[PB37 SPOILER] Coeurva, Bacchus -- Cyrus of Carthage

[Coeurva]

T145

lol

Traded maps with Joey btw. I don't know whether that was a mistake, but I want to stay on his good side. We gained vision on a few cities in the process, including Joey's recent usurpation of Donovan's eastern (ivory) peninsula.

I'm starting to think it's not dtay who is in the lead, as incredible as that might sound. Joey will also plant a settler 669 of Regna (frankly, that site "belongs to him", in that it only claims two seafood resources second-ring deep within his culture, and nothing else, but I don't like the added pressure -- whipped library in Regna to get culture started, and will go for more lbows + walls, maybe a cothon)

Between this, our awful economy (granted, we're building only 15h of wealth right now, three civs are in a Golden Age, everyone else is at 100% sci, and dtay has ~2000g from his conquests to burn through -- but we're still getting beaten by Donovan right now and I don't know how that's excusable) and Krill having generated a Great Scientist, as well as JR4 continuing to put 10 EP/t into us for whatever reason (I queued up an xbow in Sherry), I'm increasingly glum about this game. Savant has also stuffed a longbow into Sandcaster and revolted to Vassalage, so I'm not sure whether we'll have enough knights in time before he reaches Engineering to do anything much against him.

One of the reasons why our economy doesn't work is that we're paying 58gpt in unit costs, though. Fun fact: we have about as many soldiers as dtay now (711,000 to 716,000).

8 NumCav, 9 swords, 2 cats, 2 xbows. (Not quite as many as I had wanted; we don't have enough cargo space.) Four 6-move galleons. All will land from the fog on T147. If that doesn't take Mandrake (size11 now) and Bracken, I don't know what will. Full steam pillage economy, because I don't know what else to do in Civ!

If we flounder by this attack, you can blame it all on me. Sorry about not conducting Operation Unthinkable. Signed, the worst Twilight Struggle player in the world, probably.

EDIT: Krill also offered stone <-> marble. We already have stone from JR4, so I declined. He's also going to build either the Sistine Chapel or the National Epic with marble. Not going to help him out there.

[Bacchus]

I'd say we need more cats in the mix, but let's see. How many xbows you reckon he has there? 1?

[Coeurva]

As of yet? None at all. Just swords / axes promoted to Shock (some C1, some C3); four units per city (we can permanently see inside from our borders, due to Optics). Krill is dangerously low on military compared to everyone else (which is how he's keeping up with the big ones, I assume); he has about half our power ranking in the graphs. Should we attack these triremes on the first turn of war where we can, by the way, or try to preserve our galleons' health?

I agree about siege. We'll build / whip cats and trebs from all southern cities and perhaps Westward/Rhapsody as well, along with one more galleon in Maudlin.

We'll also have a canal on the land-bridge south-east of Westward starting next turn, which is how the offensively-useful units from the former Sorpigal stack will reach Mandrake.

What's next for tech after Guilds? Drama, Music, Engineering, Banking, Civil Service (with goal Printing Press)?

[Bacchus]

Hmm, that's strange on his part. Maybe one in queue?

Interesting question on triremes. On one hand you don't want them pillaging seafood, on the other upgrades to caravels are pretty inefficient and pointless. On the third hand, GG points and experience. Would we score 1 or 2 on an attack? If 2, letting us upgrade, we definitely should.

[Bacchus]

Techwise, banking would be very nice both for the building and mercantilism -- we can start running artists in island cities which we would want to push out Gartsists by the end of the game, whilst merchants everywhere else to get the slider up.

Can we afford not to tech Engineering though, that is the question. Putting a castle in Zodiac would make us very safe. It's also on the way to Chemistry. Maybe Engi->Banking->Gunpowder->Chemistry? We would lack Bureaucracy (don't care that much), Paper (Sankore? Meh), Philosophy (not running pacifism with this army) and a way to MilTrad (this is a real downside). But we will be nigh-invulnerable on the seas, and could probably take a lot of stuff.

But then, whose stuff? Savants? We don't need frigates for this. Mongolia's? Feeds GermanJoey. Krill? Got a feeling he will push to keep naval parity with us. Dtay? Not really navally exposed. So maybe we need land expansion and that means philosophy->nationalism, also opening up constitution. I don't know yet.

Also, sinking triremes is good just on the basis of numbers, even triremes can sink damaged galleons after all.

[Coeurva]

The best part of Engineering is +1 road movement, in my opinion. Pikes and castles are nice against dtay / Savant (who will go for knights as well) and Notre-Dame is useful on a Large Pangaea such as this, but expensive. The increased road movement, however, costs nothing but the invested beakers and helps with everything: military units, increased efficiency of OrgRel / Confu spread, worker movement.

Guilds will be welcome for a similar reason; we have lots of workshops left over from the GA. What's a knight?

T146. International news:

* Krill has Renaissance graphics, as I had feared. He founded Taoism at the beginning of this turn. but I would entirely trust Krill to finish Philosophy exactly before an Astro bulb. In fact, it's most likely he bulbed two techs from what CivStats says, one Medieval, one Renaissance. Yeah, we must assume galleons -- I don't think Krill went to Civil Service to bulb Education or anything. However, he'll still have to build those galleons.
* JR4 continues to invest EP into us and has Open Borders with Krill. This is either the least subtle backstab I've seen, or he's just trying to reduce his dependence on our OB on general principle. I whipped the xbow in Sherry to be safe.
* Joey fired his second Golden Age, switching into HR/Vassalage/Caste System as you'd expect, whereas Savant's GA has ended.

Final draw-up of attacking forces:

Any of the three 6-move galleons in the west could hit Foxglove amphibiously or land their contents there (7 NumCav, 2 xbows) on T147. Galleons get 98.7% odds on triremes. Hebona will probably put one of the Chehalis lbows into Sweet Water and take the Sentry chariot from the city, to keep watch of the eastern approach.

If Krill moves units out of Mandrake to guard against the obvious galley landing (which he can see), we'll strike amphibiously with the galleons and guard the city with two xbows, while the galleys move on towards Bracken.

EDIT: Also, our GNP doesn't suck that much anymore (577 at 100% sci). If we can keep building cothons, we'll manage despite our low pop.

Definitely need frigates.

[Bacchus]

Definitely need frigates.

This is the strategic problem with facing off with Krill -- we both have a large advantage respective to the field, which is only a matter of parity in a duel. We should both much prefer making use of that advantage by directing expansion elsewhere. But our geography is somewhat constrained.

Long-term, the confrontation on the seas will have to be with GJ. If we can keep the war with Krill short, maybe we can pivot that way soonish, before he catches up. Do you envisage taking much past Mandrake and Braken?

[Coeurva]

We could, perhaps, take Foxglove. Afterwards, we'd also be free to settle that island south of Sphinx. But I don't know whether Krill will sign peace unless Gavagai binds him; he'll probably try to hit our cities with the old Sirian Doctrine as well instead.

Krill whipped eight "things" on his turn, which might well mean eight galleons.

I'd also prefer to attack anyone but Krill -- but as you've said, there's nobody around except Joey, whose islands are small, and Savant, who would probably not sign peace a second time. We'll build up the west militarily soon, that is, get a few knights onto galleons there, though. Actually we need to produce military almost everywhere, since Krill's galleons and Savant's xbow/treb/knight? stack he's fiercely whipping will both come after us.

Not that they wouldn't do that anyway, though.

[Bacchus]

In true German fashion, it's not that we want to go to war with all our neighbours, it's just that the situation leaves us no choice! And if we don't use the opening to attack they will just attack us when they are stronger!

But I can't actually bring anything except for snark against that line of thinking.

[Coeurva]

I'd rather not try and emulate Frederick II's brilliant strategy of "hope that an instrumental political leader of the enemy alliance suddenly dies and the successor enjoys your uniforms and letters to Voltaire enough to make peace immediately", though.

Also I'm sure that whatever we do, we're going to destroy a large empire!! I get the urge to log in as "Coeursus", except we have the worst GNP.

T147: I spent an hour trying to log in, getting constant crashes, lost a 99% battle of (4-move) galleon against trireme (I had landed all the units beforehand, of course, but it's still horrible, we needed 4 hits and Krill 7), and sent one 6-galleon towards Foxglove, whose garrison (lbow, 4 axes) turned out to be slightly too large to warrant splitting the stack... ending the turn on what must be the only ocean tile within 30 tiles, within range of two now-visible triremes that Krill had evidently just steered away eastward (75% odds in our favour, but still). All in all, par for the course!

Some good news, though: Krill apparently didn't whip galleons, but longbows in all his western coastal cities (at least those we can see; maybe he whipped galleons futher away from the front -- in any case, I've whipped another one in Maudlin to replace our loss, and we'll have to build galleons in Spire, Swallow, and Westward as well). He's also in Theocracy, as you'd expect. Half our power rating (we have 740,000, dtay 729,000) in the graphs. Bracken has two triremes, a galley, two lbows, two swords, and two axes inside. No walls anywhere but at Mandrake yet.

Savant's whips were, quite appropriately for both his theme and situation, castles everywhere from Tularian Forest to Sandcaster. Knights likely won't do anything much to him now. At least he can't throw castles at us, either.

dtay has a Medic III knight (and four more knights) inside Cuckhokia. He also took Yuri's second-last hold-out (the Stonehenge city), killing a Great General. For some reason, Zodiac Spire's culture failed to expand after Yuri's culture vanished.

Vermin builds catapults, and trebuchets whenever it has enough overflow to 1t one. Lifeblood also builds cats. The northern cities will build lbows and cats against Savant (defensively), then Ignis will finish a castle. Queued up Moai behind the galleon in Styx, which we'll 1-whip next turn for copious overflow (45h before modifiers from forge + OrgRel (next missionary goes there) + stone); a few more whips and Moai will be complete. It's not the worst city to build it.