Scooter, REM offered us a world map trade and this resource swap when I logged into the game. I accepted both, although we'll be connecting our own source of dyes next turn. I figure it's worth the goodwill and helping REM is very much in our interest. If you want to offer another 2 gold for 2 gold trade (assuming we haven't done so already), be my guest. We're attacking in two turns.
I snapped the same pictures of REM declaring war and moving in his invasion stack, not realizing that scooter had already posted the same thing. REM's timing and locating of his invasion is really good for us. He'll draw the brunt of Dreylin's army used to attack Donovan over in former India, and by attacking two turns before us, he's also going to pull attention towards Yaks in former Gaspar territory. It's almost like the REM attack is a coordinated diversion from our own move on Dolphins. Let REM go first and take the initial attack, then we'll sweep in and start claiming the rewards. Sounds good to me.
By the way, REM's units are not glowing - no promotions. Quite a contrast from our stuff!
A reminder to scooter that we can revolt back into Representation civic this turn. I think we both agree that Police State was worth using and served its purpose, but now it's time to get some economy going again. I also turned on research, as I doubt we need much more than 1400 gold in the bank (plus we'll likely get some capture gold). Railroad coming at a slow pace.
We finally have all of our galleons built in the south, and now we're in the process of moving them into position. Here's my current suggestion for tactical disposition. I agree with scooter's signs for galleons #2, #3, and #4. Those are our 10 XP ships that can move 6 tiles per turn, and we can stage them back there in a defensive position. Let's have the ones on the eastern yellow dot tile face east, and the ship on the western yellow dot tile face west. That will be awful confusing as to where those ships are going - I think it will look like they are being staged in defensive position.
Our frigates and the 0 XP galleon can be staged on the red dot tile. This puts them in position to join the invasion with the ships moving through our fort, while also staging them in a more logical location. (Why would we have frigates back there?) Dreylin will probably assume we're planning an attack, but it won't be clear at all what city we're targeting. The city to the west, Ferrets, will probably look like the subject of our attack, especially because I'm having the workers build a road right on the border there this turn.
At the very least, he's left guessing and has to wonder where we're heading... on top of scrambling to defend against REM elsewhere.
If this sounds silly to you, then feel free to stage the frigates in the backlines with the galleons. (FYI, the privateer in Cotton Gin will finish at the end of this turn via forest chop, and will come along in our attack for vision.)
With Dynamite ready to start churning ships, Radio can go over to land-based military units. I like the idea to build a cannon here, as we'll want some of them for sure now that Dreylin will also have infantry. Dynamite can build a galleon and then hold it on the Radio/Dynamite area; even if we never do anything with it, Dreylin will have to consider the possibility of an attack. We can actually use his airships against him by feinting a phantom invasion in some places, while hitting hard in others.
The Hindu missionary out of Telegraph will want to go to Power Loom eventually, but I think our galleons are going to be full of units for the moment. Either we hold on to it for the moment or just convert one of our local cities.
Similar idea up here by Textile Island. I agree with the galleon staging positions except for galleon #4, which can stage on the yellow dot and still hit either Hedgehogs or Dolphins as needed. It's a bit less conspicuous than being in the city itself.
Our ships with less than 10 XP (which should be 1 galleon, 1 iron, 1 ship of the line, and 3 frigates - with 1 of those 3 frigates having 10 XP) should go on the red dot tile. Again, Dreylin might think it signals an attack incoming, but if we move at the end of Turn 322, he can't whip or draft in response, and by the start of Turn 323 it's basically already too late. Dreylin has not been building ships in this ocean, and once our two ironclads sweep away his ships of the line, he'll be defenseless on the water.
The second ironclad can't make it to that red dot tile, but it can make it to the tile west of Power Loom, and that's good enough to promote and smack Dreylin's ships. It will be joined there by one last frigate that we're building out of Contact Process this turn. Assuming the combat odds hold true (ironclad kills ship of the line, ironclad kills ship of the line - and even if one of them dies, our own ship of the line is there for cleanup) we can bombard Dolphins with 4 frigates. That will strip out 32% of its 40% defensive bonus, and then we send in the infantry. Hopefully Dolphins and Hedgehogs both fall on the first turn.
*****
It's an odd feeling to be on the other side of the gangup here in this game, after Speaker and I were the infamous target of the 5 team attack in the old Pitboss #2 game. Honestly, it's a lot more fun being in the alliance, even if the odds of actually winning the game are probably a lot lower.
The situation here isn't really comparable to that game, of course, where teams were ignoring very fertile unsettled land to go attack another team 30 tiles away on the other side of the world. In this game, the whole map has been settled, and Dreylin is very clearly going to win the game if REM and our team don't respond in some way. And of course the skill level of the community has improved immeasurably in the last six years; Dreylin, OT4E, and REM are all fantastic players who have been putting on a show in this game. It's been a real pleasure competing here against them with scooter.
Still, sometimes I do miss the days when the other players would let us pick India on the SECOND pass of a snake draft. Ah, fun times.