[PB25-SPOILERS] The Lunacy of the Reign of HAK Continues

[MindyMcCready]

So Wins-Losses vs Gavagai:
Round 1 (Gav Attack): Gav -47 units, HAK -29 units.
Round 2 (HAK Attack): Gav -5, HAK -10. Debatable whether we should have proceeded with this.
Round 3 (Gav Attack): HAK -2 from that lucky Knight killing off a musket + cat.

So we definately got the better of Gav in units and given that Gav lost 19 Knights we also did better in hammers, doubly so since 11 of our losses came from draftees. I think that Gav made a mistake in his attack order. I had simmed out a couple of battles to get a sense of whether we could stand up to him. In my SIMs "Gav" did a bit better, primarily since I threw the WEs in first to soften the LKs. When I looked at the results I was surprised to see that Gav had any WEs left and also surprised how many Knights that he had lost. My SIM's had him losing 13 or less Knights, while he lost 19 in our actual battle.

So that's a significant benefit to us, since his Knights stack is no longer very threatening to our established cities of Bouncy and Wendy's and we can afford to throw more units into the fray.

Also, not sure how much it means given 3T to rifles,...but we're only 90 points behind MC right now! Unfortunately, it's probably 5T until we capture any more ciites.

Fortress of Solitude doesn't fit? If that's the case the internet tells me that there's a fast food restaurant "Fljott & Gott" in IceLand.

[MindyMcCready]

I'll be back at my desk around 1:30 -2P.

I misunderstood the units you had in Thapsus/Tacape. Rather than move 1NE as you suggested, I think that we could move a bunch of 1-movers 2N of thapsus. Suggest 2 cuirassiers + 2 cats + 3 LK + 3 muskets.

T201 that group of 10 units move to the hill 3N1E of Thaspus forking Hippo and Utica. That stack would be joined by another 7 cuirassiers + 2 HA for a reasonable threat. Importantly, if any of the Knights attacked into the 1 movers at T201 BOT,..they are out of position to retreat after the battle. Our 7 incoming cuirassiers + 2 HA would be able to counter-attack EOT. The exception would be the Knight coming out of Hippo.

Make sure that you unload the 2 cuirassiers on the boat directly into Tacape so that they can be part of the forking stack.

This would be moving up the timeline on Gavagai. If we were to do this, we would leave the other stack in place to heal while moving up the LK/maces/muskets reinforcements. Gav could heavily damage any one stack but he can't take them all on. Also, Gav will almost certainly move that small stack en route to Had back. He may abandon HAD or Kerk.

Like you said, I think that this will make things happen faster than MC anticipates and hopefully he will be unprepared to get involved. We really, really need to do whatever we can to cut off his reinforcements to Dragon Judge. Those galleons are expendable to achieve that goal.

Consistent with these goals, Frantic should be building caravels non-stop. I cannot emphasis how important keeping MC out of this land mass is. WE. MUST. MAINTAIN. NAVAL. CONTROL. There is no objective more important than that,...especially building a temple. I know that I discouraged Caravel from Sonic but that's because they're 8T away from the battle field. More to the point, we need to expand our naval control to eliminate that galley that could be ferrying 2 units per turn.

So tighten up that build queue. No temples unless on the MC border. No Jails unless WW; they can wait. Cuirassiers instead. Keep drafting since we're going to need the warm bodies. Do not draft into unhappiness; we still have plenty of happy. We're definately going to have to increase our military output after a bunch of builds complete.

[HitAnyKey]

Took a couple quick screenshots for the rolling of the turn:
The demos just before rolling turn:

The demos just after rolling turn:

And here's the two stacks after they had the turn of healing:

[MindyMcCready]

We have a bit of a problem when looking at that GNP graph. No way can MC be on 100% science. As much as we've improved our GNP output,...MC should still be beating us when he turns to max science.

If that's true,...well I'm not sure what it means (could be our +2 culture from each of our many GPs?). Maybe MC's not really burning gold? And we need to be prepared for a more sudden grab of Astronomy,...? If that is MC's max science (it is not), then

I don't really like doing wealth builds,...but if wealth builds will get us to Replaceable parts 1T early,...well we'd probaly make back a lot of the hammers.

EDIT: Can we steal Theology this turn?

[MindyMcCready]

OMG Ruff and Donovan are actually in a real war. Ruff took 2 cities.

I'm stupefied,...what game are they playing where they don't realize that any gains that they may get will taken away from them before they could possibly profit? They're at tech and power parity right now, with both being able to draft and both being threatened by MC.

Anyway,...since these guys should be BFF but instead seem to be on the verge of knocking each other out I have to ask the lurkers if everybody is really just tired of playing and wanting an out. That's the only thing that makes any sense to me. I guess we've been dragging everyone around for quite some time now. But,...but look at that GNP. Behold the power of 10 libraries. :LOL:

If they go ahead and actually knock each other out at the same time that MC lands frigates and amphibious cavs/pinch rifles well what can we do? MC's much better positioned to capitalize on this madness than we are.

[HitAnyKey]

New turn is up....and interesting times afoot...
First the demos and graphs, since since we just passed T200 here are all the graphs:

plus a shot showing what Commodore's treasury is at

And now for the interesting pieces of info. Gavagai did not attack us anywhere, which was nice. He also pulled everything out of Kerk and move those other units that were headed that direction back to Utica (as we kind of thought he might).

But the interesting thing is when you look at his builds....he's building Galleys and a Settler. Looks like he wants to flee to the island and plant a new city there.

I'll be able to take Kerk next turn, since the Cuirs you see over by Five Guys can get to the tile 2S2E of the city and then take it the following turn (with 2 Muskets for on that tile as well. So if we decide to keep the city (which I think we might) then we can put two Muskets into the city for starting protection.
The SOD will of course stay in place so I can move the LKs/Maces to join them. Then it can start advancing on Utica.
The units north of Thapsus will almost definitely move NE onto that hill to fork Hippo & Utica.
I was sending that Spy to Hippo to try to steal Theology, but I may have to send him all the way to Quiet Riot if it seems like we need to capture Hippo sooner to stop him from making that Settler.

[HitAnyKey]

For tomorrow morning's tactics planning, here are the current troop locations for my stuff.

The stuff in Thapsus I feel needs to stay there to protect it from him trying to take the city back with his Knights. The Cuirs from Tacape can probably join the other stack on the hill forking Hippo & Utica.
Really the only two decisions we need to make for this turn are how many Cuirs from Tacape do we have join the stack.
And do we move the SOD NW (with those LKs/Maces that just joined it being a tile behind) to fork Carthage & Utica or do we keep it in place to heal. I think we are leaning towards moving it NW.

[HitAnyKey]

Last batch of picture-spam.....the Commodore front:

The only thing I was trying to decide with the SE navy is whether to move that group of 2 Galleon/3 Caravel 1NW to be next to his Caravels or leave them where they are for this turn. I'll likely be wanting to try to hit his stack next turn...though may also want to wait for some of the other caravels to catch up.

[MindyMcCready]

That's a lot of pictures!

At a glance we still look ok on the MC front. Not sure what his victorious (over Retep) returning stack would look like. Highly promoted no doubt.

Some suggestions:
1. We really need to get a musket on the hill 2N of Tacape. With 3 galleys in the area MC could be reinforcing 6 units per turn and hiding them in the fog there. No idea if you've seen any changes in the number of troops on his mainland to reinforce/dispel this possibility. I think that we need to treat this as a high risk until we get more information.

2. The 2 galleons + 3 caravels,...they could move 3N of their current position and simultaneously threaten the galleys and cut off naval travel. We'd be taking some risk (I don't see any blue glow,...please confirm that there is none before proceedings with my advice).
C2 vs Galleon 26%; C1 vs Galleon 21.8%; C1 vs Caraval 50%, C1 galley vs caravel 9.9%.

MC will likely take that battle since that's what he does. If we're successful, we'll have cut his access. He could also attack with the other 2 galleys so it's a 6 vs 5 fight and could be worse if he's just built something.

Hmmm,..given that any of the 3 cities could reach that tile, it could easily be a 7/8/9 vs 5 battle. Probably best to wait for reinforcements. So no 3N.

As for 1NE,..it's exactly the same risk as staying in place since anything built from either 2 cities can also hit. Also that fogged tile can reach that location. So there's no downside to moving 1NW that we're not already facing by staying in position. Might as well. BUT,...

The 3 wounded caravels will be healed up to 2.6 to 2.9 next turn. And we'd also reinforce with the extra 1 or more incoming. I'd say that the best action would be to pull back (out of range of his stack) group up and then permanently cut off his access to the island. Permanent until he gets Astronomy. :LOL: By then we might have a lot of Gav cities out of resistance and it will matter a whole lot less.

Short version: Advise pulling back and re-grouping with the wounded

[MindyMcCready]

PB27 Spoiler

I've gotten some of these ideas be having just spent today staring at what Commodore's core looks like in PB25.

I'm curious what you mean by this. Particularly as part of a discussion of what we can do to close some of the MFG gap.