[SPOILERS]PB46: (In Search of) Fine Foreign Dining, by Hannibal of England

[TBW]

T179:
I got the event that gives all your muskets free Pinch promo. Sweet! I'm going to draft as many muskets as I can get away with before I finish Rifling just so I have plenty to upgrade to redcoats later. Outside of that, GKC is building up privateers to have a staring contest with my privateers near his border, which isn't surprising. I'm sending over a bunch from Aldeburgh to reinforce what I can build on that side of my empire. GKC is also gradually moving muskets into his bastion city, which doesn't really change my plans much. Rusten has Steel now, so he's going to blow through Dark Savant even more easily now, so I hope Commodore has some kind of plan for dealing with that. I'm sitting at 0% for a turn to build up enough gold to finish Rifling, I make ~850 gold per turn at 0% slider and turn it into ~1500 beakers at 100% now, keeping me in 3rd-4th place. Considering the fact that I'm the only top 4 guy that hasn't conquered anybody else yet and the top guy (OH) is in a GA, that's not too shabby.

[TBW]

T180:

With roughly 100 hammers worth of research builds, I can knock out Rifling in 2 turns. Hell yeah! I might as well wait the two turns and upgrade the muskets I'm planning on taking Rome's last city with into redcoats.


After that, I can focus on GKC and building up the stack I'll need to weather his crossbow/catapult defenders. He renamed his bastion city "SayNoToInvasion", but I mean, he was obviously aware of what's eventually going to happen.

In foreign news, Rusten launched what I believe is his 3 person GA, which should get him pretty close to done with Steam Power through Assembly Line (if that's the direction he's heading). He finally researched Education, so his GNP advantage will grow when he starts getting universities up everywhere. OH has Steel now, but it's still going to take him some time to build the cannons he'll need to blow through Elkad's huge stacks of CG3 longbows. Elkad can't win or even fight back in any meaningful way, but he can definitely stall OH for 20 more turns.

[TBW]

T181:
I sent nauf a PM letting him know I'm going to be wiping out Rome's last city in a couple turns. Normally I wouldn't send a message that direct, but I figure since it's a one city civ that never made it to Machinery that's just had someone logging in to hit enter for the last two months, it's a special case. I told him I'd take whichever side of a turn split was most convenient for him, but again, it's just going to be me upgrading my muskets -> two turns to walk them in -> one turn to bombard -> one turn to take the city. After that's finished, I turn all of my attention towards GKC. I haven't decided whether I grab Military Tradition first so I can turn my knights into cavalry immediately or if I should go for Astronomy to open up new lanes of attack. I'll see how much gold I have left over from upgrading my Rome-killers before I decide.

[TBW]

T182:
Spent about 1k gold upgrading 9 muskets to redcoats for the attack on nauf. Next turn I declare, one turn to walk up next to the city, one turn to bombard it, and one turn to conquer it. These are mostly 2 xp drafted units, so hopefully I get 2 exp out of most of the kills here so I can get a second promotion on them for the march towards GKC. It's awfully tempting to invade OH's Roman underbelly right now while he's still tied up battling Elkad's nasty stacks, but he also has cannons, galleons, and frigates. I think it's better for me to focus on the weaker opponent while he still lacks Rifling and I can overwhelm him than to set myself up to get my most important cities boated.

[TBW]

T183:


Pretty straightforward, I'm apparently taking the first half of the timer on this, not that it actually really matters here. OH has Elkad down to just his SoZ city from what I can see, and it'll take him a few turns to punch out the stack in there before he makes his next play, so I'll be able to get my redcoats in and out and not have to worry too much about an invasion just yet. I also decided, after vacillating between Military Tradition and Astronomy as techs, to go ahead and take Military Tradition so I can start building cavalry as soon as possible. I think Military Tradition -> Chemistry -> Astronomy is going to be my best play here, because fighting frigates with privateers seems like a bad idea and there's not a lot that I can do to GKC with galleons right this second that I can't also accomplish with galleys if it comes down to it. He still doesn't have rifling, and even when he gets it, I'll have pinch redcoats to counter him with.

[TBW]

T184:
Nauf whipped a longbow, which isn't going to make a difference for me taking the city but does give me extra GG points. More concerning is seeing that GKC finally finished Rifling, so he's going to have several turns to accumulate rifles before I ever launch an invasion. Ah well. I still outproduce him, vastly outtech him, and have better UUs right now. I probably need to keep an eye on my north with OH's war against Elkad coming to a close too, I'm definitely going to grab Chemistry for frigates after I finish Military Tradition next turn. OH isn't garrisoning the cities in the south very hard, so I could probably get away with a land grab up to Rome if I really wanted to and had been planning landings ahead of time, but it really doesn't seem smart to antagonize a guy with cannons, a big terrain advantage, and a fleet of galleons.

[superdeath]

Id pay to see a major backstab on this map.. ;p

[TBW]

Id pay to see a major backstab on this map.. ;p

I have to agree that it would be really funny to Pearl Harbor OH here, especially after he wiped me out as Rome, but it would basically be me taking somewhere between 2 and 5 cities in the first few turns and then getting my angus peppered by a guy with way more industrial power and a tech advantage.

[TBW]

T185:
No big surprises against nauf, he upgraded all the longbows that weren't upgraded to CG1, I bombarded it down to 0% with my trebuchets. GKC upgraded all of the muskets (6 of them) in his bastion city to rifles and he has other whipped rifles on the way in. Looks like he'll be able to reinforce it to the point that I'd probably want cannons and infantry to take the city instead of just going with a huge rifle/cavalry stack. That kind of sucks, but it is what it is, I don't think I could have worked it out any differently if I'd gone Military Tradition before Rifling and upgraded my knight stack instead of the way I'm playing it now. If nothing else, I can still claim naval superiority with frigates, take his island cities with redcoat landings, and burn down his outlying cities.

[TBW]

T186:


Went almost exactly as expected, except I figured I'd lose four trebuchets instead of 3. The city itself isn't going to be much of a boost for me since it doesn't have much food available to grow on, and it lost all infrastructure, but it will be a good bastion to keep an eye on a potential land invasion by OH. That's what Krill wanted to use me as Rome for anyway, so his plan works out in the end. I ended up 5 exp short of a Great General, unfortunately.

I'm going to crash on through Chemistry instead of upgrading my knights to cavalry immediately. GKC now has 10 rifles sitting in his bastion city, so he was clearly planning his entire game around massing a stack of rifles to cram in there as soon as he finished Rifling. I really don't think I could have gotten to Rifling any more efficiently than I did or massed the kind of army I'd need to withstand the amount of collateral he has in the city any faster, and I'm clearly not going to be invading it right now. I'll keep stacking up cavalry and redcoats for now and probably grab Steel before Astronomy.

On the other people front, OH has Scientific Method now, which opens up Communism and Physics for him. He'll likely be able to grab both of those Great People, since Rusten went for Steam Power after apparently running into a roadblock on steamrolling Dark Savant. Mouseferatu sent me a trade asking for a copper donation, which I turned down. I haven't interacted with him all game and I wouldn't be gaining anything by trying to prop him up, but it would probably make pindicator mad and I'd prefer to avoid that.