[59] Miguelito and Rusten move stacks to berimbau rythms

[Miguelito]

Yeah makes sense, change it please if you're still around.

[Rusten]

Changed it. And I started on a harbor in the capital. We get exp bonus and it will give a fair amount of trade commerce there.

edit: How do you feel about chopping Forbidden Palace in (former) DZ capital? It's only 200 hammers, so the 3 forests + natural production does the trick.

[Miguelito]

Elkad retreated from Hastings to York, still unhealed. I took the city, maybe should have burned it as well. But it may also bait his knights. Also got Warwick on the east coast. Next turn we may get an opportunity on London - over a river, against the hill and 60% culture defense . A turn later we could strike with more forces, and without the river crossing.
I am very unsure whether this attack will work out. Really should have killed Elkad while he had no military tech . Friendship was a lie, as it turned out (on our part).

I have been drafting the core five times every single turn of the GA, and we might actually end it with less pop than we started with. Surely a lot more unhappy, and there are little reserves left - which is worrying as we'll have to have our defenses up in 8 turns against civac. He finally has guilds now and only needs gunpowder for privateers. He has some 780 gold on hand.

- which is why we are going for the greedy play of libbing economy on the last turn of the GA, and teching astro afterwards. I sort of feel that it's wrong, but can't resist. Drafted muskets will have to keep us alive meanwhile. We'll birth 2 Great Merchants next turn Lib is secure fwiw.

[Miguelito]

Turnless evening (can't even log in before Elkad), so I'll ramble a bit on my currently greatest worry - how to come to terms with civac.

I see the situation as follows:

• At first he only wanted a cease fire, but after minor pressure (and paying 100 gold as reparations for a galley and worker) he was willing to sign peace, while he was looming with galleons. That tells me that he prefers to make gains versus Elkad (first) instead of all out war against us. Peace lasts until turn 160 (we are at 153)
  
• We have rougly the same city count, but he made his conquest much earlier, and those cities are in full operation now, while we have not build a single unit in former Spain until now (one city is draftable at least)
  
• Even with all our drafts, he has consistently maintained a power level about 40 percent over ours - and the gap may actually increase as he's got guilds now and could be whipping knights, which are the first units that can technologically match ours, and do particularly well against drafted musketeers. We need pikes.
  
• That also means that he has invested a lot into units (I think maces mostly) that will obsolete not too far in the future. Meaning we have an advantage if we can keep him from attacking, but at the same time he wants to use them.
  
• He has had astro for some 8 turns, and has a large fleet already. I've seen around 8 galleons in the inner sea. He only lacks Gunpowder for privateers. We will have to research astro yet, which I hope will take no more than 4 turns. We should be faster than him to Chemistry (and upgrade caravels), but that likely is only after our treaty runs out.
  
• Despite his overwhelming power apparently he hasn't invaded Elkad with a mainland stack yet (might be approaching in the fog). That makes me worry that he has other plans for all that power.
  
• We signed OB, which I suppose means trust? But the galleons are still terribly dangerous.
  
• We have one mainland front and will have to when/if we get Elkad down. Our coasts are wide open to whomever dominates the inner sea.
  
• I don't think I have registered civac settling astro land yet. That is something to spend resources on for both of us outside of war.
  

I don't think there is a scenario where we can fruitfully wage war against him, unless we somehow gain an immense technological advantage in the future (say destroyers/tanks). In particular, we have a different, much softer target in the eastern continent.

Is the same true for him? He could try to cripple us enough with galleon strikes and a Spain invasion that he remains the one relevant power on the continent. Currently we just don't have the numbers to cause him significant damage in return. Will he enthusiastically launch himself into a war against a more advanced opponent, with roughly the same city count, running Nationalism/Slavery/Theocracy? Maybe not, but he may also conclude that his relative position is not going to improve over time, and try to seize his opportunity while he has naval and power advantage.

So first, we have to achieve parity on the seas, which I guess means mass whipping privateers as soon as we have astro, beelining Chemistry, and then upgrade all the caravels that we can, and whip those that are in build queues currently. We may have some privateers and the existing caravels concentrated around Madeira Boa / Canoa Virou by the time peace runs out. Hopefully he doesn't go to war immediately. He got himself a bit of a bloody nose invading Elkad, who beat him up with his knights, although in ultimately irrelevant numbers. So if by that time Elkad isn't dead yet he may want to finish that job first, and we would have time to match his fleet.

What can be done in terms of diplo? I want to offer him a favourable split of Elkad. For reference, here's the contested area again:


By now we have Hastings. I think we only really need London and can leave the rest to him. Would we also be willing to give up on London? I don't think so, as that would leave us without hinterland on that blob. Also we need to get rid of London's English culture asap. He probably is faster to the islands, although some hope remains for the one N of London (but us delaying Astro doesn't help). Still, that would leave us with only 4-5 of Elkad's 13 cities (+1 as we replace Nottingham with 2 cities).

So, diplo offers that I am considering:

1. OB - already done, and we have the sentry HA in his former AT land.
   
2. fish/fish
   
3. him: pig/gold - us: sugar/gems, to arrange the Elkad split. The islands are not included and would fall to whomever comes first, likely him.
   
4. him War vs. Cornflakes - us: vs. Mjmd - ideally we'd both agree on better target. The problem is that Mjmd is a lot better for us than CF is for him, as CF has way better tech, and a powerful neighbour (Picadilly) to his north that civac would have to deal with. Civac may even conlcude that he mustn't let us eat Mjmd, and the offer could backfire and increase his hostility
   

Which of these, or what else, do you think we should offer? Also there is an argument for only offering after we researched Astro and achieved technological parity / superiority in all relevant fields.

All of this is assuming that our number advantage prevails and the Elkad campaign doesn't collapse under the hooves of his insanely promoted knights. Really should have built pikes earlier. Or swallowed him with knights while he had just spears for that matter.

[Rusten]

I'll read more closely later, but I'd suggest slavery end of GA to be able to whip navy if needed. But I don't know how important the spec slots for GPs are.

[Rusten]

Cornflakes is a pretty good target for him I think, but I'm not sure we should say who we're attacking. You could just offer fish/fish + him going to war with Cornflakes, meaning that we wouldn't intervene.

Curious to see how long Astro will take, but we have 1 turn of GA + free market and 100% slider at least, so it can't be *that* long.

[Miguelito]

Just when I thought that maybe we had an opening, Elkad researches engineering so his stack arrives in time.

I'm almost at the point of cutting our losses and offering peace. We can't even hold our conquests of Hastings and Warwick for more than maybe 2 more turns. So evacuate those, let him take them, then peace? Or we hold out in Hastings, until he clashes with civac or something.

We only have a slight numbers advantage despite all the drafting, and his units are way stronger, moving inside his immense culture. This is depressing. I am now convinced we could just have stayed at peace and Elkad would have handled civac, at least for a good while. Really surprised at how effectively he is defending.

Would like to hear your opnion though before making a decision.

[Rusten]

I wouldn't give him peace if he's still at war with civac, but I don't have eyes on the situation.

[Miguelito]

For now I retreated. I think we are safe until next turn at least, but then he'll have healthy knights.

With my drive to push ahead gone, I drafted just once this last GA turn, but will get back to more during the next couple turns. Civac whipped so much that we came out top CY.

[Miguelito]

I thought about it more. Evacuated Warwick and offered him peace with 1 gold from us. Meaning that he can take Warwick, but we keep Hastings. I think with his back secured he can hold back civac for ten turns, at least keep him from taking London. Maybe we'll even re-enter the war on Elkad's side.
Even assuming that Elkad takes the treaty, all of this has been an utter failure. We razed two cities and got one that will be difficult to hold; in return I threw away our alliance and weakened Elkad's defense against civac. I just grossly underestimated his capability to defend on the mainland, and snapped, wanting to get at least a share of England.

I think the objective now is to get a stable situation on our continent, settle Astro land, and prepare an invasion to the east (which will not be very soon I think).