Ranamar and Lewwyn, ministers for Bismarck of Mali

[Ranamar]

Finished turn... never did do anything about happiness, but Rock & Roll finished EOT.

(Worst cities: -4)

Seven came online while I was working on the turn, as you can see... We decided it was worth it to go for the Commando Tank idea. That means we're researching Military strategy this turn. After switching back to Free Speech, it managed to work at 90%. This does mean that we have basically no cash to rush things next turn, though. The tank does need some healing (19.x/28), unfortunately, so a couple promotions will be nice. I know we won't be going for West Point, but I'm still going to be sad when we lose that tank.

Umm... I got a lot of transports in range to attack GES in the next couple turns. Unfortunately, the ones from attacking Yuris are 2-3 tiles short of arriving this coming turn. We can still pile a lot of units into a city, though. Also, we have several bombers now in range, which means we'll have plenty softened targets to hit.

Other than that, well, I drafted a bunch of stuff and cash-rushed everything we had already put a turn into, even those that had only the one turn left to go. I also had some workers turn our second silk plantation back into a watermill, and I similarly assigned some workers to replace an elephant hunting camp with a workshop. I have a feeling we'll prefer the hammers.

Okay, that's all that comes to mind. It's nearly 2:30am here, and I'm tired, so, good night!

[SevenSpirits]

Cool.

I think we won't be in Universal Suffrage for a few turns anyway so the lack of gold isn't so bad. Instead I think we should revolt to slavery next turn and maybe vassalage. (That will enable rushing for the next two turns. Man I love Cristo Redentor.) After that it's back to caste and only the turn after that should we consider going back to Usuffrage IMO.

We have to be careful about that silk because our second source is from a trade with Commodore. So we need to get a partly completed plantation on there so we don't get two unhappy everywhere if he cancels that deal in a couple turns.

Lots of pictures are always good if you have any. (But goodnight for now of course.)

[SevenSpirits]

t149.

These turns are really hard to play and take a long time.

War vs Luddite

We lost our marine that razed his city. Luddite sacced a musket and then cleaned up with his own Marine. I guess we should be deleting our units that land by him even if they're really strong. Speaking of landing units:



Nice! The bombers did an impressive amount of damage: We took no casualties, just deleted the final marine. Plus our tank got itself the last two xp. The reason I decided not to send in commando tank this turn is that it was only getting ~70% odds on the rifle at Alpine. I'd rather do better than that. Luddite hasn't shown any signs of purposely defending Alpine and Stone - it's just that he keeps building units and then moving them out the next turn - and there's even a chance we'll get to kill both cities at once if Stone doesn't produce a unit for a turn. That would be amazing. Anyway, our tank didn't take any damage and got its needed 2xp (I used it as the second-to-last attacker). So next turn if we get it a landing place it can even promote before having to fight! That could be worth some extra strength, or some extra moves (by grabbing Morale after moving as far as it can).

I could have attacked Thebes too (since Ranamar managed to finagle four transports into range last turn, and we only ended up using two for Ballast Point) but I figure sending in some bombers first would be better, or his defenders would have had odds. (Thebes even has two infantry defending it. It must be very important to Luddite.)

By the way, here's what survived the takeover of BP:



Bye-bye Sankore.

Here are our troops now in the area:



I've tried to position most of the five transports we have there so they are forking 3-4 cities. (The mouseover stack is on the left.)

Here are the other two transports, near the top of the screen:



The galleon there is sadly still empty. We didn't have enough marines on our home continent this turn.

Some important areas in the war:



Some cities we're in range of, his very important oil resource, and three Egyptian battleships. I had to be very careful to avoid putting ships where they could be profitably attacked by those ships.



Luddite's transport threatened Minas Tirith and Khand so I made sure they were defended. Unfortunately there were none of our battleships in range, but I did damage his battleship a bit with a fighter. I also moved a bunch more air units down to Minas Tirith, and some battleships closer. His city there (I forget the name) is in range of some transports, by the way.

Some of our battleships are wounded from last turn, I moved a medic over to the fort so they would heal faster.

War vs Commodore?

Commodore's allowed to declare next turn so I paid close attention to his attack capabilities. First of all he moved his galleys closer and upgraded them to galleons:

Since these can hit Dol Amroth, I piled a bunch of stuff into Dol Amroth. I think he'd be a fool to go for it now.

Additionally, he has two galleons here:

And since he can easily run some workers in and build a fort, these galleons are threatening Rivendell. Therefore I piled units into Rivendell too. (Hopefully the 5 are enough, I screwed up and thought there was only one galleon there. He has about 15% of taking it I think. :/)

In case he attacks us I've also parked our caravel on his fish; this will stop him from working it.

Domestic stuff:

We're having to run 10% culture. Might need to pick up emancipation at some point - all three opponents are running it now and in concert with the war weariness it's hurting.

I swapped to vassalage/slavery and whipped a ton.




Some of our military (gunpowder units on down):


Most of Luddite's military:

[SevenSpirits]

Oh forgot to mention:

1) We got a low-odds great spy. Booo. Can't do anything with him. Could have use the much-more-likely artist or engineer much better.

2) I built a settler to replant angmar.

[NobleHelium]

I'm not sure what you mean with the commando tank. You can't land it and move it to attack the same turn, unless you land and then promote to Morale to recover a movement point.

[SevenSpirits]

I'm not sure what you mean with the commando tank. You can't land it and move it to attack the same turn, unless you land and then promote to Morale to recover a movement point.

We're planning to capture (and not raze) one of Luddite's coastal cities. Then the transport can move into the city and unload the tank without it losing movement.

Edit: actually good point, with the move promo available we don't even have to pull that trick if it's not convenient. We can just drop him off in MT. He'll have 14 moves (10, and then another 10/3 which works out to 4) and can reach alpine even from there. (And pass through Stone for good measure if it's only defended by the chariot.)

[NobleHelium]

Okay. Not sure if you know this but defeating a unit and being able to occupy its square takes normal movement, so if you attack a city with only one defender you'd only have to pay road or rail movement for razing the city. You can just barrel through it, basically.

[SevenSpirits]

Okay. Not sure if you know this but defeating a unit and being able to occupy its square takes normal movement, so if you attack a city with only one defender you'd only have to pay road or rail movement for razing the city. You can just barrel through it, basically.

Yep, I'd checked.

Any workers on our way are going to get deleted too! Assuming we get the chance for all this of course.

[SevenSpirits]

This turn is a real slog. But I'm almost done with combat. To say it was a good turn for us would be an understatement. We now have more power than the total of the other three players.

Edit: I might not finish until this evening, have some obligations.

[NobleHelium]

Doesn't sound like there are many of these turns left to play, at least.