[Spoilers] Dreylin's short visit to a late Era

[OT4E]

According to espionage DZ is building settlers in 2 cities.

[Dreylin]

Well, in his position I'd be preparing to build on the hill that his Cav & FWs are occupying ... he pretty-much has to, since that's objectively "his" land-based Oil, and that hill is the best defensive spot available.

I tend to think that since we've invested this heavily into military that we should try to get something from it other than increased upkeep costs. , but I'm not sure what that is. I do think it would be a bad idea to start taking little bites out of each of our neighbours; better IMO to take 1/2-2/3 of one neighbour and keep strong defensive borders with 2-3.

If we went aggressively South into Donovan, REM has already settled an aggressive border with him and will likely push for more room, Scooter might grab a SE city, and BGN can push North and pick up most/all of the island between them. That's two of our existing neighbours with incentive to get involved in one way or another. Assuming we were successful though, BGN is the next obvius target to give us NS wrap through that island, so he may join Donovan against us (although he does have a limited vector to make that attack.

OTOH, we could try to push East into Gaspar; our fleet would be less useful as we'd end up slogging over land, but our only shared neighbour is scooter, who we'd need the fleet to keep an eye on anyway. Again REM, and this time pindicator could be beneficiaries of our weakening a mutual neighbour ... although I'm not certain I'd want to encourage pindicator to train his Cossacks up while we move towards each other!

[OT4E]

BGN with his slow expansion wont eager to enter the conflict with us once we establish stable front and express no other insterest towards him. If he does he simply lose empty half of his land trying to get some tiles from us.
If we capture some civ and start bordering with new nation, dont think it will become our worst enemy. It will try to take its best from the falling civ and take care of the other sides.

I think that our natural friends are:
- REM and pindicator, those we dont share border with
- scooter because we dont stiffle him and share same neighbors
- BGN I believe

Our enemies are DZ and Gaspar, and I'd not really worry what they think about us. Gaspar with 1 unit for 3 cities is very attractive target for not just razing 1 front city...

[Dreylin]

t280 -

Looks like the barb cities are spawning with Warriors:


Explains why Donovan had such an easy time grabbing Chameleons. That's his second Rifle spotted and the Capital is empty, so anything else he has is on the REM border. Yeah, I think we should to go after them soon.

They have just got Steam Power:


While pindicator has yet to complete any research.

Guinea Pigs planted and WB bought for the Fish. Library bought in Chameleons w/ Theatre behind. Settler whipped in Rabbits:


Civics revolt next turn after the Llamas Settler whip; just Serfdom? I don't think there's anything else we need right now.

[OT4E]

Yes, I think just serfdorm. Still need to think which worker goes where and rise priority of improvements we can share between cities. In 6-7 turns we can fo back to slavery and whip smth like 20 cavs. In my understanding neither of DZ or Gaspar will be able to resist it effectively.

[OT4E]

Entered the game and got this:


BGN has finally got Communism and we can make trade routes, so I accept.

[OT4E]

I changed my mind. We shall NOT switch to Serfdorm right now. Serfdorm is good when making heavy improvements like workships and mills, but all we need now is just farming new cities and making basic infrastructure, while we have more than enough improvements for the core cities.

I think we need to stay in Slavery and prepare full scale attack on Gaspar, in 6-8 turns. Let me explain why Gaspar and not DZ or anybody else.

DZ is boxed between scooter, REM and us. He lost his both 7-food-fish locations. This makes me think he will less likely try to make a desperate attack on us to take almost useless city with gems we are providing him anyway.



This also means that if we attack him, scooter and REM will be there and will try to get significant part from DZ or attack us after we take it all or what is worse during our attack.

OTOH, Gaspar has just 1 tight border with REM, so we can expect to catch him unprepared. He has no units inside his land and there is a chance that he has used his GP into Steam Power, so he might have problems with urgent switch to Nationhood. The fact he has moved his machine gun forward is a great sign, we have a nice chance to leave it behind.

Gaspar has strong late game potential, literally he just needs to build his dikes and have fun growing on full sails.



Scooter is far. Pindicator is far. REM can probably take 1-2 cities next to him but it still guarantees that we have a nice front with him in very narrow passage.

So the main idea is to stay on Slavery, whip on the lowest pop since it is the most effective, use 3 stables we have already constructed, produce basic siege and attack. Then we put all cities on growth, adopt serfdorm and continue reinforcing our fronts from drafts. It wont disturb our growth with the number of cities we are going to have.


I will post detailed plan of attack, soon so you can decide if it suits you or not.

[OT4E]

So here is how it can look like:


T0 - we get in position with Galleons, Cavalry stack and workers. At this point he must not know anything yet.
T1 - unload Galleons near his city on the hill (I think he will chop the forest). And Cavalry will jump into the Galleons, so he wont see it at all.
T2 - we take city (keep it), then move Galleons with Cavalry in and advance to his cities making a fork between Tiger Woods and Tom Brady. There is no culture in Tiger woods at all so I am sure it cant get 40%.
T3 - if everything develops in the favorable ways we take both cities and advance forward with the slow group.

[OT4E]

How to build 9 cavalries?

We have 1, so we need just 2 cavs in Goats, Lhamas, Chickens and Rabbits. Chickens has no stables and barracks, but I think it is better to make barracks this turn and next turn to switch on Theocracy. 7XP cavs will receive promotions after the first battle and what we can meet there I think is just drafted rifles, so we need 2 promotions for each cav.

T281 we build barracks, catas and trebuchet
T282 we make prebuilds for Cavs
T283 we whip the 1st circle
T284 we prebuild the 2nd circle
T285 we whip the 2nd circle
T286 we move out
T287 we are position
T288 we can unload

We need some special plan for Chickens, because it is not certain when to let our 3rd galleon out, but I guess we either buy Galleon and make Cavalry in just 1 turn or whip Cavalry from scratch.

[OT4E]

Small update: we need 4th galleon, it can be bought in the new city we plant or in Goats. We need to keep some slow units in Galleons to chase possible retreating units from the front city.