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Turn 235
Mackoti took another 3 cities this turn. I'm down to 3 cities left on the main continent. I was, however, able to board all of my remaining modern units onto my galleons and get them out of the war zone. Mackoti has a few of my former cities garrisoned with just a couple of units, so I'm thinking about a cavalry strike to do some razing in 2 turns.
I also offered 1gpt in exchange for Horses with Seven so I can upgrade my remaining cuirs and wellies to cavalry. Haram looks like he may be massing a stack of cannons and rifles to attack the two cities I have left that he can easily reach. He may also have more troops where I can't see them, but there's not much I can do. Those two cities are already building machine guns as fast as they can.
He did, unfortunately (but not surprisingly), retreat all of his remaining ships into Tiflis, so there's nothing I can do to them. I just positioned my destroyers to prevent him from doing a 1-turn amphib invasion of my city like he did with Fox earlier.
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Game mechanics likely will prevent you razing any of the cities you recapture from Mackoti. If you settled these cities or if you have majority culture (I can't remember which is the mechanic preventing you razing your former city) you will not be able to raze. Both perhaps play into it.
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Ah, damnit, that's a bummer. And I can't reach any of his original cities from where I am. I guess I just stack my units in my remaining cities, then, and see how long I can last.
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Don't let that discourage you from attacking where you think you can make gains and/or do the most damage. There is some good to be accomplished by recapturing a city, even if you know your opponent can take it back more or less immediately. There is the possibility of your opponent having to waddle more units through your culture, which returns immediately on all tiles where you retain cultural dominance. You will also likely destroy more buildings each time the building changes hands. While this doesn't necessarily help you, it can slow your opponent. In your case here where it appears likely to be a war of elimination this doesn't do much to help you, but use your units where you think they will be most effective in delaying your ultimate demise.
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Well, I'm not likely to be eliminated quite yet. The only two people who could completely eliminate me would be Seven and Haram. Mackoti can (and has) taken almost all of my continental cities. But I have 2 cities on the opposite side of haram from him, separated from what he has currently captured by a body of water with no access from where his navy is (only Seven, Haram, and I have access to this sea) and one city on its own island. He'll have access to it when my former cities come out of revolt, but he'll have to build an entirely new navy, which will take a lot of time. Haram might be able to take my two cities, but he would have to risk a lot of his combat power to do so, and he has no chance of taking my single island city because he doesn't have an oil-based navy and my destroyers can crush his frigates and galleons as soon as they pop out of the comfort of their city. Seven has both access and an oil-based navy, but so far hasn't shown any interest in dogpiling, and has in fact been helping me by providing me oil (and hopefully he agreed to give me horses).
So the question that arises is: Is the loss of some of my units (as I am likely to lose many of them) worth capturing a former city for a few turns and possibly damaging its infrastructure more?
It doesn't seem so to me. To raze a city and make mackoti start from scratch? Absolutely, especially if I could raze one of the shrine cities or my former capital (which has a boatload of wonders). But just a temporary annoyance doesn't seem worth it when I may need those units to fight off haram. I have no chance to lasting the game, so now my goal is to outlive Haram. 
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Depends how many units...
Also, once he's conquered what he can he'll offer peace - do you plan to accept, or do you want to make him suffer whatever war weariness he's accrued? If the latter Seven is less likely to want to finish you off...
Completed: RB Demogame - Gillette, PBEM46, Pitboss 13, Pitboss 18, Pitboss 30, Pitboss 31, Pitboss 38, Pitboss 42, Pitboss 46, Pitboss 52 (Pindicator's game), Pitboss 57
In progress: Rimworld
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I absolutely don't intend to accept. Once he captures all of my cities there's nothing else he can do to me except maybe bomb my island with airships (he hasn't gotten flight yet), so there's no incentive for me to agree to it. Same reason I didn't accept peace from haram when he attacked.
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Turn 236
Mackoti captured Wildebeest and I'm down to 2 continental cities. I pulled all but one unit out of each and retreated them onto my transports (upgraded this turn and now full). Even though they're obsolete, might as well save as many as I can. He launched some airships at my island city and damaged some of my units, but my machine guns (I have 2 in the city, building another) damaged two of his airships. Sort of a pointless exchange, but whatever.
Seven agreed to the Horse deal, so I have Horses again. Unfortunately, I lost my Iron, so I can't build Cannons, but frankly that's the least of my worries. I can build MGs, Rifles and Cavs, and that should be enough. My techrate is so bad I'll be lucky to get Physics before I'm eliminated, and I burned two GS's on it before mack attacked. Because I lost so many resources, my health is limited to 8 or 9 in my remaining cities, which is causing many of them to be well over their limit right now. Leopard is, in fact, starving, as none of them are particularly food-rich. I'll hopefully be whipping some more to take care of that, but it's a little sad. Damn, tanks are brutal.
January 9th, 2015, 11:58
(This post was last modified: January 9th, 2015, 12:03 by Grimace.)
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Turns 237 & 238
EDIT: Corrected the promotions on Mack's units.
Oh man, what an interesting turn of events!
On T237, Mack finished off my last two continental cities, and I'm down to 3 cities now. I also filled my transports with cavalry and started moving them with the intention of making a go at one of Mack's original, interior cities. However, T238 held a bit of a surprise...
Mack built a fort-bridge to allow him to move his navy into this other body of water!
I don't know why I didn't think of that as I've done it myself in SP games. Anyway, you can see the stack of units he moved through already (2N, 1E of Nyala), and behind them are 4 Galleons (1N of Nyala). He also has a Battleship in the SW fort (where the Tank is sitting).
Luckily, I had 10 Destroyers close enough for them all to attack this round!  And I'm pretty sure he had no idea I had so many.
I didn't really expect to destroy the entire stack, but I actually did much better than I thought I would.
C3 Destroyer vs. C1/Vigilance2 Destroyer, 25.9% odds…WIN! 4 hits (12/100)
C3 Destroyer vs. F1/N2 Battleship, 30.6% odds…WIN!  1 hit (79/100)
C2 Destroyer vs. F1/N2 Battleship, 26.2% odds…WIN!   3 hits (34/100)
C2 Destroyer vs. C3 Destroyer, 28.8% odds…LOSS! 5 hits (10/100)
C2 Destroyer vs. F1/N2 Battleship, 45.6% odds…LOSS! 4 hits (16/100)
C2 Destroyer vs. F1/N2 Transport, 99.2% odds…WIN! 3 hits (58/100)
C1/V1 Destroyer vs. F1/N2 Transport, 98.8% odds…WIN! 1 hit (86/100)
Destroyer vs. F1/N2 Transport 96.5% odds…WIN! 1 hit (85/100)
Destroyer vs. F2 Transport 96.5% odds…WIN! 3 hits (55/100)
Those first three battles really broke his stack's back, and now he only has a badly damaged destroyer and badly damaged battleship left. All of my units were damaged, but a few of them are still reasonably well-off, especially against the Galleons he has to follow up with. I suspect, unless he has several modern units within range, that he'll have to retreat them into a city. He does have that battleship in the fort, but although he could almost certainly kill one of my units with it, it's not enough to break my stack with his galleons. Though I don't have visibility behind that fort, so he could have a stack of 10 battleships right there for all I know.
Anyway, I definitely just screwed his plans for an amphibious invasion of my remaining cities, and I really hope those transports were full of troops because that would make me so happy! I also have another 8 Frigates that I could use against his galleons if I can get them in range, though I lack the funds to upgrade them (at 99gpt). Really makes me wish I had gone Physics instead of Biology, as that would be far more useful right now if I had some airships to soften up his naval units.
So as you can see, I'm not willing to roll over and die, and I'm extremely excited that I got an opportunity to effectively strike back. And that the RNG was kind to me. It'll be interesting to see his actions this turn...I imagine he'll not be happy to see those results!
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Nice job. 
Don't forget the other (IMO more important) role airships play. For the cost you can't buy a better map hack. Intelligence on enemy movements is indispensable in getting your units into the right position to put up the best fight, whether you're attacking or defending. It can be something of a force multiplier, for instance, if your scouting (possibly aided by airship flights over enemy approach vectors) enables you to shift all your defenses toward the front your enemies are approaching from, if you can verify that another possible front is not currently under threat. Airships and rails combined make a huge difference in that sort of action.
Still enjoying the thread, thanks for keeping up the great reports.
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