[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[TheHumanHydra]

... even if we screw ourselves by stopping his culture run, I think we want to do it.

I'm deeply concerned by this sentiment. Has TBS become a threat to win the game while I wasn't looking? I thought his culture attempt was an order of magnitude too slow. (I have a huge and rather stern pep-talk prepared if this is still true.)

[Fintourist]

That's poop.

Our failure of stopping that Eiffel build or my comments reg TBS culture victory?

I would rather have had your position than TBS' any day, even before considering the crappy mapmaker shafting him on coal.

Yeah, I haven't analyzed TBS's starting position and I'm definitely not complaining about how our geopolitics allowed us to get into our current position. I'm just saying that not bothering TBS for meta reasons and allowing him to sneak a culture victory would be a lame ending for this game. At the very least we will make him work for it..

... even if we screw ourselves by stopping his culture run, I think we want to do it.

I'm deeply concerned by this sentiment. Has TBS become a threat to win the game while I wasn't looking? I thought his culture attempt was an order of magnitude too slow. (I have a huge and rather stern pep-talk prepared if this is still true.)

Well, TBS certainly has a chance to win culture victory if nobody interferes. I like how RBMod/RtR makes the late game a more relevant part of the game by doubling the tech costs, but that of course also makes culture victory more relevant as space will be reached significantly later.

TBS has a nice leader in Gandhi and depending when he hits the slider I can see him beating our space timing. However, the situation isn't critical yet and it will still take a good while until TBS gets there ---> We will see when TBS makes the economic switch towards full culture and will have time to do deal with the situation.

I guess what I'm saying is that I would not be too worried about the situation if it were just us and TBS, but the fact is that we have a long border with dtay, who we screwed, and BGN, who surely would like to win himself ---> In our position one could make a conclusion that "screw it, we can't commit to stopping TBS", but that is boring meta, so I think we are trying to keep our package together while taking as big risks as we need to..

Assuming OH does not completely collapse under his turn-playing duties of course TBS spent 5 hours with last turn and our turns are never fast either, so there is a significant RL aspect impacting the outcome as well. At this stage you can screw yourself big time with one careless move.. In this sense I think we have an advantage, because trying to defend all the possible angles is generally more difficult than making sure that your attacking stack does not get wiped out.. :P

[Old Harry]

Can I send this to dtay:

Hi dtay,

We declared on you last turn taking second place in the turn order, assuming you'd play early like normal, but there are only 12 hours left on the clock now. I'll hold off moving any units until you've logged in and either accepted the cease fire or ended turn, but if you'll be ending turn more than eight hours from now we'll probably need a 24 hour pause.

(Full disclosure in case you just want to log in quick to help us out and don't check the logs - we Air Struck one of your mines but made no other aggressive moves.)

Cheers
OH

[Fintourist]

I think that should be ok, but maybe an objective lurker could give his opinion?

EDIT: Any pre-info reg TBS moves? You can reach me via chat as well.

[Old Harry]

Turn 230 prelude

So this is what we have in the area.


And this is what TBS has.


With a decent force still in Lashing.


I've got a few ideas for attacking this turn, but thought I'd ask for suggestions to see what you guys think...

Bear in mind that we can raze the empty cities and then still fight another battle if needed. Capturing Workers on the other hand uses up a unit's allocated fight.

[Qgqqqqq]

To say no other aggressive moves is a bit far, IMO. Everyone's understanding is different, and so he may take something as a threat that is not meant as such (like a destroyer placement, or whatever), and that needs to be preserved for the game to have meaning. So take that bit out.

"...no other direct attacks" or something similar would be a lot more palatable, IMO.

[Fintourist]

I've got a few ideas for attacking this turn, but thought I'd ask for suggestions to see what you guys think...

Interesting, great overviews! 40 bodies in Kasitor is possibly too much, probably requires simming again... Can our Shadowfax bombers reach Pattern? I assume that we can get some fighters in range to hit Alethkar, which would be a blow for TBS's culture attempt as the city has ~1500 GPP into a Great Artist.

With our new carriers, we have a lot of planes that can contribute to weakening defenders and we might be able to get Kasitor's defenders into "let's collect XP" range, which would be awesome.

Hmm, are you leaning towards full force against Kasitor or Commando fun? Or some kind of a combination of those two?

Dtay has 18 destroyers in his stack next to lashing + some ships joining from the north unless we cut their route in Pattern or Alethkar. Meanwhile we have 18 of our own --> Situation is still under control, but let's not play too carelessly.

Modern warfare civ-chess

[Fintourist]

Btw, SE of Yasod seems to be the place to end up with our ships regardless whether we hit Yas or Kas. That feels intuively as the best compromise when it comes to unifying our relevant ships.

[Old Harry]

Thanks Q - that wording would have been much better but I sent the message before you posted as I was going to be away from the forum for a while .

Fintourist - I was thinking we'd move lots of bombers into William's cities, so some of the aircraft moves would need to be recon. After that our options are:

1. Use our aircraft and Destroyers to take out his fleet

2. Commando as many cities as we can, using air support where necessary:
2a. Yasod and Morituri are obvious
2b. Alethker (5 cav?) helps slow down his culture attempt,
2c. Pattern (4-5 cav) gives access to Ella where with some strategic pillaging we could base more units
2d. Kholinar (4 cav) doesn't really advance our cause that I can see
2e. Unfortunately Valath and Natana are just out of range and Frontline is 15 tiles from Yasod. With judicious use of a morale promo a cav can travel 14 railroad tiles. An Infantry could move 20 tiles, but is hurt much worse by the gaps that TBS has cleverly left in his RR network.

3. Capture and delete workers with commandos that then re-board their ships, there are six or seven in range

4. Destroy the RR tile on the hill 2NE of Yasod, allowing us to keep the city, Airlift units into it and base more bombers in it

5. Bombard units in Kasitor until they're in the range to allow us to farm XP (ie 90% battles)

We still have three or four turns before TBS has Fighters to test our bombers, and even then with 12 of our own fighters in the area we'll have a bit longer to do some damage.

[Fintourist]

Good stuff. I think 1 & 5 are the most attractive options if we get to do them in an efficient way. However, I can't see how no.1 could be accomplished, because TBS destroyers are out of range of our bombers, and fighters won't be alone strong enough. No. 5 is really interesting as that would swing the power a lot in our favor and thus makes later fighting easier --> that surely requires some simming though.

Combination of 2-4 does not sound terrible either. The amount of fighters is the reason why both 5 & commando strikes probably can't be accomplished, but maybe some combination is still possible.

I need to see the map myself in order to evaluate what recon moves are needed / what William cities make sense as additional bases.

Catch me in gchat in the evening, I should be finished with work in couple of hours.