[SPOILERS] Seven Isabellas of India

[SevenSpirits]

Two mainland cities - a size 3 inland one that is pretty crappy and that Nakor will capture soon, and a size 12 coastal city with a ton of (wimpy) defenders piled in.

He also has his capital, the size one pillaged/blockaded city on his second island, which is also filled with (wimpy) defenders, mostly archers.

[SevenSpirits]

EOT 165: Rifling in, and I had started a few Longbows which got upgraded in the queue. I think I want Nationalism next, not sure though. I need to figure out how many turns Chemistry/Steel will take.

I have continued my pillaging campaign around Nakor's new conquests, with a few mounted units joining up from the north. Nakor's newest acquisistion, which is a pretty crappy city anyway, will have zero improvements when it comes out of revolt next turn. I'm curious why he hasn't complained to me about this yet, haha...

[SevenSpirits]

T167:

Two turns ago I had proposed a resolution:

Stop the fighting against SevenSpirits

I.e. make peace with Jowy. It was my only choice, so I figured what the heck, at least we get to see people vote. And then I immediately voted No with my 90% of the Hindu population or whatever it is.

Anyway, results came in this turn.
Me: No
Lewwyn: No
Nakor: Yes
Ruff: NEVER!

So that's kind of funny at least.

As foreshadowed in the last post, I also pondered whether to go for Chemistry-Steel, or Nationism, first. Here was my thought process:

Nationalism: really good civic, plus I'm spiritual, and frankly a rifle is a lot better than a citizen working a coast tile; being able to make that trade a bazillion times seems pretty good. Cannons meanwhile can be countered by Cuirassiers which Nakor is only one tech away from.

Chemistry-Steel: Wait a minute, that comes with PIRATES.

Case fucking closed. I immediately researched Engineering, then most of Chemistry the following turn. Nakor cannot build caravels yet, because he can't research optics yet, because he still doesn't have compass.


In a somewhat related question, do barbs ever spawn triremes and higher level naval units? Or only galleys?

[NobleHelium]

Should've voted yes for the defiance unhappiness.

I think I've seen a barbarian trireme before but I cannot say for sure. I'm quite sure that they won't go above that for naval units unless you're playing with raging barbarians, where they lose their tech cap.

[SevenSpirits]

Yeah, except that I needed to be at war with Ruff still, and I didn't know he would defy it at the time. Anyway: turn 171 was really fun.

I had been monitoring Ruff's last mainland city. It had only a couple more defenders than Nakor's stack parked next to it had non-catapult attackers. This meant it would probably be reduced to 1-5 units at some point. That happened this turn, and I was ready for it.



Note the two galleons lurking near the bottom.



(The Berserkers are from Lewwyn; I traded 2 galleons and 2 caravels for them. In general I have been lazy about mentioning diplo with Lewwyn because I am pretty sure he is posting it in his thread, with basically the same perspective I'd be giving.)

My chariot which was my only unit on the mainland, hanging out with Nakor's stack, finished the job. This may confuse Nakor, just for fun.

Nakor also had a trireme nearby. A potential witness? Well it just so happened that my first privateer was out and in range, so I renamed it to "Trireme", killed his, and then fell back into the fog. Note: the message Nakor will get is "... was destroyed by a Trireme". The word "barbarian" is not included. Plus Nakor could look at the combat log of course. This is all just for fun. Any temporary confusion is a bonus.



A bit of road pillaging which I did later in the turn means Nakor definitely won't be able to scout those boats next turn.

Just so all the evil things I've done are collected in one post, here is a shot of Nakor's most recent conquest, which STILL has zero improved tiles. I'm not sure why he kept it, to be honest; its positioning is terrible.



Oh and you can see the city I founded as soon as Ruff's culture was gone. Much better positioning than the originals.

In domestic news, my golden age is over but Steel will be in EOT, so have some catapults and trebuchets currently in production. Next tech is probably Nationalism.

[SevenSpirits]

Nothing so significant t172. I did get an in-game diplo message from Nakor though:

thanks for the assistance! are you interested in a combined military expedition and a long NAP?

I replied by email:

Sorry, I am not interested in a longer NAP. I just don't have enough opponents left. You'd better prepare for war to come as soon as it's permitted.

By the way, that city of Ruff's that I razed was positioned pretty poorly anyway. I would recommend re-founding on the coast to the south instead, as there are two fishes there.

Seven

Also a bit with Ruff...

hurry up and kill me!

I would lose units and gain nothing. :/

well come onto my island and I will attack you then

"Gain nothing" is not quite accurate - I'd lose war weariness (so would Nakor) and get a bit of gold and xp. But it's honestly not worth having to load units onto ships and perform a bunch of moves with them and worry about them dying. I did tell Ruff earlier I would kill his city if he moved his units out. (That would be easy as I have a galleon with a guy in it nearby.)

[SevenSpirits]

Ruff is gone, which means Nakor immediately made peace with him, as did I (for 20 gold and his world map... I guess Nakor probably didn't get anything?) Then when I ended turn, AIRuff converted to Judaism. It was important!

In Nakor-land, I finally have all three necessary privateers in position. One of them even had the opportunity to pick off a galley before blockading! And since I was in Vassalage+Theology when I made them all, the 1xp was enough to double-promote for pretty solid healing.


Blockading is pretty dumb all right!

He seems to have completely conceded naval superiority to me (he still hasn't even researched compass) which took me by surprise. So it turns out I overbuilt Privateers a bit - I made 7 or so when 4 would have been plenty.

Then, here's the power situation. I am drafting rifles 3x/turn and building lots and lots of cannons. Nakor is, it seems, trying to get to rifling before he does anything. (He just finished Replaceable Parts, though doesn't have Gunpowder yet.)


We've eliminated one of the purple/pink players, but there are still three left.

By the way, Nakor just got a great engineer. Can you guess which tech is at the very bottom of the GE bulb list, right above Future Tech? It's Rifling! Weird, huh? Unfortunately, I believe he will be able to use the GE to bulb Gunpowder. I think he caught a lucky break by getting that engineer instead of something else.

Oh also by the way, I'm not sure if Nakor's finally pastured his horse in Ruff's captured cities, but until he has, he can't build Cataphracts because I'm blockading his only source.

[SevenSpirits]

Sent a message to Nakor:

Sir,

My caravels have reported seeing your waters infested with pirates. How terrible! Unfortunately the caravels themselves are rather weak and would not be able to combat the pirates alone. As such, I have dispatched a fleet of galleons. They should arrive shortly and will only need to violate Byzantine waters a very small amount in order to solve your pirate problem for you.

Regards,
Seven

12:10 PM
Bas: You are one funny guy!

Looking forward to a good fight!

me: thank you

same
12:11 PM
Bas: just got Gunpowder, let's see if drafted musketmen help a bit...

me: burn your GE for it or was it just a 1t tech?

Bas: but feel free to take out those pirates!

you know the answer to that. Can you bulb rifling as well?
12:12 PM
got the GE due to those pirates actually!

me: I don't know the answer, though I guess I might next turn

you can't bulb rifling with an engineer, unless it is literally the only thing you can research
12:13 PM
Bas: hmm... we'll it's been fun! think you have the game in the bag. Don't know what Lewwyn is thinking, siding with you though. There is no second place in Civ...
12:15 PM
me: that was from quite a while ago. I think the political situation was really shaky for most of the game, then finally settled when TRD attacked Athlete/Lewwyn
12:19 PM
Bas: well, time for me to do some other games... talk to you later!

me: ok! cheers

[SevenSpirits]

t180 and I declared on Nakor. I'd actually had 2 NAPs with him. One fixed length that just expired, and one that expired only 1-2 turns ago, which was "no declaring unless we've had closed borders for 5 turns". I closed borders t173 or so - early, to prevent forgetfulness from delaying me. Because time is pretty tight here. Nakor is showing 1t to Rifling. Then he can draft them!

Thankfully he does not have Steel or Military Tradition, for collateral. As it is my Cannons+Rifles in large numbers should be pretty good.




To start, I'm moving on these two cities. They were conveniently located and fairly large.

I had also moved a large fleet (6) of galleons into striking range of many of his coastal cities. However, these only have a few token units, plus one ship of three riflemen that I upgraded from berserkers for amphibiousness.


Last turn, that fleet was visible to Nakor. Now it's just going to chill, maybe mill around a bit pretending to be a complete bluff, and most likely won't do anything unless he becomes complacent and removes defenses from Thessalonica.

Should be fun!

[SevenSpirits]

t181:

Nakor got Rifling this turn. He even finished a Rifle on one of his irrelevant island cities. Rifling also has another effect, which took me by surprise and is pretty hilarious: it obsoletes Chichen Itza. As a result, defenses went down 25% in all of Nakor's cities. I'm not sure if that's only against pre-gunpowder units or not, but it certainly mattered here, as 5 of my 8 naval invasion troops did not have guns. I figured the odds were probably with me, and went for it. Much better than facing Rifles.



My berserker-riflemen each had about 70% odds on the muskets so that went pretty much as expected. Then I sacrificed the elephant to wound the spear (20%ish I think), killed the now-defending axe with my knight, and finished the wounded remainder with maces, all at very good odds and with a knight to spare.

Losses: 1 3xp amphibious Rifleman, 1 5xp Elephant, potentially 1 mace
Nakor's losses: 3 Muskets, 1 axe, 1 spear, 2nd best (?) remaining city not counting blockaded island ones.

Sounds good to me! On the eastern front I moved up next to the cities and that's about it.