[SPOILERS] Charriu and Zalson are fighting the honorable post count war!

[Charriu]

Oh and I forgot to mention. In 2 turns I almost explored all of Magic, Superdeath and Shallow's territory and will stitch together a nice map of each players territory.

[Charriu]

T121:

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Big events on the horizon. Duncan Q converted to judaism. No, of course I'm talking about OT4E declaring war on Magic.



I send my chariots to the OT4E/Magic border, but so far I did not find anything. OT4E is propably attacking Geneva first, which I can see next turn.



Clearly OT4E is in an advantage here.





I've been thinking about joining in the war against OT4E. I propably won't take any cities, but I could do some economic damage, like pillaging the gold again etc. The question is will this help Magic at all.



The problem is. If I declare war on OT4E Superdeath will propably attack me. He still has enough forces at my new border. There's also the question of what Shallow will do. Will he join in the dogpile on Magic? If Shallow attacks Magic, then Superdeath will attack Magic too I think, which would be his end. After that they will dogpile me.

Sadly nobody will attack OT4E; both Shallow and Superdeath only have a narrow border with him. At least OT4E will take the heavy lifting, but everybody else must see that he is the leading player and if they don't stop him soon he will run away with this game.

There's also another option that Shallow and Superdeath will fight each other while OT4E is distracted. In that case I would propably join in a war against Superdeath.


I think the best thing for me to do is see how the other two players react to this new war.

[Charriu]

I started stitching Superdeath and Shallow's maps together, but first for easier comparison my territory:




Superdeath:



So the first thing I noticed is that he has another nice river to his east and he has a lot of lakes for further growth. Superdeath also has one more unique happiness resource then me and way more food resources. I already mentioned this, but his land is very underdeveloped compared to mine. I'm very sure that he has less workers than I have. Another very crucial observation: Superdeath only has 1 iron resource in Deadpool, just at his border with Shallow. The next best iron resource is near my new city of Byblos and I'm very sure that I can secure this with culture. But this makes an attack on Byblos more likely, so I need to ramp up defenses there. Should I be able to secure that iron and Shallow take Deadpool, then Superdeath has a big problem for the rest of the game. Oh and I also mentioned that his roadwork is more or less not existent. Just going in and pillaging some of his few roads will definitly hurt his supply lines.

Superdeath border with Magic is very open. If he's not attacking me he will likely attack Magic with his horse archers. Attacking Shallow with horse archers is harder then Magic because of the rougher terrain.


Shallow:



Shallow's territory looks a lot better in comparison to Superdeath. He also has one more unique happiness resource then me. Just like me Shallow farmed his sugar, which is a good move and Superdeath should have done that too. His roadwork looks solid and it looks like he has more improved tiles then Superdeath. I think we are more or less on par when it comes to improved tiles. Maybe he has one or two fewer workers then me or he just has more work to do here because of his bigger territory. Funnily enough Shallow has the same weakness as Superdeath in having only 1 iron in Beatrice B, which is on our shared border. All in all his territory looks very solid and worthy of my initial ranking of him.

In terms of potential conflict. His border with Magic is rather hard defended with all the hills and forests there. I still think that it's more likely that he may attack Superdeath next to secure himself the gems and keeping Magic alive as a buffer towards OT4E. The longer Magic lives and can defend hard against OT4E, the better for Shallow.

[Charriu]

Just to make sure, I counted the improved tiles and I was right with my observation:

Improved tiles by player:

• Me: 58
  
• Shallow: 56
  
• Superdeath: 38
  

I did not count the roads, but with them I would absolutely lead in that statistic.

[Zalson]

The issue, of course, is that we are unable to work all those tiles

[Charriu]

T122:

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The turn started with this corn, iron for corn, iron deal from Superdeath. Well he obviously wants me to attack either OT4E or Shallow with him. I absolutely have no intention to attack Shallow as he is my best trading partner by a long shot (thanks to him I'm first in the trade section of demos and that without Superdeath Great Lighthouse). So the other option would be OT4E, but why would he want to attack OT4E, with whom he only has a short border. There's also the issue that I don't trust Superdeath. His behaviour in the last Pitboss games sometimes felt a bit erratic and he still has a large force at my new city of Byblos. Therefore I declined, but I send him a corn for corn deal back.



Shallow has built the Moai Statues right at our border. Mh maybe he is willing to trade me his stone, but what should I offer him in return? Have to think about that. I really would like to start Moai in Liquid Flame with stone during my golden age.



As some may have noticed from civstat OT4E captured Geneva from Magic and razed it. It looks like he will settle his own city on the hill 1E of Geneva. I think Magic abandoned Geneva and intends to make a stand in Lhasa and Sofia. OT4E also finished calendar this turn.

I took the opportunity to pillage the village 1NE of the iron for 27 gold. I intend to pillage as much as I can in the neutral territory. Magic has other problems right now and that way I hurt OT4E the most in this conflict.

With that pillage gold I can finish Monarchy 1 turn earlier and start that winery 1 turn earlier, too. I still want to wait for the Great Person from Karlabos and golden age before I switch to Heredetariy Rule and Organized Religion. This is my current estimate:

T125: Monarchy
T129: Great Person born

I estimate that I will have at least 2 turns of anarchy if I would switch immediately. I think it's worth to wait those turns and instead spread my religion first. Thanks to that and wine I will have enough happiness to grow.



Oh and of course OT4E also finished the holy shrine.

[Charriu]

T123:

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Coming events cast their shadows before. Of course I accepted Shallow's copper for copper deal, which makes us officially allies, I think?



Unfortunately Magic and OT4E's war already ended. That's very bad news as OT4E's massive praetorian stack will make it's way to me or RFS. In smaller news Exdeath borders popped again and revealed more Astronomy tiles.



It seems that I was right about Shallow and Magic. With that stone Magic can start on more defenses.



And Shallow also finished Calendar.





Superdeath moved some of his units away, which is a good sign. I still need to support Byblos though, as OT4E could also attack here.



Magic took the opportunity to pillage every improvement in neutral territoy towards OT4E. Sad, I would liked to pillage there, too.

Also I offered RFS open borders and iron. My thinking was this:

• With iron he could start on some swordsmen and maybe attack OT4E's border town, which is directly at his border.
  
• With the open border I could move my chariots in Magic's territory faster back to homeland.
  
• I could also try to settle RFS southern island town. With that island town my finance would be much more stable in case that I lose open borders to others. Currently Shallow is my main trading partner.
  

With Shallow's copper for copper deal I'm pretty sure that he will start a war against Superdeath, so I started a settler in case I can settle south of spiderman.

The big danger right now is OT4E's massive army, which could be at my border in around 4 turns. Oh and as you can see he started Metal Casting as his next tech.

[Charriu]

124:

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I already noticed this little detail, but forgot to mention it: OT4E's city of HillsAreBetteR. Superdeath also canceled our crab for crab deal, but kept the corn for corn deal. Don't know what to make of this.



I found Shallow's main stack and I think I was wrong about his target. It seems he will attack OT4E. If he wants to attack Magic or RFS, he does not need my help in that, so the only logical target would be OT4E.



So Shallow attacking OT4E is actually great for me. My plan so far is to wait for Shallow's attack and join the war a few turns later. The question is, where to attack:

• City W of Schilda and N of Liquid Flame: Could be the easier target and establishs a border with Shallow sooner. Problem is that I will be fighting close by Shallow, so that OT4E can concentrate his units better on us. There's also the matter what RFS will do. He accepted my open border iron deal, so he may start some Swordsman and join the fight.
  
• Schilda: It will pop it's border again in about 10 turns, so there will be a timer and further culture war again. It's definitly harder to crack being on a hill, but attacking from here won't leave Forza in a bad defensive position as no other player is bordering me here.
  
• City N of Schilda and W of Byblos: I think this is the worst target. It's on a hill and Superdeath is definitly more dangerous for Byblos as is RFS for Liquid Flame.
  

The other big problem with attacking OT4E is that I don't have catapults or anything and I currently only have 3 swordsmen and some axeman in every border town. I will have to leave enough axemen behind to defend against RFS or Superdeath.



Superdeath retreated all of his units from our border. That's good as now my workers have a bit more freedom to get working. I also will convert Byblos to Judaism next turn speeding up the first border pop.

[Charriu]

I also acquired a full map of magic's territory:



Like I already mentioned his capitol has way more hills. To make up for this he has a nice long river. He obviously is heavly boxed in. The roadwork is better then Superdeath's but worse then Shallow's. The biggest I problem I see is that he does not have a good road connection to his city of New Hong Kong.

[Zalson]

I'd say launch the attack the moment that shallow_thought declares war. How many two movers do you have?

Shallow can pin him down and you can get the majority of gains. What's your timeline toward construction?

Don't sell yourself short. Hold your units together on defensive terrain and find the opportunities. You'll have 2 empires, and maybe 3 when Superdeath piles on.

just be ready for the RFS backstab.