Gandhi of France: The Non-Violent Warrior

[ironstar]

Great informative post up there Dave, I really like reading the stuff you write. Very thought through.
It is very interesting to see the different approaches between your team and Team 1, but I think you guys are doing a fantastic job of keeping competitive with them. I might be wrong but I get the feeling that you are the one doing most of the coordination of the efforts of Team 3, so great job

[oledavy]

Great informative post up there Dave, I really like reading the stuff you write. Very thought through.
It is very interesting to see the different approaches between your team and Team 1, but I think you guys are doing a fantastic job of keeping competitive with them. I might be wrong but I get the feeling that you are the one doing most of the coordination of the efforts of Team 3, so great job

Thanks

I am doing a lot of the cordination. However, I think that is mostly because I have the most spare time out of the three of us to sink into a game like this.

At any rate, I hope we're keeping things somewhat interesting. I still don't give us great odds to win this thing, but let it be rememberd that 300.....I mean 3 Men of Genius, stood up to tyranny this day

[Shoot the Moon]

Dave before you end my turn could you switch the rifle builds in my capital and HE city to cannons? Thanks.

[oledavy]

I'll be doing a major update next turn for t175 and my revolt into state property, but for now, a quick review of:

[SIZE="4"]Turn 174[/SIZE]

Sulla move his mounted forced back up to occupy the fort, posting a screen here for future reference.



Legitimately, that stack is pretty intimidating. In fact, with my forces moving north, he could pose a real threat if he made a direct push at Dien Bien Phu. However, I seriously doubt Sulla will do so at this point. The good side effect of my abortive offensive was my show of force, which, for all Sulla knows, is playing zone defense to stop such a move. Sulla is going to be on the defensive, concerned with holding his new wines city - and with my power levels as high as they are, he's not going to risk a massacre of his armed forces. On the whole, my garrisons guarding my coastal cities are now very small - with 6 rifles and a pair of longbows playing defense. However, I can now rely on my navy to keep them somewhat safe.



I moved my unpromoted frigate to sit on Teleport Gank's Seafood, and to check ut the area before I sent my whole fleet in. Other than the Sullan frigates hiding in Teleport Gank and Map Control, the seas were clear. I then promoted it to sentry:



Hello there, the first of many ironclads I'm sure. Fortunately, unless Sulla has a GG settled in his HE city, it will be unable to promote to Nav I and hit the tile next turn. On the other hand, my ironclads will.

The other thing of note is the newly founded city of Help Pix! With the cavalry choking off the ismus, the city is well defending. However, it can still be cut off from the sea with ease. If I am able to take control of the seas post combustion, I should be able to take down this city. Sulla prioritizing such a forward city probably means he's in dire need of the happy and probably the health in his capital (courtesy of a grocer).

So, I moved the rest of my navy up, pillaged the fishing boats, and blockaded the city, covering all but two water tiles east of Map Control. I actually made a mistake here, I should have pillaged with my Combat I frigate and blockaded with my sentry frigate, rather than the other way around. This way Sulla can potential disrupt the blockade next turn if he hits my stack with all four of his frigates. That being said, I doubt be would so blatantly waste ships in this fashion.



The next few turns will be interesting. I have reinforcements moving up, and I'm sure Sulla as his own. Until I get ironclads of my own, it's going to be a war of maneuver, with me trying to stay ahead of the Indian ironclads while protecting my own seafood and causing as much disruption as possible. This will all be pretty short-lived though, I'm expecting Team #1 to get combustion in ~10 turns.

Domestically, I'm done whipping for awhile and growing my cities out. I continue to shift forces north for the offensive against Lewwyn. Thoth cash-upgraded one of the musketeers on the stack north of Orleans. I need to get a few machine guns in the city to cover it and free up all my forces to head west.

EOT domestic advisor:



Also, the event log:



Speaker finished out his golden age and revolted into war civics. Trading bureaucracy for vassalage is particularly interesting. Caste system probably means he is building/has built a lot of workshops.

End Turn.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="3"]Turn 175 - Part I[/SIZE]

Alright, time for another revolution:



Mercantilism & Organized Religion are out, State Property & Theocracy are in.

Losing Mercantilism cost me approximately 40 bpt, but saved me over 80 gpt in expenses - not to mention the buffs to production, workshops and watermills. With WK about to go into a golden age, he should be able to handily fund me and Shoot at 100% for the next 6 turns, and probably have a bit of excess at that. With Shoot and WK in golden ages, we should be able to crack 2000 bpt.

I really need to make a firm decision on whether or not I want to start my 1-man golden age at this point. On the one hand, boosting our teamwide research and hurrying out some military would be nice. On the other hand, I would prefer not to use my 1-man golden age until I have more population, (currently have ~140), and when I have infrastructure to really push. Here is the Great Person I would use:



The Waterloo GP will come when I end turn. He has 55% odds of being a scientist, and approximately 10% odds of being an engineer, merchant, artist, or prophet. Getting a prophet on this pull would be amazing...

So, where is all that money going?



At this point, a lot of my money is going into unit upkeep and supply. Attacking Lewwyn will be advantageous economically for me, as it will allow me to pawn off a lot of older units on Shoot to do some good against Lewwyn, while I replace them with smaller, less costly garrisons of rifles and machine guns. Now that I think about it, ORG wouldn't be half-bad at this point in the game. It would save me approximately 45 gpt.

Here is the size of my military:




At 24 workers/fast workers, I finally have just about enough of them to do everything I need. The research of railroad is about to tax them again though, railroading routes between cities and all the mines. The +50% worker improvement speed from steam power will be quite welcome.

French Army for Operation Guillotine

3 Cannon
1 Catapult
9 Knights
9 Pikes
1 Mace
3 Longbows
~25 Musketeers

51+ Units Total

I will be adding to a these units with whatever I can produce in my proximate cities in the meantime. This last turn, I whipped a cannon to completion in Sedan. I should be able to whip 2-3 more out of there in time to meet the deadline for the attack. The musketeers and knights will be staying in Orleans to pin Team #4 units and defend the city until t185, then will head west. It will take them three turns to reach Marlo, and they'll get there in time to stage for the invasion. This gives me 10 turns to get enough machine guns and rifles into Orleans to hold off Team #4, which will be coming from my core and northern cities.

If we research Military Tradition before the assault, we can do the cheap knight -> cavalry upgrade on all my knights to buff our attacking strength more. For the most part though, my units will not be the backbone of the assault. The bulk of my force will be good for little more than absorbing collateral hits and scratching enemy defenders for higher strength units to take out. The musketeers will give us a bit of tactical flexibility, however, which will be welcome.

Quick shot of May, 1940:



I detailed off a fast worker to chop down the remaining forests north of the city. The first came in this turn and went into that rifle.

My oil:







The oil near Calais popped on a farm that spreads irrigation to Louisbourg's rice. I'm farming the coastal grassland tile now so I can improve the oil tile without breking the irrigation chain.

I posted a sign in game, but I'm suggesting that Shoot settle the site I was calling Minden, near my third oil source. Since he's financial, it just makes more sense for him to get more land to be receive the buff - especially coastal cities like this. Furthermore, with State Propety, settling locations that far away from his capital is no longer as prohibitive.

@Shoot, let me know what you think of this.

State Propety now has most of my cities costing 1-2gpt in maintenance. Indeed, my most expensive city is coming in 4gpt, ironically, it is Waterloo, only 3 tiles away from my cap. I have a three more courthouses being completed int eh next few turns, reaching ten total and unlocking the Forbidden Palace. I was originally intending to build the Forbidden Palace in Orleans. Now, I'm not so sure it will be worthwhile. Still, it is pretty cheap, 134 hammers iirc.

At sea, Sulla played the last turn cautiously, massing his navy in Teleport Gank and 3 tiles east of the city. I briefly considered pushing into his territory, but thought better of it and decided to play it safe and continue blockading his island holdings.



I check out the area around Absolute Zero with my friagte to the southeast, seeing nothing other than the galleon already visibile. I added a 6th frigate to my main stack, bombard down the defenses of Map Control, and blockaded, covering every water tile in the BFCs of either city. I'll be curious to see what Sulla does next turn. In the north, I moved my frigate into northern sea.



Relieving the pressure on my coastal cities allowed me to finally improve the last seafood resource I had pillaged, Vigo Bay's whales. I offered them to WK to help him deal with the lost happiness from revolting out of Nationhood.

For future reference, everyone's civics:




Of note, everyone is in theocracy except ASM (producing Great Artists with pacifism) and Sulla (in Organized Religion).

And graphs:

[SIZE="3"]Power[/SIZE]



The power graph is rather comforting at this point, we have a pretty solid lead on Team #1

[SIZE="3"]MFG[/SIZE]



MFG is a little less so. Sulla has been expanding his production capacity steadily, and Speaker has had a massive increase above his pre-golden age MFG levels. My best guess is that he completed ironworks, and probably received a significant boost from Caste System Workshops. He may have even already finished a few factories Even Sunrise is starting a spike.

Needless to say, things are going to get a lot worse before them get any better.

[Shoot the Moon]

I agree that I should settle Minden. Simply makes more sense, especially as you have more cities so would pay more in number of cities maintenance.

[scooter]

Excellent turn report as always . Glad to see T-Hawk was able to take a bunch of screenshots for you.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="3"]Turn 175 - Part 2, The Northern Front[/SIZE]

On the northern front, the stalemate continues, though I did do something to shake up the status quo this turn:



If anyone is having trouble making sense of that, here are the exact numbers:

[SIZE="3"]Team #4 Forces[/SIZE]

On The Hill
2 Rifles
12 Musketeers
5 Pikemen
5 Knights
4 Catapults
7 Trebuchets
35 Units Total

In Appleloosa
3 Musketeers
2 Longbows
1 Crossbow
2 Triremes
1 Galley
6 Units Total (Not Counting Ships)

Hanging Around
1 Keshik
5 Workers

Total Units That Can Hit Orleans Next Turn (Two-Movers)
15 Musketeers
5 Knights
20 Units Total

[SIZE="3"]Total Visibile Military Units: 42[/SIZE]

And my own forces (after moving my knights out):



In the City
23 Musketeers
1 Sentry Knight
2 Cannon

On The Hill
1 Musketeer
8 Knights

[SIZE="3"]Total Military Units: 35[/SIZE]

As you can see, Nabaxo outnumbers me slightly, but not significantly, and with more musketeers arriving every turn, the city isn't falling any time soon. Still, I'll need to get rifles and machine guns in here if I want to hold it after we get the invasion of Lewwyn underway.

While waiting for an 8th courthouse to finish to unlock the FP, I have the city sinking its 5hpt into building wealth. It's stuck at a small pop size with a maximum potential 2fpt surplus until I can retake one of it's two food sources - thus running the artist. I have 40% culture on the rice, and should hopefully reclaim in within a half-dozen turns. It won't end the 2-mover thread to the city, though. That plains hill still have 79% Equestrian culture, and won't be falling under my cultural control anytime soon.

I feel like both me and Nabaxo are more worried about an attack from the other one, versus pushing deeper into our opponent's territory. Of note are the newly built triremes in Appaloosa. It looks like they're going to try and kill Shoot's blockading galleon.

I saw two equestrian workers appear on my border this turn, and made the potentially foolhardy decision to move my mounted stack covered by a guerilla musketeer to the hill shown in the picture, revealing three more unguarded workers, two building a road. I did this more or less on impulse, to shake things up and disrupt his attempts to improve the borders with his workers. The road graphics on the plains hill north of Orleans did not show a road on the grassland forest, so my units would be out of reach of his monster stack backed by collateral. However, it only occurred to me afterwards that he might have two workers on the tile and could still hit it if he is in position to road the tile this turn. I doubt this is the case, but nevertheless, this was a foolish risk to take. In any event, he will probably, move/protect the workers on his turn, and then I will retreat into the city. The net cost for me being 5 gold in supply costs for a turn. Probably not worth it, with the benefit of hindsight, even disregarding the risk to my army.

At any rate, we really need railroads and infantry to break this stalemate, and there is little to be done in the meantime. If my forces were not slated to head west in ten turns, I might try massing FWs and doing some tricky maneuvering to get behind Nabaxo's lines, or do something around Louisbourg. As things stand, however, I need not risk troops for the invasion of China at this point, and would be better served just standing down and forcing Team #4 to invest in more military. Ten turns just isn't enough time to do anything terribly crucial, and with railroad about to come online, I just can't spare the worker support even if I did want to.

Note to Self: Move more cannon into Orleans. I need more in position to hit that stack if it invades.

EDIT: Because I just played Mass Effect 3, assembling forces for Sledgehammer/Guillotine, whatever you want to call it, makes me feel a lot like Shepherd collecting War Assets in the game. Perhaps Sword would be an appropriate name for this

[regoarrarr]

Now that I think about it, ORG wouldn't be half-bad at this point in the game. It would save me approximately 45 gpt.

Actually closer to 60gpt factoring in inflation

[Gaspar]

More significantly, you'd get half-priced factories.