[Spoilers] Dreylin's short visit to a late Era

[Dreylin]

t316 (the rest) -

Too late here, so pictures now, comments tomorrow. Now with all-new, informative comments!

Scooter adopts war civics ahead of key war techs:


Probably thinking of getting some boats in the water or somesuch. (Naughty Dreylin looks at this and thinks about commando GG Cavalry :Mischief: )

Speaking of stockpiles of ships:


Pindicator is 1tech from Combustion and upgrading this fleet to Destroyers.

Killed Donovan's Ironclad:


It was NavI promoted, so after 2x Airship bombardment the first Frigate gets 33%. It lost, but left an ~85% shot that got the second Frigate 3xp (after taking a single hit). We are now 8xp from the next GG. I also started the bombardment of Sector19.

Then I kicked off the GA and ran the discussed civics switch:


Llamas will regain use of the extra pop next turn:


Which will probably be another specialist; I want to get this back to 1t Cavs ASAP, and a little starvation is probably the way to go - not losing pop though. Goats is still on 6 Scientists, but I will probably up that this turn to ensure we get the GS on schedule. Chickens is maxing Growth at the moment and will hire specialists in a couple of turns at the happy cap.

One turn of Wealth will get us through 2t of Steam Power, and there are a few extra builds that complete this turn and will switch to Wealth next turn:


"Spare" pop has been converted to Specialists - if there is a Science multiplier building - or the Market is absent - they are Scientists, otherwise Merchants.

Here is what I have managed to muster down South:


A couple are slightly injured. I expect that the 4-pop whip from Donovan was here, so there will be a 4th Infantry in the city next turn. We'll have to land to attack the following turn, but at least he can't get a 5th unit in with the whip (I think), and we can knock the tops off all 4 defenders with our Airships - 4 have rebased into his ex-Capital (I think I renamed it to "Honey Bees").

Or we could try something else...


The opportunity cost to set this up was low; 2/3 of these Cavs couldn't have got anywhere useful last turn anyway, and I can still return and drop them in Koi to run down and be available as amphib backup to the main stack at S19 if we agree that the costs of hitting Scooter are too great. Note that the stack aimed at S19 could hit Radio instead.

Unfortunately Scooter played before me last turn, so if we go at him it has to be after he's played this turn, which creates a 3-way split.

Anyway, the turn has rolled and I'd appreciate your perspective if you have a chance to get in game for a look.

[Dreylin]

Previous post updated with comments.

[OT4E]

I think scooter will come for S19 and I am not sure how we keep it against him if he does everything allright. It is still in our favor that he is not racing for tanks or destroyers. Without representation he must not be doing very good in economics, but 10 exp ships and 9 exp agg infantries will become our headache soon.

May be we shall focus on Ironworks and just leave S19 where it is? Scooter will lose time on taking it and I think it is not likely that he will try to pass to DZ's former cap using open borders with him. More realistic that he returns for Dolphins or will try to control seas and threat several places at once.

[Dreylin]

My suspicion is that the switch in focus is a reaction to the 2 Galleons that he could see on the stack tile last turn, since it is in range of Radio. Of course now we have 3 Galleons on that tile and unlike last turn they are filled with units.

We're pretty vulnerable to Scooter just because we surround him, but he must be feeling the same way about us. But if we can remove both Radio and Dynamite, that secures us one flank and we can concentrate on defending our other fronts. Additional bonus is that Dynamite is his Oil city, and although he can pop borders in Haber Process to get it back pretty easily, it might gain us a critical couple of turns where he can't build oil-based units.

It's probably moot anyway if he gets a second Infantry into Radio, but I think the option needs to be on the table.

The problem that we have with heading for Donovan's IW is that we don't have enough Siege yet. We have 3Cats in the vicinity, but we'd need 5 to take out the defenses in one turn, and another 2-3 Trebs/Cats in order to attack that same turn. We're also still stuck waiting ~4t for most of our stack to heal, and the new Cavs are not coming in fast enough.

But, from the staging tile we can drop those Cavs into either Nettwerk or Wax Trax! instead of landing for S19....

Also note the culture has not yet withdrawn from his Coal - if it doesn't this turn, I have a redlined Cav available to pillage it - don't need another turn of hammer multipliers for him.

[OT4E]

3 catapults can be enough. We either bombard 2 turns or hit it with overwhelming forces in 1 without bombarding. It will be costly but probably not as costly as it was with attacking from sea.

I think that htting scooter's cities is not good idea. He cant build oil-based units any soon, right? We cant hit several cities from different sides, which could work if we were aiming on him from the beginning. Right now we risk to meet significant presense from 5- mover SotLs or 4-mover Ironclads or just a number of well promoted ships of all kinds. It can work against us, OTOH it can be his plan anyway. I am not sure yet, but I need to have a more detailed look.

[Dreylin]

Yeah, I'm not sure that it wouldn't just poke the bear unnecessarily - assuming that I've not already done that inadvertently - but it seems like the opportunity to remove one potential attack vector (albeit the one on which we are currently strongest) might be too good to miss. Plus knocking out Radio would surely dent his research efforts. Anyway, not overly attached to the idea and happy to change plans if better options are available.

IIRC, we can land 3Cats 1NE of IW city next turn (t318) along with the Southern stack of 9 units and the 3 Cavs that are hanging out near Dynamite. If we can get a couple more Cats/Trebs to complete that turn (Chameleons, Chickens, Goldfish?) and then land (t319) with half the defenses gone, we attack t320 leading with a couple of Siege. His GG is still around though, so I expect he'll split between a bunch of units for an extra CG promo each.

Am I correct that if he attacks with his Inf across the river at our stack he still gets amphib penalty against Cavs even though they aren't entitled to defensive bonuses? We're short on healthy Rifles (can probably find a couple) to defend with (as usual) although a couple of Drafts might be possible to fill that gap.

[OT4E]

We can make Assembly Line in 5 turns from now with decent wealth build and readjusting tiles every turn.

DZ used his GG, so he was just waiting for 4 infantries:


Coal disconnected.

I think we must commit attack on Ironworks. T319 he will have 6 infantries unless he moves out from Glitch mode. He can attack us only across river now, but he can make roads with fastworkers. But why would he attack us if he is so well promoted for the defense?

[Dreylin]

t317 -

After all the interesting photos yesterday, today you get just one:


We can land the contents of all 5 Galleons next turn then another 6 units the following turn, or we land just 12 next turn and then I think we can shuffle the Galleons around a bit and add a couple more the following turn. I left the Frigates down my S19 since it popped 3rd ring.

I Drafted Donkeys, moved to Goats, moved to Llamas, moved to Chickens & freed the Cat there to move down - that's one of the extra units we could pick up - or we use as MP in Chameleons and send an extra Rifle instead.

Also, Scooter produced an Ironclad in Radio and maybe a half-dozen Infantry across the rest of his civ. If nothing else, we diverted him from his tech-heavy plan for a couple of turns.

[Dreylin]

Foreign news:

Last turn BGN declared on Donovan to grab the FW he was dangling down in the SW.

This turn REM declared and took the SW city that we'd been expecting / hoping he would. He has an Airship in Goldfish and is monitoring what we are doing, so we need to be careful once we take the new Cap.

I played before Scooter this turn.

& Pindicator just set a record playing 2 turns in ~11mins!

[OT4E]

We can also watch what REM is doing. He has infantries coming and I think he is just waiting for us to take IW city. Not much we can do to prevent him from attacking us honestly. Bring more rifles and stack everything what is healed to make it look too costly for him?

I guess you killed explorer and we are 1 point closer to the next GG?