[PB22 Spoiler] Joey and Borsche puke on the funny pages

[GermanJoey]

Well, thanks for saying so man.

The turn was replayed, and the outcome remained pretty much the same. One of my destroyers only took 1 hit instead of 2, which is nice. I'm still half-expecting 2metra to suicide 20 carracks and galleys into it trying to kill it, but honestly that's fine with me. The whole point of the war is to neuter their ability to threaten me by sea because I feel like I can't meaningfully pressure Gavagai (which is still going nowhere, as Gawdzak is still acting ultra-passive and non-responsive here, and playing 20 minute turns to boot) with the threat of their stupid navy hanigng over me in this theater. So, if they want to kill their own boats en-masse, that saves me the trouble of needing to research MS for blitz now.

I demanded 700 gold for peace, partly as a way to damage them without staying in a protracted war, and partly to compensate me for needing to keep extra destroyers in the area to patrol for their next attempt at a sneak attack. I'm not expecting them to give in (at least right away) because they've been so insular and stubborn in the past, but it will be very bad for them if they don't. They are still two techs from destroyers of their own and they'll have a really hard time getting there with all their Feitoras blockaded and their coastal cities starving to death. What's more, dtay now has a NAP with Commodore and I think what has to be a large portion of the Portugeuse army is tied down in the island. Honestly, 700 gold is a steal, maybe that is far too light of a hand?

Here's the controversial peace city that caused the reload:




I'm guessing that Commodore wanted another 10T NAP but perhaps dtay wanted to charge him for it? And so Commodore was like, fuck that, NAP me or I'll mess you up? Anyways, the two of them lost quite a bit of tower last turn, they must have beaten each other up pretty badly. The top power fell by about 600k, and for all I know that could be plako remaining on top.




Interestingly, when I played my turn the first time I was actually #2 in power, not #3. Maybe someone upgraded something?

Finally, this one's for you, Borsche...

[GermanJoey]

T234.

Power graph gettin spicy... dtay and Com both lost a lot of units, and now I'm #1 in soldiers again!



Demos:



#1 MFG is Gavagai, despite the fact that he doesn't even have AL yet.

Portugal refused peace with no counter-offer, as to be expected. Getting no response is really frustrating. Same spiel as before, I guess. They tried attacking out with a Frigate vs a Frigate, but lost at 50% odds, bad luck for them. Anyways, I've now blockaded their three island cities completely and cut it off from reinforcements with two additional destroyers. I resent the exact same offer. I guess I'll just keep blockading additional cities until they at least counter-offer with something. I do not think I'm asking for much. Do they not realize how badly I'm hurting their GNP? It must be at least 300-400 multiplied-commerce per turn already...

Also where the fuck did Com get this ?!??!?? He's nowhere near Destroyer techs, only Gavagai, Gawdzak, and I have them... I guess Gawdzak gifted him one, to help keep dtay and plako out of his hair? If so, it's a very smart play, IMHO.

[GermanJoey]

T240.

So, I'm going to attack Gavagai next turn, and he's seen it coming a mile away because of airships. My battle plan is, non-ironically, to just run in and kill/lose as many units as possible, with "lose" being almost as important as "kill." Thoughts? Questions?

[AdrienIer]

Are you expecting any support from anyone ?

[GermanJoey]

Yes, Gawdzak. He finally sent back the countdown diplo offers I have been sending him. He got industrialism a few turns ago, and has spiked power insanely after that, with tanks and battleships finally starting to pop up. Combined, we have close to 11M soldiers and yet I'm not sure if it'll be enough to make a reasonable dent (enough to take him out of the front-runner position) in Gavagai.

[AdrienIer]

Ah that doesn't sound as desperate then

[goataku]

[GermanJoey]

T241.

Armaggedon has arrived. Adrien, your initial reaction was actually correct, this war is completely desperate. Gavagai, if you read this later, I hope there's no hard feelings here. You played a hell of a good game, from possibly the most difficult starting spot on the board. We were also good neighbors all game and I hate to ruin that now. However, at this point you are a clear runaway. I have no chance to compete with you for space, so I feel like my choices are to either attack you or to just concede the game, and I figure I can always do the latter one later. Might as well try, right?

Here's a shot of the main battlefield:




I originally took this a few turns ago, hoping to amphibiously annhilate that stack of 18 frigates with a fast transport, but I was just a turn too slow. Gavagai spotted me with an airship, and quickly retreated those ships. He's since upgraded every single one of them to destroyers.

My other hopes for a surprise attack were here:




I 1-turned Military Science (for Blitz and Commando), hoping to cut through that fort, which had just a single fortified machine gun and redcoat, Commando four previously ungarrisoned cities. But, again, airships, LOL, and now both the choke and those cities are thickly garrisoned.

For example:




By the way, that cavalry you can see behind the choke is actually a stack of like 25 Cavalry/Knights.

So, this war will now be a true slog. I am going pretty much all-in here, or at least 90% in. I'm still keeping a decent garrison near my Portugeuse border and still finishing Versailles, but otherwise its all military all the time, and all for England.

Now, onto the wardec. First off, know that Gavagai has a far greater navy than I do. His huge bankroll (he makes 3250gpt at 0% slider, compared to me, next best at 2200gpt) has let him upgrade frigates en-masse, including many, I think, that were triple-starred from his earlier war with Donovan. These triple-starred ships are a real problem because my few quadruple stars only get 50% odds on them on the attack thanks to the +10% coastal defense bonus. He also has far more triple-stars than I have quad-stars as well as more destroyers in total. I spotted at least 54 this turn, while I had only I think 40 total. Here's his navy that I can see:






He also had 6 destroyers parked right outside Dominic Deegan, which I think were supposed to be bait (as they were 8 tiles from his main stack) or possibly reinforcements for the western sea. If it's bait, that's just fine, I am willing to take these losses as I will still take out many destroyers on the defense.

In the western sea he's got a much smaller stack, seven destroyers and a privateer, with two transports en route to join it.

I think that, eventually, I could outproduce him on the sea. I have many dozens of drydocks in many dozens of cities with factories and coal plants; once his upgradeables run out, he'll be out of luck. However, he's probably like 4-5 turns out from Industrialism, while I'm probably 7 or 8. While we have both spent several thousand gold on upgrades, his economy is just that much better. Alas. So, he'll get battleships before me and that may turn the tide.

What my strategy revolves around is two points: a.) I take zero war weariness while Gavagai at best still takes 50% in his jail cities, so I don't really care if this turns into a sausage grinder where we trade untits one for one and b.) I have much better mobility on the seas, so I should be able to choose what fights we fight (let's hope I choose wisely, heh), and c.) I'm about 99% sure Gawdzak will be joining in on my side next turn. Gawdzak has tanks and even a few battleships, two very real trump cards. I'm willing to take pretty massive initial losses, cede pretty much the entirety of Gavagai's core, and cede what will become a big tech advantage as long as Gawdzak follows through and secures a foothold onto the mainland with which we can start pouring troops en-masse past Gavagai's chokepoints. I hope Gawdzak realizes how much I'm putting myself out there here; the more losses I cause/force/take, the longer it will take Gavagai to afford Industrialism and thus the bigger the window will be where Gawdzak's tech advantage will be relevant. On his own, there would be no actual window to take advantage of at all.

Anyways, time to turn the seas red. First, lets pick off the smaller stack:




I got pretty lucky here, 3 or 4 of these battles were at 33%.

Next, karma balanced itself out when I lost 3 or 4 67% battles in the western sea, blugh. This is pretty unfortunate, if one more of these had won I could have probably wiped the stack! As it was, he had one full health destroyer remaining and the rest at sub 6/30 health. I didn't want to risk my two nav 2 destroyers on a 33% battle for that last one as those are pretty handy for picking off transports.




Speaking of transports, Atilla no longer had a fleet of vulnerable frigates inside, but I figure its worth sacrificing a transport to secure a forward naval base. It will be very difficult for Gavagai to take this city back as I don't think he can produce amphibious troops naturally, and I have 3 CG3 Infantries in here. I had dozens of troops loaded onto other transports but with the surprise factor gone and without control of the sea, these units are useless. Instead, I think I'll just drop off what I have and use these transports to chain troops over from Furungyland; I actually do have enough to set up a 4 unit pipeline across 30 tiles it turns out.




Gavagai does not have a very significant stack near my western penninsula holdings, which is a relief. I will leave a fairly sizeable stack here but probably end up skimming anything beyond that to reinforce the mainland.




Power graph:




I shot up to almost equal to Gawdzak before I started attacking, which is about at 6M troops. I think Gavagai is right behind us as he spent about 6000 gold (seriously) on upgrades last turn.

Tech:




Gawdzak
Up: Industrialism
Down: Military Science, Divine Right

Gavagai
Up: Biology
Down: Facism, Military Science, Divine Right

2metraninja
Up: Nothing
Down: Facism, Military Science, Artillery, Electricity

Plako
Up: Communism
Down: Facism, Military Science, Electricity, Divine Right

dtay
Up: Communism
Down: Fascism, Military Science, Physics, Artillery, Electricity, Divine Right

Commodore
Up: Nothing
Down: Steam Power, Assembly Line, Military Science, Scientific Method, Physics, Artillery, Electricity, Divine Right

I'm pretty busy IRL lately, but I'll at least try to take some minimum screenshots each turn. If there's anything specific you want to see, either domestically or internationally, please ask, as otherwise I'll just focus my reporting efforts on the war.

[GermanJoey]

T242.

My boys did good! Gavagai attacked out, wiping my 24 ship destroyer fleet, losing only 13 of his. (I've lost 30 total, him 22) I should be devastated, right? Nah, again this was part of the plan. Had he had his full stack of 60ish destroyers intact, he would essentially still control the seas. However, this:




No longer can hold a candle to this:




Where as before, he had the numbers such that he could simply wear down Gawdzak's few battleships, now he has to simply run and hide and watch the battleship stack grow bigger and bigger. You cannot upgrade frigates to battleships, you have to build them, and Gavagai will be at a big disadvantage there. And besides, I make about 7-8 destroyers a turn right now, which will increase greatly as I phase out land-unit production on towards full navy. An 8 destroyer loss difference isn't really such a big deal then. One thought occurs to me now, I should have kept my destroyer stack inside my own culture to increase the WW he took for attacking them. Well, alas.

One piece of bad news is that Gavagai got the ancient ruins event, which gives him IIRC +15% towards his current tech of Industrialism, worth about 4500 beakers.

[GermanJoey]

T243.

The war continues to go well, I think. Gavagai did not blockade any of my cities, instead retreating his damaged ships into cities to heal and sending the remaining ones into the western sea to ward off my invasion there, although I will soon be able to overwhelm him with sheer numbers of destroyers in the area; perhaps not enough to wipe his stack offensively, but at least enough to get some transports in range to fork 6 or 7 cities.







Gawdzak started off his T242 with a bang, razing this rather large city in Gavagai's backlines. This is great, not only in and of itself, but also because it will force Gavagai to spread his forces out even thinner.




Thanks to our total-war production target and Gavagai's recent losses, the alliance's power advantage continues to grow. Despite my recent losses and Gavagai spending another 3k gold on upgrades last turn, my power remains higher than his while Gawdzak now has an almost 2M troop advantage. It turns out that tanks and battleships are worth a lot, who knew!

I believe the land invasion will begin in just a couple of turns, btw. I won't be able to join in-force immediately, as I've sent the majority of my transports down to form an 8x2 transport chain all the way from Ray's Toilet to the chokepoint near Dominic Deegan and The Draw Play. I will be able to deliver up to 8 tanks, produced up to 44 tiles away (in my big production centers in Furungyland), to the front-lines in a single turn!

Gavagai's power stagnation will not continue forever, however, as you can see in his continued MFG climb that he's got factories and coal plants already completing in what are probably his mfg best cities. Again, this is what my greatest fear had been, and why I felt like I needed to strike when I did even though I could see that Gawdzak was not fully ready, as Gavagai was not fully ready either... it was better to keep him on the back foot even if it meant taking some additional losses.




I also had a power chart showing Gavagai and I's respective dips from our big naval battle, but accidentally saved over it, whoops. I'll try to remember to get another one when the turn rolls, but in the mean time, here's a plot of dtay's insane EP accumulation instead. What the hell is up with this? Good lord that is a sharp incline. Like, I know he has Communism, giving him access to the insanely effective IAs, but this looks more like slider usage to me? I don't know...




Speaking of EP slider usage, by the way, Portugal dumped 700 EP on me within 3 turns, probably enough for city visibility, so I believe they used the slider as well. They just got artillery last turn but I haven't seen any destroyers in their waters yet. Two turns remain on our peace treaty... I might need to run cash in a few cities in order to upgrade another couple of frigates near my Portuguese border to further dissuade them from trying for revenge.

I'm 4-5 turns from Industrialism now; 4 if Gawdzak comes through on a loan (1500g for 180gpt), 5 otherwise. I put my slider at 100% just so he can see how close I am, although I'm not expecting that he will. Getting a few tanks would really help cut through Gavagai's machine gun chokepoints so that my commandos can really wreck havok. Maracana, now certainly the best city in my whole empire, can already easily 1-turn them without even being population-maxed yet, and Ma3 is pretty close to being able to as well; I think an extra pop for an engineer from Biology should put it over the edge. Battleships and Commando Marines would be really great additions to my military as well.

After Industrialism, I think I want either Biology -> Flight -> Radio or Radio -> Flight -> Biology, depending on what Gawdzak gets for his next couple of techs.