[SPOILERS] 64 is a nice round number. yuris125, PBEM64

[spacetyrantxenu]

Right as he heads off for vacation? That should give him something to think about while he's away.

[yuris125]

So... why war and why now?

* I have Rifles and built up a small stack. Commodore doesn't
* Commodore does have Grenadiers, and if I wait for him to build a number of those, Rifles won't do much
* Commodore left a border city defended by a single Longbow




* Commodore is busy fighting Ottomans, and just lost a chunk of his army (there are casualties on both sides, but Commodore's are more relevant)







* Commodore is building up a naval stack on our border, and I'd rather not wait for him to get to the numbers and composition he wants




All in all, it felt like a now or never moment. Time is not working for me; if Commodore consolidates and the territory he captured from Ottomans becomes productive, there's no chance of catching him. He doesn't have enough units to fight my Rifles yet, and his army is busy elsewhere. I promised opportunistic strikes - well, it's finally time for one

I captured and burned down Leon's Fall losing only one Knight (although the ones that captured the city will likely die on his turn), and moved the stack to threaten Deadshoots. I also captured and deleted 5 of his Workers. As war turns go, it was a good first one

I don't think I can achieve much without siege units, and I don't want to invest into Catapults right now (and Cannons are a while away, I spent the bank I had this turn on upgrading useless Axes into Rifles). But if I can take the Ottoman territory away from Commodore, I will consider this war a success

[spacetyrantxenu]

I captured and burned down Leon's

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo! Do you know what you've done???! You just destroyed the only source of bacon bourbon on the map!

At least there was blood.

[yuris125]

Captured Deadshoots. Lost a lot though, triple Guerilla Musket on a hill behind 40% defences can deal with Rifles. But I had enough. Kept the city, may be a wrong decision, but I can't spend hammers of Settlers right now, and Commodore's army may not get there in time. Wishful thinking, probably - I only have 2 Rifles, a full health Knight, and a 0.8 health Knight in the city this turn. But if it holds somehow, I have 6 more Rifles getting there next turn

Lost Yokohama - the city behind the mountains, not reachable by land. I knew I couldn't hold it with Commodore controlling the sea, drafted a Rifle there, but he couldn't defend against three Galleons with units

[yuris125]

The war is likely lost. Commodore's Galleons give him mobility I can't compete with. Lost 3 cities this turn. But oh well. I'm doing what I can, it's a pity that it probably won't lead to anything

[TheHumanHydra]

[yuris125]

Commodore's Grenadiers are rolling. My best chance is if flugauto joins the war. But judging by his power graph, he has no such plans. So likely a concession will be in order in a half dozen turns or so

[yuris125]

Commodore killed my two Rifle stacks trying to get to the next city without breaking a sweat. The military advisor shows 13 Grenadiers against my 21 Rifles - that's only the Grenadiers I can see. I have no up to date cavalry, Commodore has plenty of siege units to collateral my stacks, and all his units are highly promoted from his earlier wars (guess his Agg trait also contributed). He's 2 turns away from Steel, I still need 8 turns to finish it. There's no chance to win this war

[yuris125]

So reading Commodore's thread, there was another point where I had a chance to keep up with him, and missed out (mainly due to ignoring military until getting to Rifles). I'm reasonably happy with how I played for the most part, even if Commodore thinks my expansion and development were not very fast. But there were two major mistakes

* I rushed to Guilds and thought about building the Knights, and then didn't build any. Being scared of becoming neighbours with Commodore and his huge army was a reason not to; the problem was, sitting on my backside while Commodore was conquering Wetnadit wasn't a recipe for success either. I should've had a stack of Knights ready, and I should've attacked when Commodore's war against Wetbandit started, and I knew his army was occupied elsewhere
* My bid for Taj Mahal was exciting (and had a chance of success), but I could've prioritised Nationalism much higher. I saw Taj in Commodore's queue, I knew what it meant, and somehow I didn't recognise the need to compete for it until it was too late. This did not have to be such a tight race; if I moved Nationalism in my research queue just a little higher, I would've gotten there. And I'm very certain that my inability to switch to preferred late game civics hugely contributed to my inability to have a more successful face-of with Commodore in the end. I had to endure a turn of late game anarchy just to switch to Nationhood; any additional switches would've meant another turn, which I felt I couldn't afford. That's not mentioning 8 turns of improved GNP, including research in a Beraus capital with Oxford

[Commodore]

Good game, Yuri. The early GLH was a solid play, I actually think you got a little screwed by your position, being unable to quite reach the "Y" before Pindicator cut you off; as I said I think that was a fundamental boon to me and a mistake for him. I really did expect you to consume LT whole while I took my time with Wetbandit, I would have just had to sit and watch as you ate your way up to land parity.

Just out of curiosity, did you consider Liberalizing Astronomy ever? Cheap pagodas would have been nice, but even more key would have been galleons and frigates to compete at sea; in the end that was where I was confident I could beat you.

Still, good fun game.