Should also report on this offer that greeted me when I logged in.
In what's potentially an extremely move I accepted.
Yes, we just fought a war where he razed one of my cities and now I am helping him (Fenn was playing last turn instead of CH).
Yes, I'm in a race for liberalism where every penny counts.
Yes, I still consider attacking CH as soon as our peace treaty expires.
Yes, I expect that money to go to upgrades (ha->knight or spear->pike) that might very well be used against me if I attack.
Truth is though that Serdoa captured two cities from CH last turn. I haven't analysed Serdoas stacks enough to know what happened, but it feels like CH neither attacked with all he had, nor did he withdraw all units to hit at a later stage. I hope he didn't just stack everything in New Nairobi, but there's a (worrisome) chance that Serdoa will just roll over him from now on.
I'm hoping that the money I lended will mean at least two more Serdoa knights killed and possibly a slightly slower pace on the conquest so that I can grab some key cities after the treaty is out.
Most of the money I lended I will get back before a possible war. Most of it won't matter in the lib-race since I'm anyway going 100% science for the next turns. On the off chance that Serdoa completely messes up and I get a chance of destroying some of his knights and all of his siege, then it might even be the case that I'd see the deal through and make a slight profit on it (war between me and Serdoa probably means my hands will be too tied up to bother even taking poorly defended CH cities for the most part).
Edit:
I might've been a bit harsh on CH.
These are the units from Serdoa that I can see right now:
That's 15 knights. Last screenshot I have available right now of Serdoas stack he had 32 knights. There might be some by the other city that was taken, but 17? Wish I had eyes over there...
Wonder if I should ask for open borders with CH? If I was to seriously consider hitting Serdoa that could really be of a help.
Edit 2:
CH/Fenn played before me this turn and retook New Nairobi.
Put 3 longbows there for defense as well.
Serdoa can take it back once more when it's his turn, but let's say it costs him 2 knights, then he only has 7 knights left and his cats start to look vulnerable to my own knights...
Seems like Serdoa is backing off from CH at the moment.
Mack:
I've got units next to CHs border. I moved them there in case an opportunity would arise where I could kill off a large stack of Serdoas with very little risk involved on my part.
I'm not really interested in a war with Serdoa at the moment, but if declaring had meant thrashing Serdoas current military as well as stopping him gaining large chunks of land from CH and gaining me a GG in the process, then it might've been worth it.
CH/Fenn is pretty spent at the moment, but he does have some units.
His underbelly was, however, completely depleted of units these last turns.
If the Serdoa front looks reasonably stable I think it might be time to start putting knights on boats and chain them towards the south.
Perhaps one EI for his Moai city and two for his cap (as well as a couple for the closer cities)?
Colonisation
Before the knights jump on board I want two settlers and two workers sent off to Åland though.
I've set up a small EI chain to speed up the process. One settler/worker-pair should disembark at Lemo and head for spot C (t150), while the other should disembark in Ömossa and head for spot B (t151)
I won't give exact instructions what to do in each city, but I still thought I'd post each city here with a small comment.
I'll post one overview picture of what I'm building and then city screens in spoilers.
All cities:
Old core:
Oravais
The capital and one of my best cities. Will probably get Oxford. Jutas will eventually be a better science city, but Oravais can build Oxford a lot faster. (I don't see Oxford as an extreme priority as I'm not running buraeu and the city isn't that amazing commerce vise (and universities are expensive), but after education some of the commerce cities with low production could start building some unis fairly soon still). This is one city that doesn't win an extreme amount on growing, so the odd worker or settler from here doesn't sound that bad.
Lapua
Heroic epic city capable of producing 2 amphibious/formation knights every 3 turns outside a golden age.
Future production? Knights, knights and knights.
Revolahti
Taoism holy city. Started spreading the religion a bit (monastery in Ural(?) ), but a war kind of interrupted the plan...
Probably won't get a shrine now, but decent commerce city all the same. At some poin it might be worth borrowing the wheat from Jutas and grow this baby a couple of sizes, but for now it's food neutral and thereby a good candidate for "food-units"
Pyhäjoki
Mainly a half decent commerce city. Will do what's best for the empire as a whole though. Has borrowed the cows from the capital this turn (making that starve) in order to grow in 1t, but should switch that back next turn.
Jutas
Nice commerce city that's slightly lacking in hammers.
I'm a bit loathe to do so, but should probably draft in 2t. Taking one for the team and all that...
Pulkkila
Nice hybrid city in our north. Is starving now while I've given the pigs to Sveaborg so that that city can draft an unnecessary tile in 2t.
Alavo
Production city nr1. Even though it has 4 food resources it's actually lacking slightly in food in order to utilise all workshops!
Can build whatever we want it to. For now that might be knights?
Svartholm
Border city (on and behind a hill) with Serdoa. If we ever plan an attack on REM I want this city to build a couple of EIs as it's our only port city on the inner sea. Has taken a hit from drafting, but will slowly recover and still has decent production.
Nummijärvi
The exemplification of "taking one for the team". All its forests went to MoM, it often shares away its food and it has taken a couple of drafts. Now it's working a spy and engineer to push out a great person that isn't a scientist or merchant. Iif we get an artist it'll be used on a 3GP GA. A great spy would probably do some scouting and then be used in 3 (or even 4) person GA and a GE might also be 4GP GA (or good wonder that I still haven't been convinced by).
The city asks itself one question; what does the realm want?
Virta
Fairly rubbish city that still manages some small commerce. Expendable if REM decides to come knocking.
Should probably give back the floodplain farm to Alavo at some point, but I'm not sure how to do that without starving this city.
Sveaborg
Moai city that I can't wait to get a levee in.
If we do produce those last couple of GG points I'm considering settling that here for some 5-move EIs. Would prefer such a military pump to be further south though so I haven't decided. Will be drafted after it has grown and should then give back the pigs (and pick up a village) to Pulkkila
Toivala
Serdoa border city. Needs to borrow wheat for a while to grow into its tiles. Unit producer.
Old Zulu:
Grozny
Is growing two cottages for Jutas. Otherwise this should become a production city.
Ural
Has shared away its food to Sevastopol for the moment. Otherwise decent producer of food and military units.
Zenyatta
The old Zulu capital. Could do with growing a few sizes, but I'm still leaning to drafting this next turn...
Sevastopol
Border and production city. With two silvers? Yeah this is a weird little hybrid that's still kind of useful.
Mondatta
My bulwark towards the Incans and English I sure am glad that this city's on a hill.
It's a hybrid now and will probably always remain a hybrid. Could do with some growing, but being at the (potential) front and being among the closest to new island settlements this city has some conflicting priorities. This worker btw has to be finished this turn and will join the expedition settling sites "B" and "C".
Replot island:
Palva
Meet our future national epic city! (right after the library is built).
This beauty will be quite amazing once it is properly set up and grown.
Rimito Kramp
While the core is quite nicely cottaged I'll be going with a much more hammer heavy set up on the islands. Seeing that leveed water tiles still has some commerce as well, that means that most new cities will be some form of hybrids. For now these cities are still on the basic infra though, many of them eagerly awaiting RepP.
Sandöström
Here I'm actually considering putting Globe theatre. It will grow rather large no matter what, has some production for the Globe, but is still a city I won't mind that much drafting (if I ever return to nationhood?). Still need to build a few (dirt cheap) theatres though.
Grönvikssund
Nice city that'll act as a canal if I ever need it.
Helsinge
Settled slightly later that the other Replot towns, I still have firm belief that this'll be a nice city.
Åland island:
Åbo
Main city on Åland for now. Ugly looking tile configuration, but I need it to grow in 2t to get it to draftable size before it's too late. Will probably start (badly needed) workers afterwards.
Kokonsaari
This city will soon start booming (fish online in 2t). As you can see, distance maintenance has become "a thing" and I'm happy for the organised trait. Probably should build the forbidden palace soon. I think I'd prefer it on the east coast of this island, but neither Lemo nor Ömossa have that great production yet, so I'll have to see...
Lemo
Weak city now that is slow to grow, but once it's grown and gotten a levee it'll be nice.
Kumlinge
Not über amazing, but will get nice given time.
Aron
Common theme here: give it time...
Ömossa
In a couple of turns this will basically be our "Virta in the south", but afterwards this city will still have quite a few nice tiles to add...
Ruona
Settled this turn, this city will give us our own copy of wine. it will also be quite nice otherwise in the age of levees. For now I'm employing the artist so that I can start growing on fish asap.
Looks like the pause means I won't be able to play next turn and you're up mack tomorrow.
I'll add a few more directions.
Civic vise the idea is to get out of nationhood as soon as possible. I.e. switch to vassalage in two turns.
Before then I want to abuse the draft as much as possible though (80h for 1pop is a good deal after all and with all these coastal cities I could use the units even in peace time). My thoughts are to draft these cities:
t149
Sandöström, Zenyatta, Lapua (keep city stagnant afterwards), Ural, Jutas? (Mondatta could possibly be switched with one of the cities)
t150
Sveaborg, Grozny, Åbo, Palva, Sevastopol
If you feel that you've got "outdated" units spare anywhere after the drafts it might be an idea to start pilfering some out and send them towards the south. There's still cities to settle there and I'd prefer to have the odd defender in the island cities once Adrien and Ichabod gets around to researching optics/astro.
Similarily, if you don't know what to build, then you can't go too wrong with a knight. There's something to be said for the odd cat or guerilla2 musket, but my (odd in this game) lack of engineering and the drawn out empire favours 2-movers quite strongly.
If you have any questions I'll try to check this thread about once a day, but won't make any promises. If you don't hear back from me in a decent timeframe then just use your own judgement.
(March 1st, 2016, 01:50)mackoti Wrote: Were i should send all those setlers ?
The one who's already on the island to A. The one you drop off in Lemo to C and the one you drop off in Ömossa to B.
Future settlers to D and E (and later ones to the other island), but I should be back myself by then.
Ok, I'm back.
Thanks again for covering Mack. I see that you didn't get my signs and message about chaining those settlers/workers to the island, but that's fine.
Fenn(CH) and Donovan Zoi(Serdoa) have been trading cities a bit while I've been away, but sadly it currently stands at DZ holding New Nairobi and New Maersk having been razed.
REM got liberalism and the economics merchant and is clearly the one in the drivers seat at the moment.
I'm hoping that us moving towards liberalism pushed him into using a GS-bulb, but can't tell for sure at the moment. Anyway we were 2t too slow. Thanks CH!
On a tangent to that we're back at having the highest soldier count in the world. Basically any of my neighbours would be viable alternatives for offensive warfare at the moment, but I believe the highest actual gains might be achieved if I attack Fenn, so I'll start shuffling units onto boats as soon as I can get said boats built/into position (circumnavigation sure would've been handy here).
I also declared war on Nyles.
This feel quite uncharacteristic of myself, but I spotted a trireme of his in range of my scouting EI. Normally this wouldn't be enough to declare, but after this fight I'm one GG-point away from my next GG (kind of hoped that fight would push me over straight away). I also checked and NS only has five cities left, so won't be around for an enormous amount of time and I'm not getting any trade routes from him.
(March 17th, 2016, 14:00)spacetyrantxenu Wrote: Where's the reports? (my thanks to the two of you who have posted something in the last week. )
Yeah, sorry about my part of that.
So, what's new?
Well, I did say that REM finished his (1st) GA and switched into some pretty juicy civics?
Anyway, last turn two turns ago I followed him part way.
Sadly no representation on my part (stupid conquered mids and liberalism fail) and neither do I have environmentalism (this is more a toss up if you want xp or super-duper-über-specialists).
I went with serfdom over emancipation. Think I've got about 50 mines (1h instead of 1c) and about 30 non-town cottage improvements (loss of 1c/t). Add a few watermills and it might actually be that emancipation is still slightly better, but it's reasonably close that the faster workers on my islands managed to sway my decision.
I mentioned REM in my first proper sentence and there's a reason for that.
We really are in front of all others presently and unless wars break out (in particular between the two of us) I don't see that changing anytime soon.
For that reason I'm not overly happy about him getting astro last turn. While I believe that his west is fairly depleted of islands (Boak is in the way), just a short hop to the north of old Commodore lands he's got this decently sized chunk of real estate.
Wish it wasn't so, but I guess we're in a race to settle this and I guess it's going to end in a split island initially.
The other option to racing REM to settling spots would of course be to simply conquer him...
and looking at the power graph...
It seems like I really could've put a dent in him! Kicking myself now for not switching gears and preparing for an attack in this direction, but it seems like the ship(s really) has sailed and I'll go ahead with a rough attack in the south in a few turns instead. Initial guesstimates say that I'll come just short of managing a devastating alpha strike and instead it'll be more of an annoyance before my superior production wears him down, but I'll have to see how things develop...
Hmm, dtay declared war on Ichabod and took a couple of cities. Not too happy about that as I'd rather not have dtays 6-move galleons just outside my core coastal cities...
Scanning through his cities list he seems to have done better than I've previously noticed, basically being on par with REM (something like 38-39 cities against my own 31-32). So far I haven't worried too much about this discrepancy, but me not really closing in on the food-graph and REM super-quickly finishing chemistry has made me raise an eyebrow. I finished printing press this turn and was planning to go for RepParts and dikes, but getting chemistry myself would make me feel a bit safer and I'll probably switch to that instead. Apart from frigates, that would also get me +1h/mine and it's on the way to steel (cannons being nifty as they're a decent counter for redcoats) so it's by no means a bad tech.
In other news, next turn might also become an interesting one. I'll just leave with a few screenshots from the current turn:
Oh, DZ took 3h on his last turn, so don't dismiss the possibility that he might get his own ideas after the fireworks start...
Ok, so everything didn't go quite according to plan...
For starters I actually hadn't noticed that Serdoa/DZ and CH/Fenn had made peace 7! turns ago
Thus I thought Fenn would need to stay in the second part of a turn split and I'd be better off slotting into the first part.
Well, he had no reason not to, so played this turn early on. No problem whatsoever from a rules standpoint, but I kind of wonder what kind of an opportunity passed me by here. Especially when you consider that one of my main aims with doing some attacks off boats was to capture/hurt Fenns Heroic Epic/Moai city.
This was the situation last turn:
and when I logged in this turn I was greeted by this:
I had 6 units in range, but no way was I going to break through that, so I had to abandon the plan
What I did do though was to check out his closest city:
No extra units there so Challenge accepted! amphi knight vs pike: 11,1% LOSS (pike 4,1/6)
amphi knight vs c1 mace: 21,9% LOSS (mace 3,9/8)
c2 knight vs cg1 lb: 9,6% LOSS (lb 2,2/6)
shock knight vs pike: 40,7% WIN!
shock knight vs mace: 85,3% WIN
c2 knight vs lb: 97,6% Flawless WIN!
Kept the city for now even though Fenn can easily retake it (only 3 knights for defense). Main thing it did was open up a route for my main stack to threaten Machu Picchu and since that was achieved this turn, it's not quite the end of the world if he decides to reset some cultural borders...
Before I moved the main stack I wanted to deal with a spying knight Fenn had had in my borders though.
formation knight vs c2 flanking1 sentry knight 75,5% LOSS (knight 3,4/10)
cleaned up with a longbow. Lb vs injured knight 95,7% WIN
I then moved up some units to take a look at Timbuktu.
Only 1 axe as defender. I'll take that. amphi knight vs c1 axe 79,7% WIN
after some debating I decided to keep the city and drop off all available units there (11 knights and 1 sword in total). Again, he could take this city back, but without simming I've got a feeling that it's not in his best interest to do so. If he does, I believe that I could take Machu Picchu and then still proceed to take out whatever beat up units that he attacked with.
Finally in the southeast I couldn't take Vilcas, but I probably could take size 10 Vitcos. With him doing two turns since I last had vision I wasn't 100% sure though and spending my units on Vitcos basically would've ended my advanced threat without any lasting gains. For that reason I settled on merely spending 1 knight on taking the much smaller Huamanga
...and then moved my two other EIs to fork his cap and HE-city should one of them be too lightly defended next turn.
Not sure anything will come out of it, but at least I'll be tying up some troops.
I'll leave you with a pic of my main stack. It's not super impressive, but hopefully it'll get the job done. Anyone got any questions or anything you'd like to see, feel free to ask away
move I accepted.
Where's the reports? (my thanks to the two of you who have posted something in the last week. 
)
