[SPOILERS] Dazed and scooter play Stalin of Vikings and make a big mess

[scooter]

Alright, let's do this:



Look inside...



Academy! That's fun. I loaded up my 6 healthiest rifles onto the 3 galleys and I'll hit Bentgrass by water, eventually having the wounded guys catch up, probably also via galley. Quick looks at his other cities as I spy things out with my caravels:



Haven't decided if I want that small north detachment to join in on Bentgrass or go burn other cities. Like maybe this one:



Anyways, I'm up to 24 Rifles so yes I'm prepping for front 2:



I could have upgraded all 8 Zerks, but I'm holding off til I finish Astronomy and upgrade galleys and all that. Hitting Nakor is just so tempting because I could probably take 5 cities in one turn by my estimation.

[scooter]

Alright, here's the thing. I don't know who to attack next. I need to decide in the next 2 turns to get things headed in the right direction. My options....

Nakor

Upside: By FAR the easiest target. His island cities have lol defenses in them. With galleys, I could take 3 cities in one turn without him seeing it. With galleons, I could do at least 5. All of these cities are defended by a maximum of 2 longbows on flatland. With galleons, one galleon full (or even with 3 apiece) per city easily takes them all, and even that's overkill. I'm pretty close to having enough force to do that already as is. This is the one with the highest benefit to me. These cities could all produce for me rather quickly. I could also make this a pretty quick war. I take some of his island cities and then demand he hand over the remaining island cities for peace. Then I declare on somebody else and keep right on going. This is really appealing to me.

Downside: He's the closest to Rifles, for one. He's the only one capable of teching it right now. If he starts getting Rifles in then this thing isn't such a hot idea anymore. Also, this does nothing to disturb the two people who actually matter - and that's Krill + Regopin. Those guys are the only two with a shot at winning here, and this is the wimpy way out and doesn't seriously impact the game. I also fear Nakor spite-gifting all his tech to other people.

Regopin

Upside: Their game lately has been totally obnoxious to me. They treat me like the runaway here which is laughable. They had a shot at winning this game, and antagonizing me while still playing nice with Krill should be their death warrant IMO. I couldn't seriously kill them, but I believe I could wreck their chances of winning just enough that Krill wraps this thing up. And actually, after Krill has continued to play totally logically and these guys haven't, that seems fair to me. That's a good word here, this is the "fair" choice since at least Nakor has done some nice things to me a few times.

Downside: They are the furthest away, and I'll make fewer gains here than anywhere else. I actually may not make any, I'd probably just be aiming to burn things. They're also guaranteed to defend much better than Nakor. I also have a very limited window here, and spending several turns crossing the Pacific seems like an iffy decision at best.

Wildcard: Krill. I have no, zero, nada idea how Krill would react to this. One distinct possibility is he sees me running off with my navy + military and comes at me, which = death for me probably. Another possibility is he seems me distracting Regopin and sees it as an opportunity to kick them off the east continent while they're distracted with me. The latter is the objectively better decision IMO as it's probably a gamewinning decision, but we all know Krill likes to go after the softer target (me) always always. Never go after the harder target until you're an era ahead of him. :neenernee

Krill

Upside: Lurkers will cheer. Regopin will cheer and then rip me off again. The game will be more interesting for sure.

Downside: Well for one, this is the one that I probably lose I think. The movement range will be great for me, but he has better promoted boats and better MFG abilities. He breaks past my boats and my whole core is open for business. I also expect him to defend the best out of anyone, which yeah, this would just get messy.


I'm having a hard time seeing a Krill attack be a valid option. If he would just make peace and "sign a NAP" with me, I could have free reign to just kill things. Surely this is in his interest right? I'd be surprised if Krill is misreading things as bad as Regopin and thinks I can actually beat him in this game. Surely he knows I'm gearing up, and if we could just make peace I'd go hurt other people. I'd probably lean towards doing the clean up Nakor and then take aim at Regopin thing, but I don't know for sure. Either way, my preference is to avoid conflict with Krill.

[scooter]

My lean right now is to just take the free cities from Nakor and then go from there, FWIW.

[Mardoc]

But, have you considered the really off-the-wall strategies possible? Make peace with Brick, gift him a bunch of amphibious Rifles, and trust him to understand he needs to take out Krill. Surely he could get more from your army than you could .

Or, you could sign OB with Krill and RegoPin, and walk your army over to take on Commodore. Or add in OB with Commodore, and finish off Cyneheard! :D

Man, the new smileys are fun. But ultimately, I've only got one thing to say:

I'm watching you now

[scooter]

But, have you considered the really off-the-wall strategies possible? Make peace with Brick, gift him a bunch of amphibious Rifles, and trust him to understand he needs to take out Krill. Surely he could get more from your army than you could .

Or, you could sign OB with Krill and RegoPin, and walk your army over to take on Commodore. Or add in OB with Commodore, and finish off Cyneheard! :D

Man, the new smileys are fun. But ultimately, I've only got one thing to say:

I'm watching you now

Actually yes, I've thought about a lot of wacky things I could try, more than I've even written here . The Brick thing is problematic, mainly because he doesn't have boats that are useful. I'll have 6 move Galleons and honestly I don't even know if he possesses a galley . Krill is probably headed for Astronomy, so yeah, that one's not possible. Plus Krill has been giving freebies to Brick for an eternity, so Brick has some motivation to be loyal.

Taking on Commodore is actually pretty possible as I'm guessing he'll finish off Cyneheard soon enough. I don't need OB because it's quickest to just go east over the Pacific. The problem right now is that Krill refuses to sign peace with me, and Commodore is not an appealing target in that his land is basically my land with luxuries and less seafood. So it sucks. On that note, it is actually tempting to take a bite out of the western continent for the purpose of claiming 3 or so luxuries and then using that newfound happiness to draft, which I currently can't really afford to do with my total lack of happy space. Hm. Something to consider down the road.

Another idea with taking on Regopin would be to try to grab some of their cities and then gift them off to Commodore, effectively buying a vassal. That combined with some help finishing Cyneheard would surely atone for the Gunpowder , and besides, he screwed me even worse with the PP thing, so that would go beyond the call of evening the score. That might also ensure I get a steady stream of happy gifts, so it's the best of both worlds. Whether Commodore would get the picture and go along with it is a mystery, but I would guess probably.

Anyways, if I can make this Nakor thing surgical and fast (resulting in an enforced peace treaty with concessions), that would just be wonderful, and I could turn my attention to screwing with western continent politics. That would just be fun. Plus I'd like to see Krill man up and conquer the entire east continent instead of playing SimCity.

[Mardoc]

I don't need OB because it's quickest to just go east over the Pacific.

It's not nearly as fun of an idea if you're not walking 3/4 of the way around the world with 1-movers .

[scooter]

It's not nearly as fun of an idea if you're not walking 3/4 of the way around the world with 1-movers .

WTF scooter, where are you going. This is amusing tbh so I'll let it go. Is he trolling me? Now I'm going to post 35 pictures of forests from this turn.

[scooter]

Welp, in the last few hours we've had Nakor give Krill a tech in a trade and Regopin pull some sort of tech trade with Krill as well (I'll need to login later to see what it is). Can we just concede? These guys aren't even trying. Oh well, I'm going to go kamikaze on both of them.

[scooter]

Well, Regoarrarr and Krill have forced my hand. Krill got Astronomy and traded it to Regoarrarr. Krill doing that was actually a big diplo mistake IMO, but it works out in the end for him because Regopin have irritated me far more for continuing to trade with him and now fund him with gold. Maybe it's not such a mistake or maybe he got lucky, I dk. So we'll do this the hard way. I declared war on Regoarrarr. I saw him drop off an Oromo + settler on an island between us. He was not there this morning, and now he is, so he has to have a galley in range. Since I moved before him, I should get to move before him next turn unless he double moves me (I'm expecting that but that's beside the point), so he'll lose his galley and any other boat-type object in range next turn.

I then offered Krill peace yet again. He's been rejecting, but now he should have motivation to sign peace now that he sees me declaring war on Regoarrarr. Krill, all you have to do is sign peace and I will be handing you the game. That's honestly it - all you need to do. Now make it happen.

[scooter]

Krill rejected.

Haha this game.