[Spoilers]C6PBEM23: Krill sidles yonder, and probably fails

[Krill]

Ohh good reasoning. Just one more enforced lurker interaction and you all get a cookie! /scumbag patronisation

[Kaiser]

hmm
- The wrong one --> TAD is not having 5
- Close x2 --> there is one near Urtin Duu and one in the ice where your not founded city would be
- Right --> there is one in the desert between you in the contested area

[Krill]

T160

Good turn. It's worth reporting, so you are going to have to wait until tomorrow.

I'm going with: I have no land based oil in territory, but there is one down at Fishtail. TAD has 5, and greenline has another oil within the city limits of Urtin Duu.

One of these things is right, two are close, one is wrong. Have a guess.

Wrong: I have dp land based oil
Close: TAD has 4 oil, not five, but he can't access two of them
Close: greenline has oil in the ice in the next city across from Urtin Duu (this point is arguable, one might say this is just wrong as it's well outside the city limits, and not close)
Right: There is one oil down at Fishtail.

Here's the oil related part of the turn report:




This is a reason to feel confident. Three oil, all land based, the first able to be hooked next turn. The faith from the quarry pillage at Venice pays for the builder. I looked at ways to puy a pingalla builder, but came to conclusion they were all extremely high cost for one extra builder charge. I should be able to get the 6 charge builder down here, and pillage gold should pay for the settler buy at MH for Fishtail (if all goes well, settled T164 with the second oil hooked immediately), which will be hooked via rails. Ultimately, I only need one oil to get started on building artillery. I will possibly wait for the tundra oil to be claimed natural by Ponytail (I think it might get it in 10 turns or so, and I don't think the cost of 230 gold is worth speeding that up right now. Might be if I get flush with pillage gold though, it's a good tile yeild (1/5), but I'm more likely to need to buy specific tiles at Fish Tail to force it to size 10 ASAP.

I hope to upgrade the treb corps to artillery on T163. Then it gets really fun.





TAD has four oil, three coastal so he needs Plastics but he can't actually reach two of them I think I can go on record at this point and lambast his city locations: He should have settled in a manner which allowed coastal cities. Strategically I think this decision is what has actually kept him back, but I look forward to reading his thread and checking out his early game; I do not understand what the trade offs would have been (to leave open the coastal city locations). Maybe I should be more circumspect.





Chev has four oil as well, and can reach all of them, but only one is on land. It is unlikely that he will be able to make any of this matter given his tech position.





greenline only has one oil, again I doubt it matters.








And lastly, Whosit has access to four land based oil. However Russian Blue has no wall and I have an opportunity to run some very strong horses up there. I don't even think it needs to be razed, and Sphinx is not exactly safe long term.

Meanwhile Ocicat is never going to touched and Abyssinian (Zanzibar) is also relatively safe for now, so Whosit is the only player with decent oil reserves. Good time to knee cap him then. I'm pretty sure the strategy is fairly obvious to lurkers, so I'm not going to explain it all.

[Krill]

Actual update, I have T161 and the T160 update already looks outdated.

T160

Big turn, for a variety of reasons, but I'll report it how I played it.




I've been watching tiles, and Whosit just improved the coastal desert tile. I got lucky, and Whosit just retreated the worker this turn, but also covered it with a valuable, and weak field cannon. It was just in reach of a frigate corp, 65 base ranged strength, +3 (Chola), +5 (Admiral), +5 (Alliance) +3 (intel) = 28 point difference. It did 99 damage, but it's not like this was an unexpected result.





Turns out this is a 6 charge builder, and that has got to hurt Whosit. But wait, for players that are used to not being able to use opponents roads (given the number of Civ 4 games we've both played), it gets far, far worse.





Almost all of Whosits' units are highly promoted (Terracotta army, and he has been using them). Unfortunately, they aren't that strong. Kill a few more, and I might be able to get a golden age in the next era.





Whosit doesn't have much over in his core. Two field cannons which if they move out of the city will be in reach of mounted units and likely obliterated so have to stay in cities, an unpromoted courser (so built after the TA and hence no experience, and a one promo musket which isn't much better than the ranged units. Cities aren't that much of a threat from a ranged attack perspective. How much damage could I cause with what I have on hand? How much could I pillage?





Well, I've gone "all in" and spent the gold on upgrades. I was moving forward teh line infantry corps anyway, plus the healer GS. I have other field cannons moving up so I will have three corps. I could upgrade the courser and that would mean I am capable of fielding two cuir corps (upgrade the knight one) and a cav corp.

Next turn I could pillage two mines, the niter and the market, but what can Whosit do to stop it? 380 gold in the bank is not much at all...the courser is the unit I'm most concerned about, if it was a cav it would manage fine, but at 46 base strength should be ok to defend two attacks (adjusted strength is 60, +6 from intel as I ran the listening post mission with the spy this turn after taking hte builder, +5 from alliance, +3 from hill), but I don't think the city could attack it anyway, so I should be good to go. The knight corps is on a hill and has the +7 strength against ranged attacks so is actually defending at strength 75, then then cav is on a hill and the cuir isn't, so they are about equal (although the cav did lose 9 health taking out that 1 hp field cannon).

I'm not quite sure how Whosit will play this. Given he is holding the turn I think he is struggling as well. I wonder if Whosit will move the musket out of the encampment, or if he will stop building the factory.





I've gone all in on the pillaging. Triangular Trade is on odd choice, but if I pillage the theatre tile either next turn or the turn after, I will only be using it for 2 turns. I figure that there are other items I want to build for two turns which don't need production cards, but I will be swapping over to Chivalry after Colonialism.

[Jabah]

Do you need the +2 loyalty (from diplo card) or you don't have any valuable alternative ?

[Krill]

Interesting question.

I can choose from the following options:

• +2 influence points: not worth it with one CS in the game that isn't long for this world.
  
  
• +15% growth and 3 loyalty in cities not on starting: Affects zero cities.
  
  
• First envoy sent counts as 2 envoys: Can never have an effect.
  
  
• +1 gold per envoy: worth 2gpt.
  
  
• +2 and and production to trade routes to allies or vassal city state: I got embargoed, so worthless for now.
  
  
• +50% production towards spies and spy actions take 25% less time: Worth it, but not building spies, and running listening post. Likely to swap into the first chance I get a free production queue.

As it is, the loyalty card isn't worth much, but it actually does matter if I have to move Amani or Victor out of front line cities, worth giving up 2gpt IMO.

[Krill]

T161 - Surprise!

greenline, I have no idea why you recruited Boudicca, but this was great. Yes, Whosit gets a GG, but his army isn't at his core, so at worst it helps speed up movement towards a future battle, at best it gives me the faster movement and a further strength bonus. I view this as a net win




Whosit attacked the Cuir, and he moved the GG into Sphyinx. That's the downside, but I managed to pillage a trade route and all four tiles (I'm gambling that the courser can only be hit by the field cannon and not the city. If it can be attacked by both it dies. I pillage the theatre district because the culture almost completes Colonialism and means I will be able to revolt back into PA and Retinue next turn.

The cuir was down at 48 health, but by joining the healthy promoted cuir it gets boosted to the point it should easily survive another turn.





I'd have preferred Adolphus, but anything is better than Amina, which will again fall to Whosit in a couple of turns.

Sinan falls to TAD next turn unless he rejects, then I reject, then Whosit will be able to claim or reject in a few turns. Santa Cruz is mine unless greenline somehow generates a couple of hundred gold over the next two turns. I doubt he cares enough to buy him. TAD has started completing GS projects for Darwin. I'm not fussed. I want artillery on the ground.





Good luck greenline, I hope you have some barbs identified to convert...or men at arms to benefit.





Long shot. Very long shot, but if he accepts, then next turn I can upgrade four warriors to line inf, as well as upgrade the treb corps to artillery.





Final shot. The knight corp looks exposed, but it can't be hit by any city, and if Whosit tries to attack it with any field cannon from any tile, I can one shot that field cannon with a field cannon corps. And it's still defending at something like 78 strength against ranged attacks.

The line inf corps can start attacking Sphyinx on T163 with a sige tower (note that Whosit has no Renaissance walls anywhere, only medieval, and he is a long way from Steel). Strength 86 v 60 according to the game. I don't know how good that is though...

And now onto the world congress turn!

[Krill]

T161 World Congress




Watch as TAD and Whosit vote to stop my border expansion by culture and nothing I can do about it.

[Krill]

T162 and T163

Whosit is probably regretting the GG unblocking at this point, and Jabah, this is where the green card is coming in useful in two cities: Venice and Sphynx




My main concern with any attack into Whosit has always been how long I would have to leave my units open to ranged attacks before I could even start to attack a city. The GG changed all that (although deleting the double promo field cannon on the first turn of the invasion helped significantly). It turned out that Whosit could double attack the courser, which unfortunately died, but it did keep all the other units in one piece for the main event:





I knew that two line inf corps would not be enough to one shot Sphynx, but with the field cannon and field cannon corps, the cuir corps and knight corps I thought it might be possible. Well, I was right. Sphinx down in a single turn, and with the Amani move, it's gradually increasing in loyalty at +1.3/turn.

Now Bengal is on the chopping block, and the artillery corps is already making headway on the encampment. I believe that it should be possible to remove the encampment walls completely next turn, even if it's not possible to take out the encampment proper, but I should be able to move the relevant units down from Sphynx via the Oracle, and then Bengal is toast between four line inf corps and an artillery corps. I'll upgrade the knight corps now so two cuir corps should be more than capable of shielding the main group from the courses and anything else that comes from Minskin. It might be possible to one shot Bengal as well, if I can position everything correctly.

If I can roll from Bengal into Bombay, then I should bolster all of the economic outputs, and along with moving Victor into Bengal (either with the Garrison Commander promo or to put Moksha into Bombay) the whole area should be quite robust from a loyalty perspective. I'll just need to put in the zoos everywhere, and a factory and oil plant in Burmese (and Lumberjack) and then I should be ready to turn my main attention to TAD with the navy and air force whilst the army puts Whosit to bed with the artillery and balloon breaking any resistance.





In the midst of all this Whosit took Sinan, and Da Vinci turned up. Due to turn order, TAD will get to Da Vinci first, and if he skips again, I cannot get the wonder production GE (I skip, someone else picks up Da Vinci, TAD gets to Brunelleschi before me). I'm not sure how bad that is, as Da Vinci, if held for a few turns, would give me a minimum of 9 culture per turn (12 with Bengal), and I could rig it to give me either the Radio or Chemistry (unless Oxford just gave me the techs outright). Realistically I would wait for Electricity to get eureka'd quickly (maybe even building one privateer and using Drake) and then risk the Flight trigger, it would bring Flight forward massively and would likely open up a domination victory by giving me a window to take over a lot more of Whosit.

I'm also wondering if TAD just outright buys Santa Cruz to keep him from me (and get the easy armada). Next turn is his last turn, but not actually sure if he can afford it?