[PB75 Mjmd] Call to Power

[Tarkeel]

T277

We are going stream of consciousness reporting as I think there is just too much these turns to remember everything I want to report.

FWIW, my personal preference is to alt-tab out to notepad to write the report as I play, but these late game turns can be hard enough to just play. I do think reporting while playing makes me make more informed decisions at the very least.

[Mjmd]

Well today its screenshots and delay because wanted to finish fast to play some games with friends.

T278

I expected this to be dog shaped.



Inter turn activity.



Stroke his units with my aircraft  so I traded 2 battleships and a destroyer for 3 battleships, 1 carrier, and 2 fighters. Seems fine.

Now it lagged this next part so I didn't get a shot of the nuke, but see  that 2 BS 1 transport stack to the north. YA its gone.



Between a most likely full transport and the ships seems like a fine use of a tactical nuke. In general I'm fine trading land based resources (IE nuke) for sea ones atm. If he attacks back with his BS I should be able to trade with them. Those northern two transports are going to be an issue. If they are full with 8 tanks there are a host of my advancing forces they could hit. Meant to take an end of turn screenshot showing the like 5 places I tried to defend but rushing forgot to.

Decided to keep this.



Was thinking I wanted to move for a port, but do I really expect the game to go that long? So gran plus courthouse good enough to keep. All 7 of my marines won at meat wraps so that should fall next turn.

Very sad culture bug in the northwest.



I was hoping to advance fast, but ah well. This was my least prepared access as I didn't expect to keep most of this, but if the culture had cooperated you never would have known. Still advanced.

In the north vs Nauf & Civac



Air strike on tank and then killed it, but I was 1 tile away from taking the 3 workers there as there was enough other junk there.

[Mjmd]

T279

I had put 6 tanks in visual range of one of Civac's bombers where he could also land tanks. He took that fight. I think there were WAY worse spots and he had an airship. He also took but didn't raze scootcheroos.



Anyways, traded 7 of my tanks for 8 of his, two transports, 1 bomber, and 1 airship. Did mean that Meat Wraps didn't fall this turn as I used some of the  marines, but will next turn. His two battleships skedaddled. I did promote a lot of my tanks along pretty much my whole front to combat II out of paranoia. But with bombers the odds difference shouldn't matter much.

Nauf could be annoying and keep SD alive or he could just be defending his border. He moved up some cannon and infantry FINALLY in the northwest on his border with SD. I had moved my tanks in to raze those two cities, but I don't have a ton of tanks there. Anyways, end of turn state of invasion area.



In a totally planned move and definitely not because I couldn't be bothered build 40h missionaries, my free broadcast towers from Eiffel Tower along with free speech allow me to work an artist for 1 turn and pop borders where needed. Eventually I do need to build missionaries for theocracy, but tanks and jets seemed more important atm. I did put 1 city on mining inc execs a few turns ago and just put a 2nd. Hopefully will put a couple more on them if I'm feeling comfortable next turn.

And I MUST resist using 1 tactical nuke and 1 ICBM on NoBakeCookies next turn. I am writing this so I stick to it. I can just take it slower with conventional forces.

[Mjmd]

Logged in real fast while wife was giving kdis a bath to look around. Will finish playing and full report later.

I can't resist though I just can't.



I'm pretty sure he moved his units from Puppy Chow into NoBakeCookies. I forgot to note exactly how many units, but I don't think they went to Banana bread and there is another machine gun moving south to it.

I AM REALLY regretting sending a tactical nuke to the middle of the ocean. I think I'm transferring the nuke back. It passed 9 battleships this turn. Surely there is 1 destroyer coming??? Civac is keeping his battleships super spread out now.

[Mjmd]

T280 proper

I'm sure Nauf reported, but he cleared out my 5 tanks in the north. Also, lost my northernmost destroyer to Civac battleships coming up.



6 corp spreads by Ljub!

Anyways as I alluded to I couldn't resist



I did get punished and  got fallout on the fully grown town. Could I have probably delayed? Listen its about sending a message.



6 more ICBMs finishing next turn and with whips turn after another 3. I don't even have targets for most of them. Probably a total waste to whip them. But listen, sending a message. Will probably keep most of them, but will switch to manually producing tactical nukes. Probably my last time in slavery. Did 1 pop whip a bunch of other stuff so its not as huge of a hit in production as it looks, but it is a huge gnp hit due to all my farms!!!!

Offered Nauf a peace treaty just in case, but don't' expect him to take. Assuming he doesn't, I will raze Thin Mints (ewww mint), eat Puppy Chow, and advance on Banana bread to finish off this ripe conquest.

[Mjmd]

T281

Nothing happened in the inter turn other than more corp spreads from Ljub. SD did rename his cities which I didn't realize until I razed "theytakenoskill!!!"



Evidently moving all your units into 1 large stack when you know your opponent has nukes despite two other players spreading theirs out is not categorized as skill. . I did rename his capital back to Puppy Chow. Its pretty late in the game to be renaming cities although I'm tempted for some of these foods I don't like elsewhere (puppy chow is good though). SD is moving a lot of commando grens (and 1 praet!) to the north of my empire, but its pretty insulated against commando shenanigans unless Ljub railroads for him.

Listen I'm glad the production increased in CtH. Very much needed. Now for example it isn't worth spending two ICBMs taking out the mini Nauf stack that moved to "such a farce" or his numerous other split out stacks in his territory. Do you know how many of my stacks were nuked in PB66?

ZERO. Lots of cities, but never a stack.

Also, as stated I've used and have an absurd number of ICBMs for CtH this game. They are just stupid expensive and as stated I built 0 in PB66. Tactical nukes are still expensive, only hit 1 tile, and require subs. You can't really use them for offense on land and at sea you can contest. Speaking of I was today years old when I learned attack subs can see other attack subs. I did send the tactical nuke back last turn and was just using mine to scout number and direction facing of his battleships when I saw it this turn. Took the 50% shot and won!!! I would bet it was loaded.

I like nukes because it means things happen in the late game. They probably are bad if you want a game to actual reach a "real" win state. But I don't really want to sit around for 40 more turns. Even easy turns take a while with a map this size. There is 1 thing I would fix on them.



So I had seen his great scientist back when I still had airships in Ljubs border cities and that is his Heroic Epic city on the coast. However, there is no reason a nuke should give this much vision. Maybe like 9 tiles so you can see the boom. I had tested this back on T273 when I saw, but you can kill great people with ICBMs. Its not guaranteed, but in my limited testing it happened more often than not. You can't see what it killed, so I don't know if I got the GS. I did not fire a nuke at the great engineer as I don't think that would be right, which if the scientist is dead it is probably 100% going into an ICBM now. I bet he was holding in hopes of a late GA. It did also destroy the actual Heroic Epic. I actually don't know if bomb shelters reduce risk of buildings going boom.

Edit: went back into serfdom and free market. Since I recently whipped my larger cities they don't need health as much / I don't plan on whipping them again. Also, I'll pick up a banana in 4 turns and eventually the rice (although its at last city I'm taking) mostly fixing most of my normal health issues. You can actually see the 200gpt difference bump afterwards. If ljub closes borders maybe I'll switch again, but uncertain as I'm also spreading mining inc more (coastal cities although maybe not all the inland cities to save spreading costs).

[Mjmd]

T283



Opened turn



Now listen I knew he had killed some of my units. BUT this is too good to pass up.

Interturn activity



So stack of 6 tanks and then 1 and 1 and I killed a bunch of cannon and infantry. I think he deleted all the victorious units too. I of course moved in tanks although I couldn't fork so Nauf may invade SD and steal the kill credit. I probably should keep turn split with him. I of course would raze as they would just be swallowed by Nauf culture.

Meanwhile at sea I transitioned my east west line of ships to north south as my invasion of SD progressed. I then slowly started advancing west last two turns.

Civac either has a carrier farther back or just got lucky he moved his units a little bit or this could have been much worse. If he had stayed where he was last turn it would have been even worse for him. I meant to take a before shot, but didn't take. Listen where each forward ship is was where one of his were.



5 battleships and 1 attack sub for cost of 1 of my battleships. Moved up my ships. In general I'm finding myself doing fast battleships instead of stronger this game. Which is different from PB66 as due to short distances I think I always promoted straight combat there.

And by move up my ships I do mean ALL my ships.



Its time to stop defending two sea fronts. I did do my first major miss click and move a carrier and escort the wrong way on the left of the above leaving it without any jet fighter scouting / strike capacity. I should have written this while logged in because I have a bunch of obsolete fighters and I could have put 1 or 2 of them in Ljub cities for scouting purposes, but not worth logging back in again. Ah well; I suspect most of Civacs fleet was / is in the east.

Ljub has temporarily caught up in production. He clearly has been using this time to industrialize and I don't think he could have meaningfully stopped me or slowed me much, but I fail to see the long term plan. I haven't been mentioning this because despite the long time turns this has been fun. But he has 8 port cities, they are split, and not all of his have drydocks and he can't build battleships yet. What is the plan to catch up? This was part of the reason to do the SD invasion. For fighting Civac it was probably more efficient to ignore SD and just go for Civac, but not by THAT much. SD land gives me more production in general, but specifically I don't have to worry as much about everyone outproducing me at sea (not so much a worry now, but it was at invasion launch). Whatever Ljubs plan is to stop my culture attempt, he won't be able to stop my expanded empire pumping out modern armor in the long term. It could be he is just going for 2nd instead of 3rd and doesn't mean to fight me at all.

[Mjmd]

Anyone have any questions? Late game / in general?

I feel like I'm forgetting to mention things.
- Even though I talked about battleship production above I actually switched to destroyer production last turn. Partly because I'm feeling short on them, partly because they are the only things likely to be relevant vs Civac in time, and partly because I've recently caught two attack subs.
- My workers are running around in SD land like chickens with their heads cut off as first I wanted to build a fort this turn WAY down south, but then realized it wouldn't speed up ships any. So I sent workers back north because I might want a fort there for bombing SD.
- I built 3 of my UB. First time I've done that with India. I did this a while ago, been meaning to mention, and keep forgetting. I may build 1 or 2 more. The 3 I built were in Gav lands that were growing large for ICBM whips and didn't have any of the normal happy buildings. They were cheaper than markets and I wanted to, so they got the nod.

[Mjmd]

T284

Been trying not to play at the same time Ljub after my last nuke just missed hitting a scouting chariot. Game won't let you purposefully hit a neutral unit, but haven't tested accidentally. Anyways meant no turn last night and wanting to look around this morning.

Logged in and 



YA NOOOOOO. The unhappiness in all the former cities and all that. 

Ljub also sent cow for cow which gives me decisions this turn.

Interturn activity



Civac traded 3 battleships (pretty sure he deleted after or they will die this turn) for 2 battleships and 1 destroyer. I took a picture, but evidently didn't save, will post tonight. But made some morning mistakes like using the wrong carrier to scout with and then moving the backmost carrier to a spot that does nothing. But ya you can look forward to a good naval brawl tonight. 

I took and razed SD city although I thought about keeping, but eh.



Nauf moved in to pillage as I knew he would. And here is another example why you don't play morning turns. That stack of knights under my tank I took time to pillage everything on that tile and around them. Ya that city pops borders and the one to the south does to. I didn't need to do that!!!! I may test out where I think those knights will be pushed to. If its north it doesn't matter. If its west they could pillage every improvement over there. Its possible I just don't test as I don't think I have enough pillage forces because I was an idiot / I don't want to waste the time on. 

SO Ljub cow for cow decision.



Pros of waiting 10 turns (assuming he keeps the deal)
1) I got the low odds artist. I'm only 25 turns full tilt away from cultural victory even assuming I don't hit the artist in 4 turns. However, 25 turns is not 10. I may wait to start teching for 4 turns either way. Sidebar the problem with doing culture at any point is it puts me at a disadvantage in tech if a culture city does get razed. I'm pretty sure I can do culture before Civac produces enough modern armor, but it would be a pain to have to restart tech if I lose a culture city.
2) I can keep focused on Civac. This is probably the biggest one. 
3) I really would have liked 1-2 more turns of prep. 

Cons of waiting
1) Do I want to play this game for that long? Or do I just choose violence?   I've been riding a "invading SD easily" high for a bit, but these turns are getting exhausting. Mind you its not clear razing 5 of Ljubs cities would be enough to get him to concede and I doubt I could do more than that atm. 
2) Nauf can jump in again, not that that matters a ton, but it does matter.

I need to make decision this turn. One of my fears the last 5 turns or so is he actually railroads my territory THEN declares war. I'm not sure he would and I'm pretty sure I'm defended enough and he doesn't have nukes, but if somehow him and Civac coordinate MAYBE. His workers have been holding back enough that only cheap rares would be a target by land and it does have a bomb shelter so your talking 3 ICBMs from Civac. Unlikely, but listen after PB66 I have a right to be paranoid. Now by air? Those paratroopers could be defensive? He doesn't have industrialization, so yes they could, but late game you should start getting paranoid. I wasn't paranoid enough in PB66 and I probably still am not enough this game. Also, I should probably send back more trash from the west to help out.

[Mjmd]

T284



This was the best I could come up with.



If he wants 2nd IE silver medal he is free to join me. He deserves that. If he chooses not to join me I have to assume he has plans to attack me. You know writing that made me realize maybe he would take peace until the end of the game neither helping me nor attacking me. Logged back and sent 40t NAP.

Naval screenshot I meant to show this morning.



Aftermath



Won a 37% fight, but 83% flawless loss. I also at some point must have used the wrong ship or I never had what I thought I did, so left two ships alive I didn't mean to (using 2 destroyers and leaving another very weak seemed bad with a known attack sub in the water and having to cover my carrier. Its very relevant I was 1 fast BS away. He could blow through my line and kill my carrier. It would require a descent chunk of his fleet to be traded away. I thought about nuking his carrier so he couldn't see mine. But even 3 battleships, assuming 3 jets, 1 carrier and then adding in my destroyer and fully loaded carrier don't really justify two ICBMs. Its close, but I don't have many of those coming.

Left of picture you can see my other fleet moving in. I'm hoping I can coral his fleet into a space efficient for nukes. Although I probably won't end up firing them off unless I get a really good chance.