Oh, I also sent SD a mutual War With Cairo + Fish/Fish proposal. He can probably make some gains there, so we'll see if he wants that combined with a longer term de-escalation with us.
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[SPOILERS] scooter Expands the Empire Across the Sea
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We were a day late and a dollar short with Lib and our Bing attack it seems, and might be the same with settling pink/black dot, so hopefully that doesn’t apply a second time with Cairo. If the opportunity to take those cities cheaply is there when our forces arrive, I think we just do it. We only bypass and extort based on threatening his core if his border defenses are strong but his core defenses remain weak. Or if his core is sufficiently weak and his border protected, we could just burn his core and follow up with the Grens to take territory.
Agree with MilSci research. The question is whether we follow up with Steel for Cannons/Drydock first, or proceed to Communism first? I think these are both in the cards but the question is ordering. Kremlin is more of a longer term play than Drydocks, but I’m not sure how many Drydocks we build without Kremlin; it might only be a couple. (November 14th, 2024, 13:34)Zed-F Wrote: Agree with MilSci research. The question is whether we follow up with Steel for Cannons/Drydock first, or proceed to Communism first? I think these are both in the cards but the question is ordering. Kremlin is more of a longer term play than Drydocks, but I’m not sure how many Drydocks we build without Kremlin; it might only be a couple. My lean right now is to tech MilSci right now obviously, and then save gold. Once MilSci finishes we'll be 3-4T out from knowing which GP we spawned, and whichever tech path we target, we would need a few turns of gold saving regardless. So I'm comfortable going MilSci -> save gold while checking our GP spawn -> make decision afterwards. I agree we're probably looking at Communism vs Steel in this scenario. For example, if we get horrendous GP RNG, the 3-man is nearly off the table anyway, so at that point we might want to pivot towards a number of paths. Nationalism/Taj becomes an option, for example. If the 3-man is still alive and well, and we feel like Frigs/Grens/SotL are plenty to serve us for a bit, then yeah heading to Communism, firing a 3-man, and using it to build Kremlin for the end-game makes a lot of sense.
Sounds good. I think we also finish Lib before the end of the GA so we can get into Free Religion, since we've finished most of it already and it will help us get to Communism faster. Maybe we even get it finished so we can swap to it from Pacifism when we are done our GPs. I think that's probably more to the point than getting a few extra XP using Theocracy, at least for now. Once we are in our 3rd GA, we might re-evaluate whether we want to keep Free Religion during GA3 and whether we want to transition to Theocracy or Free Religion at its end, depending on whether we want to make the world burn immediately or follow up with a push to metal ships and infantry.
I noticed Cairo played a 4 minute turn (!) right before I was going to call it a night myself, so I thought I'd check to see if he spotted my boat(s) with his Caravel. And boy was this unfortunate for him.
 This Caravel was sitting in Fallen Embers last turn. I was expecting him to move it NE-NE-NE, which would have placed it 1N of its current location. This would have shown one Galleon aimed in his direction, which was probably a minor positioning mistake from me. He would not have seen the one behind it nor the one by Trate, but it might have clued him in. Instead he moved it on an angle, and therefore cannot see any boats other than the Frigate by Trate. Unless he's already sniffed it out, it means one fewer turn for him to attempt to react to me.  Settled this spot. I think I'm going to lose the other spot to Superdeath on the other side of the empire, but at least this one comes with pre-improved foods.  More importantly got eyes on Cairo, and it's lightly defended as expected. He cannot whip or upgrade this unit, so unless he had one nearly complete or another unit en route, this should be all that's there next turn.  Popped a few random Caravels like this as Cairo has a lot of them. The other 2 were up by Skinny Island.  Here's the situation end of turn. I thought really hard about taking the ~40% shot on Fallen Embers with the Crossbow that could reach. The reason it's appealing is he can upgrade that Archer to a Longbow next turn and surely cost me another unit anyway. However, the risk was I lost without doing a ton of damage, and then he promotes to City Garrison and then upgrades to a Longbow. So I'll live with the possible upgrade. The 3 Muskets should be 1 more than is necessary barring a second unit showing up, which feels unlikely but possible.  I offered him this deal which I think has a shot at being accepted or re-offered. Both of these cities are nearly certain to fall, and he's at risk for worse. But there would be value for me to be quick in and out, and remove his culture from these islands entirely while preserving buildings/population. So we'll see what he does.  Here's a gamble I considered taking but opted against. I could have placed my Galleon 1S onto the "forks WC" tile, and you can tell by the direction of the Galleon that I considered it. The upside is the 3 Muskets on board would be a real threat to Wild Child and surely force some upgrades there. The plan in this situation would be to keep the Muskets on board one more turn to preserve the option. The downsides were: 1) risk that multiple Caravels would be nearby and sink the Galleon with the Muskets on board, which would be catastrophic though very unlikely, and 2) Delaying the capture of Flora's Secret for possibly no upside, risking him getting another unit in. I decided the safer play is the right play here, but wanted to note it as a fun option I considered.  Superdeath picked up Guilds on his long road to Chemistry. We get Military Science end of next turn.
Looks promising. I'm not sure how I feel about Cairo potentially taking peace as it might be nice to punish more, but you wouldn't have offered it if you didn't feel it worthwhile, and we might not have enough forces available to really punish heavily yet. Like you said, there are pros to go with the cons, so we'll see what he does.
If Cairo does take peace, do we then turn our attention back to Bing? Or do we need to sniff around some more to see where we can make easy gains while we start to build up Grens? Building up enough Grens to have an impact could take a while since we are in a GA and can't just whip some up. Any thoughts on whether we should, after MilSci, finish Lib before saving gold so that when the GPs are done we can swap Pacifism to it? (November 15th, 2024, 12:10)Zed-F Wrote: Looks promising. I'm not sure how I feel about Cairo potentially taking peace as it might be nice to punish more, but you wouldn't have offered it if you didn't feel it worthwhile, and we might not have enough forces available to really punish heavily yet. Like you said, there are pros to go with the cons, so we'll see what he does. I place a lot of value in having cities ceded peacefully is the short answer. The culture is kicked out, you save lots of hammers in buildings, there's no population loss, and there's no revolt so it is immmediately fully yours and can produce things immediately. Flora's Secret for example would come with instant 10 pop and some buildings, and once in Slavery I could immediately convert that pop into Grens if I wanted, for example. If I capture it, I'd wait a half dozen turns and then maybe have to whip a Granary. This is especially all nice in a Golden Age. The other half is that I'm not sure I could take and hold a lot more. I bet I could take Barcelona to the west, for example, though it would be pretty exposed. OR I could raze a core city maybe. But I would have to choose between the two options. I can't push TOO much further without tempting SD to come back at me in 6T. If he refuses, it's possible I just settle for these two cities anyway and try to make him regret not taking the deal by pillaging his coast. I'm also trying to straddle the line between convincing my various opponents to calmly decide it's hopeless and concede versus piss them off so much they'd lose a toe to see me bleed.  (November 15th, 2024, 12:10)Zed-F Wrote: If Cairo does take peace, do we then turn our attention back to Bing? Or do we need to sniff around some more to see where we can make easy gains while we start to build up Grens? Building up enough Grens to have an impact could take a while since we are in a GA and can't just whip some up. I'd consider re-checking the Bing border, but mostly I'd focus on what I'll probably focus on even if he rejects, which is consolidation. The western front with SD is stretched a bit thin. I'm working on addressing it. Well, I am doing so already really - I am mulling a Galley upgrade to speed up reinforcement. Whether they are ceced or captured, the global situation: 1) Yuris is my top opponent, but his economy is quite weak due to the military buildup he just did + lack of good trade routes. 2) Cairo has seemingly the best tech capacity of any opponent, but he would be down to less than half my city count and ~50% less military. 3) Superdeath was weakened considerably in the last wave and is still a good ways from Chemistry 4) Bing is backwards Keeping the plane in the air is top priority. (November 15th, 2024, 12:10)Zed-F Wrote: Any thoughts on whether we should, after MilSci, finish Lib before saving gold so that when the GPs are done we can swap Pacifism to it? I definitely think this is possible. Part of me though is also considering Theocracy for the extra 2XP. The catch though is Theocracy does not get me to any XP breakpoints. Land units are already getting 2 promos at 5XP, so +2XP is of limited value. Water units would go from 2xp -> 4xp. This has some utility as merely mopping up an outdated boat would get a second promo, but the net effect is not that many more promos empire-wide. The second promo on boats is a big deal though. Free Religion has fairly mild benefits itself. None of my cities are happy capped or even all that close, so the happy is not really important. The additional 10% science is the main draw there. That's around 40-50bpt outside of a Golden Age, so maybe that is in fact worth it, but it's not game-breaking. I just wonder if it moves the needle that much more? I guess this is a long-winded way of saying the decision between the two is kinda marginal. But if I had to pick right this second, yeah I guess I'd probably lean Free Religion, especially since I still don't have any Monasteries. Note to self to check remaining beakers on Liberalism to figure out if it will even pay for itself in a reasonable timeframe.
Yeah the choice of religion civic is worth a look. The other draw of Free Religion is the low maintenance cost, in comparison to OR (high) or Pacifism (costs based on military), those being the other relevant options absent teching Theology. Even Theocracy is medium maintenance.
 Cairo countered - instead offering Fallen Embers, Barcelona, and 300g. Rejected. Accept my offers. More seriously, Fallen Embers without Flora's Secret is not much of a prize at all. And something tells me Barcelona is either empty or basically empty. He's offering it because he knows he cannot reinforce it in time. So we soldier on.  Did some Frigate bombarding and sent in the Muskets. Er, Musket.  Because I won the fight at 23%. Nice. I used 110 of the 154 to upgrade a Galley back near home that I need to reinforce my western front and just make life all-around easier on myself. Flora's came with a Granary, Lighthouse, and Courthouse.  Then I took this shot next, which I was hoping I'd get lucky again. I can tell Cairo was resigned to losing this as he did not upgrade the Archer. Sadly, I lost this one, but I did redline it.  Cleaned up with the Longbow. Came with just a Courthouse.  Unfortunately Barcelona is just out of reach next turn. I could have gotten in range, and maybe I should have, but I decided to play a bit more aggressively and incentivize him to take my next peace offer.  The capital is well-covered. However, Tempus Vernum is defended by a single Warrior. I also suspect he's emptied a core city or two in order to fill the capital. So I decided to fork some cities.  This spot can hit 4 different cities including another holy city. If I had 1 more movement point I could have added Barcelona to the list. There is some risk to me here. If he has 2 Caravels in range of this tile, he'd have a 50/50 shot at killing the Galleon with 3 Muskets on board, and if he has 3, it'd be closer to 85-90% chance. However, there's only 4 fogged tiles where they could be (the 5th was empty), and he's had most of his Caravels on the other front, so it seems fairly unlikely. My hope here is the bleakness of the situation will encourage him to re-offer my proposed peace deal. I suppose it depends on how empty these fogged cities really are. I suspect the answer is extremely empty and 2-3 razes are possible next turn, but I could definitely be wrong. In general though, mission accomplished, and I wouldn't mind getting back out of this conflict now. Cairo is playing his turns very quickly, so I don't think he's fully interested in a drawn-out conflict. I gave him two choices for peace  Option Number 1, better known as Whale Island. Getting his culture out would make taking just this totally fine. Plus there's a whopping 15 pop to take here. However, I'd be very surprised if he accepts this. He actually popped a Great Engineer in this city this turn. I imagine he'll try to take Taj with it?  Here's the second option I offered, which I think he's more likely to accept. Honestly even if he negotiates this down a tad, I probably would take it. MEANWHILE.  Coming soon.  Seems good. Full album of screenshots here including a few extras: https://imgur.com/a/QnB9Tfy |
