Graphs and demos: We are still solidly 3rd in power so we should be alright.
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[SPOILERS] JR4 tries his luck in PB 37
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Oh, one thing I forgot to mention is that we swapped maps with Carthage last turn. Losing a big front city is a very bad sign for Team C. There are a lot of Zulu Frigates streaming northwards, not to mention Cannons and Knights..
We`re almost half way to another GG, just need to win some more fights first.
Looks great! I guess we still have nothing in position to raze even the likes of Nighon this turn, so I suppose we could send a peace offer. I doubt if he'll accept it straight up, even though Gav might come at him with Grennies and Ships of the Line in a few more turns, but we could try. A couple other options:
1) Offer peace, including an offer of Stone (since we now have two sources, including Mist). This would allow him to build walls and castles more cheaply to defend against Gav if he doesn't have an alternate source, would signal our desire for more-positive future relations, and would give him a small reason to want to keep the peace. Dunno if he'll take it, and for all I know he might be receiving Stone from someone else already. (We could check on F4.) 2) Offer peace, including a (modest) demand for gold. This would be a threat. If he rejects it and one of his mainland cities is still vulnerable next turn, we would of course raze it. Of course, that means positioning one or more Galleons this turn, with units aboard, to fork multiple cities. The passengers should include as many Amphi or (better yet) unpromoted 10-xp Knights as available, and ideally an unpromoted musket if we can spare one. 3) Offer white peace, still forking cities, still intending to raze one if he doesn't accept. Also note: If our Frigates end their turns with movement available near a Dark Savant city, they can use the Blockade mission. It affects only the tile they're on and the adjacent sea tiles, but prevents those tiles from being worked, and we kind of might as well. (This is sort of like fortifying the unit in that you would have to specifically click on it to wake it up again the next time you want to move it on a subsequent turn.) 
Report coming up later tonight. Here`s a teaser. Gavagai sure has a lot of ships here. 5 Galleons,3 Galleys, 2 Frigates and a few Triremes were in sight so our coastal cities were whipped this turn..
TURN 184
As noted, Gavagai positioned his ships threateningly, so we had to get out a few more units. Also, he might want the second half of the timer as he hasn`t played yet. Well, if we get into a two front war we will be in trouble. Let`s hope Gavagai is gearing up for another big hit on dtay. I can`t see what else he`s trying to achieve.. On the Ethiopian front, Dark Savant has a million (or rather 8) Workers guarded by a single Oromo. He`s obviously going to fort a tile in order to let his ships have access to the seas. So I didn`t bother offering him peace just yet. Btw, we can`t offer Stone as part of a Peace deal. We now have 2 Knights and a Musket loaded on ships in Mist so if he doesn`t reinforce Nighon we have a chance of a raze. Also, Joey has 4 Frigates and 4 Galleons near Nambui. I expected an attack on Carthage last turn, but maybe he`ll strike on t185? We are still saving gold on Military Science, waiting for Krill to finish the tech for the ktb. We are just about able to 4 turn it now (only a few beakers away). Our power is steadily increasing but we still need a lot of units. Our best hammer cities are going pretty all out units (except Borte, which is building its University). I`m really looking forward to Mist coming out of revolt eot. Let`s just hope we can hold it if DS decides to take it back at all costs..
If Dark Savant forts a coastal tile - especially on flatland - with eight workers covered by that Oromo, one Amhpi Knight would have odds to kill the Oromo and delete all eight workers. (We'd probably delete the Knight at that point, naturally.) With luck, we might even be able to do that and raze Nighon.
I'd have to see a bigger overview of the area to hazard a guess at what Gav's ships are currently doing. They don't look like they're positioned for an attack before (say) T186, but that depends e.g. on how well-defended Oghul Khoimish is. Gavagai shouldn't be attacking us on that side of the world - he has way too little to gain - but on the other hand, he's Gavagai. If he has one weakness (and he does) it's basically over-aggression.
Yes, we could definitely try to raze Nighon if DS doesn`t reinforce it this turn. The Amphibious Knight on a Galleon in Mist is, however, injured. Iirc it was about 6.5 strength last turn. The other Knight is full strength, but has C2 Pinch. So I`m not sure if we get odds this turn.. We could attack the Oromo/Workers instead, I`ll just have to see what the situation looks like.
According to Civstats, there has been some action this turn already! Joey took 2 cities from chumchu. We`ve been waiting for that to happen for a few turns and the question is if Carthage is about to collapse completely. Being in a hot war with the 2 top powers (and strongest civs by far) sounds like a recipe for disaster.. At least Gavagai didn`t attack us last turn. You`re right that he could set up for a big attack on someone this turn. The thing is that I really don`t have a good read on Gavagai. He`s acted pretty unpredictably until now. Maybe if he spots a weakly defended city he`ll just have a go? Oghul Khoimish is only defended by a CG2 Longbow and a C2 Pike. It could be reinforced this turn by at least a Musket. I think we have to stuff our port cities with units. Losing, say, Mandukhai or Danashri to a random attack would be pretty awful for us.
November 6th, 2017, 17:00
(This post was last modified: November 7th, 2017, 05:49 by RefSteel.)
 (November 6th, 2017, 07:21)JR4 Wrote: Yes, we could definitely try to raze Nighon if DS doesn`t reinforce it this turn. The Amphibious Knight on a Galleon in Mist is, however, injured. Iirc it was about 6.5 strength last turn. The other Knight is full strength, but has C2 Pinch. So I`m not sure if we get odds this turn.. We could attack the Oromo/Workers instead, I`ll just have to see what the situation looks like. Ah - with no healthy Amphi (or unpromoted) knights on boats in range, our options are a lot more limited. Killing eight workers and an Oromo would still be worth the likely cost if he won't take peace though. Nighon itself isn't as important, but destroying the city, killing the longbow, and sinking the Galleon inside would still be worth something - I'm just not sure we'd get any kind of odds. Quote:According to Civstats, there has been some action this turn already! Joey took 2 cities from chumchu. We`ve been waiting for that to happen for a few turns and the question is if Carthage is about to collapse completely. Being in a hot war with the 2 top powers (and strongest civs by far) sounds like a recipe for disaster.. Yup. It's exactly what we've been dreading for a while now. But fortunately, our military power has been much higher than Carthage's throughout our neighbors' build-up, so there's a meaningful threat that - even if we go down in flames - whoever attacks us first will be hurt the most and gain the least. Quote:At least Gavagai didn`t attack us last turn. You`re right that he could set up for a big attack on someone this turn. The thing is that I really don`t have a good read on Gavagai. He`s acted pretty unpredictably until now. Maybe if he spots a weakly defended city he`ll just have a go? That seems to be part of his modus operandi, yes. His Jans demand that we have muskets defending the cities he can attack, but ... honestly, if he does attack us, I'd just be really disappointed in him. He may not be able to win the game at this point anyway, but attacking us makes absolutely no strategic sense at all for him. [EDIT: Apparently sometimes I pointlessly repeat myself when I'm in a rush, and then go back and delete the repetition because doing so annoys me. As in this case!]
November 7th, 2017, 06:19
(This post was last modified: November 7th, 2017, 06:19 by RefSteel.)
So one critical thing: We need some kind of endgame for the Dark Savant war. There are a handful of possibilities:
1) Eventually, someone will intervene. We probably don't want to wait for this though. On the one hand, if Gav gets it together to mount a better-executed attack on Dark Savant when his treaty runs out, Dark Savant will either be eager for peace, soon dead and irrelevant, a piggy bank of capture gold from razing cities, or some combination of the three. O the other hand, we're worried Gav will decide to snipe some of our western holdings, I guess because he's bored and wants something to do since he can't win the game. Our navy would be stretched pretty thin trying to cover two or more fronts, but on the other hand we do have a decent-sized navy and we'll be able to build Ships of the Line soonish. Either way, the Frigates near Nambui probably should move to an actual combat front ASAP. Also of course, it could be that no one will intervene in the war for a long time. So this isn't really a strategy. 2) We could offer Dark Savant a peace deal with something we are allowed to give him, such as gpt. This sounds kind of unappetizing to me, and there's no guarantee he'd take it anyway. His civ would have been better off just taking peace in the first place, but he has zero chance to win, so it's kind of understandable that he's making decisions on a basis other than what's best for his civ. (Besides, he might not think the cost of remaining at war with us is very high.) 3) We could bluff a major new offensive, and demand a bunch of gold for peace. This would look a lot like option 4 - going through all the motions of preparing another big attack exactly as though we were doing so, except without actually loading the necessary units onto the Galleons. (I'd want to load a few anyway in case he just barely calls our bluff. Also I don't like bluffing generally.) 4) We could demonstrate we can and will continue to hit him hard, razing important coastal cities, and maybe even try to take a beach-head in his territory just for grins. (The latter is probably silly of course.) The idea here is to relieve cultural pressure on our island cities, encourage #1 to happen in our favor, and reduce his ability to build ships (and therefore reduce the risk that he can hurt us in war or peace). Landing an effective invasion force in his territory without getting it killed would be tricky, but I think not impossible: His territory is a giant octopus-armed mess. (This is not his fault of course. As I think I've said before, this map is loony. But definitely fun!) Of course, for the present, we only need a couple Galleons loaded with real troops to threaten one or two of his smaller, less-defended cities. (And if he does put those 8 Workers in harm's way with nothing but a C1/D4 Oromo to protect them, that can be a quick object lesson....) |