[SPOILERS - PBEM17] novice and spaceman - Suryavarman of India

[novice]

EDIT: Thinking about it, I actually favour this:

Wait a turn. There's no rush and after losing so many troops last turn I would rather preserve as many as possible. Next turn we can use our boats to reduce the defence of Sidon to nil, use the bombers to weaken the defenders, then send in up to 8 marines to take out the defenders, retreating all but one unit back into Edessa. It feels safer and therefore I advocate it. We've got to fight another war after this so I don't want to burn units unnecessarily and the above two options feel like a stretch right now.

Yeah, that's pretty sound advice. Unfortunately I didn't read it and came to the same realization when I had sent our remaining 9-move transport east to Hebron and found the city defended by two infantry on a hill. Our transport and four marines suddenly felt a bit exposed.

Anyway, I attacked and lost with 11% and 20% odds. Then my final two marines got 44% and 87% odds, luckily both won.



The city was razed since we had nothing defending it.

I wasn't sure if you had already done so, but I offered 400 gold to Darrell. I adopted Nationhood and drafted Tipping Point, Horsetrading and Cornered Market. Since we were out of vassalage I snuck in a few infra builds (Mausoleums and work boats) that would still let us complete 2-turn ship builds from overflow next turn. I settled a GG in our Heroic Epic city of Pyramid Scheme, to let it keep producing 10xp ships out of vassalage.




Next turn we draft and go back to vassalage, possibly slavery too to replace some of our lost marines.

[spacemanmf]

Some screenshots I forgot in my haste. The trade I accepted from darrell at the start of the turn:



Our unit list at the start of the turn, to see what we lost from last turn.



And the stack of ships after aerial bombardment. They were easy pickings for our Combat III missile cruisers.

[novice]

In chatting with Spaceman we realized we should have built a few airports now that we have flight, so we can airlift in reinforcements after capturing cities. That would have let us keep Hebron, for example.

Fighting a modern war is fun - (at least once, I imagine ) - the second time we might even know what we're doing though.

[spacemanmf]

Dave's power is now down to 2.6m, having been as high as 4.2m three or so turns ago. Given the fact that he's been gaining over 0.5m a turn, he's probably lost something like 3m in power. Man, modern war is crazy. It feels like playing US-style poker with unnecessarily large denominations (and numbers of chips).

[spacemanmf]

I've had a peek at the save but moved nothing. I can play later on.

Dave didn't attack anything so we lost nothing. Darrell razed another city and reports that Dave has an ever increasing air force.

Darrell has also requested about 460 gold and will request all we've got next turn in order to upgrade bombers, so let's not spend any cash this turn unless we have to.

[spacemanmf]

Ok, having a more substantial go now.

EDIT: razed Sidon for the cost of 1 marine (plus 1 full strength marine left behind), taking out two mech infs and an inf. Bathtime now (not mine) so I will have to finish the nearly finished turn a bit later. It's in our inbox if you're curious.

[spacemanmf]

Right then, with pictures cos I'm like that. I was curious about the goings on at Constantinople so sent an investigative Mech Inf. It saw this.



Noticing the number of bombers Dave has (4 have been seen plus 3 airships), I thought Damietta was under threat if he attacked out, since Darrell only had two destroyers blocking all costal squares adjacent to Constantinople. Speaking to Darrell, he became concerned about Kenya. So I offered this: a row of pairs of missile cruisers, the uppermost ships requiring Navigation II to get there.



As novice pointed out, there is still a path out, but all it threatens is Darrell's fort, which admittedly does hold a few bombers.

We're getting steadily closer to seeing Shoot's research. If only we had as many EPs as we have on our other opponents.



So, yes, Sidon. The bombers did their damage, although one was intercepted by a Mech Inf. It gave our marine 74% odds or so, but lost. But I won the next battle and that left a mop up. A full strength marine could but sit on the ruins. It may well be taken out by a tank/infantry combo next turn.



So this is the overview of Dave's homeland. I used the bombers to destroy some improvements, having originally intended to sever the rail-link, but this did not seem possible.



I also planned an assault on Dave's NE. We will have two transports with 8 marines, plus 3 or 4 missile cruisers and a destroyer as support, ready to go at Pindicator in a couple of turns.



On top of that, we will be carrying out an assault from Overexposure on Dave's SE (we should airlift some marines here at some point).

In Edessa, our units need to heal up a little (the transport and its marine were untouched, so I retreated them and the other victorious marine to safety), but our next target(s) will be Haddin and/or Leningrad.

Dave has perhaps up to 9 marines unaccounted for, so we do need to progress with caution.


I switched to Vassalage and Slavery mid-turn, having drafted three more Mech Inf, and I whipped a few marines out. We had 12 units completing end of turn. Capital and Investment build airports for better transportation.

Meanwhile, Darrell moves towards Stealth, at which point he will ask for all our cash and use it to upgrade bombers to stealth bombers. Then the fun will commence!

[spacemanmf]

A quick look at the demographics, which illustrates the demise of Dave. Firstly, power. He's actually still showing up ok here, but a lot of that power is holed up in Constantinople which is severely under threat.



MFG charts show the effect of the golden ages, but also the effect of losing/drafting/slaving cities on Dave. His unit producing capabilities have been severely hampered, as you might expect when two civs strike first on you.



And, as novice pointed out, crop yield is probably more illustrative. Ours has stayed flat as we have only really whipped/drafted specialists. Capturing cities has presumably helped (or do we have to wait until they come out of revolt?).



Demographics before ending the turn (which is after drafting I think). Who needs GNP when you have the Internet?



Demographics after ending the turn. Nice leap in power due to the completion of so many units.



And, to finish, the story of the turn.

[spacemanmf]

Turn's in. Darrell razed three cities - Kharkov, Stalingrad and Samaria. He postponed the Battle of Constantinople since Dave had mustered around 20 infantry and half a dozen tanks in there, and darrell didn't have enough bombers to cause enough damage. He's reinforced the boat line too.

Shoot discovered Satellites, which meant we did too. Darrell thought he had researched Rocketry and therefore decided to trigger the 10 turn cooldown, but in truth he's had that for a few turns.

We have a 7 turn cooldown and so we should initiate that in 3 turns. Darrell reckons we can finish Dave's last 18 cities off in 6 turns leaving 4 turns for repositioning for attacking Shoot. Ambitiously, he wants to wipe out Shoot in 1 turn.

I haven't moved anything yet but I can play in a couple of hours.

[spacemanmf]

Darrell's cooldown notice:

Shoot,

Just noticed you got Rocketry. I am initiating our NAP cooldown. I hope it won't come to that as I believe you are bored with the game, but I don't want to risk you going backdoor space on me :-).

Darrell