[SPOILERS] Haram's thread

[Haram]

Update - more and more problems ahead of Mongolia

Grimace found another city - Ape. If he pushes culture to the tile 2S of it, he will be able to 1-turn hitshowers with his horses and he will have cavalery soon.


My spy found 5 galleys in Giraffe. Grimace has optics and replacemant parts, so they can easly be converted into galleons full of rifles soon.
I have so many tech priorities right now... I wanted to get printing press to make my economy a bit more competitive, I need draft for cheap units. Even muskets would be handy to fortify in my coastals and border cities. Mili tradition would be great for cheap upgrade of knights, astronomy for sea control...
I decided to switch to optics/astronomy. I cannot give up the sea, cause with the rifles onboard of Grimace's boats I would start losing cities. Also, significant part of my commrce comes from water. I made a mistake here, I really should have anticipated this move. Some of my southern cities are building cannons, while they should have build drydocks during last turns of org religion. Now I'm back in slavery and theocracy. Fortunatelly, I really have some adventages here - steel for drydocks and chemistry for frigates. I hope I will be able to get enough frigates in time.


Now, another problem - Seven keeps building cossacks.


He has 44 cities, it is a reeeeally big empire, but just take a look at this. His land wraps in N-S direction, so no threat from this directions. Weaker neighbours in the west, in the east Wetbandit & Gawdzak are basicly on a different continent. He only needs to to have some drafted rifles in the eastern cities plus good scouting in the eastern sea. Its really a comfortable position and he can look for more gains. After all, he's got the best military units in the field right now and a lot of cities to pump them.


Its high time to draw some defence plans against Seven. North-East:

- eagerday is indefendible. No metter how many units I put there, all are dead on the first turn of the war, so no need to keep anything.
- hitshowers should be ok, if I manage to hold the tile on diagonal
- Old Sarai - this one is tricky. In theory - its a good defensive position, cause I have the border hill in my culture and flat tiles in front of it. But, if he moves a big stack of rifles/cossacks on that hill I may be not able to wipe it with cannons/knights. Then he can attack Old sarai with cossacks and advance with rifles to cover, when the culture disappears. I need a bunch of strong defenders here, pikes/muskets/longbows. It is on a hill and I just pumped the 60% culture with artists during GA. It is a gateway to my capital, so I have to try to hold it. Anyway, just in case things go really wrong, I already pre-chopped the forest on a deer at my capital.

South-East:

- New Sarai - it is on a hill, but the situation is pretty much the same as eagerday. It can be 1-turned at the first turn of war. Additionally, he can hide cossacks on boats, and unload in Hullaballoo, so I will never know how many units should I keep. So, I'm not trying to defend it.
- Sanchu - I keep a few units just not to encourage Grimace, but not really many. In case of Seven's attack, I wont try to defend it.
- Turfan - it is my HE city, so I want to hold it. It cannot be approached on hills, so I defend in my culture with cannons here.

I'm not sure if I'm not making a mistake with this Astro decision, but decided to take the risk. Would cannons/knights be enough to hold rifles/cossacks? We will see. In case of attack I'll try to get some loans from other contenders and upgrade as many catas as I can. This is it.

[Haram]

Demn. I am so fucking tempted to hit this city with my 3 promo cannons. I tell you more - on the whole penisula my culture is still over 70%, so I could retake and hold 2 other cities. If I didn't have Seven on my back...
Hmm, what is the chance Seven will stand aside and watch peacfully? Yeah, right.

[Haram]

It's pretty quiet on the forum lately, so I've made a short comparison. It's a good moment, cause retep is already dead (the last city probably falls today to Mackoti).



Seven
47 cities, techwise - more: music, philo, education, printing press, nationalism, constitution, military tradition, replaycement parts, rifling, steam power; less: priesthood, steel (overall +33,7k)

Mackoti
39 cities, techwise - more: music, philo, education, printing press, military science, liberalism, replaycement parts, steam power, scientific method, communism; less: theology (overall +40,5k)

Gawdzak
35 cities, techwise - more: music, philo, education, printing press, nationalism, military tradition, replaycement parts, rifling, economy (overall +31,2k)

Wetbandit
26 cities, techwise - more: drama, music, philo, education, printing press, nationalism, constitution, military tradition, replaycement parts, rifling, liberalism, economy, corporation; less: steel (overall +36,2k)

Grimace
26 cities, techwise - more: music, philo, education, printing press, nationalism, military tradition, replaycement parts, rifling; less: chemistry, steel, astro (overall +13,3k)

haram
17 cities


Top 4 players are still very close to each other techwise. It seems Seven and Mack are tied on the lead right now. Seven got more cities, his land gives him more comfortable position to take some risks. Mackoti is still 1-2 techs ahead and better production potential. I think Gawdzak still has some chances, but it would require a conflict between Mack & Seven. Is it possible? They're not even close to each other, but in this game we may see a nuclear conflict between the main contenders ICBMs are 3 times more expensive than in base BTS, but I'm sure they will be able to afford it to slow the rivals. Another possibility is the fight between Mack & Seven over dead body of mine or Grimace. Wetbandit seems to have missed some opportunities with his very good tech pace. He didn't even grab the 3 retep's cities on the shared island. You should always have a plan how to convert a tech lead into some serious profits. Teching just for more teching isn't leading anywhere.

Now, the most current question is who will take Minning Corp? With this civ sizes its gonna be very strong. Mack doesnt really need it, but its still worth to take it just to deny it to the other contenders. All top4 seems to be quite close in this race, but (if I didnt miss smth) wetbandit still hasn't got an engineer. Any bets in the lurker thread?

[Haram]

On T195 I received this - 150 gpt for all my happy resources. Last turn he offered a similar trade offer with a defensive pact as an addition. I turned down both of them, without any re-offers cause I was not sure what it means.


Also, he set his units in a line from his city of Foible to my capital and gifted me a galley in my cap.


Anyway, it keeps bothering me all the day, Seven really made some effort to say something. This is probably the point, where my post becomes entertaining for the lurkers - its always fun to read how people can misunderstand each other with those diplo screens

Ok... 150 gpt for all my happy. First thought was whether not to accept it - I have a big surplus of happy in most of my cities . Then I realized it makes no sense as a trade (Seven already has all those happy), so it must be signalling. My second thought was, that it may be some kind of decoy - if I accept he would have an excuse to break it and to cancel my scouting within his borders. Yeah, looking at the scoreboard it is so hard to believe Seven could want from my anything other than my cities

It took me a while to consider other options. 150 gpt - all my happy. I'm not experienced with this kind of AI diplo, but I saw in PB13 people were using gpt to signal the number of turns. Signalling something to happen in 150 turns doesnt make sense, 150 turns back... same thing. Anything significant happened in turn no. 150? No, but wait... on T147 Grimace declared war at me, on T152 he took my first city. The one I'm able to to take back from my culture right now.

Give away all my happy. Unhappy? Something that happened at ca. T150 caused my unhappy? Could it be pointing at Grimace?

Now, the unit setup. A line of units from Foible to my capital. Warning about an attack? Well, its probably o good line to attack but... from Seven's side, so I guess he wouldnt want to signal it. Gifting a galley at my cap gave my another thought - he was moving next to Grimace's city of Giraffe, where Grimace had 5 galleys and just finished Astro. Could it be warning about the potential naval attack at my cap? Maybe. Now, some other trace - Seven double pointed at my capital, but it might not the city to be the real target. I have an artist inside. Using an artist at hitshowers would push the culture (I didnt do any sim, but my experience tells me this land is so newly settled after GermanJojo's gone, that the artist would have no problems with pushing culture) to the tiles adjacent to Grimace's city of Yak, where he has 17 units. So, basicly on the first turn of war, I could hit from my culture 2 cities of Grimace killing a total of 35 units (I barely have enough hitters to do it). If Seven also engaged (on the correct side ) it could be something.

Taking all these together - could it really be an offer to a common attack at Grimace? It's just so hard to believe, taking my current position and tech situation. Also, I have a specific plans regarding my Artist. I'm plannig to fire GA in 2 turns and finally get to drafted rifles. My overall production is pathetic, but even the poorest cities can by drafted and 1-pop rifles are just soooo good.

[Haram]

I realized some other option and I think its the most probable one. If he really wanted that 150 gpt to indicate Grimace, he could have checked precisely the event log. It looks like it might indeed be a trade offer. The problem is he couldnt show in diplo screen what he really wanted to trade from me. So, he gifted a galley to show, he wants a gift and pointed with his units what he wants to be gifted. Requested happyness could stand for an artist. 1500 gold + def. pact for my artist! It makes a lot of sense for Seven, cause it would give him another 12T GA.

Should I take it? That's 2 turns of saving gold, not that much. I could probably negotiate 2000-2500, but do I really want it? This GA is important for me. More cash would help with reaserch, but I still need to do a revolt to nationhood. There is little time to think it over, cause I wanted to fire GA next turn.


Edit: it looks like there was a lot of wishfull thinking in my yesterday analysis

[Haram]

Seven's setup and new offer confirmed it was about an artist trade (i didnt take a screen). He won't be happy when he logs in, cause I fired GA with the artist. Maybe I am a bit paranoid, but I decided not to go out of slavery for 5T. Mack's power is still huge and he already has railroads, so he could transport units swifly, if needed.

It's T200, so a few general screens as a summary (all values include GA). Note the pop numbers in my cities, I wasnt even whipping for a long time (except of eagerday and New Sarai; I prefer to keep them small, cause they cannot be defended in case of attack).

[Haram]

Wetbandit tried cultural victory, but he seems to be folding right now. It couldn't succeed. Not with that good players still in the race and not on this map. All of his most important cities are coastals. Wetbandit lost ca. 600k military so far and Seven has taken 3 cities last turn, incl. Lower Canada, which is in Wetbandit's core.

It is good and bad news for me. Good, cause I most likely advance to 5th place. Bad, cause Gawdzak & Seven gaining good cities - puts more pressure on Mackoti. He just brought more scouting units to my land and turned espinoge on me.

At the moment my military seems quite reasonable (48 cannons, 39 rifles, 45 cavs/knights), but Mack's mfg is simply huge and he can get a dreadfull army pretty quickly. Also, Mack and Seven are able to reach nukes soon. I am not afraid of nuking my cities (it would be waste of resources for them), but nuking my army would make me defenceless instantly. I need Railroads badly to give my army mobility. It would allow me to scatter units and move them out of tactical nuke's range. Also, I lost control over the sea (Grimace got Destroyers), so it would be nice to drop some Machine Guns in my coastal cities. My science is bad, but I want to remain in nationhood.

[Haram]

That's interesting. You can pack almost a hundred of units on those boats.


And that's another 50 unit cargo space. It looks like the army is boarding.
In theory, these ships can go though the forts to my southern sea, but I think, Grimace more likely to be the target. He is way more exposed to naval attacks than me. The fleet from the first screen can hit Grimace's capital directly.

[Haram]

For those, who doesn't track civstats - Mackoti attacked Grimace and taken 7 cities on the first turn of war.
After retep was conquered, I thought it will be a stalemate. Surprisingly, we have a nice militaristic modern era This game may end with only 3 players out of starting 11.

[Haram]

Today I got this. I have no clue what it should stand for.



Also, he placed his single units - probably to indicate, he wants these tiles in his culture. Ok Mack, be my guest today, I will let you take them
What is really interesting in these screens, is that Mack is trying to communicate with me. That MIGHT mean...



... this military build up i meant for someone else. He obviously doesnt need it to kill Grimace.