[SPOILERS]The 3 Muscateers playing Ragnar of Rome!

[slowcheetah]

So it looks like I'll only be switching to Emancipation and Pacifism. Universal Suffrage is tempting though, especially without Slavery. I should have another GA before too long, hoping to switch to US + FS within the next 15t to take advantage of my growing amount of towns.

Sorry I wasn't around yesterday, I probably would have concentrated on bombardment as well. If your stack can survive the counter you usually have time to bombard.

Both US and Emancipation are the Democracy, why not just take that? Gives you a headstart on SoL as well, although you are in a war.

Speaking of which, pacifism? How many great people does it speed up? Do you have more than 4 turns of GA planned, if so how are you planning on getting out of pacifism?

[slowcheetah]

I actually had a look at the save. Pacifism is going to cost you 110gpt compared to 37, it'll allow you to generate the second GP needed for another GA faster. However, if you set up AA like so, you can generate 480 GPP's in the remains of you golden age. This allows you to birth a 3rd great person the turn after your golden age concludes (possibly two turns, my maths was quick and in my head). I've dropped a couple of towns and slowed the bank, but that's pennies into the river compared to the gold cost of pacifism, and considering you are producing buildings everywhere OR is rather worthwhile. Maybe even Theocracy, because you are, you know, in a war :P.

[slowcheetah]

Additionally, SuperJm has education, so Liberalism is definitely not a guarantee for you.

[Catwalk]

Both US and Emancipation are the Democracy, why not just take that? Gives you a headstart on SoL as well, although you are in a war.
...
Additionally, SuperJm has education, so Liberalism is definitely not a guarantee for you.

I may have confused a bit, that's the plan. Tech Printing Press first to unlock Democracy, then tech Liberalism. Superjm is short both Meditation and Philosophy to unlock Liberalism, so I will have decent warning. At the very least, I think it'll be safe to get Printing Press before Liberalism.

Speaking of which, pacifism? How many great people does it speed up? Do you have more than 4 turns of GA planned, if so how are you planning on getting out of pacifism?

I'm planning on running multiple specialists in 5 cities, so Pacifism will give me significant benefits. On the other hand, the effective upkeep of Pacifism is pretty big and the benefits of OR are also substantial. This turn it gave me around 35 hammers, and it will keep that value for the next several turns. You are correct that I should focus more on specialists in AR, will do that starting next turn.

As for actually being in a war, I'm still drafting muskets at full speed each turn. I will go straight for Rifling after Liberalism and Democracy, that will let me start drafting rifles. Until then I think I only want to build catapults. I will do that out of Hippy Hippo as I settled a great general there, gives me 5 XP land units without Theocracy. If I bombard all of next turn as well and invade the following turn, I'm expecting better than a 1:1 hammer exchange rate in the battle. If he tries to catapult me before then I think it will go badly for him, I have far more fighting units than him and most have promotion for easy healing. They're also standing still with a medic, so they will auto-heal on top of that.

EDIT: Forgot, I'm still intending to go for Economics first in order to get the free Great Merchant. Economics has little value to me otherwise, I'm not interested in Customs Houses or Free Market. It only gives me access to Corporation, which also has little value to me other than leading to Assembly Line. Which also has limited value to me, as I need Steam Power to get it and I won't get the +50% worker speed bonus as it'll obsolete Hagia Sophia. So how much is a great merchant worth? I can easily grab it along with Printing Press and Liberalism, but I'm not sure if it's worth it just for the great merchant. If I simply cash in the trade mission I'll basically break even with the cost of Economics, so that means I get the other benefits of Economics for free. Thoughts?

[Catwalk]

Azza hit me with all his catapults and 3-4 knights, did minimal damage. I think he's getting frustrated and losing hope/interest, that was a reckless attack. I decided to bombard him another turn since his troops are depleted further, he is now down to 2% defenses and I should be able to invade him with excellent casualty rates next turn. Considering that I'm messing up PBEM42 and am stressed out in life lately, this turn was a relief

Azza just launched a GA, and he has massive production rates now. I hope I won't get overconfident, but I do feel I'm in a dominant position. I'm going to build catapults until I get rifles, then go all out on rifles. If I get good results on the attack next turn, I feel confident about holding off on additional buildup until then. Still drafting 3 muskets each turn, been moving those to my waterbat front. Might be a mistake as I still have 9t left of my NAP with him, I wanted to discourage him a little. This might be another mistake, as it will probably only motivate him to whip harder. I've seen twice already how ruthless he is about committing to a war, so I will definitely not neglect my defenses over here.

[Catwalk]

Ready to invade!!!

Azza has the following defenders:
10x maces
1x knight
4x crossbows
4x longbows
7x axes
1x horse archer
6x pikes
1x archer
3x war chariots
2x trebuchets
= 39 units

I have the following invaders:
11x musket
29x mace
5x mace
5x praetorian
4x longbow
2x chariot
15x catapult (2 with barrage II, rest with barrage I)
= 71 units, 56 without the catapults

Defenses are down to 2%, so only bonuses that remain are limited fortification (most are 10%-15%) and the hill bonus. It looks like collateral damage is not affected by catapult health, so I go ahead and barrage with all catapults starting with the weakest ones. All catapults die, didn't luck into any of them retreating in spite of chances of around 3% for most. Azza got a great general during this, I assume he got 15x2 XP from the barrage.

After the barrage, my top attacker now has 78.8% odds! I definitely want to save some maces and crossbows for the pikes, and I want to save the praetorians for the non-melee units with no anti-melee bonuses (archers, chariots, trebuchets). Combat II and City Raider seem to be the best options.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Kill, kill, kill! Good luck.

[Catwalk]

Thinking it over some more, I decided to just pile them on according to highest odds. Results:

81.6% victory
69.7% victory
83.4% victory
78.8% victory
79.2% victory
80.5% DEFEAT
80.5% victory
91.8% victory
91.8% victory
91.8% DEFEAT
87% victory
88.8% victory
87.8% victory
73.6% victory
73.6% victory
89.3% DEFEAT
73% victory
85.5% victory
84% victory
86.9% victory
88.2% victory
86.9% victory
90.7% victory
97.2% victory
95.4% DEFEAT
96.8% victory
97.3% victory
99.1% victory
99.1% victory
99.8% victory
99.1% victory
99.2% victory
96.2% victory
95.9% victory
95.9% victory
93.9% victory
96.8% victory
92.3% victory
92.3% victory
95% DEFEAT
99.9% victory
99.9% victory
29% victory (praetorian against healthy knight outside the city)

Expected amount of losses was 5, so this was an acceptable outcome. I had excellent odds throughout, and I have an intact army which can strike against his core.

I went ahead and fired an artist on the city, which was probably a mistake as it only gave me a single tile. It's a miserable size 4 city now, and it lost a bunch of buildings. All it has left now are a forum, a forge and the Dai Miao. A nice surprise was that he had a settled artist here, so that's what he used it for when I was afraid he'd use an artist bomb.

I will march straight for his core now, even though I'm without catapults. Injured units will stay behind for a few turns, 10 are at full health and can march right away. I still have another great general to use, considering using it to give 10 units another promotion. Azza seems to be going all knights now, but he's sending them a few at a time and does minimal damage.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I took a look at the save, I didn't realize Superjm was beating up on Xenon and SareIn that badly. I hope Xenon has some reinforcements around his city of Osmium or he's in deep trouble. He has a warrior defending the city this turn (size 12!) with a decent attack force approaching it: 2 knights, a musket, a mace, a CKN, a catapult, and a worker. The units are of varying strength as they are evidently survivors of some combat so they should be easy enough to kill off if they can be hit in the field, but if Xenon doesn't provide some relief to Osmium the knights could take it out without the rest of the stack after next turn. He's in slavery so surely he'll whip some units in if he already doesn't have countermeasures waiting in the fog. I'm sure he's chagrined by the fact that Superjm's stack circumvented a pair of units on a border hill tile rather than attacking them. That longbow and crossbow would do him a lot more good inside the city right now.

Not sure if it's reported elsewhere but Superjm has so far razed five cities from SareIn and one from Xenon. Our razing of an Azza city is the only other incident I can see through the foreign advisor panel.

I assume Catwalk will report the main event well enough but I did a quick stack attack as a test and down went the city. I'm sure it was a much more expensive way to do it than you're hopefully doing it! Spend your troops wisely, maybe we can keep the ball rolling....I don't suppose your advance naval scouts have seen how poorly Azza's capital is at the moment?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Ha, x-posted, but that result looks good. Too bad about the great artist, though. Of course once you take the next city it will work out Nice job getting that knight, he could have been pesky. I don't suppose you have plans to send any pikes this way to make things a bit easier on his knights? Also, I really hope you'll send some catapults forward, taking more cities could get expensive unless you've just destroyed most of his army. Even if you did he still has a lot of population and you can expect him to whip his cities to the ground before handing them over, so you'll see a lot of LBs in his cities I assume. Catapults will be in great demand....

I don't suppose Waterbat wants to sell any more?