Ranamar and Lewwyn, ministers for Bismarck of Mali

[Ranamar]

This message came with the turn:

Hey Ranamar, I offered a cease-fire in-game, as unless I have a semi-decent population left, my vote if (when) you win the UN race won't be enough.
-Commodore

I figure I'll accept because I was pretty much done with him anyway because I figured it'd be polite, so that is fair. If I wasn't, he could see the writing on the wall that I'd be able to burn another couple of his cities next turn, and then he'd be really crippled instead of mostly in a bad spot.
Besides, losing the WW for warring with him would mean I might actually be able to switch out of Police State!
On the other hand, he's getting a vastly better deal out of that than I am, because it prevents me from doing air strikes on his resource improvements (especially things like his solitary gold...) every time he builds one, which is what I was planning on doing to keep him down.

... or alternately decide my previous plan to take 3 turns on Mass Media was silly and turn research up to 100%.
Maybe I'll switch to Representation, actually... I think that might be enough to solve most of the happiness problems if half the WW goes away, which would reduce that part of the Police State effect by half too. Representation would get me a few (not too many, admittedly...) extra beakers, too. I'll see when I actually look at the save. For now, it's time for bed.

[Lewwyn]

NO PEACE! What're you thinkin... Uh.. wait what game was this?

[Ranamar]

NO PEACE! What're you thinkin... Uh.. wait what game was this?

Actually, Commodore explained the logic a little better in the diplo screen itself: he's pretty sure we both need to vote for the winner (requires 60%) and he doesn't think we'll have that anymore if I burn any more of his cities. He may have a point, but I'm going to try to destroy/capture the rest of Luddite/GES's stuff and prove him wrong anyway.

This cease-fire business, though, is somewhat more appealing after poking around the save. It reduces our WW by, like, 6 in most places. Police State is no longer ridiculously useful and the only real reason we were keeping our head above water.

[Ranamar]

Played turn 157.

Accepted cease-fire. Getting rid of ~6 WW helped our economy a lot, although not being able to move through his territory was strategically inconvenient.

The reduced unhappy let me switch to Universal Suffrage and, with 10% in culture and 90% in science, I finished off Mass Media this turn instead of it taking two more turns. I decided not to build a Supermarket, at least before the United Nations is built, and I rushbought the rest of the factory because I could.

I burned two more of GES's cities.

One of them was the one he took back from us and left empty... but with it more or less out of buildings, I considered it not worth it to try to defend. Also, bye-bye Apostolic Palace. Out with the old; in with the new! (UN coming soon, right? Also, Mass Media obsoletes it.)
I'll admit I left the capturing Marines behind because I'm curious whether he'll go after them.

Incidentally, after destroying those couple more cities, look at the domination win line:

I don't think we'll have any problem winning the UN vote. You only need 60% to win, after all, and I think the votes are proportional to population. Furthermore, I'd like to try to capture GES's last two cities, because they're pretty nice. Also, if I'm ever going to get Stone, I want a beachead harbor, and his last coastal city is really the only option for that. Maybe I'll go fully peaceful builder and spam settlers while waiting for the UN votes to tick down, now that there's all this lush land in GES's former territory. The other option is to go drop the hammer on Yuris again, which is definitely another viable option.

Say, mechanics question, which I probably should have asked earlier, because if it goes the wrong way, I've already flubbed it, really... Do you get resources in time on the turn you build the improvement to have them affect your builds for the turn? If not, I really should have built a coal mine this turn so I could add the multiplier to the overflow from Barad-Dur's factory. If not... well, currently the United Nations is listed as 4 turns at the end of the turn, which is already pretty good, and I'll spare myself the -2 health everywhere else.

[NobleHelium]

Yes, you can immediately start using resources that you hook that turn.

[Ranamar]

I'll actually post a report with pictures sometime later, but I managed to get the UN down to only 3 turns. (... and then some, so I might be able to windmill back over the coal next turn...) I also have more units in Luddite's second-to-last city, I think, than he has units total, and he basically doesn't have strategic resources anymore.

Edit:
captured this city:


That's a nice city capture!

I then piled this into it:

(The transports that dropped them off then moved back out... I also put four bombers because they can actually hit Stone from there...)

GES has this in his final city:


Unfortunately, before I counted and realized that I literally have more units in there than he has, I moved three tanks in range for him to attack as a distraction. I'll probably just lose them with nothing to show for it, but I'm kind of hoping he moves everything out so that operation Dueling Guitars (by which I mean two tanks with Great Generals and commando) would be able to actually move in and finish the job. I doubt it'll work, unfortunately, but if he leaves as few as two units in Stone, I can do it, because I have the 13-exp tanks and the great commanders standing by.

Also, I microed Barad-Dur to build the United Nations in 3 turns... I then overkilled it a bit, so I think I might be able to get rid of the Coal global unhealth and not actually miss a turn anymore. Well, I'm hoping so; we'll find out. If Commodore wants to beat me, he'll have his work cut out for him, because I'm pretty sure he's a turn behind me on Mass Media (not certain, though... I lost research vision for one turn this past turn when I redistributed espionage points...) and, well, that means he needs to match my 3-turn build time and my research time, if he's going to pull it off... and neither of us have enough cash to make cash-rushing it actually speed it up, I don't think.
That was some

[Ranamar]

I should have GES/Luddite out of the game by next turn, if all goes well. I did goof slightly and move one of the tanks I meant to GGeneral. I ended up sending the other one to support the three tanks that GES didn't end up attacking, but I moved one of the tanks before I remembered the generals, so it's out swinging in the breeze a bit, and it won't be getting a General. I'll find something to have it put on, though, and I don't think it's a really critical problem.

Honestly, after the bombing I gave him this turn, combined with some lucky cleanup (3 wins all at 60-75%), I don't think he can challenge me in the field, especially with his tanks having CR promotions while mine have Combat promotions because I was worried about this last turn. The only question of whether I'll be able to do him in next turn is whether I have enough attacks. The tanks which are sitting next to his city currently may be crucial due to being able to attack twice in one turn, however.

ETA to UN completion is 2 turns. Commodore is building something big in Aquilonia, so I think that's his UN build. If he can finish it up in 2 turns, he'll beat me due to turn order. It's possible, but he'd need to be swinging 300 (after bonuses) hammers per turn too in order to pull it off. (We have a 260% bonus, whereas he can't possibly have more than a 250% bonus... although I forgot about Bureaucracy, which he's running. I wonder if I could have gotten it down to two turns?) I haven't done the math out, so it's possible, but it's not really like knowing will change anything. Unless I go to war with him, I can't knock out his improvements, and I don't have any carriers in the area for an air strike anyway. (Aquilonia is on the wrong side of his blob for me to use land-based bombers.)

Quick edit: Waitaminute... if I had 2 turns to go, then he needs to finish it next turn, or I have it the turn after that. We'll know next turn if I get it. The suspense is killing me. I should go do other things.

Also, turns are down to an hour (some of it staring at what I've already done wondering if I should have done something more/else) now that we're not fighting everyone everywhere all at the same time. This is far less exhausting.

[SevenSpirits]

ETA to UN completion is 2 turns. Commodore is building something big in Aquilonia, so I think that's his UN build. If he can finish it up in 2 turns, he'll beat me due to turn order. It's possible, but he'd need to be swinging 300 (after bonuses) hammers per turn too in order to pull it off. (We have a 260% bonus, whereas he can't possibly have more than a 250% bonus... although I forgot about Bureaucracy, which he's running. I wonder if I could have gotten it down to two turns?) I haven't done the math out, so it's possible, but it's not really like knowing will change anything. Unless I go to war with him, I can't knock out his improvements, and I don't have any carriers in the area for an air strike anyway. (Aquilonia is on the wrong side of his blob for me to use land-based bombers.)

Quick edit: Waitaminute... if I had 2 turns to go, then he needs to finish it next turn, or I have it the turn after that. We'll know next turn if I get it. The suspense is killing me. I should go do other things.

I looked out of curiosity if there was any way to make it a 2t build instead of 3t, but I didn't find one. Not even with switching to all the most prod-heavy civics (US/Bureau/Caste/SP/OR) and mining the coal and then also building more hammer improvements in BD. Nor, I think, by gathering gold and rushing it with two turns to go. (It's just way too expensive to rush; 4x the normal cost.)

Anyway looks like you're approaching 60% pop, so regardless of what Commodore does things look sewn up.

[Ranamar]

I looked out of curiosity if there was any way to make it a 2t build instead of 3t, but I didn't find one. Not even with switching to all the most prod-heavy civics (US/Bureau/Caste/SP/OR) and mining the coal and then also building more hammer improvements in BD. Nor, I think, by gathering gold and rushing it with two turns to go. (It's just way too expensive to rush; 4x the normal cost.)

Anyway looks like you're approaching 60% pop, so regardless of what Commodore does things look sewn up.

Yeah, cash rushing it was never an option. After that first turn invested, it was still nearly 3k gold to rush. I can't imagine we could get that below 2k.

Believe it or not, I'm thinking of building a bunch of settlers and recolonizing GES's land, once he's gone.
It's not like it's really going to matter, because we already have better population growth potential than anyone else, but it would add to the growth potential.

I'm going to have to check the level of population this turn and comment on it in the UN thread if it reaches 60%.

[Ranamar]

Turn 160 in one picture:


Success!

:2dance:

As observed in the previous picture, the UN completed.
We also eliminated GES. Stone is a rather nice city. We have the Statue of Liberty now, among other things!

Some more pictures:

I had to apply a bunch of tanks, although, due to blitz and some large amounts of promotions, not quite all of them. Bombing it with a fuckton of aircraft helped, too.

Hopefully, the war weariness, which is starting to creep up on me again, will go away next turn when it registers that, no really, we're not fighting anyone anymore.

Incidentally, the peace treaty with Yuris expired. While my forces are arguably out of position, the shape of the map means that running from where I have tons of transports sitting to where Yuris is would actually be a very short trip and he'd quickly regret attacking me. I expect it would only increase my share of the world population in the course of a couple turns.