[SPOILER] Asoka of the Vikings (Nakor & Gaspar)

[Nakor]

Okay, got a few minutes to take a look.
Basically, we're getting our main fleet ready to hit Pardus and our second fleet to hit Leo together with Plako. We need to get all LP's westen shore cities razed before he can build to many destroyers.

Plako is upgrading our Zerkers to Amp Rifles and I have gifted them by Galleon and he gifted them back.

Moved most of our fleet. They have to move all to the T199 mark in the first 6 hours of next turn. Then we can declare in the forum and have the first 12 hours of the turn for us.

We'll take a look at Pardus and Leo and decide if we want to attack T200 and then we do it, or we don't. Really don't like this...

[Gaspar]

I was thinking about the game for a minute and decided we should probably figure out answers to the following questions:

1. What do we do in the likely event that we attack LP and lose all our ships and units within the first turn or two?

I ask this because by deferring Rifling so we could build an obsolete navy, we still don't have the ability to draft anything better than Muskets. While Rifles will also get eaten by Infantry, they'll at least take longer to slog through. Also we have not built a single siege weapon of any sort, which is really the only possible way to counter a tech and production advantage of the sort LP enjoys.

Why am I only just now considering this? I think I've guessed all along that there's next to no chance of LP actually invading us, as our territory is difficult to impossible for him to hold. Still, given that he's got a lot of military and probably a heaping dollop of spite, it would really be trivial for him to turn around and raze Crossing II/Crossing in the likely event we don't gain control of the northern seas.

Honestly, I think if he invades we're toast and we make a lot of sense to invade out of spite as we are by far the weakest of the Parkin Violators. He could cut through our empire like a hot knife through butter without us being able to do a thing about it. At this point, the die has been cast and he can kill us if he likes, I don't think its really worth worrying about. But I thought I should bring it up.

2. What do we do in the unlikely event we have success?

Raze, and bring our units home in a vain hope of defending, or press on until 1 occurs? This one I really don't have an answer to.

3. Assuming plako's intuition is correct and rego declares on him, is there anything we can do to help and moreover, do we care?

Nope and nope says me, but the diplomacy has really been your act this play.

4. How long after 1 inevitably occurs does Locke take all our land in a vain hope of competing with LP?

15 turns is my guess.

Just some musing whilst having a cigarette. It really is truly random which game I'm playing in pops into my head at any given time.

[Nakor]

Don't even want to think about those things, Gaspar... it's almost game over from my POV.

Rego declared on Plako, so all we have left is our naval attack next turn.

Moved everything in the first 6 hours, here is the picture of our forces (and for GES to verify that we played by the rules):



Plako has a small force ready as well, so let's see if we can do anything or nothing.

[Gaspar]

At least this game's going out with a bang. Poor GES. Locke and SM declare on Adlain. mackoti declares on luddite. rego declares on plako. plako and us declare on LP, and later luddite and maybe Locke declare on LP. We need like a 3-week turn timer to sort this out.

Hopefully we at least get to suicide our stuff on LP before he sinks all our ships and razes all our cities. It'd be disappointing to spend 25 turns throwing our game away and lose all our units while they're still on ships. At least if they get murdered by infantry/MGs, we can feel like we took our shot.

[Nakor]

Looks like we lost a city already (civstats) and probably our attack stack, so that was a short bang. Don't know for sure since we play after LP...

[Gaspar]

Looks like we lost a city already (civstats) and probably our attack stack, so that was a short bang. Don't know for sure since we play after LP...

I'm sure it was Crossing II, which I think was defended by an axe. We really should have heeded plako's warning and switched to defense. On the plus side, maybe LP will make short work of us so we can ease the pain quickly. Most of our cities are defended by all of 1 axe/zerker/etc, so we'll actually go down even faster than Adlain.

We should probably switch research to push hard for Rifles and in the interim switch to Nationalism and draft as many Muskets as possible, not because I think it will help, but rather because its the right thing to do for the other players in this game.

I have some strong meta thoughts on what this game taught us as a community, but I'll save them for 20T from now when we're totally dead.

[Nakor]

We lost Crossing II and almost our entire fleet. We'll loose the rest next turn since they are surrounded by big boats. Plako's fleet is gone as well.
So much for having some fun.

Yep, we'll need to tech towards Rifling and see what we can do.
After that I suggest we beeline Mass Media, build UN and let everyone vote for us as winners... :neenernee

[Gaspar]

We lost Crossing II and almost our entire fleet. We'll loose the rest next turn since they are surrounded by big boats. Plako's fleet is gone as well.
So much for having some fun.

Yep, we'll need to tech towards Rifling and see what we can do.
After that I suggest we beeline Mass Media, build UN and let everyone vote for us as winners... :neenernee

If, um, we're still alive in this game when the UN is built, I'll eat several hats.

[Nakor]

Switched to Nationhood and drafted max Musketmen.
Rifling will take only 7 turns....

If you think it's the right thing to do, can you please delete our entire fleet? Don't need to give LP more XP....

[Gaspar]

Switched to Nationhood and drafted max Musketmen.
Rifling will take only 7 turns....

If you think it's the right thing to do, can you please delete our entire fleet? Don't need to give LP more XP....

Rifling is going to take us a lot more than 7T when we lose all our coastal cities.

Yeah, have to delete the rest of the fleet. Painful, but there's no possibility of it surviving. There's really not a lot to do at this point other than wait for him to kill us, we can't possibly get enough units in time to stall him.

I swapped pretty much everything else remaining to a Musket so that we can whip them in next turn, except where I micro'd Riverland to complete your bank next turn so it can rejoin the whipping parade the following turn.

If nothing else, this way he can take a bunch of size 1 cities from us. Also, I had a bit of a temper tantrum. Lord Parkin hilariously named Crossing II to Sinking. So I decided I'd rename a couple cities as well:





Ended turn afterwards.