[SPOILERS] Cornflakes and giraflorens PB49 - any stock traders out there?

[Cornflakes]

It's been a while since I've posted the graphs and demographics. I got a bit discouraged around T100 when my carefully planned out golden age which would have unlocked knights got dashed. But things are looking up again! Enough at least for a closer look. Keep in perspective when viewing the demographics that both Commodore and Ruff are in golden ages.

   

GNP: 4th place out of 5 while running 100% is not great ... and last place Mr. Cairo piloting a 5-city civ is only 35 I'll really need a period of peace and consolidation to rebuild after claiming Carthage. ORG will be handy for getting Courthouses up since maintenance expenses will explode in a double empire size. But with Engineering, knights, and a catapult stack my tech level can reasonably deter aggression in the near term (if my production can keep up, and the politics cooperate). Fintourist is already up minimum Code of Laws, Civil Service, and Banking based on civics so this will be a tall order to claw back into contention.

MFG: #2 with Commodore and Ruff both in golden ages. The high MFG contributes somewhat to the low GNP. Most riverside tiles outside of the capital are watermills instead of cottages, and the corner tiles are farms. But increasing land area is essential and units are required in order to push back the Japanese! MFG was my number one priority in the 15 turns leading up to Guilds. Fintourist is #1 MFG by a wide margin now, and can drop into Police State at any moment as Spiritual with control of Pyramids. However MFG deficit is a hurdle that can be overcome by a 2v1. If Ruff and I can coordinate a dogpile and divide FT's attention in two directions then we can still compete. Also I have a promotional edge from Charismatic, and Statue of Zeus in my Heroic Epic city.

Food: The one stat which two of my rivals aren't getting boosts from their golden ages and I'm again in 4th place   Fintourist is 1.5x my pop according to the victory screen. 25 pop * 2 food = 50 food which are purely supporting other demographic stats. Meaning I'm behind 60 food in actual growth potential That's a big deal and the biggest reason why I desperately need land, like 30 turns ago

Soldiers only really matter as compared to Commodore, and I have a 1.4 power ratio there. Fintourist is largest army by a wide margin and there's nothing I can do about it except play nice and cross my fingers that there are other bigger fish to fry elsewhere. But the stronger I get and the weaker Commodore gets, the more I'll have to look over my shoulder.

And now the graphs ... first Power and MFG (aka military potential):

   

   

Fintourist barely broke a sweat gobbling up Rome and India (helped by splitting some of that pain with Ruff). I wonder if Mr. Cairo's mysterious fall off the power cliff contributed? I don't see a matching drop for any living rival. Commodore on the other hand fared much much worse against me. The shark fin 20 turns ago was the failed attack on Technical Analysis, and the recent cliff was my assault on Whole Florensis.

On the MFG graph Japan is still noticeably higher thanks to golden age, however demographics suggest that the size 8 city Fintourist razed was a big hit to the Japanese production base. Takeaway is that I should push hard now while I'm strong and Japan weak. Fintourist has been steadily growing MFG. I'm not certain what the recent dip and spike mean, but I saw Caste was adopted recently so I'm guessing this was growth in preparation for working some additional workshops. FT also adopted Representation but doesn't seem to be running many specialists given the high MFG.

Now the remaining graphs:

   
   
   
   
   
   

Culture graph shows the short-lived artist bomb. The effects will be felt long-term however because I will be stuck with minority culture on those tiles for probably the rest of the game, unless Japan is eliminated. Which means Commodore gets insta-borders if he ever recaptures any city in the area.

[Cornflakes]

... I noticed that Clovis Pinacle was never pictured above 1 pop. I was looking forward to keeping that city but Commodore must be intentionally keeping it at 1 pop for an auto-raze. Or maybe it did grow but immediately whipped away during our 5-turn peace time when we played a couple double turns, and I was playing via teamviewer and didn't get many screenshots. Hopefully! 

   

Commodore intentionally avoided growth at Clovis Pinacle for 15 turns in order to ensure autoraze I had 2 battles around 60% odds vs Samurai there ... of course I win with the crossbow but lose my 4-promo knight   I didn't waste any catapults here. I didn't use any catapults here. May have saved the knight in exchange but with positive odds already I decided against.

Commodore's power is rapidly equalizing via the whip at the expense of pop. And he is 2 turns from Feudalism for longbows and vassalage XP. I highlighted the garrison of Called Ryukyuan. My stack will advance next turn, putting 10 full strength knights and 20 total 2-movers in range of CR. Since most of the defenders don't get defensive bonuses I may just try to blitz it. Once I take out the Samurai (and my C3/Shock knights get near 50/50 odds), the rest will fall easily.

I'm starting to feel war weariness with about 1 everywhere. Fintourist agreed to trade me gold for spice however which gives me a little more room for WW.

[Cornflakes]

I advanced everything this turn. I will raze and replace. It costs 100 hammers, but in return I eliminate the city as a target for recapture. I'll just copy Commodore's lead at Clovis Pinacle ... work the gold, prevent growth, and force an autoraze with no immediate border pop for Commodore upon recapture.

[superdeath]

What would you say is everyones chances of winning here? And what is your plan? ( havent been following this PB lately )

[Cornflakes]

Most likely to win ... Fintourist - 75% - commanding lead in all stats. Barring a mistake or drastic geopolitical gaffe I think this is FT’s game to lose.
Slight chance ... Ruff - 15% - Profited from neighbor’s waring and presumably has Mr. Cairo’s mysterious territory to expand via the sword.
Minuscule chance ... Cornflakes - 9% - enough military tech and current power to carve out territory from Commodore. But Commodore will be a forever thorn in one side, while FT can backstab at will from the other side. ORG trait will give some economic help in making the new cities profitable quicker, but at this point it’s too little, too late.
Microscopic chance ... Commodore - 0.9999% - fell behind in military tech, and has been taking steady hits. Army squandered, cities razed, re-built army lost, still probably a dozen turns from Guilds. Which is a dozen turns for me to build pikes and castles.
No chance ... Mr. Cairo - 0.0001% - best I can tell, tried and failed an ancient era attack, then crashed his economy with unit maintenance and got stuck in the Stone Age with an army that was only getting more outdated with each passing turn. Somehow lost most of said army 20-30 turns ago yet survives with the same 5 cities he’s been stuck on all game.

[Cornflakes]

I do not understand this logic:

   

Tooltip is mouseover of CR. Why throw away the HA and catapults? Even if all HA were victorious or retreated I wouldn't have lost any cats to flanking. This is just free XP for me and hurts his chances of later defeating my stack. I moved everything forward to the tile 1W of RC. I'll pause for a turn to bombard, and most of my units will be healed back to 90+ hp. If he sticks around with the rest of the units on defense then he's toast and I probably burn Jomon Sorrow with 2-movers the following turn. If he retreats he'll still have to build up another catapult stack before he can face me. In that case I probably save my catapults, take the 60% odds knight attacks on the couple units he leaves behind, and move my stack forward intact to raze JS. 

Commodore has really misplayed this war throwing away units piecemeal. If he had retreated his stack out of Whole Florensis (especially without first throwing away his previous cat stack) then I wouldn't have even been able to advance on CR now. Instead of slowly getting pushed back, we would be stalemated at our current borders. At essentially equal tech and equal production there would be no progress on either side.

[Cornflakes]

Here's a marked up power graph. Yellow text is a count of the known Japanese power. There is only 100k unaccounted power spread between 7 cities. For buildings I assumed forge + barracks in 8/10 cities. I forgot about Stables so that's potentially another 16k there. Also I didn't count 8k in triremes/galleys that I know. Defenses in the Japanese core are paper thin.

   

I think at this point I'm keeping anything I take. Possibly even pushing straight on to the Japanese capital ... If I can trust FT to remain peaceful and Friendly. FT is as much or more ahead of me in power as I am ahead of Commodore. My defenses are certainly paper thin. I'm going to take a break from Knights now and work on building up some cheaper defensive forces like longbows, pikes, and catapults. Something to at least prevent a half dozen knights from knocking out 50% of my production potential in a first strike 

EDIT: I would bump up my victory chances and say that Ruff and I are approximately equivalent now, FT still 75%, Commodore and Mr. Cairo no chance.

[Cornflakes]

My fortunes continue to look brighter, except for the looming and inevitable showdown vs. Fintourist. This turn Commodore left another opening to destroy a decent chunk of his army.

   

The war elephants disappeared but 7 units remain ... exactly enough for all 6 collateral damage hit of my catapults to land effectively Start by reducing defences from 40% down to 8% with two Accuracy catapults. I have 3 catapults left, 1 already promoted to Accuracy. I decide that it's probably better to use the cat and hit everything with collateral damage rather than using it on the last 8% of city defenses. So I promote on of the remaining cats to Barrage 2 and send it in ... dies as expected but gets 2 hits on the top defender! Now my top attacker gets 71% odds vs his top defender! Wow, this is big. I now use the other Accuracy cat to remove the rest of the defenses, promote the last cat to Barrage 2, and send it in ... and the extra 10% from Barrage 2 makes it target the Longbow. I don't get any hits on the LB which is unfortunate because I really would have like to hit that LB with collateral Most of my knights are promoted with Melee so the LB will be the toughest defender. Good thing Commodore only discovered Feudalism last turn!

C4 knight vs Samurai 84% ... WIN!
C4 knight vs Samurai 84% ... Loss Now the longbow is top defender and best I can get is 76%
C3/Shock knight vs longbow 76% ... LOSS
C4 knight vs. Samurai 87% ... win, but down to 4 hp. Commodore is really getting lucky rolls
damaged C3/shock knight vs Samurai 80% ... win
C3/shock knight vs spear 92% ... win, but heavy damage 
C2/shock knight vs spear 92% ... win
damaged C1/shock knight vs redlined samurai 98% ... win, and earn a promo for heal
CG3 crossbow vs 0.2/6 longbow ... >>99% ... win, and city captured  

Lost 2 knights and 2 cats (280 hammers) to kill 4 samurai, 2 spears, and a longbow (400 hammers). And again this was another mini-stack Commodore threw away. I would have lost the same number of units if he'd simply left 2 samurai and the LB. Add in the cats and HA that he threw away last turn and I'd have to pause, build up, and slowly push forward. But now I should be able to press forward with all speed. Commodore can only whip 1 unit per city every 2 turns.

   

There we find the war elephants. Only moved back 2 tiles. Maybe Commodore doesn't have Engineering? But I don't see any other way he could have got the Samurai into CR a few turns back so until I spot a workshop hammer yield confirming one way or the other I'll assume he has engineering still. 

Here I took a nice long break, did some chores, and mulled over my next move. 
...

...

Commodore's empire is now split. With about half of his power isolated in the two Carthage cities to my north. Let's take a look up there first before deciding on movements on the eastern front:

   

There is a galley under Commodore's trireme. It would really be nice if I could prevent him from concentrating those troops and take them out piecemeal and/or force them to remain fortified instead of trying to strike out. My C4 trireme has a 2/3 chance of killing his C1 trireme (remember that event that gives him free C1 on all triremes ). I take the shot, and win! Now I have a 1.0/2 trireme with 15% odds to and my full health galley to remaining to clean up if I can get a good damage roll. I send in the trireme ... loss, but down to 0.2/2!!! My galley easily cleans up at 99% odds, and I again rule the seas.

Now back to the east... 

   

I have a settler ready and finally found a city on the double-wheat plain hill, 100 turns later than intended  Since Commodore threw away his HA and cats I decide to split my stack. I put enough into CR to (I think) ensure its safety against recapture, and leave the rest of my damaged units in place to heal with the medic. Next turn I can move my full health knights and all 1-movers (including 2 fresh cats) 1NE of CR onto the hill, while continuing to heal my remaining 2-movers in place. Then the following turn I move the 1-movers forward to the hill 1S of Jomon Sorrow while the now-healed knights catch up. Then repeat the city attack again 

I'll have enough fresh units and a couple more Catapults trickling in to deal with any potential Japanese raid from the north against newly-founded Growth.

EDIT: In the later screenshots above I updated the BUG power ratio to 3 decimal places to get the exact power rating of Commodore. After the turn roll I have 543k power vs. a 1.547 power ratio = 351,000 power for Commodore ... subtracting the previous tech/building and isolated Carthage cities I estimate around 125k power in the Japanese core.

[Cornflakes]

According to PBSpy, Fintourist captured and kept a size 8 city from Ruff so much for the illusion of the balance of power. Now admittedly I don’t know much about their border, or honestly I don’t know anything about Ruff’s territory at all. I have 2 workers defogging the Incan core now and one of them will be heading east through former-Rome towards Native America. The situation here look dire. I think that I have to intervene and stab Fintourist in the back now it I’m going to have any chance at all. I can’t fight FT alone, so if I allow Ruff to get gobbled up freely then it’s game over.

[Cornflakes]

After further reflection I’m convinced that there is no path to victory other than backstabbing Fintourist while he’s engaged with Ruff on the other side of the map. Therefore I have to decide whether I’m content playing for 2nd, or if I betray my ally and try for the win. FT is in Police State + Vassalage now and has nearly twice my power so this will be an uphill battle. And I still have a 2-front war vs Commodore on my other side AND 2-3 war weariness already throughout my empire from the Japanese war. Even so I’m going to take a stab at victory. I need to sharpen my knife for 4 turns before plunging it into Fintourist’s back.

My knight stack will be mostly back to full health next turn, and fully healed turn after, then move to a staging tile, then attack. The issue is rallying to staging tiles without alerting FT or arousing his suspicions. If I wait an extra turn I’ll be able to time knights to complete at all my core cities which would then naturally strike south. Then instead of a single rally point in the east I can stagger on a couple ties. Still need to work out the exact staging and then I’ll post a map.

LURKERS DON’T ASK FINTOURIST ABOUT ME OR HIS FORCES ON MY BORDER OR SCREENSHOTS OF OUR BORDER OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT MIGHT RAISE SUSPICION.