Graphs and demos: Joey`s power took a big hit in the fighting with dtay. Dtay also lost quite a few soldiers.
We`re teching ahead with our ridiculously low land count of 152 tiles. Just look at what Joey`s count looks like: 362 land tiles! That`s an awful lot of land.
Strategic thoughts: I think Dark Savant expects a big landing near Lakeside shortly as he moved up a few units that way over the last two turns, including a Catapult. I`d say - let`s go all-out for Fountain Head. Yes we`re risking a lot by doing it as the border will be awkward to say the least, but we have to get more quality land. And Machine Guns are right around the corner. We can have 6 Galleons loaded with units on a stage tile next turn I think. We should move quickly. As I mentioned in the last turn report, we can`t stage outside of vision for DS but at least we still have the second half of the timer, so he will not have a lot of time to react. The geography down there is tricky, our preferred landing tile NE of Fountain head is a hill but we have to cross a river to attack the city. We probably should bring a lot of collateral in order to knock down the defenders.
EDIT: Gavagai just finished his turn. He still hasn`t made any headway. I`d rather see some losses for DS before moving in. Is Gavagai waiting for us to take the brunt of the counterattack before doing anything?
(December 17th, 2017, 16:46)JR4 Wrote: Our Ironclad+4Sotl went to that tile N of Lakeside to deny DS access to Vertigo. Was that a wise move?
Depends on what we want to accomplish. It certainly ought to help Gav!
Quote:E-NE of Mist, DS moved up a single Sotl guarding 2 Galleons. That was a great oppurtunity for us to get rid of some Galleons. We had 2 Sotl, a Frigate and a few Galleons in range.
C1 Sotl - C2 Sotl 28 % Loss
C1 Sotl - Galleon 98 % WIN
C1 Frigate - Injured Sotl 89 % LOSS! Hmm, that could have gone better.
Obviously poor luck on that last die roll, but nothing earth-shattering unless we failed to significantly damage his Ship of the Line as well. Was it still showing as top defender with good odds against our Galleons, or did we stop attacking at that point because we value keeping our Galleons more than sinking his ships?
Quote:The geography down there is tricky, our preferred landing tile NE of Fountain head is a hill but we have to cross a river to attack the city. We probably should bring a lot of collateral in order to knock down the defenders.
If we attack with Cannons capable of taking CR2, the river crossing penalty will barely be an issue. We'll want G2 Gren stack defenders and confirmation that he can't slam a bunch of Cats and units into our stack, but if we get to attack unmolested, it turns out that Cannons are really good.
Quote:EDIT: Gavagai just finished his turn. He still hasn`t made any headway. I`d rather see some losses for DS before moving in. Is Gavagai waiting for us to take the brunt of the counterattack before doing anything?
He might be attacking an inland city and taking time out to bombard the defenses, or he might have declared just to sink a boat or something en route to a different target altogether. He might even have proposed peace and had it rejected. I dunno.
Dark Savant moved his boats again, this time back to the tile E of Mist. He`s got 5 Sotl and a pair of Galleons there. Those boats are not really threatening us, as our garrisons can handle a few units. We have an Ironclad and 4 Sotl N-NW of Mist and 3 Ironclads SE of Radnashiri. A single Galleon of ours stayed in Mist, in order to respond to emergencies. It has 2 Knights and a Catapult. Not much, true, but it`s still something. We could use another few Galleons on that sea actually.
On the second screenshot our attack force is visible. That`s 5 loaded Galleons. Another Galleon in Tularean Forest has 2 Cannons and a Grenadier. So that brings our total unit count up to 18. We`re kind of telegraphing our intent of landing near Fountain Head but the only other option was staging in Greek waters. An Ironclad/Frigate pair are knocking down the defenses of the city. If the first unit landing near Fountain Head spots a monster Ethiopian stack, we could still abort the attack. Maybe we should have brought more Cannons but we need a lot of hitters in order to break through..
A single Grenadier will complete eot. At least 4 Buddhist Temples and an Observatory will help our science rate nicely. Shkodai and Mandukhai were whipped after the screenshots were taken as they could need a lot of overflow into their next builds.
D-mishi celebrated the "We love the Emperor Day" - and went into unhappiness. That`s civ logic for you!
Hmm, pre-building a lot of Grenadiers is surely a good idea. We could use a million Machine Guns. Joey finished Assembly Line! Does he want to industrialize or take out someone already? We have to prepare for all eventalities. I`m looking forward to changing back to Theocracy. I`d say let`s do it on t115.
Our Confucian Missionary failed to spread the faith to Borte. That`s annoying. Maybe we can arrange for another one in a few turns.
Graphs and demos: Joey has an insane gnp and mfg advantage. Still, we`re i second place in gnp when researching a tech without a prereq bonus. That`s not too bad.
A few comments to last turn: I felt that we needed all our Galleons in the upcoming attack. We could have made a couple of die-roll attacks to get rid of the Sotl/Galleon. Losing a Sotl and a Frigate to kill a single Galleon was a bad hammer exchange, but we were bang unlucky there. If we`d won the 28% battle we would get rid of two Galleons basically for free, even getting more promotions on our ships in the process. At least our victorious Sotl did get a promotion.
Okay, let`s follow your advice of promoting the Cannons to CR2 (assuming we`d be left alone ob the tile NE of Fountain Head for a turn). Is it better in any circumstances to give them B2 instead?
Gavagai is probably marching to a city that is not coastal. Maybe he`s already laying siege to Castle Ironfist. It`s still strange that none Ottoman units were spotted on the coast but he`s going to need a massive army to finally finish off Dark Savant.
Here is what we`re up against in Fountain Head: Still nothing too scary. But will DS manage to reinforce the city in time? One thing I just noticed is that DS is set to complete Rifling in 2 turns. If we can take Fountain Head we might be able to push his eta back a turn.
EDIT: looking closely at the screenshots, Garrote Gorge is now size 4. Last turn it was size 8 so that probably means that DS is desperate for more units. I`d say it`s likely that Gavagai is attacking the city this very turn.
Some [EDIT:"]quick[EDIT:"] notes on game mechanics and other stuff:
- Pre-building MGs isn't possible. Grens (and muskets and rifles and melee and archery units) can be upgraded to MGs for gold, but nothing upgrades to MGs in the queue. It is of course possible to get a bunch of overflow for MGs though, in the usual ways.
- We can't spread Confu to Borte in a few turns if we switch to Theo T215: That civic prevents all religion spreads except for our state religion (Buddhism).
- If we land on Fountain Head's hill with one guy and look around, the one guy should be a G2 Gren, if possible. There's a problem there though: If Dark Savant has a bunch of Cats on Galleons that can get to Nighon or Fountain Head, they'll be able to hit our stack (without the river penalty) unless we prevent them from reaching either port. And his Knights can hit the stack from up to six tiles away. I also note our stack will have only three units that get the hill's defensive bonus, and at most one that can take G2. (Our Pinch Grens on the hill will have odds against Pinch Knights, but only barely.)
- Assembly Line is for factories and coal plants, I would guess. GJ can wreck whoever he wants already, without infantry. In any case, for our purposes, the scariest things he'll be able to field against MGs before Artillery will still be Charge Cavalry. And when he does manage to get Arties, our best defense will still be Cannons to wear down the hitters + Charge Cavs of our own.
- Feeling that our Galleons in the theater were too valuable to risk absolutely makes sense. Knowing that in advance made the attack a pretty daring play, but there's certainly no problem with that. Those have paid off for us before at unlikely odds (e.g. our "trapped" Frigate taking out one of his Frigates south of Fountain Head a few turns back) and this time we were bitten by some bad luck instead, which happens from time to time.
- I'd have to sim things a bit to be sure of which promotions are best on Cannons. My instinct right now is that if we do attack Fountain Head, CR2 is the way to go, though of course we shouldn't promote them until we're just about to attack. B2 is definitely better under some circumstances, depending on the odds against the top defender, the number and types of other defenders in the city, and so forth; I just don't think those will apply at Fountain Head. Also, CR2 is useless for attacking enemies outside of cities, and we might well need to do so over the next few turns if we want to keep Fountain Head.
- Garrote Gorge contains the Mausoleum and Chichen Itza, both of which are obsolete for Gav. (MoM is obsolete for Dark Savant too, and he would have obsoleted Chichen Itza in two turns if nothing had changed.)
- Gav may have slowed down Dark Savant's tech, but we can't do it by taking Fountain Head if he's really getting Rifling in two turns unless he abandons the place so we can attack amphibiously. I guess if Gav did slow him down, we might slow him down even further. I'm not convinced we should care though. Rifles are good for slowing down a fast overland offensive, but the only land unit edge that really matters on the current battlefield is Cannons vs. Not Cannons. The biggest danger to our land stacks will be the same after he gets Rifling as before: A bunch of Cats followed by well-promoted Knights and/or Gunpowder units.
- From the tech thread, Dark Savant abandoned a city, and from Civstats, it was either Garrote Gorge or another Really Big Deal. That's more information that we should have; Gav should have known better than to post that. (He could have posted the bit about an empty city in his thread and posted e.g. "I'm okay with a reload too; global lurkers should check my thread for more on this.") Still, it's entirely possible that Dark Savant evacuated because he preferred to attack in with his own collateral units than to get wrecked by CR2 Cannons (especially if it was flatland Garrote Gorge). The preceding sentence may be relevant to our interests at Fountain Head too, of course.
- I think until we see a sign of actual serious fighting, we have to play this as though Dark Savant has decided he can't defend against both Gav and us, and has chosen to therefore throw his entire military at us while letting Gavagai have the rest of his empire. That would mean that our relationship in this war went like this:
Gavagai: Dark Savant, I will conquer your lands and get back in the game!
Us: Gav is going to kill you! We will take some of the island spoils!
Dark Savant: Ha, no he isn't! Now I'll take my islands back from you!
Us: No, you won't.
Dark Savant: In that case, you don't get peace!
Us: What if we threaten your mainland?
Dark Savant: Nope!
Us: What if we raze a city on your mainland?
Dark Savant: Nope; bet you can't do it again!
Gav: Hoi, I'm back. Gonna eat your civ now.
Dark Savant: Okay, nevermind guys, you can have peace now!
Us: Don't want it anymore.
Dark Savant: ... You know what, I'm tired of you. Gav can have my civ; you don't get any!
Realistically though, I'm pretty sure that's not what he's doing. On the contrary, instead of that last line, it would probably go:
Dark Savant: Wait a minute, what's with this Hoi business, Gav? Shouldn't you be saying Zdravstvuy?
Gav: Russia was eliminated like seventy turns ago. Get with the program.
Us: But I mean, shouldn't it be Merhaba or something? It's not like you're playing the Netherlands.
Gav: No, but if I was, I would have won the game from turn 0 on this map.
Dark Savant: Not if you played like Russia and China did.
Gav: I said if I was!
Dark Savant: Okay, fair.
Us: By the way, Dark Savant? Mind if we take a couple of your coastal cities?
Dark Savant: Over my civ's dead body!
Gav: That can be arranged.
Dark Savant: Can I be somebody else's neighbor next game?
Us: Let's hope so. I'll bet your thread is going to be super fun to follow for 38 - good luck!
Gav: My thread for 38 will be less than three pages long, like this game.
Us: Gav, we weren't talking to you.
Ah, we can`t prebuild Machine Guns! We ought to be able to finish Railroad eot 216 but we might have to do a lot of Research in order to complete it on schedule. I`ve been thinking about our attack on Fountain Head. It seems very risky at the time being. Maybe we can move our Galleons back to Mist, to make DS guess what we`re up to. We could still make a landing on the forest hill near Lakeside the turn after. Maybe going for Lakeside and Vertigo is a good play? DS is surely worried about Fountain Head so I`m expecting another Grenadier and more units streaming in. When our MGs start arriving at the front we`d be much better prepared for an eventual counterattack.
Oghul Qaimish could 1 turn a Confucian Missionary to make a last-ditch attempt on spreading the faith before the Theocracy switch. We`ve got a Jewish Missionary completing eot in Chabui that will probably go to Muqa.
Joey is indeed probably in builder mode right now. Still, I`d feel a bit safer once our railway network is done. Our first priority has to be connecting Nambui to the rest of our Empire. Having railways between Chubei, Muqa, Borte, Oghul Qaimish and Nambui would be awesome, allowing all of our collateral to participate in an eventual battle on the mainland.
Gavagai`s post in the tech thread was slightly spoilerish but doesn`t really hurt DS too much I think. I`m pretty sure that the city in question is Garrote Gorge but we`ll have to see next turn. Which could be a while as I`m traveling tomorrow and won`t get to t214 until Friday. DS seems to retreat his forces, perhaps towards his capital. Maybe a few Spies would be worthwhile. There are just so many things to build at the moment and those Spies keep being pushed back in the build queues..
I want to correct myself, even though the part that applies to our current situation is correct: We can't build anything that will queue-upgrade to an MG, but not because nothing upgrades to them. As it turns out, Grens upgrade into Machine Guns as soon as (but not until) we can build both MGs and Infantry. Obviously this doesn't change anything for our immediate plans. (Also, I think I left Corporation off of GermanJoey's tech list further upthread, which is out of date anyway since, as you've noted, he now has Assembly Line too. Corp means he's now obsoleted the Great Lighthouse, but it doesn't reduce his commerce since that tech grants exactly the same passive benefit as this mod's version of the GLH.)
As for Spies getting pushed back in the build queues: I can understand that. It may be too late to get much use out of them at this point anyway. With or without them, since we can't prevent those two Galleons near Mist from entering Nighon, I'm inclined to agree that attacking Fountain Head would be a bit too risky for now (i.e. without more units on boats or a clearer sign that Dark Savant is gassed). As for taking Lakeside and Vertigo: I'm sure we could probably raze them if we wanted. If we keep them though, can we hold them? They might have tempting infrastructure, but flatland cities on somebody else's mainland just don't hold much appeal for me.
Hmm, two-and-a-half days after the last reload - still no new turn. I guess that dtay and Gavagai don`t often check this forum. It looks like we`re getting a Christmas break anyway.
As for game-related thoughts, I`m still weighing up our next move. As I see it, we have a number of options.
a) Staying at war with DS and going for Fountain Head.
b1) Staying at war with DS and going for Lakeside + Vertigo, razing both and replacing them with a city on a hill.
b2) Staying at war with DS and keeping both Lakeside and Vertigo.
c1) Offering DS peace (with a huge chance of acceptance) and build up our power rating.
c2) Offering DS peace (with a huge chance of acceptance) and change target. Yes, that means going after Gavagai`s vulnerable island cities, including Babukhan and the cities right behind it.
Of those options, we`re set up to land near Fountain Head next turn already, but I think we agree that it would be very risky indeed. As for the second option, moving our troops towards Lakeside next turn, I slightly prefer the risky play of keeping both Lakeside and Vertigo. I admit that razing both and replanting on a hill might be the wisest move long-term but I feel that we ought to be able to get in a few Machine Guns into Vertigo to dissuade an attack by Gavagai. Will the peace hold when DS falls apart? Maybe? I value the infrastructure of Vertigo a lot and feel that we might be forced to take a gamble in order to stay at least somehow competitive in 50 turns.
The last option (of offering DS peace) might be seen as somewhat counter-intuitive, as we`ve been in a war with DS for a very long time and really want him to go out of the game asap but here`s my reasoning for considering c2: Babukhan is lightly defended, as are the cities right behind and we`d be able to make headway quickly as Gavagai`s forces are far away from the front. We have metal ships while Gavagai doesn`t and we`re about to get Machine Guns in place so as long as we can capture those cities, we should be able to hold them. c2 would of course be extraordinarily risky as Gavagai has a much higher power rating than DS and certainly would be able to hurt us if he so desires.
EDIT: I guess we can add a fourth option also, stay at war and keep looking for oppurtunities, but not do anything actively until Gavagai makes definite headway.
Let's lookat some pros and cons on the options you listed. Take all of this with a grain of salt: I haven't had nearly enough sleep in the past couple of days to think any of this through properly:
a) Go for Fountain Head
Pro: Units already embarked and positioned to land. Option of hill landing to help absorb attacks or flatland (corn) landing to let Cannons attack the city without a river-crossing penalty. Knights at the landing site also fork Nighon, which (as a hill city) will be valuable for retaining control of the cape. Victory would relieve some cultural pressure on Tularean Forest, including opening up a Fish tile.
Con: It's far from our core on an awkward route. Fountain Head itself is on flat ground, and Nighon is small and new, and will be culturally crushed until (and unless) Gav finishes off Dark Savant or we somehow manage to make further gains. It will also relieve some cultural pressure on some of GJ's newer holdings, although I'm not convinced we actually care one way or the other about the clear game leader getting very marginally stronger. Finally, there's a chance - though maybe not much of one - that Dark Savant has enough Cats and Knights within range of ourr stack to smash it before we can attack ourselves. To mitigate this, we can promote all the Knights we land to C2, and add several instances of Shock and maybe a few of Formation, and make sure the first unit we land is a G2 Gren if we're going for the hill.
b1) Raze Lakeside + Vertigo and replace with a city on the forest hill:
Pro: Gives us a city on a hill with a killing field in front of it. Frees up three resource tiles for Mist and allows Bayan Khutug to culturally dominate the area. Helps to culturally shield our island cities. After taking a turn to reposition e.g. in Vulcania, we could land our stack on 2-Gren Hill right on Lakeside's border, forking Vertigo, and dare Dark Savant to try to dislodge us. Dark Savant should have planted his city here in the first place (with Vertigo on the Horses nearby.)
Con: We'd need a Settler, have to raze two cities to get one, and might not turn a meaningful profit in the new city before the game ends. Also we've been telegraphing this for several turns and couldn't land until T215. We can't afford to put a city on the horses ourselves because it's on flatland with a hill directly south.
b2) Capture and Keep Lakeside + Vertigo:
Pro: We would get to keep the two cities and their population, plus whatever infrastructure survives, with no need to build Settlers - if no one tries to take them from us in turn.
Con: Both cities are on flatland with easy coastal approaches. Vertigo will be culturally crushed unless/until Erliquin falls, and then will have to contend with Gav's Creative culture on some of its best tiles.
c1) Just Make Peace
Pro: Ten turns (or forever if Gav continues the war unto elimination) of not having to play tactical games against Dark Savant and his circumnav fleets. Some of our eastern island forces can be returned to the mainland fronts. We might be able to get away with another turn or two in OR. Reduced War Weariness gives us more options on where to base our military. Dark Savant can focus more completely on Gav, maybe slowing him down.
Con: Mist takes at least another 10-15 turns just to reclaim its first ring unless Gav razes Lakeside first. We gain nothing more from the war. Our ships won't even be able to reach Mist except by going around the south unless Dark Savant gives us OB for Stone or something once we're at peace. We gain no territory with our significant advantage in tech and power over Dark Savant.
c2) Make peace and attack Gav:
Pros: If it works, our island layout becomes much more balanced east-to-west. It's probably easier to hold island cities than distant mainland. Forcing Gav to fight on a second front might increase our chances of finishing fourth instead of fifth, I guess? Maybe?
Cons: Gav has Triremes watching our fleet. Do we even have the lift capacity on the western sea to meaningfully attack Babukhan yet? We only have one 'clad over there right now, right? I'm not sure how well we can control those seas. Also, Gav's culture is going to dominate any city we try to hold until we take or raze at least one or two more.
d1) Stay at War and Look for Opportunities:
Pro: We can quickly re-evaluate if we see Rival Worst Soldiers drop suddenly and precipitously (say to under 1600000 next turn) or if Dark Savant (re)takes a city far from our intended target (suggesting his main force is out of position and gassed) or if Gav takes another couple of major cities or if dtay piles on, etc.
Con: We might end up delaying too long to have a realistic shot at taking anything. And in the meantime, we have to keep dealing with the war, Dark Savant has to split his forces, and Gav might be making easy gains thanks to us.
