[SPOILERS] Zanth's thread

[Gavagai]

We got Furungy's graphs - and he is actually a solid third in all three main indicators. However, he has pretty weak power and, unlike all other players, has no means to produce emergency units. I wonder how he feels sitting next to Mardoc now...

[Gavagai]

After some more analyzes of Mardoc's situation, I have become convinced that his best play is to attack Furungy while maintaining defence against us. It would be a pretty tricky thing to do but going with Rifles against Infantries/MGs isn't an option at all. He may be under illusion that he has a naval superiority but by itself it still won't allow him to cause critical harm. On the other hand, Furungy is vulnerable and has all signs of a civ which is going to collapse fast under pressure: no army, no military tech, no means to produce units fast. With his land Mardoc will get an advantage over us in a space race and after that we will be forced to react.

[Gavagai]

I wonder if Mardoc realizes that we can see this stack...

[Gavagai]

Something very strange happened: turn rolled and we still don't have visibility on Mardoc, though we have put a ton of EPs into him at the end of a previous turn and have enough for "investigate city" mission in most of his cities. What is it? Some turn order glitch?

[Gavagai]

Btw, can't think of any rational reason for BaII to keep borders closed with us but open with Mardoc. That, actually, can have important strategic implications, Rus-Ukranian border-style.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Something very strange happened: turn rolled and we still don't have visibility on Mardoc, though we have put a ton of EPs into him at the end of a previous turn and have enough for "investigate city" mission in most of his cities. What is it? Some turn order glitch?

That would be my guess. If you're over the required threshold now but maybe weren't at the time your espionage points were calculated because Mardoc's turn had already been processed (adding in his EPs generated from his slice of the turn order processing), that would make sense. I'm not a code diver though, so I can't confirm your suspicion. It just seems like a logical possibility.

[Gavagai]

We have visibility on Mardoc and I should say that he has a pretty bizzare unit composition. His most numerous unit is cannon, number of Rifles seems insufficient. We don't yet see several of his cities, in particular one of them which is pretty likely to host an invasion fleet. But he doesn't seem to have enough leftover power for any serious invasion. Also, note a compete absence of Frigates. I bet our navigation Ironclads would be a nasty surprise for him.



Nakor's days are numbered. We started to move units to the west but estimate the threat of Mardoc's invasion as pretty low now.

[Gavagai]

A small update. As you know, Nakor is finished. Dick jumped in in the end and took last two cities. We gifted him yet another one to make ourselves a more comfortable border.
Also, we got a low-odds Artist which presented us with tantalizing tactical opportunities.



It was now removed but a couple turns ago Mardoc had a stack in neighborhood. If we had put a city upon the "city" sign and artist-bomb it, we could easily remove this stack. However, we wouldn't really achieve anything apart from taking a couple of insignificant cities. Army isn't especially important for Mardoc, with Kremlin, spiritual trait and now Railroads he can afford to lose a lot of units and stabilize situation quickly anyway.
I think that if our struggle with Mardoc would be resolved militarily, it would happen because one of us would give up control over seas in Destroyer's age.



This is exhibit two. If we culture-bomb Amsterdam, we will take over a hill 1SW from Kumbi Saleh where 2metra keeps a huge stack. That would give us an opportunity to kill it off almost entirely and than proceed to take back former Dutch land.
We decided to go for it. Of course, prudence of this move can be questioned: we have a lot of borders to defend, our army isn't that strong and we are risking to gain a mortal enemy for forever. Also, it is by far not everything what 2metra has, even after we destroy this stack, he will have substantial reserves.
However, there are still good arguments for doing this. First and foremost, we are not pleased with this border. Amsterdam is a very important city which we don't want to lose. It will force us to keep substantial static defenses there, especially after 2metra upgrades all this Cuirs into Cavalry. At this stage it is very difficult to defen cities on your immediate borders, so you would prefer this cities tobe expandable. Second, we are still going to get a large chunk of pretty decent land which will surely help us. Third, look at this:



This is 2metra's coast which he will have to defend with galleys and triremes against destroyers and transports. I really don't see how he is going to stabilize the situation here if he wants to keep fighting with us after our blietzkreif would run out of steam. Especially given that Furungy on his other side has taken over the third place in power and this is before he started another GA and revolted to Theocracy. And fourth, we, of course, would open ourselves up to Mardoc a little bit but we will also push him towards doing mistakes. If he sees that 2metra is falling apart, he may panic and do something stupid.
So, stay tuned, guys - fireworks will be starting NEXT turn.

And for something completely different: Gawdzak attacked Dick which is playing in our favor, I think. Now we can move away our defensive forces in the east.

[Gavagai]

...had to delay it by a turn - not everything is in place.

[Gavagai]

It started. 20 Cuirs, 13 cats, 6 cannons, 5 muskets, 1 knight killed at the cost of 2 Infantry and a Cavalry.