Let's hope dtay is overreaching here; sandbagging Liberalism like this puts it at risk if GJ is racing for it too, but if dtay gets Steel and starts fielding Cannons in numbers ... it's going to be a nightmare to defend against those if they come our way. I'll think about this some more later today. Thanks for the great reports as usual! I hope the general lurkers are having as much fun following along as I am!
Liberalism is still up for grabs. I wonder which tech path Joey is on.. It seems like the whole world is researching Chemistry now! It`s a key tech on this map after all. Joey`s got a Galleon defending his city (Yellow Maple) but nothing too suspicious was spotted. Dark Savant`s big port city E of Bayan Khutugh (Vertigo) is under siege - I think it will fall next turn.
Vulcania is claiming its first ring tiles next turn. That took like forever. It had to get third ring culture in order to wrest away control from Ethiopia.
We now have 5 Galleons ready for duty. 4 of them are in a cluster SE of Muqa and the last is doing zone control SE of Kokejin. So, I`m thinking about offering fish-for-fish deals to both our land neighbors next turn and see how they react to that. If we get the same deal in return, we can load our troops on the Galleys and head for Tulearean Forest and/or Mist. Mist is the bigger prize here (and the harder target) so I`m thinking about hitting it first. We now have 5 Triremes in the build queue, waiting to be upgraded. Dark Savant is not on Chemistry so I think we`ll get an advantage on the seas anyway. Our Caravel will get eyes on Mist`s garrison next turn. Gah, I really hope Gavagai stays away from it.. He`s got at least one Galleon in range of the city. (Note that DS has a Galley perhaps loaded with units in the SE on the last screenshot).
A Knight, a Catapult and another Galleon finish eot.
Steel is a 10 turn tech for us. It`s prohibitively expensive. At least we broke the 800 beaker barrier this turn. That`s still something!
Graphs and demos: Oh, Dark Savant took a really big hit. Gavagai also took some losses but he can certainly live with that as long as he gets more territory.
Here is the situation near Vertigo. Gavagai has a full-strength CR2 Maceman and an injured Jannissary near the city. If Dark Savant gets another unit eot (which is likely) and his Longbow gets another promotion, he might be able to hold the city another turn..
Lots of intrigue here! Vertigo might indeed get another defender - maybe even an Oromo if he got amazing overflow - but Gav may have one or more units on the horse tile as well. (And/or Dark Savant might be able to reinforce the city or hit the attackers from deeper in his territory, but I kind of doubt that.) Gav taking Chichen Itza will help our (hopefully soon-to-be) attack a bit too.
I agree with offering fish trades to see how our neighbors respond, especially since dtay might well soon have Steel!
And I'm looking forward to seeing what the Mist garrison looks like next turn! How are our eastern Galleys positioned right now, by the way? They won't be able to keep up with the Galleons, but we should try to have them coming in right behind: Against a human, always assume you'll need more units than you expect!
(If dtay doesn't re-offer, this may be irrelevant anyway of course, but we'll see....)
Our Caravel moved to the SE to find out what the garrison in Mist looks like. (There`s also a G1 Crossbow on the rice for some reason). Well, it`s way lighter defended than I thought.. So, there`s actually a real chance that Gavagai takes it shortly. We have to be able to react quickly so a Galleon was loaded with Catapults and is on its way to the stage tile N of Radnashiri (the one NE of Sugabala). 3 Other Galleons can be loaded with Knights next turn and immediately go to the stage tile. I think we want options at this point. The Knight stack was moved closer to Muqa in order to be able to get to the Galleons next turn. We now have 2 Galleys SE of Muqa and another SE of Kokejin. We haven`t really sacrificed anything yet as the Catapults will get back to Muqa in no time if something happens. Hitting Tulearean Forest will be harder it looks like. We can try to land a big expedition force down there on the Deer but it will take a bit more preparation. Fish-for-fish deals were offered to Joey and dtay. Will they accept? I certainly hope so but especially dtay`s tech path looks like a severe threat to our survival..
We`re close to 2 turning Chemistry. I hope that the ktb from dtay will help us over the line but it`s going to be close. We surely want to whip out a few Frigates which will not help our tech rate.
2 Catapults, a Musketman and a Knight finish eot. We have a pretty decent military right now.
The Apostolic Palace will finally finish eot! I can`t imagine anyone else going for it so that`s nice.
Graphs and demos: We now have the second largest military in the world! Well, it`s been a very long time since we last were top2 in soldiers. It looks like Gavagai took some losses this turn which is probably okay. If dtay decides to go on the war path, I think we need to convince him that Carthage (or someone else) is an easier target. I`m pretty sure that he wants the Buddhist Shrine at a point, though..
That's a pretty big difference, yeah! Of course, it's possible Mist will be taken or produce an Oromo in the next turn or two, so everything's still evolving rapidly. If we want to hit Mist before Frigates, we're going to want Muskets in our stack. Probably best to have at least one of them either way, in fact. Unless he significantly reinforces the city, the cats probably won't help with it much; they're more useul for dealing with stacks; otherwise, you lose more hammers by suiciding them than you gain winning subsequent fights. (I mean, they can bombard the defenses by a tiny amount, but that isn't worth a whole lot.)
Heh, I`m just being too impatient here. We should probably wait for Frigates anyway. It`s just that Gavagai is running over DS and if he goes for the very greedy Mist attack then we need to be able to respond. I still like having a couple of Galleons worth of units ready to attack at short notice if something were to happen down there. If we`re waiting for Frigates, then a realistic eta of attack would be t176 (or perhaps 175 if everything can be arranged). No Muskets are set to complete in the eastern theater this turn but on t174 I think we can have at least one of them ready to accompany the other attack forces. We certainly need to be able to defend our conquests.
On an unrelated note, we actually got vision on some of dtay`s border cities! The one thing dtay is not doing well on is EPs. That`s probably due to the curse of the Ikhanda. (Courthouses aren`t really worth the investment for the Zulus). If we can get vision on Angle, that would be absolutely fantastic, giving us more time to react if dtay really is coming for us.
I totally empathize with your impatience. What a time for Gavagai to be away from the game! (In fairness, that could have been said at basically any time for dozens of turns. It's certainly not been boring!)
(October 18th, 2017, 07:53)JR4 Wrote: It`s just that Gavagai is running over DS and if he goes for the very greedy Mist attack then we need to be able to respond. I still like having a couple of Galleons worth of units ready to attack at short notice if something were to happen down there.
I quite agree. If there's an opening, we need to be able to take advantage of it. I don't foresee any opening soon that doesn't demand Muskets among our attackers, but you never know....
Quote:If we`re waiting for Frigates, then a realistic eta of attack would be t176 (or perhaps 175 if everything can be arranged).
How many Frigates would be in range to bombard on those turns? What would need to be arranged to make T175 happen?
Quote:On an unrelated note, we actually got vision on some of dtay`s border cities! The one thing dtay is not doing well on is EPs. That`s probably due to the curse of the Ikhanda. (Courthouses aren`t really worth the investment for the Zulus). If we can get vision on Angle, that would be absolutely fantastic, giving us more time to react if dtay really is coming for us.
Wow, and even without Buddhism in them! (...or maybe RtR removed the religion modifier? I don't remember...) Ikhanda or no Ikhanda, I'm pretty sure Mack would say Courthouses are definitely worth the investment for a sprawling empire like dtay's. The Zulu's strategic situation has been such that other things have been more important, at least in dtay's assessment, and no doubt the Ikhandas helped with that, but Courthouses are very valuable. (And for dtay in particular, it's probably worth unlocking and building the Forbidden Palace in ex-Russia. GJ has probably already done so in ex-China.)
