[PB59] Lazteuq worries for the endangered lurker species

[Lazteuq]

Turn 185. Nothing much has happened, and I'm feeling indecisive. That's never good.
I'm increasingly convinced that Charriu is only playing defense against me, and at this point I think the danger has mostly passed. I was much more vulnerable 5 turns ago. With some clever tactics, he could probably take a city with his 15 or so cuirassiers, but I doubt he would be able to make any permanent gains.
Since he still doesn't have Astro, I wonder how much economic damage I can do with all my boats against Charriu... Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to cut off his foreign trade routes in non-coastal cities because he has land routes through Miguelito now. I'd at least be able to trigger starvation and loss of trade routes on island cities, so that's something. He'd be pretty much forced to go for Astro and Chemistry to contest the seas, which is probably better than letting him get Rep Parts and Rifling unmolested. Maybe I could extort a really nice peace deal with lots of gold or gpt out of him.
I wonder what Charriu's goals are for this game. Maybe he has aspirations of conquest as well. Or maybe he wants to just chill in a sandbox. It's hard to tell, I don't know him very well. One thing I'm pretty sure about is he's pretty cool-headed and dedicated. I don't think I'll be able to score a morale victory on him easily.
Earlier I might have thought he was going for a culture victory, but it doesn't seem like it anymore. Also, look what happened to Cornflakes!

I'm worried that if I blockade all his coast, he'd probably just go into full RAGE MODE and draft/whip forever. Then he'd have enough force to overwhelm me on land with cuirs and muskets. Once I get cannons, I won't be afraid of that because they're so good on defense in a chokepoint. Until then I'm very afraid because it would take far too many catapults to counter the threat. Also, it would take a long time to get boats in position, and I kinda want those boats against Mjmd as well. You can never have enough frigates.

Mjmd is desperately trying to discourage me from attacking, and it's working. He has around 5knights, 9 elephants, 11 catapults, and at least 10 other 1-movers in his core. Right now I can barely match that force, because so much of my power is tied up on defense against Charriu.
I don't want to attack Mjmd until I believe I can do it fast and with minimal casualties. If I'm slow, Miguelito or Charriu will be able to capitalize. I'm hoping for shock and awe, something like a 5 turn war. I want it to be much more elegantly executed than my war against GKC was.
I want him to focus his full effort against Miguelito. In the short term, maybe I should deceive him with a fish4fish deal, or a war-peace. That would be 10 turns, and then I'd attack a couple turns after it runs out. Does that sound too mean? I'm conflicted. I wonder what Mjmd would do in my position.

Lurkers, I present you with a sort of detailed PLAN!
T189: National Epic finishes, start running Artists in Bottlenose. Swap to Caste and maybe even revert to Barbarism just to save civic costs. Also run lots of artists in the new cities to pop borders.
T194: Swap back to Vassalage before units complete
T195: Get Steel with the help of some wealth builds. Immediately send cannons onto boats in the inner sea.
T198: Launch rapid invasion of Mjmd from all directions with heavy use of frigates for bombarding defenses. Cannons, Muskets, and Knights will be the main ingredients.
T199: Artist should be born, start GA. Swap out of Caste, probably into Serfdom. During the GA, generate at least two more Great People with the pools that are already pretty full.
T204: Expected completion of Mjmd invasion. He may still have some islands to mop up, whatever. I should take over the whole astro island.
T207: Golden Age ends. I'll have to decide whether to go for Economics or straight to Rifling. The only reason I'm considering Economics is that I can bulb toward it, while the Rifling path won't be bulbable.

It will take 700 gpp to generate that Artist for a GA. With Pacifism and National Epic, each Artist makes 9gpp. 8 Artists for 10 turns would do it. There will definitely be a lot of starvation but I think it's totally worth it at this stage of the game.
Since I'm Spiritual, I think Slavery will continue to have value even after I've got Replaceable Parts. Slavery doesn't hurt Workshops at all, so maybe I can do some little micro tricks with alternating workshops and watermills to maximize hammers.

Eventually Miguelito will get Destroyers and then I'll have no hope of contesting the sea. Until then, I may stand a chance of taking his holdings on my continent, especially if Charriu fights him as well.

Assuming the game continues, I want my final battle to be against Charriu so I can hopefully take over the whole continent. He'll probably have Rifling, Astro and Chemistry at this point, but I'll have a gigantic advantage in production so I should be able to brute-force my way through with cannons and muskets, both benefiting from Aggressive. Sounds like fun at least.

Edit: I just realized something: While having a bunch of units tied down in a standoff is certainly harming me, I have to look at the flip side: It's harming Charriu even more! Since I have the food and production advantage, I can afford this standoff more than he can. Also he has two fronts to defend while I really only have one now that GKC is out.
Mutual harm isn't a good strategy though: This isn't a zero-sum duel game, and we'd both be better off with a demilitarized border. Maybe I should warpeace him just so we can both free up units. I'd love to see him go on the offensive against Miguelito, but I doubt he will unless he knows I won't attack.


PS: Hey GKC, if you're reading this. Did I actually manage to achieve surprise, or did you have a suspicion about me attacking?

[Lazteuq]

Charriu moved his cuir stack 1 tile east, which is a small but disturbingly aggressive move. That pretty much telegraphs that he wants to attack onto the marble tile with 1-movers, forking Vaquita and Bottlenose.
I sent him fish4fish and iron4iron but I don't expect that to do much.
Low quality screenshot because I'm too lazy to annotate:

I'll be facing up to 16 cuirs, 10 defensively promoted 1-movers, and 8 catapults. I have about 8 knights, 8 muskets, and 8 catapults, with a few pikes and some ancient trash. That's kind of a problem because I'm not sure if I can safely just sit in cities. Cuirs bypass the castle defenses, which really hurts. Bottlenose has 40% defense but is across a river, and Vaquita has 60%. I think I'll have enough if I equally split the defenders, but it will be VERY close. I'll be stuffing cities with everything I can to just absorb hits and prevent him from razing anything. I can use a GG to give 4 more Knights Formation, which might make a big difference actually. I might be reduced to upgrading axes and spears for cash.
After a lot of VODKA, I'm feeling more confident (heh), but still I really hope Charriu doesn't attack. Those 16 cuirs would be much better used fighting Miguelito's musketeers in 6 turns or so when their peace treaty expires.
On the other hand, the last time Charriu attacked me, I totally screwed up the defense and he profited massively from it. Maybe he's thinking I'll suck again. I've got a whole lot more free time now than I did back in our last war, so I shouldn't be making dumb mistakes........stay tuned.

Also Charriu got Astronomy recently. In a way that's good for me, because those are beakers he didn't spend on Rep Parts-Rifling.

[Lazteuq]

You don't see this in Pitboss very often!

I have to remind myself how defensive pacts even work...If either side declares a war, the pact is void. I wasn't planning to declare any wars in the next ~10 turns though, and I guess Charriu's not planning on declaring either.
I decided to accept the offer. At least it's fun and interesting, even though I don't know if it's truly a good choice. Charriu and I have had an interesting relationship this game for sure.
This defensive pact means if Miguelito declares on Charriu, I automatically declare on Miguelito. That wouldn't really hurt me because I've already been refusing to trade with him for hundreds of years. I don't know who else might realistically declare on Charriu except for Miguelito. Mjmd maybe, just to screw things up?
Either side can opt out of the pact easily by declaring a token war, so it doesn't offer any real border security. It looks like Charriu's serious though: He sent fish4fish and iron4iron back. He also already started moving units away from our border. There's a certain amount of trust built up between us in diplomacy at this point, despite all the warring.

In other news, I have a few infrastructure projects:
I want to build a canal between my homeland and ex-GKC land. That will help with setting up for a Mjmd invasion. Costs a lot of workerturns, so I need to get started now.
The Persian Unique Building's +25% to traderoutes is actually kinda good on this map for cities that are already getting those sweet +6c or more traderoutes. I only have three of them right now.
I want enough courthouses for Forbidden Palace. Only have 3/8 right now.
I've founded a few new cities in filler spots and to replace old razes. Also I've been chopping lumbermilled forests, because a Workshop isn't much worse, and two chops gives an instant granary. It feels wrong, but how else am I expected to get new cities up and running fast?

Edit: Next turn I swap into Caste. In addition to running Artists for the next Golden Age, I'll switch a bunch of coastal tiles to merchants/scientists because I'm aiming for Steel on T192 or 193 instead of 195 like I planned earlier. Switching to Caste will cost something like 60 commerce from farms and mills, but I think I can make up the difference with specialists. Merchants will help get to Corporation at least, which seems like a good goal. Unfortunately I can't bulb Printing Press because I've already opened up the Scientific Method bulb. That's the cost of getting Frigates.

[Lazteuq]

Mjmd keeps sending me confusing diplo, and I think it all boils down to: "Attack Miguelito, not me"
But why should I fight Miguelito if not to claim more of this continent? I currently have no conflict with Miguelito, and our nearest borders are 10+ tiles apart, with Mjmd between us. The only way we come into contact is if someone kills Mjmd.
Some might say I should attack Miguelito just because he's a game leader, but I am not swayed by that, because I really don't care who wins.
On more practical level, Miguelito is extremely powerful. I believe he has every renaissance military tech, plus Ironclads and I wouldn't be surprised if he has Machine Guns soon. He could probably defend against me, Charriu, and Mjmd combined with just half his military.


Charriu just started a golden age. Not sure if it's his 2nd or 3rd. I think 2nd, because I only have known about an Engineer and a Merchant from him. Now he's running OR and Bureaucracy, which is pretty non-threatening.

It's T190 now, and Steel is definitely ETA T193. Lots of prebuilding trebuchets.

Now I'm questioning whether I should wait with the golden age until I have more developed cities. GAs don't boost food at all, and I currently have tons of land that I can't use yet because the cities are too small. I have 10 cities with less than 3 population!
Also I want the GA to be a time when I feel comfortable running lots of specialists for the +100% GPP, not during a military buildup. This will almost certainly be the last GA I get, and I really want to make it count economically. On the other hand, the extra hammers would be really nice for getting more cannons built ASAP.
In any case, it still makes sense to get the Great Artist done ASAP, so I can switch back to Serfdom or Slavery, which are significantly better civics for the empire overall. Each extra turn that I'm in Caste to run Artists is more costly than starving another pop out of Bottlenose. Sorry loyal citizens, you are truly expendable.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 193: Steel has arrived! It feels good to have those industrial-era workers wearing overalls now. This is the first time I've hit Industrial in a Pitboss! Also the first time I've built a unit with more than 10 strength. 



Mjmd's latest deal is just asking for 3 gold and fish from me. I have no idea how to respond, that almost feels like a threat. Last time someone asked for gold+fish I think it was Superdeath, and that one was definitely a threat. Maybe he's just asking nicely to stay at peace for 3 more turns? Here's why I think that might be the case:

Mjmd got a peace deal with Miguelito recently. He's been piling up units and ships in the central island city of Royal Oak. He's already evacuated all the knights, some elephants, and most of the catapults. He also has a settler in Charriu-land. Maybe this is a mass migration to the New World!...How does he plan to get the ships out though? Open borders doesn't let you use friendly ports. Maybe he's building new ships in his colonies for that and he'll just camp out in Charriu's land temporarily? 3 turns would be enough for him to finish evacuating, that might explain 3 gold in the trade offer.

If Mjmd wants to do a migration, I won't try to stop him. It's at least something fun and engaging for him to do. If I were him, I probably would do it. Better than just sitting there and getting eaten by cannons from both sides. I'd be willing to give up my two new world cities to him.


The more frightening possibility is that Mjmd might be positioning those units on the central island as a threat: If I attack him, he threatens to send a fleet through the inner sea toward my core cities. That threat works against Charriu as well, since the map is basically symmetrical and Charriu has few boats. However, he only has 6 galleons and carracks, enough to carry 12 units. Not that scary.  Also I have almost my entire navy in the area. We shall see... I plan to declare in 3-4 turns.

So while Mjmd's intentions aren't entirely clear, I sent back the same gold and fish deal, to at least acknowledge him.



I'm hoping the Charriu-Miguelito border stays stagnant. I'm not sure if our defensive pact really deters Miguelito very much, but whatever. So far it looks stable and I think Miguelito has a bigger fish to deal with named Civac.

I feel bad for Commodore. He's been locked in a brutal war with TBS/Donovan since ancient times and now is invaded by Tarkeel, who was able to tech up in relative peace. Centuries ago I promised Commodore Iron for Iron and since then I have done absolutely nothing. I'm sorry. If I had spare units sitting around I would hit Donovan, but instead I've found easier targets on my own continent.



Economically, the situation still kinda sucks. I've switched off Wealth builds and my breakeven research rate fell to only about 220/turn. That's pretty atrocious for a 32-city empire. I'm going to get Banking soon, but no commitment yet. Plans might depend on which great people I get in the near future. I'm contemplating another round of Slavery, but that would be really economically painful. Spiritual sure is fun, I think we're just now reaching the part of the game where it's really good.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 196:
Mjmd has evacuated everything to the island of Royal Oak and he's practically asking me to declare war on him. His mainland cities are all completely empty. So in hindsight, rushing to cannons was unnecessary against Mjmd, but they will be super important against Miguelito and/or Charriu later.
This feels out of character for Mjmd. I know he doesn't like it when dying civs give away land or gold to their neighbors. I'm surprised he's willing to leave cities completely undefended. It reminds me of my controversial choice to leave cities open to Gira (Mack) while being invaded by Noble in PB56. Whatever, I'm not going to question it too much.

A side effect of my war declaration is that the defensive pact with Charriu is cancelled. I sent him Iron for Iron to reaffirm some sort of commitment.
This should be a very short and bloodless war that ends next turn, where I don't attack any of Mjmd's ships, and I don't attack any units of his in Charriu's territory or the Astro island. Maybe I'll try to consolidate ownership of the Astro island later, but for now I want to focus everything on the mainland.

Assuming this conquest goes smoothly, the first priority is to set up a fort canal (labeled on that screenshot) so my boats on the inner shore can threaten Miguelito. If I can trust Charriu for the time being, we'll be able to concentrate all units against Miguelito and hopefully force him off the continent. However, Charriu will probably turn against me once he sees me owning >3/5ths of the continent. So then I'll be in a 2-front situation again. Cannons will be great on defense, but I don't know how I can realistically go on the offense without vastly superior numbers. My production is still not much better than Charriu's. He's in a golden age right now which really makes me look bad.
Here's some graphs and a list of my military.


In 2-3 turns I'll be able to have almost all of those units consolidated against Miguelito, but I don't know if it's enough.

Charriu has Rifling and therefore Cavalry. Miguelito has Railroad, so I'll have to deal with Machine Guns, as well as 10 movement per turn from him. I really need to make some tech progress ASAP. I'm falling behind badly (I still don't even have Printing Press!)
I switched to Serfdom because I was done using Caste to run Artists. Caste was extremely useful for expanding borders in all these new cities, but that's done for now. I think I'll run 5t of slavery next (t201-206), and then maybe some more Caste(t206-211) to expand borders in new cities. Then probably back to Serfdom? Also I'd like to have Nationalism for drafting, but that doesn't make sense until after Rifling.
I decided I'll definitely wait on the Golden Age until I can take advantage of the buffed tile yields better, so I'm in no rush to finish that Great Artist.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 197
I'm feeling indecisive about what to do next. Here are some thoughts:
-I feel like the military realm is the only area where I have a chance to do anything, since I'm already economically irrelevant. In 30 turns when the leaders have Infantry, Artillery, and Destroyers, I'll be completely irrelevant. At least right now my cannons and knights still mean something.
-Now might be the best opportunity I'll get against Miguelito since his railroad network isn't very extensive yet and he still has many outdated units, and few cannons. I'm about to have an excellent concentration of forces against him, which may be a nice surprise.
-I don't know what else to do with all these units, since I don't see much point in attacking Charriu or TBS/DZ.
-I think progress against Miguelito on the mainland will be very difficult unless Charriu jumps in as well. I don't have faith that he will. I wouldn't if I were him.
-If Charriu attacks my homeland with his ever-growing stack of Cavalry and Cuirassiers, I'll be completely screwed since my armies are on the other side of the continent.
-In the end, hammers win games, and I'm nowhere close to industrialization yet.

Miguelito keeps asking for OB and I finally accepted.
I figured if even I'm smart enough to keep spies in his land, he's surely keeping spies in my land too. So open borders doesn't change much there.
I might be able to make him think I'm becoming more peaceful. OB doesn't actually mean any serious commitment to peace, so I'll take advantage of the ambiguity.
Also, he's going to have Infantry soon. Very spooky, considering I'm still probably 10+ turns away from Rifling. I'm really doubting my ability to fight him in Mjmd-land, since reinforcements from his homeland are only 2 turns away on boats. I might have to settle for only taking some islands. Even then, I'm unsure if I'd be able to hold islands since he'll likely have naval superiority soon. The existence of ironclads isn't that scary on its own, it's that he has the hammers to build so many of them! It's not looking good on land or sea.
So I accepted OB, but I don't necessarily plan to keep it.

I finished capturing Mjmd's mainland cities and I'll offer peace soon. Hopefully we can get OB again too, but if not, I can build fort canals. I'll stay at war until the fort canals are built to make sure my ships can always get through.
Also I accidentally captured one of Mjmd's workers in Charriu-land. So I'll give him one as reparation.

I need about 6 settlers to fill in new spots, and I need them soon so Charriu doesn't get there first. Lately I've been making Cannons everywhere at the expense of everything else. I regret that.

While my ~35 cities and nearly 3 civs worth of land area looks impressive, it's not as good as it looks. Only a few of those cities are properly developed. This financial advisor screenshot shows the problem pretty well:I'm being wrecked by Inflation and City Maintenance.

Even with some stacks in neutral land, civic and unit maintenance aren't actually that bad, thanks to Aggressive+Pacifism and other low-cost civics. My foreign trade commerce is so low because I don't have Free Market or Corporation or anything else to buff traderoutes. That number could be doubled pretty easily.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 198:

Charriu did not return my offer of Iron for Iron. Not only does this make me doubt his willingness to fight Miguelito, it also makes me more worried again about him attacking me. He keeps sliding his stack of 30 2-movers closer to our border, as if he's hoping I won't notice. Or maybe he's moving them away from Miguelito to be more balanced in his defense? I'm really struggling to get inside Charriu's head.

If I were Charriu and I saw Lazteuq focus all his armies on the other side of the continent against Miguelito, I would attack Lazteuq. I think Charriu has accepted Miguelito's presence and has little interest in destabilizing that area. I am probably more of a threat in Charriu's eyes. We all know Miguelito has bigger problems than our silly backwards continent.

Also I'm not sure if I could even win fighting against Miguelito. We have roughly equal hammers worth of units in the area. I think I could make some gains, but I really doubt I'd be able to force him off the mainland, and I doubt Charriu would help. Miguelito's also running Nationalism which means drafted rifles. Even more concerning, he's not at war with anyone else, so who knows what kind of reinforcements he may have available on his homeland, only a few turns away.

This was a critical decision point, and I decided to not attack. I know, it's sadly the boring, safe option. Not much fun. I am still considering attacking some of the islands though...

Or maybe instead I should start looking at Miguelito as a potential ally against Charriu... If I attack Charriu, he might join me! Charriu is a much better target for both of us. Right now Charriu and Miguelito have a long unstable border that they carved out of Mjmd. Meanwhile I can set up a short, stable border and buffer zone with Miguelito. Also Charriu is a much juicier fruit, with his well-developed cities, wonders, Hindu holy city, and relative lack of a navy.
So now I'm moving my units to the middle of the inner sea so they can act as an ambiguous threat and respond to Charriu's actions quickly. A unit on a galleon basically has 7 movement, because it can unload from a ship into a city or fort, and then move three more tiles on land. I have total naval dominance over the inner shore so it's safe to do this. Sorry Mjmd, please just ignore the fleet parked outside your capitol.

Mjmd wants peace, but I won't do it until I have secured a path for boats around his territory.
In other diplo news, I traded maps with Amica. The world sure is getting condensed into a few large powers. I'm still one of the average-sized civs.

I'm still working toward Forbidden Palace, which is pretty awful for this point in time.  Also I just realized that Customs Houses might actually be good on this map.
It was a nice surprise when I realized that Aggressive gives me faster production of Drydocks! I love it!


Here's an idea: Let's compare Economics(Free Market)'s benefit with PrintingPress/Replaceable Parts:
Free market is +1 traderoute in every city. The average yield is 4.2 commerce per route, and there's probably about a 25% research/wealth multiplier from buildings on average. So 37 cities times 4.2 times 1.25 is about 195 more gold or beakers per turn. The extra cost of running the Medium upkeep for Free Market is about 20gpt, or about 30 including inflation. When you subtract that cost it's still about 160 bpt.

Printing Press is +1c for every village and town. I have 34 of those (Mostly thanks to GKC!). Probably will have around 40 when the tech comes in. So that's about +55gpt/bpt including commerce multiplier buildings.
Rep Parts is +1 hammer for windmills and watermills. I have only 17 of those right now, although I plan to build a lot more soon. Even if I managed to build 40 of them, that only works out to be +40hpt, or about +50 including forges.
Golden ages buff hammers and commerce equally so I think they're irrelevant here.

Reaching Economics is about as easy as reaching Replaceable Parts from my current position on the tech tree. Economics would yield about +160bpt while PrintingPress and RepParts would only give about +105hpt. I know a beaker is worth a bit less than a hammer, but still, that's pretty impressive. Until doing this math I had no idea how good Economics could be. Then Economics leads to Corporation, which has the same benefit all over again, adding another traderoute to all cities!

However.....I want Rifling.
The real question is can I afford to delay Rifling. Or you could phrase it the other way... Can I afford to NOT research Economics/Corporation ASAP?
It's wonderful that the tech tree is giving me such an 'interesting decision' to make. In the end my choice will probably come down to which Great People I get.

Lurkers, do you have anything to say about all this crap I'm writing? I know it's not as engaging as screenshots.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 202
Not much happened in the last few turns as I migrated my troops back to the homeland and built some infrastructure. I signed a ceasefire and OB with Mjmd. I'd been considering starting a golden age and setting up a bulb path, but hadn't committed to anything yet. I signed Open Borders with a few more people which brought my average commerce per trade route to about 5. The economy was starting to look better.
Then Miguelito attacked. Railroads enable him to advance very quickly.

I'm looking at 15 rifles, 7 musketeers, 5 cannons, and a few knights on the tile labeled "main stack". If I'd kept my own main army nearby, I'd be able to smash that stack. But as it stands now, I won't be able to challenge it for about 3 more turns.
My immediate concern is defending against the 10 two-movers in that stack: 7 musketeers and 3 knights. The 2 movement of his Musketeers is powerful here, he's basically forking 3 cities with them right now. I wish I'd been able to use the French UU like this in PB51, but it was over before I got Gunpowder.
I decided to evacuate OneMoreDay completely, because it has little value and is hard to defend. The two southern cities are able to support eachother and are ports, so they're more important in my eyes.
I had 3 catapults in RowMeBullyBoys which I upgraded to Cannons for the painful price of 510 gold. This makes them pretty good defenders and helps make sure he won't be able to take the city on this turn. I stacked the nearby 4 knights and 2 macemen there as well. Next turn I'll be able to bring in some reinforcements by land and by sea, or evacuate. Not sure which yet. I'd love to actively defend, but it might be best to just abandon the area without taking too many losses. I don't want to get stuck defending these tiny cities while my homeland is at risk.

I really wanted to avoid using Slavery any more, but I think it's sort of necessary here. If this war drags on for a long time (or if Charriu attacks), I'll need reinforcement cannons flowing in. Also there's some infrastructure I'd like to whip anyway.

Now the big question is what does Charriu do next? He already played this turn and almost certainly noticed the war declaration. He didn't declare on me or make any aggressive moves(yet) but he hasn't cancelled OB with Miguelito either. The only clue I see is that he's moving a few cuirs toward Miguelito, but that's not enough to mean anything. My bet is that Charriu does nothing, but I'm not very sure at all.

So how screwed am I? That depends on if Charriu attacks me.
I don't really see this war as an existential threat (yet!). I'll most likely lose the four cities I took from Mjmd, but that's not fatal. I basically got them for free anyway, and those cities aren't worth much yet. They'll eventually become valuable because the raw land under them is good, but it will take dozens more turns.
I'm guessing Miguelito just wants to push me as far as he can, because why not? He saw an opportunity and seized it with the forces he had available. Totally respectable. As I said a few turns ago when we signed Open Borders, he probably is using spies. Those spies would have seen my units heading back home. I was sort of asking for it by leaving those newly captured cities so poorly defended. However, he's now leaving himself a bit vulnerable, he left only a skeleton crew of units on the border with Charriu. Hopefully Charriu sees this and takes advantage.
I wonder if I could have avoided this war by being less aggressive? I planted my border city in a threatening way, and I also had some galleons exploring in a way that might be seen as aggressive.

[Lazteuq]

Turn 203-204: Miguelito advances, parking his stack outside RowMeBullyBoys on t202, and then moving up toward TheCurse on t203.
He attacked with a couple riflemen against my cannons in RowMeBullyBoys last turn, and I don't understand how, since that would mean they moved 2 tiles! He must have Commando units then? Scary.
Last turn, Miguelito captured the city of Cruel Wars, since I'd left it undefended. He put only a single CG1 musket in the city. I attacked with a CR2 mace and won, retaking it. I was hoping to use those cultural borders to protect my units, since his stack is dominated by 1-movers. However, Mjmd's culture was dominant, not mine, the city had 3 turns of disorder. This meant the borders didn't expand immediately, and it was basically useless. So I just razed it.

Now this is where we stand: His stack is outside The Curse.

After razing CruelWars, I've thinking about ways to use a combat settler and do something sneaky. I had a glorious plan to unload a settler in a fort, settle on the coast somewhere within 3 tiles of his stack, and then use the city as a port to unload units. I have enough cannons that I would be able to cripple his main stack. I actually went as far as simulating the fight in worldbuilder, and it looked really good, with lots of dead and crippled rifles. Barrage III cannons are nice.

However, I don't have enough units available to actually do much killing. And a lot of those units are knights, which suck against rifles. He has a supermedic in the area, so he'd be able to retreat the survivors, heal up, and keep pushing, while I'd be out of cannons. Also he has more riflemen garrisoning the nearby cities. I can't hit those guys with cannons, but they'd be able to counterattack me. It would probably end up being a brutally unbalanced hammer trade. So I gave up on my sneaky ideas and just decided to evacuate all the units.
I'm guessing he'll take peace once he's secured TheCurse. I sent him a peace offer with 1 gold. If war continues, I'll have enough units waiting for him in GKC-land to prevent any further advances.

It's really sad to just retreat like this after so much effort planning a surprise combat settler attack, but he's just too powerful. He can punish any move I make. Now I feel dumb for spending so much gold on upgrading cannons earlier.

I'm conflicted about whether rushing to Steel was a good idea. On one hand, the steel path didn't help me economically very much, and I desperately need economic help. The only bonus I got was the extra hammer on workshops from Chemistry. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure cannons are the best deterrent I could hope for against Charriu, and that's probably the only reason we've stayed peaceful.

I was very relieved to see that Charriu's spooky cavalry stack still hasn't moved. I think he's content to watch this war from the sidelines. I bet if he sees me going all-in against Miguelito, he might attack, but not yet.

Miguelito has Infantry in the field. I expect he's working on Combustion for Destroyers next. I REALLY don't want to deal with those. Infantry are tough but at least you can still collateral them sometimes with Barrage III cannons. Destroyers on the other hand, I have absolutely no way to deal with, and they're so ridiculously fast.