REM goes on the Sudric Express [Pitboss 33 spoilers]

[Thoth]

I'm following along.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Quick update, pics are on laptop.

I am in position to hit Drey4E next turn if the time seems right. He seems to have dealt with DZs infantry push to retake his cap, and has a few cavalry around there. He is also in position to try and take DZs whale city which is currently empty with 2 rather damaged cavalry.

I have responded with 4 cavs also being in range, and having Cav in the newly conquered DZ to reenforce should it be needed.

I have a small stack which can hit the northern Old DZ city still in revolt only guarded by a rifle and 2 cavs. My 2 workers are hidden in the galleon in the city.

Finally in the west I have 2 inf 1 rifle to attack his island city between us in old Gaspar land. He still seems to be building wealth in most places over units too.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

So last and this turn...

Last turn. Things going well. Pressing my advantage to pick up another DZ city. He has nothing there and Dreylin limited forces.

I then have prepared to attack Drey4E at any moment.

Workers hidden on the galleons, more than enough to capture the city should I wish.

Galleon full out to the west

And I could probably take a few Drey4E cities by land that way too.

I chose to set nothing in motion and review with the next turn. See if anyone else has moved. I was met with...

[Mardoc]

And then what?!?

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

And then what?!?

Typing!

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

Latest turn. First thing that met me on logging in was a message from Scooter. 4 gold for 4 gold. Strong indication that they are going to attack Drey4E. I cannot see it meaning anything else.

Note also I still have 5 turns of peace from BGN, so he cannot mess with things yet.

This is great and bad. It is great as we need to hem his land advantage and both of us have stronger MFG output than he does. Bad because of 2 things. 1 is Drey4E is on a super wealth/sci build splurge. Like every city is doing one of those, which I can see as I have visibility on his techs and cities now. He is going to have infantry in 2 turns. Our advantage will be evaporated as he is in the draft, however he will only be able to draft 3ish cities so there is some hope.

2nd is my route in becomes much more complicated in 2 turns.

Basically if I want to hit guinea fowl on the first turn of a war, I need to attack either this or next turn. Otherwise it will have first ring cultural borders and be a pain to hit as he can reenforce.

Who knows what will be better? Scooter shares a few land borders and quite a few sea borders with him. I really would like him to use his drafts and army on those areas rather than near me. If I attack now also he will not have used his army on DZ. However otherwise it could indeed be a long slog. I have not replied yet to Scooter with a response to that, just a map offer, as any unseen cities that I can map I will instantly have visibility from.

I lean to letting Scooter go first, as I can keep harrassing him not whilst at war around the last DZ cities and making him be cautious. Also I have lost the ability to attack him without infantry unless I go back in and declare this turn as with him going first he will be able to pick up the new turn and draft a few infantry.

So the workers, ready to go in Percy. Also note the worker pair on the forest. Designed to make him think, but mainly to get the chop out of the forests for me also. Building stacks here.

New conquest this turn

Just 1 infantry in here, so I only lost 1 cavalry taking it. Now we have a pre cultural borders fiasco.

This is a little crazy. Either of us could lauch at the other without warning. And it will be a long time before either of us gets borders. If he has sense he will start pillaging the improvements to destroy the roads here. My cavalry/rifle mix will ensure defence from next turn. Also he cannot ride into that open city yet either. This could be a great time to kill his machine gun though, which will defend first vs a cavalry. But I expect the roads torched next turn.

He has still nothing else in Guinea except a rifle and 2 injured cavs.

His attacking stack moving on Zoth is moderate. It isn't large enough to take. I would guess this is just cover for the cata, and he will land more units next turn or the turn after.

Infra
Athanor is pretty good -

Glitch mode moderate -

Out west he has reenforced somewhat, impossible to take in 1 turn, but I would still have more air support than him and be able to naval bombard.

So what do I do? I think be a PITA around Zoth Personally. Attacking him will yield guniea and then not much else. Much better to threaten killing a low health stack if he tries to take DZs city there, and remain at peace until Scooters invasion. Will I regret this? I do not know. But I cannot see how he can build enough inf to match mine and Scooters combined MFG, and industrialise and build wealth at the same time. So I think this is the right path.

He also has moderate war weary currently, but helped by a large amount of happy resources. Once DZ dies this will not be an issue. His land is also surprisingly undeveloped. He has many non worked tiles, which I am surprised at. But I suppose he has been whipping and using specialists for his philo.

Currently happy with the empire. 1 turning a unit everywhere in the core. Great output currently. The pind island is slowly coming up to speed too.

I have some concerns with pindicators fleets, but at the same time he is playing 4 minute turns. Barely enough time to do workers and builds nevermind war movements!

Graphs

Overall happy. Need to dent the Land of Drey4E which I already know. Sorry no demos again, but first by about 500 MFG, and 2nd CY and GNP. Well placed. Definitely behind Drey4E, but slightly ahead of Scooter.

Choices for when I get fome from work - do I send something back to Scooter? Do I hold my attack a short while and wait for him? Do I go for industrialism and get marines or would steel and railroad be more useful (electricity was worth like 80-100 GNP)

Any lurker questions?

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I thought long and hard about pushing on Drey4E but in the end decided against it. I will probably have more soldiers than him in the 4 turns that Scooter will attack in, and I feel I can make him cautious enough around the DZ city between us to make him dither. Let's see. I keep putting an attack off and off... Hmmm maybe with 2020 hindsight I shall realise this was an error! I just don't have enough troops at the borders yet though.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

One thing I should add is that I quickly checked demos on the turn roll (I thought I SSed it but it isn't in the folder). My round of 1t infantry builds got me to 140k of soliders, only slightly behind Drey4E at 170k. Definitely think I can become solider leader before the combined attack.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

It gets even more messy. This is just a post about the DZ front.

He somehow managed to get 4th ring borders in that city this turn. To try and get more cultural defence? IDK. However, it does mean a few things.

1 - decision made for me. I now cannot road and attack guniea fowl before it comes out of revolt, as it would be over DZ culture.

2 - it makes the no culture zone down south safer too.

3 - they have dumped a lot of units ready to attack DZs city.

How do I play this? I want to really pressurize them here. I think the only sensible play is to take the forest with my workers in with as many attacking units as possible, and the 2 workers on the galleon for 4 workers total. That was I will be able to hit the city next turn, and the tile he would probably move his cav onto before hitting to get around the river defence bonus.

With DZs old cap, there is now not too much in there. But what do I do? I either keep my defence up in my city, however he is likely to view the above moves as very hostile, so I think I also need to reposition some of these too. Not sure where yet. Maybe the injured ones should stay in the city to heal...

Scooter is definitely committed. He is counting me down. 3 for 3 this turn.

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

There's lots to talk about from the turn I just played, but at the turn roll - GW struck... Can't believe I forgot about GW. Even without nukes, only half of the players are able to build factories and we are getting strikes. We are going to be fighting over barren desert landscape with fishing villages by the end of the game

At least it wasn't a tile that I was using (a grassland wine in a newly built city) and I suppose I can use this to definitely secure the wine and maybe pave over the others, but this is gonna get bad fast.

We already have 1 badhealth per city with the free forges. Then an extra 1 per factory. I bet there are a fair few drydocks which are also all 1 badhealth. I've never known if power adds to it but I think it probably will. I would imagine that with Drey4E getting factories/power we will see 1 GW strike every other turn roughly... Civ guys are definitely environmentalists at heart. What I wouldn't give now to be cleaning up a skull instead.