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

[OT4E]

Having first wave of destroyers out has the highest priority, but we cant delay artillery much, may be just for 1-2 turns. Big modern stacks are to be dealt with artillery, and eaxh of our garnisson must contain some antitanks.

[Dreylin]

OK good, that was roughly my thoughts too. Also one confirmation - all ship pre-builds will auto-upgrade to Destroyers, right? So I should start some Ironclads next turn if possible.

[OT4E]

I think yes, if you build fort on oil you can get some of those out even this turn.

[Dreylin]

Yep, I've already Forted the Oil in Gasparland - although it occurs that I might need to confirm it's also Roaded...

[Dreylin]

t337 -

What about Industrialism instead?


Field our own Tanks, and Battleships would certainly help against his.

That 3t timing is with minimum of Wealth builds:

[OT4E]

Ok, Industrialism is way better idea, I didnt think we were so close.

[Dreylin]

Yeah, I was surprised it showed as 3t even after switching off all the Research builds. I guess Electricity has made a significant difference in our Windmill-heavy economy.

I think that maybe 2-3 of those Ironclads will pop out as Destroyers straight away, while a lot more will appear the turn after. We can switch civics again next turn (I think), and I'm tempted to go to Vassalage for the second promo - I think that the loss of Bureau is a lower hit to research than the loss of Free Religion - but I'll take a look at the picture for Industrialism first.

There's one Transport upgrade in there as well for the NW city adjacent to pindicator; REM seems to have pulled all his troops off of that island, so I want to have the opportunity to at least threaten to hit him there. I doubt we could keep the cities, and I don't believe that we can return them to pindicator under the city trade rules, but burning them will still have an impact.

[Dreylin]

Wow, this game is still going!

I'd appreciate some advice, OT4E, if you have the time to take a look?

REM treaty expires at the end of next turn. This turn (maybe last) he got Flight. Scooter is still researching and landed Electricity, so is probably planning to get through to Industrialism (at least) before dialing back. He seems to have rebuffed REM's fleet in the East and is assisting pindicator with securing his territory while pind makes some counter-attacks at the Canaries Island, but pind is losing ground elsewhere. BGN (Xenu?) just signed Peace with REM and Donovan still has OB and is tootling along merrily.

We just research Combustion and have 3 Destroyers & more on the way:


I put up Industrialism and it was showing 4t, which I got down to 3t by switching Llamas from Wealth to Research, but I'm not convinced it's the right target...?

I flew all the Airships to get the picture on our neighbourhood (but not moved anything else). I don't think REM will make a move on us in the East:


Primarily because of the counterweight on Scooter over here as well.

But I think he might be planning a move in the SW:


Not sure if he'd bother hitting Donovan or just run OB straight through his territory to hit us at Chameleons. Well, there's an off chance he's looking to hit a poorly-defended Scooter, but my feeling is against that. I've offered Donovan Open Borders and I'm expecting to start shifting troops across this way unless you have any other thoughts?

About research & builds; I'm assuming we'll be at war with REM as soon as the Peace ends, so we only have 2t to prepare. No hint of potential betrayal from Scooter, so we can pull a lot of the forces from the Interlands to reinforce the edges, but we're still seriously outgunned on the water in terms of numbers. Also, we'll probably get the first move against him, so could stage a preemptive strike if we can position enough forces at an appropriate vector.

[Dreylin]

Apparently last night I also forgot to mention Civics; I'd been thinking to switch to Vassalage to get the second promo on the Destroyers, but with research tight to reach Industrialism maybe we need to stay in Bureau. Similarly switching back to Slavery costs us quite a few Workshop hammers. These are usually compensated by the strength of the whip, but while we're researching we'd really prefer not to be whipping off the excess pop in Specialists.

If we continue to target Industrialism, I'm leaning towards holding off any Civics switch until we finish it. I might also have a mess around and see what it would cost us to get Industrialism down to 2 turns of Research - my guess is most of those Destroyer builds - and see whether that might even be worthwhile.

[OT4E]