Turn 178
OH pinged me to say he had offered a peace treaty. Now, I won't lie, this is something I'd been mulling over. I have been struggling to see the downside, and can see a fair few opportunities to come from this. OH knows I got a GM. He knows I have popped a two GS, GM, GE and GA previously, but he only knows I've triggered the first and second GA's. He can't know I'm potentially about to trigger the third GA and how close I am to Frigates.
What can OH achieve in 10 turns that will help him if I redeclare war at that point? It takes him 4 turns just to get units back up to attack Lewwyn, but I'm looking at Lewwyns lands and I think he would need to move so many units...does he even have the boats for that? And if he does have the boats for that, can I then play interdiction with newly built boats and slow him getting units back to the core, where my untouched stack then presses onwards?
What if he pushes on to SoL? Well I'm in a GA, he can't pressure me due to peace, so I can turn on research builds. I'll be catching up on tech, so I should reach SoL not much after him, couple of turns, let's say 5 turns at worst. What if he presses to Steel? Cannons would change everything, but same problem for both of us applies. It takes so long to get there, but I could just stick with Mil Sci, it's cheaper, and grens will hit cannons fine. And potentially, police state as well.
I'm not going to accept it this turn though. I want an extra turn to build frigates and so I will cancel the peace offer this turn, and look at how I can play this turn and offer peace back. I know this is risky: OH could be trying to make me double guess or overthink, and he plans to attack next turn if I cancel, look around and reoffer, if I let my guard down. So paranoia moves up a gear.
This is the stack in Constant Sorrow. Not much, but the 4 pikes on the hill, and the 2CKN/1knight stack SE of that add up.
Now this is the meat of the situation. 5 CKN and a cat, plus whatever is built, and available to unload and attack next turn. If I position to attack Constant Sorrow, I would have 37 knights, including the sentry knight in position to attack. All of those units could get hit by a single round of collateral. 4 pikes all get odds on attack, and there are a further 16 knight visible. Add in the miscellaneous units as well, and I don't think that stack survives to retreat in a usable form. So the only realistic option is to retreat now and reoffer peace; do what damage I can, and prepare to deal with any "backstab" if the peace offer was a ruse.
As I've retreated from the islands, OH has moved forwards. I don't have any units on the carracks to retake cities, but I don't think that I could take a city, and OH would just accept a peace offer. I "know" I have to leave the cities alone. But the units, I can attack them and OH shouldn't be able to figure out whats happened until after he accepts a peace offer.
I reckon there are two remaining knights on the galleon. Can I sink it? 3 frigates and a galleon against 6 privateers and 3 carracks? I'll go with that:
All the privateers are dead whatever happens: even in peace OH can kill them. 3 frigates, the galleon, and 2 knights are 530 hammers, against 6 privateers: 480 hammers. It's a "meh" trade, but it forces OH back a little bit, limits his ability to get units to Lewwyn if he pushes that way, and delays attacks. For me, I consider that worth it. Because it also gets me a GG, which I have no use for, but it's a status thing. I also destroy two swords (one promoted to CR3, the other unpromoted but available XP) that are staging to attack FaL.
I then retreat everything, count the number of available units that can attack FaL, place that number plus 5 into FaL, and position the collateral and remaining knights immediately behind the city for a counter attack. And reoffer peace.
Something that's worth noting is I still have stone from superjm. I'm getting castles down in all the coastal cities I can. The trade routes pay back, but it really is to do with the bombard protection from frigates and CKN off boats on a quick raid. The other reason I'm building muskets, I do need to have some real units to sit behind that 100% defense to deal with knights.
My tech is crap. I'm currently paying 80gpt for units. Even then, +250gpt at max gold on T178 is dreadful. I don't really have an answer to this. The capital is perfectly placed in the centre of the empire, I have courthouses down pretty much everywhere. I just don't make that much commerce. The only answer I can come up with is this: Cottages were delayed, because of hitting the horizontal and vertical expansion limit, because of the lack of happiness. Because of the lack of good coastal cities, I couldn't rely on coastal commerce either: consequence of starting in the centre of a Big, and very limited seafood availability (I have 6 seafood resources accessible from the main continent). That's forced this empire down the route of research and wealth builds (research builds are better due to EXP grocers and markets). All religions went before we could get there, so no shrine. Mids was failed because of stone/new IND (would have gotten Mids with old IND).
More on this once the game is over, but this is one of the more enjoyable, challenging parts of playing on an essentially random map. I would very much like to play again on a random map as this game has been.
OH pinged me to say he had offered a peace treaty. Now, I won't lie, this is something I'd been mulling over. I have been struggling to see the downside, and can see a fair few opportunities to come from this. OH knows I got a GM. He knows I have popped a two GS, GM, GE and GA previously, but he only knows I've triggered the first and second GA's. He can't know I'm potentially about to trigger the third GA and how close I am to Frigates.
What can OH achieve in 10 turns that will help him if I redeclare war at that point? It takes him 4 turns just to get units back up to attack Lewwyn, but I'm looking at Lewwyns lands and I think he would need to move so many units...does he even have the boats for that? And if he does have the boats for that, can I then play interdiction with newly built boats and slow him getting units back to the core, where my untouched stack then presses onwards?
What if he pushes on to SoL? Well I'm in a GA, he can't pressure me due to peace, so I can turn on research builds. I'll be catching up on tech, so I should reach SoL not much after him, couple of turns, let's say 5 turns at worst. What if he presses to Steel? Cannons would change everything, but same problem for both of us applies. It takes so long to get there, but I could just stick with Mil Sci, it's cheaper, and grens will hit cannons fine. And potentially, police state as well.
I'm not going to accept it this turn though. I want an extra turn to build frigates and so I will cancel the peace offer this turn, and look at how I can play this turn and offer peace back. I know this is risky: OH could be trying to make me double guess or overthink, and he plans to attack next turn if I cancel, look around and reoffer, if I let my guard down. So paranoia moves up a gear.
This is the stack in Constant Sorrow. Not much, but the 4 pikes on the hill, and the 2CKN/1knight stack SE of that add up.
Now this is the meat of the situation. 5 CKN and a cat, plus whatever is built, and available to unload and attack next turn. If I position to attack Constant Sorrow, I would have 37 knights, including the sentry knight in position to attack. All of those units could get hit by a single round of collateral. 4 pikes all get odds on attack, and there are a further 16 knight visible. Add in the miscellaneous units as well, and I don't think that stack survives to retreat in a usable form. So the only realistic option is to retreat now and reoffer peace; do what damage I can, and prepare to deal with any "backstab" if the peace offer was a ruse.
As I've retreated from the islands, OH has moved forwards. I don't have any units on the carracks to retake cities, but I don't think that I could take a city, and OH would just accept a peace offer. I "know" I have to leave the cities alone. But the units, I can attack them and OH shouldn't be able to figure out whats happened until after he accepts a peace offer.
I reckon there are two remaining knights on the galleon. Can I sink it? 3 frigates and a galleon against 6 privateers and 3 carracks? I'll go with that:
All the privateers are dead whatever happens: even in peace OH can kill them. 3 frigates, the galleon, and 2 knights are 530 hammers, against 6 privateers: 480 hammers. It's a "meh" trade, but it forces OH back a little bit, limits his ability to get units to Lewwyn if he pushes that way, and delays attacks. For me, I consider that worth it. Because it also gets me a GG, which I have no use for, but it's a status thing. I also destroy two swords (one promoted to CR3, the other unpromoted but available XP) that are staging to attack FaL.
I then retreat everything, count the number of available units that can attack FaL, place that number plus 5 into FaL, and position the collateral and remaining knights immediately behind the city for a counter attack. And reoffer peace.
Something that's worth noting is I still have stone from superjm. I'm getting castles down in all the coastal cities I can. The trade routes pay back, but it really is to do with the bombard protection from frigates and CKN off boats on a quick raid. The other reason I'm building muskets, I do need to have some real units to sit behind that 100% defense to deal with knights.
My tech is crap. I'm currently paying 80gpt for units. Even then, +250gpt at max gold on T178 is dreadful. I don't really have an answer to this. The capital is perfectly placed in the centre of the empire, I have courthouses down pretty much everywhere. I just don't make that much commerce. The only answer I can come up with is this: Cottages were delayed, because of hitting the horizontal and vertical expansion limit, because of the lack of happiness. Because of the lack of good coastal cities, I couldn't rely on coastal commerce either: consequence of starting in the centre of a Big, and very limited seafood availability (I have 6 seafood resources accessible from the main continent). That's forced this empire down the route of research and wealth builds (research builds are better due to EXP grocers and markets). All religions went before we could get there, so no shrine. Mids was failed because of stone/new IND (would have gotten Mids with old IND).
More on this once the game is over, but this is one of the more enjoyable, challenging parts of playing on an essentially random map. I would very much like to play again on a random map as this game has been.