[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Literally I just run my spreadsheet mostly for the historical records and the graphs, BOTH of which could have been and should have been implemented in the game layer itself.

[williams482]

Well, the game isn't over yet, at least technically.

Turn 248:

Ichabod has finally struck, razing the city (yes, actually a city) of Erebor to the ground:



Woden has reacted decisively to this, accepting our alliance to keep the truly terrifying Canadian military off his back and get himself some extra cash, and pulled out of the English theater entirely, save a brace of crusade-bringing apostles:



Also of note: I ignored the signs last turn because liberated city stats always seem to show this on their first turn, but on turn two of their rejuvenation, Yerevan actually is at risk of a culture flip:



If that occurs on schedule, we'll probably be in the best position to capitalize because Woden and Suboptimal will be busy fighting each other (or not in-theater at all). I'm going to get a settler out of Blues for the Lighting spot as well, just to fully secure our claim to that area. We can't fight anyone effectively, but with two civs locked in peace and the other facing an army three times larger than their own, we're well placed to pick up the pieces.

Blackhawks completed a cav this turn, Stars an artillery. Blackhawks resumes it's military academy due in 9, Stars begins it's replacement campus due in 13.

The trader I sent from Penguins to Blues in a confused attempt at last minute era score 40+ turns ago has finally completed it's route. This drops Penguins down to 33hpt, not quite enough to get the cav out next turn. Surprisingly, the most profitable trade route available looks to be the Brazilian city of Curitiba, now accessible by sea via the brand new settlement of Duque De Caxias: 



Since I'm sending that route anyway, should I propose a research alliance to get some extra beakers thrown in too? In the short term, that's a small profit, but if this game inexplicably continues that would mean we have expiring forced peace with the two most dangerous civs on the map expiring one turn apart. In truth can't fight either of them, but against just one I can at least pretend to stand a chance, and most circumstances by which the game could continue 30 turns out could have both of them intent on carving up Canada together. So while I think I will offer that scientific alliance, I'm going to wait 10 turns or so.

As for the cav build, stealing the deer from Stars and the stone quarry from Blues puts that cav exactly one turn away with no overflow. Perfect. That leaves Blues working an unimproved grassland, so I steal a lumber mill from Blackhawks and reassign two citizens as Theater Square specialists for +4 clefs.

Our military has little reason to go anywhere, so they don't.

Oh, but what have we here?



This is our singular ticket to offensive military action in this game. Based on the behavior of the city state emergencies, I think this will still be around for me to propose next turn, so I think I have at least one turn to think it over (and longer and the World Congress rolls over, which might clear these emergency options).

First, would this pass?

Suboptimal can and would throw 7 votes against it. Ichabod would vote it down by either 1 or 2, so we'll assume opposition will total -9. We can provide 5 votes for, and Woden can throw in another 6 if he's so inclined. So yes it's possible, and I'd say pretty likely. This will prevent us from having any genuine influence on the upcoming World Congress vote, but I highly doubt there will be anything available more valuable (and more fun) than potentially pilfering cities off an unsuspecting rival.

Second, if we start this war, will we win it?

Suboptimal will have the first strike, by virtue of turn order. He has 1465 milpower, notably below our 1961 (and rising). Foggy Dewhurst presumably completed it's machine gun, but is now working on a two turn builder which I will assume is ticketed for some emergency unit chops. Pictured are all the English units we can currently see:



I count:
- 1 Bomber (110)
- 1 Fighter (100)
- 2 AT crew armies (2x87 = 174)
- 1 Musket army (72)
- 1 field cannon army (77)
- 1 bombard (55)
- 2 AA guns (2x80 = 160?)

So that's either 588 or 748 milpower, depending on if the AA guns count (I would guess they don't, but who knows). The remainder is likely made up of a smattering of obsolete ground units acting as garrisons in his cities, and a substantial naval contingent likely racing up from Nora Batty to engage the Punic fleet as they shell Cleggy. Suboptimal might be able to direct that fleet against Red Wings and take it, but I think we can stop him from getting further than that if we drop the cash to upgrade our two frigate fleets. As for the fight on the ground, we will lose units to the initial salvo, but we have reserves. The terrain is such that we can get at most four artillery units in range of the city (two of them adjacent to it) to shoot on the second turn of the war, at least one of which would almost certainly be killed before being able to shoot. Four artillery armies makes up our entire city cracking force, and they won't be easy to replace. A fighter will deal on average 48 damage to an artillery army on flat ground with the +3 emergency bonus and a general, which drops to just 37 if the Crew Weapons promotion works against bombardment. A Bomber will average either 37 or 28, and the city strike plus the AT crews are plenty for a finishing blow. If Suboptimal has other air units that he decides to throw at our defenseless units instead of Woden's anti-air-capable battleships, he can probably kill two artillery per turn.

Once they get their chance, the healthy artillery will be shooting with an effective 105 strength against 101 for Marina's defenses. That's an average of 35 damage, and needing to chew through 400 HP worth of fortifications, plus the 200 HP garrison. We can siege the city by flanking it through the Lightning pass, but it's still going to be a slow process to get through the defenses, and with no air, anti-air, or range boosting observation baloons, the expected attrition to our artillery units will likely be enough to torpedo further conquests. I'd feel a lot better about this with even one AA gun in place to provide cover.

An alternative is to try what Suboptimal did against Kaiser, and declare with the primary objective of scoring some opportunistic pillages. That Theater Square at Marina can be pillaged three times for 94 clefs each, which knocks two turns off our Totalitarianism timeline right there. Of course there's still risk to that plan, and much less reward. Clearly a lesser option.

So, I think I have time to consider that option, and consider it I will. My troops are deployed such that they can reach useful staging areas next turn if desired.

Also, after exiting the turn, I get the "Peacekeeper" Steam achievement for successfully completing an emergency. Uhh, if you say so.

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

quick! Declare on Yerevan and conquer it at last!

oh wait

[williams482]

So, we still have the ability to put forward an emergency regarding Woden's capture of Bologna, an event which preceded the most recent World Congress by several turns. We're obviously dealing with buggy behavior here (unless I'm supposed to be able to delay those emergency declarations arbitrarily, which seems... about as whacky as some of the other nonsense that alleges to be intentional) so I can't bet too hard on it carrying through, but this game is over soon and we won't be the "real" winners no matter what. Personally, I'd feel much better about trying to invade England with AA gun support and maybe a balloon than just throwing nearly irreplaceable artillery units into the fire in hopes that Suboptimal, uhh, doesn't shoot them for the ~5 turns they are likely to need before we can knock down those walls.

If we do get the opportunity to enter that war a little later and a little better prepared, I think a strike through the Lightning valley towards Compo might be the way to go. We may actually be able to bring naval force to bear there, banking on Suboptimal's navy being tied up engaging Woden to the north. Two 80 strength battleship fleets (with anti-air defense) and a 70 strength ironclad offer useful extra firepower, and taking Compo's airbase out of commission should limit the air strikes Suboptimal can bring against us as we envelop Marina from two directions. Marina is an extremely defensible city, at least against units required to remain in contact with the ground, and attacking right into the teeth of it just doesn't seem like a good idea.

If this were a winnable game and I were genuinely racing with Woden to divide Suboptimal's territory, a riskier plan would likely be warranted. Of course, if we were actually competitive with Woden, we'd have quantity or quality of city cracking units that wouldn't be doomed before the might of one fighter, one bomber, two AT crews, and a city strike. Sucks to suck.

[williams482]

Turn 249:

Advanced Ballistics completes:



As does Mass Media:



Suboptimal won the World's fair by a landslide and scored one diplo point plus 100 GPP, Ichabod got the bronze reward (one civic boost), we got nothing. None of which is likely to affect the outcome of this game one iota.

We have 10 turns left until the era rolls, and we need 10 points for normalcy. That might actually be attainable, we'll see.

Cleggy is gone:



Suboptimal added a machine gun (likely the one completed in Foggy Dewhurst last turn) to the defense force at Marina. Our cavalry army in Yerevan took 50 damage from the fallout on that tile, something I did not know would happen. Because the Lightning valley was a nuke target, that puts a severe damper on any invasion plans we were still considering, at least for the next 8 turns until that fallout expires. Also of note here, Yerevan is no longer losing loyalty, so it won't flip to a free city and we can't capture it. Drat.



Ichabod is making his presence known, raising Rohan (as previously documented, not actually a city) to the ground:



Woden's milpower has been absolutely whacked here. He's down below Ichabod by a very narrow margin, much of which must be naval in nature, and his industrial heartlands have been decimated. He still has way more cities (and presumably production) than anyone else, same with science and culture, but his grasp on this game suddenly looks a little tenuous. If, IF, we can make gains against England while Ichabod and Woden fight and we're locked in peace with both of them, then maybe we can make something happen here? I won't bet on it, but I will give it a shot.

Flight seems by far the most useful technology of the slate we can research, so we start on that due in 9 turns. Ideology is 13 turns out and an absolute no brainer civic choice.

Blues starts an Armory, chasing the Totalitarianism boost. Kings, Bruins, and Penguins all start AA guns. Capitals resumes it's granary, due in one turn (chasing pop 7 for a 3rd district). I'll probably try to build a zoo afterwards, or maybe some faith buildings? I dunno.

England is extremely weak right now, but I have to assume Suboptimal intends to do whatever he can to fight for his nation. He has a great terrestrial defensive position in Marina, further boosted by the fallout zones on either flank, and an air force (I can see one fighter and two bombers), but otherwise his military is clearly weaker than ours. Oh, and he gets the first strike in any altercation because of turn order. We have spotted a musket corp and two machine guns since we tallied visible milpower last turn, plus the third plane which I'm assuming is a bomber, which gives us a combined 913 visimble milpower if AA guns don't count, or 1183 if they do (and they are actually 90 strength, not 80).

I've been staring at the save for well over an hour now, but the fundamental points remain the same:

1) I want very much to take some cities off someone, and this is a chance to do it
2) If things between Phoenicia and Brazil get crazy enough that this game is actually up in the air, I intend to capitalize
3) We have sorely limited production capacity, and cannot easily replace artillery units. Tanks are actually more manageable, they have a production card unlocked at Ideology.
4) Artillery units are absolutely essential for taking cities without bombers of our own, which are an eternity away. Tanks simply aren't very good at cracking through 400 HP walls at roughly equal strength.
5) Attempting to attack Marina will cost us most or all of our artillery even if successful, leaving us powerless to advance further into England
6) We can have AA guns in place in ~11 turns, at which point the survivability of our artillery increases substantially. The fallout will also be gone then, and balloons will be only a few turns behind
7) Suboptimal will probably improve his situation slower than we will. In fact, his situation will likely continue to deteriorate as Woden continues to shell him from the ocean, until Woden takes Auntie Wainwright and Compo for himself.
8) All of this goes out the window if and when we lose the ability to declare that emergency, or if we are unable to get the votes to push it through

So, I think we should play for an attack on England in roughly 10 turns, as soon as we have AA cover for our artillery. Balloons won't be immediately useful because of the terrain situation in front of Marina. Except, wait, do artillery have indirect fire if boosted by a balloon? I have no idea, and that matters here. I need to test this. Regardless, it's almost certainly not a good idea to try triggering that emergency now, I'll just get my artillery wrecked. We wait, we hope, we prepare.

Any thoughts on the best approach to this situation would be appreciated, I think I'm in great danger of overthinking into paralysis here.

I make a policy swap, dropping chivalry for Craftsmanship, because our two industrial zones are located in cities which are building AA guns. That plus some tile swaps brings both down to 5 turns in each city, which will jump to 10 turns (then drop to 9) as the world congress resolution expires on the interturn. I also change my mind on Blues' build, swapping to the +3 theater square. That should take 4 turns, and the culture it generates will be worth about half a turn off of our Totalitarianism completion time. We'll follow that with the Armory + Military Academy, which will complete well before we need Totalitarianism boosted. We won't be able to get that boost before the era rolls, unfortunately, but we'll get it soon enough.

Red Wings completed a trade route, I send it to Ed Mercer for 20gpt and some other stuff. The Builder over there repairs a lumber mill, it will repair a deer camp, replace the destroyed Hockey Rink, repair a mine, and have one charge left for some other purpose.

World Congress next turn, can't wait.

Scores:

[williams482]

Turn 249 World Congress:

So, world congress turn. Lets see what we have to vote on, just click this button here:



Aaaaand apparently that's my turn. I loaded the turn again, got exactly the same result, and passed the save to Ichabod.

What the fuck?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Emergency you're not party to, I think.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Balloons DO give indirect fire capabilities, I believe. Moving in an army of artillery with AA cover and ground escorts would force sub to come out and fight for the city.

[williams482]

All right, that's what we'll play for. Assuming the emergency hangs around, I'll try to have a mass of tanks and artillery in position around wild and covered with AA guns on roughly t259, t260. Bruins will start on an observation balloon as soon as possible, most likely beginning on t258 and completing it on t262 or t263. Alternately, we can try to purchase the unit outright for 960g, maybe possible but definitely rules out battleship upgrades in the near future.

We'll figure out the exact details closer to D-day. For now, we max culture, science, and gold as much as possible to see if we can make that day come any sooner.

[williams482]

Turn 250:

Apparently last turn was for a nuclear emergency against Woden, which failed:



The UI doesn't show what the effects would have been, but they are very similar to the other military-centric emergencies: members receive peace, shared visibility, and a combat bonus against the target. Suboptimal could easily have made it happen and inexplicably chose not too. Woden could also have invested quite a bit more in preventing it, but guessed just the right amount. Apparently declaring a pre-session emergency like this kicks the "official" world congress back a turn, but there's a limitation preventing consecutive special session declarations or I might spend my litany of emergencies trying to get my AA guns out at a discount. Probably wouldn't quite work out anyway, and would be annoying to the other players. So best that I can't.

Ichabod has not taken any cities this turn, but he has made progress against Osgiliath's defenses, and somebody (probably Woden?) nuked the floodplain formerly controlled by the destroyed Phoenician cities. I imagine many Brazilian artillery pieces were caught in the blast, but as we've noted when discussing a possible english invasion, the contamination also makes for an effective defensive structure. Gondor is hard at work on another bomb, currently due in 5 turns. Unclear if those are subject to the world congress resolution or not.



And once again, look at those milpower scores. Woden is now solidly below half of where he stood right before he attacked Suboptimal on t247, three turns ago. Very impressive performance from Ichabod here. Woden should still win a drawn out slugging match, on the strength of his much larger empire, but how many more core cities need to burn before that just isn't true anymore?

Suboptimal has redeployed his bombers away from Compo. Our cavalry reveals more of his military, and we now know of the following:

- 3 bombers (3 x 110)
- 1 fighter (100)
- 1 battleship armada (87)
- 1 ironclad armada (87)
- 3 machine guns (3x 75)
- 2 AT crew armies (2x 87)
- 2 field cannon armies (2x 77)
- 2 musket armies (2x 72)
- 1 musket corps (65)
- 3 AA guns (3x 90?)

That's a total of 1366 milpower without including the AA guns. Suboptimal is listed at 1265, and none of these units are damaged. It's possible he completed a bomber and a machine gun this turn, and has some badly damaged ships along his eastern seaboard covering the difference. The multiple Great Admirals inside city centers and harbors does suggest that he just took some naval losses.

Long story short, Suboptimal is indeed very weak. But we're pretty weak too, with our milpower score boosted by a swarm of cavs who might be some help in defense, but hold no value whatsoever for cracking even isolated atomic era cities. With Air cover and a balloon, and the Victor promotion that gives +25 anti-air strength to support units defending against nukes and planes, we could shell that city from relative safety. Getting both of those as fast as possible is going to require chopping the balloon, so once Wild completes it's university in 2 turns, it will get out a four charge builder. We'll immediately move Victor into the city, and he'll be established on t259. A forest or deer chop with Magnus in place is going to be 199h once Flight completes on t258, and balloons are 240h units. If the builders are in position for a chop, Penguins can complete a balloon on the turn after, t259. Transit time is going to be an issue there, unfortunately, as moving 8 tiles per turn the unit won't be in position to boost attackers until t261. The Logistics policy would cut a turn off that, but we aren't in Logistics, and won't be. Is that policy swap worth slowing down Fascism? That government currently projects to come into play right around t264, t265. Reformed Church is a three turn diversion from that, and provides us no value except for that policy swap. Speed is of the essence here, both with Suboptimal still earning a bunch of money for upgrades, with a maxed out oil stockpile, and (presumably) being in full on desperation unit-building mode, and with the Phoenician fleet closing in on cities that I'd like to have for myself, damnit. Plus, we could swap in the cheaper upgrade card too and turn our frigate fleets into battleships. So that's probably worth doing, but unfortunately we have quite a few turns in which to make that call.

I wanted to start the Water Park at Red wings, 8t out and worth an amenity plus three adjacency on the theater square. There's a half-finished tank in the queue in that city, claiming to be 4 turns out, but in practice it's a 12 turn build once the World Congress (finally) rolls. Unfortunately that's still probably worth working. We're about to be at war, and we're going to take losses. Got to replace them somehow. Capitals, an even lesser city, really doesn't have the ability to get full price units out in any reasonable time and starts on a shrine instead. That will speed up future attempts to faith purchase units (well, a unit), still worth something to the war effort.

Our army continues to just kinda hang out.

World Congress next go 'round, for real this time.

Scores: