Gavagai's PB42 thread

[Gavagai]

Any updates from the killer of Elkad? War plans? Tech plans?

I currently have resources to continuously update only one game and PB41 for now is way more interesting. In this game everything is good. I crashed my economy hard after the war with Elkad, was in the red at 0% science for a few turns. The solution was to generate a scientist for Math bulb and then research Currency using whatever I was able to save while waiting for the scientist. Extra trade route plus cheap markets fixed the issue.
I also built Hanging Gardens, even though I was, like, the last person on the map to get Math. Really, an oversight on Krill's part, he should not have given up this wonder to me. I am currently aiming to snipe MoM in this manner.
Strategy. I have two neighbors, Ot4e to the north and Cairo to the west. Cairo is separated from me by the sea and I initially wanted to settle the eastern coast of his continent but ultimately decided against it. Defending this land would be too expensive. I also do not like what Ot4e is currently doing, he is building units and surpassed me in power a couple turns ago. This is probably nothing but I'll remain vigilant.
The plan is to consolidate until Guilds, I still have plenty of spots to settle. Then I will flood Ot4e with Knights.

[Gavagai]

FYI I am close to be maxed out in terms of land, and yet Krill has a little bit more land than me. And he has even more empty space into which to expand as I have discovered. Somehow he managed to get all of this without killing a neighbor. One could think that it should mean a large amount of conflict zones with other civs but he is running very low military which suggests that his land is safe. On top of it, he has Superjm nearby as an easy target for later conquest. This game is gonna be interesting

[Gavagai]

I could grab an outpost on Cairo's sad almost-island (poor guy, btw, I scouted his land and it is terrible) but decided against it because I want a safe border. For the same reason I am not going after islands in the inner see (the one between me, Cairo, Ot4e, OH, superjm and Krill). The value of this islands is low but this area is going to be highly contested.

[Gavagai]

I am attacking Ot4e next turn. He is strong, at tech parity and I am not looking forward to that war. But he is also pretty much the only person I can expand into. The only alternative is Cairo but his land is shit and he is behind the sea. I had an option to get an outpost on his continent with the idea to attack him later but decided that it would be more trouble than it worth. Cannot undo this decision now even if I wanted to. At least, I can be confident that my Western border is secure while I would never be able to rely on Ot4e stating peaceful.
Ot4e somehow sniffed out my attack just a couple of turns earlier through some miraculous intuition. I mean, it is very obvious that I am going to attack him at some point and my military build-up suggests that this point comes very soon. Still, his sense of timing is amazing: previous turn he emergency-revolted in slavery, while in GA, and whipped a bunch of Knights. Also, observe a HA on a forrested tile in the top left part of the picture. It has sentry, was placed on the previous turn and blocked out my plan to attack Orleans from that direction. Now I will simply attack Rheims with the most of my army.
The main prize here is catapults on the tile north-east from Rheims. I really want to kill them before they are able to coordinate with Ot4e's knights. It seems he does not realize that I have Engineering, a crucial mistake on his part. Another mistake, of course, is generally investing so much into defending Rheims as it is impossible to defend anyway.
(Units inside Rheims are not shown here but, basically, it is a huge pile of trash, mostly LBs and Axes. No pikes or even spears which is important.)

[Gavagai]

Ot4e deserves huge respect here, btw. From the moment I took out Elkad it was obvious that victory is not an option for him here and the best he can do is to not die to my Knights. Still, he kept playing the game normally and built a very decent empire.

[Gavagai]

I am lucky as slut in this game. Ot4e did not account for me having Engineering (even after I have flashed him Pikes) and put his stack into a position where I could reach it without even bothering to give his Knights promos. The result was a long row of Formation Knights vs naked Knights battles (90%) odds. Ot4e's main army, about 20 Knights plus some assorted trash got destroyed in one turn with minimal losses, this war is over. Seriously, I feel a little bit bad about it.

[Gavagai]

Ot4e got a Great General in Grenoble and used it to give Nav2 to a galley and Amphibious to a Knight. It made a surprise attack on the city of Huxley possible. Ruins at the center of the picture are the result of this attack.
Very good move on his part and a major blunder on my part (so, we basically traded blunders in that war). I knew that there is a general and a galley in the city but did not think through the implications. Huxley was my only port in the area and was earmarked to build a fleet of galleys to transport units to Grenoble. Now taking Grenoble would be exceptionally difficult.



Still, it does not put the outcome of the war in doubt: I am winning and winning very fast. Paris and Toulouse have fallen this turn, other cities in the area will soon follow.

[Gavagai]

Krill now has an access to Privateers and I cannot delay building the fleet any longer. Research is set on Compass -> Optics -> Paper. I considered a detour for Gunpowder but it is unnecessary because the war with Ot4e is so successful.

[Gavagai]

Superjm got Taj, btw, that was a little out of nowhere. I think he will now get Liberalism -> MilTrad which is fine. I'll try to grab Economics.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

What size was Huxley? What kind of infra had been invested?