I just realised that I forgot the news from Notreportingland since nothing popped up in the log! Last turn Molach (re?)took a city from AT so that sets them at no net gain/loss in territory for the war so far. Molach is still whipping and AT not. I took a look at the Power graph, and there really havn't been any major dips from either side, but maybe we'll see one this turn.
I did get briefly excited when I thought that I had Open Borders with Molach and could get a Foreign Correspondent in to file less speculative reports from the frontline, but then I realised that it wasn't an OB symbol, but his Confucian religion.
I also tracked down half of Ichabod's 'phract (thanks, Krill) stack in the middle of his territory, so I'm less afraid that he's turned them around to confuse the watchers and diverted them back to our border. Also, his Treb stack has been sitting in the city on Adrien's border ... which revolted last turn causing them to be knocked up for a few turns.
Aw man, not the first to have both Emancipation & Mercantilism after all. Which also means that Gawdzak has Knights available and is not far from Engineering so I need to be cautious. I'd definitely put him in pole position at the moment with Rep from Pyramids and 2/3 of the Monk Economy already juicing him up. It also seems that Ichabod is sandbagging Liberalism and may be going to take Astro. That would be an interesting development as it would force Gawdzak to garrison his Western coastal cities across from Ichabod.
Not much on the military front this turn; unsurprisingly nothing showed up from BRick, and Gawdzak is taking his time on Revolution; there's no Siege in his stack, so I guess he wants the Maces to break the city rather than throwing away HAs. Going to be careful to watch for a mass-upgrade though.
So I've consolidated my Knights into Shakespeare to heal and sent a small stack of the healthy ones to get a look at Misspelling:
The Settler on the Galley is aimed for the "Here" hill to secure that area, but we'll see how Gawdzak proceeds. He did accept the Sheep-Sheep deal, but we'll see what that means. He still doesn't seem to have brought any Workers down to facilitate bringing in reinforcements for his current stack, but it's large enough to cause me some trouble nonetheless.
Good news is that his Power has not really been increasing recently:
Considering he's larger than everyone else, there may not be a huge bunch of reinforcements to bring anyway. And now we finally see the AT/Molach Power drops ... just as they declare Peace. So no territory lost or gained as far as I can tell.
Another thing I'll need to keep an eye on is this:
That's a potential Southern neighbour Forting a Galley into the sea below BRick's capital, so I need to be careful that he doesn't line up to boat the city...
In other news, my quest to cross the N-S map wrap has been stymied by a map glitch:
I guess this map was built flat and then converted to Toroidal somehow, and that as a result the adjacent tiles were not automatically converted to Coast? Kind-of annoying however it happened as this guy now needs to backtrack all the way through Mr. Cairo.
And we'll wrap this update with a couple of city shots; here's the World's first Heroic Epic celebrating construction by 1-turning an 8xp Knight:
And finally, here's the obligatory Golden Age Moai shot:
Nat Epic here will push out non-Scientist Great People while the Cap works on Scientists. I think that the next build here will likely be Sistine, as the Specialist Culture boost will be good across the civ - also Culture here to grab those extra tiles from Mr. Cairo....
Great People tally is currently Scientist & Prophet on ice, with Weed due to pop in the next ~3 turns as about 45% Scientist, 55% mixed Eng,Merch,Artist - basically able to give us the 3-person GA when I want it. If it's a Scientist I'll probably use it on Education.
T171 consisted mostly of advancing a small stack on Misspelling:
Turn roll for t172 bring bad & good news:
Good news was that while BRick hit my stack with his Horse Archers, he stopped short of sending in the Spears and while he redlined the rest, only one Knight was killed. Drawing back the wounded and preparing to advance with a larger stack. The bad news is that Ichabod faffed about too long and lost Liberalism to Gawdzak. Looks like Gawdzak took Printing Press, but this cements his position as top dog in this game. We'll have to gang up on him at some point if we're going to bring him down.
First off we'll see how he reacts to this:
Not too offensive I think, and we'll build Culture to pop borders in 2t.
I've got eyes on Nyles' stack:
Not sure it's enough to break Yuri's defenses, but we'll hang out in the area and see.
Looks like Nyles threw at least part of his stack at Yuri and came up short.
Seems like it, or maybe vice versa:
And Gawdzak re-declared so that he could keep an eye on my advance:
GP due next turn with a 55% chance to enable a 3-person Golden Age:
If it's a GSci, I think I'll use one to bulb into Education and the other to bulb into PP rather than have them both sit around, then I can get 2 more for the 3-man from Weed & Maui Wowie. I'm still working out what to do if I do score the means for the 3-man now; if I remain at Peace with Gawdzak I'm looking at the next round of economic techs and civics - research Education, kick off GA to build Universities, aim to have Constitution (for Rep) & Liberalism (for Environmentalism & maybe Free Religion) by the end of the GA - if war comes, I don't know whether I'd want to hold it in hand or spend it on military techs. Gawdzak seems to be inching to Astro as well as Ichabod (he picked up Compass last turn), so FWIW military techs do not appear on the cards.
So now I need to work out whether my 3-man GA proto-plan would be at all practical...
...
Meanwhile, proceeding with this:
I've kept a half-dozen healthy Knights in Ding to guard against any shenanigans from Gawdzak; I should have plenty of hitters to take the city next turn, though I expect him to add an Axe IBT to counter the Sword pair.
Not certain whether I'll keep the city or raze & replace under the stack for defensive value. It will depend in part on what buildings come with the capture, but also on Nyles' positioning further South.
With Paper in, here's the complete Tech assessment:
Gawdzak is pulling away with his Rep/Merc economy, which is why I think I need to get a swift counter of the same for myself.
Nothing in the Log to report on this turn, however in the "Events" category, Gawdzak ran 3 Drafts last turn...
The meat of the turn is the cruel persecution of the Happy Vikings.
First at Misspelling; no Axe IBT, so the Swords had free reign at the top two Spears. Then I decided to send the Cats in to scratch the remaining Spears and favour the Knights. First Cat has 1/3 to retreat and does, second has >50% and also retreats! Then it's just clean-up (with a pause to pillage a couple of Cottages that will be in culture after the capture):
32g is not great, but the Granary & Lighthouse are a decent haul and I decide to keep.
But BRick escaped to his new capital of Superhero:
I held off from hitting this last turn as I just had 4 Swords in range and I think he had 3 units in the city; this turn AT has two injured Janns and a healthy Knight; I brashly thought that BRick had attacked out, but on reconsidering I guess that AT hit with both Janns and then waited to hit it again this turn. But I don't feel much like letting him steal "my" kill, nor letting him have a city here just offshore my new land, so I'm going to go in.
And here the luck finally failed me as the first 2 Swords died at 2/3 odds. The second pair cleaned up:
No buildings, but a nice score of gold (and I can get a bit more from pillaging those Cottages before Workshopping).
I added a pair of C2 Knights that had been brought along for follow-up, and waiting to see whether AT wants to make a big deal about it. I don't think he'll want a war with me at this point, but maybe if he thinks he has odds to grab the city he'll give it a go? I have a defensive pair on the way by Galley, but they are 2t away with no way to speed unfortunately.
Fake Edit: AT played a 5min turn, which doesn't feel like someone who has declared war...
Full combat logs and set-up to take down BRick's cap:
Lack of losses in the main stack means I could put 7(+?) Knights in position to hit his remaining city next turn, which should be enough (at least according to BRick!).
Pillage campaign is ongoing; most of these are just Cottages and will be Farm/Workshopped over as my Workforce arrives, so may as well get some $$ out of them. Using the reserve from Ding, while the injured have returned there to heal with the GG Medic. I expect that I will keep Antarctica, despite it being on flatland and losing 1st-ring tiles to Yuri's culture, it's still a decent spot and I have the Military advantage against both neighbours. Both of their stacks are still in the South; Nyles has Engineering, but I don't know about many Pikes yet, while Yuri has a pile of Longbows at least.
I have a Settler in the area (currently in Misspelling) that could re-round something or just build an offensive border city against Nyles. And I may well continue the military campaign against one or other of them...
Well I'm not going to get 23xp from just taking this city, right!?
Events: Ichabod has obsoleted his Colossus, Gawdzak is still Drafting, and AT withdrew his troops and sent a Galley to pick them up.
Business of the turn was at Antarctica where I faced off against 3 units. The first Knight died to the Spear at ~66% odds, but then the rest were cleaned up with minor scratches:
I thought a long time about razing and replacing, but in the end I decided to keep. I only have one Settler available right now and it'll be a while until I can get another into the area. Options currently include: the obnoxious border city with Nyles 1N of the Silks, or the grasshill 1E of the Trireme in the above shot that can pick up the Pigs and maybe even steal the 'Boar from Yuri's city.
Total war losses: 2 Swords & 2 Knights.
Gains: 6 cities (average pop ~2 ), space for at least 2 more. Bunch of Gold - although probably not enough to make up for the extra upkeep.
Next ... well it's highly likely that I'll just carry on and grab a few more low-pop cities from Yuri:
He does have Engineering, but there don't appear to be a lot of defenders in the area so it feels like it should be possible to quickly grab the Eastern area and raze(?) Dusseldorf - replanting 1N of Aurochs to secure the area. WC will see what Dresden has in terms of available units and then maybe split the stack to attack Bonn and Dusseldorf....
EDITORIAL UPDATE: Yuri just played a 2min turn with no whips....
Meanwhile, there are a few Wealth builds in the economy storing overflow to start Universities next turn. I found 6 good candidates, with another two possibilities for seventh needed for Oxford. Oxford itself is a problem; the Capital is the best current city for it - esp. with Bureau - but if I switch to Environmentalism and post-PP there's a better location. It has poor base production, but I think there's potential for a bunch of tile shuffling to achieve a decent ETA - although with short-term economic costs. I'll probably take a stab at it this turn once I get the builds queued up ... might even take some pictures if you're lucky!
I'm (probably*) going to save gold on Compass-Optics in preparation for a GA run to Constitution and Liberalism. I think staying/enhancing Specialists is the right move, and I'm expecting to add Sistine Culture to them in 4t (no-one else has Music yet, & Gawdzak is still 2techs off).
* If the Economics Merchant is still available I might see whether making a play for it is at all practical...
I have 11Knights that can be NW of Bonn, and 3 more that can be 2N of Dusseldorf. The trick will be to send just enough to Bonn, and focus the rest on taking out Dusseldorf to cut off reinforcements. Will need to judge once I have seen what's in Dresden, but probably the 2 WC and 3-4Knights; leaving ~10 to assault Dusseldorf.
Universities queued up with a minimum of tile manipulation:
Maui Wowie's is listed as 5t after Sistine completes; Ganja's goes down to 8t after Christianity is spread this turn.
Individual cities in spoilers:
Capital can churn out the Uni no trouble, but not certain whether I'll be researching again in 3t so I might build something else here beforehand - maybe a Settler?
Ganja is one of the ? candidates; Commerce is not marvelous, but a decent production base and can grow onto Coasts - as noted will gain OrgRel bonus this turn.
Pot's a hybrid city, but the Gems pop has made this a worthwhile spot.
MJ is the other ? location, but has the prod base to turn the Uni around quickly.
Joints is a decent hybrid that spends most of its time pumping Navy.
Sistine will help me grab those extra tiles for this lovely lovely city.
Doobie is the Northern Commerce city and the other Oxford candidate. I need to spend some time playing with the tile configs here to see if I can get a better build time. (Off the top of my head, convert WM to Farm and then the SE Plains Town can trade to Weed and work the Copper for +4hpt & probably some other tweaks that can be done). I'm thinking though that putting Oxford in the Cap is the right move; the build will complete faster and the incremental difference between the two in terms of post-Bureau yield is minimal - rather have Doobie finish the Bank faster.
Finally, Panama Red is the Southern Commerce site with twin Gems. It can trade in a grassland cottage for a plainshill to speed the build.
Which also means that Gawdzak has Knights available and is not far from Engineering so I need to be cautious. I'd definitely put him in pole position at the moment with Rep from Pyramids and 2/3 of the Monk Economy already juicing him up. It also seems that Ichabod is sandbagging Liberalism and may be going to take Astro. That would be an interesting development as it would force Gawdzak to garrison his Western coastal cities across from Ichabod.
Then it's just clean-up (with a pause to pillage a couple of Cottages that will be in culture after the capture):
The second pair cleaned up:
