Dare you enter the Whizzard's Realm? Magic and Mysteries abide.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Advisor screens:

City screens:

UoS finished, which will be worth a very respectable 58 base bpt. Between it and SM, it's basically a Statue of Liberty with a distributed hammer cost (550h + 550h + temples/monasteries vs 1500h), no tech cost, a faster payoff, but worse returns lategame after monasteries obsolete. 5/6 universities will also be done, and it looks like WT will store overflow while Barad-dur whips the 6th one.




I agree with Nic that attacking the Ottoman gold island would be too risky without Galleons, but I noticed that Alhazard hasn't settled his polar region yet, and with the war with mackoti occupying his attention, it might be possible to attack his core with an undetected group of 2-movers. It would admittedly be a sizable worker turn investment to road all of that ice, and I'm not so sure about going in with knights, since mackoti could easily overpower them with his cataphracts. I don't think he would benefit from actually fighting you, but I'd hesitate to leave him an opportunity for good attacks while the cities are in revolt and there's no culture to slow him down. Seeding some military prebuilds (and maybe a spy or two for the Aztec border?) definitely makes sense.

I also took the liberty of renaming the three newest cities, since they've been sporting default names for a few turns now :3

Don't forget it works on the islands too! Yeah plan is to hold the overflow on a wealth build whilst we get the 6th university. It should build pretty quickly really. 

I disagree with that high risk - galleons can be fought with caravels. 2 normally take out a galleon. Also it isn't like we need to leave the galleys isolated, they can start in the city for protection. Quite frankly he doesn't have much production on that sea to cover against IAN I reckon. If we were to do a land based attack we could probably do it through the middle. We have a road connection almost ready now, and he lacks culture there also. 

Definitely agree facing Mack currently is not advisable. If it is a full scale invasion we could try to position to hit wounded troops perhaps, but once we hit rifles/cabs then we can enter the fray in Ernest.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I actually now think that this is a full scale invasion thinking about it. If he captured 2 likely islands off RMOG, then I can't think of another island city he could take, and also not on the turn of a declaration. There are a lot of Mistolin units moving NW also, and the galleon has left our sight (has he taken the sole longbow from the gold island?)

Moved Waverly Place to a 1t barracks also instead of trying for a university. We need to be able to capitalize on weakness here. From tolria west we can have 2 movers fork leaping lizard and Gigalon. A group of knights will be useful mixed in with cavs anyway for weaker unit mopping up and worker steals.

[El Grillo]

Okay, let's go with your instincts here. I tried estimating the size of mack's army, but I'm not confident about doing that kind of power graph analysis, especially with all the whipping he's been doing.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Okay, let's go with your instincts here. I tried estimating the size of mack's army, but I'm not confident about doing that kind of power graph analysis, especially with all the whipping he's been doing.

Worse comes to it, we have a few knights that we don't need right away. We don't really need to commit any time too soon, and grabbing the gold island would be really good I think (3 more gold tiles and able to get 2 food sources)

Literally whipping 1 or 2 caravels keeps our galleys safe and as he can't whip likely gets us the city. We can then think about going for more once we get a better understanding of Macks plan.

1 decent way to guesstimate his army size is to take the highest solider rating, take our rating off it (to account for pop/techs/longbows) and all that is left could be a good rough cataphract estimate. So it's a little under 25000, and each cataphract is worth 1200, so perhaps 20? Seems like it might be a tad high, but could easily be right I suppose.

[El Grillo]

Okay, I'm on board :D That's a good idea for an estimate, I came up with ~26 cataphracts myself.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Okay, I'm on board :D That's a good idea for an estimate, I came up with ~26 cataphracts myself.

Sorry I should have said mine was based on the turn before you estimated as I couldn't go back in game or see any demos from last turn. On the current turn (1 after you looked) I agree with a circa 26 estimation .

Lots to talk about again! Tech wise, we were right! That's democracy for them 4 turns earlier than our earliest date was possible. That and a GE advantage puts us in a pretty much unwinnable situation for it tbh. Oh well, How quick do we think they can build it? Using their GE I would say in 12 turns. Everyone except Mack seems to have whittled down their treasury. I would guess Mistolin are trying to get gunpowder for their jans v phracts. Plako could be going any route really. I would guess RMOG are trying for astro to control the sea and hit back at Mack? East Indiamen could be a real headache for him.

Landed the UoS and wow thats a big boost. That's 30 hindu building bonuses currently, only another 2 to build. This has the added bonus of that 10% tech boost when we do turn on tech. That's a huge GNP on a no known tech bonus tech at 0%. One 14gpt wealth build in the cap only. Solider count is a little concerning, although both our immediate neighbours have been/are in fairly recent wars, and Scooter just has one small city on our shared middle sea. We are correcting that with builds now.

Road to Mistolin being completed from Hogwarts. Could be crucial. Hogwarts itself we need to decide definitely whether that will be the NE city with all the juicy food tiles, as if so it will be able to start work on it when the university is whipped. I have a worker on the marble ready to road it. UU using overflow for a missonary for the jungle fish city, will finish the workboat next turn.  Probably will not want to whip tower again now either - it has 72 overflow stored, so 216/360 of Oxford before any production. Only 48 base hammers needed to finish it, it can easily make 16hpt so should be able to get it in 3 turns.
Few more barracks and knights in production now. 

That would give us ~1400 gold in the treasury if we stay full gold until then, and we spend about 70gpt at full tech currently. So enough for near 20 turns of research. I'm ambivilent to spending some now tbh. That will probably be more than we would need to hit all of the cav techs. 

We are currently showing at full tech 14 turns to hit all the cav required techs. BUT that does not include the 20% discount on rifling when having RP so already 13 turns. That also does not include overflow between the techs. Then we should factor in growth increases, and OU in 3 turns which at the current moderate size would boost us by 60 bpt, which is about 12% of our max research bpt. I would say therefore that we can definitely get it in 12 turns if we turn tech on now, maybe 11. Or we can delay things a little and be in a better position long term. I actually think 1 more turn of saving this or next turn (we are pushing having gold for 11 turns of teching and we will definitely then get it in 12 turns. I don't think Mack will have finished conquering by then even if he goes all out and we could look to counter.

Should we help Mistolin in the meantime? Might throw him off expecting an attack. Like a gold or silver or both gift? No skin off our backs, might show solidarity.

No action seen with the explorer yet.

[El Grillo]

Well, mackoti took three cities off of Alhazard this turn. I bounced off of him and will try to get screenshots later, but civstats tells the tale:



I'm not sure any aid you could send would be of help in time, and it might be a good idea to get those boats and roads ready...

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I'll whip the SM and Isen Knights seeing that. We need power now.

[El Grillo]

Advisor screens:

City screens:

I updated the in-game city count tracker. Mackoti is up to 18, and Mistoltin is down to 8.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Oh sorry, I thought you got screengrabs of Mistolin land. That's 4 cities mack has taken now - 2 we don't know about, the 1 that is also 1S of Isenguard and then the one that is in the spot of baradur. We can move our explorer to see the damage at both of these sites next turn.

I took the liberty of going a little more defensive. I pulled the southern galley into tolia west, whipped the 2 knights being made and went 1t pike in UU and pike also in Hogwarts. As things stand we wouldn't be able to withstand that army coming for us straight away.

I do wonder whether Mistolin has emptied his SE city, although I don't want to confront Mack until more is known about his force size.

Mistolin had 3 knights 3 longbows and a pike in the city near our explorer. Not over yet, but pittance compared to the phracts and no whip. Mack must be having fun with a phractagedden.

Should we alter our research plans at all? We could go gunpowder/MT first for curs v phracts. I think it is better to stay on the rifle path personally, but is an idea.