[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[Old Harry]

Turn 173

Ah, the stack that William drove Ichabod off with is currently pacifying both retep and Commodore. That makes sense... Also Mackoti pillaged two fishing boats this turn, but only one showed up in the event log. Any ideas why that would be? Also also Mack declared on Scoopin, so I offered them a map exchange, in the hope that it tells them something useful...


These Frigates will probably pillage our whales and fish, then blocade Agincourt, BoP and France. (I had thought about whipping the Bank in Agincourt to save worrying about that and let us save a bit more cash, but I forgot to do it before the civic switch - if it is starving we can always draft. )


Right. We have Nationalism. There are some cities that I think we can draft over and over, although nowhere seems to have enough food to justify building the globe. Maybe if we farm everything around Barcelona? This turn we'll draft Dunkirk, France, Midway and Nuremburg.


On Civics I think Nationhood with Caste is a no-brainer for five turns at least, Pacifism will save us 34 gpt over OR, but I think it will cost us 51 extra for military units (the handicap cost goes up by 20 for some reason, so 71-20 = 51). So is it worth the 20 gpt to get our next golden age 30% sooner?


Oh yeah! (And actually it's only costing 10gpt) Both Cannae and Om should get to 700 great people points in six turns (if we can keep working the fish in Cannae, which isn't guaranteed), then Om should hit 800 the turn after. There is a 20% chance that Cannae produces an unwanted Scientist, but we can use that to bulb Astronomy or build an academy (which may finally be some use in a bureau-oxford capital, although probably not...) and wait another 18 turns for the next GP from Om.


Tech path - I want to pick up Compass this turn (at 50%) so that we can build harbours in our bigger coastal cities, after that I think we can go

• Chemistry->Steel (12 000 beakers) to get cannons to defend on land or
  
• Optics->Astronomy->Chemistry (9 000 beakers) to get frigates of our own or
  
• Music->Military Tradition (6 000 beakers) to build West Point in Jamestown and get Curassiers to counter Cannons
  
• Corporation (4 500 beakers) to enable wall st, improve our known tech bonus to 75% and get an extra trade route (worth about 100 gpt)
  
• PP->RP->Rifling (14 000 beakers) improves our cottages, mines and windmills and enable Rifles.
  

I don't like the route to rifling - 2 pop drafting is hard with our food-poor empire, Printing Press isn't great as we don't have that many cottages and 14 000 beakers is enormous. Right now we're making about 650 beakers per turn at -40 gpt. With Oxford that will go up a bit, but not much. I'm keenest on Corporation, and Optics->Astro->Chemistry. What do you think?

Barcelona is out of revolt, but we've lost this tile to Mack, meaning that the city can be hit and doesn't have any defence bonus (running caste artists will pop the border EOT174 so this is only a temporary problem). I'd guess that Mack can raze the city because the culture is only 22% Ottoman now, so we need to defend it slightly better than this. Gerrard has 5 Janissaries, two Knights, three Pikes and a couple of Maces. If we put our units on the tile they get a 25% defense bonus from the river - meaning the Jans get 30% against our C2 Knights, the Pikes will get odds of about 70% against the Knights, but 10% against a shock axe. So I think we need 10 C2 Knights and two shock axes. I haven't moved them yet in case you think this is a dumb idea - if Mack really wanted to take the city he could have done it this turn, but I'd rather not leave the opportunity open.


Finally I offered Ichabod his 150 gold, but also asked for clams and fish for rice and cows - he has plenty of both and Mack is about to pillage ours. Also we should get a good proportion of our knight stack up to Gallipoli, from where it can respond to naval attacks on Cannae, BoP or Agincourt. Oh, and Suttree can declare on us in three turns. I really hope he doesn't.

Demos and power

[Old Harry]

Turn 174

Mack still doesn't attack from the sea, but he seems pretty keen on us giving him our cities... I said no. It looks like he has Steel already though, so, essentially, we're doomed.


Dtay is making short work of TBSJ.


I didn't hear any suggestions for tech path, so I've gone for Music->Mil Trad. We're saving money, but it will put a few overflow beakers in.

This turn we drafted Bay of Pigs (the blockade begins), Nuremburg, Dunkirk and Konig. Next turn we should do Midway, Agincourt (just a coastal tile), Issy and somewhere else. Not sure where, perhaps BoP.


I don't think we're ever taking Madrid:


Demos and power

And I'm last to play, so the turn rolls.

[Fintourist]

Hmm.. It should make sense for Mack to give us 10 turns peace for a moderate price (20/30 gpt) so that we could waste our troops and backstab dtay or pile on TBS. That GG for TBS just screams that we should join the fight in some very opportunistic way. War Weariness levels? Unfortunately in the current state our hands are pretty much tied and our only move is to just keep fighting mack and delay the inevitable destruction and make it as costly and slow as possible..

The positive thing about those suttree lbows is that it seems unlikely that he will ever try to sneak-attack us anywhere and is just turtling.

Btw, nice stuff about civics, Nationhood+Caste were obvious, but the fact that Pacifism was not too costly surprised me a bit. Unless we divert to Theology and Theocracy we should simply switch back to Paganism after we are done producing great persons. It does not seem likely that we get to build much infra in this game..

Reg tech path: I guess I'll agree with Mil Trad. I only wonder if we ever manage to produce enough cuirs so that we can actually attack out and flank cannons. Couple of rifles already make them pretty useless and as defenders they obviously are not worth their money. Although fear of cuirs might make it impossible for mack to split his stack and slow down his attack. Economical tech choices are pretty much useless considering our position, but I guess I should calculate how many beakers we are away from Chemistry+Astronomy+Mil Science-combo (Frigates & SotL), Rifling (rifles) and Steel (cannons). With Cannons we could prolong the time that our knights are still useful, but I guess we are far away.

And yeah, let's draft a lot..

[TheHumanHydra]

What cities did mack buy, from the tech thread?

[Old Harry]

Heh, I totally missed that - I guess it'll be TBS's island holdings that Fintourist wanted to attack. It's a bit of a relief, as I thought Mack had spent about 1500 gold upgrading cats to cannon, but perhaps he spent it on those cities instead? Come on Pindicooter, you need to put an end to the Mack menace if you're going to win the game...

I don't think we can do anything to Mack at the moment, so he doesn't need to take peace with us.

I built a stable in Jamestown so we'll be getting 5XP knights out of there that we can give pinch or charge too. Unfortunately not both but we're only about 10XP from another GG who could scatter xp over knights or settle in Jamestown.

[Old Harry]

I'll need a pause this evening unless you can play the turn FT?

If you can I think we need to get some of our drafted muskets into Jamestown, now that Mack controls so much of that ocean. We should make sure all our knights can get to the tile SE of Hastings. If the tile SE of Barcelona will flip to us next turn the blocking force should move back to the city (with the knights carrying on north a bit so they can reach the Hastings battlefield next turn) if not it might still be a good idea to run away, as Mack has had two turns to assemble a force to collateral that tile...

I think the draft rota for this turn is: Midway, Agincourt (painful, but it only loses a coastal tile), Issy and perhaps BoP if the blockade is starting to bite. We could do with a galley out of midway to move those muskets somewhere useful.

[Fintourist]

I'll need a pause this evening unless you can play the turn FT?

If you can I think we need to get some of our drafted muskets into Jamestown, now that Mack controls so much of that ocean. We should make sure all our knights can get to the tile SE of Hastings. If the tile SE of Barcelona will flip to us next turn the blocking force should move back to the city (with the knights carrying on north a bit so they can reach the Hastings battlefield next turn) if not it might still be a good idea to run away, as Mack has had two turns to assemble a force to collateral that tile...

I think the draft rota for this turn is: Midway, Agincourt (painful, but it only loses a coastal tile), Issy and perhaps BoP if the blockade is starting to bite. We could do with a galley out of midway to move those muskets somewhere useful.

How long of a pause would you need? I think I can do it if you really have tough schedule, but since I've not been that involved after my travel it would of course be better if you keep playing turns. I see that Mack has not yet even ended his turn (can't play yet despite the fact that 2/3 of the turn is already gone), so I think it's not a terrible crime in any case if the turn gets delayed until morning.

[Old Harry]

Not sure I can play before tomorrow lunchtime, but a pause won't be that bad.

[Old Harry]

Turn 175

Will we see Suttree declare and move on Hastings next turn? No, because he could have done it this turn and didn't.

The blockade extends further, but Agincourt still works one of its fish. I'm tempted to research optics for Caravels and more warning of Galleon-based attack. Three or four Caravels should be able to take care of the two Frigates, right? (Nope - it's more like five or six.) Right now we're 10 turns away from Military Tradition, less if we flip back to Bureau when the bank finishes in A. Since Mack has Cannons already would it be smart to offer him Barca and Stalingrad for ten turns peace? Or will he just have rifles by then?

Drafted Agincourt, BoP, Midway and Light Brigade. Next turn France, Konig, Hastings and Nuremberg should be ready for it.

ps Nice work in the tech thread BRick, I suggest that any further violations of the AI diplo rule should be punished with a city gift to the player's nearest neighbour - these must be the cities in question, which gives Mack a good buffer against fast-moving Viking ships...

[TheHumanHydra]

I think we should keep the cities and make him wade through the culture.