Ranamar and Lewwyn, ministers for Bismarck of Mali

[SevenSpirits]

Just one piece of advice looking at the save: turn the culture slider up!

[Ranamar]

Just one piece of advice looking at the save: turn the culture slider up!

In other words, don't worry about the money we can't spend?

I plan to switch back to mil. state this turn after buying stuff, tbh.

[NobleHelium]

More like don't lose more money via nonworking citizens than you gain by a higher gold slider.

[SevenSpirits]

Right. a bit of unhappy is find but we should cancel most of it put with commerce.

[Ranamar]

More like don't lose more money via nonworking citizens than you gain by a higher gold slider.

I checked it out, IIRC, and the fact of the matter was that, at least last turn, we would have lost gold by turning it up to 20%... might have gained hammers, though.

[SevenSpirits]

I checked it out, IIRC, and the fact of the matter was that, at least last turn, we would have lost gold by turning it up to 20%... might have gained hammers, though.

Don't forget food!

[Ranamar]

Anyway, what I actually did was switch back to Police State. That pretty much solves all the happiness problems, and I could do it after rushing stuff.

I hit 3 cities... can you guess which one burned?



Yup, it was Nemedia. I couldn't let a Holy City stand.
Hyperboria actually gave us some pretty good starting infrastructure.

In the process of taking Xapur, we not only destroyed a few units, but I also caught a battleship in its berth. Commodore is down to a single battleship for his entire navy, as far as I can tell, partly because I had just enough moves on the transport to drop the Marines (in case he surprises me somehow) in the city and go kill a galleon over on the other side (SW) of the island where he can't get at it with his one remaining battleship.

Attacking Brythunia instead would have cost us the transport in revenge attacks. Unfortunately, none of the other transports had quite enough range, so I couldn't hit it from the other side this turn. Oops. Next turn. There are a ton of transports in range.

Actually, I'm tempted to keep it for approximately the same strategic reasons that I wanted to burn it originally. Sea superiority is our strength, and being able to cross those land bridges helps a lot, even if the cities are in revolt. Besides, I've restored the rail network, so we should be able to run all our infantry into it to hold it soon, not to mention airlifting a unit there. At this point, even Commodore seems sufficiently gassed that destroying it would inconvenience us more than keeping it would expose us, IMO.

The rest of the game seems like it's going to mostly be a question of getting transports into position, a job I feel like I'm doing rather inexpertly. Incidentally, I'm getting a huge appreciation for carriers as the targets have stopped being as thoroughly in range of cities we have taken. If we weren't bombing them left and right, we'd be losing Marines left and right instead.

Is this the part where I should put the idea of agreeing on ending the game on the table?

[SevenSpirits]

Nicely done! I didn't think quite that much damage was actually possible this turn, based on where I left things two turns ago.

I would propose calling the game, personally. I'd rather save everyone's time for playing games that aren't forgone conclusions, which is always kind of anticlimactic. But also if you do want to play a few more turns I don't think people would mind. I'm pretty sure the others aren't spending nearly as much time per turn as we are.

[Ranamar]

Nicely done! I didn't think quite that much damage was actually possible this turn, based on where I left things two turns ago.

Two turns ago, I queued a transport to hit Hyperborea, and one turn ago, I loaded it with Marines. I'd been eying that city for awhile now.

I still feel like I could have gotten that fourth city if I'd forced myself to inventory my transports and galleons at the beginning of the fighting in the turn. On the other hand, I may be deluding myself that I actually had sufficient range on any of them. If one of them had been one square to the east at the start of the turn, I'm almost certain I could have hit it. It only had two defenders, and I had a galleon that I'd loaded with tanks last turn.

I would propose calling the game, personally. I'd rather save everyone's time for playing games that aren't forgone conclusions, which is always kind of anticlimactic. But also if you do want to play a few more turns I don't think people would mind. I'm pretty sure the others aren't spending nearly as much time per turn as we are.

I think my time investment will probably decrease, but that's mostly because I'll need to shift forces all over the place instead of agonizing over how to attack. This turn took over 2 hours again (although some of that was relatively low-productivity...) while I wished too much that I could just know the optimal way to handle things. The logistical headache of half our (non-revolting) cities completing something every turn is severe and not too fun, however.

Edit: Hmm... I assume I should suggest we call the game in the AP thread? ... or would the tech/organizing thread be a superior choice?

[Ranamar]

I need to stop playing the turns late at night. Report will come later when I'm not supposed to be sleeping.

Luddite actually took Gorgoroth back from us ... and only lost three siege and a random thing killed by a knight for it. (He renamed it LOL.) I paid him back for it by razing two of his other cities. I'll get that one back too... soon. Units are kind of out of position.
Seriously, check this out:

I suppose, given how we've been doing that to everyone else, it's only fair to be on the receiving end. It's still impressive, though.

I also took the other city I swore I'd take this turn of Commodore's. Unfortunately, he'd had a turn to prepare and piled all his cavalry into it. Still, I barely managed to take it, and then I dumped everything that was on the transports (most survived...) and several infantry and a couple tanks into the city. I don't think he can take it back.

City strikes:

I kept Brythunia for strategic reasons (It's a canal...) and burned the other two so I didn't have to try to hold them.
Notice how no cities can pick up the lost tiles for any territory north of Lost Abbey. I didn't delete the Marine for Lost Abbey, though, because I forgot to, and I have a strong feeling he's going to be gone when I open the next turn. Luddite's probably redeployed his troops to have lots of meatshields in his coastal cities, too. Ohwell.

As for the concession discussion above, Commodore and I agreed to race for the UN. Commodore didn't want to concede, and besides, modern war is actually a rather strange animal that is rarely observed in the wild. Honestly, the game is more or less a foregone conclusion (we'd have to invade Yuris at some point to keep him from getting a culture victory, but, other than that, it's a question of when and how, not who, IMO. The background to this was a discussion, basically, of whether to call the game or not. Commodore didn't want to quite yet, and the strategic decisions haven't lost their luster for me quite yet. (although losing 2 hours of sleep every night because I fail to manage time is bad...)

Commodore originally asked if I would vote against Seven of Mali in the UN elections.
Eventually the deal we came to was that we'd race for it because it's funny. I think I'll win, partly because I've finally queued a factory in Barad-Dur. I'll give it a health building too. It's not efficient, but, well... I knocked Commodore down from 2 turns for Mass Media to 3 turns for Mass Media by taking that city of his, and so I'm delaying my own research to about the same rate. It actually runs a surplus! (50% research, 10% culture... 78gpt surplus or something) Meanwhile, I'm applying 3 turns of production to get as large a head start as possible.
... and somehow, when posting this, I forgot to mention the two actual stipulations to this race:
1) Commodore wants me to change my ingame name to Ranamar before I build the UN.
2) I want this to be a silly, public thing. (I see, as of this morning, he has followed through. I think I'll change my name at the next turn.)

Oddly, the Emancipation went down. I think someone switched out of it. It means it doesn't feel like WW is killing us quite so badly, too. I'll be switching to Universal Suffrage (and maybe Nationalism?) once I have Mass Media, and I'll turn the culture rate up as far as I need to in order to keep everyone working in Barad-Dur.
In the meantime, people can say whatever they like, but we'll lock them up if we want.