As will any culture covered by another city.)

TBH I spent ages in world builder getting culture stuff figured out for PB18 and it still bit us on the ass.

So, perhpas if I capture Davies first and Laidlaw second, that key plains hill tile will recalculate due to Laidlaw capturing...

Well, there's also a way to get there than only goes through BFC culture of the captured cities. Hopefully it'll work out in the end.

Thanks, Harry.

[Ichabod]

My plan against Adrien worked perfectly, only for me to be attacked and completely owned by dtay on the same turn. I'll probably not report anymore, as I don't have the strength of will to have fun out of describing a catasthrophic outcome.

Good game, everyone. Hope lurkers had fun. I'll do what I can until the end of the game and I look forward to reading all the threads.