Well, finally got the reload so I logged in and played. Thankfully this turn I'm back to taking a minimum of one city per turn, and I have 5 planned for the next 3 turns. Now, this is a major case of quantity over quality, but whatever. First, I took the freebie off Brick:
Kept. The problem I'm running into now is having defenders for all these cities, but whatever. Krill could declare on me here pretty soon which would make this all collapse, but my "do I care?" meter is pretty low. Razed this abomination of a city:
It actually auto-razed, heh. That means East-West will burn and I'll replace it somehow. I should've just burned Hilleast too, but I'm short on settlers and galleons that aren't on military duty, so yeah, hands are tied a little bit. There's a Galleon in East-West, so I'm keeping mine just out of range so he doesn't sink that rifle on a low-odds attack. On the more interesting front, this is why all those Nakor islands are mine:
He's totally suffocated by my Frigates - he cannot possibly reinforce the islands before I take them. Nakor really better take the peace offer this turn or he'll start losing core cities. This is not exactly threatening:
Unpromoted Rifle/Longbow and a CG1 Musket on flatland? I have CR Pinch Rifles on my boats that would get odds on all those. One theory I've had is he wants to drag out the war so I take awhile to get his cities rather than hitting him after 10 turns peace, but nah, I don't have any interest in that. I'm just going to take as many as he'll lightly defend. He has yet to counter-attack even once btw - I haven't defended yet in this war. So yeah, surely he'll quit denying peace now that he has a great chance of losing core cities right? Anyways, the prep for taking his next two island cities:
This one is a slam dunk - that's 6 rifles on those 2 Galleons, and he doesn't have a lot in that city. I may take a couple casualties only because the dumb thing is on a hill, but I'm pretty sure it'll fall next turn barring bad luck. I was aiming for his north city and I had a fun tactical puzzle to solve:
Take a second and see if you can solve it. The puzzle here is he has a Galleon in Point Break (bottom-right corner). I don't want to risk him winning a 30-45% attack and sinking my Galleon along with 3 Rifles. That's not worth the risk. He also has a Frigate inside Castle Humbris, which I obviously need to be out of range from. Is there a tile on which I can place my Galleon and:
1) Be in range of Humbris next turn
2) Be out of range from both his Frigate and Galleon?
Keep in mind the movement ranges involved here. All hail Vikings. My answer in spoilers, but try to figure it out before looking.
Anyways, that city does not have an impressive force in it, but he may hold it out of sheer numbers next turn. The following turn it will fall. My offered peace deal:
To those who don't have cities memorized - that's basically the rest of his island cities - still leaving his homeland intact. This may be the last turn that I offer something like this, pretty soon homeland cities will start to feel the hurt. I'm tempted to grab a border city and then gift it to Krill actually.
Seriously, these turns are a lot of fun.