Thanks for posting. It does help to remember there's another person on the other side of an issue. I don't necessarily expect him to be the voice of reason (ever) but he still has his own motivations and goals. Etc.
But I'm still glad we are in agreement.
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OH/Fin have finally kicked off their war against pindicator. I've been waiting for this for quite a while. Pin's power has been basically flat and he has the juiciest shrine ever, in addition to other goodies. This will be very profitable for OH/Fin without much harm to them. Dreylin better look out, he's probably next.
The good news for me is that this decreases potential for conflict between me and them, so I can focus more on my issues and maybe even work on acquiring some new land of my own. Spoiler: probably not Krill's.
Meh. It's not how I like to play, or intend to play in response to in game actions, but I think playing with the purpose of screwing up another players game based on actions independent to that game is a legitimate play choice. Whether it's right or reasonable is another matter, but then we're arguing specifics rather than issues with that general style.
Your rage or anger in response is also, of course, legitimate in turn.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Railroads coming online for OH/Fin. That means machine guns and troop flexibility. Good. I'll want to follow them here very soon, which works out nicely as my worker swarm has nearly finished its job converting tiles to workshops and watermills.
Look at that beautiful capital! Lots of food, just the right number of coastal tiles for harbors (bonus health and more trade!), and at least one early luxury (ivory). Maybe the silver popped later? I hope so, because that capital is crazy good. The cottages are not nearly as developed as they could be, which probably means he didn't use cottage incubators in the nearby cities. You pretty much have to have overlapping cottages to get them mature ASAP to make these great capital locations really pay off.
The western situation, or whatever I ought to call it. I've moved my cossacks into a position that wetbandit can see but I presume Krill cannot. The message to wetbandit is "don't get any ideas with all these free units because I can handle them just fine". I own the channel and would have little trouble getting my units over to his side if I have to. I didn't take a picture, but Krill has sailed a small flotilla (3 c1 frigs and a caravel) to my southern, polar coast. I have two c2 frigates and a privateer now, and can rush an ironclad next turn if needed. I don't see the advantage to Krill with this. He knows (or ought to know) that I can scout Ruff's southern channel to see if a fleet is on the way. I hadn't done that yet but was building these boats just for that purpose. This seems like a poor investment.
The only thing that makes any sense is if he's just been moving his galleons in the north to/from his failed Ruff conquests toward wetbandit and unloading a handful of units as a distraction while putting the bulk of his army on ships headed for my southern coast, the assumed soft underbelly. I hadn't expected this, but I suppose anything is possible. Still, even if he did surprise me, I can rush buy units and prevent much if any damage from occurring. I just don't know what Krill is doing, which I don't like, which is also probably his intent in sending the boats toward me. I'll sink them, scout the southern channel, then push forward once I have a large enough fleet to be self-sustaining in hostile waters.
I'm growing quickly in former Q & Nakor-lands, almost exclusively onto workshops and watermills in Q's area. I'm preserving most of the cottages in Nakor's area because he built good infrastructure and the cottages are quite mature. He really packed the cities in tightly, meaning he was almost always working these cottages. I'll carve out a few hammer cities, but mostly this will end up being a tech center. The workers should finish up here in a turn or two.
This will probably be a very short and decisive war. I think I counted six city captures from the previous turn's score, only one of which seems to be along the channel separating pin from OH/Fin. This channel can be reinforced quickly. I wish I had thought to send a caravel down here to rescue my Great Spy. I'd like a look at Pindicator's island. Egypt, China, then whoever Bob played early on. Is that all, just three civs or did dtay reach across the water and eat someone early too? To be honest, I enjoy exploring the map and trying to figure out how things developed to this point more than I enjoy managing my civ right now.
I had to swap 6-8 additional cities to wealth builds to have enough coin to pay for Assembly Line by EoT. I have one rifle upgrading to an infantry in the queue. Many other cities that weren't swapped to wealth are configured (slightly) for some overflow to get a jump start on factories. I'm not feeling pressed, so I'm going to keep pushing on infrastructure rather than go for a massive round of infantry. It is going to take a significant number of hammers to get the proper sized army for this era with my current geopolitical position and I'm not as keen to spend them on the current generation of navy and siege. I haven't done any napkin math on how long it will take to get there but I like bombers better than cannon.
Krill's philanthropy toward wetbandit is starting to show. Wetbandit can build cavalry at EoT and will have ~800g to spend on upgrades. Not enough to make any meaningful difference immediately. But, just in case, I've continued shuffling cossacks toward former Nakor-land. I'm using wetbandit's roads, of course, so it's all out in the open. No surprises means, hopefully, no bad decisions made, even if his patron would rather see me die than live.
Also noteworthy, pindicator is taking it hard on the chin. He managed to recapture a city but lost it back on OH/Fin's next turn. Dreylin has also taken a city, while dtay has bowed out of the war. Come on, pin, make a fight of it. I know it's not likely to happen though. He's flagged on power for a long time now and there's no way he's going to get up off the mat after the smash he took on the first turn of the war. OH/Fin have certainly narrowed the gap on me, if there even was a gap left between us.
Krill is still ferrying units over. He has almost 10000 gold saved now, so he could take a weakly held city from someone (HAK?) and then do mass rifle or infantry upgrades.
Very weak garrisons. I could take these without breaking a sweat. I may have to take them to keep Krill from having an easy foothold, but he could take them from me if I spread my forces too thin.
Classic case of trying to tech away and not preparing for war? If I can get these finished and then fire my GA I can churn out a LOT of stuff very quickly.
Pin is on death's door. I really wish I had thought to send some Cossacks over. If I could raze his city with Spiral Minaret and/or UoS that would be a lot of gold out of OH/Fin's pocket each turn. But, I didn't think of this until now and I have no way to ferry units over in time.
I'm guessing GJ is rival best GNP. He just fired a golden age and swapped into representation. He is probably cleaning up some techs at a discount. That said, he finished Assembly Line the turn before me, so what do I know?
If I can't win I'm going to make Krill hate me and regret having to log in each turn as I do, even if I have to be an asshole to do it. GG OH/Fin and TBS. I'm not sure where to put the three of us on the podium when the game is decided but things ought to have gone differently than it appears they'll be going.
I'll catch up on turn reports, but I fired my 5th GA this turn. No sense saving it for the right moment when I've got ~45 units incoming and factories to finish. I'll finish what I can, kill what incoming units I can, and try to limit the damage when the mongrel wave gets here. Then, when I've killed every fucking last one of them, I'll see about pushing Krill's boat back toward his shores, then beneath the waves, and then start to working on him like he's begging for. He's a sore loser, and I'm a sore loser with a better position, so fuck that guy. Time to wreck face. Let's just see if he can hurt me first. Sore losing bastard.
Before anyone tells me not to make it personal, it is. When you spend so much time trying to win and playing the right way, it's really hard to have it all overturned by a frontrunning motherfucker who can't stand to look up on the scoreboard. Sorrynotsorry. I don't plan on being a good sport about this, so let him complain. I'm going to get nasty.
