[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[roland of gilead]

being pedantic it is Compo. possibly the best TV character of all time for me

[williams482]

Yeah, we're Conceded, playing in sandbox mode for all intents and purposes. Woden will only need a couple of nukes to render us totally irrelevant, and he's shown that he absolutely will do that if he perceives us as any kind of threat. We have no air support, extremely limited anti-air, and a modestly large but mostly obsolete army. Under no circumstances outside of truly extraordinary levels of mismanagement can we possibly stand up to what he can throw at us.

Compo is the target, then on to Foggy Dewhurst if possible. We actually can't take Robert Fife with the forces we have around there, but Suboptimal doesn't know that, and we have the choice to either run past, or do some pillaging. I didn't mention this in my turn report, but our ironclad is in striking distance of Auntie Wainwright right now, just in case Woden decides to leave it on a platter for us. Unfortunately our battleship upgrades are going to be too late to hit Compo before Woden's navy can get there, but we might have enough ground based striking power present to break through after he provides his usual initial salvo. They could also be deployed against Foggy Dewhurst in the unlikely event that we do capture Auntie Wainwright somehow.

[williams482]

Turn 259:

We enter the atomic era:



Here's the era types for everyone:



A list of relevant things not considered in depth prior to the era change:
- Reduced tech and civic costs
- Reduced loyalty from friendly cities

Fortunately, neither burns us. Reformed Church was already as cheap as could be and remains a sliver shy of completion. We switch onto Ideology for a turn, which is now just three turns out. England being limited to a normal era actually leaves us on fairly even footing on that front relative to last turn. Swapping Wild to a Bread and Circuses project and moving a new cavalry into Marina to replace the irradiated corps that captured the city pushes back the culture flip timeline to 21 turns. That new cavalry has a promotion ready, so it can immediately heal the first 50 damage. If the damage is processed before healing, that cavalry will take 50 damage on the subsequent turn, then heal back 20 so it can survive a third turn of radiation before being forced to withdraw. If instead healing comes first, the cav will show as having 50 HP on the turn after promoting, but will heal 20 before taking another 50 and still survive the same number of rounds. So cool, that unit should be fine for a bit.

Oilers is actually losing loyalty, net of -0.9 per turn. It will be a long time before that results in a flip, and growing another pop point will slow things further. That does make plantationing it's wine tile a higher priority than the other gold boosting things I can spend my two remaining builder charges on, so the builder makes haste in that direction.

Kaiser's resurrection is short lived:



And Manaus becomes the latest Brazilian city to be eradicated by the vengeful Phoenician:



Our dedication options are fairly interesting:



I optimistically select To Arms!, figuring we are likely to kill our fair share of armies and corps in the next 30 turns, but the spy one would also have been a pretty solid choice. Quite the contrast from our lacklustre options in the past few eras.

Bruins completed it's AA gun and starts a watermill, due next turn. As discussed, that will give us some extra flexibility with tile assignments without taking the loyalty hit from starving the city. Capitals completes a temple and starts a Synagogue due in 9, mostly for lack of better things it can build in a reasonable timeframe.

Our forwardmost tank army took two hits from unspecified assailants and survived. Our cav was not so lucky, as expected. It suffered one attack from what I can only assume was that tank army, and was finished by the field cannon.

Auntie Wainwright did take considerable damage last turn, and our ironclad does have a free run up to the city, but lacks the strength to take it:



Try again next time, if granted the opportunity. I realize that my income is actually sufficient to upgrade Battleships next turn, so nope, never mind on swapping to Ideology. Back to Reformed Church we go. Except, hold up. I have a policy swap now for some reason. No idea what from, but I'll take it, keeping the Reformed Church swap in my back pocket. Craftsmen is out, Force Modernization is in:



With that in place and time a relevant factor, I upgrade one of my frigate fleets into a battleship. This somehow increases my income from 58 gpt to 60 gpt. I assume that's a delayed interface update wrapping in another change, but I haven't made any tile swaps that should have increased my gold generation. Weird.

Other units push forward as they are able, with one tank pillaging a wine plantation for 166 faith. That gives us 1,000.1 (and +35 per turn) so we will be able to faith purchase a trickle of reinforcements if necessary. For now I'm going to sit on that reserve, and hope to save up enough for a corps or army. This war has been a rather sloppy and amateurish effort thus far, but again, speed is of the essence and our opponent is not well prepared to handle what we can throw at them. At least, I hope not.

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

how many "real" cities does sub have left? Auntie Wainwright, Campo, Foggy Dewhurst, and is the one east of Foggy a mature plant? I know he's founded a bunch of new ones, figuring the best way to survive is to try nad, uh, settle faster than Woden can kill him. Once his capital goes (or if Phoenicia would kindly nuke it for us...Woden probably wouldn't take us occupying it well, though), the English empire should collapse.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

also, fun exercise: can we put together some kind of air defense against nuclear missiles before our alliance iwth Woden expires? Almost certainly not but that hasn't stopped us yet!

[williams482]

The city due east of Foggy Dewhurst is Truly of the Yard, a very mature city. That gives him four real cities total, and I'll be pretty surprised if Auntie Wainwright survives our next turn (most likely falling before we get another crack at it).

As for nuclear defenses, I dunno. We can build more AA guns, the strategy Suboptimal has pursued, and try to station one or two near every city. I have no idea how effective that would actually be, but I'm sure it's better than nothing!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I think AA does nothing to missiles - I think we need to reach SAMs for that. Given that neither Ichabod nor suboptimal could in time to deploy in significant numbers, we have almost no shot.

But if we could, it's fun to imagine 90% of Woden's force being neutered and the Canadian army seizing Egypt!

[williams482]

Something else in the patch notes that could prove relevant:

[Gathering Storm] Tourism Updates

"Cultural Domination" term clarified in Culture victory sections of World Rankings and Civilopedia.
Cultural Domination provides ongoing effects:
- International Trade Routes to foreign cities you culturally dominate provide +4 Gold.
- Spy missions in foreign cities you culturally dominate are 50% faster to complete.
- Your citizens exert 25% more Loyalty pressure on foreign cities you culturally dominate.

I don't know what it means to "culturally dominate" another civ in this game, but it's certainly possible that England has that status against us. If Suboptimal can slow down our offensive, or has built any spies since our military alliance expired, we could be in for some added inconvenience.

[williams482]

Turn 260:

Steve Newton is the latest Brazilian city to bite the dust:



I remain both impressed and puzzled that at least one of Ichabod and Suboptimal has yet to concede, because both their situations are obviously hopeless. We probably have slightly more of the tiny slivers of win probability not already allocated to Woden than Ichabod does by now.

Suboptimal has killed the tank army I pushed very aggressively past Compo. This is expected, and it's to our benefit that he needed three hits to do it. Woden, interestingly, has opted to ignore Auntie Wainwright and start shelling Compo instead. This is either an attempt to assist us, or a pivot to a more urgent target so he can take the city himself instead of letting us do it. Can we?



We have one artillery unit we can bring into range of the city, but not with enough movement points left to fire. Our tanks can damage the city, but not enough to allow for capture, and they would take significant damage while they are at it. This seems like a pillaging turn. We pilfer four tile improvements and an Aerodrome for a combined 1,665g and 90 faith, enough to upgrade a few more units. I also committed a clumsy tactical error, pillaging an English trader in Compo's 2nd ring with my ironclad. Suboptimal can now kill that unit if he pleases, which leaves me without a rapid response melee attacker to go after any cities Woden could conceivably leave undefended. 

Near Robert Fife, one of our tanks armies took considerable damage, allegedly from a single attack. The tank in the city is also damaged, far less so than our tank army, so clearly there was more than one blow delivered there. Fife does have a ranged attack which Suboptimal would surely have used, and it's quite likely that there are planes in the area as well. I am left with a choice of how much to commit to defending that retreating tank, which has 21 HP and is favored but not guaranteed to survive if attacked by that injured English tank. Obviously it is doomed if any other units get involved. I withdraw it to a jungle tile third ring of Fife, out of Suboptimal's vision (I think), and decide against covering it with a cavalry army that would be second ring to Fife and nearly certain to die. our first AA gun on the scene is able to move up and cover that unit, so hopefully that helps prevent any further air strikes. The other tank in that area moves onto what I'm fairly certain is a uranium mine in Fife's second ring. This is also a tactical error, I should have occupied the railroad tile first ring of Fife, to prevent that tank from charging through and attacking Marina. Such a maneuver would only be possible if Suboptimal were running the Logistics policy and had bombers in the area to hit the city first, but both of those seem likely, and Marina's capture would be a major inconvenience for us. Just have to hope that doesn't happen! 

Our illicit cash infusion is directed into the planned battleship fleet upgrade, plus a field cannon army and a musket corps. This still leaves sufficient funds for further upgrades in the next two turns as desired. The battleship fleet we upgraded last turn steams for England, and will be in position to fire on Compo next turn if Woden hasn't taken it by then. The cav in Marina takes a promotion (coursers) as planned. It's unclear if England is "culturally dominant" over us, but the flip timeline for Marina dropped from 21 turns to 16, a roughly 25% reduction which seems in line with the described change.

The state of the front, once all units have moved:



Bruins has completed the watermill and shuffles some tiles around. I consider an AA gun, but ultimately start work on a Tank, due in 10 turns (less when the Lightning Warfare policy is unlocked in two turns). SAM units are an eternity away, 32 turns at current rates on a direct beeline that bypasses multiple arguably more useful techs, like Advanced Flight and Synthetic Materials. Rebuilding railroads and improvements on nuclear strike tiles is valuable work, and I wish I had more engineers in play right now as the one I've got simply can't keep up the pace, but a new one should take four turns to build and longer to get somewhere useful, and I am certainly going to need reinforcements in play eventually. Penguins also starts a tank after completing it's AA gun, also 10 turns out. Unfortunately, it seems Roland was right in predicting that our tile yields would not update, as they haven't. Yes, we still suck! May as well stay on brand here, I guess.

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

In Russia my lavras somehow updated so that I no longer get the GWAM points BUT my shrines and temples did not update so they ALSO do not get the points. It seems Firaxis hates patching in the actual useful stuff. More likely it's just that tile yields and building yields trigger on acquisition or completion - perhaps removing and replacing farms would update them, which is obviously an absurd waste of builder labor.

What do you suppose Woden spent 2,000 gold on last turn?