So, for the report.
Last turn I offered white peace to dtay. When I logged in he accepted, before seeing that I killed two of his rifles, and before seeing that I laid a trap with the frigates at Wrecking Havoc. This is important: it suggests dtay wants at least 10 turns to re-position and build up his forces.
The above picture shows that BGN got a GSpy, he got Communism. Dtay has thus wasted a bunch of gold and turns researching for a tech that he isn't finishing. dtay is researching Physics but although he has put a bit more EP onto us so he has research visibility he seems to be planning on using Airships to have complete vision of our front.
That does not in itself mean he is planning to attack us, the same vision is arguably more important for seeing naval attacks coming sooner. OK that still has relevance to us but I think that OH are a greater threat to him than what I'm likely to do. I'm more likely to be annoying though. That's why I offered him OB: if dtay wants to just sit there and build, or sit there and attack someone else I'm happy for him to do that, just leave me alone. And hopefully dtay reciprocates that feeling. Neither of us is going to win this game, so probably better if we just relax and have a bit of fun.
Anyway, for the report real:
Ruff retreated everything from Lynn that was in the city last turn. We're talking like 9 units, mostly med and anc era junk but there was a musket in there.
This is a real problem. Ruff has about 21 real hitters that are strength 6 or higher, and a further 10 or so junk units. Then he has 22 cats that I can see in that area. I can't use a small stack of fast movers to quickly capture Cambridge, Ruffs units would annihilate such a stack on T191 before I could even attack anything.
I took about 50 land units to this war, I can't hold multiple cities whilst Ruff retreats, not whilst he has cultural control of the land. If I leave too few units in a city Ruff can sacrifice a few units to retake a city and retake cultural control over the tiles even if I take a different city. I need to kill his damned units, or he can dance around and make this invasion a joke, where I can't take and hold everything.
I need more units. So I've moved all the knights from Willow Lake, all the muskets and cannon from the defensive stack at RC. I'm also going to finish Rifling this turn and I can draft 10 rifles and use them to bolster city defenses. I'm also taking the medic 3 chariot from Willow Lake.
This means I'm adding 16 cannon, 6 muskets, 9 knights and the drafted rifles to the land stack, plus re-reinforcements from the island. I'm going to simply drop them all the units into Marblehead on T192 and move everything forward on T193. I will move in with more units than Ruff has and see what he does. I don't believe there is anothjer option that allows us to conqueror Ruff. The other option would be to just retreat and go invade someone else but given the 10 turn window, Ruff is the one that dies.
I captured Lynn and left 3 muskets here, plus the sentry knight. There were two CG2 muskets, and one CG1 musket. The capture gold allowed us to finish Rifling this turn without too many wealth builds. I don't know if Ruff is going to retake the city. He has enough units to, the question is if he wants to waste units on killing the muskets. I think he probably should: attacking a stack that doesn't have cannons covering it would be a battle with the best odds he can get. OTOH, he might be checked out and just playing to hold at Boston, not believing I have many reinforcements and thinking he has enough to hold, but attacking Lynn might change that. I don't know. I had to keep the city given the infrastructure it kept.
EDIT: Ruff captured Lynn back. I wonder what he left in the city.
Picture of the dtay front with RC garrison. I'm gradually getting control of the tile 77 of Willow Lake, it was down to 54% dtay culture on T190. Once I get control of that tile then Willow Lake is safe from one move and I can move the units out to a better position. The next critical tech is railroad: I would be able to defend every city except DS from a single location.
dtat would need a single airship to see this entire area though, plus another airship from his southern core and he would know where all the defensive units were. Which means that even if dtay makes all teh "right" moves to indicate peace, I still need to ensure there are adequete defensive resources at WL, RC and the western border. As I've just moved about 30 units out from this area, I'm gonna have to draft a reasonable number of rifles and replace the cannons. Even if RC replaces 10 units, that's still another 10 rifle drafts and 10 cannon. So I am going to do a single round of infrastructure and then go back to building military.
If anyone thinks I'm going overboard on military, please understand that I'm bordering the guy with Cossacks, at war with a third party that is 8 turns from Rifles, and potentially the eternal Arch-nemesis of the former game leader. Those units are necessary to not get eaten alive because we are the boogieman of this game at the moment. High power is the only way to deter them, because we are essentially the slowest teching team that's still relevant to this game. But if all the players leave us alone after Ruff is dead then we can just move onto killing Plako.
I killed a scout, but Ruff will kill the chariot easily enough next turn. If he was hunting the chariot then it was only a matter of time until it died.
With the peace, I'm going scouting. I also hope to put a few frigates in a position to piss dtay off if he declares war again. Another incentive for us to be friends, if you will. Also scouting out Plako for a potential invasion in 20 turns.
I have three universities already built. I need to find 5 more cities to build one. OT is going to be one such city after the Bank. On Banks, my breakeven is around 50%, due to unit costs from having so many and that they are outside Babylonian borders. Banks cost 100 base hammers at most due to FIN. Well that's a bad example due to Forges but basically due to being in Caste, specialist slots or not relevant in valuing buildings, so a Library is worth significantly less than the Bank to me. The grass hill is not being worked due to rounding, the bank would not finish this turn and the extra food means I can grow the city one turn sooner if I draft it. I don't want to, I want the university ASAP but sometimes you don't get what you want.
So...DS picture didn't take, doesn't matter DS was on wealth. ToW as well to afford Rifling this turn. I can't justify any more buildings here until a Factory...so a grocer built prior to that for the health is a reasonable choice even if it gives minimal gold return. Can two turn Rifles here, which is what I'm probably going to do.
Going to draft a rifle here to build up some room at the health cap, and need to give up the southern grass hill to TS. WH is one of the higher commerce cities that we have, so the Bank is useful. We may need to run specialists here though, running a bunch of merchants: novice, would a grocer as well make any sense?
Going to one turn Rifles, no real change for the plan of getting WP at some point.
It's cheaper than a library, and FP is can build the library and university (eot T197) afterwards to unlock OU. This is the fourth university city.
Fifth university city. When I start drafting MG again, I can take some of the coast tiles back so the city stops starving but still not getting any additional food resources back. I believe that putting a watermill on the farm and a windmill on a hill is the right move, but due to the peace treaty with dtay I need to do all of the work on the border first.
Due to lack of better things to do, I'm going to set up a series of prebuilds to speed up the OU build time. or novice if you get bored, the micro is all yours to figure out...
Going to steal the two grass hills and at some point will stagnate the city. The courthouse will take a while but after that going back to units seems wise.
We should take back the two tiles lost to Plako this turn. I intend to build a university after the work boat, then play it by ear, but cramming culture in here is probably a long term need if we don't intend to attack Plako. And I'll dump a single rifle here as well: Plako has real garrisons, we don't.
Should have queue upgraded to a rifle, will keep on building rifles until Ruff is dead.
As above, with the release of 16 cannon from RC rifles is all I really need.
Bank and back to units.
Draft rifles from next turn, I believe i can draft 5 rifles before I need to regrow MG. Also, going to farm the northern grassland tile when I have the spare worker turns.
By starving the city I can squeeze out the GA in 7 turns. I don't think this is necessary though: the only city worth bombing is Cambridge and we can chain the GA up there in a single turn, ie the turn after the GA is born it can bomb.
Skipping ahead, but I'm going to start building the IW here after the Grocer. And tons of workshops are going down.
Need to grow to size 17 then infrastructure. Barracks can wait until after the forge.
