(April 9th, 2020, 10:42)BaII Wrote: I'd imagine the best thing to do is just go into world builder and see how much damage these nukes do to stacks and then we'll probably be able to have a good idea of if they are worth the hammer investments.
World builder is a good tool but I`m not sure if I`m going to spend time on it. Does someone have the time and inclination to check it out?
We`re only three turns away from Flight and we can save gold for a while before a decision on tech path has to be taken. I still feel that going for Bombers is strong. Iirc, there are 5 turns remaining of the peace treaty with Donovan. Our buildup on the northern sea is well underway and we`ll have 6 Transports end of turn. If we can, say, double that amount in the next 5 turns we could cause Donovan a world of trouble. He actually hasn`t built a single ship on that sea. He needs to start producing ships asap in order to have any chance of contesting it. We`ll probably get a few Destroyers/Battleships too to bombard down defenses and making sure that Donovan won`t get any easy kills from attacking our Transports.
Very interesting situation. Thanks again for the reports!
Oh, and just a heads-up: Mr. Cairo is definitely into what he hopes is his final culture push here. If superdeath can't slow him down, I expect him to get at least one more Great Artist and win within the next 20 turns. If he can land three more Great Artists soon enough and isn't forced to slow down, he can win in about 10 turns (if he can get two more GArtists but not three, it would probably still take him a little over 15 turns if I'm running the numbers correctly) but whether or not that's actually possible depends on a bunch of stuff we don't know, like how many Great People he's picked up in the course of the game, the last time each of his Potential Legendaries produced a Great Person - especially including his NE city (which I assume is one of the three) - and one or two things we can find out more easily, like whether he's in Pacifism. Also, of course, it depends some on whether he's running his culture slider, and if so, what his expenses are and how much cash he has on-hand.
Of course the main thing it depends on is whether superdeath can stop him. And if he can, given the current military build-up of the world and its violent history - and the extreme modern tech costs in RtR - superdeath might well be positioned to win a Pitboss for the first time!
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155 turns from now, in a Time victory.
Haha I'm kidding! ...probably? I mean, surely someone will manage to get a spaceship launched within the next 140 turns if Mr. Cairo's culture push dies on the vine, right? 140 turns is a long time, and we're already up to Tanks and things, and soon we'll even have planes! Someone will definitely win before time runs out, and within the real-life year 2020! Definitely! Probably. Maybe?
That's an interesting thought. How many techs would you need minimum to launch your spaceship? It sounds like the current tier of techs takes 10+ turns/each? Can you even research the necessary techs in time?
Well, we`re about 10 techs away from launching a spaceship. The techs are just extremely expensive at this point and Radio will take 10 turns at max science (and that includes most of our strongest cities on Research builds too). I`m unsure if we have enough time to get to space before t500. I guess it comes down to two problems: Our relative lack of cities and the high difficulty level. We`re playing at Emperor and are paying upkeep for a huge standing army just for safety. In PB 39 the tech pace never felt like a problem but, hey, it obviously helps having a 40+ city Empire.
It would indeed be kind of hilarious if the game went all the way to a time victory. I don`t think Superdeath will get enough land for a domination win and thus that time victory might very well be his best chance of winning! He might have a better chance of launching a spaceship than us, though, with his superior production base.
Mr. Cairo is annoyingly confident as he`s defending one of his best culture cities with a mere three units. If only we`d had a dozen commandos..
Thaliard finished West Point so now it can make 17 XP units, iirc. Our first two Marines will join our army end of turn. They are very effective at naval attacks.
There isn`t really much else to report as we double moved Superdeath. Time is running out and someone (Superdeath) needs to do the hard lifting or else Mr. Cairo will run away with the game.
(April 10th, 2020, 12:00)JR4 Wrote: Mr. Cairo is annoyingly confident as he`s defending one of his best culture cities with a mere three units. If only we`d had a dozen commandos..
In fairness, I think that's mostly just confidence that his rivals don't have enough commandos and/or active GGs to threaten that city before he can reinforce it.
Quote:Thaliard finished West Point so now it can make 17 XP units, iirc. Our first two Marines will join our army end of turn. They are very effective at naval attacks.
It's pretty cool that we can produce 4-promo units right out of the gate if so! (Even admitting that it's still 9 xp short of Commando level....)
Quote:Time is running out and someone (Superdeath) needs to do the hard lifting or else Mr. Cairo will run away with the game.
It's interesting that he doesn't seem to be doing what I would normally call "running away with" the game; he's just on track to win it soon! If cultural victory weren't an option, he might not even be in pole position right now (though that's mostly because he's been spending massive resources to make his cultural victory happen).
I'm with you on Superdeath needing to be the one to act first is a good one: As long as the victor is clearly going to be Not Us, there's no reason to play kingmaker even if we can - and the same calculation is probably being made by wetbandit and DZ.
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Unless of course you see an attack (no matter on whom) that you think will be enough fun to be worth it!
Heh, it looks like someone is a bit impatient. Superdeath didn`t attack VanillaIsis and looks to be waiting for us to commit first. That`s not going to happen, I`m afraid.
I thought long and hard about sending back a message to Superdeath - or ignoring him altogether. In the end I decided to make an extremely arrogant demand of Incense. The message is clear - you go first or else we won`t contribute at all (VanillaIsis is built on Incense). That`s a risky approach but let`s see what Superdeath makes of that. It`s certainly not what he was hoping for...
Wetbandit`s army of Tanks is still growing. I counted about 65 Tanks now staring at Mr. Cairo`s border. It`s really funny how everyone wants someone else to move in first.
Flight will finally complete end of turn. We`ll probably go into all-out military again from next turn on. Fighters will give us some nice tactical options like cutting off a rail network or bombarding city defenses.
@RefSteel: The defenses of Yokel Haram is down to just two Infantry this turn. You are right that Mr. Cairo probably is safe as those commandos are really hard to get without Aggressive.
I miscounted the XP from Thaliard`s units - that`s 16 XP, not 17. If we get involved in another big war our 16 XP units can perhaps get the enough XP to unlock the commando promotion. But then we`d need a lucky break or five.
If Mr. Cairo`s culture push somehow fails I believe that Superdeath is the slight favourite to win. But we`d definitely get a chance of getting back to contention and we could perhaps be able to form (a shaky) alliance with Wetbandit. But, well, more than ever time works for Mr. Cairo. Let`s put him at 20 turns away from winning (just a guesstimate).
Superdeath didn`t come up with any new deals last turn. He did get a Great General on t348 (and Mr. Cairo got one on t347) so there is definitely some fighting going on.
Next turn we`ll move 9 Transports to the stage tile to see if Donovan pays attention to this game anymore. Our two newest cities in the northwest are in mortal danger but at least it would be nice to be able to burn a city or two in retaliation. There are still no signs of Donovan actually building any ships.
Flight is in. Our first three Fighters finish end of turn and basically all of our cities are building units. With every city off Wealth/Research we need 11 turns to complete Radio at max science.
