[SPOILER] PB37 Dark Savant tries not to be a blatant MP n00b

[Dark Savant]

t211:

Gavagai declared war, which I had been expecting either now or the next turn.  He's got overwhelming numbers of ships (partly why I didn't bother building many on the eastern sea).

His main stack now has ~35 rifles, ~35 grenadiers, ~18 knights, and 5 cannons.  I can't stop that; the only question is if I can put up any kind of resistance at all.  It will be trouble even if the knights peel off from the stack and go after some side target.

Since he actually declared war, I'm moving most of what I have his way and stripping defenses on the other, southern side all the way to the token level.  It's not going to be anywhere near enough, but I'll see how much resistance I can actually put up.  I'm hoping dtay/GermanJoey/Krill react in time to capture my cities before either of the other aggressors can.  It'll be a few turns before galleons can get troops out my remaining island cities that aren't close to Gavagai.

I have to start drafting now -- I can't wait for Rifling, which is going to be delayed anyway because my economy is going to take a huge hit soon, which might be bad enough that I might not even reach Rifling (which may happen if anyone else joins in).  It causes more unhappiness than I'd remembered; oh well, not like it's going to matter much.

dtay's defenses are also now token -- if someone attacks me from the south GermanJoey or Krill will probably be first, which I'm fine with.  dtay also just had Coeurva's former capital razed by GermanJoey (which was where he had most of his troops on this front).  I have the settler I had sitting around move to settle there, because why not?

[Dark Savant]

t212:

dtay and GermanJoey sign a peace treaty.  I wonder if that's a temporary truce so they can grab some of my land? 

JR4 has some ironclads running around.  He doesn't have any non-naval stack advancing that I saw.

Gavagai's doomstack continues to advance, now 2 tiles away from Garrote Gorge.  I think the best thing to do is to clear out of Garrote Gorge and let him have it without a fight, because it's on flat land without any rivers -- the plan is to make the actual last stand in my capital.  I'll continue to try to hold Vertigo to its north for now.  I don't have to clear out until next turn, though.

Gavagai isn't showing any current interest in the island cities I hold close to him.  I think he's just going to wait until later for those; those may actually be the my last cities, not my capital.  He does have enough navy around them that there's no way I can get troops either off or on them.  (It's a huge navy, and I know he's got large naval stacks elsewhere too.)

No one else declared war.  I'm expecting all the declarations against me within ~5 turns.  I clear out a lot of troops in the island cities farther away from Gavagai and JR4, and I'll have them down to a token garrison by next turn.  Those troops can still reach my capital in time to defend against Gavagai or JR4.

I mean.  I'd rather have my southern cities not fall at all, but well, if I have a choice I'd rather them not fall to my aggressors, you know?

My economy is taking enough of a hit that Rifling is more or less unavoidably delayed a turn -- it's now due in 4.  Yeah, that's going to be the last technology I research.

[Dark Savant]

t213:

Aww, dtay had a settler replant on Coeurva's former capital site just before I could.   

Gavagai's stack has not split up, and is now next to Garrote Gorge; I have all the units in it clear out.  I can't defeat Gavagai's stack if it stays together, but if it splits up I have a chance of defeating it in detail.  I expect he will, because otherwise other players are going to start taking cities before he can take more than about 2.

I have 25 catapults right now, and am still buildilng more.  I'm sure this is funny to everyone else, seeing as how everyone else has been able to build cannons for quite some time now. 

Rifling is now due in 2, not 3.  I go easy on the whipping and drafting (only 8 whips/drafts ), so I might actually get it in 2.  And I'm about to lose Chichen Itza anyway, so making that obsolete isn't particularly relevant.

No other military action.  Well, I sank a few couple JR4's ships on defense, and I sank a couple of Gavagai's ships on offense without losing any, but they've still got me drastically outnumbered on the seas, so that hardly counts.

[Dark Savant]

t214:

Gavagai captured Garrote Gorge and garrisoned it with ~15 units -- too much for me to retake.

He moved west around the lake, not the most direct route to my capital.

JR4 is moving in ironclads -- I won't be able to kill more than maybe two of those.

Rifling now doesn't quite come in 1 at 100% research -- I have to also run Research and a bunch of scientists so that it is.

[Dark Savant]

t215:

Rifling comes in, and I shut down research.  That now includes 20% culture, because unhappiness is going through the roof with all the drafting and happiness resources being cut off from random cities and war weariness and unhappiness from being at war with other Buddhist civilizations.

JR4 landed a significant stack near Fountain Head.  It's roughly enough to take it -- I hope to hold it one more turn, but I don't have any relief force I can get there in time.

Gavagai has now split his main stack into three groups, and landed a fourth two tiles away from my capital.

GermanJoey and Krill have both moved galleons into range of my southern island cities -- I expect both to declare war within 2 turns.  I'm not sure if dtay will, because he doesn't even have enough rifles to cover the cities he has near me.

So that's it, the rapid death spiral is now finally actually happening, dozens of turns after I thought it would.  I'm not sure how much damage I can do before going out, but we'll see. 

[Dark Savant]

t216:

JR4 captures Fountain Head with some strength to spare.

Gavagai has multiple stacks incoming.  The smaller stack headed towards Castle Ironfist has only 15 rifles and 6 cannon; it's probably best if I defeat it on offense, which I do.

At this point, it's probably best to just hole up and try to weather the storm -- but it probably won't make much of a difference anyway, so for reasons having mostly to do with "let's see what this actually accomplishes" and maybe "I want to feel like I'm doing something" , I throw what I reasonably can at the larger stack, damaging most of the units and killing several rifles.  I only have about 2 catapults left now, down from about 30.  Gavagai still has ~90 units that can attack me, which should be more than enough one way or the other anyway even though almost everything other than the cannons are damaged.

No other war declarations yet, but I'd be very surprised if neither GermanJoey nor Krill declared war this turn.

[Dark Savant]

t217:

JR4 captured the re-planted Nighon, which was lightly garrisoned.  The next city he can attack is Harmondale, but he'd have to bring more force to take that.

Gavagai captured both Steadwick (small city on the west coast) and Middlegate (not-so-small city on the east coast).  Both are only garrisoned by two units; I have a force in place to try to re-take Middlegate next turn; it can reinforce Castle Ironfist if Gavagai reinforces Middlegate.

Gavagai also attacked Castle Ironfist, but its defenses held this turn.  Huh, I didn't think that would happen.  He has another small incoming stack that is reinforcing his attack; it can attack on t219.  I don't think he has enough units to actually capture Castle Ironfist next turn.

No one else declared war on me, which I'm a bit surprised by, but my capital did hold.  I do have a drafted rifle in each southern island city now.

[Dark Savant]

t218:

Oh, huh.  Gavagai pulled away the minimal garrison in Middlegate, retreated all his forces advancing on Castle Ironfist, and is now laying heavy naval siege to Atlantium (the island city near his eastern core).  The smaller stack must have reboarded the galleons, so they're probably en route to land near Atlantium.  The larger stack is retreating by land.

I recapture Middlegate.  It's now producing a granary.    I'm not certain this is the greatest idea, but whipping and drafting without a granary sounds like a very poor idea to me ...

I can't do anything to directly save Atlantium soon, but I chase down and kill some units in the once-large stack that was attacking Castle Ironfist.  That does expose a bunch of my own injured units, but I wouldn't do that badly if the retreating stack counter-attacked.

JR4 is now besieging Harmondale by sea, which I can't do much about, but I fortify it by land as much as I reasonably can this turn.

I actually lay off the draft, since I'm not collapsing quite as fast as I thought. 

[Dark Savant]

t219:

Bad news: Gavagai lands his "small" stack (16 rifles and a few other units) at Atlantium, as expected.  I could deal with that on the main landmass, but it's too much to deal with since I can't reinforce Atlantium.

Good news: I completely finish destroying Gavagai's stack that was still trying to retreat.



I'm now aiming to recapture Garrote Gorge next turn, and can also retake Steadwick after that, and will probably get enough troops in place in time to stop JR4 from advancing more on land.

Krill's most recent turn took him all of 1 minute to play.  I know he's busy in real life, but man.

GermanJoey declared war on dtay again.  This is now GermanJoey's game to win, really -- he just built the Pentagon, so he must be able to build Infantry now.  I have no chance whatsoever of stopping more than a handful of those.  

Just to be clear, I'm perfectly willing to concede GermanJoey the game if everyone else does; at this rate, that might happen before I get eliminated.

[ipecac]

How have you beaten back a superior army of Gavagai's twice? What is going on?