[SPOILERS] Don't mention the war

[NobleHelium]

I hear GAs are used for cultural victories. :neenernee

In all seriousness I'm not sure if it's a good idea at this point. And mackoti may find a flimsy excuse to break the NAP if you go for it.

[plako]

T154

WK has finished Statue of Liberty however more importantly Izmir will fall. I can't afford to defend it properly. Now I just need to figure out how to make it as expensive as possible to take. I should have pillaged the roads here long time ago. I could have delayed attack at least for a turn.



I hope to lure him to use southern route to the city. No hills and I could almost certainly kill all units he puts there in the road. I could use cavalries to pillage the southern road that would probably make attacking impossible since I seee only 1 worker there so I just pillage the sheep with 2 Cavalries. Now Serdoa could rebuild it and still attack the city. I also pillage the mine in tile under the Lbow and curse why I didn't bring Guerrilla II troop so that I could have removed the road also. Learnt from this I start pillaging the hill tile that has direct access to Konya in the north and move couple of units there.

In the end I've my units inside city selected and the stack in the hill highlighted. I've big stack waiting SW from Izmir to handle the stack reminders after the battle.

[NobleHelium]

Your counterattack stack is visible, so he may not attack at all. The most unfortunate part is that the city will likely be razed.

[plako]

Your counterattack stack is visible, so he may not attack at all. The most unfortunate part is that the city will likely be razed.

I'm almost certain he will. He has nothing to lose and razing a city is small victory to him. He probably can preserve most of his stack since he don't need to bring it forward.

[plako]

T155

I was wrong Izmir still exists.

[NobleHelium]

Are you taking over that farm north of it soon? It's got a road too.

[plako]

Are you taking over that farm north of it soon? It's got a road too.

Not sure it is worth it. His stack isn't currently on range and I've now access to MGs so soonish any attack he can make would be pretty expensive to make.

[plako]

T156

Played a turn this morning. Serdoa is still making his stack bigger, but I've 1st MGs in the area so potential threat level is rapidly decreasing. WK bite the bullet and coverted to State Property+Free Speech without Golden age. His economy looks after that pretty good. WK has offered a NAP until T180 (I suggested T190). That could be good enough to get to culture win, if I go all in. I really haven't counted things up, but currently I'm considering giving that up. It is very likely that the one getting close to victory will get dogpiled. I want to avoid situation where WK and MAckoti would feel nescessary to work togehter unless I'm certain I can pull out the win before NAPs start to expire. This is very intresting 3 man race.

[plako]

NAP status after a negotiation round:
* WK until T180
* Mackoti 10T "rolling" one

We also decided to combine our forces together with Mackoti against Serdoa's stack and go in ~5T from south. That is ~T162. Not yet quite sure about my contibution, but it probably includes ~40-50 units mainly Cavalries. Mackoti brings Cannons, MGs and his Cuirassiers and Knights.

[plako]

It seems Serdoa has finally decided to raze the Izmir after I got my 1st MG there. No idea why now. I might have been able to keep it with better reinforcements, but that city wasn't that important to keep my Cavalries sitting there and potentially get hit by his massive Grenadier stack.

Message from Serdoa:

Better hurry, else you might lose more than 1 city You really should have moved that Cavalry and Cannons into Izmir. Though thats the only error I can see in your play the whole game - hats off plako, you really have played impressively. Coming back from a 3 on 1 dogpile, no matter how badly done, is a huge achievement.