[Mjmd #54 no players] Flying Solo

[Mjmd]

El Grillo sent me a peace treaty at beginning of turn. Evidently he thinks 1 longbow can scare me off. It might be two by the time I get to Triangle, but it is what it is. Also, unless he has two galleys, wondering why that one isn't going back to ferry more units. Anyhow, cats will do the initial heavy lifting as usual. Probably going metal casting next because will eventually need triremes on the inner sea to guard my seafood resources. There is like a 15% chance I go calendar for immediate 1 happy plus ability to improve my bananas.

Founded WoW, which I'm really hoping gets a religion spread to hopefully take its own 1st ring against his capitals 4th. Should be able to....... eventually. Should I pillage it and the road until then? I probably should have gone to do this turn. Hmmmmm. I'll give it a think.

[Mjmd]

So I think he as two daisy chain galleys and a city up north (you can see 2nd ring culture) that delivered 2 more longbows, he whipped 1 in, upgraded 2 for a total of 6 longbows!!! Even with bombarding and some minor reinforcements, tests reveal that protective longbows on a hill are just stupid even after throwing 4 cats at them. I would need knights or city attack macemen. SD does have a 'stack' in the most generous of terms, so if he wants to take a shot he can. I imagine El Grillo has nothing on his border city down there.



Yes one of the archers from the barb city did move out and I had to divert an elephant to deal with it. At least I get to go get that barb city now. Tech back on in 4 turns and should be able to zip through metal casting and calendar.

[Mjmd]

Miguelito - Justinian of the Byzantine : I'm sure others have joked about it being unrestricted leaders already. My best bet is he wanted my Vicky on the wheel and backup leader was Charlemagne which was also taken. Byzantine was one of my vague thoughts for this game, but with a tighter map and everyone knowing what your trying to do your going to have some early wars. Here is a pick where no matter who starts next to they should be the beat down. Because come Cataphracts his role will change to the beatdown and woe onto you if your the target.

Event log is from a few turns ago, but I wonder what Mig is up to hmmmm. Increased activity in his thread and lurker thread. I'm sure its nothing. Good thing his neighbors have done jack crap. I should probably get something over there for some  Also, whenever he attacks Elkad I should try to have a galley force ready to take those islands. Assuming I have military / am in such a position lol.



Hopefully everyone has been amused by my little fight over here. At least some entertainment while you waited. Considering I was going against one of the top civs just off a golden age it is going about as good as could be expected I suppose. Especially after losing my 2nd city (yes I keep bringing this up, because meh me)

BTW. I had promised a map complaint, so here it is. WTF is with El Grillo being 14 tiles away from SD and even farther from me. Where as SD and I share a bay and my copper was pointed at him...... (plus all those complaints from earlier) From the diplo screen it looks like El Grillo fought ruff over that island (my work boat has pretty much confirmed its an island. I've been waiting on this for this complaint. Glad its not the same landmass at least), which is probably the only thing which let me get back into this, but seriously he was basically given free reign up there. WTF. Why not move my cap landmass NE by like 3-4 squares?

[civac2]

That's a very pretty power curve.

[Mjmd]

I know right. Makes me feel tiny lol.

I mean with both the extra mysticism commerce and extra commerce from luxury at capital this was probably the best chance for Byzantium horrible starting techs. I know it helped me as India in my initial micro.

But seriously people. Miguelito had the most obvious plan in the world. Needed a Cairo / Gira double team. Gira was too busy doing the philosophical thing though and Cairo just be chilling.

[Mjmd]

Servant 1: "Oh Great lord our offensive against the vile Khmer has stalled out. They hide in their hill cities behind their longbows and it would be suicide to advance. Why are we still at war? Your people complain of the hardships this war has put upon them."

Great Lord: "Things are not always as they seem. Tell the people to keep heart for I have a plan for greatness."

Servant 2 runs in: "Great Lord! Our ancient enemy has declared war on us!!!!"

Great Lord: "They must have seen through our deception. It was unfortunate we trusted them to assist us against the Khmer, but as is the great enemies way they didn't follow through on their agreements. We are already committed. We must hope that they did not know the full extent of our plans. Let the armies march and the riders thunder across the plains!!"

[Mjmd]

So about the same time El Grillo put 6 longbows in my way I got city count on Vanrober. I also saw Mig go into police state and slavery and knew what was coming there. With the barb citiy I could get to 13 cities, but my GNP was in the gutter and both other players on my continent were WAY ahead. So what to do? Obviously I could tech up. I had more territory and could probably get to parity on my continent. The problem is I would run into my original problem that if I attacked someone, the other could then backstab.

There was only one way to try to get into a competitive position. Declare war on SD who was half my power and who despite multiple in game diplo screen messages hadn't actually helped vs El Grillo, but had very clearly instead focused on infrastructure.

Problems:
1) I had given him open borders and he had a chariot running around (it then sat in the middle after I had decided, which both helped and hurt). Also had a trireme which is probably what gave it away.
2) My empire was already whipped pretty heavily.
3) El Grillo could potentially see my staging area if he moved his ships right and not take peace.

Solutions.
1) I'm rather proud of this first one. That prior power graph screenshot isn't just for the power graph. You'll note a bunch of horse archers streaming north. EXCEPT they aren't. Anywhere near his chariot I was basically moving 3 tiles down and then 1 tile back to get them to face north. I could then dash them south and hide in my galleys in Armored Core. Now he actually took the first half of the turn 1 turn sooner than I had wanted and his trireme saw a horse archer in the south going the wrong way. He then moved it through my capital and saw another HA moving the wrong way. When he started posting again I was a little nervous. I don't think he discovered until this turn. I am very curious exactly what he saw and thought.
2) WHIP THEM MORE!!!! Also traded away 2nd gems for one of Cairo's Dyes. Which is good because Mig cancelled his fur for gold trade with me. You would think with his war he wouldn't be quite on top of this, but sadly he was.
3) I don't think El Grillo saw? His ships were hugging the northern coast no doubt looking for why in the world I was still at war. The reason was of course because I needed a reason for cities to be whipped and horse archers to be moving "north". I then sent him a peace offer last turn. Me peacing out with El Grillo is probably what tipped SD off. I was hoping he wouldn't be paying enough attention, but evidently I'm not that lucky.

Here is the situation pre move.

Note the archer in Gandhi was upgraded to a longbow. Because he figured it out he got to have his trireme destroy my clam and it will be able to go after my fish before I can two pop whip my own. He also dry whipped something in Hitler before declaring war because that was where my scout was and it was at 8 pop. So I think he figured out on this turn and not before, which I suppose is about the best I could hope for.

8 HA with full movement moved 2NE of his capital to strike next turn. 2 other HA with movement went where chariot is. All 1 movers went to my fast workers who roaded that hill this turn. (2nd time this game I've gotten to use them as combat units which is nice). Slow moving stack will move to incense next turn. Northern stack will split up. 4 cats and 2 Elephants will go south; 4 of which will be picked up by galleys. 3 elephants and an axe will go take the barb city.

Yes i know its embarrassing to be running around with HA at this stage, but listen I'm working with what I got.

Edit: didn't even realize I got a PM from him. He said he saw stack so he declared. Fair enough. Curious what he saw with. Unless he saw northern stack. I did start moving that down, but was out of range of his chariot unless he moved fully north, which he hadn't been. /shrug.

[Mjmd]

Bloody hell he has engineering...... That real bad. I figured he had feudalism, but the 1 turn warning saved his game. Phah. Was probably a spy. I had forgotten they are on this game, but 4 people know alphabet and it isn't for the build research option.

Bloody hell. I should have just attacked him instead of El Grillo and taken the bloody island city later. Phah Phah Phah

I thought this turn was going to be easier. Do I try to burn the two northern cities or take peace and get screwed later.

[Mjmd]

Peace out, get a scout over to watch Mig conquer his continent. Eventually get conquered by SD and El Grillo.

SD made a good come back after his initial 4 cities forever. Mind it helps having a million river tiles concentrated in 1 city. Landing Colossus also helped. El Grillo settling a super annoying city also helped.

[Mjmd]

I was going to write a write a little summary of the war and where I think I went wrong, but.......

SD sent back the peace offer along with me paying 50g. I exited. Checked the event log. Saw that he had killed 2 more HA (I poorly positioned) and pillaged my work boat fish. So I burned Vienna and re-offered him peace and 50g   . Cost me 3 HA and he can kill a couple more HA, but eh. Knowing SD we are probably at perma war now. It would have been the smart move to take the peace, but denying a peace treaty to just kill a few units and then re-offer peace is very uncool.