[SPOILERS] - social distancing with pindicator

[scooter]

[pindicator]

Operation: Your MoM is back on the menu!

[Old Harry]

Operation: Your MoM

A bit of explanation for the map:
- The blue lines are 1-movers. I was hoping to get amphibious grenadiers from the HE city on the west coast, but getting military science and then moving even one would delay the attack 3 or four turns
- The yellow lines are 6-move boats, the red are 5 movers. I need to add a colour for 4-movers.
- The light blue is what mjmd can see (ships excepted)

We'll probably just build boats out of the HE city, first the 6-move galleon(s) for the southern attack, then some 5 and 6-move frigates for the central attack. We'll need at least 5 galleons from the coastal cities in the central sea. That leaves what we attack with... The southern cities are empty right now, but we have to assume they will get a rifle or two, so a couple of boats full of grenadiers will be needed. The central attack faces 3 rifles, so we need to attack with grenadiers, what I'm thinking right now is CR2 maces upgraded on t0, so we can delay military science until t211, but that's a lot of upgrade gold, so maybe there's a better plan. We also have 5 possible amphibious knights to mop up.

[Thoth]

[Old Harry]

Turn 206-7

It's the sad turn where we decide on our post-GA civics and look forward to far fewer hammers and beakers. We bit the bullet and took slavery to build the galleons, frigates and grenadiers we need. It has the unfortunate side effect of delaying the attack to t215, to get the great people we need, but the extra time will let us build a lot more units.


In foreign news Jowy declared on Mjmd last turn, presumably a war/peace offer to test the waters. We sent a bunch more (perhaps too many?) warnings for both Colztea and Charon being attacked on t208. He's whipped both cities recently so hopefully he'll have a good defence ready.


Demos before and after the GA ended.  

[pindicator]

50% more food than 2nd. When do the other stats catch up?

[Old Harry]

Turn 208

50% more food than 2nd. When do the other stats catch up?

The whip converts the food into hammers... does that help?

Jowy with an odd but very welcome offer. Is that a thank you? It should speed Grenadiers by a turn or two.

Ah, perhaps it's because Mjmd offered peace when he saw the coastal cities were too well defended? It's possible that our warnings backfired a bit here - it'd be much better for us if they fought and got bogged down with each other, but the chance of Jowy just folding was just too risky to take.

This led to a moment of panic - where have those galleons gone? Our privateer doubles back to ensure the south west coast is safe, but the galleons could have headed up towards the HE city. One of our galleons takes time out from travelling to the far south to ensure Mjmd can't hit King O Montival with a 4-mover this turn. We get a Frigate out next turn so this is probably the last turn I'll feel worried. In reality Mjmd hasn't had time to react to Jowy's acceptance, so most likely the galleons have headed south to hit Charriu or return their contents to India.

I'm having a daydream about getting Monty another 6XP somehow, capturing Sugar Cookies and burning the empty capital.

Demos and power. India finished Constitution and is 1-turning Economics this turn, so if we'd tried to contest it I think they'd have won easily.

[Old Harry]

Turn 211

We've been tracking these boats as they make their way north. They haven't been in range of any of our cities so we could just let them keep going, or we could put a privateer and two frigates in range to kill them next turn...

Given that we want to keep the peace until Your MoM is go (another four turns at least) we'll let the galleons live if they keep out of range of our cities.


Down south one of these privateers looks like it's going to escort a galleon (home?) The other could cause trouble for our attack plan if it patrols where it is. We'll move a frigate down to try and scare it away next turn. Again we don't want to upset the delicate peace, but killing a privateer seems less war-like than sinking a galleon full of troops. The galleon+escort might be a problem as well if they move across the path of our attack galleons at the wrong moment.


Our secondary war target - Maple Sugar - had an extra rifle for a couple of turns, but that disappeared, so things are still on track for a strike. The complicating factor is the caravel under the rifle which has been checking out our staging tile. We have a privateer which could kill it, but that's a very risky strategy -we know there's a stack of rifles and cats behind the hills and if those move into the city then the battle is off.

Moving our stack as if to attack Sugar Cookies could give us a bit of room to breathe if it drew those units to the north.


Over in Charriu's lands Mjmd is proceeding very slowly against the last two cities. Is that because he's lost a lot of units (the power graph doesn't think so), because he's not racing Jowy (who signed peace with Charriu), because he's a cautious fighter (could be...) or because the rest of the army is heading back to the west in anticipation of a backstab? ( )


Demos and power. Neck and neck on MFG now, but we're whipping more so I'll call that a win. GNP still looks bad, but Pindi's analysis says Mjmd gained 8k beakers to our 10k beakers over the last ten (?) turns, so with two golden ages in hand things might be more even there. He is still ahead 48,448 beakers to our 29,013. Jowy has 33,348 so could still be a factor, but Cairo seems to have stopped teching at 23,631 beakers.

[Old Harry]

Turn 212

The privateer scared the galleons away (somewhere to the west), but this caravel came back to scout our coast - something that is absolutely unacceptable - so we killed it with a privateer (flawless victory, 10XP). I offered Mjmd 30 gold to try to keep relations cordial.


He can kill a caravel back and even take Corvallis if he's really pissed (spoiler - according to PBspy he didn't). But we have frigates now, so hopefully we can scare his privateers away. One frigate is moving here - it's going to be very tricky to sneak our 6-move galleons past to hit the MoM, so the best outcome here would be for the privateer to head due west (unlikely).


We have our sentry net set up now, mostly caravels shuttling between the sentry signs with a privateer in the far north. We probably need a stack of frigates over here somewhere in the medium term. The net can shuffle across the sea to give earlier warning, but that might leave holes for someone to exploit.


India is pushing on Charriu's capital, it should fall in 2-4 turns, depending how much bombarding he does. Jowy re-declared on Charriu this turn, I fear it's with the intention of capturing Berserk Halfling and getting Mjmd out of the war. Perhaps we can convince Jowy to fight him over here while we open up a western front?


Demos and power. We have a lead on MFG now, but Mjmd has printing press and Free Speach meaning his towns are worth 3gpt more than ours still.

[Old Harry]

Turn 214

Here's a question for the lurkerati: How do internal trade routes get chosen? Corvalis has a 5c route to Tillamook, the capital.


While Columbia does not have a route to Tillamook. Is Columbia too near the capital? It's 8S 4W from the cap while Benton is 12W 1N from Columbia and does have a link to the city. Or is there some other reason?


Down south you can see a bunch of workers building a fort - ready next turn - from where our 6-move boats can get to the staging tile in one turn. Mjmd is still shepherding his boats home which probably means that they'll be able to see the staging tile on t216. We need to decide if we just make the move and hope he doesn't notice or doesn't realise the boats are 6-movers, or we delay the attack until he can't see the staging tile.

So what units do we have to attack with down here? There's CR2 mace which will upgrade to a grenadier when the boat goes through Worcester, an amhpi musket and four knights (three amphi, one medic). As long as he doesn't put more than a couple of rifles in the MoM city we should take it. Then we do some raiding along the south coast until he gets the naval power to oppose us there.


Up north we have two grenadiers already (upgraded from cr2 maces) and will complete five more this turn, then there's an amphi axe that can be upgraded for 215 gold. The gold might be better spent on upgrading a couple of galleys (110 gold each) or triremes (140 each) instead/as well?

We'll have 6 frigates which can take the city down to 12% culture, but 3 of them will need to be visible to him the turn before - perhaps they'll look like they're heading to the southern ocean? So would adding a fourth and fifth look too suspicious and make him reinforce? Three feels natural, five seems like overkill...

Here's a matrix to let us think about what we want.

Units up north	Baseline	Upgrade axe for 215	Upgrade 2 galleys for 220	Upgrade axe and 2 galleys 435
CR2 grenadier	2	2	2	2
Amphi gren	0	1	0	1
5xp gren	5	5	5	5
C3 amphi knight	2	2	2	2
C2 amhpi knight	1	1	1	1
Regular knights	5	4	11	10
Galleons	5	5	7	7
6-move frigates	3	3	3	3
4-move frigates	3	3	3	3
Triremes	3	3	3	3
Upgrade costs	110	325	330	545
Gold t216	682	467	462	247

While the cash for the upgrades is an important aspect of this we also want to think about the number of units we can afford to lose to kill the Indian Heroic Epic and Forbidden Palace city. Right now the expected losses are 5-8 units, that seems reasonable to me.

Once we're at war we'll be in Nationhood drafting muskets, and the core of the Indian army is still in the far east, so hopefully we'll have a good stack of cannons by the time it gets back, but it would still be useful not to lose all our knights at this point...


Speaking of the far east, Mjmd and Jowy are in a bit of a stand-off over Charriu's capital. Whoever attacks first will probably lose out (and their enforced peace means they get a chance to heal up after taking the city), so Mjmd moved over to take Berserk Halfling which might give Jowy an opportunity if he manages promo-healing well.


Demos and power. Mjmd revolted to Emancipation and Universal Suffrage last turn. He's not in a golden age so he's in his second turn of anarchy this turn. If only we'd been able to attack now... Meanwhile Cairo has started a golden age though and his mfg and gnp rocketed so we still don't look amazing. Looking at the power graph is Mjmd likely to think we're trying to level the playing field so he doesn't attack us, or that we're about to launch an all out attack on him? Perhaps we need to send Jowy some diplomatic messages to encourage the dogpile...