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

[TBW]

T187:
GKC is up to 14 rifles in his bastion city, with even more marching in. With the stack he has right now (14 rifles with more dribbling in + 21 crossbows + 21 catapults), I'm going to have to pack more rifle garrisons into Sneatonthorpe just to make sure he doesn't get any funny ideas about storming it. As much as I don't want to keep putting off Astronomy, it might be a smarter idea for me to go for Steel so I can start putting out cannons. I finish Chemistry this turn either way.

OH seems to be moving his units around in a way that suggests he's just garrisoning and keeping an eye on me for now, but he has galleons and he recently finished Military Science, so I have to keep my eyes open for potential commandos and landings now. He also has frigates and ships of the line, while I'm just starting on building up frigates. He's just so far ahead of me on tech and territory that if he decides he wants to kill me, delaying him is the best I could pull off. I could make it a nasty fight right now thanks to redcoats and reasonable military tech parity, but I'm cooked when he gets a big lead on infantry, tanks, etc.

[TBW]

T188:
Finished Chemistry this turn, and I'm going to run my 0% research into Astronomy while I'm building up gold again. Astronomy gets me frigates and observatories, Steel gets me cannons and opens up Railroad for machine guns, which are definitely going to be important if I actually want to invade GKC over land. On the OH front, there are still no overt signs of an invasion approaching, and pindicator just finished off Mouseferatu so he might be the next battle front, since they also have a land border. If pindicator does go to war with OH, there's a good chance I'll try to dogpile him from the south, depending on what kind of garrisons I have to deal with. He's 6-7 techs ahead at this point and that gap's only getting wider.

[TBW]

T189:
OH canceled the iron/iron trade we had this turn, which seems like a pretty overt declaration of intent to me. We still have fish/fish and gems/dye, but I'm definitely next up on his list. This presents a problem for me: any invasion of GKC is completely impossible now because I'll definitely get attacked on the turn I commit an army down there. I still have to keep a huge garrison committed to Sneatonthorpe too, which limits any kind of preemptive strike I could launch on OH. I'm squeezed here and there's not much I can do about it. I'm definitely going to grab Astronomy asap so I can start building frigates to counter the piles of frigates/ships of the line I know OH has available, and try to keep teching as long as I can until I have to upgrade all my knights to cavalry to fight off a huge stack. I also sent pindicator an iron/iron trade, since he only has fish/fish with OH and I know he just finished a war. Having to do charades to try to communicate is definitely going to make things hard for me for the rest of the game.

[TBW]

T190:
First thing I always do after I log in is check the events log, and Dark Savant picked up 2 great generals this turn while Rusten didn't pick up any. The power graph will tell the story for sure but that sounds to me like a colossal, game-changing ass kicking. A guy who has Rifling and Steel getting chewed up like that by a guy who doesn't have Education or Printing Press is like when Tyson lost to Buster Douglas. I can't wait to read their threads after the game to see just what happened here. I haven't put any espionage into Dark Savant but I'm going to spend a couple turns on it just to get graphs and city visibility to see what the hell happened.

OH took Physics and secured the great scientist. He'll have airships and a huge, unbeatable advantage on vision against everybody for a while now. He's got a good defensive stack in JSONJungle (formerly Ravenna) now, and borders that would mean 4 turns for my one movers to hit the city. Attacking into that, especially since he has cannons, would be suicide. I'll be finishing Astronomy and finally opening up frigates and galleons as possibilities. Do I want Steel immediately after that, or would it be smarter for me to do Economics -> Corporation and count on using catapults as my defensive collateral unit for a while longer? I'll have to think that one over.

pindicator took an iron/iron trade from me. I wonder what the best way to communicate "we should try to run over OH immediately before he's got machine guns and infantry and tanks hitting us" with resource trade charades.

[TBW]

T191:
OH offered me another fish/fish trade, which I accepted. Maybe an invasion by his huge stack isn't imminent? Maybe it is and he's trying to trick me? Maybe he saw the trade I made with pindicator and thinks I'm cooking something up? I have no way to know, so I'll just keep building up as if an invasion is imminent and keep my eyes on the borders for as long as I can. We might be in the part of the game where nobody's going to invade anybody else (except for Dark Savant getting pincered by AT after Rusten invaded him a couple turns ago) because we've all got rifles and some people are closing in on railroads and machine guns.

[TBW]

T194:
Finished Corporation this turn, which bumped my beakers per turn up by another 200. I don't have a lot of strategic or tactical insight to add right now; it looks like OH is planning a landing on Rusten soon. I'm not really in a position to capitalize, especially with OH's airships giving him complete vision of any sneak attack I might launch. GKC's single city stack is now up to 25 rifles, 23 crossbows, and 25 catapults, so I'm continuing to stream in my own stack to make sure I don't get overrun in Sneatonthorpe. Aside from that, it's still mostly just wheel spinning for me right now. My next tech goal is Steel, then I think teching directly toward infantry will be my best play. My next moves depend on what other people do for their next move and there's not a lot I can do to influence anybody right now, so I've got to just keep teching up and building up my stacks for now.

[TBW]

T195:
Not only did OH declare on Rusten (and successfully raze a city), Commodore did too. That leaves Rusten stuck fighting wars on both sides of his empire, and Dark Savant also has a nasty stack of knights and catapults (15 knights, 29 catapults, plus a bunch of longbows and some muskets as garrisons) left in his one remaining city. I might have an opportunity here to build some galleons and capture the Taoism shrine city and a few others; I have fish/fish and iron/iron with Rusten but at the same time, I need to expand to build up. On the other hand, having an iron/iron deal with Rusten could mean that I'm obligated to pitch in and defend him. On the third hand, Rusten has Assembly Line and Railroad and the best I can field right now is redcoats, cavalry, and trebuchets, which means he could repel me with a lot less hammer investment than it would take for me to hold anything. I'm going to stack up some gold for the push to Steel and also keep some in reserve in case it's time to mass upgrade my knights.

[Miguelito]

have fish/fish and iron/iron with Rusten but at the same time, I need to expand to build up. On the other hand, having an iron/iron deal with Rusten could mean that I'm obligated to pitch in and defend him.

Just want to point out that the resource/resource deals are there to signal intentions, but there are no obligations implied (as say, a NAP in a diplo game would).

[TBW]

T196:
I have to pick who I'm going to side with at this point, as I have offers from both sides right now. Right now, my military situation has a large stack of mine permanently penned up in Sneatonthorpe because of GKC. He doesn't have to defend any other city against any threats; he has AT as a coastal neighbor on the other side of his territory, and pindicator to his extreme north. I have to keep enough of an army ready at all times to stop a stack of 25+ rifles, 25+ crossbows, and 25+ catapults from rolling in and knocking out my Forbidden Palace city.

Rusten asked me to declare on OH this turn, as well as offering me 100 gold per turn to stop trading with OH. I have to consider this one carefully. Right this second, I don't have galleons lined up to make any landings, I don't have redcoats/cavalry in position to launch an attack, and I don't have a fleet that can fight a stack of 12+ 8 strength ships. I don't have cannons either, and I would be walking into a guy with grenadiers/rifles/cavalry. On the other hand, I know OH's main fleet is occupied at the moment and he doesn't have unlimited transport capacity. On the third hand, invading OH by land would only give me Rome's old cities, and Rome's land was so bad that Rome's capital is only up to 11 pop on T196 without being drafted or whipped.

I also have an offer from OH of coal + gold + spices to stop trading with Rusten. Taking this deal opens up a window for me to bring my other stack of redcoats out of Cercei to lay into GKC, means I don't have to fight a major enemy fleet right away (Rusten only has a few privateers that I can see and my Moai city is in a much better position to get rapid response frigates out against him). It also puts me on a team of 3 against 1, instead of putting me in the position of being in a 2v2 against a guy with tech supremacy. Additionally, OH has a fair number of ships in my territory that are in good positions to kill any Rusten ships, should he decide to declare on me here. I'm going to go with this option and prepare for potential sea counterattacks from Rusten as best I can. Does this mean I'm handing the game to OH? I don't know, but it seems like the best option for me to get ahead and stay out of wars for as long as possible.

[TBW]

T198:
GKC declared on AT this turn, which I wasn't expecting. From what I can see on the power graph, I'd say 80-90% of his military is concentrated in his bastion city. I'm assuming he saw an opportunity to land a couple galleons worth of troops to snipe a border city, but I don't have much vision on that side of his territory. AT's got a much bigger empire right now, so it doesn't seem like a war GKC can win without drawing off some of his garrisons. I'll just have to see what happens there and keep preparing my own invasion in the meantime. As long as I can defend against his major stack and take control of the ocean, I think he's beatable even though we're basically at tech parity. At some point, he'll have to research things he's neglected like Education, Music, and Horseback Riding and I can push ahead to Assembly Line faster.

I'm still holding on to my 3 Great People for another GA too, my current plan is to use them to swap into Police State and either Free Market or State Property. I still haven't researched Military Science (it's a 2 turn tech for me), and getting to Communism would be 7-8 turns of research on top of that. I definitely need the hammer boost from State Property, but I could get there faster with the commerce boost from Free Market, especially once I have customs houses online to go with my harbors. I also need to fit the all-important Railroad in somewhere, preferably soon so I can have access to machine guns and rail up my territory. I think I'll be in good shape as long as I keep staying out of wars right now.

I'll also finally, FINALLY get to start on West Point in my Heroic Epic city when I finish Steel next turn and get a drydock built in my Moai city. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who hasn't had at least one Great General yet this game, but ships will be coming out of that city at level 5 and nothing in the rulebook says your level 5 West Point unit has to be on land.