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City overview? Tech plans? War plans? Whos winning?
January 6th, 2019, 10:29
(This post was last modified: January 6th, 2019, 11:24 by Elkad.)
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Turn 220
Education is in. I'm building an extra university in my HE city (Nobiskrug), as Antium is trying to push out a GM and I don't want to delay that.
HE/Maoi city makes 90hpt in troop mode.
20t at stable food from a 4-man MoM-powered GA. Small chance of Artist(NE pollution), tiny chance of Spy(1t oops), either of which would be terrible as I have both already.
I'm 3rd of 4 in everything that matters.
Also behind several techs. PS instead of Rep is probably most of that problem.
Despite PS, I'm behind in troops. Or 2 movers anyway.
shallow_ has lots of Knights, not much else.
But he's 2t from MilTrad, so Cuirs are coming.
Persia is putting out culture pressure everywhere. I've lost 2 food tiles (Pigs and Rice) in NotRome, and with 3 cities of pressure I'm not getting them back.
Not just me, look at the mouseover. Zulu's are about to lose their Gems tile, and probably the Banana above it.
Evil End has a cathedral and a stack of Sistine-powered artists in it.
Persia has a lot of 2-movers as well. Short on siege unless he's hiding it somewhere else, and I've been looking. Enough to break a stack, not enough to break castles.
Forgot to take shots of Magic. He has about 6 galleons kicking around, and probably a grudge, so I can't leave my north coast empty either.
Not much in the way of ground troops. My caravels are checking his cities, but of course he could be loading troops on boats before I see them.
He's researching Engineering (25)
Plans. Not really.
Don't die.
Save cash until Universities are built.
Get into a GA.
Probably Chem>MilSci, then hold some cash for a Praet>Gren upgrade if needed. Steel next is logical, but so is Physics. Or rifles.
Super has offered a copper-copper a couple times. I reciprocated, but he's got to declare first.
He's got the 2-movers to smash a target on the opening turn (like Evil End). He can lose a dozen cuirs hitting Pikes in a castle and still stuff 30 more units in it on the opening turn.
January 7th, 2019, 22:07
(This post was last modified: January 7th, 2019, 22:49 by Elkad.)
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And the very next turn.
shallow_ declares on Super. I don't know if he saw something coming, didn't like a border worker (same reason he declared on me not long ago), or was trying to get a 10t peace so he could attack me.
Edit: the knight shift says it was for real.
But super responded by burning Evil End.
Both sides have shifted troops towards one another. I can still see 60 of shallow_'s Knights, and they have all shifted west.
the stack of 11 in the prior shot is now in the 21+medic spot. Those 21 are now adjacent to the stack of 18.
hHs catapults did not move. and are still on my side of the map.
super offered iron/iron (twice I think, but one may have been shallow and I misread)
I offered iron/iron back.
However, due to my recent Crab/Crab deal with shallow_, I am not comfortable declaring on him with no warning.
So as a warning, I closed borders with shallow (which will cost me investigate, but not view, on all his cities), and blatantly positioned my whole offensive stack where it threatens both Quigley (renamed Charriu capital) and ReptileRoom (Charriu territory), but NOT jacques.
To the north I pulled 6 trash axes out of Almaty (Magic's Maoi city, which is swamped in super's culture). Those plus the stuff (6 more axes, plus defenders) in Cuzco should keep PP2 honest (he can see it all), and I'll have 1500 in cash to take them ALL to maces if needed. Revolt chance in Almaty (now with 2 longbows only) is 7%, and it's already had one revolt. I may lose it. Risk I'm willing to take, it was going to be useless for a LONG time.
Cuzco finished Forbidden Palace, will 1t walls, and can 1t a following castle if needed.
All seven Universities go on pause to queue up 4t Muskets everywhere. Acceptable delay, I was going to be in cash mode for quite some time anyway.
I'd like to upgrade the axes now, but I may need it for something else. Archers>Longbows elsewhere. Emergency Warrior upgrades if Magic decides to load his boats. Whatever.
And if I don't need it at all, I'd like to save it for teching of course. There is no reason to tech Chemistry before I can burn through MilScience or Steel anyway, as it gains me nothing on it's own, and I need something like 5000 saved to do that.
By delaying a turn, I also avoid the possibility that super burned Evil End and immediately offered peace, which would sucker me into declaring. I don't think that's the case
Map shows correct city units for shallow_. Knights moved as indicated by the arrows, so the Grim Grotto stack(11) is at Lemony, Lemony(21) is at Klaus.
shallow_ can move the stack of 11 now at lemony to either reinforce PP2 or Reptile Room. He finishes MilTrad at the flip. Reptile Room finishes a knight at the flip (which will autoconvert to a cuir), jacques has one in 2t, quigley just started a musket I think (view went away when I closed borders, didn't write it down). He's in Bureau, so no rushing. Only 300g in the bank, no profit, so he'll use a chunk of that on teching.
Initial number on city signs is culture% - using the % sign did strange things. A couple to the south say castle instead of a number.
By positioning where I don't threaten Jacques, I'm hoping he'll think I'm just taking an opportunistic shot to grab Charriu's capital and get some culture pressure off.
Only gives me a 2-way fork instead of 3, but if he doesn't reinforce due to a need to cover Jacques, I'll take it.
January 7th, 2019, 22:34
(This post was last modified: January 7th, 2019, 22:46 by Elkad.)
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He has a weak counter-attack play. Shove those 11 knights to fork Antium and NotRome. However, they are far enough away I can reposition and/or pay for upgrades, and he'll be smashing his face on 125% culture.
NotRome has the bulk of my defenders. It's the less-valuable city, but it's only behind 1t of my culture.
HillsAreBetter has Longbows and Muskets which can move down to Antium if needed.
Likely play.
Declare next turn (222)
Position praets and cats between Quigley and RR. Knights stay a tile behind on my roads so they can keep full mobility. I have a general with my Praets, so he can be burned for a post-combat set of healing promotions if needed.
Take quigley on T223. Push on RR if possible.
In the north. Threaten pp2 to pin stuff, even if I just push unpromoted axes and let his xbows pick at them.
get something in range to take slippery, it's vulnerable.
Strategic. Spend Praets. Preserve my knights, as if this breaks open, I'll be in a 2-mover rush to take his land before super can.
In the north I have my caravels bunched up near my capital. I can't keep Magic from unloading troops in my land, but there will be a caravel/galleon bloodbath afterwards and his boats shouldn't make it home again.
If super changes directions and stabs me, it's over. I'm thin in the east.
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Very interesting.
Arent you rushing too fast? May be youd'd better let them burn a couple of cities more instead of pulling everything back. Just as a thought to discuss.
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The only reason I'm even delaying a turn is because of the crab<>crab deal.
If I don't show my hand to super's observers, he might take peace. I have to move now. It's critical.
Peace puts me in third again, and if they have a treaty, I expect both (and maybe Magic, even if he just murders all my fishermen again and pins troops in 4 coastal cities) will use the 10t to jump on me. I wouldn't survive that in any meaningful fashion.
By positioning troops where I did, I'm also hopefully projecting the illusion I just want some of shallow_'s recent conquests, and not his core (and his wonders - I sure hope Sistine gets burned).
With my massive EP advantage (1500 vs 500), shallow knows I can see everything. If he pushes a counter-attack at me anywhere, I'll see it coming.
If shallow_ has a choice of keeping his 60 knights in the center and smashing anything approaching his core cities (and supporting his assumed-but-unseen assault on the south coast), vs rushing off to a corner to catch my slow-moving praets, I'm hoping he'll be forced into the first option.
It should look good to super as well. He gets the good stuff if he stays in the war, I get the edges.
I even have the option to flip it again. Take charriu's land from shallow_, optionally scramble my knights north and grab some of Magic's land, then grab a peace and turn on super.
Politically, it's risky, as I wouldn't have any safe flanks at all.
Strategically, that's the play to get to first place. super and I hammer shallow down to third. Then shallow and I hammer super down to 3rd.
Oh and magic has gunpowder and is presumably headed for chemistry. I need to look at that. Frigates vs caravels mean my coastal situation gets untenable. Likely it's 30 turns away, but it needs to be on the radar.
January 11th, 2019, 11:25
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Super isn't pushing.
shallow_ brought 40 knights to my side of the map (in 2 stacks), plus his catapults.
I burned Quigley and pulled my stack back across the river (defense bonus, plus his catapults couldn't reach it), minus a dozen catapults I abandoned to their deaths.
shallow killed the catapults and pulled back himself. My knights could hit his wounded knights at good odds, but the other half of his knights would then cleanup mine. Since he has far more than me, not a path I want to go down.
Banged on the longbow in slippery slope with three guerilla2 musketeers (at a glorious 3% chance of victory). Didn't get any hits, so I abandoned that line of approach. I had 6 in position, plus a couple G2 longbows, had I got a hit, I would have kept trying. Now that longbow has it's own G2 promotion, so it's no longer vuln to a raid like that. Would take a concerted effort instead.
Not sure where to go from here. Standoff again.
January 16th, 2019, 19:32
(This post was last modified: January 16th, 2019, 19:34 by Elkad.)
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And as I feared, Super took a peace treaty.
shallow has pushed everything at me, and cleaned up my knights. I'm looking at 60 knights and 20 cuirs about to sweep my core.
I've got 20 praets and about the same in muskets to stop them, so not nearly enough.
Revolted to slavery (w/ 1t anarchy), not that it will help much.
shallow will just get slightly smaller cities after I whip a million pikes.
By the time super's treaty is up, shallow should have half of my land. I assume at some point super will just declare on me himself and get some scraps.
Super moved a big chunk of his army into my territory. Maybe he expects me to still be alive in 8t and he'll help?
January 17th, 2019, 08:53
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And according to civstats, super just took 2 of my cities.
Despite offering me a crab<>crab deal each of the last 3 turns.
January 17th, 2019, 09:00
(This post was last modified: January 17th, 2019, 09:07 by Zed-F.)
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Did SD accept or re-offer back to you in the last 3 turns?
TBH I think getting on the wrong side of a 2v1 was the most likely result of getting involved in the SD-SH war, and it would have been more prudent to sit it out as long as reasonably possible.
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