[Spoiler] Kaiser has a plan

[roland of gilead]

I can't fathom what Ichabod is up to here.

Sure he doesn't owe you anything but Woden tore him apart.

Let's hope you can hold Woden off and Ichabod seas sense.

Suboptimal may well be the big winner here.

[Kaiser]

He certainly is, he has brought up his science to comparable levels and is starting to run away in culture thanks to his Great Works and relics.

[roland of gilead]

Perhaps there is some way to signal to Woden and Ichabod this danger.

Perhaps it is to late. to be honest right now as long as ichabod isn't the winner I will be ok.

Really wish we had joined Woden in destroying him. I do hope he has a proper plan to use this nonsense to win and it's not just an excuse to go back to farming.

still it's all very fun.

I hope we get to launch some nukes. you need to work out how to video capture that is possible.

perhaps we see if in 10 turns we can get woden to turn on ichabod. that may well depend on how we do here i suppose.

[Kaiser]

Well



At least we are succesfully buying time here :D



But our timer is 3 turns, I think that means that Ichabod can declare in 4 (as I am last in turn order, that means in 3 now). I tried to renew my trade for luxuries with Ichabod nevertheless but I doubt very much that he accepts it. If he does, it likely is a desperate try to hide his intentions.



This is our border with Ichabod



And this his southern reaches which could try to come around to John Lamarr. He can relocate these to my border within 3 turns.
He recently settled here for more Oil, as it is the single most important resource in this game. Whoe knew

So here is what I see coming:
- Arty: 2 Corps (2 Ballons visible)
- MM: 1 Army, 1 Corps, 1 Vanilla (in production at Curitiba)
- Warrior: 1 Vanilla
- Tank: 1 Vanilla
- Curassier: 1 Army
- Cavalry: 3 Vanilla (1 badly damaged down South)
- PS: 2 Army + 1 Vanilla in production at Belo Horizonte
- FC: 5 Vanilla + 1 in production at Belem

He has one Renaissance GG already at Misty Mountain and seems to be saving up for an upgrade as he did not buy the monument for his newest city. Likely this will be a Curassier Army to Tank Army upgrade, which could hint at him trying to come in via John Lamarr.
Alternatively it will be MM Army to Infantry Army, but I do not think that would be a good use of his money there.



68 turns for Suboptimal to win this game, with this war I will not be able to get Tourism infrastructure myself and am more likely to drop any bombs on Woden and Ichabod in spite than to stop Suboptimal from winning this.

I get why Woden is attacking me, he is loosing ground fastly and needs to make gains with his tanks. His incoming MA with Ichabod keeps his S flank secure while he can try to conquer my absolute core.

I do not get what Ichabod is getting out of it, maybe he thinks he can easier hold Steve Newton and get access to John Lamarr and Cassius from there than making gains against Woden, though Wodens W would be great place for him to reclaim Porto Allegre and gain Fez as well as the space to resettle his cities (which likely makes no difference anymore.

Well it is how it is and I will try to defend Steve Newton with my teeth, I might even consider defending here over my core as it feels like a really heavy blow that he turned on us while we kept confidence into our MA.

[roland of gilead]

it's not looking good on the borders eeek.

Yeah i think your analysis is spot on.

[Kaiser]

Ichabod accepted the luxury trade, it will be cancelled in 2 turns when he declares war. I am currently copnsidering declaring myself to stop him from throwinng my Amani out of Bologna, it gives us crucial sight onto Woden's approach and would be really detrimental to loose it.

It is a very close call, I am currently getting Opera & Ballet just for the envoys, I think he still has Environmentalism which brings 3 and would let him egalize. I will likely switch to the envoy point generation card as well to have a chance at holding Bologna.



Stupid pop up, his Curassier Army is here now as well and will likely see a tank upgrade next turn.
We will have 2 PS Armies and a MM Army here in defense, the PS will be upgraded to AT Crews as soon as Opera & Ballet is in, so the turn he can declare.

I have started removing improvements to keep his gains as minimal as possible and already removed a farm so he cannot heal up easily in my territory. I am considering unmining the Jade as well, but that would cost me my only source and pillaging it slows him down a turn whil providing 500 - 600 ish which he could use to upgrade units.

The biggest problem will likely be my lack of FC and his incoming Biplane as well as his spies as he has proven to be a nuisance with them already for Woden. I likely will use my next spy (6 turns until I can build it) defensively to lower is success chances.



That is the NW front, Woden is starting to reduce the Walls of Bologna and has a ME ready to repair the pillaged road here.



The big news is that he got a Industrial/Modern GG so has increased bis relative military power again.



I was not taking peace before to protect Ichabod. He now has a DoF with Woden which is enough protection and I am not convinced that Ichabod still merits out support here ...
He is 100% not accepting this, but you can always try, maybe he hopes that Ichabod and me will duke it out :D

More likely, Suboptimal declares in ~7 turns (I need to check when he can) and then they finally start vulturing on my central position.

I recommend avoiding this setup in the future, having the only player bordering all other players also being last in turn order is a punch in the face and really sucks out a lot of enjoyment of the game as you constantly are on the backfoot.
- A city rebels, you are the last to act on it (I never saw AK in rebellion, it was either Wodens or gone)
- A GP race needs to be won a turn ahead, with this level of players that is a tough call, if I remember correctly there is even a GP I only saw in the recruitment history because someone recruited a GP, somebody else bought the next the same turn and I only got a look at the 3rd
- first strikes in war after peace/DoW are huge. Ichabod can bring his two Arty Corps and fire on my encampment before I can return fire, while I only be able to do so if Ichabod does not declare (which he should, he wants his units on my defensive terrain and his Ranged/Arty to start chipping away directly)
- Wonder construction races need to be won the turn before
- war declarations / DoF and Suzerainships - basically Ichabod will always be able to declare before me, that means he can check envoys in Bologna, put enough in if he has (I hope he will not), declare and kick Amani out meaning I have no chance of re-establishing bologna
- religion/pantheon picks (not to much of a biggy but I think our pantheon was delayed a turn by this)
- meeting CS for first to envoys is obvious, although I did fine here (maybe this was on purpose by the mapmaker)

Do we have a rule about city gifting? I seriously consider gifting away Isaac for a DoF with Suboptimal just so I can focus on these two.
This would basically be a concession, but I am not there yet.
To be honest I think even giving Suboptimal a DoF without a city gift would be a concession as you cannot throw nukes on Friends (apparently, I tested this)

I am bit annoyed at the moment as the timings seem to just barely do not work. 
It looks like I will loose Bologna to Ichabod as he can declare first due to turn order and can potentially throw my Amani out. 
Also he likely has 1 turn of reduced CS/Enc CS as my AT Crew upgrade will come just one turn late. 
Being the one to declare also helps him moving his units into the narrow pass at Steve Newton, effectively forcing me to either expose my PS Armies before their upgrade or giving him the defensive terrain here. 

It is just a game 

[roland of gilead]

See if sub will support you in this war. He probably doesn't have to and better off not doing so but if you collapse they are on his borders.

[Kaiser]

You mean send him a DoF and ask him to join the war?



Woden replied in kind, an unacceptable offer, but again, I was not really expecting him to accept mine earlier.



Some more floods for Egypt please, this is sadly to late to make a big impact, but free yields, yay



The NW front is changing slightly, more unit variety outside of his Tank Armies



Because he is trying to bring them around.



And Ichabod is in position as well, this will be a tight fight and we need to get units out quickly to make this as bloody as possible.
I actually think Ichabod can only declare the turn after the next, but I am not 100% sure so I decided to go ahead and upgrade our NE most PS Army to an AT Crew Army. I decided on that one as it is the most exposed to a combined Tank/BS attack.

Next turn we will upgrade all our other PS Armies, I will not upgrade the MM Army, as I prefer using our last Oil for another Arty Army.
Nearly everything is producing FC as our next research target ar machine guns and FC armies will help defending in our heavy terrain. The exceptions are:
- GM finishes its Zoo as we are going to loose 12 amenities when Ichabod declares and this zoo brings us 7.
- Isaac repairs its entertainment district for another amenity and might build its arena as well
- Bortus finishes its MA and then can work on the amenity situation with its Stupa or contribute another FC Army
- John Lamarr finishes a PS -> AT Crew it had in queue.

Interesting times to come, I am actually looking forward to this defense, I just hope I get my units upgraded next turn before they pull the trigger

[roland of gilead]

yeah offer him a DOF and join war. there is reason for him to prop you up.

[Kaiser]

This really is an uphill batlle, apart from being outnumbered in miltary score nearly 3 to 1 against Woden and Ichabod combined, I also have to bear the burden of fighting against a minimum of 8 Oil units already, while I can only maximum field 3 ...



Woden has had prepared poor Bologna the turns before and conquered it within one turn. He will not be able to keep it against my loyality pressure but all that is going to happen is a slow reduction in population for Bologna as he certainly wants to keep this avenue of attack on my territory open (so he will not liberate it and teleport his units out) and I will never be able to do anything about its revolt.

With Bologna taken he has good access to my territory and I try to make a first stand here at KG / CF, he will likely try to break through near KG as this opens him access to my street network.
I pillaged the remaining bridge NE of Bologna so he has to bring all units through this area until he starts repairing his bridges with ME.



Here is my defensive setup, I brought an additional PS Army upgraded to an AT crew up here to fill an open position. All my units are on a district, with at least +2 support bonus. The issue is my FC are to weak to damage a Tank Army signigicantly so he will be able to rotate his units and slowly grind me down until I get machine guns.



Meanwhile Suboptimal is enjoying his peaceful end of the continent by slotting Invention. I decided to pass on Alvar Alto as his bonus is really bad (+1 Appeal for all tiles of one city) and hope for Tesla instead. I probably wont get him as Suboptimal and Woden will have their pick before me.



And the GA card as well (I do not have its name at hand), Suboptimal is by now winning this game with about 70% chance I would say, all depends on me defending this relatively good (unlikely) and getting to Nuclear bombs before he wins.
If I get to bombs, I am almost certain I know where I throw my first two though

Even then I cannot hit most of Suboptimals territory as his part of the continent is so remote that even from Isaac I can barley get there with 12/15 tile nuclear strikes.

For the moment (and probably the rest of the game) it is full on defense, let's see if we can stop Woden's tank avalanche the good old fashioned (USSR) way by throwing bodies under his tracks.