Gavagai's PB42 thread

[Gavagai]

sj did the best thing he could possibly do from my perspective: tried to fight my army.



And this is how it looked like after my response:



Overall, I lost 6 Rifles to kill 17 Cavs, 2 Rifles and some medieval junk, an excellent result. I took Mycenian and advanced a small vanguard of units to occupy a fort 1NW from the city and block sj's 5 privateers from entering Eastern ocean. I fully expect to lose these units but sj will need to pay a lot for this.
If Arretium remains warrior-defended, I have resources to boat it next turn and to drop six more Rifles inside to hold this city. I considered preparing such operation on the previous turn already but didn't think I can hold the city. Ardea has the second ring, so it will block any land passage to Arretium but after sj suicided his second army I think I can hold the city even without coordination with my land stack. Caesaraugusta will also fall next turn unless sj upgrades the Musket inside it. If he does that, I will have to spend an additional turn to get close to the city and attack it with one-movers. I would really wish to have Galleons in the Western ocean to be able to boat Ardea quickly but I am very of moving my fleet there as the area is dominated by Krill. I think I will be able to venture in that direction after I establish full control of the southern channel.



That power drop...

[Gavagai]

I had an option to settle several cities there but decided against it. OH has chosen otherwise. We will see which decision was right.

By the way, I think we may now make a judgment on that one: OH was right, I was wrong. A lesson for future games: if you can settle several cities at Cairo's doorstep and are wondering, whether this is a good idea - do it. You are not in danger.

[Gavagai]

Here is a fun fact, btw: sj is not even in Nationhood. He prefers to run Vassalage to get an additional promo in his Cavs. The sad thing is that it is not even unreasonable: he has pretty much no pop to draft.

[DaveV]

By the way, I think we may now make a judgment on that one: OH was right, I was wrong. A lesson for future games: if you can settle several cities at Cairo's doorstep and are wondering, whether this is a good idea - do it. You are not in danger.

That didn't work out so well for me in the EitB PBEM game...

[Gavagai]

By the way, I think we may now make a judgment on that one: OH was right, I was wrong. A lesson for future games: if you can settle several cities at Cairo's doorstep and are wondering, whether this is a good idea - do it. You are not in danger.

That didn't work out so well for me in the EitB PBEM game...

Interesting! Didn't follow that one.

[Gavagai]

Really hate this kind of stuff. A few turns before the war I specifically checked how much culture sj has in his core cities because I knew this stuff is likely to be important. I chose the tile to land my army near Arretium with that information in mind. Of course, the city to the north of it expended borders making my data obsolete and now I have half of my army trapped in a foreign culture. Slows my overall advance by the whole turn.
And sorry, don't think you are going to get much reporting of this war. RL stuff but more importantly, this is one of the most unfun wars I ever fought. Not much room for a strategy on this isthmus, the war is 90% about logistics. My army consists of one-movers which I produce half a globe from my frontline, getting them to the front in a reasonable time is an enormous effort. I have multiple galleon trains set up and it requires a lot of focus to not mess them up. If sj hasn't suicided his army twice, he would be totally able to stalemate me just because of his supply lines advantage. I am playing turns in two sessions now which probably pisses off other players (and rightly so) but that's how exhausting it is.



Is Krill finally up to something? He spent a whopping 20 minutes in the game this turn.

[Gavagai]

Also, I am setting myself up for a long game here. OH does not want to concede, it looks like, and I am not in a position to give him any additional reasons for concession in the nearby future.

[Gavagai]

Roman territory got split into two parts. This time I have paid a brutal price for this: lost around 21 Rifles to kill about the same number of Rifles on sj's side plus a few leftover Cavs. This is because sj did something clever: after the majority of Rifles got promoted to formation, he stopped building Cavs entirely, revolted to Nationhood and started to spam Riflemen. Still, it's too late for him to be clever. My losses are not a concern: I have a reserve army almost as strong as the one I lost immediately on hand. It will march towards Ravenna next turn already and sj has nothing to stop it with. Ravenna is scheduled to fall on T212 if Krill wants to interfere he is running out of time.



Krill is still gathering his fleet. Even though he is the first in power by a fair margin, he has something like nine galleons in total - about half of them built in the last handful of turns. I have more than 20 by comparison and feel like it is not nearly enough. An awkward situation when you have so much power but no means to project it. This shows how much checked out of the game he is.

[Gavagai]

Krill moved his fleet and I have sent him this. I am offering him all resources which are present north and west of Ravenna in exchange for Pig which is only present near Ravenna. Essentially, this is how I offer him to split sj's land. Such a situation would be ideal for me: north-western territories would be for me a strategic liability as I'd need to expend considerable resources to defend it. But if Krill takes them, I can turn this fact into an advantage: I can kind of keep these cities hostage and make him more reluctant to do anything hostile towards me.
And yes, there is a confu shrine, second best in the world, among the assets I have offered. Hope, he bites...

[Gavagai]

No reaction at all from Krill to my proposal. I would be surprised under different circumstances but no idea what form his utility function has now. Also, no war between sj and Krill and I have no idea where Krill's galleons went. I now think that instead of burning Ravenna he will try to bolster sj's defenses with his own units. This is actually a good thing - I am pretty sure I'll be able to handle him.