[SPOILERS] Churchill of Portugal: Gallipoli Part II

[spacetyrantxenu]

I'll post a proper turn report before I leave on Thursday, but the general plan is to keep building units (surprise, surprise). Right now I'm waiting 8 turns for a second great person to spawn, hopefully it won't be an Engineer because if it is I can't start a golden age. I want to use the golden age to change into permawar civics, so I'll swap out of bureaucracy (so long, beautiful capital) and organized religion and into vassalage / theocracy. It will ruin what little economy I have but since I'm not really going to research many more techs anyway, it doesn't matter. More XP for more units I probably won't have to use before the game ends, that's what the civcs swaps get me.

To that end, I'm trying to hold off unit builds in my build queues, but when I started doing that a few turns ago I didn't realize I could get the second great person so soon. I had originally planned to eat a turn of anarchy but I'm wondering now if swapping two civics would require two turns of anarchy, which is obviously not desirable. I'd lose fewer hammers even if some decay on 10 turn old units in my build queues than I'd lose if I wasted two full turns of production in anarchy, so as long as I don't need those units finished before the great person comes I'll still come out ahead. And in any case if I'm in a position to need the units I'm building right now, well I'm already in trouble right? So that's the plan for now, try to avoid completing units in build queues for a few turns and then we'll pour out a bunch in rapid succession when we swap civics. That probably means each city will be close to finishing a longbow and a musket, but if you have a city that has both of those in the queue ready to finish and need something else to build, catapults are still just as disposable as ever. And if you feel threatened, forget the plan and just finish the units. None of this applies to Blue Fish, which is my heroic epic city. It just builds a knight every turn and will keep doing that until I run out of overflow to get me to the 90 hammers threshold. When that happens...probably build a cheap longbow to build up overflow for the next run of knights.

I'll post something about where I want the carracks going before I'm away, too. As of now only one of them are en route to a destination for future mischief. I don't remember exactly, but it should be in position to do something fun by about T250. Pindicator has seen the boat but its route is designed to look like I'm scouting Slowcheetah's west coast. Hopefully Pindicator won't trail me with his caravel, but even if he does it isn't that suspicious a thing for me to scout him with these carracks, I've been doing it for a long time. Now when I'm scouting him with two or three at once in different places...that may get my fleet whacked. I'll have to be careful about that. We can't look too threatening or we won't get a chance to invade at all, since my navy is no match for the Zulu's.

I think that's all for now. Enjoy an indecipherable map view and some unchanged demographics:

T243







Pindicator isn't really building up his power since the last build up, I guess because for the moment he has the invaders out of old India and he is apparently still causing problems for Commodore in his own back yard (Pindicator burned a second city recently, this turn or last turn). I assume Commodore will put a stop to that eventually and since he isn't playing for anything else now he'll probably take another stabby stab at the Zulu. Or maybe not, I'm sure the turns aren't as fun to play as when he thought he could win.

Same thing for Serdoa, likely. He played a seven minute turn today, I doubt he's putting in the same effort he was before when he thought he could catch Plako. So we're down to the Dutch playing for....

(Obviously that means culture victory)

[spacetyrantxenu]

T246 - Well I just accidentally (habitually) did an exit to main menu instead of opening up F1 somehow, but I've already played the turn. I was just taking some screen shots to try and leave a decent report for Yuri. I left a lot of signs in game to give a general idea of what units are doing, what's going on with city build queues, etc. In general, my carracks are sailing around trying not to be noticed by the Zulu sentries while they move into position to invade (razing campaign only) a few cities on the Zulu east coast. They should appear to be scouting, I have markers on the map showing an intended path, but feel free to improvise if necessary because of Zulu attention, or if you think they're going to sink my little fleet. We're at a massive disadvantage in naval power -- this is a one way trip for every one of the units on the water in theater right now. As long as we can burn the 4 (or 5???) cities I'm targeting it will be well worth it.

As for why I'm attacking them, I've probably listed reasons upthread somewhere, specifically revenge/vengeance -- RENVENGEANCE, but also because anyone else I can attack has rifles or grenadiers and that's no fun at all. Besides, we're just waiting to end this game anyway right? Go forth and kill something.




Um...back to instructions...OK, city management. I'm wasting some hammers as units hit the 10 turn limit on hammer decay but that's OK, I'm 4 turns from popping a second great person in Red Fish. Only 15% odds of hitting a Great Engineer and screwing up the golden age plan, so I hope that doesn't happen. Anything else works, it's the 2 man GA. Use it to swap immediately to vassalage/theocracy, and then clear out all the units from every build queue where they're stored up. It's going to be a menagerie of units for sure. The exception is Blue Fish, the heroic epic. All knights, all the time. Unless circumstances warrant something else, of course, but I'm not sure what that would be since knights are the best thing I can build. Anyway once we get the great person out of Red Fish make sure that city doesn't starve.

In general I'm laying off the whip in my older cities and letting them grow to max size. The primary example is New New Fish, which has its tiles farmed for now as it grows to the cap (size 16 I think). It won't there in the number of turns I'll miss this weekend but that's the plan. Once it's size 16 I'll finish the workshops that are 5/6 on a few grass tiles to swap it back to max hammers. Caste would be nice but I'm in permanent slavery so I can whip off this population if I ever need to. Elsewhere...I'm having to pack a bit of culture into Black Fish and Sad Fish so they'll finish theaters before going back to units. But that should all be done before the civics swaps.

I don't think I've shown this yet:




Whip the granary when we can, then start on a lighthouse. We'll have to pop borders with the culture slider or by building culture. Running slider sucks but since I'm having border problems at a few other cities I won't cry about it too much. Besides, it's probably going to take me 30 turns to research Astronomy -- I don't think this game will go on for another 30 turns. So who cares if I waste my economy now?

Similar situation here:




The only thing to check here is to see if there is seafood hidden on one of those two fogged tiles SW and S of the westernmost tile on the island. If there is, build on the west end of the island so the crab is first ring. If not, dump the city on the Survival City sign and we'll have to push out the borders to grab the seafood. Not that I have a work boat anywhere nearby to use. The only purpose of these two cities is to survive annihilation a few turns longer and keep an invader's war weariness at maximum pain by refusing to die.

Before I accidentally closed the game I meant to take screenshots of my cities and graphs, but it's way late now. I still have graphs on everyone but Plako (never getting those back), so I'll post those one of these days. And the city shots to show what I've been up to the last several dozen turns since I posted an in depth report. Maybe when I get back?

Finally, I've surpassed the Zulu in score. I can say I'm 6th place now, since demographics and score both support the claim. This is worth absolutely nothing but whatever, it's better than being in last place finally. They've obviously played a better game than I have, so watching the scoreboard isn't really measuring anything important here.




Of course now they'll probably research an old cheap tech and pull ahead of me again. I know pindicator has a competitive personality.

Yuri, if you have any questions fire away, I have about 12 hours until I'll be unavailable to answer. Thanks again for subbing and have fun with it if you can.

[Azza]

Are all the tiny little ice islands settled once you get that one?

[spacetyrantxenu]

No, there's more islands out there but I think scattering two remote outposts for Serdoa or whoever to find should be enough. As long as no one trades maps around....

I passed by a closer island on the way to the southern one but it had no food at all. I'm a choosy survivalist. Then there's a bigger island up north that has two barb cities on it. Those could be fun for someone to take, but I wasn't up to the job with the one musket I had on board the carrack that took the settler up north. Serdoa and Plako have been grabbing a lot of spots lately I think, and Commodore may or may not have resettled some of his razed cities too.

[yuris125]

Sorry Xenu...



That's 24 Grenadiers, 21 Knights, 15 Cats, 10 Muskets

We have 51 units in Blue Fish, including 19 Cats... which he saw with Airships. I'm worried he decided to go in anyway, 19 Cats is a lot, and Grenadiers are not that great against Knights. He is going to suffer losses. Either he miscounted, or has a second SOD coming imminently. Or I'm too optimistic thinking we can handle it

Will hold off playing the turn until tomorrow morning

[yuris125]

One more thing... we have 100% defences in both Blue Fish and Black Fish. We also have 6 Pikes and 5 Spears in Blue Fish, I can burn our cash and upgrade them to Pikes, and move 1 more Spear from the south and upgrade it too. 21 Knights against 6 Pikes behind 100% defences... not sure they can win, but will need to sim it. There are other units besides Pikes too, Knight against Longbow with 100% defences won't get great odds either. I very much doubt he can take our cities just with Knights with no support. So he will have to move his stack onto flat land to move Cats in position... and then we can hit it with our Cats, possibly with better result. I think waiting makes sense....

[yuris125]

Serdoa retreated. We might lose Mad Fish, which is under amphibious assault, but hopefully even that one will hold. Also, 2 of our Carracks defeated his Galleons at 25ish%

Popped GM, started GA, revolted to Vassalage/Theocracy as planned. Had doubts, as potential attack on Zulu will have to be delayed, but we will need highly experienced units in any case

Hope I didn't screw up good luck!

[spacetyrantxenu]

I thought I'd be able to play this turn and 11 this morning before work but it doesn't look like it. Sounds like you did fine Yuri, thanks! I have no idea why Serdoa would have withdrawn from Blue Fish...he knew what we had in there because of the airships. The only thing I can think is that he wants to buy more time to get a few more units down there, so he's going to divert and attack Mad Fish first? But that doesn't make much sense, he knows I have a high population for such a small empire. We're about to whip this thing into the ground....musket after musket after musket....Bless you Churchill, CHA/PRO doesn't suck when you're staving off annihilation.

Anyway...as previously mentioned in this thread, this attack means Serdoa has given up on winning the game since the cost in power it will take to kill me isn't worth the meager gains. I'll play it out but really, Bigger/Lewwyn's CV play isn't enough to keep us from calling this game from Plako. I wish someone would bring it back up in the tech thread. I'm not going to do it because Serdoa should have his fun if he wants to have a go at me, but really...this is all pointless by now. GG Plako!

[spacetyrantxenu]

Oh, as for the Zulu attack, I'll have to see where our units are when I get back into the game. If we can burn a few of their cities I say do it anyway, it's the most fun thing at this point in the game.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T251 - Maybe I'll write more of a turn report tomorrow morning, or maybe I'll just dump a ton of pictures. I took way too long to play that turn, I really want this game to end or I'm going to keep sinking time into it.

Northern front.




That sure is a lot of units. I'll bet they'll do some damage when they come in. To the pain!

Southern front.




I didn't work back through the combat logs to figure out what is on those galleons but it's enough to finish the lone swordsman in Mad Fish. Since that will disconnect my horse supply I've offered a corn for horse trade to Commodore. In any event I cleared all the knights from my build queues (cleared 'em the only responsible way -- ) so if I don't get horses I don't really care anyway, I can whip muskets just as well. Barracks + vassalage + theocracy means CG3 muskets every time. Woo. Yay PRO?

The unopened front:




Well yeah it's suicidal to attack the Zulu now that Commodore has given them peace (why now???! ) since their navy will blockade me into oblivion, in addition to sinking every boat I have. But I don't care, I'm going to burn three cities because I can. Or I'm going to try to. Barring completely terrible dice roll I should burn two for sure. This is inconsequential and likely annoying since the Zulu can't catch a break, but that's what they get for attacking me ages ago.

Everything else I have is game info shots + city screens so I'll dump all that in the morning. Except for the obligatory F9 screen:




Sixth place, going on seventh place.