Notice the tech bar, I'm partially researching machinery. I should be able to 7turn liberalism with 1400 gold, 100% all the way. If my estimate for post-golden age research power was off, i'll have to run some wealth.
Reasoning - TBS is making me nervous, his power is keeping pace with mine and he's in a golden age researching machinery, and I bet guilds is next. While the window would be sub 8 turns, I don't want to be in a situation where I'm fighting off knights and macemen with axes and spears... while my catapult stack would help, just doesn't seem pretty. This lets me get machinery 1t earlier, and lets me 1t complete it in the middle of liberalism if necessary should TBS's power spike.
The garrison in the other city:
The slog through TBS is not going to be pretty. I will have no tech advantage. I could try to wait until curassiers, but I just don't think I have that kind of time with Ichabod expanding and Mackoti being huge. The way I see it I'm going to have 3 advantages in tis war
1) Production - both through drafting and my natural MFG, I can spit out military much faster than TBS can.
2) First Strike - my culture border dominance means I can alpha strike two different cities on the first turn, or alternatively concentrate forces on 1 and TBS can't reinforce in time. I can also set up a fork on the first turn between Modular man and that other city in the east. I also have a great artist in the wings for a culture bomb, which will allow even better first strikes.
3) Lines of reinforcement - you might think this is odd since I'm attacking, but I think I actually have the easier reinforcement situation. TBS has half his empire on a different continent. That means emergency whipped units are going to have trouble getting to the front.
All warplans are extremely rough, but I aim to take both frontline cities on the first 2 turns, either with mounted units on t1 or with catapults and maces are turn 2. After that I will probably converge on the capital. I will also try to have 3-4 galleys full of maces appear on the northern shore on t1 of the war and strike as I can.
Right now all I can do for these things is mass build catapults. Can't have too many catapults. But i'll need to shield them from knights and horse archers. That means ideally pikes, but I'll probably have to settle for (triple promo!) 'phants. Given tech realities.
Anyway, nothing actually really happened on this turn, so here's some overview shots:
Great Person next turn. Fingers crossed for a scientist. If its another artist... ugh rethink everything. I guess research half of education since i still have the head start aiming at liberalism, but it'll slow everything down.
