[49 spoilers] Miguelito, pindicator and Adrien take Shiva by the hands

[pindicator]

Burn it all!  

[Miguelito]

some screenshots didn't take properly, sorry.

MrCairo declared and offered peace. Turns out he had some plans of his own going:


He has another stack at the cap that may be intended as a reinforcement for that invasion force (he has 4 galleys, which could load up again next turn). But they're also protecting the cap, so def no direct action there.

Instead I offloaded on the PH east of Nilakantha and moved the ships so as to block him dropping in reinforcements, at least not without a fight. Of course once he repoisitions it will be impossible to block him effectively with those ocean tiles in his culture. I'm still planning to bombard a few turns to bait him into attacking my core by land, then strike the cap. If he takes the Ruff island city that's tempting of course.

I have a galley trailing with an XPless axe and a new welly, the latter one I'm going to keep hidden for now.

with my army in enemy territory it's -1 gpt at 0%. Also FT canceled silver for ivory, so one less in the two large forge cities
He should get a new silver online once he rebuilds a former superdeath mine, I'll ask for that as a gift. I feel like we're an adequate puppet state facing Commodore.

Comm btw has declared on Cornflakes again, who whipped a ton (they've had similar MFG numbers, and CF's GNP is of course miles ahead, but CF's power has been at our level only)
I'm going to irritate Comm again by rebuilding the road on the desert hill leading to Gangadhara while peace is running out. Or maybe I should just not do that, I'm not going to attack there, this game is about Cairo now definitely.

I had vision on the southern battlefield as well, where FT just captured SD's heavily defended Pyramids city. Lost the screenshot, but there's an interesting situation: SD's capital is empty right now, and both FT and Ruff have significant catapult stacks in range, although I'd guess FT's is larger (haven't counted). So whoever claims the cap risks getting his stack hitjust afterwards, or, if kept with a little garrison the city might change hands several times. Of course they might as well raze it, but I haven't seen a settler from either.

But superdeath is taking his last turn tonight, so mission of outliving him accomplished.  
Can't really claim it was by superior play, a stack of FT's proportions would have been devastating for us just the same. I can claim that I've kept Cairo and Comm away from marching in thus far, so, hurray?

[Miguelito]

my source of neverending frustration:


I have 6 triremes in range, plus uncounted galleys (well, 7). It doesn't matter, because he can just hide away. I'll give him an opening to land his units on the 4 galleys, either at my cap (but I'll have a stack in range to destroy them, and he won't be able to attack from the boats), or into Nilakantha, but he'll have to expose his ships. Bombarded this turn while the 7th galley catched up, next turn I'll see if there's any sense in the cap attack plan. I doubt it, the landing force would likely just get drowned in HAs. But something has to be done.

Oh and Cairo took that island city from Ruff. Now the question is, does Ruff move to take it back (not sure how many ships he has), or do I want it, actually (if I decide against landing by the cap, I can take those units there).
Anyway, offered copper-copper to Ruff, although an alliance doesn't make terrible sense, because he can't really do a lot besides trying to get the island back.

But here's some nice diplo:


didn't even have to ask! Thanks, boss. Now maybe you'll want to take a swing at Commodore (who's still busy with CF)?
Sadly, it's pretty hard to see how I would get Gangadhara back in such a war, as FT would just take it for himself on the first turn. In the south Ruff took SD's capital and FT seems to be ok with that for now.

[Miguelito]

here we are



sadly, MrCairo's HAs keep hiding, so I can't go for the capital. I still moved as if I would, mainly out of stubbornness. I could have launched a very bloody attack on Nilakantha (9 units in there), for little gain. Next turn I can

• suicide against the cap
  
• move back to Nilakantha
  
• move back home and take defensive positions
  
• or take the eastern island city, accepting that it will be my final residence. But Ruff has an awful lot of culture there. My chariot in his land has seen 2 galleys moving towards the island.
  

It is mainly as I feared, Cairo is a solid defender and I'm not seeing an opening. Actually I may lose ships - he can get a new trireme out of the cap, which with Moai can promote, and then that owuld be 4 of his in range of my ships.

[Miguelito]

Actually I may lose ships - he can get a new trireme out of the cap, which with Moai can promote, and then that owuld be 4 of his in range of my ships.

that's exactly what happened. He lost 2 triremes and sunk 1, then took down 2 galleys (RNG behaving just fine, but not particularly lucky for me - would have liked for one of the triremes to survive with some HP). The game in its unending grace chose the 2 with the catapults on them, maximizing the hammer loss. I think it would actually have been smart for Cairo to also attack with galleys, as every victory of his would have sunk two units together with the galley, but he seems to want to save the galleys for an invasion or w/e




I think here's a symptom of my MP newbieness: Going for grandiose plans like this with significantly lower power is much more unlikely to succeed against human opponents. The border between creative and naive is moved a great deal towards the former*. It doesn't matter too much at this point, but I hope at some point I'll learn the lesson. Read the rest of this report as testament that I still may not have.

I did this:


and offered peace.
I can't hold this island long or even medium term, what with Cairo having naval superiority now, and Ruff surely not too happy to let me have it. Note that Cairo can't enter Ruff's borders, as they still have enforced peace. If Ruff wants me to raze the city he can cancel our OB and let Cairo sink some more ships of mine. I've sent elephants for elephants to him to signal that I don't wnat conflict between us (we already have copper/copper).
So I hope this is enough of an incentive for Cairo to give me peace. Hopefully he then keeps battling with Ruff over the island. He has a small 8 unit stack in the jungles north of Mahadeva, which will not be a problem unless reinforced significantly.

Peace would also be welcome because the Incan overlords are calling for their puppet:


Commodore has suffered mighty losses in his attack on Cornflakes and is now back to 1.25 our power (after we also lost significantly). FT has jumped in and taken a small city of his.
I have units in position to retake Gangadhara next turn and cut the road leading to it. If he still has his SoD that he sent for Mahadeva the last time that might turn out to be a bad idea, but after those losses I'd expect him to have shifted some of that power westwards.
As nice at it is to have FT joining the war, after this attack he doesn't really have an attack vector into Comm's lands. He might of course just try to cause damage to set his one serious opponent back far enough. He has not moved units towards Gangadhara, which I interprete as him being fine with me taking it.
My pipe dream is reconquering Pashupati / Samí Curse, but that's a long way to go, and CF and FT have to walk it.

* I've thought this through, this is the way the metaphor makes sense, as it makes the realm of naiveté grow

[Miguelito]

Ruff not just closed OB but straigt up declared war, but without actually moving units into my land. He has OB with Cairo instead   and garrisoned that city with 4 units, a catapult among them, and more to follow likely, while Cairo's units are gone somehow. I got teleported onto neutral terrain, meaning I 2had to spend this turn moving up (if Cairo has his units on a boat that I haven't seen). So instead of getitng peace with Cairo I now have war with both of them, and have my best units trapped where they likley won't even be able to raze that city (because Ruff's defending it for Cairo, didn't see that coming ).

So this attack over the seas project has been one splendid fiasco. It was bad play; when I moved the galleys towards Cairo's cap I knew that in all likelihood it wouldn't work. But I didn't want either to just turtle at home waiting to get eaten.

Cairo is moving up a dozen 2-movers, in addition to the aforementioned 1 mover stack, and likely the swords are trailing as well. I have catapults, but will be lacking hitters (they're on vacation on that island ). When the swords come that'll likely be the end of it, but I hope we get at least one more big battle.

[superdeath]

[Miguelito]

thanks. It doesn't matter too much. Since the early war with Commodore it was always just a question of whether I'd go out with a bang or whimper. It now looks like the latter, but I'll try to make as much noise as I can.

[superdeath]

thanks. It doesn't matter too much. Since the early war with Commodore it was always just a question of whether I'd go out with a bang or whimper. It now looks like the latter, but I'll try to make as much noise as I can.

Its good to have goals. I fully support this

[Miguelito]

There are still heroes in India. Our galley sunk a Persian trireme at 12% off the coast of the Ruffian island. But unfortunate the land in need of heroes! (couldn't find a proper citation, but that's from here). Also, the leadership seems increasingly giving itself to drinking or worse, as you will see in the following  

This is how the turn started:


Ruff had reclaimed the city which Cairo had emptied, apparently by deleting his units*. Very annoyingly, the wall still stands and was back to full effect. But certainly my stack would be enough to raze regardless?

Kinda obvious from how I posed it, it wasn't.
It mostly depended on the elephants doing sufficient damage against the axe to give the spears a go at his 'phants. It got just one hit, and then I threw my units at him, sometimes getting one hit in, but no more.
If I still cared I might have simmed this before entering / after the elephant fight. But you see I don't and played as against the AI when you should already have gone to bed. So lost almost everything, including the 2 GG spears (no, shouldn't have gambled), killed nothing. The very wounded (from the catapult) C2/shock/formation axe is trying to sail home. Ruff also got a GG out of it. FT was in the game at the same time and noticed the messages, but couldn't attribute them

*Btw, is this allowed by the rules? Not asking for a reload (shouldn't have played then), but it kinda amounts to city gifting, while I had my stack besides the city and would have easily fought either Cairo's defenders, or Ruff's after he'd take them out. I would like for lurkers to make a judgement, in case this is relevant for the future, and also because I then can blame someone else but myself. Oh and as I now realize, Ruff also had to double move Cairo to achieve this. If I was still relevant in this game I'd make a fuss about it.

Ruff advances on Ajita:


he can take it, but I have enough NE to kill his stack in return (the wheat tile should remain mine). Losing copper doesn't matter as much as long as FT is sending me iron.

I'm just trying to hold on to the cities while they can still produce military, and hope to get to hit a stack with cats, which is difficult because everybody's running around with sentry chariots.

FT got his northern city razed by Comm (I had thought that he had conquered that one from Commodore, but that wouldn't make sense then... whatever, lurkers will know better), and is now turning on Gangadhara (I didn't take it last turn because I preferred to get into position against Cairo's advance, which hasn't materialised. Now there's a crossbow in it meaning I will not ever take it):