[SPOILERS - PBEM17] Kyan Does Dallas. The Orange Sensation.

[oledavy]

Well, I was going to give a uber long text and picture summary of what all my cities are doing at the moment, then I got the notification that my login expired and lost about an hour worth of work.

I can't bring myself to retype it all at this point in time, perhaps later.

Shoot has still not responded to my email

[oledavy]

[COLOR="Green"]Dave,

Since it looks like you are pretty set on having Plako yourself, I guess I will go along with that as the conditions for bargaining. However, I am not all that happy about that, as I am going to be the one providing the majority of the army that captures Plako, and it seems the deal doesn't quite reflect that. I would counter-propose the same terms you said, but also that I get something like a third to half of the base commerce that Plako produces as a gpt deal. You would still get all of the benefits of any multiplier buildings to yourself (which at this point in the game are quite substantial -- nearly double the base commerce both for gold and research), along with the rest of the base commerce and all the production from the city. It's just that if I'm going to be throwing most of my army at a city, I want some sort of long term productivity out of it, or else it wasn't worth it for me to have slaved/drafted/built such a large army in the first place and have thus slowed my growth curve significantly. In essence, a base commerce deal would be giving me "partial" ownership of Plako, which seems the fairest and most reasonable way I can come up with to go about this as it seems both of us think the city should (or needs) to be theirs).

Let me know what you think,
Shoot[/COLOR]

My inclination is to accept his offer, gifting away that much GPT sucks but its not a bad deal all things considered.

[oledavy]

Gah, life got crazy again. This will have to do for a part 5. The report on my economy and the upcoming war moves will have to wait for another day

For now, a couple emails I sent off in a hurry:

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hey Shoot -

You have a valid point. I feel like gpt gifting being adjusted on a turn-by-turn basis to account for changing commerce yields could be clumsy and needs to be refined to something simpler. However, I do agree to your counter-proposal in principle. I'm pretty tied up this weekend, but if you have free time that would be good for hashing this out while our armies march on Plako, let me know. If I get time I'll type out an email and start running through ideas for making this work.

For the time being I have moved my army towards the city and gotten the save rolling again.

When you get a chance, can you tell me how many airships you will need for the turn of the attack? On t146, I will move airships to one of your cities and gift them to you, so you can move to operate out of the city of Rostov/Bato on the turn of the assault.

Speaking of which, please gift me the infantry in Rostov/Bato next time you get the save.

Regards,
Dave

[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hey Darrell -

Just a heads up, Rego stuck his four destroyers in Commodore to heal.

Cheers!
Dave[/COLOR]

And a few more pics from the turn:

The Incan Military:



Winning in land area!



Shoot's armies:

[oledavy]

Response from Darrell:

[COLOR="Yellow"]Yeah I saw that...I am stacking about 9 destroyers up
if he peaks his head out I will kill him.

Darrell[/COLOR]

[oledavy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Shoot -

British History is relatively boring today, so I had some time to think over our deal.

How does a flat gpt deal sound to you, from now until the end of the game?

I will probably lose much of my stack as it approaches Plako. If I were Rego, I would try to attack it to kill the cannons before they can bomb down the defenses. However, I only need to get my four accuracy cannons through to get the job done, and those have eight rifles and four Drill I/Drill II cannons serving as meat shields. If he does attack, it will probably be on t146 when I move onto the grassland northwest of the city.

Dave [/COLOR]

For the record, I do possess the forces to take Plako if I wanted at this point. I did another round of whipping/drafting and cranked out another dozen units, which I have loaded onto the East Indiamen off my east coast.

However, if I did go through with my threat to take Mardoc and then sit and wait for my reinforcements, Shoot would probably end up taking Plako; by virtue of already having his soldiers already en route. He would redirect his force to attack Mardoc to assault Plako instead. He doesn't have cannons inbound, but he more than makes up for it with infantry and would probably be able to take the city by virtue of sheer numbers. This would all serve to extend this war in the process.

Additionally, this would mean I would not be able to take Commodore or Profane any time soon, as I would need to do a final round of whipping and drafting to get enough forces together for that assault - and might have ended up competing with Shoot or Darrell for the cities. Profane, in particular, shares tiles with Plako and its likely Shoot would have made a claim to it if he had Plako in his possession. As things stand, my newest armies are positioning to take his last pair of cities soon after the presumed fall of Plako.

[oledavy]

[COLOR="Green"]Dave,

I should have been more clear,but I did not envision my proposal as something that would need to be adjusted every turn. I think a flat gpt gift would be fine.

Apologies for not gifting the inf, I had on my first play through but then the game crashed and I guess I forgot on the second one.

In terms of airships, the max number in a city is 4 right? If that is true, I will need two more in Zakalwe (assuming the two healthy ones I have there remain so) and then four in Mardoc. Unfortunately my other airships have all gotten intercepted at one point so they aren't healthy enough to do anything besides recon missions (which are obviously still immensely helpful).

In regards to your destroyer on Rego's north side: he has two injured destroyers E-NE of Mardoc. I think the best use of your destroyer in the area is probably to attack them before he can heal them.

Shoot[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hey Shoot!

How much GPT did you have in mind? Shoot me a number and let's work this out

On t146, I gifted you two more airships in Zakalwe and four in Ilios. I suggest you move your four in Ilios to Rostov and have them operate out of there for the assault on the capital. After the battle, I need these airships back as soon as possible for my attacks on Profane and Commodore. Furthermore, if you could temporarily loan me four of yours at that point, I would greatly appreciate it.

I ran a world builder test on attacking Rego's destroyers, and no matter how many times I run it the HMS Lend-Lease has too little strength to have any sort of odds on his other destroyer, and has nowhere to run. Since it's on loan from Darrell and he has nine destroyers in the area, I would rather keep it alive if I can. It's currently covering your western group of East Indiamen.

Thanks for the infantry!

Cheers!
Dave[/COLOR]

[oledavy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hey Shoot -

I ended up having to replay my turn for PBEM17, and on this go around forgot to gift you the pair of airships I moved to Zakalwe. I'll fix that next turn.

Cheers!
Dave[/COLOR]

[oledavy]

Text-Heavy Update!

Turn 146 passed without much drama. Rego attacked my five rifle stack southeast of Plako. After hitting my guys with his airships, he used his latest great general to slap on more promotions, heal up some of his rifles, and go on the offensive. He killed all five of mine in exchange for two of his.

I moved my cannon stack on the flat land next to Plako. Unless he gets incredibly lucky and wins every battle, he will not have enough units to get through my meatshield and kill my accuracy cannons next turn, even after he drafts Plako and Profane next turn. As you probably gathered from the email above, I've temporarily loaned Shoot enough airships to staff every city in range of Plako for his attack turn 147. Additionally, on his latest turn Shoot landed a stack of infantry and cannons next to Mardoc, and put ashore reinforcements in Zakalwe. I expect to see Mardoc in his hands by the time I get the next save.

As soon as the cultural borders from Plako go down, I'm blitzing forward with the seven rifles and infantry in Rostov to within two tiles of Profane. The same turn I take that city, I'll be landing about a score of rifles and cannons beside the city of Commodore. Shoot should gift the airships back to me by then and loan me a few of his own so that I can bring twelve to bear on either city, based out of Zakalwe, 1995WorldSeries and Plako. Unless Rego does something dramatic to throw a wrench in my plans, this war will be over on t150, 25 turns after it began. Rego's four destroyers in Commodore are the only things that could make this difficult. To counter that, I've spoken to Darrell and asked him to move his destroyers into the channel so Rego can't block off my fleet.

War weariness is really getting bad. I'm now running the culture slider at 10% on a consistent basis just to keep my older core cities somewhat productive. My food graph - which was undergoing an explosion - took a hit last turn as I whipped away about ten pop and WW ramped up after taking Bato. I started work on some settlers to refound Rego's old city sites. I decided to place the National Epic in Damascus instead of Constantinople. Since I'm in the process of growing it out to me my great person farm, it made more since to place the epic there.

In the last couple turns, Shoot researched liberalism and scientific method, while Darrell and NoSpace both nabbed superconductors.

The question now is if this game continues to run, will it end with a space race between NoSpace and Darrell or a more enjoyable World War III

[oledavy]

[SIZE="3"]Report from the Eastern Front[/SIZE]

My cannon-rifle stack finally reached the city of Plako. During the intervening turn, Rego assaulted it to try and kill off my cannons.

He assaulted with his airships, and then took out three of my drill I/drill II cannons with rifles attacking out of the city. The last battle was his GG rifle Subutai attacking my final drill II cannon at 94.5% odds.





That's pretty damn awesome, if I do say so myself

I used my four accuracy cannons and lowered the defenses of the Incan capital. My rifles and surviving drill cannon fortified on the tile. It's now all on Shoot:



If he fails, I can hopefully mop up with my rifles and cannons on my turn.

Shoot took the city of Mardoc on his turn, Rego is now down to three cities.



Darrell gifted me a destroyer, and just in time as well. Rego killed the HMS Lend Lease at 44.6% odds.

I moved the destroyer into Ilios to threaten them next turn. Seems I now owe Darrell a destroyer. In the south, my forces are assembling for the attack on Commodore. I now have three destroyers - and an additional one finishing next turn - to cover the landing force. Darrell a squadron of his own warships hanging around Pitcairn island, and said he would move them further west on his turn to cover my attack.

I need to consider how much I want to leverage the Apostolic Palace. I don't think I'm going to be researching Mass Media anytime soon, temples are pretty cheap, and happiness is always cool.

[SIZE="3"]The Home Front[/SIZE]

This is the first turn I started facing double digit war weariness in my core - +10 WW in Constantinople. I started running 20% on the culture slider to deal with it. Just two more turns to go.....

This wasn't helped by the fact that Shoot's golden age ended and he revolted into Emancipation Wtf dude, we just got done with bitching at Darrell to get him out of it. He switched out of it at the conclusion of his last golden age to placate us, and now you're going to force him to endure a turn in anarchy to get out of it. Additionally, NoSpace was running Caste, but will now likely make an anarchy-free switch into emancipation and make me and Darrell's unhapiness problems even worse

Sketchy actions by my ally aside, here's my city screen.





Lots of economic builds!

Darrell told me he has no interest in re-settling the SevenSpirits and Pindicator locations, so I'm now sending my first pair of settlers there

I have to beat Shoot to them before we're locked into a game-long NAP. In total, I'm founding/refounding eight cities within the upcoming turns.

Quick note from the notification log, NoSpace got the Eiffel Tower. Like they needed another wonder

I ran 20% science to finish of Constitution. Next turn I'm running max science to hopefully one turn Corporation. NoSpace also researched Constitution on their turn.

[SIZE="3"]Diplomacy - Game Over[/SIZE]

Darrell and I had a candid discussion earlier today over where this game is going after turn 150. He's considered the endgame, and correctly surmised that a world war with NoSpace would not benefit him and could only possibly throw the game to Shoot and me. He's fine with ending or continuing the game after Rego's defeat, as am I, so ultimately it will be up to NoSpace whether or not this game goes on. I think it will be a legitimate 'space race' between the two, either side could clinch it. It will all come down to who has the better micro. Darrell is planning on turtling up and building the spaceship, avoiding war at all costs - smart man. So, at this point, there are only three longshots I have at winning this game. There is no way I can integrate Rego's territory fast enough to reach tech parity and win the Space Race.

1. Backstab Darrell and initiate a dogpile on him with NoSpace.
2. Backstab Darrell and convince Shoot to go after NoSpace - so that this game ends in an epic 2v2 World War.
3. Wait until either Darrell or NoSpace launches their spaceship, pull a PB1/Mason maneuver to buy enough time to launch my own.
4. Longshot cultural victory.

This is where 'what would I do to try to win' comes into question. Right now, I am in no shape to go to war again. However, in about 20 turns I will be in good shape to go after someone if I so choose. However, any of these longshot attempts at victory other than number four would involve me backstabbing Darrell, which I really don't have the heart to do. It is just a game and a world war would be fun - but he's always dealt with me pretty fairly. I really don't think I could stomach it. One, two and three also all presuppose existing conditions: the ability to get Shoot or NoSpace into the war, possessing commando mech infantry or modern armor, etc. While I'm not ruling them out, I would rather not do this. Darrell is floating the idea of a game-long NAP between all parties for a peaceful space race.

I feel like it may be too late to try for the fourth option, a cultural victory. However, it is something to keep in mind - especially since I'm making a late stab at the Sistine Chapel.

On the whole, this game has been a lot of fun for me, and I wouldn't mind it ending now on a relatively high note - the conclusion of a pretty sucessful war in which I gained a lot of territory. I would also love to finally have my play critiqued so I can improve my civ skills for future games.

[oledavy]

According to Darrell, NoSpace is willing to end the game.

I do want to continue, but I know Shoot and Darrell are not into it anymore and this confirms NoSpace isn't either - kinda takes the joy out of any come from behind victory chance I have left. However, I'm not ending this game until I kill Rego - three turns to go