[Spoilers]C6PBEM23: Krill sidles yonder, and probably fails

[Krill]

T147 - confirmation

I "knew" TAD had done it without even checking, given no one has a faith economy. He took Crusade, which just means I have to go on the offensive.

Full steam ahead to battleships and and Steel, and fighting in his back yard, not in mine. He can't threaten Burmese with Crusade, and on the inner sea only Long has his religion only Ponytail on the outer sea. Defend inside, blitz outside then return through the canal to work up the coast city by city. Use frigates as support and upgrade as needed, bait out the attack and then run him through. Whosit looks completely inactive (famous last words).

[Jabah]

Could an occupied city even grow with Lilja (food) ?
(I know you can grow them by chopping rainforrest and marsh, but I thought that was the only way)

[Krill]

Cities grow whilst occupied. Burmese grew to size 7, but I cant change tile assignments. I wasn't sure before playing a recent turn, but it looks like loyalty is the system which manages captured cities, which places far greater importance on managing that system.

Interestingly that means captured large cities are more stable than fishing villages, don't bother skirmishing, go for the throat.

[Krill]

Turn 148 - TAD incoming attack on T157




TAD has units in the Antarctic ocean, but the main concentration is at Babelfish, threatening Ponytail. I see three caravels and three frigates to be, expect more, probably double. I'll be able to build ships out of Ponytail from next turn (although will likely use overflow to complete a one turn ancient era wall) but it won't do much in terms of the number of units TAD already has. I'll have to move a large number over and force a fight.




Given that tech is calculated at the start of the turn, I'll have eight turns of research. I should be fine to get Steel in place for any potential war dec, which means 400 health urban defences in place at the last moment, with no way that TAD can expect them to go down unless he is counting techs extremely closely. However, I have a much larger problem if I want to have battleships on the ground at that point:




Simply put, I need to run two more campus projects in MH and one in Long to get 129 points, so a 310 point GS on T152. The third campus project in MH is necessary to bring Galileo forward, without it I think I would reach 310 points on T154. Even with me railroading into greenline, it will take one turn to move, and then another to move and trigger Galileo. This allows a move on T153, and trigger on T154. And expect something to go wrong.

I need to have a turn worth of tech into Refining to get it the turn I trigger Galileo. That means Rifling due SoT151, Steel researched T152, then swap to Refining for SoT153 when I kn ow I am safe, and finally Refining T154 and Steel SoT156. Achievable, but at a cost of limited frigate production beforehand. Good job I haven't used that governor title yet.

[Krill]

Turn 150 - Calamity

Well, that's a little harsh, but this is certainly a suboptimal situation to be in:




TAD paid about 1200 faith for stuff, and most of it was for Galileo. He has a 500 science spot, so that is a 1250 science swing to him, but there is a better way to look at this: He just researched Industrialization. He will trigger the eureka for Steam Power over the next few turns, and with that GS will be about 300 beakers short of finishing it.

He is still down 6 techs on the run to Steel and Refining and has a single coal resource. And for Jabah: the Campus at Venice was repaired two turns ago, Newton insta-builds the library and university for 12bpt and 2 GS points, so that isn't a total loss.

It's bad though: I can only get Steel before the end of the alliance, I cannot reach Refining until several turns into the war. I'm going to be on the defensive for a while, and that means defending where TAD has crusade. It's going to be brutal if he just zerg rushes Ponytail. I'm shifting units around for a different defence posture.

OTOH: TAD just got into the Industrial era, so he has Industrialization. He will see he has one coal. I'm kinda wondering if he is going to declare and rush me. He does have the option of a religious victory (and all my cities are converted, and I can't get inquisitors out), so there is an interesting scenario where he tries for more enforced peace. Now that would be very interesting...





Great Scientists: greenline is a lock on Emilie, which is actually a good fit for him, she gives more beakers than Galileo if he can play his cards right, then that leaves the Industrial GS up:

• Darwin: 500 beakers for each adjacent natural wonder (TAD can get an easy 1000 beakers here), I have to float over to Ha Long Bay and avoid Whosit to get anything).
  
  
• Mendeleev: Chemistry eureka is good for everyone, it gives flexibility. Chev is likely to ditch our alliance if he gets peace with Whosit, which leaves me in the cold. TAD declares on me and he has to get it from scratch with Whosit (likely military alliance there would absolutely suck to fit against). I can get the two banks built so it would then trigger Sanitation, straightforward.
  
  
• Young: Oil reveal is worthless to me given the situation, but Sanitation eureka from the Industrial era, and then Flight, Radio, Chemistry and Combustion are all helpful to unlock.

Essentially, hope that Darwin does not come up as the first GS, and then skip the GS. If he is first, then might have to consider another GS rush (at least I'm making 9 points per turn now).

Admirals: Chev will force himself to Yi Sun, because he will trigger it immediately for the straight strength 60 cities. He gets there in the next 5 or so turns. Then greenline picks up the next, and I would be in line for the final one. Santa Cruz will be a pain to fight into, the way things are looking now, but I skip Magellan. I can live with no more admirals at this point.

Engineers: I'm now in line to get Sinan, but I'm going to skip in 10 turns and try and force TAD to take it. If he skips, then fine. Whosit will probably get there in 25 turns or so.

Merchants: Not going to get there in time to trigger the inspiration for Mercantilism (need it in the next 8 turns. Daguan is trash though, worthless to all players, so people might skip? The GM after is little better.

The more I look at this list, the less sure I am that anyone is in a particularly great position. TAD needs to faith buy an admiral, but not sure he will get Yi Sun-Sin, so he might end up having to faith buy Magellan. TAD is behind a lot of science, and Darwin helps, but then both of the other GS give more beakers! And TAD has to keep on pouring faith into great people means he isn't buying units.





Overview: I screwed up the production at Ponytail and couldn't one turn the walls, but I'm now considering if I want to try and get Medieval walls down for the extra 3 strength before I invalidate the build from steel (in which case the mistake just wouldn't matter). I'm likely to corps up the trebs and leave them on the lumbermill tile to hit any unit that tries to get onto the Pt shipyard. Against crusade I need to be careful, I need them in one piece to upgrade to artillery. That tile is safe from frigates but will pound at any

MH is on two turn frigates. I'll have to pause for a turn to get up to 40 niter, but then I have four warriors to upgrade to line infantry (Replaceable Parts eureka) and turn into corps to defend the encampment and canal.

Walrus and Long are on ironclads, and I'm going to need lots of them to buy time to get to battleships (well, the few turns I need). Mullet is basically putting the production into field artillery because there is nothing better for it to build, but I do have a spare trader and I might want to consider if that makes more sense.





Burmese is out on a limb at this point, but is not completely undefended. It's not far from size 10 either, so I might have to consider 5 turns of Lilja (food) which would get it most of the way there, but that is after I know what is happening with TAD. Until then, navy.

Venice is getting tiles repaired, but will likely go onto Lilja (food) once the granary is done; it will very quickly get to a decent size and level of production, the greater issue is amenities (more later). There is nothing else for it to do at such a small size. I need to stabilize this theatre until I have oil and TAD is under some form of control





Rifling SoT151, Steel SoT155, Alliance ends SoT157 and Refining due SoT160. Science rate will drop to 160 bpt with no campus projects running due to growth at Walrus this turn, but I do have population working the universities (due to having to slow down MH). It's a faster tech rate than TAD, and I have the better eurekas. My loss of Galileo is not a slam dunk for TAD, he still has significant problems unless he can raze my cities (captured cities I think will revolt back to free city status, so I'm planning for every city attack to be an attempted raze).

After Refining, oil dependent, I'm heading for Flight and depending on the GS (ie if it's Young) and the game state I might random the GS to see if I get lucky.




This is the biggie, the real challenge.

I'm going to have to give up the amenity cards; it was a mistake running Retainers, and I will have to run Professional Army and Retinues. That means either Press Gangs (how? I need it for frigate production), Craftsmen (painful but can be afforded), or Republican Legacy (Housing doesn't matter, but a straight loss of 2 amenities in all cities...?)

Mercantilism will take 7 turns. That's 7 turns of utter pain, but Mercantilism will land and then I can drop Retinues (all future upgrades will be resource-less or for oil/coal using units). Professional army will have to stay to upgrade battleships. Long might have to build that arena just to keep two cities in the black.


---

OK, so taking a step back from all this: What to do? I have to react to TAD, he has first move once the alliance is ended. If he attacks me, I need to play for time and battleships, take the trades I can, and hold at Ponytail. Then once I have enough battleships upgraded (I need to work out what I need to upgrade beforehand, four warriors to line inf, one caravel to ironclad, I have three knights and a courser that might need upgrading...and 9 turns worth of gold is 1350 gold plus what I have now).

If TAD doesn't attack but doesn't move forward, I need to hold off on upgrading units I don't want to, but I don't think he does nothing. But he knows he lacks coal, he knows he can't get battleships out, but he will see Steel defences and know I am about to land Battleships. There is nothing stopping him moving units forward though except the reprisal. Can I communicate through unit positioning?

If TAD offers DOF and alliance...? What then? Any immediate rejection gets me rushed. But I save a turn just by being sent the proposal. Learn the lesson from post 158 - don't fight a two front war unless you have no choice. Between Crusade, a military alliance between TAD and Whosit that's 15 strength I can't replicate, which would mean that I need to fight immediately with a tech advantage and win (but Galileo does put paid to that at this juncture), or not at all (can't win any other way than with war, even a science victory will have fighting). A further alliance would put paid to Whosit getting any military alliance, and would secure the flank and give me 30 straight turns to take him out completely. 30 turns of Newton and a faster tech rate, two cities I can push to size 10.

And I do have a plan to actually benefit from a war with Whosit, and rails to move units back over there incredibly quickly... This potentially sounds like a better choice in the current situation, but it isn't my choice, I still have to react to TAD making the first move, and I can't do anything but prepare the defence and upgrade everything at the last moment.

[Krill]

T152 - Whoops

I realised this turn that I misunderstood a critical part of this game. Artillery only have a range of 2, not 3. I need Flight and Observation balloons for a range of three, which is 6 turns for Banking/Astro/Scientific Theory, plus another 10 turns or 5 and an Ind era wonder for Flight. That pushes back any potential attack on Whosit too far for me to actually be planning it right now and I need to re-evaluate the options (although if TAD attacks, the only option is defend, and because of Crusade that means attack). At this point I think we're all in a bit of a rut, or maybe it's a clown fiesta? I'm not excluding myself from that comment BTW.




One point of note though: Two warriors ended up on the same tile due to lack of movement points. There were both embarked, and the game put them both onto the same tile when I ordered them to move towards the canal. Anyone know what happens when get the turn back? Does one of the units get deleted?

[pindicator]

I can only think of instances where two units are in a city center due to production, so I don't think they would delete one

[Krill]

Everything was fine with the stacked warriors. I wonder what would have happened if someone attacked them?

T155:

No update, only a picture:




Does TAD move forward next turn in the knowledge I can't attack him? Does he give peace a chance? Well, he only has the one coal to me two with a full stockpile and his units are in a defensive pose, so...maybe?

[Krill]

T156

TAD moved forward, but he will not see the Steel fortifications, or the line infantry corps until next turn. If he is to attack, Crusade is going to have to do some very heavy lifting. If he isn't going to attack, does he offer DoF or alliance? His units are strongest in my territory, yet he has extremely limited coal reserves for healing so this is an inherently unstable situation. I don't have a clue if it benefits either of us to fight now, or later (we both know the coal situation, neither of us know the oil position).

Refining due SoT160. Oh, and TAD faith bought Magellan. Santa Cruz is expected in 8 turns, and it is Darwin as the Great Scientist at 525 points (I am not racing for him, I'll take on of the other two). I'll get to Sinan one turn ahead of TAD, but as I'm going to reject whether I get there first or second, it will be interesting to see if he actually pushes for him.

[Krill]

T157

After all that waiting and expectation, it turns out that you can't declare on someone on the turn after the game was 1 turn under the alliance expires: There is a "zero turns until alliance expiry turn". So no war dec this turn.

That said, all of the troops have retreated, so I expect that there will be no war dec on T158. Where there is an offer of extending the alliance, well, I have no idea on that. I'm OK with nothing happening for 3 turns so I can see the oil situation. With that said, I'm writing this turn as if we are both going to lock down another 30 turns of peace at some point in the next 5 turns: I'll be saving gold for the next three turns anyway but I need to upgrade another melee unit to a line infantry, but otherwise options are open.





I checked north west of Ponytail, there are no (visible) boats. I doubt there is a flotilla of privateers but there could be one or two, but this is not the approach of a player about to declare war.





TAD just finished his first factory. The reality is that with one coal and two ironclads (one fleet, on singleton) this is all he is going to have until he gets Electricity and Refining. This is why I think he is going to think peace is in his interests, he can't field coal units (I'm not disagreeing with that assertion, I simply don't know who peace between us favours because peace also gives me opportunities against Whosit and theoretically greenline).

I'll note here that this factory powers six cities, his north east is left unpowered. This is relevant for future boat production.








I'm going to do the update back to front.

• Sanitation 2 neighbourhoods is hard to trigger, but Walrus has a breathtaking tile put aside, and Lumberjack has a charming tile; this is not a critical tech so can go on the back burner except for GS triggering purposes.
  
  
• Economics is straight forward as Lumberjack and Burmese can build a bank in 6 turns, and I need the gold
  
  
• Flight is harder: I need to build Oxford at MH. I don't think I will have competition for this (TAD has to go for oil, so I have a large head start on him). I've checked all the other wonders, OU is the only one that fits what I need, and it's enough to push TAD level to me if he can build it. That's a 12 turns build, and that is 7 turns after I reach 50% on Flight (but only 4 turns after I could research it, 3 with decent overflow and tile setup.
  
  
• Replaceable Parts: I should have had this, but two corps of two line infantry obviously doesn't count, so I need to either build or upgrade another melee unit: 325 gold, or 330 production. The upgrade is likely easier to achieve as I have the gold and will have the niter in 3 turns.
  
  
• Combustion: I am beelining Natural History, and Lumberjack will have the Archaeological museum in place in 9 turns.
  
  
• Chemistry: out of my hands,
  
  
• Radio: This one is long winded: I can get it if I build that breathtaking neighbourhood at Walrus, which is the inspiration for Conservation, then I use Lilja(Faith) to turn 800 production into 400 faith to buy the naturalist. It's easier (and cheaper) to just use a GS to trigger the eureka or OU to get it completely for free.
  
  
• Electricity: Building 2 privateers is easy. I would not use Drake unless I absolutely had to, but this raises the question of keeping Press Gangs for a very short period of time.

The problem here: Lumberjack is needed to build a bank (290), Amphitheatre (150), archaeological museum (290), neighbourhood (300), and Archaeologist (400). If I jig things around I can just get it to 50 production per turn. That's 29 turns!

Current tech path is pencilled in as Refining SoT160, Banking SoT161, Astronomy SoT162, ST SoT166 (might be 165), but the rest of the turns are accurate. That would mean OU SoT178, which would mean that I would need the techs lined up as best of possible, but I can't guarantee that free techs would be the ones without eurekas (I can't even guarantee that the free tech isn't flight, which would be a giant kick in the balls).







Great scientists: Darwin is worth 1000 to either of us, but it's challenging for me to trigger. Young is worth somewhere between 1250 and 1800 to me, (1000 to 1450) to TAD. Mendeleev is worth the same amount but requires I tighten tech path considerably and possibly eat the Sanitation eureka (or possibly not, as Ponytail could build the neighbourhood instead of LumberjacK). That said, I rate Young>Darwin>Mendeleev, and I'm prepared to roll the dice on getting Young after Darwin.

I'll note though: It will take me 50 turns at current rates to get to 545, so any GS will require significant number of projects to land in a time frame that matters. This places pressure on Long and MH build queues.

Great Engineer: Plan remains the same, skipping Sinan.

Admiral: I'm watching TADs faith generation, but it already looks like he is building harbour projects. This is a double edged sword: free armada, or give me an industrial era admiral to empower battleships, or try to push me to buy or otherwise invest in it...and run into a battleship armada? Easier option: take a peaceful route and none of it really matters.








Mercantilism SoT160, Colonialism SoT163 (Astronomy noted above SoT162), NH SoT167 (Archaeological museum due SoT166 in lumberjack), then cram down two water parks (Ponytail, Mullet) and get down the Zoos ASAP (Long, Lumberjack, another 290 production/six turns!) on the list as I need the amenities.

The only two inspirations that matter are Conservation (Walrus neighbourhood) and Mass Media (research Radio, which requires a naturalist...or the GS/OU process). I need to start planning for the path through Ideology, and I'm turning away from Totalitarianism towards Communism, but that means I need to get a factory down in Lumberjack as well (wanted for oil power plant, Lumberjack production needs buffing ASAP). The rest is straightforward planning for card swaps again as my culture output is looking solid and should surpass TAD next turn. The only civic I care for after Natural History is Mobilization, which is easily achievable in a 30 turn period of peace ie DoF/Alliance.





Let's list this again, because this is starting to look stupid:

• Amphitheatre
  
• Archaeological museum (These two are mandatory, no other way to trigger Natural History in time)
  
• Zoo (Mandatory as need the amenities from teh Entertainment District)
  
• Bank, (again mandatory as no other commercial district available to build it in.
  
• Archaeologist, mandatory as no where else to build it without blocking in Combustion, but it might be that I theoretically want to leave this until after OU lands). More later.
  
• Neighbourhood (it needs the housing!!)

The short version here is that Lumberjack cannot do all of these things but I need it to. Bad planning on my part, the only option is to buy something to speed it up and that's about 6-9 turns gold output for any of them.

The neighbourhood can be shifted to Ponytail. I think I'd have to buy the Zoo, but without Retainers it would not have an impact on yields...maybe better to buy the bank if that can start the yields sooner? Food for thought: The only thing Lumberjack cannot do is build units.





Walrus is easy: It is not building that canal, and the neighbourhood takes 10ish turns to build, and it is breathtaking. The amphitheatre probably looks like a bad call, but what are the other options? A field cannon when I intend to leave Grand Armee in 3 turns? A boat when I'm not in Press Gangs? Can't buy the IZ tile, and should get it in 2 turns anyway. I was considering swapping the canal for a Campus, but that's even worse! But given I need Urbanization and that is not slated to land until SoT175. I expect to swap to the IZ once the tile is claimed, to keep open the third factory slot (for Communism) and the Magnus production stacking).





The field cannon completes as I swap out of Grand Armee, then there are options. If I hope to build the water park on the lake, but that still leaves me with 7 free turns. I could build the Commercial District, but I think flexibility is key here. Neighbourhood goes on the grassland, with a forest planted south east it would get to charming even with the mine, again, can't even start until T175ish on the neighbourhood, but the waterpark and ferris wheel take time. I can move the farms around to ensure ponytail continues to grow.





Spare production queue, used for generic builds: will get the spare trader after this field cannon, it should just be in place to send to Chev, or to boost Lumberjack. I might use it for a harbour project depending on what TAD looks to be doing.





Size 10 next turn. It will have to build the bank, so there is a three turn interlude to fit in something helpful. Between Ponytail, Mullet and Burmese I probably want to use Chivalry to (half)build three cuirs.





Lilja(food) to size 10, then the harbour.





Zoo planed from T165, but I'm really tempted to build the Military Academy rather than carry on with units (almost certainly necessary due to expected oil shortages). There is a mostly build ironclad in the queue ready for if I need it, but the reality is I'm lacking on land units to fight Whosit.

On an aside, now I have Steel, I lack niter to build bombards and I don't have Refining so there is no way to build artillery, yet I still can't build trebuchets? This is really weird, because I could build warriors, but why can't I build trebs?





I'm crippling MH, but it's in the pursuit of efficiencies. There is a half built field cannon which will complete SoT160, and then there is nothing to build except units whilst preparing overflow for OU. I suspect that I do want Chivalry, so I can push a cavalry and cuir as close to completion, and then overflow out of those two into OU when not running Chivalry, but otherwise there isn't anything for MH to do.

Given teh production challenges at Lumberjack, I think I will be required to go back into Craftsmen, and that means that from T160 MH will be back around 100 production per turn.





I'm due another governor promotion shortly, but it essentially means I either put Reyna into Lumberjack, due around T175 so another 20 turns of not growing, or a relevant promotion on one of the others. I'm still thinking through what I want to do, but the reality is that I don't think any options are game changing.





Let's run through the needs and wants:

I need Republican legacy because most cities are already at 0 amenities. I need Craftsmen for production at MH and Lumberjack. NI (it's amazing) and Praetorium (everything else is worthless) are never leaving. Retinues and Professional Army will not be needed after 3 more turns because I will not have any gold or niter left, if I need them in a future, fair enough, but not on T160. Grand Armee will be done with as well, so that's one red card and a wildcard available for use.

The only viable options I see are Chivalry (but probably want all the way through to Natural History, Press gangs (put out the privateers from Long, Burmese or Ponytail?) Veterancy needs to wait until I have Electricity and a window for Seaports, that isn't now...but could be quick soon if I can get the eureka don by T163.

Drill manuals would essentially alow me to upgrade a couple of frigates to battleships, if war is happening that is very much on the table but not otherwise. Triangular trade would be worth a bit of faith and 28gpt; better than an under used production card. I think if I can get privateers out in three turns I could keep Chivalry and drop Pressgangs for Triangular Trade on T163.

Other odd choices: Aesthetics for 3 culture, Rationalism for 12 beakers. Longer term (post Zoos) Retainers comes back into play, but I think that's it for now.








Another way to track naval development. I don't think that TAD has more than the ironclads I've seen on the west coast because fo the CO2 accrual.