[Spoilers] Commodore as Darius of the HRE

[Commodore]

Operation: Prepare to make more ghetto mines is about to commence. Also, see my unit pump, finally now able to work a quarry and three mines and still grow. This turn was more of the same ol', same ol'.



Figured out why RL7's GNP spiked so high. Also, nice to see Yuri going all-in like that.



Still only half of Luddite's insane research rate. Wow. Not much else to say about that.



Meanwhile, what do I do? Why prepare for my last enclave in the wasteland of course. I'll be allowing Yuri through a canal if I do make one.



IF=ELSE; Vertically grow. Actually, Koth is about to flip over to making rifles, rifles, and more rifles. If I can avoid the draft then I'm in good shape, but I'll only avoid it if I can train an army well before time.



This is not an easy place to be. Sadly, nothing much else to do but watch and wait. Here's to everyone else grinding themselves into waste and war. Now to prepare to not get dragged into things...

[Commodore]

Right. Not to temper my sangfroid at all, but there is a chance that Luddite will decide to attack me, despite being invaded by Yuri (and I'll transcribe Yuri's attack plans tomorrow, although Ceil, you can read the email and everyone else has probably seen it in the Ottoman thread). Just in case, I'll pull the cats more cautiously back into my core.



If RL7 gets frisky, my Maginot Line is decently strong up in France...and like the historical Maginot, will probably be bypassed.



Still these are three very nice cities, especially Corinthia. I'm apparently daft, too...I have the Sistine chapel. Why am I not running an artist? While building a library? Meh, in any case, once the ivory and extra hamlets get claimed from Mali, this will be a splendid city. Note the juicy internal trade route Xapur is providing, too.



In other news, rifles about to start coming off in droves!



I'm curious to see how my research rate stacks against a post-GA RL7, actually. Right now I'm getting killed.



So thoughts, where do we go from here? I'm thinking Steam Power -> Chemistry -> Steel -> Railroad, then Assembly Line or Combustion as needed. Scientific Method is a lovely tech that I need soon, but I'm going to sandbag if I can, as ironclads/cannons would see me much, much safer going forward. MGs, Rifles, and Canons do okay defensively against Infantry, don't they?

[Commodore]

Yuri is going to be going all-in. Let's see if I can go in partially for another war!

[COLOR="Lime"]Hi Commodore,

We're now ready to share our attack plans

We intend to mount a decoy attack over the hub, and the main strike
over the ocean. Estimated time of the attack is T117-T118, depending
on when we get the last Galleon from RL7. See attached screenshots for
details - please keep in mind that these screenshots are top secret
and highly confidential, and may not be shared with anyone else



We expect GES to respond to our land preparations, especially because
he has visibility on the city of Love Radio and will see the stack
being created there. We hope that because of this, he will leave
eastern cities undefended, and leave them vulnerable to a naval attack
(which he won't expect in any case, as he knows we can't build
Galleons)



If you could threaten him via the landbridge between you, to make him
shift even more forces to the west, it would be perfect

As for the inevitable question of what you will get out of this, I can
initially offer you to capture 5 cities to the west of the river going
across GES's land (marked on Screenshot0135), including the Taoist
holy city. Should the attack be successful, these cities will make a
nice addition to your empire. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean
we get all the rest of GES's empire, but we can discuss it after the
war starts and we have better understanding of how well it goes and
how much progress we can make



Let me know what you think

Cheers
Yuri[/COLOR]

It's a good plan, albeit an optimistic one. If the sea attack is unexpected it should actually go incredibly well, although I doubt it's going to crack Luddite. Still, I need to beef up my own defenses anyway, so:

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hey Yuri,

Sorry for the delay in replying, but I figured I should look over my own empire's readiness before getting back to you. All of this is getting kept confidential, of course.

The plan in general looks solid, and at the very least I'll be visibly bulking up my land-bridge forces very soon, as in two turns I'll have rifling and that should make Egypt very nervous. I imagine he's regretting spending quite so long stockpiling gold, actually, in fifteen turns I imagine he'll be practically invulnerable, but there is a very narrow window of opportunity here. I'm going to be bee-lining canons and ironclads after rifles stark coming online, so if you can make progress on his eastern flank I should be able to hit Port/Green Flash and cut his empire. Naturally, this is dependent on the success of these initial unexpected assaults.



I do expect Luddite to be a tenacious and stubborn defender and this might turn into a long war. One thing to consider would be to offer Mission and the new city north of Stone (Iron Fist) to RL7 in return for the benefit of opening up a fourth front. One other thought, I will also want to settle the island 6S of Love Radio even if your hub feint captures Rock Bottom and Coronado, that shouldn't be any problem, should it?



Overall looking good, and I hope things are going well in Radioland. Until later,
-Commodore.[/COLOR]

What's most likely to happen? Luddite crushes the Ottoman incursion in his east and retakes Ballast Point without much issue, as well as stops Yuri's attack in the hub butt cold. However, the counterattack will be a slow and ugly thing unless Yuri rolls over fast. In this case I'll either stand still or opportunistically snipe New English on the land-bridge, then revert to a defensive posture all along the front.

Less likely, but still possible, is that the Ottoman assault works and Egypt starts to crumble. In this case I'll start throwing myself harder into the attack, utilizing galley/ironclad strikes to take control of the western coast land. I'm 90% sure this isn't going to happen though.

The worst-case scenario is that Luddite manages to amass sufficient force to not only stop but to also cow Yuri into submission, while being pissed enough at me/safe enough with RL7 to go all-out against Hyboria This is known as the "throw the game to Seven Spirits" contingency.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Yup.



He's really a nice guy, no doubt about that.




Fare well, sweet Mr. Nice Guy, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38wx8C7VmB4

Thanks, I'm touched. And the taps, what a great way to go out. Read most of your thread last night, so now I'll reply, in reverse order, tonight Hope you don't mind a little bit of threadjacking/spamming.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

No new turn until I get back from work late tonight, but meanwhile, boredom during a training meeting can produce good work:

Heck yes I like my lands.

I loved this post! Man, I should have done the same during some of my work meetings. I'm just glad to see I wasn't the only one thinking about this at work...

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Also, well, here's MNG's replies:



He seems friendly by and large, but a couple things of note:

1. He is a Victim of Krill, and thus my mention of "settling agreement" triggered flashbacks and probably set him on his guard.

2. He's first in soldier points, and willing to negotiate with that as a threat.

I loved the "Victim of Krill", and you're 100% right that "settling agreement" was the wrong choice of words here, but you did a good job of reading me and reacting to my stance. Actually, you did a good job of reading me from start to finish - even your first impressions were pretty spot on. Good job, and I just hope to see that your reads on the other players are that good too!

And yes, I'm glad that you caught my remark about being first in soldier points.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

And finally, my favorite quote of your whole game thus far:

Interestingly, I believe only MNG and I have thus far discovered how rich this cold little blob is. I wanna pink dot this so badly.

[Commodore]

Awesome, MNG, glad it was as fun for you as it was for me. I meant what I said, you've been a fun opponent. If you'd like, next time I'm bored I'll make a stab at a similar France-image.

[Commodore]

Two turns rolled around last night/this morning, so now Turn 112 is done. Five turns until the Ottomans' attack goes boom, and six turns until I can opportunistically attack/watch the slaughter. Certainly now I have the ability to capitalize on anything that starts rolling.



And also, um. It's been there for more than a thousand years, but finally the city of Khauran is getting around to roading that nearby jungle. The worker is helpfully making a "workshop" at the EOT.



Roight. My galley has seen Janissary units wandering around the soon-to-be-blood-soaked tundra. That's going to be a brutal slog once the war starts, and I wouldn't be shocked if an early Luddite goal was to cut off Love Radio from the rest of the Ottoman Empire.



All of Yuri's whipping has finally pushed me to not-last in Crop Yield! This chart is actually kind of impressive. U GUYS. Y U NO YET KILL ME?



Demos this turn while saving gold show the grim picture for the boys in green. If this war fails to make gains Yuri and Maestro are completely out of the game. They might be out of it in any case, but they have to take lots of land if they're going to be break-even.



Speaking of making land gains, oi, Cimmera is getting pushed. I actually think I'll be building culture up to the third-ring, although I might weave in a theater a run artists instead if my pop grows over 4. This will be a nice little place once it owns all of its tiles, and that food surplus is nothing to sniff at.



The isthmus grassland tile that Cimmera owns currently will probably be adopted permanently by Pictish Point. Once Corinthia up north runs in another growth Pictish will adopt the pigs and grow to its high population potential while still working the 0/4/0 workshop there once chemistry comes in. Need, as always, a rathaus.



Meanwhile, in the core, my littlest legend Zamora is working on growing up all big and strong. I'm thinking its up to size 20 and then stagnate, with one artist running and an actually rather nice hammer output. I know there's a stable there. I must have been smoking something, because I might slip in a canon or rifle, but otherwise this place needs to be building nothing but cultural stuff.



Ah, things hum along nicely. What fresh disaster looms next?

[Commodore]

Ceil, I could really use a second set of thoughts here on this one:

[COLOR="Lime"]Hey Commodore,

As of this turn, we received all Galleons negotiated with RL7, so it's
now confirmed that we will attack Egypt on T117

As for inviting RL7 to join the attack, I would prefer not to do it.
We do have good relations with RL7, but two times in this games they
took actions which by no means can be considered friendly. First, they
settled an aggressive city in the land which was ours by every right
without even notifying us; second, they tried to extort a huge amount
of money from us for extending the NAP. This didn't sour our relations
to a point where I wouldn't consider dealing with them at all;
however, taking into account these actions as well as their current
position in the game, I'm very reluctant to offer any concessions to
them

We would very much prefer to deal with your empire. My impression is
that our relations flourished from the point we met, have been
consistently friendly throughout the game, and are not going to become
worse any time soon. Therefore, I would like to offer you to extend
our NAP to T141 inclusive (when our current NAP with RL7 expires), and
to sign a mutual protection pact for the period of T142-T200
inclusive. The MPP would include

* NAP between our teams
* If RL7 attacks any one of our teams, the other team joins in the war
against RL7
* To make the previous clause possible, any non-aggression agreement
with RL7 which extends beyond T141 should include a clause that it
becomes void if RL7 attacks any one of our teams
* If one of our teams attacks RL7, the other team doesn't have to join

I think that together, we should be able to contain RL7 threat for the
foreseeable future. Since we're both financial, and he's not, we
should be able to keep up with him in research, and either eliminate
him in late game, or win a peaceful victory

What do you think of this?

Cheers
Yuri[/COLOR]

Not wanting to foster paranoia, I sent this out today...

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hey Yuri,

Sorry, didn't mean to have a worrisome silence, but for the long-term MPP I'd like to have my ded-lurker's thoughts before I sign anything that far in the future. I will go ahead and say yes to the turn 141 inclusive NAP, of course I'm not planning anything aggressive but I figure you'd like it in writing just for the reassurance.

I do definitely want us to be the final two vis-a-vis RL7, I'm just slightly nervous about signing a ~90 turn NAP given some of the previous RB games' results.

Until later,
-Commodore [/COLOR]

I'm very torn here. First off, Yuri I'm fairly certain is underestimating how much this war is going to hurt. Luddite doesn't seem like someone who will just roll over when hit. Anything that assumes a post-Egypt world is optimistic, I think.

Secondly, however, I'm reasonable sure that in a two-man culture race, I'm better off. Yuri has one more religion to play with right now and has an extra 1-GP golden age left, but I think better tech + Sistine evens that out. So yeah, I'd sign this immediately if RL7 wasn't around.

But RL7 and Luddite still exist, and they're in first and second place right now. unless Egypt dies remarkably fast tying myself up with Yuri against RL7 might be foolishness. I think I'm going to send a "wait until after this war" message to Yuri here.

On the plus side, he's not exactly in a commanding position right now re:culture. That would be team wonder. Who also have 1.8 blobs and a huge, if outdated, military.



They are friendlier to me than to anyone else right now, though. As steam power just came in, Seven Spirits just helpfully provided the location of my coal; Ophir's city tile.



My first rifle was born this morning, in full view of the Egyptian New English. Being a proud papa, I'd really love to take Mr. Brand New Awesome on an isthmus-long tour, but we'll see if they still are this receptive in half a dozen turns.



A few more rifles will be whipped out of my barracks cities in the next few turns, enough to stop any RL7 knight stacks feeling venturesome and also enough to get a fast strike force going on my galleys once ironclads are available to cover them.



You know, except for the unsightly harbor of Dol Amroth, to my north the inner sea I once shared with MNG is now Lake Hyboria. Up on the northern shore my borders are 4 turns from kissing, baring annoying Mali shenanigans. Might be worth it to push out Hyperborea's borders a titch earlier with a spy or something.



Sooooo where next? Team Vulture is looking eastwards, my friends. Here's to another half-hearted war effort yielding disproportional gains!