[SPOILERS - PBEM19] Huayna Capac of Ottomans - yuris125 & Maestro

[yuris125]

T117

Here we go. This is what I saw in the hub (note that GES/Luddite didn't close borders, so I moved my Trireme into the city to see the hill SE of it)



11 Jans, 7 Cats and 5 Knights (one is off screen) can strike the city with 9 Rifles and 4 Cats (+2 War Chariots and 1 Warrior). The problem is, they can only do it next turn. If I move onto the hill NW of the city, the stack will be obliterated. In my tests of unpromoted Rifles vs unpromoted Jans on a hill battles, Rifles win 8 times out of 9. Luddite has Cats, and I don't think all his Rifles are unpromoted, so he will almost certainly win all 9 battles. Plus, there's another Rifle and 2 Muskets who can also reach this hill next turn. We have no chance of capturing this city

So I don't attack in the hub. This was a feint anyway, and we certainly succeeded in drawing his forces here, and forcing him to spend more than 1k gold on upgrades. Standstill in the hub works just fine for me

I'm building a Lib in Love Radio (and plan to whip it next turn), because we're losing cultural control of key tiles: the deer and ice 2S of the city

As for the primary attack direction



Unfortunately, he's got a Rifle there. So no amphibious attack. Landed the stack on the hill NE of the city. The best thing is, this city cannot be reached from any other city in 1 turn (he doesn't have HBR, so no 2-movers). Next turn, we will face maximum of 3 Rifles (if he switches to Nat, drafts and whips). They should be killable by 9 Jans. EDIT: I'm being too optimistic, he can upgrade those Warriors to Rifles, he has the cash. Although it will hurt a lot, Warrior to Rifle is quite expensive. If he does, I guess loading the stack back onto Galleons is the wisest move

He also started a GA this turn. I'm not a fan of having a GA when at war, but maybe it will help him defend

[yuris125]

Our tech path, unless something extraordinary happens:

Chemistry (due in 2) - Military Science - Steel - Aest - Lit - Music - Military Tradition - Banking - Replaceable Parts - Rifling

GES/Luddite discovered Chemistry this turn, so they're probably going for Steel. Pity we can't pillage their iron yet, relatively good thing is that we will be last to Steel and therefore will get full discounts

Commodore agreed to a defensive pact, although if we lose the war it won't matter

[yuris125]

Hmm, did I screw up? I was put off by the <0.1% odds, and an earlier agreement with Maestro not to attack amphibiously if the defender in Ballast Point is better than an Axe. But I just tested, and we could have killed that Rifle - and razed a city - for the price of 4 Jans. Even if it would have taken 6 Jans to kill the Rifle, we would have still been able to raze the city last turn

To be honest, I completely failed to remember that the Warriors could be upgraded. At a high price, but I strongly suspect he will pay it for such an important city. If he does, and also drafts and whips, we will face 5 Rifles. This won't look good then

[yuris125]

£$%^&*!

By flagrantly breaking a long-term agreement, RL7 has allowed yuris to make a successful landing in my core.

Here is my advice: do not trust 7. Apparently he is much more Krill than novice, which comes as a good lesson for everyone at RB in future games.

I advised Luddite to basically walk away from the game. I don't know what he will do, but as far as I am concerned, you two should take all my land and then attack RL7 from every angle possible.

Good luck to both of you.

GES

I hate people breaking deals, and I hate doing dishonourable things. So what do I do now?

[yuris125]

Well, we're playing on. Luddite adopted Nationhood. Now I strongly doubt we will make any gains - at least until Grenadiers

Luddite decided to move his stack towards Love Radio



I had average RNG luck, and didn't have enough units to clear this stack, he has 5 or 6 nearly dead units left



However, all our Catapults are lost, and Jans/Knights without siege have little chance of breaking Rifles behind 40% cultural defences

In Ballast Point, Luddite did everything I expected: upgraded Warriors to Rifles and drafted. Not whipped though, not sure where he got another Rifle, but he did get 5 of them there. I didn't see any point in attacking, loaded the stack back onto Galleons and sailed away. I did screw up by not attacking amphibiously

[yuris125]

So I am offering this as an explanation so you don't feel bad about attacking or whatever. You guys had a good plan, executed it well, and you should attack to the full extent you think it will benefit your civ.

If you all hadn't figured it out, RL7 and I came to an agreement early on in the game to work together. I basically gifted them marble to get all their wonders in exchange for only one worker (which was cheap due to EXP and I didn't even need) and an agreement that we would essentially stay friendly the entire game. The plan was pretty much to just demilitarize our lands, build up, and conquer everyone else. At that point, the two of us would agree to race or DOW each other.

I was able to beat you to Apostolic Palace because 7 sold me their great engineer and basically told me exactly when you would be finishing it. Comm says I beat you to Taj by turn order and the only reason I knew you were building it is because RL7 told me. I had to 6-pop whip my Bureaucracy capital to beat you. I would've never whipped without their information. I gave them Confu for free. They sold me stone even though he knew you wanted it so I could beat you to UoS and Minaret. We have gifted resources back and forth for free. Map exchanges, endless chats, strategizing etc. All my dealings with them were with 7.

I consider 7 selling you galleons to be a violation of the not only the spirit of my arrangement with 7, but also in particular given some of our chat discussions. Troop exchanges with known enemies--definitely unacceptable.

So here is the deal. Luddite has built up enough beaker overflow to literally 1-turn to combustion and astro even if he turned off science. There will be machine guns and ironclads in about 2 turns. At that time, really any attack is pretty much doomed to fail I think. You have ~20 turns before 7 can attack you. He will have technologically superior troops and has significantly more MFG to leverage. If you are still busy fighting us, 7 will probably attack to reach the Dom limit.

GES

Can't comment right now, need to run

[yuris125]

Well, what a good lesson I learned. To be honest, up to this point I thought our diplo was near-perfect, the only area where we excelled in this game. Now I find out that Seven was feeding the info we were telling him to GES, and directly lied to us several times

Maestro, you've been pushing me not to think RL7 are friendly towards us... well, you can say "I told you so"

What concerns me is the last paragraph of GES's message, QFE:

So here is the deal. Luddite has built up enough beaker overflow to literally 1-turn to combustion and astro even if he turned off science. There will be machine guns and ironclads in about 2 turns. At that time, really any attack is pretty much doomed to fail I think. You have ~20 turns before 7 can attack you. He will have technologically superior troops and has significantly more MFG to leverage. If you are still busy fighting us, 7 will probably attack to reach the Dom limit.

Hard as I look at this passage, I can't see a deal offer. Seems to me he wants us to simply stop the attack. His claim that he has enough overflow to get Machine Guns in 2 turns at 0% research doesn't sound believable. Well, I can believe he will get Railroad in 2 turns - he did 1-turn Steam Power last turn, albeit at deficit research, not at 0%. The point is - Machine Guns are not draftable, and the only unit which can upgrade to it are Grenadiers, which he doesn't have. So it will take some time for him to start defending with MGs. Ironclads are a similar story, wooden boats cannot be upgraded to Ironclads, and they're not a threat as long as I can always end the turn on an ocean tile outside his territory

However, the attack does seem to be rather pointless now. Of course, things could change when I bring a stack of Grenadiers to his land. I doubt it though, it will take at least 5 turns, he will have MGs by that time, which are not killable by anything before Infantry/Marines

I will discuss things with Commodore (he's our ally in this war after all) and then decide what would be the best play and what I am going to do

[yuris125]

Started peace talks. Offered GES to surrender both their hub cities, for a gift of furs for the rest of the game. Will settle for one. Commodore agreed that it probably is best not to attack GES at this point. We have no counter to Machine Guns, and they're not too expensive, so if GES/Luddite whip them in all border cities, we won't be able to achieve much progress. Even Janissaries vs Rifles battles we're having at the moment don't go our way (and shouldn't )

The game is more or less over for us at this point. We wasted 10 turns of production, whipping and drafting units which we now won't be able to use. We're last in tech, will have to obsolete Colossus relatively soon, and have a relatively small chance to catch up. Our best bet probably is to get into a MoM-powered golden age (or two, if possible), finish Oxford, and try to improve our tech situation. However, RL7 have a huge lead in land and cities, and stopping them will be difficult

However, if what GES said is true, we do want to stop them from winning. Sneaky diplo annoys me to no end. So if there is a chance of stopping them, we will use it

My biggest mistake in this war was not razing Ballast Point by an amphibious attack. Possibly including siege units in the stack on Galleons was a mistake by itself: bringing 15 Jans on Galleons and using them for amphibious attacks on coastal cities could have been a better plan

[yuris125]

Another potentially interesting plan would be to tech Democracy and build SoL. Nobody teched in this direction yet, and it would be helpful

[yuris125]

I didn't check the save yet, but Luddite says he offered a peace for 2 cities deal. The is better than I hoped, but I wonder if I can accept: we banned city gifting, after all

I like the idea of building SoL and switching to Representation-Mercantilism next