[SPOILERS] naufragar is not a number; he is a free man

[naufragar]

Is there anything sweeter than peace?


Between you and me, I'm not at all sure why Amica offered me this. In fact, I'm not sure why he didn't invade after he killed all my catapults. He probably could've just straight up killed me. Well, not looking a gift horse in the mouth. I had to pop a golden age and whip heavily while in it to rebuild the army, but the army has been rebuilt. Amica doesn't have Astro yet, so I'm cautiously optimistic that I can get to Privateer and prolong my agony.

[vanrober]

after your PB54 game i really trust your hability to prolong your agony :P

[naufragar]

after your PB54 game i really trust your hability to prolong your agony :P

But that time I had Stonehenge!

Mr. Cairo moved his knights into a weird spot.


If he puts a road on the banana, he can fork and take my two northern cities. He sees that my army is down South, but I don't think an attack would be a good idea. He can't conquer me in nine turns (I think) and then Amica sweeps in while I'm busy with Cairo in the North. Cairo also hasn't moved his catapults down, so perhaps this knight stack is just wandering. I'm trying to scout the Cairo-Amica border. So far it looks like both of them are pointing their armies at me.

[naufragar]

The peace treaty with Amica expires this turn. We'll see if he declares war in the latter half of this turn. I would prefer if he didn't.

Cairo and I are keeping sentries in each other's lands. Hopefully, this means neither of us is planning an attack, although I can't help but notice that his army is garrisoned on my border rather than Cairo's border with Amica.


You can see that I'm researching Steel. I bulbed Chemistry with a scientist and am trying to get out a couple Privateers and Frigates so Amica (or anyone) can't harass my coasts too badly. I probably wasted bulb beakers, but I just didn't have it in me to calculate how much science I needed to generate. Speaking of, this game appears to be in a low-energy coma. Judging by reporting, there are a handful of engaged players (Amica, Miguelito, Civac, a couple others) that coincidentally overlap with the players in the lead. Unfortunately for everyone else, there's not much to do besides sit on one's hands. I can't attack either of my neighbors. If my neighbors were to attack me, they'd be taking a decently sized risk. I imagine plenty of other players are in my position. All in all, it's led to a pretty dull past few months. I'm going for Steel before Civil Service (!); then once I get Steel, I'll backtrack for earlier techs. With Frigates and Cannons, I'll feel comfortable to do yet another couple weeks of waiting before I have to reassess what new strategy I need to put myself back into a safe position in which I can wait some more.  Or maybe Amica attacks.

[naufragar]

Stroke:



Counterstroke:



I invested in navy to protect my southern coast, and now Amica is building his own navy, so now I'm building yet more navy. Honestly, my land army is not especially healthy. I'm slowly adding knights (because Amica's Oromo Warriors would shred my own muskets). These knights would be less effective against Cairo's Janissaries... I think I'm still pinning my security on Cairo and Amica not wanting to compete for my core, so defending against naval strikes takes precedence. I'm not sure what Cairo or Amica are planning, and I've long since lost graphs on them. The weaker one needs to make some sort of move, but I'm not sure who the weaker one is. Perhaps they are racing each other to rifles? Tanks? Don't know.

[naufragar]

There has been war, and I've been slack about reporting it. A couple turns ago, Cairo declared. Actually, he was a gentleman about it and canceled our fish for fish the turn before, so I knew it was coming. The advance warning didn't really help...


His stack is impossibly huge, and I can see a flurry of reinforcements headed down, as well. C'est la vie. I attacked into his stack with my catapults and (mostly) knights. Lost all the cats and went roughly even in the rest of the trade. I had hoped for big flanking damage but sadly this was not to be. His army's just too big for me to do anything about, so we'll keep trying to cause some pin pricks until the end.

He burned a small island city of mine, and then parked the galley which ferried the invasion in Amica's lands. I couldn't attack the galley without declaring war on Amica... But why would that stop me?



The land war is pretty much decided. I was happy enough to hit Cairo's stack when it had few(er) defenders that could gain defensive bonuses. I don't think I'll get another chance. Hopefully I can bleed some cats off him next turn. His army's just impossibly large, though.

Cairo timed the attack well. In fact, I worry that I brought this on myself. I was 4 turns away from Steel and the safety of Cannons when Cairo attacked. Only two other players from the entire 18 had Steel, and I'm afraid that I painted a target on my back. Cairo wanted to knock me out before I could get all prickly. 

[naufragar]

All my best laid plans for throwing this game so that I could move on to PB62 have come to naught.


I admit I didn't run the sims and Cairo probably did, but I thought Cairo was going to flatten me like a pancake. I had a handful of wounded knights and a handful of sad pikemen, and Cairo had 20+ catapults and assorted hitters. Well, he retreated, and I'm certainly not complaining.

Amica, too, took a ceasefire instead of joining in, although that might happen at any moment. Kinda want to be eliminated, but I'll keeping whipping stuff until a neighbor obliges me.

[naufragar]

Aren't we at the Desperate Last Stand stage?



I'm interested in reading Cairo's thread after the game. I wonder if he's worried about Amicalolan intervention. At first glance, it looks like he can smash me utterly right here and now. (I've got a Great General 2-move, City Garrison 3 musket because a couple turns ago I was convinced Cairo could slam his knights into Arrival and take it by brute force, so I was looking for any extra bit of juice. Oh well. Cairo has all the time in the world to kill me.

I went into full panic mode and spent my entire treasury on unit upgrades (especially caravels->frigates), but I guess I'll try again to hit Steel? It's tough to know when to go into full kamikaze mode. For example, I have a small fleet of Frigates in the inner sea where they are useless except to prevent Cairo from having Galleon control. But if I'm going to lose my cities on the inner sea anyway, I should retreat those frigates in order to defend my islands. If I withdraw my frigates too early, Cairo snipes my cities with Galleons. If I withdraw them too late, my canal city could be sniped by Amica leaving my Frigates uselessly stranded. Decisions, decisions.

[naufragar]

The power imbalance is out of this world:


When I checked the military advisor last turn, I had something like 67 units to Cairo's 144. We'll try to manage a fighting retreat, but we're very dead.

So what's the plan?


Well, retreat! I destroyed my own fort on the jungle hill so that Amica couldn't immediately use it if he surprise attacked me. I've left it with 1 turn left before completion, so next turn, my worker can finish it off and I can try to slip my Frigates from the inner sea to the outer one. I was hesitating to do this because Cairo has Galleons in the inner sea that could take my Western cities, but soon enough his land army will do that anyway. Hopefully, I've bought Vijayanagara some time. In a few cities, I'm building wealth/research rather than units, because I don't think those units will do anything, and my plan is to get to Steel and hold my islands as long as possible. Amica has Steel now, as does Frozen/Dullland (my eastern neighbor that I've been ignoring all game). Perhaps either of these civs jumps in to bite a piece off of me.

I asked Miguelito for a map trade, because I wanted to see the world before I die. It looks like each continent has developed differently. My continent has two strong parties and one weaker. Others have two weak, one strong; or just two survivors; or four. It's a crap shoot. I don't hate TBDonovan's position, though.

[naufragar]

Pictured below, me chopping the forests on which my lumbermills sit. 


This is not actually spiteful. Chopping those two forests gets me enough hammers to 1-turn a musket from Kosho Pit. In the lower left, you can see that I've begun to retreat my Frigates. This cedes Vijayanagara, but it's time. As I said, the plan is to get to Steel, retreat to the islands, and defend with Cannon. It's an optimistic plan, but it's the only one in which we survive for any meaningful length of time.