[SPOILERS] Rusten enters uncharted waters

[superdeath]

[Rusten]

I guess DS does favour AT over me despite him piling on. I don't understand why else he'd just up and leave his capital his capital like this. AT just walked in. Puzzling. He could've so easily wiped his stack.




Oh well, at least I don't have to think about ifs and buts anymore, war with AT will happen.

I'll be even more perplexed if AT doesn't take back Nairobi this next turn. There's only 1 rifleman in there, the other unit is Gav's scouting chariot. A penny for his thoughts on all this. 
Maybe I'll offer Gav an iron-iron war on AT trade soon. Split his empire with Gav.

[Rusten]

For the record it's better for me if DS doesn't try to take back the cities, I'm just a little surprised that's all. It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. People's motivations vary in times like this, but personally I would've tried to hold on to my biggest cities while inflicting as much pain on whoever attacked me as possible. But I'm not going to fault anyone for not taking that approach. I can also understand holing up in Porto-Novo and not putting any effort into something futile. But Porto-Novo is on flatland so I'll probably take it with 0 losses no matter how much he puts in there.

edit: And AT's cities will still be in revolt for when I attack so they're easy pickings with cannons. Nor does he even have steel so my ironclads reign supreme.

edit 2: In fact I think I will offer Gavagai that deal this turn to give him some time to prepare. He should understand what's going on thanks to the chariot.

[Rusten]

SoL underway. The copper bonus is a false positive.




The offer has been made:




I also sent him a dye for free afterwards, because why not?
I've not had a lot of time to think about this, but immediate thought is that Gavagai will jump on it. He's at a point where he'll want to expand through force and AT is not one of the players who are the most technologically advanced, so he'll get good use of his UU. AT is massing rifles which his UU completely counters. He might have been planning this already. May it be the start of a wonderful friendship.

[Rusten]

Looking a little closer at combat odds I might've overstepped slightly this turn. Played it a little loose with AT joining in on the action. DS could potentially hurt me a bit. I should've been patient and waited one more turn before moving in.

It would cost him the majority of his remaining forces, but it would keep him alive a little longer. I guess this upcoming turn will show if he's completely checked out of the game.

[Rusten]

I've not logged in yet, but apparently OH has made his move and attacked. Not gonna lie, I thought he'd wait for the next round of military techs first. This is likely where the game is decided, either I hold without big (city) casualties or OH manages to hurt me enough to secure victory. Win/win scenario. Either I lose now and finally get out of this game or I hold and I will play on at least knowing that victory will be secured.

His timing is impeccable if you look back to my previous post. DS spent 3 hours playing his turn so I guess he sacrificed all his units to kill most of mine. I'm a little annoyed at myself for presenting that opportunity, but when you spend so much time playing a game you'll make mistakes here and there. It's inevitable.

[Raskolnikov]

How did it go?

[Rusten]

Just logged in, still playing.

The good news is that DS did nothing so my stack is still perfectly healthy and will retreat.

The bad news is that OH bribed Commodore to attack as well. We're at war but he was out of position and did nothing so clearly not planned. So much for being BFFs and him not scheming!
But the fact that he was willing to do this but didn't just walk into DS' empty cities earlier is a little surprising. I guess piling with OH was the catalyst.

Need to find a balance in upgrading units and rushing builds vs teching to destroyers, but that's where I'm headed. Will have to concede most of the seas until then.

[Rusten]

Hopefully this is WW2 Pearl Harbor. Sneak attack by the OH+Commodore baddies. I'm trying to send Pindicator and TBW on OH and Gavagai on Commodore and start a world war. Of those proposals the only one I'm hopeful about is the Gav one, but we'll see.

If nobody does anything and I have to fight both Commdore and OH alone then OH will win this game I think.

[Rusten]

The overall war situation is that OH's navy combined with airships and C3+amphibious cavalry will overwhelm my Persian coastal cities. But those cities aren't all that important, so if I delay him and get my coal plants to pay off while adding ironclads I should be OK. I should outproduce him eventually. If I can make it to destroyers then his airships are also much less effective.

The problem is that Commodore on top of that makes things very hard, so I need Gavagai to do something. The new AI diplo setting does make it much easier to coordinate attacks, for better or worse.