[SPOILERS] Fire and Blood: Nyles Standish and Zalson watch the world burn

[Zalson]

We just passed StarDoor in score: we're now no longer last place!1

It would appear that he has also declared on OT4E (or had war declared on him) and has lost a city.

Really, Nicolae is the person to beat currently. How we doin'? How's OT4E's power looking?

[Zalson]

OT4E is eating StarDoor. Is there a way we can take a piece out of OT4E?

Or are we too over expanded to consider it. We should have Monarchy, right? Do we know which cities of OT4Ehabe his wonders?

This might all be idle thought at this point; screwing with him doesn't help us win more. I think teching quietly and expanding is the real thing we should do but I do want to bring up this option.

Burning cities for gold while we research toward currency/COL? How much time we got on both (100% research cost vs turns) ;94 both Currency and Code of laws?

That presumes, of course that we successfully burn some of his cities.

[Zalson]

Only 27 points behind Nicolae on CivStats!

How's the Valyrian freehold looking, Nyles?

[Zalson]

Nyles, still there? I'd like to be a personal peanut gallery, but there's nothing to watch...

For those you who have been watching CivStats (meaning: me), we finally pulled ahead of Nicolae Carpathia in score, which makes me thing that we finally got Monarchy and are growing again. We've founded at least one additional city in the most recent 5 turns, wihch should give us ... 12? 13?

Hopefully, once we can get monarchy to increase our city size (improving city yield) we can start expanding again.

[Zalson]

Did pindicator declare war yet? He's double whipped several times, yeah?

[Zalson]

I take it we're at war with pindicator and OT4E now? Need any help playing the turn? I don't know if I can do it with my current connectivity issues, but I can try if you'd like me to try.

[NylesStandish]

Sorry for my extended absence. Had a few exams and projects eating up a lot of time and was struggling to play my turns, get everything done IRL and get enough sleep.

Pindicator is not at war with us. He's whipping hard but he's also at war with Stardoor, and due to his conquests on that front he now shares a border with OT4E.




I'm currently preparing to drop the hammer on OT4E. I forget exactly how many HAs total, at least 15 with plenty more on the way.

We had Open Borders and he had that chariot in my territory and I foolishly tried to sneak my HAs around and attack without:

getting caught
cancelling open borders and signalling that an attack was coming while simultaneously losing out on trade routes

I was going after him, double moved the chariot and ended up playing before him. I had to continue to do so to minimize the chance of him double moving and having a greater chance to see the stack coming towards him. Last turn he found it on the second half and ended open borders. So, now I'm trapped in the first half of the turn timer.

His territory is poorly defended enough (last I saw a single archer defending Rusty Horseshoe, which is a massive Great Engineer points factory with Hagia Sophia, Pyramids and the Hanging Gardens, and a size 12 city garrisoned by a warrior that I can hit with a Combat I chariot) that I might still do some very major damage.




Also, we've got Sacrificial Altars coming in Saves on maintenance and if things go south on either front, we'll be able to whip up a storm and be a big nuisance to the attacker.

[NylesStandish]

The main thrust of 18 HAs. The plan is to take Sweet Times next turn, road the tile NW of the city, move the remainder of the stack to the hill SW of the city and fork Rusty Horseshoe and the coastal city whose name eludes me and that I don't wish to dig through my screenshots to find.







New Horizon and Jagga Jagga are threatened. I had expected Jagga-Jagga to be defended by just the one warrior, but he had a scout nearby which is enough to save the city for the moment. 


I was pretty bummed about missing out on the second half of the turn timer since it would let him whip up emergency defenders, until I realized OT4E is in Serfdom, not Slavery:




So I might actually get some shit done here! (Unless he's in a golden age that I didn't notice somehow. )

[Zalson]

Go go go Nyles!

That is the kind of update that is totally worth waiting weeks for. :D

If you'd like, I don't have a problem writing up turns (or my interpretation of turns) if you want to just upload the images to imgur. I can piece together a report from there.

Is OT4E still at war with StarDoor, too? How are we doing on colonizing the north? We can maybe use the southern cities to fight an opportunistic war and the northern cities to continue to expand up north?

This is a great update. Well worth waiting for.

[NylesStandish]

Go go go Nyles!

That is the kind of update that is totally worth waiting weeks for. :D

If you'd like, I don't have a problem writing up turns (or my interpretation of turns) if you want to just upload the images to imgur. I can piece together a report from there.

Is OT4E still at war with StarDoor, too? How are we doing on colonizing the north? We can maybe use the southern cities to fight an opportunistic war and the northern cities to continue to expand up north?

This is a great update. Well worth waiting for.

You writing up the turns is a good idea, I'll PM you the imgur next time I'm too lazy to report a turn.

OT4E is not still at war with StarDoor, but most of his forces are positioned in former StarDoor territory. Expansion up north has been slower than desired, especially since I've recently allocated a large amount of resources to the war effort.

Speaking of which:



Looks like he was in a golden age... this makes things considerably harder.

The more I think about this particular attack the more it seems completely retarded. I should have been checking the events log, I should have tried to get on the right half of the turn timer before attacking (there's no reason I had to declare this past turn, I could have moved the HAs back and made OT4E think I'd called off the attack after the HAs got spotted). If I was going to attack somebody, Pindicator would likely have been a better choice since he's less technologically advanced, Karego-At is in a vulnerable position but will make Valyria and Volantis safer with its capture, and he's still at war with StarDoor.

Two options at this point:

Press on and do as much damage as possible and try to weather the storm
Offer peace and some gold, turn back and hope OT4E takes the peace; I've only killed a warrior of his so he might not be too mad if I quit without doing more damage, but he might just attack anyway

I'll get to the turn in a few hours after Zalson and any other lurkers have a chance to comment on how retarded/not retarded this is.