[Spoilers] Lazteuq and RefSteel's PB51 Adventure

[Hollybombay]

Being that its Superdeath you are talking about, he would probably see it as an insult/soon to be war more than anything.

[RefSteel]

Still in the midst of a really busy stretch, but just caught up for the moment - thanks for the detailed and exciting war reporting!

I think Superdeath razed it, because PBspy doesn't show him getting a big score increase. Or maybe it was just whipped to size 1 already. I don't know how to read those tea leaves.

Superdeath should have gotten some kind of score increase at the same time that Mjmd had a (much larger) score decrease.  Unless superdeath lost the exact number of points he had just gained shortly after gaining them, it should mean he kept the city.  (If he showed no score increase at all, that could be a raze that PBSpy didn't notice because he hit the button so quickly, I guess?)  The amount of superdeath's score increase just depends on the city size and whether it has any wonders in it.

Superdeath has a chariot wandering our border cities. That's fair, considering our chariot did the same. I'm thinking that closing borders might be good though, now that we have mapped most of his land. I just don't want to annoy him though. How "normal" is it to close borders with a neighbor in a situation like this?

I'd recommend against closing borders.  Better to get a random unit or two of our own watching for units/stacks in his land, as he's doing in ours.

All this carnage produced a Great General for each of us. I rarely do this, but I think making him a warlord will help our low-xp army more than being a military instructor, so he is moving to the front. If someone thinks that's a dumb idea, please say so.

Depends on how you use it, but using it to create a super-medic could well be worthwhile.  (If there's a unit that's either unpromoted or has C1 or C1+Medic1, that'll do the job; if there's one like that with 6xp, you can even promote it up to Medic 3 + Morale!)

Oh - you also asked about Vassalage earlier. I definitely think sticking with Bureaucracy is better here: Revolting to Vassalage costs us a full turn of production and growth-into-whips empire wide, and loses a significant number of hammers per turn from the capital thereafter, for 2xp on newly-produced units - which won't much help Knights in cities with Stables in any case. We need more units now to hold the front, never mind trying to advance - and taking longer to produce units, even if they're more experienced, seems like a bad idea right now.

[Lazteuq]

Thanks for checking in, RefSteel, I think a supermedic sounds great.
Looking at it again, I guess Superdeath did keep Mjmd's capital, but it was only size 2 after capturing.

T141 and 142:
All this fighting in Gira's land has caused significant war weariness. So far only Cerveza is unhappy, and I whipped a courthouse to change that. Before this war is over, we'll probably be seeing +3unhappy from WW in some cities. But I'm planning for this war to be over pretty soon! After the Battle of Persepolis, I'm pretty sure Gira doesn't have any significant military left.

Last turn, I did some cleanup on Gira's damaged units. Gira retreated the remainder toward Lurkerpolis.
I've sent units toward Lurkerpolis. I don't think Lurkerpolis stands a chance unless there are more units lurking nearby.
We have vision on Equuspolis only because of a sentry knight on a hill. That provided some valuable intel: Equuspolis is undefended.
Next turn I plan to send 2 knights toward Equuspolis:

I'm convinced now that it's good to have superdeath exploring our land and vice versa.
It leaves him free to focus all his units in the south, which sounds like a bad thing, but actually helping superdeath might be a good thing from a big picture view. It makes sense for us to be peaceful now because if we fight eachother, we probably just both drop any chance of winning the game. It's MAD. But just like in the cold war, the opponent has to actually believe in it for deterrence to work. If superdeath thinks we are too comfortable and weak, I'm sure he'll strike opportunistically. Knights and Engineering go a long way for mitigating that. I know you talked about this before, RefSteel, but I guess I didn't really understand until now.

Set research to Banking because we're going to be running at low slider for a long time.
I'm not sure why the financial situation is so bad, I'll post more about it in the future.

I wish we knew GKC's tech situation. I'm not sure if a war with him would help, or if it would just bring us both down. I'm sure he's not thrilled that we're capturing land, while he is the reason that Gira was weakened. We profited from his unsuccessful wars.

Plemo is still in a military buildup but at peace. El Grillo has made peace with Mjmd, I guess because Superdeath gets the rest of the land.

[Lazteuq]

T143
The War: Moved units up, no combat and no surprises this turn.

GKC declared on Gira and offered copper-copper. I'm not sure what to think of this offer. Does he want us to leave part of Gira's land alone as a "sphere of influence" as if it's Poland in 1939? Or does he just want to make sure we stay in the war against Gira?
Despite uncertainty, I sent back a copper-copper deal. His power is about 2/3 of ours and we don't have any good intel.

Plemo has caravels, but I'm honestly not sure why he got optics. Maybe he's going for Astro to assert naval dominance over everyone else? Galleon invasions are pretty fun.
El Grillo now has alphabet, so we can see he has also gone for optics, but does not have Civil Service. He's capable of researching Gunpowder though...which means he must have Education already! He could be going for liberalism of course.

[Lazteuq]

Now that we definitely have enough military to finish off Gira, the economy really needs some work:
-Courthouses to save about 6gpt in the far away cities
-Banks in a few cities. Also I'm thinking of a grocer in the capital
-Minimal whipping.
-We have quite a few spots left to settle, especially after this conquest. This is good timing for the workers, because they are starting to get bored otherwise.
Also, we're back to #2 in land area.

Previously, my idea was to only fight GKC if he is a)much weaker than his power graph suggests, or b)tied down already fighting someone else like Ramk or Plemo. Now I'm thinking that is an overly cautious policy.
My biggest fear is stagnation. I really don't have a plan after we're done with Gira. One thing I'm sure of is that we can't just relax in our large sandbox.
The current military tech advantage might be the best advantage we ever get. I don't anticipate any new breakthroughs. Knights and Maces will be useful for a very long time, but soon everyone will have them. This war against Gira has been pretty successful, but I don't think it's enough progress.
The question is not if, but who and when to fight?
Maybe it would be best to whip a ton of knights and go full war mode on GKC and/or superdeath. That would kinda destroy our economy, but it might allow us to take a dominant lead in land area.

Hopefully the world doesn't continue leaving Plemo alone to play in HIS sandbox. If he gets dragged down in a big land war, I think it would make sense to invade his large island to our west, but that would be positively stupid right now. And if he gets Galleons, then we would be forced to reseach Astro to compete. Not a good future.
Wait a minute, doesn't Astro obsolete Colossus? It seems ridiculous for Plemo to take that trade yet!

[Suite]

Astro means East Indiamen with circumnavigation. This alone is far superior than a few dozen commerce, moreover he can build observatories then if he decided to. Early Astro is almost always better than a Colossus-delayed.

[Lazteuq]

T144
El Grillo offered a iron+horse trade.
I did not send back the iron+horse deal, because we're not in any position to join a war he might start vs. Plemo, Ramk, or Vanrober. If we had a land route toward Plemo, I'd love to join a dogpile, but as Suite pointed out, he gets East Indiamen! They can absolutely destroy any boats we can build. 

Also El Grillo offered 24 gpt for 200 gold. I'm assuming he would only do such a deal because he desperately needs to finish a tech. Maybe something miltary like Guilds...or Liberalism? Is it too early for that?
I accepted this gold "loan". 20% interest is nice. We want El Grillo to be strong as long as Plemo is strong. I'm gambling that he won't declare war just to get 200 free gold.
El Grillo has been whipping. A lot.

I'm assuming they're units, I hope these are for fighting Plemo.

GKC started a golden age and adopted Bureaucracy. He also has crossbows visible, so that means can now build maces.
I killed 3 units in Lurkerpolis before realizing a frightening thought: If GKC has some 2-movers in position, he could snipe it! However the sentry knight revealed this to be unlikely. 
Then I saw this GKC galley in the south. I doubt there are units in it, I'm pretty sure it dropped the units which took Pasargadae.

Now that we know GKC has imminent maces and therefore not far from knights, Superdeath is a softer target. He doesn't have civil service, machinery, or feudalism. And his praet army is still presumably fighting Mjmd.
I guess we could start a limited war with Superdeath with the purpose of just causing some damage and forcing him to split his forces and whip. But I'm worried he wouldn't allow it to be a limited war, and then his counterattacks would drag us both down.
It would also take at least 5 turns to assemble a invasion force, and it would be difficult to hide from those scouting chariots.

Otherwise, I'm not sure what to do with excess units which aren't currently attacking Gira's cities. I think the default option is to continue sending them east toward GKC and wait for an opportunity.

[Suite]

Maybe it would be worth it if you let GKC have Lurkerpolis? I don't know his characteristics, but you already get the lion's share. And Persepolis still keeps all food tiles. That is, if you plan a war on the other front, of course.

[Lazteuq]

T145
Captured Lurkerpolis, and then realized hmmm... You might be right, Suite. GKC moved up with 5cats,2swords,2spears,5axes. They are 2SE of Lurkerpolis and could take it next turn if they want. Maybe I should have burned it...although that's even more malicious.
I left one 6str knight and two maces in Lurkerpolis. Let's see if GKC wants to fight... He could easily kill those units if he really wants to, but it will be costly and force him to move the stack up that we can hit it easier. I think he will be apprehensive about moving up. I actually do want to kill that stack though, especially those catapults.

We have a bit over double GKC's production, we can definitely win a straight attrition fight, especially with the slight tech advantage.

Gira killed the Sentry knight, but I'm still pretty sure GKC has no chance of sniping Equuspolis. Due to some slightly unlucky battles, Equuspolis will stand for one more turn.

Last turn, Mjmd took a city off Plemo, and Mjmd and Superdeath each took a city from the other. Perhaps I underestimated how much fighting strength was left in Mjmd? That's good news for us.

Not enough time to write more, but Plemo declared war on El Grillo!

[Lazteuq]

T147:
Captured Equuspolis, so Gira has been eliminated. GG
Once these new cities get out of anarchy, I think we'll be #1 land area again!

We could switch to Mercantilism now. Most of our trade routes are +3commerce, a few are +4. I'm not sure if it's worth the switch. It certainly does synergize with PHI. We won't be in a golden age for a while though, and I'm pretty sure its only worth considering in a GA.
We could get Engineering on T149 with deficit spending. I want to. Am I overestimating the value 3-moves on roads? Probably.

More weird diplo: Vanrober asked for one of our furs, for nothing in return.
-Maybe he wants this as a tax for our exploring galley to go through his borders?
-Maybe this is a warning related to the fur's location? Full paranoia mode: Are we about to be invaded in the north?
-Maybe he just wants help.
I actually did accept the trade. In terms of score, Vanrober isn't doing very well, and he borders Ramk and El Grillo, so helping him is probably good.

GKC did not attack us last turn, when we were most vulnerable. I moved up a new sentry knight to see that he moved his army back to Petrapolis.
Also the fact that he hasn't cancelled open borders or other deals indicates GKC doesn't want to fight.
I'll keep all the damaged units healing in Lurkerpolis just in case GKC moves on Lurkerpolis. Or if he moves units away from the border, that would be an additional signal that he doesn't want to fight. I think attacking GKC now would be one of those "tactical victory but strategic defeat" situations.
On the other hand, I've been watching Superdeath's gold reserves and research and he seems to be almost stagnated at 0%. His all Classical-era army looks like food to me at this point.
Mjmd has apparently been doing better than I thought at slowing him down. 

Sorry guys, I know lurking an indecisive player must be frustrating for you.