[SPOILERS] Churchill of Portugal: Gallipoli Part II

[fluffyflyingpig]

Kill Nakor!

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Bulb Astronomy and boat Seroda and Brick for your revengence! Nobody puts Baby in a corner.

Nakor.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I'm sensing a trend. Also, we don't need Astronomy, we're Portugal (carracks). Additionally, it's all the same landmass so galley fleets could get the job done as well (the Serdoa job that is), minus the part where I can't keep the boats above the water line of course....

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

So, optics? I can't say I've ever played as Portugal. Is the Carrack a carival replacement?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Yeah, caravel replacement. It's a 2 seater, a real beaut. You can carry real units with it, not just little 'uns like in the caravels the other guys are sellin'. Just tech optics and you can sail (and ship) on the ocean blue. Good price too, and you can keep yer dog!

[dazedroyalty]

It'd be totally out of line with how CIV works, but it'd be nice if Optics also unlocked international trade routes for Portugal since it's silly to be able to colonize the far reaches of the world but not have trade with them. However, that would be totally over powered.

[spacetyrantxenu]

But what if I came not to trade, but to burn and pillage instead? Problem solved!

[Gazglum]

It'd be totally out of line with how CIV works, but it'd be nice if Optics also unlocked international trade routes for Portugal since it's silly to be able to colonize the far reaches of the world but not have trade with them. However, that would be totally over powered.

The Portuguese military keeps a monopoly on the strategically valuable optics technology, and will not share the secrets of the compass with a bunch of lice-ridden banana merchants!

[Ichabod]

Hey! Take your hands out of our Pau Brasil, damn imperialists!

[spacetyrantxenu]

T135 - I had a few trade offers awaiting when I logged in, map trades from Merovech and Commodore which I accepted. Then there was this gem from Azza:



Free ivory, no strings attached? A very generous offer, thanks Azza! This is to replace the deal that was cancelled last turn when I lost New Fish and its marble, which I had briefly traded away to Azza. I hope it did him some good for that one turn. If I get a chance to help him out in this game I'll see what I can do. He's probably hoping to prop me up a bit as long as I'm at war with Serdoa (I still am, he didn't accept the peace offer last turn.) I guess I'll have to sail a few galleys by New Fish or actually drop off a massive stack of chariots for him to cooperate. Or don't take peace, really, I don't care. I can halt the Portuguese rebuilding effort and go back to whipping tons of units if he wants to go that route instead.



Serdoa is protecting New Fish with several axes and a holkan, plus whatever lurks in the fog. Recapturing is probably out of the question since my waves of spears and archers would make for an expensive and unsustainable way to recapture this city, nevermind the trouble of delivering them here and that obvious hole in my home defenses that would cause. And more troubling I wouldn't be able to raze the city if I recaptured it, so there's really no point in attacking here. I can't hold this location with my diminished empire resources. If I'm going to fight Serdoa it would have to be somewhere else. But as I'm in no shape to fight now, I'd rather not. For now.

Instead I need to focus on regrowth and using the well developed tiles I still possess. They aren't doing me any good as long as I don't work them, and the massive whip unhappiness isn't really a burden, except insomuch as I'm going to have to really spare the whip hand going forward and save my new population for the next round of emergency whips, whenever that happens. I'm slowbuilding a library in Old Fish that may finish before someone launches a space ship, I'm not sure. Maybe if I can get it down to a one pop whip I'll do it, that city only has 40 something turns of anger, surely it can give more to the empire.

I overlooked something last turn, I was building a work boat in One Fish for the future island city, but that fish tile is in my second ring and I won't have the culture to work it for a while. So One Fish is going to get a Buddhist down there as soon as possible to pop borders that way. By then I'll have the workboat available and the city can start growing properly. Of course, this is probably outside of the Brick-10 turn peace window, so I may well be back to whipping defenders by then. Who knows. I think for the rest of this game I'm going to have to play with two plans in mind. The first plan would be whatever I'd like to pursue, the second would be for the inevitable moment of the next enemy incursion.




There isn't a lot to describe here. I'm shuffling defense mostly to the west since that's the only current attack vector. The Zulu could come from the south but I would have plenty of advanced warning from culture to wheel south with troops from inside this three city triangle, and from inside of Red Fish. I'm more worried about Serdoa sailing in from the west since I don't have a credible navy in the north and he can build triremes against my galleys. I'm working on Metal Casting but it's going to take a few turns, then a few turns to get galleys in the water (I may go for forges first, depends on what the leading galleys see).

I probably won't talk about worker actions too much going forward, there isn't much for these 6 guys to do right now. Two were in position to begin reconnecting my iron, which they'll finish next turn. After that they'll probably go east and chop/cottage the last two jungle tiles in Old Fish's BFC, and then that's it for tile improvements for these four cities. I have 3 workers pre forting the mine tile W,NW of Red Fish, so that the next time Brick comes for tea I can park a stack on the hill instead of behind it. That will also give me a bit of extra naval mobility as I can cut across the peninsula through the fort and Red Fish instead of sailing all the way around to the south. I don't want to give up the nice grass hill mine tile, but during war I'd be whipped off it anyway.

The only short term plan up in the air right now is getting a city settled on the island south of One Fish. I'm going to move in a pair of archers and probably an axe and spear to go with it. By then it will be time to retrain another army back home because I'm sure someone is looking at me as an opportunity for expansion.

Demographics:

Fun note, I think my GNP at 0% is still ahead of Brick's at 100%. I could be wrong about that, but it sure looks that way from the graphs I looked at on T136 immediately after ending this turn. In the long term this is obviously meaningless since he'll grow his cities back up and eventually put together an economy (or hell he could just build wealth with all those ugly brown cities, he has to have decent hammer output), while my economy probably won't change very much unless or until I can add more cities to it. I'm holding out hope that things go sideways between him and Serdoa. You'll note in the map overview above that there aren't a lot of Brick's units to be seen. They'll probably reappear on T9 of the enforced peace, but still...maybe he'll engage Serdoa and they'll waste a lot of hammers together. But probably not.