Graphs and demos: Joey did capture another Zulu city this turn. As expected, Jey lost a lot of units over the last few turns. Our own numbers look quite good but we`re sure to fall slightly behind because of our big infrastructure push.
Hmm, checking the demos, from t209 to t210 our own military went from 2,56m soldiers to 2,68m while Dark Savant`s went from 1,43 to 1,44. Did he whip something else than units last turn? That`s really strange.
If Gavagai attacks us, he's going to have trouble - and I'm sure he knows it. One of those scouting Triremes can see our western 'clad (and that it has promotions pending). Also he can see some of our giant garrisons. My guess is that the Triremes are just checking to be sure we're not poised to turn around and take back Babukhan if he goes after Dark Savant. I suppose if we think he's really worried about it and the answer is a resounding "No," we could offer him fish for fish, hoping it'll encourage him to get started.
On the other hand, if Dark Savant is really teching Rifling, then barring an attack by one of our Superneighbors, we may be able to start making plans for gains on the Might & Magic Mainland without an assist from Gav. (Though of course in that case he'd pile on if it's obvious we're making gains, if not before.)
In the meantime, I'm curious about how Dark Savant will respond to that pair of Grens. If he's going to attack them, he either should do it now (though in that case he ought to lose the hammer exchange by a good margin) or anticipate us dumping a real stack on that tile by setting up so he'll be able to collateral us down and wipe our stack when we do. If he tries the latter of course, and we spot his big stack of Cats in position, that would mean we could instead put an attack stack e.g. on the hill NE of Fountain Head. (It would take us an extra turn to reposition for this since we don't have five-move Galleons, but there's another option too....)
If Dark Savant leaves our Grens alone and we decide to drop off an attack force on the forest hill, it would be good to make sure he can't collateral them down. That would mean getting vision (with boats or a sentry or checking with a spy or two, moving them to and checking one tile at a time) on everything within three road moves of that hill, and - especially if we can't find his 9+ Cats outright - making sure his Galleons won't be able to drop them off nearby in a city or fort. Our slow 'clads aren't going to chase his 5-move Frigates and Galleons, but they can deny access to tiles with authority.
This turn brought a lot of drama, as dtay lost 2 big cities to Joey. That was obviously a huge blow to dtay`s chances of winning. I was very curious to find out exactly what happened so I logged into the game. Here is the first city that was razed. Also, note the Barbarian Spear still standing there after all those years. That`s hilarious!
The second one was.. the old capital of Carthage. Ouch. A map swap was offered to dtay. Let`s hope he accepts that so our map is updated before t211.
Take a look at how widespread our Buddhist religion is! More than 40 % of the world practice Buddhism. Muqa`s Shrine is indeed making a fortune for us. If we can get the Spiral Minaret we should be competitive for another while, at least if the big Empires continue the onslaught.
I agree that Gavagai wasn`t positioning his Triremes to plan an attack on us. Especially as [BIG NEWS!] he declared war on Dark Savant this turn!! Gavagai got a Great General and the rival worst military went down to under 1.42m. So, the war is very much real. DS is in a world of trouble now. Maybe we need to take a gamble, like moving a lot of troops down to threaten Fountainhead in order to secure that tasty peninsula for ourselves. I`m pretty sure we did the right thing about refusing peace as we`ve got a lot of options in the coming turns. I wonder if DS is still more upset with us than Gavagai. DS is less likely to attack our Grenadiers now, and if we can get a foothold, we should at the very least be able to secure Lakeside for ourselves (or raze it).
That last turn of events is good news for us. However, the turn pace is likely to be quite slow for the next 2-3 weeks. Let`s hope for some action before the inevitable Christmas break!
That barb spear is absolutely wonderful, and I hope it lives until the end of the game. I mean, dtay is Agg/Pro and has Rifling. He can build C2/D1/Amphi/CG1 Rifles from each of, I dunno, fifty build queues? Those are pretty good units for fighting against humans! He has probably built some! The odds that such a Rifle would get against a barb spear on a forest would have a lot of 9s in it. And yet dtay hasn't been [able/willing] to spare one (with an old Galley or something to carry it) for the few turns it would take to open up that tile for actual use. This isn't really a new situation either; a Musket, a Mace, or even a Crossbow would have had nice odds too. Now, dtay has been warring a lot here. I can see why he'd have higher priorities than clearing that one tile for Haffaton. But I kind of hope he just feels the same way about that spear as I do.
On the big news: It took Gav long enough, but that might mean he really took the time to finally get all his ducks in a roww So far, I suspect there was just some naval action, and maybe a small battle or two over beachhead tiles or something, but the big fireworks are probably yet to come. I can't wait to see what it looks like next turn! I should also repeat what I said several turns ago about Dark Savant's main naval taskforce - with multiple Ships of the Line - sitting on the wrong side of his empire with our waters (and a significant fraction of our navy, now about to be reinforced by metal hulls) on the easiest route between them and the Ottoman theater of war. This is going to get rough for Dark Savant in a hurry.
One reason I'm glad we stayed at war here: The vets have clearly run the table on the new players in this game (though we're holding our own a lot better than the others, and Dark Savant has done a really good job under really difficult circumstances) but I'm hoping it'll be a good learning opportunity at the same time. I think Dark Savant gave us some pretty good lessons about conducting limited wars - for instance, always be ready for them to be more costly than they first appear - but now he'll hopefully learn a version of another lesson he taught us here: Never assume you'll be able to get peace on your terms.
(To be clear, even if this is the end for him, his decision to stay at war with us after he realized he couldn't retake Mist wasn't what wrecked his civ. It was Gav taking those two major cities that effectively removed his last, slim hope of contention; even reclaiming the cities only stabilized things temporarily. The lost population from the double conquest of each, all the lost units, and all the lost infrastructure - everything cultural, any National Wonders they might have contained, and whatever else a pair of sack & pillage die rolls destroyed in each city - were too much to rebuild in an already-weak empire while everyone else was building bigger and better things. He'd be in a better position now if instead of evacuating half his units from Mist Island and getting the rest killed, he'd have offered peace and gotten them all teleported home, but that wasn't decisive; it just sped the inevitable along.)
I do think that taking part of the Might & Magic Mainland should be possible for us if we land the right stack in the right location - but holding it is going to be challenging, no matter what happens in their war with the Turks. At the same time, if Gav manages to roll Dark Savant up completely, it won't be long before we find ourselves in the position that Dark Savant is right now: The clear last-place team (not-dead-yet division) in every important category. So how do we deal with that?
1) We could ignore it and just go for culture as best we can, knowing that everything will have to break perfectly our way for us to have even the slightest chance. Of course we can still pursue this even if...
2) We could try to take part of the Dark Savant mainland and hold a trans-oceanic empire which would be interesting to try to defend. This wouldn't really keep us out of last place unless we somehow managed to claim a lot of Might & Magic land, but if we could somehow hold territory, it would keep us from falling too far into last place too quickly. Best combined with...
3) We could try to just make ourselves as prickly as possible, which is sort of what we're doing with Railroad already. The goal here would be just to survive as long as we possibly can, and I do think we have a chance to make it all the way to the end of the game because of the way the geopolitical situation is shaping up.* Keeping flatland cities like Lakeside and Vertigo won't be easy, but if we had an opportunity to raze them and build a city on the plains hill NE of Lakeside (and maybe another at the entrance to the peninsula, depending) that might be worth it, or we might have a shot at Nighon and Cape Fountain Head. Of note, an interesting thing about Machine Guns: The promotions they can take themselves are very limited, but we have some CG2 Grens (and other units) that can be upgraded to MGs with all their promotions intact if we're willing to spend some gold that way....
* - I say that as though the geopolitical situation were shaping up in some definite way, and as though I knew what it was. Both of those are gross exaggerations at best, apart from the obvious "GJ sure is getting way ahead of everybody." There are a lot of ways this thing can still break, and I'm looking forward to seeing what actually happens!
The next turns are going to be crucial for us. I`m inclined to go for a few of Dark Savant`s mainland cities, even at the potential risk of Gavagai stabbing us. Culture is surely the only remotely realistic chance we have of winning but more build queues would certainly help us get key techs quicker. If we can capture Fountain Head, our Empire would have a weird shape, where we`ll have a lot of eastern holdings but only a single city on the western sea. Should we wait for Machine Guns before landing a big stack next to Fountain Head? I`m thinking about making the preparations asap and make landfall if Gavagai makes headway sooner than expected (or we spot a big power loss on the graphs). Vertigo is likely to fall into Gavagai`s hands in a couple of turns, so we should make sure that he doesn`t get Lakeside also, forking a lot of island cities.
Also, how do you feel about declaring war on Gavagai in principle if there are a lot of exposed units running around in former Ethiopian territory? I`d say it some kind of a last resort but we definitely have to consider it the alternative is risk losing a lot of high-XP units. Upgrading e.g a couple of CG2 Grenadiers to Machine Guns is fine with me, but we can`t afford too many upgrades. I just can`t wait to have an 18 strength defender in place, well, basically everywhere.
When/if Dark Savant is out, then there will only be veteran players left in the game, plus us, of course. I agree that the veterans have generally played better and have outplayed the inexperienced ones. We`re probably ending in 5th now, but we should aim for a higher placement than that. I think we could get up to fourth place if we catch a lucky break in the geopolitical game. Or perhaps even higher if we`re left alone for the rest of the game. We can likely get to Divine Right first, and then we`ll be guaranteed a 5th religion. Having a random Hinduism/Taoism spread would be really awesome for us but it`s unlikely to happen as we only have a single religion-less city (Oghul Khoimish). This turn we`ll whip out a Christian Missionary, soon to be followed by at least another one. Borte could probably 1 turn a Monastery after the Levee is done. I`d say it`s still worth building even at the expense of delaying Ironworks a turn. Thoughts?
(December 16th, 2017, 10:58)JR4 Wrote: Should we wait for Machine Guns before landing a big stack next to Fountain Head?
Nope. We should wait for the stack that we land there to be safe (i.e. wait until we're sure it can't just be collateralled away) but that will hopefully be accomplished by getting eyes on the surrounding area (and blocking off the port at Nighon if necessary). There are three different important MP rules baked into that: Always be on your toes and ready to take advantage of opportunities; information advantages are extremely powerful; and don't commit to waiting for your next big tech to take decisive action: Sometimes you'll need a given tech to make any actual headway, in which case a plan for how to turn that tech into actual advantage ASAP is key, but in many cases (as potentially here, depending on how Dark Savant's forces are deployed) there's a moment to seize with the techs you have, and then when the next tech comes in, it can be used to reinforce your army. Or in other words:
Quote:I`m thinking about making the preparations asap and make landfall if Gavagai makes headway sooner than expected (or we spot a big power loss on the graphs).
Yup, great idea!
Quote:Vertigo is likely to fall into Gavagai`s hands in a couple of turns, so we should make sure that he doesn`t get Lakeside also, forking a lot of island cities.
There's no way Gav tries to keep Lakeside; even with his Creative culture, it's going to have almost no tiles to work, and it'll even be a flip risk from Bayan Khutug. And it's on flatland, surrounded by six water tiles our boats can reach out of the fog.
Quote:Also, how do you feel about declaring war on Gavagai in principle if there are a lot of exposed units running around in former Ethiopian territory?
You mean if/after Dark Savant is down to a small number of whipped-down cities and no military power to speak of? I could imagine a situation when it would make sense to do that, yeah. Not against every player, but as you've noted, Gav will pounce on any perceived weakness of ours no matter what (unless he thinks doing so will strengthen his real rivals more than him) so there's no reason not to do the same with him.
Quote:Upgrading e.g a couple of CG2 Grenadiers to Machine Guns is fine with me, but we can`t afford too many upgrades. I just can`t wait to have an 18 strength defender in place, well, basically everywhere.
Agreed. Also, we can save the upgrades until we perceive a need, as long as we have the gold around. I mentioned CG2 Grens because that promotion doesn't help them do anything except exactly what MGs are best at, and the upgrade cost is smaller than for (say) a Longbow. Of course, we might perceive a need as soon as Railroad comes in, especially if we're trying to hold Dark Savant mainland cities at the time.
Quote:Borte could probably 1 turn a Monastery after the Levee is done. I`d say it`s still worth building even at the expense of delaying Ironworks a turn. Thoughts?
It looks like we'll be getting a bunch of overflow T121 and putting that into Ironworks, with Christianity spreading to Borte no sooner than T122, right? If so, I entirely agree. In detail:
Borte is making 483 science at ... +245%? [EDIT: So around 140 base commerce per turn after bureau, so a monastery gives ~14 bpt at max science and nearly 10 bpt at break-even. Building a Monastery in Bureau/OR with a forge gets +100% hammers, while building science gets +75%, so the monastery will pay for itself in six turns - seven turns after we start it - or if we include the spread cost, 10 turns (+4 turns per failed missionary).] So definitely worth building! [EDIT: Seriously, let's get Confucianism in there too.]
With a levee, I think the city should make 43 base hammers per turn, or 45+ if we're working an Engineer (and more with priests...) in place of Scientists. Borte should practically always be working all scientists though; they make more than 10bpt each! [EDIT: And almost 11 once we get a couple more monasteries!] Since we have coal and iron, that means Ironworks grants +43 adjusted hpt (and more for critical projects). It takes about 14-17 turns to make a profit, which means ... more than 25 turns after we start the build? So yeah, as long as we're not wasting overflow hammers, Monastery ASAP sounds good.
Our Frigates on the western sea spotted a massive Greek navy. I guess Joey doesn`t want to risk getting attacked by Gavagai again. Krill`s Golden Age came to an end and.. Joey started his fourth Golden Age. He`s surely trying to pull ahead of dtay now. If he can research a key tech in 8 turns time, that could possibly be decisive.
Dark Savant moved up his 5 Sotl S-SE of Lakeside. He could be trying to get through to Vertigo before it`s too late. Our wooden ships are less promoted than his so they were moved back to the tile 2W of Lakeside, also covered by an Ironclad. He`s not wiping that stack any time soon. We could block the access to Vertigo next turn if we feel like doing so. We`ve also got a Frigate/Ironclad pair on the crabs in the south end of our island Empire. They can go down to Fountain Head next turn. DS has a Sotl and 2 Galleons N of Nighon. 2 Galleons with Knights were moved from Mist to Vulcania. Annoyingly, we`re not able to land on the tile NE of Fountain Head out of the fog. (I thought we could). We could just move a lot of Galleons down to the area, but that would give DS time to react.
Note that Joey`s Workers built roads on both his Lumbermills E of State of Zijin so that he can get to Toregene/Nambui quickly. A number of Knights were moved down to Toregene (5 iirc) in order to have more forces in the area, just in case something were to happen.
As you can see, we broke the 1700 beaker barrier this turn! And we`ll get a lot more beakers in the coming turns, as long as Christianity spreads to Borte. We`re completing a Library, 2 Buddhist Monasteries and a Buddhist Temple eot. Also, a single Grenadier will complete.
EDIT: We lost control of Mist`s Iron and Rice this turn. Mist will expand borders in 4 turns, but we only have 11 % culture on those tiles..
Graphs and demos: I`m not looking forward to seeing the gnp and mfg graphs on t213, when Joey`s Golden Age numbers will show up.
For the time being, we`re comfortably higher than the average military but I expect us to fall behind slightly in the next 4 turns as we`re concentrating on buildings rather than units now.
As dtay accepted our map trade proposal, we got a better understanding of some key areas. I looks like Castleview is in Ottoman hands. Maybe Dark Savant recaptured another Ottoman city in the last war? And I wonder where Gavagai`s main forces are. He`s moved out basically all troops from Ankara (his old border city).
D-mishi is starting to look like a powerhouse. Once we get the Globe done it`ll look even better. It can do a lot of whipping/drafting for us.
The second turn of the day! The big news of the turn is that dtay and Joey signed peace. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Oh well, only 3 turns until we can change civics again. It feels like Joey got the better of that war and will surely be even more dangerous once he`s teched ahead in his Golden Age. As for dtay, we`ll have to see whether he can get back into it in the coming turns..
In that first screenshot, Dark Savant`s forces are visible in Lakeside. After the screenshots were taken a couple of changes were made. Our Ironclad+4Sotl went to that tile N of Lakeside to deny DS access to Vertigo. Was that a wise move? We probably won`t be attacked there at least. 3 Ironclads are guarding our hinterland, in case he tries something.
E-NE of Mist, DS moved up a single Sotl guarding 2 Galleons. That was a great oppurtunity for us to get rid of some Galleons. We had 2 Sotl, a Frigate and a few Galleons in range.
C1 Sotl - C2 Sotl 28 % Loss
C1 Sotl - Galleon 98 % WIN
C1 Frigate - Injured Sotl 89 % LOSS! Hmm, that could have gone better.
Our units are trying to locate Gavagai`s forces in DS lands. We haven`t succeeded thus far. DS is building units everywhere as one might guess.
The Christian Missionary did spread the faith to Borte, so we`re 1 turning a Monastery there. Also, Muqa is finishing a Levee ahead of schedule (it had to hire a Priest at cost of firing a Merchant).
So, it`s getting late. More thoughts + demos coming up tomorrow. EDIT: We now have 5 loaded Galleons in Vulcania that could go to a stage tile near Fountain Head next turn, but DS is building Grenadiers down there. He`s got 2 Grennies and a number of Oromos in place. A Frigate/Ironclad pair are bombarding down the defenses again.
