[SPOILERS] Cornflakes PB53

[Cornflakes]

I’ll just play the turns, and pause as needed until I can get to them. At this point it will take longer to explain my thoughts than to simply squeeze in the quick turns.

Captured a city off Scooter, then used that city center tile to move through and attempt razing of another city deeper in Chinese territory with a morale GGeneral ... 90% Cuirassier vs. archer and the GG lost flawlessly not that it make any difference whether the archer survived at 0.1/3 or 3/3 since I didn’t have any follow-up 3-movers, but still that hurts psychologically.

[superdeath]

[sunrise089]

[giraflorens]

Wow, you don't know what a relieve to me !!! I saw that the moves of this game are fairly complicated, so I am very happy you can handle it.

Good luck!

[Charriu]

Hey, I've wanted return back to your initial dotmap, because I analysed the forming of trade routes here: Analysis

You were right that both plots need to have a river, but that river does not necessary need to connect. What is important is that either one of those plots needs to have the right combination of river crossings. Going back to the dotmap. Red gets a trade connection to yellow by this:

• From red to the forest 1E of it, because red has a river crossing to its north and both tiles are on a river
  
• From that forest to the ivory 1S of it, because the forest has a river crossing ot its west and both tiles are on a river
  
• After the border pop from red, the ivory tile connects to the grass south of it, because of the river crossing of the grass tile to the east and both tiles are on a river
  
• Same logic applies to the grass land and the forest 1S of that
  
• Lastly the yellow dot gets a connection to this forest, because the yellow dot has a river crossing to its west
  

We can even continue. Your orange dot would also have gotten trade connection via river after a border pop from yellow. I think even if you settled your settler in place you would've have gotten trade to yellow via the fish lake tile.

[Cornflakes]

Well, things went south this turn ... like, all the way down to Antarctica south  I advanced my STACK OF DOOM into Chinese territory, but Turned out to be more of a DOOMED STACK. I got utterly wiped out Just a single military police unit per city and ghosts remain, plus a few catapults freshly built.

[superdeath]

I believe in you!!

[Cornflakes]

Scooter signed peace after wiping my stack, but the writing was on the wall already with Carthage stacks in view on my borders, like vultures ready to pick my carcass clean. I gave up the island city for peace. Scooter has a host of galleons already to easily transport an attack stack, and given the Carthage invasion the garrison will be much more useful on my mainland.

I would be surprised if TBS can’t clean up my mainland by the time our 10-turn peace with China expires. I can consolidate everything into a mini-stack and maybe do a little damage, but since scooter wiped out my stack really can’t put up any meaningful resistance.

[Cornflakes]

TBS got too greedy sending his knight stack (20+) in without cover. I wiped his knight stack (20+) and a smaller follow-up stack of about 10 1-movers.

   

My "utterly wiped" stack in Scooter's territory, and "single military police unit per city" statements from a few turns ago was a bit over-exaggerated. I managed to get about 10 very-heavily damaged units teleported home from Scooter's territory (of the estimated 50 which had advanced). I had about 10 recently-built catapults, plus about 10 which teleported home from the island when I ceded it to Scooter, and 10 which withdrew from Thapsus on the southern border.

I gave up the border cities without a fight, pulling everything back to defend Utrecht. TBS had a large stack on 1-movers that captured Thapsus without firing a shot, but then they disappeared. Meanwhile TBS advanced with a pure Knight stack in the west, which I just wiped out 1W of Utrecht. TBS had clear vision on all my units thanks to sentry knight but chose to advance anyway.

[Cornflakes]

It's been a crazy month at work (in general, but multiplied by taking a week off ). Finally lightening up again and will be back to normal in another week or two, but unfortunately the Dutch empire suffered under the ruinous mismanagement of the incapacitated leadership.

Where did things go wrong? Basically I got impatient and rushed the attack. I knew at some point I needed to convert the economy to military and claim some territory in order to be relevant in the late game. I saw Commodore + Scooter split AT's land, and decided to try for a quick conquest of TBS. I should have waited 10 turns and teched Astronomy for EIM and naval supremacy. EIM would have given me the ability to attack Carthage everywhere at once, as well as deter China. My greatest vulnerability to China was CKN off ships (any land attack I would have plenty of warning and 2 turns culture buffer to hit with Catapults).

I'm almost certain that I would have been able to take out Carthage 1-vs-1 if scooter had not intervened. When I peaced out with TBS I was one critical battle away from breaking Carthage and had already bombarded the defenses away. But unfortunately Scooter took advantage of my distraction and nuked both our games.