[SPOILERS] This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land. But Mostly Mine.

[Ceiliazul]

100 cities.

Hoe. Lee. Cow.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Who dies next?

I'm going camping this weekend in the Outer Banks. No civ, and barely a liquor license on the whole damned string of islands. So your answer is probably me.

But as a show of appreciation for your interrogative and curiosity, to say nothing of your generous and congenial nature, you can play my turn while I'm camping at the beach commemorating my life sentence to marital bliss and disharmony. Point the stack in whichever direction you like as long as it isn't murdering the penguins on the edge of the map. They at least deserve better than a bunch of murdering Cossacks. Anyway, you're gonna love it. You never drove a car this nice. I should know.

You're welcome.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

100 cities.

Hoe. Lee. Cow.

100 is nothing. Blockbuster Video had thousands of stores and shit for product. We're still expanding! Our brand is strong and our product is IN DEMAND!!* There are imaginary civ citizens in the PB18 world clamoring for a more just society and we're gonna kill free the shit out if them.

*Ignore the obvious problem with comparing my franchise to a now defunct business. No, that's not quite right. They're the off-brand Red Box now which, like Xenu's OCC pirate party, is a fate worse than death.

[spacetyrantxenu]

you can play my turn

1. You can avoid the alcohol acquisitions issue by packing your car full of all the booze you need before you leave home. I expect there are plenty of places to buy ice to go in your cooler. You have a huge cooler, right? If you don't have a big enough cooler for your required amount of alcohol and ice you should really reevaluate whether or not you are fully prepared for camping.

2. I bet you wouldn't say anything about a life sentence if wifey read these forums.

3. You know fully well I have neither a generous nor congenial nature. You must want somethin----Oh there it is. No. Nope. Not playing your turn. Well, actually,

4. Any direction I want? You don't say....! Are you sure about that? You'd probably be better off engaging the lurker brigade to play for you. Well, plako would definitely be better off with someone other than me playing for you, what with your army about to be done with Ruff, and having peace enforced with Krill, and having absolutely nowhere else to go.... (Maybe I'll snipe a worker from OH and see what that dovetails into for when you return).

5. You do know the turn timer is still set to two days, right? At this stage of the game you're better off getting an occasional pause if you need one instead of rotating someone in cold off the bench. If you can get a turn played on Friday before you leave you probably won't need much of a pause anyway.

[spacetyrantxenu]

like Xenu's OCC pirate party, is a fate worse than death.

I see you waited until the old pirate fleet disappeared before speaking out against them. Your coasts are long and your captains rely overmuch on their fancy metal boats, matey. Besides, no one really knows what happened to the fleet...there is no record of them being destroyed, even when the last German port was put to the torch. Some say the fleet yet sails the waters around Plakonia, and that you hear of their passing in whispers often when the fog rolls down the channel around the old City at night. The government boats, yeah they patrol the waters and chase down rumors, but they never find anything. Not a sail, mast, plank, or splinter to prove the fleet had been destroyed, or even scuttled. But the people down on the Channel, they keep talking, they know the truth. They know that the fleet was not in port when it burned, so they're still out there, somewhere, waiting for...something! Perhaps they have a new, bigger pirate adventure planned. Maybe they've even disbanded the old ships and moved on, traded in their oars for blast furnaces, belching fires, and ungainly steel hulls.

Say, you've built a lot of ships and they're sailing around that part of the world these days. Big ships, built in the shipyards back east in your unnatural factories and all. But where did you find crew for all those new boats? Experienced sailors must be in short supply with so many new boats going out all at once...I'll bet you had to impress a few old hands you found out and about. Oh, I know a good many of them you found are probably solid Russian boys from back east. But there's something different about some of the crewmen, have you seen it? I've heard rumors in the ports of call that some of those boys speak Russian with a German accent, and more of them don't speak any Russian at all. I wonder about that. And I hear its most common on the troop transports. Not in the Cossack brigades, those guys are good solid Russians, but some of the others are of a different sort. More suspicious, quiet fellows, and they don't go for the vodka like you'd expect from good Russian sea dogs. I hear you have a lot of 'em like that on your troop transports. It's like they're waiting for something to happen, waiting for a signal from the flagship, or a new admiral to take control of the fleet, and then---!

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

If you want to kill plako, there's nothing stopping you but a fish for fish deal. My last chance to play will be Thursday. I'm leaving first thing Friday morning. As for your questions:

1. I have a large cooler. But have you ever had a great weekend and not run out of beer/whiskey? It happens every time no matter how much you pack.
   
2. I wouldn't be surprised if she peeks (clandestinely) but she knows better than to let on she's spying.
   
3. So it's a maybe. Good.
   
4. Did you see my post above about the lurkers? They probably don't like me anymore, worse than previously. But I don't see a need to fight plako. That would stretch my defense into a more dangerous part of the world. I'd do better to attack Molach, AT, or even WLP. Or, GJ if he isn't careful. Our enforced peace ends in 3t, which gives me just enough time to reposition my northwestern fleet which is currently finishing up on Ruff (and not needed against Krill until our enforced peace ends in ~6-7 turns) to the north and show some strength.That war, though, would probably be pure spite to the end if it happens. Joey's a bit unhinged at times and he's not going to improve his position so he may look forward to a fight. Who knows with that guy.
   
5. I hate to do that because I go away so often. As it is I feel like I've held things up enough.
   

As for your fear-mongering about the non-Russian speakers in my navy, you don't think we let those third country nationals onto the bridge of our shiny ships, do you? Those foreign dogs are lucky to see the sun one day in 30 and are working the engine rooms deep below deck, or mucking shit out of stalls on the transport ships. No, the best post for one of these scum is in the Infantry, on the front line, where they have the opportunity to prove to Mother Russia their new-found love for country, or, failing that, to die with their boots on before word gets back to The Kremlin and a more suitable end can be arranged for cowardice or subversive acts. It's always something with those people.

And your ghost ships? They're ghosts for a reason. They never learned to adapt and survive. Fighting until the death is good, until you're dead. We don't fear the dead. We disdain them for giving up the fight. Quitters!

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T241

I didn't do a good job of taking pictures on this last turn of the Ruff war. I meant to take a before/after shot of his forces but you only get the after.


As expected, I came up just short on that last GG.



Ruff had 42 units left. I started with air strikes, mostly from the fighters on the aircraft carries NE of Lynn. I used some bombers as well, selecting bombers that I do not intend to reposition to leave as defense against possible invasion. I used the fighters on carriers so I could still get hits in on Ruff while repositioning the units to the next likely hotspot in the north against GJ. Anyway, after air strikes, a few collateral hits, starting with my CRIII Artillery. At this point I was at 98% to 99% on everything so I shoved units in. When I started getting near guaranteed survivial odds on my cannon and later catapults I used those units to farm a little more GG xp before finishing things off. In the end, I don't think I lost any units on the final attack.

Amusingly, one of my old workers is coming home, the one named "Cal is in a better place".



I'll miss the gold capture each turn. Kings Canyon's borders popped second ring, giving me control of the aluminum so I offered aluminum to OH/Fin. I also asked for 300g. I want 30g/turn, which is exactly what I'm paying them for the resources they're selling me from Broadway and Rock and Roll but they were running a gold deficit so I couldn't do a gpt deal.



This is a great haul of infrastructure for this city. TONS of mature cottages.



Ruff renamed his civ on the last turn. I thought that was funny so I renamed my last attacker. Farewell!



I've killed 97 rifles AND 70 minutemen. Incredible. The scale of this game is pretty crazy.



Now it's time to see what GJ intends to do when our peace deal expires. I don't trust him at all. I fully expect him to do everything he can to hurt me, so we'll see how this goes. He's built a stack of 22 destroyers in Isla Loopy, which is a lot of gold spent on upgrades. Not pictured (though I meant to), Krill set up defensive pacts with several civs, including GJ and AT. The clear goal here is to set up a situation where I have to fight on two fronts if I look to continue with aggression. I don't have any intention of declaring on GJ and didn't have prior to this move but it's still annoying. I offered defensive pacts to dtay, Krill, and perhaps AT, I can't remember on the last one. I did not offer to Molach, and Molach had not yet accepted an offer from Krill. I thought about declaring war on him to keep my options open without having to start wars with a second party but decided not to. My units are just too far away from him right now. Anyway, I'm not going to get a domination win, so further conquest is neither necessary nor likely to be all that helpful, while it would stretch my resources and put me at some risk in my core cities nearing OH/Fin. Even if domination was a likely victory condition, the continuous grinding turns to get there are prohibitive at this point. It's summer and I want to spend afternoons at the beach, not sitting in front of a computer. And, the game situation is getting to the point where I ought to be able to defend that area because I can't be certain that they won't take a shot at me to try to knock me out of the space race before it begins.



I've moved some bombers up here, as well as some tanks and infantry. The bulk of my conquering army in the west is headed up here. The navy will be here in 2t and most of the land units a turn or two after. I still have the southern naval stack, including 8-10 carriers loaded with fighters, in the southern straight to hedge against Krill should he make a move. I think Krill is waiting for me and GJ to resume fighting so he can attack me when my forces are split. I'm sure he's been building cruise missiles so he'll have an advantage attacking my stack if he can get a decent stock of those. But whatever. I've taken my continent and done what I wanted to do way back when we first started fighting. If Krill decides to fight again then we'll fight again. Same for Joey. I won't win a space race like that, though, so hopefully they'll both be content to do other stuff but I'm not counting on it.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

T242

The army is on the move to the north in case Joey loses his mind, a not-improbable occurrence. The highlighted tile is my fort/port. I'll move this stack where Joey can see it. No point in surprise, I'm not looking for aggressive war. I want him to see my units and decide not to be an idiot.



Joey has built up a stack of destroyers. They're in his island city west of the former HAK island.



Yuri has just enough EP into me to make espionage research not a slam dunk. Also seen, Krill extending friendship to anyone I might want to whack. I teamed up with dtay to be annoying right back.



America is a smouldering ruin, but it will be back on its feet again soon. I haven't ruled out the possibility of Krill shenanigans here once my enforced peace with Joey ends. I'm going to leave coastal cities lightly garrisoned and just keep a stack of troops in my culture to counterattack if necessary. I'd rather risk these cities to being razed than lose my army. My borders are long and my neighbors mostly a nuisance at this point, so the troops are more valuable than a handful of cities.



Same thing here. The small island is a buffer. With so many cities (at 105 now with recent fillers added to the count), nothing is a critical loss except losing a massive stack of units.



TBS/Yuri hasn't declared culture city #3 (part 2) yet. It won't be Hornshark, that city is not well configured for the job IMO.

T243

Two things here. First, a GP. With any luck it will be one that I can use (someday) for one last GA. Second, if I get another war of any kind this Marine will need 3xp for a Woody III/Medic III healer. I have a GG on standby to get the unit to 47/50 xp for this, so just 3xp needed. I wish I had thought to do this sooner, I could have saved an infantry some easy mop up kills and not used the commando promotion. After the GG finishes I can revert to a better hammer configuration and get back to finishing commando tanks every turn.



I'm starving Sapphire Pool to try to force the next GP out of here. I have not optimized this at all, I don't have time to do that kind of planning at this point in the game with so much else to manage. I doubt that I'll get lucky enough to have all the mixed GP pools spit out exactly what I need.



The naval stack is in my borders (cost savings maneuver each turn) and will be present to show off to Joey next turn. I imagine he's able to scout this approach with air units this turn. If so, even better. And the next land stack to come across the ferry. Everything will be shuttled into open view for a turn, and then repositioned out of sight.



More troops incoming.



Another small naval stack, tantalizingly out of range (I think) of Joey's destroyer stack, and my Majide garrison. Tanks don't matter so much on defense, I just want Joey to see them before they disappear.



Good enough.



I don't seriously expect to get Three Gorges Dam but it's as good as wealth if I do fail. It's worth a try. I could build it five turns faster in Whiskeytown, but that's the wrong continent, and the wrong wonder for that hammer beast.



I'll try for the Space Elevator here.



In addition to getting a nice bit of income from Yuri/TBS from resource trades, it looks like dtay is going to go for some espionage economy tech recovery plan. Good! I hope it works. I'd like him to be threatening to Krill.



And the proof. Nice espionage spike, but I think this is probably more proof of concept for dtay than a move to do well in this game. Maybe he can finish better than Krill but I imagine that's as high as he goes.




I was last to play. I rolled the turn and hey! Finally got my prophet! If I roll something shitty on my next GP this will be a very late and super pointless shrine. Money is money at this point in the game. Better that than a GA that will never happen.



I'm running a lot of wealth.

[BRickAstley]

Boldly

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Boldly

Do I at least get a reason? I'm all town. Wolves gonna get got in this game, ya feel?