Gavagai climbs the chaos ladder

[scooter]

Now, I am suddenly a frontrunner, hated by everyone (including the lurkers).

What gave you that impression?  The mixed (and ... uh ... sparse) response to your question about logins?  I havent noticed any particular lurker anger directed at you, for what it's worth.

Also:  I tested caste system, obsolete wonders, 1000-year-culture-doubled-wonders, and large quantities of overflow from a previous Great Person.  (The latter just ends up as "neutral" GPP with later contributions from builldings and specialists deciding the percentages.)  None of it seems to have an impact on the GP-type-to-be.  The extra prophet points in IngSoc remain a mystery.  I note that those numbers would be approximately right if your Stonehenge were somehow influencing the numbers as though it had 3 base GPP instead of 2, or if there were somehow an invisible Moai Statues in the city or something - that is, the percentages would fit if you were getting exactly 1 extra "point" of Prophet influence per turn since the last Great Person birthed in the city - but that's approximate and may be a coincidence; it would also apply if a priest specialist magically appeared for a few turns, or if the game was treating some of your Merchants as Priests at some point.  (I didn't test Caste system as extensively as I might have; since I'm grasping at straws here anyway, maybe there's some kind of table overflow bug where the Nth merchant is treated as a priest for GP-type purposes or something.)

Good luck defeating the latest dogpile - and I hope you do manage to find fun in it again!

Thanks Ref. The "hatred by the lurkers" referred to an earlier Amica's comment that no one is rooting for a frontrunner. It was meant as a joke but I understand the humor could be lost when inside an otherwise whiny post.

If it helps, people definitely do root for dogpile targets. So maybe the two things balance each other out?

[Gavagai]

Mig is attacking Greenland. Because of course, without these islands which did not even come out of revolt yet, I will be much less of a leader than before. Well, at least he achieved surprise here.
He brought one transport followed by three Galleons. Two Rifles actually attacked from the transport on the previous turn. They died without making a scratch on my infantry but as his Galleons were out of reach, I am puzzled about what he wanted to achieve anyway. The city was defended by two infantry and a rifle, surely, one transport could not possibly capture it by itself.

The remnants of Bandit 3. No time to finish it off, sadly, but I don't believe Galleons here carry much of anything. You never know of course, maybe Commodore is just being sneaky.

Bandit 2. On the previous turn it dropped 10 units near Crimestop which I strongly suspect was a misclick. There were 8 Cavs and a Cannon, he did not even bother to promote. I wiped this stack out.
There is still space for three more units in this fleet, so I have to cover nearby cities.

Bandit 3 captured Facecrime but the garrison there inflicted some attrition. By my projections, Bangalore is uncapturable by what he has left but Bandit 4 in the south might carry reinforcements.

Demos. Note a big drop in best rival (Commodore's) power relative to what I showed last time.

[Gavagai]

Greenland. Mig razed Greenline's starting city and its twin sister across the channel. The latter I expected to lose, the former was completely unnecessary though. I just missed that the transport can reach it. I have at least one Redcoat in every coastal city precisely for that contingency and this was the only one where I did not bother.

Mig's main fleet. He had another flotilla nearby, seven Destroyers covering a Galleon, but I wiped it out this turn. I am lucky he does not seem to know where the blockade button is because if he pressed it, Miniplenty would be rendered completely useless for this turn.

Commodore knows where the blockade button is. This turn he moved up a Frigate to Crimestop in the east to close the circle of the blockade around my large island and made the people there riot without imported luxuries. I killed the Frigate, but nothing stops him from repeating the exercise this turn with a Destroyer. Going first in the turn order does suck.

Bandit 1 has grown in numbers. He is still not making an attempt on Bangalore though, probably this turn.

Demos. I am putting those here mostly to make it possible to track mine and Commodore's power on turn-by-turn basis.

The grim fate of Bandit 3 is now visible on the power graph. Notice that Mig's power flatlined, even though I did not kill much from him on that initial turn. Did he start the war and decided to build factories in the background?

My military.

What I can see of Commodore's. Do note that I killed 20 Destroyers at minimum and he still has 51 just around my borders.

What I see from Mig. This Destroyer count does not look good for him, given that most of mine are deployed to our frontline.
Two turns to Industrialism. Counter-offensive then.

[Gavagai]

A big picture observation. This turn I finally took time to carefully study Mig's territory, looking for ICBM targets and was shocked when I was not able to find many. He has one proper commerce city, heavily cottaged. Other than that he just almost does not have towns. This is why he is the only major power that is not in Free Speech.
These discoveries made me significantly reevaluate the game situation. Before I thought that for Mig this dogpile is a reasonable, if a bit hasty idea, while Commodore is being an idiot. Now what Commodore doing is making a bit more sense because Mig is not much of a long-term competitor and Pindicator does not really count because his geography makes it impossible for him to defend. I still think he would benefit much more if he put all these hammers into eating Tarkeel and Plemo but the argument that he is losing to Pindi and Mig does not really work this well.
On the other hand, what Mig is doing is pure madness. He needs to think not about taking down the big bad (me) but about making his land competitive in the late game. There are ways to do that, Sushi (which would be completely obscene on this map) is still up for grabs, and with Emancipation late-game specialist economy might be viable. Instead, he is whipping all his precious population into Destroyers, Commodore-style but without the Kremlin.
Also, keep in mind that Commodore in this war cannot threaten much, we have a whale versus elephant standoff there where he controls the seas but does not have the land army on hand to even take backwater islands. Commodore also does not risk much, however, except for backwater islands of his own. So far, therefore, this front is a sideshow. Mig, on the other hand, is operating close to my core but his own core is also nearby, so every city there is of huge importance. It was hardly unpredictable that I would prioritize our front and I am not sure Mig has brought enough to be the main player in this war.

[Gavagai]

Greenland. Mig tried to take Tlatelolko this turn and lost three Rifles without killing anything. By my count he has seven units remaining on his transports. Assuming he has no reinforcements coming through far north, the cities should hold.

The main frontline of the war. Mig had two transports here and as it turned out they carried very dangerous cargo: with Infantry, three of them amphibious. He attempt to take Artsem with this force and came dangerously close. I had at least five units in each threatened city, at least four of them good ones: MGs or Infantry. The idea was that good units will kill first four attackers and then even if they are killed by the second four, the fifth unit will hold the fort. That was almost exactly what happened in Artsem. The city had 2 Infantry, 2 MGs and a Longbow; Mig wounded Infantry and MGs with the first wave, then the second wave killed the Longbow and three wounded good units. The city had one redlined Infantry at the end. A study in concentration of forces: if the transport currently adventuring in Greenland had been there, Mig would have been able to raze an important shipyard and achieve the first major success in this war.
Now he is in retreat. He spotted my main fleet that was hiding in the bay SE of Artsem (I suspect, after he performed his attack) and he moved his naval stack just outside of my reach. He had to abandon his transports though which I cleaned up with the survivors of Artsem battle inside. I also cleaned up a number of stray Destroyers he scattered in my territorial waters and for the first time in this war my island region is clear of Egypt ships. My main fleet of 25 Destroyers moved forward and will now start to zone Mig out.
We are at the breaking point here, I think. Last turn I saw the second wave of multiple Egypt transports at the very edge of Airship visibility and was bracing for impact. Now I do not see any of Mig transports at all except those in the north. He is losing initiative.

By the way, Pindicator is in this war. A hundred turns ago I would ask why but by now I know better. Everything Pindicator has done in this game so far benefited Commodore in one way or another. After the game ends I plan to dig really deep to figure what weirdness was going on between them.

The situation in the south is stagnant. Commodore exposed a Destroyer for me to kill but nothing else is happening otherwise. In three turns I will have first Battleships in the water here and will start cleaning up.

The east. Commodore moved Bandit 1 in a more aggressive position. It has the potential to carry 23 units which is manageable but he has seven more Galleons coming to reinforce. That would be 44 units and much difficult to defend once he starts forking cities.

Commodore dropped this small stack on a hill near Bangalore, I think, trying to bait out one of the cannons I have in the garrison. A very nice move. I did not dare to attack, so his units will for now live.

I hope Commodore will waste time on expandable Bangalore but if he is smart he will go after this island. I generally did not invest much into my island cities because I knew they could be assumed lost in any serious war with Commodore, but Pulau Ubin here is one exception: this is one of my dedicated shipyards. Also, it stands on on an Oil resource of which I have few and all in vulnerable places. So if he goes here, I will put up a real fight.

Some interesting news in the demos. Commodore actually lost power since the last turn and I only killed like three Destroyers. It seems he almost stopped building units but probably just saving up juice for until after Industrialism. He is only a couple of turns behind me.

My peace with Piccadilly expires next turn. If he decides its a good moment to throw his 100+ Rifles at me, it would tremendously complicate my position. Even my formidable land army will be overwhelmed with threats. Luckily, he chose to focus his energies on finishing off Superdeath for which I am eternally grateful.
The war is at the precipice now. In the next few turns I will try to hit Mig hard enough to knock him out of this war.

[klops]

*catching up after holidays*

Thank you for making this a long read.
I generally do not root for the leading power, but as someone pointed out, I do if engaged in a dogpile and even reports in detail during a modern war.
I liked that whale vs elephant picture. Maybe Picc is a rhino who could cause trouble... or just doesn't care at all
You seem relaxed giving the scoreboard-situation, but your analysis sounds reasonable. Interesting times

[Gavagai]

This is (hopefully) the last time I show this area in this war because Mig is in retreat. I killed some Galleons but they were most likely empty.

Here Mig retreated his stack just outside my reach, I pursued it, pushing it further away from my territory. Otherwise, all is very quiet on this front.

Pindicator sends in reinforcements. I could wipe out this fleet using the ships concentrated against Mig but chose not to - it would put that fleet out of position, and, besides, open it up for a counter-attack from Mig.

No changes here.

Here I made a controversial decision. See that small group of Destroyers sitting in the middle of the ocean? I decided to sacrifice them to intercept a small convoy of a Destroyer, a Frigate, a Transport and two Galleons. Galleons defended before the Transport which means they were empty but the Transport was not.
Not sure whether it was a right call. These Destroyers are very much dead there and its a steep price to pay. And I suspect that the entire threat of land invasion he is dangling in front of me here is a huge bluff, he has nothing but trash units inside. But Bandit 1 potentially has 23 units inside and is currently forking six cities, four of them are important shipyards and two of them on the islands where I cannot easily move units back and forth. I fear I become overwhelmed with threats if I allow it to further increase its cargo.

Here Commodore keeps landing more trash units near Bangalore, adding a Cannon into the mix this time. He wants to bait me into attacking out, doing damage to myself and losing 25 percent fortify bonus. I am not biting.

Commodore lost power once again compared to the previous turn. My power is a bit inflated though, as Commodore will surely kill these four Destroyers I left in the open.

In a moment of weakness I sent this to Mig. I really hate to allow him to get out of this war without territorial losses, as it would signal he can attack me with impunity. But I guess this is his last chance to get off the hook.

[Gavagai]

*catching up after holidays*

Thank you for making this a long read.
I generally do not root for the leading power, but as someone pointed out, I do if engaged in a dogpile and even reports in detail during a modern war.
I liked that whale vs elephant picture. Maybe Picc is a rhino who could cause trouble... or just doesn't care at all 
You seem relaxed giving the scoreboard-situation, but your analysis sounds reasonable. Interesting times

Thanks! I think this is an interesting war, a bit disappointed there is so little discussion in the lurker thread. It is not yet clear how this will all end.

[Gavagai]

A couple of bonus pictures as a reward for someone replying.

My Ironworks city can (and will) one-turn tanks indefinitely. Also it might be one of the most unhealthy cities in the world (I suspect Commodore's Africa Corps is worse) but Cereal Mills compensates.

Mfg is interesting. Mig and Pindicator are trying to indistrialize while fighting a war but not Commodore. As his power also goes down, I am not sure what he is doing.

[GT]

The oil in Pulau Ubin is funny in a very sarcastic way as there was just a major oil spill nearby