Oxy changes his naming scheme to Community... and inexplicably doesn't get cancelled

[Cheater Hater]

T143 Plans:
Even from just looking at all the builds, I think you can assume (just like I assumed) that war with xenu isn't a question of if, but when. That assumption is more concrete when we look at the stacks that have been assembled:






Banane Kastell actually isn't that highly defended, relative to what I would expect from a border city--it has walls and is on a hill, but only has one Longbow (Guerilla II unfortunately) and about 5 other units. Importantly, the city is easily hittable with 2-movers--and if we road the forest 1SW (the Maybe C sign), we could hit it with 1-movers on the declaration turn. One of the complications with the war plan is that we don't have Engineering yet--we could obviously get it before we declare, but I'm not sure which tech we should get--Nationalism for drafting, Gunpowder for Muskets, Engineering for movement/Pikes, Paper to make a Liberalism run, Compass to head for Astro to attack a non-xenu target?

Other than what to do with my military and my tech path, the other main decision I have incoming is what to do with my next Great Person--Annie is finishing a GP (almost certainly a scientist, with a slim possibility of an artist) in two turns, and I don't know what to do with it--probably an Academy somewhere, but I'm not sure.

Obviously, I'm not planning on doing this alone--BaII should be around to help me in some form or another, and hopefully we should be able to transition at the very least.

Edit: Before I forget, I'm putting all my pictures related to this game (at least this side of it) in this Dropbox folder--I generally take more pictures than I can use, but almost all of them end up in the folder. When I start making composite pictures (most common when I start covering actual wars, when I don't want to use five pictures to cover a theater--I actually could have made a composite picture for the troops in this post, but I'm lazy ) I'll also put the originals in the folder as well.

[Ceiliazul]

I think most players here understand that a new turnplayer is a pivot point in strategy and diplo relations. If you wanted to signal a peaceful border to one of your neighbors, how would you go about it?

[BaII]

Personally I have just been spamming units because I know the only way to actually go anywhere is through Xenu. So eventually we have to fight him. I was planning on heading to Cuir's and make the push with them. You could try it earlier with knights.

[Cheater Hater]

Cuirs seem really far away though--Nationalism->Military Tradition obviously, but we also need Aesthetics->Lit/Drama->Music as well, all of which appear to be under-owned (as not many people want to go down the Aesthetics tree). Where is xenu tech-wise? I see he's finishing up Civil Service, and he has Feudalism (since he has longbows), but what else does he have? The two important techs to know about are Guilds and Machinery/Engineering--hopefully you've been paying at least a little attention to xenu's research BaII

Yeah, I figured out that xenu is the most-logical path to expanding our territory, but it's not the only path--HAK is behind, so we could demolish him relatively quickly if we can get the troops over there--which is obviously the question. I don't know how many Galleys we have though--we're building one of course, but we'd need a lot more to get anywhere.

[BaII]

Uh, I'm not sure a sea invasion would work without a lot of gallery's and that's just not worth the hammers IMO. I think we need to raze and replace the initial cities we capture. I think with about 10 or so knights that would be possible. I think he's a little ways off of Guilds.

[Cheater Hater]

I don't know who to contact about this (maybe BaII can get contact with Oxy, or we have to ask a mod to do it), but I'd like the thread title to be changed since it's too long (it's 85 characters exactly, which means when I reply I need to shorten it)--of course, I have no clue what to change it to...
T144 Report:
This turn wasn't that exciting--Ruff asked for Open Borders and I gave it to him (because why not?), and other than that I can start the domestic overview:




Not much new here--I turned on research to complete Engineering in two turns, I moved the workers south (after I took the screenshot) to do some roading and leave my options open for roading the "Maybe C" tile I would need to road to get 1-movers to BK open, and I moved some troops south, including the gigantic HA stack, as well as shuffling some more units to Annie to avoid the unhappiness (which I should have at least started last turn, but I didn't think it was that big of a deal and didn't want to change much).

The big thing report-wise I did this turn was make my first compilation picture for xenu's troops--marvel at my Paint skills!


Here's the basic outline of my plan:

• Finish Engineering in two turns, then save up enough gold to upgrade a bunch of the HA stack to Knights (do I have to promote the HA's before upgrading them, or can I wait?)
  
• Put my troops on the red dot in the above picture, or possibly 1S--xenu doesn't have visibility on that tile right? That tile allows me to hit BK with my 1-movers (once I get Engineering and road the "Maybe C" tile), and I can hit it with 2-movers even if I don't road that tile.
  
• I don't know how many of the Cats from the north I need/can afford for the BK attack--I'm obviously not planning on doing any kind of attack in the north, but I obviously don't want to lose any cities up there, and if I can afford it, I want to have enough 2-movers to raze SS if he decides to move a bunch of troops out to defend other stuff.
  

Now let's move to demo analysis, starting with the tech screen:


We aren't in a horrible position tech-wise actually--once we get Paper we'll probably find out we're up a ton of techs on a bunch of people. Importantly, the event log tells us that dtay got Liberalism--sorry I couldn't hold him up more than I did


Wow, turning on research gets us to 3rd in GNP--that's a very good sign
The other graphs are mostly the same--they're in the folder if anyone cares.

Any thoughts BaII? We also have a Great Person showing up next turn; what should we do with that? Is it too late for an Academy to be meaningful? Maybe we should pop a Golden Age? (we haven't had one, have we?)

[BaII]

He's probably best for a GA, you only lose exp on upgrades if u have more than 10 exp otherwise you are fine.

[Cheater Hater]

T145 played, pictures here
I don't know what I should be focusing on next--right now there's two main paths I'm not sure about:

• We got a Great Scientist, so we can pop that GA whenever--I just don't know when I should do it. We could do it right now to accelerate the war effort, but then we wouldn't have any civic changes to make I think--we have both Caste System and Pacifism (the standard GA power-play), but we don't have a consistent religion to make use of it--heck, neither Annie nor Pierce (our highest food producers) have a religion right now, and I don't think it's worth the effort to get religion in those cities. I suppose we could go Vassalage, but we aren't building that many troops--in that case we might delay the GA until we finish all the Stables and Forges.
  
• Since Engineering comes in next turn, which turn do we declare? How many Knights do we need to upgrade? How many Cats should be moved to the south? I should be doing some kind of sims for this stuff (seeing how much we need to take BK), but I'm not feeling it tonight.
  

[Cheater Hater]

I've played the turn (and intend to actually put out a report sometime before the turn rolls), but there are a couple big things from this turn:

• I started the Golden Age, switched to Caste System, and turned off research--I'm not sure if this is the right time, but the timing seems best based on my next point:
  
• I'm moving basically all my Cats south, and am almost certain I want to declare on T148--I'll upgrade as many HA's as I can next turn, then attack. However, there's a big complication here--xenu has put two more archers into BK, but more importantly there's a Castle in there as well. What should the split be between using Cats to bombard and suiciding them in? Will it be worth the loss of units? I feel like I have to declare at that time (I've had an issue of being trigger-shy and not committing fully to my wars), but it'll certainly be a turning point--I really don't like declaring when xenu more-or-less matches me on power, and I have to burn lots of troops to get through a castle.
  

I'd appreciate some input here BaII--I don't know how much experience you've had with these wars, but it's almost certainly more than I've had.

[BaII]

if u read pitboss 17 your realize I suck at warring. Regardless, how many units of does he have in BK? How about 2/3 bombard and 1/3 go in. Not sure how much more progress we're going to make besides the first city. Considering we're even in terms of power. Or will the upgrade of all the knights put us far ahead.