[SPOILERS] Churchill of Portugal: Gallipoli Part II

[spacetyrantxenu]

T200 - The game position hasn't changed markedly since T199 with the exception that my fears over Slowcheetah's delay on declaring war on someone turned out, ultimately, to be unnecessary. I therefore retract my previous regret for my wild cackling a few turns ago and urge Slowcheetah to smite the Zulu mightily, at least for a moment.



That's more like it, Slowcheetah. Best case scenario is that their armies and navies devastate each other and a lot of resources are wasted. Also, to not bury the lead in terms of news we care about here in the Portuguese empire, "popped another one" at One Fish. The RNG gods, after giving me much abuse earlier in the game, hath surely thrown me a frickin' bone here. The less said better off here, though, lest they somehow invent a mechanism for taking the new gems away. Anyway the timing is convenient, as I was in a bit of a happiness pinch in one city, as previously reported. My own previous gems resource had been traded away to Plako ages ago, in a deal that I've since renegotiated on two different occasions to improve the returns for selling my only source of gems. So now I can keep the (three) resources I'm getting for gems from Plako and keep my own for happiness. Unless I can make another three for one deal elsewhere now....?

Back to the news of the turn, the war declaration, I've sent a few carracks down to have a look around the Zulu empire.




On these two boats are three of my chariots. They've been assigned snooping duties to find useful military information about the Zulu (or Slowcheetah) and report it back to Churchill. Evidently there is ongoing discussion with the minister of war about how best to exploit the developing "situation" so more information will be helpful in that regard. The currently relevant information is that Skippers (better known as Glad Fish) is still well guarded by a stack of macemen that we do not have the means to easily remove. Meanwhile Qdoba (which civilized people know as Bad Fish) is still guarded by a single archer unit. It is under discussion whether it is worth the effort to retake Bad Fish, given how marginal the city is, and whether we could persist in holding it if hostilities resumed (nevermind the culture problem that caused it to flip in the first place). Answering both of those questions will be more possible soon when the chariot newly arrived on the northern Zulu coast has a look around at their local garrisons. More on this later, to be sure.

No big news in my territory this turn other than the gems that popped at One Fish.




I completed Aesthetics and will burn through Literature at the end of the turn. That will open up Blue Fish to building the Heroic Epic as soon as its forge completes. I thought about whipping the forge but I want Blue Fish at max size as soon as possible because I think I'll be able to pull more hammers out of all those mines, running them through the forge and HE than I would by just continuing to whip that city. I have some other forge builds underway, two of them are probably a touch optimistic, but I'm going to try for them. Black Fish is an obvious whip city once it grows and a forge improves whip yields. Same story in Sad Fish, except that forge will actually complete one day. Two Fish's forge is a slow build because all of its food seems to stay on loan to other cities most of the time. But hopefully I'll finish it soon.

Demographics - I'm last in power now, I don't want to stay there for very long or that will project the wrong image of my prickly little empire.



On deck: T200 city photos and graphs.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T200 - Graphs and Information (I forgot to grab the function key screens, I'll try to remember those when I play the turn)

For those who prefer the 50 turn view, I thought about that and decided I liked the full history better anyway, especially for the T200 report, which is more of an overall snapshot than a regular turn report. Sorry!

Score


GNP


MFG


Food


Power (Underwhelming)


Culture


Espionage


Top 5 / Wonders


Statistics - sorted by my remaining army and infrastructure

[spacetyrantxenu]

T200 - City screens here. I don't think I've shown most of these in a while so take it easy on me on the , OK? I highlighted the whip anger in most of the cities since that seems fairly relevant info for my position in this game -- how much more anger we can take is a relevant question to ask.

One Fish


Two Fish


Red Fish


Blue Fish


Old Fish


New New Fish


Black Fish


Sad Fish


Mad Fish

Bonus time: My cities that are currently under new management (that hopefully will one day be back under MY management! )

Bad Fish (Qdoba)


Glad Fish (Skippers)

Again, I'll try to grab F1 - F8 tonight when I play to complete the info set.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T202 - The war is on:




Slowcheetah captured 5 guys. I wouldn't be surprised if the Zulu had evacuated the city. But that may be a trap. I don't have full visibility down there but that's a lot of Zulu boats. Sink ALL THE HAMMERS!

I've started building the Heroic Epic in Black Fish, due in 6 turns. Whipped the forge at Sad Fish on the first turn that the city was eligible for a 3 pop whip. Whipped the carrack to clear the queue at Old Fish, it's all catapults and longbows, etc., now. Navies are a pipe dream.




The screenshot says to overflow to moai in Sad Fish but it'll probably go to longbows. I can't afford to not whip that city, so no moai. I'm pretty sure the builds in Black Fish and Mad Fish are pointless by now, those cities should probably just build wealth instead. At least in Black Fish the forge would work out if I was left alone long enough, but Serdoa clearly isn't finished with me. He just built the Forbidden Palace in Terrapin. I suppose that means he think that will be an administrative center of his empire in the future? COME AT ME BRO!

Serdoa also grabbed Divine Right, the holy city (useless at this point in the game) is north in Brick's territory somewhere. So either he's going to build Versailles up in Brick's old land for further cost reduction, or he's going the full monk and all that. I think he still has a great engineer up his sleeve, but I assumed at this point he'd hold that for the Statue of Liberty, which would be great for him. But that's a 9,000+ beaker tech to research, so....who knows.

F9:



Looks like the Zulu took a bit of a beating in the loss of Five Guys. Whether it was on land or by sea I don't know. But I'm back to #6 in power for the moment.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T203 - I should be sleeping, not writing another report so this is going to be short. I hope Slowcheetah or the Zulu are giving their war a better report. Well, Scooter probably is. Slowcheetah probably just wants to lick his wounds. I think his navy is at the bottom of the ocean:




Uh. That's a lot of Zulu boats and not many Cheetah boats. And quite a few units marooned in Five Guys. If they're cut off from reinforcements, and I think they are, there may be more blood letting as pikemen skewer that stack of knights. Which that leads me to a question given the one tile island...can catapults attack amphibiously to collateral an island city like that? And would it even be effective with the 50% penalty to attack?

Back to the battle, the Zulu are missing quite a few caravels that they had last turn. I think they used a swarm of caravels to attack into Slowcheetah's galleons and then cleaned up with their own galleons. Looks like the Zulu lost 1 galleon, slowcheetah lost several but I don't have a count on those, I don't think I ever saw how many galleons he had. Unless they've evacuated before the Zulu navy arrived, though, they're all dead except for the one pictured here.

This implies that Slowcheetah had really bad timing on the attack. He probably expected and prepared for only caravels, but we know that the Zulu went on a massive whipping spree over the last several turns. My guess is that they finished Astronomy, immediately whipped/upgraded a lot of boats, and set out to sink the invading navy. If I had been paying close attention to their tech screen I could have seen when they finished Astronomy but I'm not so I didn't.

This outcome is disappointing because I hoped the navies would be evenly matched enough that they both wasted hammers killing each other's equipment. But a decisive victory for the Zulu means I won't be able to contest them on the waters for a long time, as I'm in no position to tech Astronomy. So it looks like Fortress Portugal will continue, strong(ish) on land, irrelevant on the water. And really, I'm not that strong on land...just a bit stronger than the Zulu. For now.

With that in mind, maybe the Moai build in Red Fish is a bit optimistic?




I have stone now so I'm going to give it a try. If I can finish it and not have all my sea tiles blockaded that will give me +8 hpt in Red Fish, which will offset the hammers I'm going to lose when I permanently hand over the iron and grass hill mine to Blue Fish for use in its HE builds. Elsewhere, I'm still working on forges, catapults, and miscellaneous obsolete trash that will hopefully help me survive.

I'm running 100% science into Guilds, good enough to climb out of last place for the moment. You can also see where the war to my south has dropped Zulu power below mine again. But they're strong where it matters for the moment, where they're under attack. I don't think they'll lose another city unless I've been wildly unsuccessful in my scouting down there.



I should get updated power graphs for the T202 fighting next (this?) turn when I play, tomorrow morning. If there's anything interesting I'll try to post it.

But I can get a lurker to fill me in...if the Zulu or Slowcheetah are reporting this war well in their threads I can probably skip some of it. Can someone let me know?

[Merovech]

The Zulu are updating.

[Sareln]

iirc, you can't attack amphibiously with units that can't kill.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

iirc, you can't attack amphibiously with units that can't kill.

Only CKNs can do amphibious collateral, IIRC.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T207 - Mostly photos for now, Little Tyrant will probably be waking up soon and that's going to be it for my playing time for today.




Serdoa's Forbidden Palace build in Terrapin has stolen the rice tile from Black Fish's second ring. I doubt I'll be getting that back for a while. I really can't afford to stop building units and that city is majorly exposed anyway. Cuirassiers are going to destroy it eventually, whether I have the rice or not. So don't worry about it, focus on units! (The city whipped a longbow this turn).

I know the signs are cluttered up but I don't have a whole lot to do with my workers, so they mostly go around pre-workshopping tiles up to 5/6. If I end up needing a spare hammer or two in a city I swap a farm to a workshop, then swap it back to a farm the next turn. I only have six workers but really, they have nothing better to do. If I was a cheaty bastard I guess I could build a cottage every turn and pillage it for a few coins, but that's not exactly a savory thing to do, in my opinion. Then again, it would at least cover most of the cost of these workers. I just can't stomach deleting them because they're too expensive to replace -- each one costs the equivalent of a pikeman! So they continue to eat and mostly not contribute anything. I really should try to spare build time to throw out more settlers, you know, so Serdoa and Plako can autoraze them in a few turns when they come rolling in.

Demographics:



My power is still 6th, mostly because the Zulu are losing units attacking Slowcheetah's western cities! Orleans was razed last turn. Wow, that war has turned into a giant clusterfuck for Slowcheetah. If you ever needed an example of why naval power matters...well this is a good example. The Zulu's army is so small it really shouldn't be anything to worry about (well unless you're small like me), but Slowcheetah is so spread out that he can't counter the Zulu's naval advantage and reinforce where he needs to in the area, or that's what it seems like to me. I wouldn't be surprised if another city falls before the Zulu wrangle some kind of peace deal out of Slowcheetah. I have a chariot wandering around down there now keeping an eye out (and surreptitiously pillaging "neutral territory" tiles, looks like the Zulu did it! ), if anything really interesting happens I'll report it. Otherwise, I have no ded-lurkers -- go read the Zulu thread!

These screens are from last turn when I had full graphs. I lost Commodore's graphs for T207 but I should get them back for T208.

GNP - Good grief, Plako. Aren't golden ages delicious? (He is in a GA, right? RIGHT? I don't remember and I'm out of game, will check the event log later to confirm)


Power - Yeah, I'm not keeping pace. The slow growth is me adding in some late, late forges instead of spending those hammers on about six catapults. Think I may regret it soon when Serdoa shows up with his stack of cuirassiers? (I don't have confirmation that he has them, but his power is rising quickly and if I was him attacking some backwards civ like mine I'd want powerful, mobile units to do the job). When he decides to move in Black Fish is toast, but I hope I get another chance to smash some of his units out in the open again. My guess is that he doesn't give me the chance a second time around.

But yeah, with him building the Forbidden Palace right on my border, I don't see that as an indication of long term peace ahead. I hope he loses the game trying to attack me, but I don't think I'll be able to present a formidable enough defense to hurt him that much.

What's that, a new turn in PB11! Yay, cya guys!


EDIT: Oops, OK so I missed posting the power graph I described. Here it is a few days later:

[Ceiliazul]

I wouldn't be surprised if another city falls before the Zulu wrangle some kind of peace deal out of Slowcheetah.
...
What's that, a new turn in PB11! Yay, cya guys!

Excellent analysis and prediction. Does PB11 means the end of the Seuss News Network?