PB78-Superdeath and Nauf beat the field

[superdeath]

Nicely done!

After all that.... Any questions?

Can you explain in simple terms how the various alliances/dogpiles/backstabs came to be? I have been unable to keep the factions straight after the first time Magic Science got mini-dogpiled. It seems like things change fast and frequently, but maybe I'm misunderstanding.

Alrighty.

Everyone expanded.

DZ's ancestor lost city to barbs. Proceeded to get into a war with Gavagai. Dunno how that went.

I rush the Oracle into a city on the coast to grab a barb island city. I get it, Magic comes in and takes it from me.

Peace among our world.

(i think... then)

First coalition vs Magic. As he was keeping up with me in city count, AND was the clear tech leader at that point, everyone dogpiled onto him. However, we each got in basically a turn later than the next person. Each of us seeing someone hadnt joined, or had gotten out of the war... Leading each of us to take like 1 city off of him, along with a payment in GPT/gold.

Because of the prior war, Gavagai had a STUPIDLY huge army, the weakest econ, and probably the lowest in tech.

Due to that, and myself being 2nd in power.. our stacks were within range of 2-3t's of each others border city. Lil' tense. I tried suggesting to attack Dreylin as he was looking real weak and IIRC, didnt even have Engineering for pikes, and i had just gotten Knights.

So, that plan was put in motion with a planned date of like 10-13t from then. BUT, Dreylin started to ramp up power and got key techs. (ive had tech vision on most of the field most of the game)

SOOOOOOOOO, i suggested to Gavagai to attack Magic instead who each of us had nearly double the power of. PLUS, it would fit better into Gav's and my empires. He moved first by moving within range of both Dreylin's and Magic's border cities for 1t via mounted units which he had a SHITLOAD of. So i moved in kind. Not knowing how things would turn out, i had moved my Knight stack near Magic's border and offered his border city for peaceful relations. ... Only to login the next turn to Gavagai declaring and moving on Dreylin.


SO, i had a choice to make. Let Gavagai and Dreylin slog it out, with Gavagai likely slowing making progress... Attack Magic anyway, and try and punch a big enough hole in him that i can come back later... OR take my mounted stack and run it around Dreylin's territory and smash Gavagai's post-collateraled stack. So.. i ended up taking the 3rd option. It was as good a time as i could find to eliminate the largest military in the world at nearly 0 cost to me, would open up at least 5 cities for easy conquering, would HOPEFULLY /fingers crossed/ make Dreylin friendly to me for the near future.. and when Magic ended up launching a GA, id be able to organize another dogpile on him as he would "clearly" be running away again.


So far, things have been going to plan. Gavagai's empire is slowing crumbling, and ive found DZ's (main?) stack outside of Gav's capital. Now, i consider the capital to be rightfully mine despite getting to it last. Why? 1. i cleared the massive stack. 2. DZ has 4 other cities he can get from south of the capital, and the capital fits better into my dotmap.

I dont PLAN on going to war with DZ over the capital, but ive sent ALOT of diplo messages including a gold amount to signal the amount of units he has, the tile they are on (a silver tile) and a BUNCH of resources near the capital among other diplo-messages. Im hoping we can get this over with soon, so that we can take down Magic once again. I will have Cuirs in about 4-5tish depending on if i work wealth or not. Depending on how the Gav war is going i may or may not mass whip cuirs out to try and smash thru Magic as quickly as possible.. as he STILL doesnt have shit for an army. Dreylin has indicated that he would be willing to go to war with him, only DZ im worried would actually find the time to do so.

I have PLENTY of catapults to deal with any 1 single stack.. just gotta work on getting the # of hitters back up. If Magic can be knocked down/brought to half his current cities, i think i can lock the game down pretty good by rushing to Rifles and having un-conquerable cities. Followed by rushing towards MG's-Tanks. Probably winning prior to that. If Magic falls, i will seriously consider running thru.. probably dreylin? MAYBE DZ with cuirs/cavs. Depends on the situation.



6 cities "captured" 2 of which were razed. Losses... i think 4knights, 5-6 HA's? Maybe a couple more. less than 15 units. Gav is also galley-ferrying units over to his island to make a more final-stand. Im fine remaining at war with him if he so chooses once he is reduced to just his island. Mainly because i doubt he would accept peace even if its basically just for turn-pace.. AND i can maybe harass with triremes/caravels ect.


Did this answer what was needed?

[superdeath]

I decided not to wipe DZ's stack off the map for not responding to a single diplo message sent, and him taking Gav's capital.

Magic being in a golden age, with a GP or two STILL laying around, and the Taj not built yet.. AND he is avoiding military techs. Im gunning for him. Whipping 12+ cuirs in 3t. Followed by another round from each city. Im taking as much as i can, before consolidating and burning as much of DZ as i can. Its gonna be tougher than i figured, as DZ is getting alot of easy gains from Gav.. but at the very least, id hope that Dreylin either has my back, or doesnt stab it.

[scooter]

Did this answer what was needed?

Yes, this was really helpful actually. I was trying to parse how you and Gav ended up on different sides, but that all makes sense.

[superdeath]

Did this answer what was needed?

Yes, this was really helpful actually. I was trying to parse how you and Gav ended up on different sides, but that all makes sense.

Sweet.

Now, i had a nice long day at work. I come home expecting to be last to play, or nearly last...with maybe Gav left to play.

And DZ has yet to play his 4hr+ turns. Is he waiting for me to play even though im not at war with Gavagai anymore? Yeah, we are planning on declaring on Magic in the near future, but we dont need to keep a turn-order for that till it comes around. . . So, to see whether or not he is just claiming the "best" part of the turn order for future use, im going to wait at the end of the next turn to play. Unless something changes in game or i receive a PM from him stating he has declared war on me, or that we should be in a turn split.. then there is no reason for him to wait at all.


Its not what i want to do, and im not doing it myself to try and get one part of the turn or the other. Ill play when i get off work/available AFTER this experiment.





It would probably be a dumb idea to declare war on me anyway unless he has Dreylin/Magic join in. Im a half-gen ahead in military to the next farthest along, and several techs ahead of some others..



Marking down every single Magic unit. Depending on his reaction, ill either take artemisium t1 of the war.. or ill have to siege it. I plan on ferrying over units and taking Megaton back my city to the south-west of the screenshot is also building boats to take the single-tile island of Horseback ridin'. DZ has indicated that he plans to come up from just south of this screenshot... which is just "dandy" he would get even MORE great land. Yeahhh, no. Im going to be rushing to take as much of that as i can. DZ is looking to be an actual rival since he got so much of Gav's cities for basically free. Ill be interested to see how his tech is doing once he swaps to one.




Those whips will be (after maybe another whip in some cities) Cuirs. I might keep the GLH city to offset the growing power that is DZ. My next issue will be, can i contain DZ and gobble up Dreylin? Or do i contain Dreylin and go into a slugfest against DZ? I think after Magic, if it doesnt erupt into a war with DZ regardless... ill sit and tech like a madman towards rifles/infantry. Get railroad and station some MG's in key spots, and then go to town.








i whipped like 30pop or better, still nearly 1st in food.

[superdeath]

 





If i can get Dreylin to take that pike/cat stack, i win this game. (ignore that i forgot i needed combat workers, and had sent them all off on scouting/new conquest duty...)

It wont happen, because i doubt Magic will waste it on anything other than protecting his capital. Im going to need a bunch of muskets to help soak the collateral and prevent the pikes from getting a bunch of free kills. (i have a musket in ALOT of cities finishing EOT)





I threaten his christian holy city with 2 galleys full of Cuirs. South of Megaton i have a trireme/nav1galley that can either unload to start the siege of Megaton or sneakily raze his MOAI city. Likely raze, because i dont think i can ship units over quick enough to prevent recapture.




Depending on what he does with those 10knights, i could storm both of those border cities. It would be heavy losses for the northern one, but i COULD do it. Im more likely to take a couple cats and open up the southern one, and move a stack outside of the northern one and try and force him to choose if he wants me to start taking a bunch of cities off of him. Im trying to race to get some of his good land b4 DZ takes more easy gains/land from him.



IN other news, Dreylin declared on DZ and razed a recent Gavagai conquest. I wonder if that will go any farther. Ive sent out some diplo tentacles to see if either would be willing to go to war with the other in 20-22t from now. Which, is when i expect to be fielding rifles/cavs. Maybe even cannon depending on how things are looking. Im most likely going to hold off on whipping anymore, as i dont think i NEED anymore units that cant be produced naturally, and i need to catch back up in population/econ before DZ's conquests start to give him a tech edge. Although, it looks like he is going the naval route? There are some tricky spots around the map, but other than my north-east coast, we dont really share any body of water that could enable anything super scary. PLUS, i can stuff the very few cities threatened with superior units and go on the offensive via land. DZ likely wont be very happy with how im going to play the Magic-war.

[superdeath]

Been capturing cities, taking semi-minimal losses. Trying to avoid having my stack wiped by a 24pike/10cat defensive stack that Magic has protecting his capital. Waiting on more muskets as i dont think my cats (20+) will soak enough collateral to make my cuirs still win fights. Dreylin also has a stack nearby that id rather not give him an opportunity to raze the capital and deny me one of my few land-based captures.




My non-military cities are running out of Econ stuff to build so figured id grab banking. Im heading towards Lib first, to deny it to dreylin/DZ. So long as i dont have to whip hard for whatever reason, i should get it before anyone other than MAYBE magic if he used Gpeople or something.






There are other things in his capital, but only a couple longbows/axe/A knight. He doesnt have any workers nearby so he cant road the tile below my muskets and hit my stack. Waiting for more muskets will take awhile, but will be worth it. ESPECIALLY if Magic decides to just use his pike/cat stack to do a stupid amount of damage to Dreylin's stack. That would be the DREAM, but id bet good money he would rather save that for whomever steps next to his capital/me.




Southern Magic Front. Setting up to taken New-Tehran in a few turns/potentially take aggro away from the eastern stack. DZ got a decent stack wiped by magic down south, and while he has a medic 2 scout, those knights will still take a couple turns to heal up. I am GLAD to see he didnt just abandon his southern cities. That was my biggest fear is that DZ would get this area basically for free and with it being mostly green with nice cottage land.. Yeah, dont want him getting that. Id rather see them trade units back and forth.


Looking at it, i cant really advance my eastern stack until those 15knights are half'd at least. I still have to keep a decent garrison in 2 former Gav cities as they are on the coast, and Gav/magic have galleys on that lake/sea. I fully expect Gavagai to break open borders/declare if he sees any opportunity. He doesnt come across as someone that wants to just sit there and press enter for another 50-100t.



Open to questions.

[Cyneheard]

So you're saying Gavagai's "Good Neighbor" policy is an outright lie?



Seeing a pike-and-cata army feels like it's 15th Century Switzerland, not Civ IV, but it's doing the job.

[superdeath]

Im saying, Gavagai has MANY reasons to not be peaceful if given a chance

[superdeath]

1st in GNP if i start teching. Saving gold for now. Going to let Dreylin give me that extra bonus to paper.




2t from now ill have 69 units on that tile. 3t i take the city. Magic pulled the trigger and smashed into Dreylin's stack, so most of his cats should be gone. All of his pikes for the most part are out of position, no fortify/injured. I dont think he can get them all healed in 3t? especially if he moves them into the city. Here's hoping im not walking into shit.

[superdeath]

Took some losses staging against Magic's capital. Lost a 30% galley-galley battle (him attacking) not a huge deal, but kinda how the turn started off. He led with i think... 5-6 cats and then his pikes got odds on a decent chunk of my stack, so my catapults started defending. They DID win a couple battles at least. Ive landed/moved more units into place, and im hoping with little-catapult support left from him, that if i can survive this turn i Should be able to break thru soon. If not, well.. Still been fun either way. Only magic would make a 30pike stack. lol.