[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Old Harry]

Turn 230

It's too late for a report. See if you can figure it out from these:

[Fintourist]

I can maybe clarify the big picture reg last turn for those that haven't looked OH's screenshots too carefully.

1. We determined that we don't have enough air power in range that we could destroy TBS's destroyer stack or kill a large number of defenders in Kasitor
2. So we decided to go with the commando strike as that was something where we were able to make some ground without any / with only minor losses
--> We took Yaz and kept the city. We cut the roads leading to the city and we hope that the city can work as a useful airbase that can threaten nearby TBS cities.
--> We razed one minor city and also captured Pattern. I believe TBS did not realize that we can take the city without losses and also bring all our commandos back to safety (there is still a decent chance that we lose 2 cavs if TBS has guerrilla units in range). TBS defended our opportunistic first move well couple turns ago, so we are satisfying us with smaller gains: Ie reducing his output by razing cities we can and taking battles if get favorable trades. It was nice to get some XP so that we are closer to commando tanks and I like those units better dead than as retreated defenders/collateral absorbents that we need to kill in the future.
--> The reason we captured Pattern instead of razing the city is that the city is a very useful landing point for us, which allows us to threaten multiple TBS cities. If TBS recaptures the city and puts there new defenders, we now have a strong bomber+fighter force that can target the city. The defending force needs to be big there or we can farm XP with high odd battles.

***

In other news dtay accepted the peace deal (actually OH misclicked / there was some bug and we got 10 turns of enforced peace instead of cease fire). Let's hope dtay accepts our OB offer so that we get to use his nearby cities again as a base for our bombers. BGN gifted us a commando infantry and he has some destroyers that to me look like they are heading towards TBS --> It seems that he feels the need to stop TBS as well. However, BGN's need isn't so urgent though that he would focus on it and he prefers taking land from wetbandit :P I guess that's to be expected. We are in the lead reg space victory and thus the meta says we need to deal with TBS

TBS's amazing Ironworks-city Valanth isn't building Rock 'n Roll yet. I have now familiarized myself with overflow mechanics and it seems that I've simply lived in a world where the overflow rules are less generous. Aaanywas, unless I'm terribly mistaken we should at the very least have a coin-flip shot at the wonder. We have been slow-building it in a fairly relaxed way, let's see if we again need to satisfy ourselves with failgold. I guess we are heading towards major war weariness so an extra happiness resource would be handy.

[Old Harry]

I had a vague memory that TBS did something similar in PB19 so I looked it up, he hints at it here and then explains fully here.

Its not quite the same, because he's talking about whipping there. What seems to be happening here is that he completes an Artillery with 483 hammers in it which overflows 333 hammers which should be capped at the cost of the Artillery = 150 hammers. So it should only overflow 150/3 = 50 hammers. By disconnecting coal he could change it to 150/2 = 75 hammers, but we're stumped as to how he's eliminated the 150 hammer overflow cap.

Next turn if he has 111 hammers of overflow then that's the 333/3. Can I have special dispensation to go read his thread and find out how?

[Fintourist]

Commodore!!!

Aluminium!!!

There are just 3 sources on the whole map, 2 belong to BGN, 1 to GermanJoey (one of BGN sources is still in ruff land). German Joey's source is literally as far away from us as it gets and BGN isn't exactly the easiest neighbor to conquer... --> No aluminium for us in this game.

Aluminum provides production and commerce to the city that works it. It is required for the production of the Modern Armor, Jet Fighter, and Stealth Bomber. It also doubles production speed for the Space Elevator, the Apollo Program, the SS Casing, the SS Docking Bay, the SS Thrusters, and the SDI.

***

Oh god... That's up to 7800 hammers extra for our spaceship and no modern armor or advanced air units

Yeah, this game just got a lot more difficult. We need to stop TBS's culture victory attempt without having the option of converting our tech advantage to strong units, we need to beat BGN's space attempt without the most important production multiplier and we need to fend off the final attacks with outdated units.

[Old Harry]

Turn 131 - sneak preview

I set our cities building Marines rather than tanks - as that seems to be what we're in need of right now:

[Fintourist]

Okay.. This is already starting to look more promising..

I count 32 bodies in Pattern and 35 bodies in Kasitor. Unfortunately neither city is in range of our every bomber, but we should be able to send in at least 12 fighters & 7+ bombers. Fighters should take the hit from anti-tank interceptions and then our bombers can follow up with less problems. If we select Pattern anti-tanks should intercept 5 fighters out of the first 10 and destroyers will later intercept 2 planes. So let's say we get 6 fighter air strikes and 6 bomber air strikes through. So that's 12 units that take the damage from airstrike (top defenders) and 30 collateral hits. As a result the CG III infantries + MG might still be ~50 % battles, but then we move quickly into 80+ % range and then to 90 % battles. We don't have thaaat many amphi infantries so we don't get to do efficient clean-up work, but especially if we can get 1 or 2 more bomber strikes in or the collateral goes to right units things could look good. Note that every unit in Pattern has just moved is so those units won't heal at all --> We give us more options when it comes to next turn.

Kasitor has less anti-tanks, but unlimited supply of destroyers so there we would get through ~7 fighter strikes and ~5 bomber strikes (more room for good or bad luck though). I guess the city becomes interesting if the promos/health situation of top defenders looks better from our perspective. At least some of the infantry there are still wounded.

These were my first reactions

[Ceiliazul]

Aluminum. Crap, sorry guys that is really really poor.

BGN is a pretty upstanding guy, perhaps he would give you a source in the name of competition... I know thats a shitty position that youre in but that seems the best solution.

[Fintourist]

Aluminum. Crap, sorry guys that is really really poor.

BGN is a pretty upstanding guy, perhaps he would give you a source in the name of competition... I know thats a shitty position that youre in but that seems the best solution.

Thanks Ceil, but no worries, we will just try to cope with the situation. To me it's more important that BGN, TBS & others do their best and try to win / improve their position. If we are in a strong position when Aluminium really becomes relevant, screwing with us is surely in the interest of some players and we definitely should not be getting it as a gift. Maybe we could buy it for a huge price from GJ, who knows.

[Old Harry]

Can you play the turn ft? I'm in bed with a fever, so not much use...

My phone usually can't do chat, but you could give it a try if you have questions.

[Fintourist]

Yeah, I can cover, I've made the sim and the attack against Pattern borderline makes sense. However the trouble is that TBS has now the destroyer advantage in the area.. I'll still need to sim with promos to see whether we can take it.

1 question if you manage to answer. We have couple of uncovered airplanes in WilliamLP area, do we have an idea that those are safe or should I move them in more solid locations?