[SPOILERS - PBEM17] Kyan Does Dallas. The Orange Sensation.

[pindicator]

Hey, glad to see you finally got to have that war you've been trying to acheive! Good luck!

I may be biased, but this part makes me sad:

And a few turns later, Darrell will be making the decapitation strike at Pindicator.

[oledavy]

Hey, glad to see you finally got to have that war you've been trying to acheive! Good luck!

I may be biased, but this part makes me sad:

Sorry that the most beautiful city on the map bears your name If Darrell does suceed in razing it, it will practically put Rego out of the running right then imho.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="3"]Report From the Eastern Front[/SIZE]



Rego blocked both my potential city attacks. He drafted Polka on his turn. Additionally, he moved a rifle back to SuckitLebron and drafted a second. The only major action that took place was him launching an attack on my ministack in the South with his frigates. He attacked and sank the HMS Adventure and HMS Acheron, but left the offending frigates at .3/8 and .8/8 strength respectively, covering them with a galleon and the frigate I wounded with an airship on the pervious turn.

On my turn I counterattacked, first I hit his squadron with my airships out of Hattin, bringing his first frigate down to 6.4/8 and the galleon to 3.2/4. Then I counterattacked with the three remaining ships in my stack, including the loaded HMS Bellerephon. The HMS Birmingham had 52% odds on his best frigate, so I took the battle...and lost. The galleon came up as the next defender and the HMS Hood beat it; the HMS Bellerephon mopped up the frigate. I moved both ships to a position to threaten Ichabod after the battle. Both his ships probably have enough xp to promote next turn, the HMS Hood reached 6 xp.

So, the status of the opposing fleets:

Incan Fleet

Frigate - .8/8 strength (promotes to level I)
Frigate - .3/8 strengh (promotes to level I)

Templar Fleet

HMS Hood - 4.9/6 strength (promotes to Level II)
HMS Bellerephon - 3.8/6 strength (does not promote)

Unless he has a frigate completing next turn in Nowitzkiville or SuckitLebron, my rifles should be safe. His frigates will heal with the promotion but probably not enough to beat my squadron. If he does complete a frigate, it will be a tossup. In all likelihood, he will move them to safety in SuckitLebron to heal. I would have really liked to finish them off but my ships around Hattin are out of range. I moved the galleys and trireme into Hattin and deployed the four remaining ships southeast of Nowitzkiville.

So, the score for this turn:

Rego: 3 East Indiamen (159 hammers)
Dave: 1 Frigate, 1 Galleon, 1 Worker (143 hammers)

Losses to Date:

Incan Losses (525 hammers)
1 galley
4 frigates
2 galleons
1 quechua
1 catapult
1 rifleman
1 worker

Templar Losses (430 hammers)
2 macemen
1 rifleman
5 East Indiamen

Still advantage us, especially with the capture of two cities.



Along the peninsula, Rego continued moving his fleet south. I went ahead and hit all six ships with my airships this turn, which should bring them all up to 1 xp, not enough to promote, but enough to ideally force him to spend a turn healing up before continuing south. He seems to be moving them to interdict my East Indiamen in the South, I would like to delay his arrival until my 14-ship fleet from the west arrives. This turn that fleet arrived in Aleppo and picked up a drafted rifle.

I moved all the survivors from the attack on Sciz to Tatan. I plan on using the city as a forward airbase, and moved four airships there. Six of my East Indiamen are there healing. The city garrison consists of two rifles and a mace. The most he can bring against the city next turn is a rifle from Polka. Rego deleted the worker south of the city. I really need the city to come out of revolt so my creative trait can pop its borders and seize control of the crucial tile 1 NE of the city.

I transfered an additional rifle and two muskets to the HMS Revenge, which moved off of Polka. I'm setting up to open up a five city fork for next turn.



Next turn I will have the option of attacking Polka or Far Open (which I also expect will draft), or setting up the 5-city fork shown in the in screenshot. There is no way he will be able to defend all of them adequately. A particularly attractive option might be setting up for a combined assault with the southern group on SuckitLebron and skipping taking Ichabod. However, the city is outside the range of my air cover and an attack would be a tossup. I'm beginning to assemble drafted rifles in Hattin for the main attack when my fleet arrives. Additionally, I queued up a couple catapults in my western cities.

The plan at this point in time is to try and seize his southern island (Nowizkiville, Ichabod, SuckitLebron) while continuing to pressure his mainland. Any cities I take on his mainland (with the exception of the well defended cities on the arm) will be under insane cultural pressure from his capital. The cultural heavyweight on this island is SuckitLebron. If I can take all three cities, thanks to my creative trait I'll have the island under my cultural control and productive relatively quickly. Additionally, it will be impossible for him to retake it with my sheer numbers of ships and Darrell's destroyers coming up soon. The basic idea at this point is to land my forces east of Nowitzkiville and cut off the city, besiege it, then use the city as a forward airbase to take SuckitLebron.

[SIZE="3"]Tech Report[/SIZE]

I queued up chemistry, due in one turn. I may be pumping out a couple frigates to help against Rego's fleet and bomb down his coastal city defenses.

Darrell finished steampower in one turn He is now 10,000 beakers ahead of me. Rego finished steel, I can't see what he is researching next - but I feel positive he is headed for railroad and machine guns. Let's hope we can kill him before he gets there. NoSpace is still researching railroad, and Shoot finished chemistry.

Speaking of Shoot...



I won't be the only opponent Rego has to worry about for much longer

[oledavy]

Decided to take a brief moment to look at the upcoming national wonders and world wonders. I went back to June and found the post in which I outlined where I wanted to place each. I've built four since then (Globe Theater, Oxford, Moai Statues, & The Forbidden Palace)

Outstanding National Wonders

The Heroic Epic
Ironworks
National Epic
Hermitage
Wall Street
Mt. Rushmore
West Point
Red Cross
National Park

After Chemistry, I think I'll funnel the overflow into literature. Ideally I'll soon be getting marble from the capture of Ichabod for the construction of the epics. After literature, I'll be teching steel so I'll have the ability to build the ironworks as well.



After getting a couple cats out of Edessa, I'm going to make an infrastructure push here and build: heroic epic -> dike -> drydock. After that, churning nothing but boats for the rest of the game. This will be my main shipyard. I feel it may be a bit of a weedy move to place your heroic epic city on an island, and thus susceptible to being cut off from the sea. However, if I ever get to the point where I've lost the ability to contest the seas, the game is as good as over anyway (see PBEM19).



Constantinople is one of my more productive cities, and where I built wonders for a great person points pool. I'm going to throw up the ironworks and then the national epic here. As my Great Person Farm, the three engineer slots are also pretty nice. The city will be dual purpose: building military in addition to being my production location for pushing wonders.

Mt. Rushmore, West Point, Red Cross and National Park won't be available for awhile longer and aren't ones I really want to prioritize anyway. Wall Street is always amazing but is out of my teching path for right now and not worth prioritizing over my current tech strategy. It will probably go in Acre when I finish it.

I haven't really thought about where to build Hermitage. Someone please call me out if I'm wrong on this, but I just don't see it as worth building if you're not going for a cultural victory. I don't even a good candidate for a border city where it would be worth it to build it. On the plus side, if I ever do decide it's worth building, I should have marble soon.

Outstanding World Wonders

Ankgor Wat
The Sistine Chapel
Hagia Sofia
Versailles
The Pentagon
Broadway
Rock n' Roll
Hollywood
The Eiffel Tower
The Cristo Redentor
The UN
The Internet
The Three Gorges Dam
The Apollo Program
The Space Elevator


I think I can probably rule out going for a space victory at this point. Darrell has a fairly decisive tech lead. Still, it might be worth it to consider building the Space Elevator depending on how this late game plays out.

The ones that really stand out for me to go for are: Broadway, Rock and Roll, The Eiffel Tower, The Cristo Redentor, The Internet and The Three Gorges Dam.

The internet in particular could be a really cool wonder to net to bring me up to tech parity. However, it's still a little ways off. I could make a run for electricity and then radio to snag Broadway, Rock and Roll, The Cristo Redentor and The Eiffel Tower. However, this would be a significant detour from getting to combustion and factories, and would probably leave me in worse shape long term. Still, if I can I am definitely going for a few of these, especially the Cristo Redentor. Three Gorges Dam would also be pretty nice but again I feel like it's one that I will be beaten to.

[oledavy]

Quick shout out to anyone lurking.

For recording my war with Rego, which do you prefer? My current wordy narrative form, or more simplified: posting combat results along with general strategy and tactics?

[Ilios]

Well, I've been enjoying your updates as they are now, but I can imagine they are quite time-consuming.

[Mardoc]

Well, I've been enjoying your updates as they are now, but I can imagine they are quite time-consuming.

Ditto. I like it the way it is, unless it results in less reporting overall due to time required.

[oledavy]

Tech Spreadsheet Update:



The really important information:



Darrell and Rego are racing neck and neck for the tech lead. However, with both of them at war, that lead should be diminished a little bit. NoSpace sits squarely in the middle of the pack, and they only promise to expand their lead while the four of us fight. Shoot and yours truly are bringing up the rear.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="3"]Report from the Eastern Front[/SIZE]

This was another turn that featured more maneuvering of forces than actual fighting. As this is the Second World War, I decided to name any cities I capture during it after battles of World War II. So, Tatan has become Stalingrad, mostly because it is threatening to become a Stalingrad-esque death trap for my military. I'm beginning to believe that holding it as an airbase and for the ability to boat Polka on Turn 126 was a mistake, as it is now becoming a liability for my armed forces to defend.



Rego is threatening a counter-attack on Stalingrad. I gotta say, maybe I'm missing something but this is rather ballsey on his part. He's facing an invasion from Shoot in the north and from Darrell in the east, in addition to my East Indiamen still running around - and he's launching a counter-attack!? He has to realize I don't have the manpower to make launch an overland campaign to Plako and thus it's not urgent to pinch off my beachbead.

He has in range of Stalingrad:

1 Cannon
1 Catapult
3 Rifles
1 Musket

More reinforcements are on the way to attack the city. I had the option of boating Far Open - it was only staffed by a rifle, a catapult and a quechua. However, it was more important to protect Stalingrad so I pulled the HMS Revenge back. I offloaded the two muskets and rifles on the grassland workshop tile northeast of the city - leaving a mace and wounded rifle in the city. The objective of this sortie is to sever the road link and prevent Incan forces from being able to run all the way up to the city and attack. I hit all six of his units in range with airships, most of them were already level I; so its unlikely any will promote next turn. Stalingrad does not come out of revolt for three more turns. I need to hold the city for four turns before my creative culture and building culture in the city pops the city's borders to give 20% defense and take control of the tile NE of the city. I feel like it may be a really stupid move to expose my stack to cannons and catapults. However, with only 1 musket with a CG promotion, I wasn't going to get significantly better odds defending within the city. Ideally, I did enough damage with my airships to prevent him from being able to take out my mini-stack. If Rego continue to shove troops down there, all he's going to do is turn this into a meatgrinder for both sides, especially once I get my catapults up there.



Rego continued moving his fleet of five frigates and one galleon south. I moved my four remaining ships from the southern squadron to rendezvous with the the northern group. I now have an eight ship stack south of the city, with two more ships still healing in the city. If he moves it closer, I'll hit it next turn. Naval battles of attrition work to my advantage.



Rego promoted both his wounded frigates from last turn and attacked the HMS Hood, which killed the first but was sunk by the second . Goodbye to the valiant HMS Hood! You shall forever be remembered for sinking three Incan warships before being sunk yourself, defending the Templar riflemen. He moved the surviving frigate into SuckitLebron to heal. Recon revealed a rifle in Ichabod, which he must have upgraded from the quechua. With no airships in range to hit the city, my rifles would not have had good odds. I moved two airships to Hebron, which can hit the city next turn, and moved my East Indiamen out of Rego's visibility but still in range to boat the city. If he does not add another defender there next turn, I will be able to boat it.



I spotted a galleon east of Far Open; I'm curious what he'll do with it. Rego additionally produced frigates in Ilios and Bato last turn.



My fleet is now only three turns away from landing. I emailed Shoot to ask if he needed any more ships. I'm continuing to assemble rifles and catapults in Edessa and Hattin for the main assault on the southern island.

Darrell still has not canceled OB with Rego, which he should have done three turns ago. This is getting a tad irritating. I emailed him today to remind him. Additionally, Darrell and I agreed to a trade of two airships for a destroyer. It's a slight hammer advantage to me, but he gets the zeppelins earlier and more use out of them. I flew one to China this turn and gifted it to the Egyptians, the next is due to complete in two turns.



[SIZE="3"]In Other News[/SIZE]

I made a very stupid micro mistake before I sent the turn on. I was running 10% science to get literature in one turn, while saving gold for my next tech push and for unit upgrades. Right before I ended turn, however, I microed a few cities to get a little more production out of them and didn't notice that I pushed the ETA on literature to two turns. I fell just one beaker short of finishing the tech.

With the completition of chemistry, my workshop investment is finally starting to pay off. Additionally, I queued up frigates in Edessa, Jaffa and Beruit.

Tech Report

Rego - Steam Power
Darrell - Railroad
NoSpace - Still Researching Railroad
Shoot - Nothing

I'm beginning to believe NoSpace is funding Rego. He researched Steam Power in two turns while fighting a hot war with me and upgrading units. The really bad news here is that it turns out he has corporation, and can now research assembly line or railroad. Conversely, NoSpace's tech rate has slowed considerably, they've been on railroad for three turns now. I queried Darrell about it, and it turns out Rego asked him for cash too. NoSpace is additionally now trading corn for wheat with Rego, I would not be surprised if they fronted him some cash to push him ahead to the key techs he needs to defend himself. It makes a lot of sense from a macro gaming POV for NoSpace to make this war as painful for the combatants as possible while they tech and build up. Still, it's rather annoying considering Space assured me that they would not intervene.

[SIZE="3"]Overall Thoughts[/SIZE]

For the time being, this war is becoming a stalemate, on land and at sea. Rego has sucessfully parried my last several thrusts. I have an outside chance at boating Ichabod next turn, but the next battles will be about defending what I have already taken. I simply do not have a big enough army on the ground at the moment to undertake any major offensives. I am really glad I got my drafting city online as early as I did, basically every land unit I have deployed thus far was drafted exploiting the infinite happiness of the Globe Theater. At sea, the playing field is pretty even, my East Indiamen backed by airships are achieving a one to one kill ratio against his frigates. This normally isn't a winning proposition for the civilization with smaller production capacity (me). However, in this case, with my four to one naval advantage and the fact that Rego is fighting a 3v1 war, grinding his navy down is a long-term winning proposition. He's going to run out of boats before Shoot, Darrell and I do - and this map is not kind to the player who does not control the seas. The key thing at this point in the war is going to be to seize as much territory as I can before he gets infantry or machine guns online and Shoot and Darrell start looking for a way out. I estimate he is 3-5 turns out from assembly line at the moment. I feel like if, at the very least, I can secure his southern island before the end of all this, it will put me in a good position to negoiate peace and will have made this war worth fighting.

Losses to Date:

Incan Losses (585 hammers)
1 galley
5 frigates
2 galleons
1 quechua
1 catapult
1 rifleman
1 worker

Templar Losses (483 hammers)
2 macemen
1 rifleman
6 East Indiamen

P.S. - Apologies to Tatan on renaming his namesake city, the new name just seemed to fit

[oledavy]

[COLOR="Yellow"]Good evening Shoot and Dave,

So it's been fun, no? Well, at least for Dave and I it has - Shoot I guess your and my fun is probably coming up soon, right? :-)

So on the eve of (even more) global fun, I thought I'd at least drop you a note to see if I can't convince you that the best course for your empire(s) lies in another direction.

Dave I killed your exploratory mini-stack that ventured out. I'm sure you have another stack lying around somewhere - your power is still very impressive, and of course Shoot, your power is even higher. I have no doubt that between the two of you, you could definitely put a dent in me, at least a big enough dent to make sure I don't win.

On the other hand, you'll have noticed that I'm one tech from infantry, as well as one tech from Machine Guns. Both of those are going to make things a lot slower for you guys. Destroyers (and then fighters and/or battleships) are not that far off either. It's certainly not a slamdunk on either side (of course, you are talking to the guy who sent someone an email telling them they couldn't win right before they razed my capital to cost me the game in PB1 :-D - so I've been known to be (very!) wrong).

I'm sure that at least part of your goals was to try and slow me down. After all, I was in 1st place and probably at least threatening to be a "RL7 in PBEM19-style runaway". So I think that we can say that part of your goal is already "Mission Accomplished". I've had to draft cities like crazy, I just ate a turn of anarchy to revolt back to Slavery and you both closed borders with me, costing me lots of foreign trade routes.

But just a cautionary tale - what seems to happen in this game is everyone takes steps to "rein in" the leader, only to go TOO far and watch the 2nd place guy sneak up.

A) Nospace gets the Mids and GLH and then gets dogpiled. But nobody notices Kyan, who takes the HG with the most cities and sneaks into first place.
B) Folks are focused on Kyan (and even nospace still), but then I sneak up and get into first place
C) Now you guys are dogpiling me, but here comes darrell.

You probably noticed that he just 1-turned Railroad (a 4311 beaker tech!) Sure, I bet a lot of overflow was involved, and he is in a golden age, but jeez! I'm not saying you should attack him necessarily - I'm a firm believer in the ABM philosophy (that's Anyone But Me). But he certainly needs to have a few eyeballs kept on him. He may be gearing up to join in on the attack. He did initiate the cooldown of our NAP, so in a few turns I am certainly entertaining the idea that I'll have another front. On the other hand, his power sure doesn't seem to be going up very fast...

Anyways, I gotta get to bed, but I hope you at least consider my thoughts. As always, I'll be around most of the day to discuss if you want

dan.
regoarrarr
inca[/COLOR]