There are now three active wars in the game. Joey declared war on.. dtay again! It looks like Joey`s Ironclad near Tularean Forest lost to a Zulu Frigate. No signs of huge armies anywhere. So, what does that war mean to us? If the Great Powers keep trading hammers - that`s more than okay with me. However, if that was an attempt by Joey to get an enforced Peace before hitting another target (could be us), then not so much. It`s a dangerous situation, so we keep building units in order to have something to counter Cavalries/Infantry with. Also, note that Joey finished Communism this turn and is in war civics. I think this is the ultimate try for Joey to win the game right away, one way or another.
Our first Machine Gun was shipped in to Fountain Head this turn. No upgrades were made but we could upgrade a CG2 Grenadier to an MG in Nighon next turn. It had to spend its movement points to get on a ship and therefore couldn`t be upgraded this turn. We have 5 Knights loaded in Fountain Head that could probably capture or raze Winterkill next turn. Harmondale was reinforced and now has 3 Rifles, an Oromo and a few Longbows. We need some turns to gather enough troops to get to the city. In the meantime our Sotl are bombarding down the defenses.
On t219 the next GP will be born in Nambui! We have a 9 % chance of a Priest. Any other GP is better. The best we can hope for is a non-Merchant, I think, because Muqa could perhaps get our next GP. Muqa has been running Merchants for a long time and will likely produce one in due time.
MGs are very expensive, but we`re building a number of them, to be completed in 2 turns. Our Workers are building RRs and we will connect Oghul Qaimish with the rest of our Empire next turn. Also, in a mere 2 turns, Borte will finish Ironworks! I can`t wait to have Borte back on unit builds.
Graphs and demos: Then the most shocking news of the turn. I`ll post the power graph first for a change. We knew that a big battle found place between Dark Savant and Gavagai two turns ago. Take a look at what happened. Seriously? I thought that Gavagai won that hammer exchange by a good margin. Nope. No wonder we went up to third in power on that turn.
Still, DS can`t really recover from that loss of population I think but he has managed to pull off another big strategic win against a veteran player. Well played, Sir!
A few screenshots: Hopefully, Nighon`s garrison will keep the city safe until we can get another MG in there. Our total count of collateral is 53. We`ll need a whole lot more Cannons if we are to stay safe.
That's got to be good news for you, right? Both DS and Gavagai take losses, but no easy romp for Gav means more spoils (taken very cautiously) by you...
It may have looked easy, but that is because it was done correctly - Brian Moore
Yup, basically half the Ottoman army died on that turn (216). That`s potentially good news for us, but on the other hand, conquering Dark Savant will take a lot of time and effort now. We might want to commit even more to the war if we can get more land out of it. The idea is to make a big landing near Harmondale in 3-4 turns. We`ll need at least 3 MGs to protect our stack and perhaps 5 Cannons and 5 Grenadiers and a couple of Knights. Also, we`d want more Amphibious Knights right behind, to make sure that we get the city. Having at least a full strength MG in place on that hill should stop any counterattack dead in its tracks.
(Wait, that pun doesn't work outside of the United States, does it? It's just a silly way of saying "Non-ProfitProphet.")
Do we want to go to DR next and build the Minaret? It would probably be worth the investment over the long term, although as usual there's no guarantee that there's going to be be a long term! And if we want Borte back on units after Ironworks, the Minaret is ... not units.
Dark Savant has really done a great job fighting Gav to a standstill this game. I mean ... if you can call the combined loss of something like 1.5 MILLION soldier points in a single turn "a standstill." We'll see how long they can keep this up, and then how we fare ourselves with the qualitative edge granted by our MGs, together with the attacking power of our Cannons. Note that if we can get a sentry to the front or even a random ship with eyes on the two tiles directly north of Harmondale, we can spot any overland counter-attack on Fountain Head ahead of time (apart from a possible Morale GG unit or two) as well as all the slow-movers that can hit Nighon.
Also, brilliant reporting as always; those pictures are really helpful. I also like how everyone except Gavagai and Krill is in their leader's Favorite Civic. (That includes us: Izzy loves Theocracy!)
If we get a Priest we have a couple of options for it. As you said, we could build the Confucian Shrine. That will give our economy a nice boost. As long as the other players are in Thoocracy we won`t get any free Confucian spreads, but we could spread the faith manually when we get out of that civic. 4 out of 6 players being in favorite civics is funny! The Priest could also be saved for our 4 man Golden Age. We would be thinking long term then for sure! The last option would be to bulb Divine Right (I think it will finish the tech). If we`re planning to research DR it would give us a lot of beakers for "free". Hmm, the idea of getting DR and building the Spiral Minaret asap in Borte is intriguing. I`m still open to the idea in principle - we have to decide on our tech path next turn already. Borte should be able to 3 turn SM after Ironworks is done. Very tempting indeed.
Well, that pun you mentioned is new to me, I`m glad you explained it already!
Dark Savant has done an excellent job in stopping Gavagai in his tracks twice. DS is obviously still interested in this game and hasn`t given up yet. He should under no circumstances be underestimated. We have a very bored Chariot in Radnashiri that has been sitting there for a very long time. That`s an expendable scout that could be ferried over to Steadwick. The logistics of getting everything in place for a big landing on the plains cow NW of Harmondale are pretty complicated. We`ll need a lot of units in order to be safe from counterattacks.
Dark Savant moved his C3 Sotl away from Winterkill to the east. As we had only a single C1 Sotl in range we stepped away from it. Winterkill had a high-promo Oromo (D2, Pinch, Formation) and a CG2 Longbow. It was decided to take a shot at the city.
And Winterkill was razed. It was very tempting to keep it but as Dark Savant and dtay has Open borders DS could march towards the city if he wants to. Or dtay could stab us, of course. Note Krill`s Chariot down there, maybe he`s still playing to win after all? Our Galleon is guarded by a pair of Sotl.
As you can see, Harmondale was reinforced even more. He`s reading our intentions here. We can`t really get anywhere without Harmondale. Nighon now has a shiny new Guerrilla 2 Machine Gun, that will get an insane amount of bonuses standing on that hill. Fountain Head is by far the most important city down there. It now has two Drill 2 Machine Guns, in addition to all the other units.
We are now researching Divine Right at full speed. Four cities are building Research for a turn. Borte will be a monster when the Ironworks completes next turn and will finish the Spiral Minaret in no time. It should be worth perhaps 100gpt for us.
3 Cannons and 4 MGs plus a Drydock finish eot. The Settler was sent from Oghul Qaimish all the way to Fountain Head and is ready to build a city next turn. The Missionary is also there.
Somehow I missed the two Great Generals that DS got 3 turns ago. He got yet another one this turn! But it`s in Vertigo. He could perhaps get it to the front line if he wants to. Gavagai also got another GG and lost Ivan the Terrible! The wars are raging on. Oh, and before I forget.. we got a Great Scientist in Nambui! That`s very good news for us. The next city in line to get a GP is Muqa. It`s now running 5 specialists (4 Merchants and an Engineer) and shows 12 turn to the next GP. It`s still got a 16 % chance of a Prophet but 84% are good odds for a new GA.
Gavagai captured an Ethiopian city and as I was eager to find out which one it was, I logged into the game again. This is the city in question. The lowest military is down to 1.25 million soldiers, so a lot of fighting went on.
No collateral units of DS were in range so we didn`t upgrade more Grenadiers to MGs. I`m confident that the defenses will hold. End of next turn, Nighon will expand borders, giving us a nice defensive plus.
As you can see, Muqa gave up the desert Windmill for a turn. It`s all for the greater good of the Empire! It will take back the Sheep shortly.
EDIT: Take a look at Borte`s happy cap! That`s SEVENTY-TWO happy! We have at least 30 collateral units stationed there, in the middle of our core.
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