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

[Charriu]

T185:

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And Magic lost another city north of his former capitol to Elkad. Mh looks like he only has 3 more cities on the mainland.



But who needs mainland cities if he controls the sea. Looks Magic took all of the astronomy islands in the northern sea. Guess he will stay a lot longer in this game. I have to admit I find this absolutely cool. Why didn't I thought about that idea.  
And you know who else must like this? Shallow! That Magic settled all of these islands means that Superdeath and Elkad have to invest in navy and fight for these islands. I would not be surprised if Magic will play a mayor role later in this game as kingmaker.



Back to my conflict. Superdeath stayed in Siren and healed up. Almost all of his knights are back to 8+ health. There's a high chance that he will move out this turn, so I started a castle in Exdeath and shifted some pop around so that it finishs in 1 turn, thanks to the stone from Shallow. There are also more pikemen coming along to Exdeath. Wing Raptor and Sandworm are propably lost to Superdeath if he's going for them. Maybe I should try to defend of them better, so that the conquered cities stays almost sorrounded by my culture.



By the way what is Elkad doing. Well he wants to make sure that there is no OasisThree. I think you are overdoing it with the longbowmen.

[Charriu]

Graphs and Cities:

Graphs:



Magic really took a blow in the GNP department.



It's nice to see some sort of recovery on the production side. Also Shallow is outproducing the others by a long shot.



See I told you Shallow is on top.



It's sad to see that I made such a tiny impact on Superdeath power. But now I'm gaining more and more pikemen for my revenge against the horse-lord.  

Cities:



Like I already said in my report, I switched some pop around to finish a castle next turn. That I don't have to whip away any more pop.



I finally build a farm to irregate the corn. Took me a while. Other then that I'm trying to get as much out of this great general instructor as I can.



Magissa is very unhappy and will propably stay that way for a long time.



Liquid Flame is also building a castle because it's my second important city after Exdeath. With the Moai I can still produce some units even when I'm under siege. Liquid Flame will also pop borders in 3 turns, yay.



Not that much to say about Sandworm other then unit production.

[Charriu]

T186:

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A open border deal came in from Shallow, but no thanks. I'm done with the other players spying on my little nation.



So Superdeath brought his army in position to strike against Wing Raptor and Exdeath. And here comes one big mistake on my side. I totally forgot that I will lose a tile to his army, hence why the castle didn't finish.  
I also noticed that I still have no tech vision on Superdeath. He actually started putting points into me after a long time of no points. Why? He's totally wasting his espionage points on a small player like me.



I moved everything into Exdeath in hopes that the 60% defense and the hill will make a difference. Wing Raptor is undefendable in this situation, but Superdeath will soon learn that it will be hard to get anything done with Wing Raptor alone as the culture from Exdeath and soon Liquid Flame will enclose the city completly, same for Sandworm. The only good point in his book is that Wing Raptor is a holy city. Oh and of course I whipped Wing Raptor back to 1 citizens, which was propably unnecessary as starvation will do it's thing there anyway, but that way he can't whip something.
You can also see that I slipped a great general pikeman along the coast. I hope that Superdeath won't take Exdeath and the general can join the defense in the city.

By the way the army on the lower UI is stationed in Liquid Flame. I will need more pikemen there.

[Charriu]

So Superdeath did it and captured both Wing Raptor and Exdeath. I hope that this cost him a lot of his units. 

[Zalson]

What a bummer! Sorry to hear that Charriu!

[Charriu]

Don't be sorry. I already lost the game with the dogpile.

[Charriu]

T187:

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Just as expected Superdeath took Exdeath and Wing Raptor, but at what cost? Let's count:

• 1 Chariot
  
• 18 Knights
  

vs my 16 units.

Last screenshot his army consisted of:

• 1 Impi
  
• 3 chariots
  
• 2 HAs
  
• 32 knights
  

So that's half of his knights, quite a loss. This also must produce some unhappiness due to war, so I will never take any of his peace offers just so his unhappiness doesn't go away.  



So this is the new situation on the ground. My general wasn't attacked and is fleeing within the galley you see. Superdeath did not move his other half of his army into Wing Raptor, which is interesting, to say the least. His medic is stationed in Exdeath just as expected. Of course Exdeath is a mayor gain for Superdeath, I can't deny that. But this also frees up room for Elkad and Shallow's culture to come in, for example Shallow will take the iron near Siren without a problem. Superdeath also shares now a ridiculous long border with Shallow and a long border with Elkad, too. I don't know how the situation in former Magic land is, but I don't suspect that the Elkad -Shallow border will be that big. This will be very interesting in the future. Shallow must be very unhappy about this as he now has a competitor in the southern sea. But the big question is how much can Superdeath do here, when he also needs navy in the north.
It will also be interesting to see if Shallow will take this opportunity to take Magissa.



It looks like Superdeath is not in full unit production mode. The loss of his 18 knights will be noticable for the other players.



Welcome to our new capitol of Liquid Flame. Although I lost my mayor commerce city with Exdeath, with Liquid as the new capitol it's only 20 gold less then before. More pikemen are streaming into Liquid Flame, so that I can make my final stance.



Elkad built Chichen Itza, which will serve him very well I presume.

[Charriu]

T188:

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Shallow took another, for him important city from Magic (1W of the incense). I also took the time to paint in the potential border between Shallow and Elkad in the future. I think Elkad will take Almaty in the near future, which leaves only New Hong Kong as the last mainland city of Magic. For Elkad this city is really in an awkward position, which is why I doubt that he takes it.



Superdeath has shown the position of his army in Exdeath. It's great to see that he did not make any more advances as this gives me the chance to whip Sandworm again and get another pikeman. Also note the Shallow's trireme E of the crab, I will come back to that.



Superdeath's power dropped considerably. That's great. I think Superdeath is now in a very dangerous situation for the following reasons:

• Long borders against both his competitors
  
• Exdeath is in revolt for at least 7 more turns.
  
• He lost a good chunk of his army.
  
• Both of his competitor will soon end their campaigns against Magic and could then easily shift towards him.
  
• He still has only 2 irons, one in his border city with Shallow (Deadpool) and the other in his border city with Elkad (former Byblos)
  
• I did not get any peace deals so he may not be finished with me.
  

I think now would be an excellent moment for both Shallow and Elkad to weaken another competitor. Of course both could try to snatch more cities from me, but with the exception of Sandworm and Magissa that would be a loss of time and manpower. Better to leave me alive and let Superdeath run into me.



You remember that I rejected a open border deal from Shallow a few turns ago. Well I thought about it and send him this cow, wheat for open border deal. I see no more problem in having him scouting my territory as there is nothing to loose anymore, if he wants to attack me he can do that without a problem and without knowing my territory. To be fair I should propably send an open border deal to Elkad, too.
My other reasoning has to do with Shallow's trireme. I want him to scout Magissa and see that it is undefended. I know this is highly unfair and that I'm more or less gifting this city to him, but on the other hand there is a high chance that I will get eliminated from the mainland and will stuck with only Magissa. With only Magissa there is a chance that the others just forget about eliminating me and leaving me there for the rest of the game, which would be super annoying and boring. Of course that way I could still win the post count war.  
So please forgive me in my bad behaviour considering this city. I would rather go down with a big fight in my last city Liquid Flame then be forgotten on a little island in the south sea.

[Zalson]

One snooped around on my border with Charriu for several turns (at least a dozen), and is currently in my territory.

How could you.  

I personally have no problem with it. You admitted your mistake and you took this civilization over from Coeurva/OT4E. No biggy.

Personally I think a better punishment would be that Elkad cede all his territory and units to RFS, JUST to punish him. And, since RFS is out of the game: to our team.

We've definitely come a long way compared to PB2.

[Zalson]

^ That's a joke, by the way.