[spoilers] - Pindicator's Industrial March Madness!

[pindicator]

Yeah, but it's mitigated by the gold your corporation HQ gains and can be reduced with courthouses.

[pindicator]

As anybody who's been following the game can see, I've been invaded pretty handily by REM. It was a long time coming, and I had signed Defensive Pacts with my neighbors BGN and scooter in an attempt to dissuade him -- but those pacts turned out to be worth little more than the digital bits they were delivered on, as neither neighbor has lifted a finger while REM mowed through my lands. (Scooter has aided troops over the last half dozen turns at least.) Who knows, perhaps REM is so big he's able to fight multiple fronts.




He razed my capital last turn -- which I had to abandon in order to save what was left of my cities. I'm just down to 4 now: Cui, Borodin, Kabalevsky on the border with scooter, and lonely Balakirev in the west.

Regardless, I'm about done for. The Japanese were always rather good at fighting the Russians, in real life as well as here.

But we did spot a weakness a few turns back. And so in Balakirev I built a Galleon (first thing REM did was cut off all my oil). I expected REM to cover it -- he has enough airships, surely he spotted my galleon. But whether real life time pressure or him not realizing I had the workers in range to build a fort, he left his island cities bare and his airships undefended:




So we built a fort




And made some waves




4 airships and a work boat destroyed.

From here the galleon had just enough movement to go into the city and unload the 2 cossacks I had brought along for the ride.

Cossack #1:




4 more airships and a galleon. (Plus whatever was on board, but I'm pretty sure it was empty.)

Cossack #2:




Sadly Andriasov came out of revolt just last turn. I wish I would have spotted this a turn sooner; I would have been able to burn the 4 airships and transport in this city as well. Also unfortunate is that because these were cities with my culture I couldn't raze them down. He'll just be able to recapture. But I don't think he has the units for it, or if he does it will delay the units that I think were headed towards Balakirev.

I'm assuming he has no military left on this island -- if he missed the boat being able to reach and unload I don't see why he would bother to keep anything here. So I moved both cossacks to continue their raiding:




We're set to either capture Andriasov or head south and chase workers / try to burn Canaries.

I doubt I'll be given another opening like this again. But it was nice to have a little maneuver go off successfully here, and to give REM a reason to want to wipe me off the map and not just leave me forced to play out the turns in the shell of a civ.

[DMOC]

Nice job with the city captures!

[pindicator]

Nice job with the city captures!

Thanks! I dunno why I never could get myself motivated to compete in this game, but it's nice to actually make an impact and not just be taking up space.

(And acting maturely as I'm being invaded...)

[pindicator]

So REM was able to clean up my expedition and recapture the cities. The good news is that he did have to do so with the units on board of the two transports, so likely those units were headed towards Balakirev and we delayed / potentially stopped that invasion. The better news is that he lost an infantry doing it, so my little investment really did pay back and then some.

He's been offering me peace the last few turns, which is annoying. Why would I want peace? I want him to eliminate me. And yet I want to make that as difficult for him as possible....

He's trying to pillage my stuff, which only left me with units to kill. At the cost of an Ambush Infantry I was able to kill a tank and 3 cavalry. But I left a cossack in the field, and then covered it with a Formation Infantry, so those are probably going to die as well.

[pindicator]

Not much to report in the turns that follow. REM has learned his lesson and all the recaptured cities are stocked with a machine gun and infantry each. I can see a tank and several more artillery as well - most likely the invasion force that was headed to Balakirev.

I see a couple of potential weaknesses though... Need to get my workers in position - they've been pre-building forts around Balakirev for a couple reasons: 1) in case I actually want to use that trick in the future, and 2) to keep REM's attention on over-correcting his mistake and away from where I hope to strike next.

[pindicator]

REM keeps offering me peace like he thinks it's some sort of favor.

[pindicator]

Turn 342

Some people just don't know when to quit.*




He left it underdefended for several turns, perhaps not realizing that I had the workers in range to road all the way up to the city tile. I got rather lucky with the first CR3 cannon getting a flawless win, then lost 3 cannons in a row before breaking through and then mopping the rest up. Captured 3 workers, killed 6 or 7 units, and then fully garrisoned the city. REM has 2 transports in range. I'm not convinced he has a lot of units on those boats though; I think those are being used as flexible transport needs. In the meantime, I'm making galleons, and galleons out of here can make him play defensive to the south, where he has very few units. Pity I can't just quick-buy it straight away, but I'm not in good civics for shenanigans like that.

Score another minor victory!



*In case this isn't clear, I mean me!

[pindicator]

Turn 344

REM is definitely missing things. He hasn't yet attacked Mussorgsky to capture it back. He hasn't bolstered defenses in Andriasov but he may do that after seeing my galleon in the city.




Is that really REM's only source of oil? I have an idea how to attack it, but it's still a couple turns away. Probably too slow, but like I said, he's been missing things.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Turn 344

REM is definitely missing things. He hasn't yet attacked Mussorgsky to capture it back. He hasn't bolstered defenses in Andriasov but he may do that after seeing my galleon in the city.




Is that really REM's only source of oil? I have an idea how to attack it, but it's still a couple turns away. Probably too slow, but like I said, he's been missing things.

Yeah the only oil. If you read I was actually keen for you to take back that city - basically I wanted to press Scooter/Dreylin to end the game, and I needed to commit forces that may have been needed to defend your northern city if you countered there. By letting you take that back I gave myself a couple of turns to attack Scooter and would have made that other city 3rd ring culture pre attack. I was rather stretched by the end of things, but I had a couple of airports up now, to instant defend anywhere that needed it. I was gonna max out unit prod in the GA, and would have been relatively confident of defending the incoming giant dogpile with the amount of production I could crank out.