OK, just a quick update. It's kind of been all quiet on the western front for the last several turns. CH has been busy upgrading all of his garrisons to Rifles, making those cities pretty much invulnerable to attack. He's also teching towards Astronomy, which I see as a surprising choice, but perhaps he has better sea lane attack vectors against his other opponents. Looks like there was a big skirmish between Holy Roman and Roman forces, because both sides earned a Great General. My read on the situation right now is that CH is content to fortify his border with me and deal with the others first. A little surprising, because I know several of my cities are vulnerable to Cavalry strikes, but perhaps he doesn't think it's worth the cost.
Everyone is at war with someone. Elum has been making steady gains in the last few turns.
I think we're looking at End Game, folks. I've had a good run, but unless CH pulls off a miracle win soon, I think the game is going to be called in favor of the Elum/Mackoti team. Can't say I'm surprised.
But wait, there's more! A couple turns ago I decided to train another Spy, and I think it's going to pay for itself. The follow is super duper top secret info!
I discovered that Pisa is defended by a single Landsknecht. Understandable, because those hills protect it from attack... except that I still have 6 Keshiks remaining.
All roads are in place, and I confirmed that there is a tile I can stage them from that should be outside of CH's view. So unless he has a spy on my mounted stack, and unless he whipped or drafted from Pisa this turn (it's entirely possible since I haven't been watching its population), I should be able to kill the city. I don't think CH expects me to have these Keshiks.
Considering it has the lone defender right now, even if he pops a rifle in the city next turn, chances are he'll send it to one of the other cities as garrison. If next turn the city ends up with extra defenders, I am going to call hacks!!
On this Turn 202, 1420 AD, I explain my new philosophy: If you can't beat 'em, be a dick.
First, I receive a new peace offer from CH. I can tell he's serious now because he's actually offering something: 300 gold over 10 turns. I decline. I don't think I can afford to sign peace without making real gains in this war, and a bit of gold isn't that.
Fortunately for me, no new troops appeared, so the attack moved forward. I opted to use 3 Keshiks, the last two being weakly promoted Combat 1 units, rather than trying for 50% odds with a C3 Amphibious unit as the second attack.
I also see why CH might have been going for Optics. Looks like the Zulu have at least been trying to blockade ports (maybe? I'm not sure if that would show up visually for me or not). I've no idea what kind of relative sea power the two have.
I've been spending my EPs exclusively on the big two, and I've been getting vision on Persian cities. Saw this. Wow, what I wouldn't give for a few high move galleons and a few shipments of mounted units.
I ended my turn by making this insulting offer, though it is actually a genuine offer. Those are the last couple of cities in CH's northeastern province. They'd be hard for me to defend, but if I got them with all their infrastructure and culture intact, I might be able to do something with them in the 10 turns I'd have. Really doubt that CH will accept because he knows I have no way to actually capture them. I guess it depends on how valuable peace is to him.
I will definitely need to consider city planning more in the future. Nearly all of CH's cities are 3 tiles away from each other. That means he got to cram more cities into the space he had, and in the age of Engineering, he could reinforce to and from any adjacent cities. Most of my cities are 4 tiles away from each other. I think most of the placements are strong individually, but I wonder how well I would have done trying to place like CH had done, or if perhaps our differences in available terrain also dictated city placement a bit.
Shrug.
Anyway, Operation Leaning Tower was a success. Peace be upon the brave souls who gave their lives in the defense of our merchandising rights.
I've kinda lost track, but I think this makes the score 5:1 in favor of Team Not-CH.
It just occurred to me that I couldn't remember if city trading had been banned entirely in this game or not. Hopefully it will be a moot point because I really, really doubt that CH will take that offer.
Cool. Glad to know I'm not breaking a rule and also that the decision was as muddled as my memory.
Also, shame on you lurkers. No discussion about this world war? Perhaps I can't blame you, because I can only assume that the Grand Holy Roman War's outcome will have no effect on the outcome of the game as a whole.
I also just stopped to realize that I've accumulated a little pile of capture gold, so I could increase science spending, but I'll probably save it to mass upgrade Knights to Cuirs. Not a huge increase in power considering the circumstances, but I'll take what I can get.
After about a minute of soul-searching, I took the deal. It seems that CH was more desperate for peace than I realized, and while Brandenburg (I'll need a new name for it) doesn't really add much to my empire, it is at least a gain.
If there's one thing I've learned from these MP games, it's that you gotta look out for your own civ. Except those times where it's better to keep helping your allies. To be frank, I'm not really sure which situation I was in. With the destruction of Pisa, I had pretty much exhausted my options to damage CH, and I really had no good options for improving my position. The main thing I feel bad about is basically hanging my allies out to dry because now that CH doesn't have to heavily defend all of his borders, I'm expecting Zulu, and maybe Roman, cities to start falling in the next few turns, unless CH is willing to just sign peace with all of them as well.
As for me, I'm not seeing this as a permanent peace. CH would be foolish if he didn't come back after me. Perhaps he'll continue to wage war for another 8, 9, or 10 turns, sign peace with the other two hostiles, then focus on me for 10 turns. I've switched half my cities to wealth (well, not half, but severals) and I'm going to make as many tech gains in the next 10 turns that I can. Which... won't be much. No way I could even get to Rifling, and I also want to stop for Education because I could kinda use Unis and Oxford. Anyway, apologies to Agent John. You've been a good ally, and I sincerely wish there was more I could do. That said, I'd conquer your empire in a heartbeat if it were geographically feasible. I've considered taking Companeros because that city has always irked me and it's definitely more in my sphere of influence than yours, but I'll leave it be for now.
Lubeck was weakly defended, but I think it's a backline city because I'm sure CH captured a Zulu city to the west of it. Now there's a hefty stack of rifles that can move to the new front.
And post-war demographics. I'm still kind of amazed that my crop yield is as good as it is, but at this point in the game my weak manufacturing capability is kind of a nail in the coffin.
At this point, I'd say that surviving to concession would be a personal victory for me. I wonder if anyone else has talked about that? I know I can't write CH off just yet. He's the only other player who's competitive as far as tech goes and it's possible he could recover from this beating if he can take enough land from his neighbors, but Elumackoti has such a head start.
I don't have the time or energy right now to sort out the pictures, but CH is marching a sizable stack of Rifles towards on of John's border towns. I feel like this might be a good time to try and acquire Companieros somehow. I'd prefer to purchase it, but I doubt I have the cash to make a legitimate offer. I'm willing to declare war and take it, but I'm not sure I want to. Mostly a feel bad thing, but I don't know if it would even be a geopolitical strategy thing anymore because I'm pretty sure that soon I won't be sharing a border with the Zulu at all. Then again, there are trade routes to consider and I don't want to tank those if I can avoid it.
Either way, I've got some Knights in position. I'll wait a few turns to get Mil Trad and upgrade a few Cuirs before deciding. I don't think CH is in a spot to capture it, at any rate.
BTW, not sure if this is something that lurkers can answer, but what might fall under "genuine" offer for a city during peace time? Is there an establish price for cities, or does it completely vary from game to game? And can resources be traded as part of a city offer?
