Yes sorry, we recently had "Total Defense Day" here (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Defence_(Singapore) )
And yes, I basically piss on both Imperial Britain (unable to defend Malaya) and Imperial Japan (Refusing to capitulate and eventually kicking them back all the way to their island, LOL!) in my story here with the gameplay. It's WW2 but with catapults and axes! At least for me..
Well, now to my options:
I've two neighbours: Oceania (lead by Gavagai) and India, lead by Picca.
Both were on decent terms with me most of the game, and I'm not even that pissed at Gavagai to have demanded Lucky Plaza. That 10 round peace treaty gave me time to finish off Scooter. He took one city from Scooter, too (a pretty nice one), so I might think I could be asking for some "repayment" of sort for basically doing the "dirty work" for him, but he's already full mediaval, while I just get my hands on crossbows a few turns ago.
Gavagai is #2 in points, just behind Ginger, so for sure several other players (who hope to still have a chance to win) might be interested in supporting anyone going against him, in one way or another.
90% of my border is shared with Oceania, so that's where we either become BFF, or fight over it. Honestly, if he wouldn't have token Lucky Plaza by "making me an offer I couldn't refuse", I'd absolutely be in Team BFF. I might still want to be on friendly terms with him, or might not.
India, that's the ONLY nation I'm having a border with that never betrayed me. Rome (Xist10) tried to rush me, then got rushed himself. Japan, I guess I don't have to talk about that, one declaration of war by myself (I really should have burned his city down when I had the chance! Now that I know it's his bronze city, things might have played out very differently..) and three by him on me. Ironically, the last one brought his demise. And, as just remarked, Gavagai pressed Lucky Plaza from me.
So, I'd really like to stay friends to India, and right now I don't really need more land. I'd prefer to stay at peace for a while, and having now access to middle age units should make me an ugly fruit to attack till Rifles show up. I'll definitely not be the first to Rifles, both Oceania and India will have them before me if nothing big happens, but a decent army of longbowmen would need some efforts to be kicked off. But then I have a long coastline, and the first players will soon have Astronomy, so I'll have to defend against sea invasions, too.
So, for now, I guess it's "wait and see". If Gavagai or Picca make me an offer to team up with them against the other of them, I might join in, if there is something to gain from it. Or I might wait if there is any other opportunity coming up.
Cleaning up the last Japanese city isn't actually #1 on my list, as WW is really not an issue in CtH, so I'll see that I can take his super-archer with as few loses as possible. Might want to ship some macemen eventually and till then just bomb his city defenses down. I'll definitely need to throw a few catapults at him, as he'll have some more archers by that time. Alternatively, I'll rush over troops and storm his city in around 5 turns, but possibly losing most of my units while doing so. Have to roughly estimate what makes more sense.
The good thing is, that I've my army available for defense now again, so I'm immune against someone trying to press off another city from me. Yes, Gavagai, looking at you.
Will have to value my options more over the course of the next turns now. I'm behind tech and population wise, but my Empire's size is now acceptable. So, let's see. We're not dead, yet!
