Gandhi of France II - Assuming Direct Control

[oledavy]

Oye...I was worried about this banter thread during the setup period, and I'm afraid we might be getting to the point where we need to shut it down.

I really don't understand the intense antipathy between Commodore and Gaspar. Well....I understand it, I don't get why they're taking it all so personally.

As far as I know, here is all that has happened between them:

- Commodore pink dots Gaspar with Kiki
- Commodore declares war, nothing happens, they make peace soon after.
- NoGas raze Commodore's marble city and cost him the MoM

So....call it even at this point?

[oledavy]

Edit: Doublepost

[oledavy]

[SIZE="7"]Turn 112[/SIZE]

I am currently in the middle of undertaking one of the craziest offensives I have ever attempted in playing Civ4. But with so little to lose, I am going all out and launching all or nothing attacks on Bravery and Jumping. But before I get into the nitty gritty details, let me take a moment to discuss my war aims.

Up until 3 turns ago, I had written off this game as lost, and was planning on doing nothing but focus on bringing Mistabod down for however much time. Now, with all my cities other than the charred remains of Ilos back in my hands, I have a chance, albeit miniscule, of winning this game. It will come down to how much the major powers knock each other down.

With Mistabod's offensive failed and my armies swollen with whipped pikes, maces, and cats, I have a very small window in between now and when they get rifles/drafting online to inflict some damage. I have a vastly smaller military than them, but it is well-positioned to inflict a bit of damage. They were not expecting to be on the defensive this soon, and certainly were not expecting to have to defend their own turf. So, my goal is to inflict as much damage as I can with what I have to inhibit their economic progress, then sue for a favorable peace. To that end, my goals are to raze the cities of Bravery and Jumping - destroying the majority of their remaining military, then offering peace in exchange for the city of Technique (GLH city southeast of Jumping).

So, without further ado, let me introduce you to the target of Operation Catalyst: The city of Bravery.



This is probably the third most important city in the Byzantine empire - (1st - First Touch, 2nd - HE city). It produces a ridiculous amount of commerce, and is one of the most defensible location sin the empire, on a hill and behind a river.

On his turn, Commodore moved his small army east of Palaven and into Byzantine territory. Mistabod hit it, I'm not sure with what, but on my turn, only two wounded units remained, with a mace in reserve. Next turn, Mistabod can have a max of 8 defenders in the city, 9 if they don't sack their catapult into my stack. The potential defending army is comprised of:

4 Phracts (3 of which can hit my stack)
2 Pikes
1 Longbow
1 Archer
1 Catapult

In Palaven, I have 10 pikes and 4 catapults - so of course I decided to take the opportunity. With Commodore's pair of units in support, I'd wager we have 50/50 odds of razing the city, which is plenty good enough for me. Now time to use Sargon:



I left Commander Shephard in Palaven to heal to full strength (he can reach the city next turn because of Morale), and moved the other 9 pikes east of the city - sprinkling 2/3 xp on each, enough for one promotion to each one. I promoted 3 of the Combat I's to Combat II to help fend off the three phracts in range, and left the rest unpromoted. Most will probably take CRI before I assault the city.



It's going to be a near-run thing, and if I lose Palaven will be subject to immediete recapture. However, I simply could not pass up this opportunity. This city will never be so poorly defended again, and it will be a major blow Byzantium.

It's best to attack along the entire front the stretch the opponent's capacity to defend, and it so happened that I was reaching critical mass with my armies in the west, with almost enough forces to make a serious attempt at Jumping, target of Operation Crucible:



This city isn't near as valuable as Bravery, but most importantly, taking it would relieve the pressure on Irune. So, I scraped every unit in range together, brought together 6 workers yo road everything within reach and arrived at this:



I have about two dozen units that can move northwest of the city next turn, a scattering of pikes and maces supported by four catapults. Inside the city, the Reapers are fielding 10 Phracts, and a couple maces and trebuchets. I can probably count on an additional couple units making their way in before I assault on t114.

With my spy completing this turn, the plan is to move him into the city turn next, then put it into revolt. If it works, then things should be a cakewalk. The Phracts don't get defensive bonuses, and once I get through the few catted LBs and maces, it will be easy pickings. If the spy mission fails, well, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Not going to sugarcoat things here, I have only about a 50% chance of pulling either of these off. My gut here just says to strike while the iron is hot, and with so little to lose and everything to gain, I have to try. The big unknown in all this is the Phract army making it's way through the Holy Roman Empire:



Commodore did some number on it, I presume he catted it and attacked with Landschects on the open land south of Riffington. There is now nothing in position to defend either Thessia or Tuchanka - and if any Phracts make their way back south, they will find extremely easy pickings and be able to raze one or even potentially both of the cities. I'm making a rather big assumption here, that one of two things will prevent this from happening:

1. Mistabod will have raged and thrown all this remaining Phracts at Zoe.
2. Commodore will be feeling spiteful and hungry for XP and will not let any escape.

If I'm wrong, then I can kiss Thessia/Tuchanka goodbye. We'll know next turn if the Byzantines are coming back for more. I dearly hope not. If Operation Catalyst fails, then I can probably kiss Palaven goodbye again. However, these are all cities that I had already resigned myself to losing, and keeping them, won't dramatically improve my chances in this game. Cutting Mistabod down a peg however will. When they return with rifles, I'm going to be in deep shit. But if I hurt them badly enough, the time from now until rifles will be lengthened and perhaps they'll decide to go prey on someone less spiky.

One can hope.



Btw, if I was Yuri right now, with two nations already at war with Mistabod, I could take this opportunity to reclaim some of my territory:



He's reclaimed his culture right up to the city. I would put the city in revolt with a spy, slam it with cats, from 2 NE, then mop up with HAs. Even LBS die after all that. He could then fan out on the plains southwest of the city and cause Mistabod some real pain.

Pity he won't though.



End Turn.

[oledavy]

Since I study military history irl, I just wanted to take a moment to write some of the military history of this game and address the question: Why did the Byzantine offensive fail? Make no mistake, the era of Mistabod going on the offense with Cataphracts - at least against myself and Commodore - is over. Out of the ~40 Phracts plus 20 auxiliary units they began this campaign with, nearly 3/4s are dead on battlefields that range from Irune in the south to the lakeshore east of Riffington in the north.

Now, in making my evaluation, I do not have a complete picturee. Namely, I have not read Mistabod's thread and do not know what exactly how they were thinking through all this, so there will be several assumptions.

The root of all of Mistabod's problems, as near as I can tell, is that they entered a campaign with a hazy goal and no clear plan of how to achieve it. Their goal, presumably, was to use their very strong UU and tech advantage to absorb land from one of their neighbors and catapult them into a game-winning position. Regardless of whether or not it would have been more prudent to attack Yuri, they chose to attack me, so let's talk about that.

Their first issue is that they didn't land Guilds near as early as they could have. Now whether or not skipping their diversion to Aesthetics, Drama, Literature and Music to get Phracts 10-15 turns would have been a better economic move can be argued. However, strictly from a military standpoint, having Phracts when everyone else has spears would probably have worked out better for them.

Their second mistake came in only building a pair of stables, gaining access to Theocracy by building the SP, and then not revolting into Theocracy. There is a big difference between 3xp and 5xp Phracts, and having Shock or Combat II on some of those units could have changed everything in the battles around Irune. The result was they had a lot of units that should have been better promoted.

Their actual mobilization went very well. Everything Yuri got wrong in PBEM23, they got right here. They weren't shy about using the whip, and churned out about 30 Cataphracts in a little under a half a dozen turns. Combined with a pre-existing army of about a score of HAs, Axes, and Catapults for a grand total of around 50 units, they were set to roll me. I had less than a dozen pikes on the field when they invaded and was simply was not prepared for war. Furthermore, I made the mistake of thinking I could hold Palaven in the face of catapults, allowing them to roll over half of my existing armed forces at the very outset.

However, it was hear that they made a very big strategic blunder. Their opening offensive featured a very strong eastern army to advance through Palaven, and a significantly weaker force to attack Irune.



This was a huge mistake, and probably the only reason I'm still around. I don't think they ever really appreciated how crucial Irune was to my defense; that beyond it, they would have been able to fork and cut off my southern and eastern cities. If they had made a direct drive at Irune and captured it the outset of the war, my entire position would have been untennable. Earth, Dekunna, Ilos, Tuchanka, and Palaven would have all been cut off, able to be forked, reduced, and captured at will. My defensive line would have been pushed back to the hill city of Sur'Kesh in the south, and The Citadel in the north, leaving me a 5 city rump state.

Rather than focus on breaking through my center by taking Irune, they sent the majority of their army to attack my periphery, and while this cost me two of my best cities, it allowed the rest of my empire to survive.

Four turns later, on t107, they reached their high water mark and their offensive ran out of steam. They'd been wildly successful in the north, destroying my army at Palaven, forcing me to abandon Tuchanka, and burning the city of Ilos to the ground. However, in the south, despite two turns of hard-fought battles, they had been unable to reduce Irune and suffered pretty severe losses in the process. By this time, I had consolidated my forces, and mobilized enough to hold my ground, striking back at their forces as they fanned out along the river east of The Citadel. This prompted a withdraw of their armies to Jumping and Tuchanka/Anticipation. Additionally, their northern wing had advanced too fast and outran their support; most importantly, units that could actually get defensive bonuses. My interior lines of reinforcement were coming into play, and they were going to have to try to hold their gains against my brewing counter-attack. While they had taken two juicy cities from me, they had failed to completely annihilate me, and were now going to have to settle in for a long war if they were to make any more gains.

However, it was at this point that one of them realized the threat posed by the Holy Roman Empire. I can say this with a fair amount of certainty, because there is no way they would have kept Palaven and Tuchanka had they realized earlier that Commodore would pose a serious threat to their new holdings. I quite purposely intended for them to lengthen their front with Commodore, and as he began to warily mobilize forces in response to the threat to the south, they must have arrived at the conclusion that they only way to secure their new territory was to launch a decisive first strike.

Now, militarily, this was not a completely awful idea. Politically, this was insane. Why the heck would you create another enemy when you still have not dealt fully with the first? When they still had plenty of time to fortify their holdings against them? Yes, Commdore would have gotten Rifling before them, but he had other concerns - namely a long border with two players who have a vendetta against him. Commodore may have even joined in with them against me to try and scoop up some of my territory, we'll never know now. Bottomline, Commodore was not, and may not ever have been, a direct threat to their conquests, but they attacked anyway.

So, they abandon Tuchanka for me to retake, correctly going after Commodore's irons and incorrectly targeting and razing his smallest, most worthless city. However, they don't even manage to pillage both of the irons, meaning both me and Commodore still have access to Pikes/Landschnects. They move their army onto the flat lands south of Riffington, and get most of it (presumably) slaughtered by Catapults. Whatever is left of that army now will probably not be taking any more cities. Their causus belli is that Commodore was trading me an iron, in addition to my domestic source? I mean, I wanted them to do that, and react like they did, but I didn't actually think they would.

So, ten turns later, where are we, what have Mist and Ichabod accomplished?

1. They briefly held two of my better cities, and I lost a lot of population and infrastructure in the process.
2. They burned one of my small backfill cities
3. They burned one of Commodore's small backfill cities
4. They forced me to whip all my cities to the ground, destroying my tech rate and putting me completely out of the running*
5. They forced Commodore to do a lot of whipping.

[SIZE="1"]*Though it's worth noting I was already basically out[/SIZE]

However, there is nothing here which actually advanced their position. They made their position a lot worse. They had to do a lot of whipping to get that army out, are dealing with extensive WW in all their cities, pay upkeep and supply costs for all those units, and delay crucial infrastructure. Just look at that picture of Bravery in my last post - they could have used a courthouse there a very long time ago to cut down that 10 gpt they're spending in maintenance. In practical terms, all they've succeeded in accomplishing since this war began is to put themselves behind, make two game-long enemies who never really wanted to fight with them, all for the meager reward of four cities worth of pillage gold. While it's true that I'm now officially out of the running, I've been basically out of the running since I botched my opening. As for Commodore, they took him back a notch, but the only one who truly benefits from Commodore being weaker are NobleHelium and Gaspar.

To say I'm dumb-founded by it all would be an understatement. Mist and Ichabod started with an army that could have secured them a game winning position, and now they have less than what they started with. They've made no gains and are now having to defend their home territory. They attack me, but failed to do so with a plan completely take me down, winding up with territorial gains, but not enough firepower to finish me off. Then, they rapidly switch gears and attack the budding superpower to the north, inflicting almost no damage and losing all their gains in the process.

All when they could have fought a nice limited war with Yuri at a fraction of the cost and for a substantiallly bigger payoff.

This reminds me a bit of World War II, with me playing the part of the UK, Mistabod playing Germany, and starring Commodore as the USSR.

Just crazy

[Nicolae Carpathia]

You mean you're the Anglo-French

[mackoti]

I totaly agree with you dave,Mistabond atacking you when they had a very easy land to take was the move which ruined theyr game.Very very bad move indeed.And the fact they didnt know how you enjoy defending.

[hinaru_23]

Post #214=

[oledavy]

Extended family in town over the last several days = not a lot of time for updates.

Let's see if I can't bring everything up to speed. Wall of text time!

I'm currently waiting for Noble and Gaspar to play their save, I'm now on t120.

Both my offensives into Byzantium failed pretty badly. Though for different reasons.

Around Bravery, my offensive failed because I underestimated the power of longbows and the flanking power of phracts. On t114, Mistabod hit my stack with his catapult, then attacked my small army with 4 Cataphracts (one of which had been hidden from my view). All four won, and the resulting flanking damage left my assaulting force severely weakened. However, between Commodore and myself, we had more attackers than they had defenders in the city. The only problematic defender would be the freshly whipped longbow. So, I queued up worldbuilder to see what my attacking odds would look like. The results were not encouraging. I was expecting my three catapults to scratch the longbow down somewhat, so that I would only have to suicide one pike to kill it. In my WB sims, none of them even scratched it, and the resulting pike attack failed without killing a single defending unit.

In hindsight, I severely underestimated the sheer defensive power of a longbow in a hill city behind a river. With no way for my weakened forces to even dent the city, I detailed my most wounded pike to kill phract left outside the city, and retired within the borders of Palaven. After sending the turn on, I reloaded the save and attacked to see how it would have gone. All my units died without getting past the longbow, let alone capture the city.

Total Exchange:
France: 5 Pikes lost
Byzantium: 1 Catapult, 1 Cataphract lost

So, my impulsive offensive turned into a net loss that gained me nothing and cost valuable units and supply gold.

Commodore did manage to use my forces as a shield to capture a Byzantine worker and pillage some of the roads and cottages northwest of the city. A couple turns ago, after moving his forces out, he invaded north of the city with a small pillaging stack covered by a rifle. The results were not pretty. Mistabod killed it handily and nabbed their 4th or 5th great general.

Bravery is simply too strong of a position to be attacked from across the river to the northwest, not without overwhelming force. The only to really assault the city is to come in from the northeast, south from Kusari. We'll see if Commodore attempts this in the coming turns, but the war as a whole has devolved into a stalemate.

Meanwhile, on t114, I moved on Jumping with a fairly substantial force of pikes and maces. Mistabod attacked out with their pair of trebuchets, then hit my stack with all ten phracts. While I killed 4 phracts in their assault, I lost 6 pikes and had one of my catapults flanked away. On t115, my spy was set to put the city in revolt....and failed. I gritted my teeth, fortified my armies, moved some reinforcements in along with my backup spy. On t116, they attacked again, killing another pike. This spy didn't even reach the city but was captured as soon as he entered the grey borders.

Stupid RNG

I remember someone saying that whether or not spies work for you depends on how much the RNG hates you. It certainly hated me here. It was really frustrating for me because I would have been able to take that city had I been able to induce a city revolt. However, with both of my available spies gone and my armies depleted by Cataphract raids, I had no option but to retreat. Mistabod killed an additional 3 Pikes on the retreat, including Commander Shephard, my Morale + Formation PIke.

Total Exchange:
France: 10 Pikes, 1 Catapult
Byzantium: 4 Cataphracts, 2 Trebuchets

The total exchange was 15 Pikes, 1 Catapult killed on my side, 5 Cataphracts, 1 Catapult, 2 Trebuchets dead on theirs. I went ahead and tallied up the total losses for both sides shortly before the battles outside Jumping and Bravery, but don't really feel like updating it. Before this pair of defeats, I was winning the production exchange by about 100 hammers. The losses of the last several turns put me about ~150 hammers behind them. All told, both of us have lost approximately 4,500 hammers worth of units each fighting each other. If you factor in the fighting in the Holy Roman Empire, you can probably factor in a couple thousand more hammers for Mistabod, and I have no clue how many for Commodore.

The retreat from Jumping basically brought the medieval portion of the war to a close. I did whip a trireme out of Dekunna to pillage Technique's fish, however, Mist killed it with a trireme of his own at 27.3% odds on t118

Stupid RNG

I have not attempted to make peace with Mistabod. I want them to continue to suffer from 3-4 WW everywhere. I doubt they would even accept it, however. They get rifling on t122, and I expect they'll be ready to start round 2 at that point, if Commodore doesn't intervene with significant force anyway. For his part, Commodore seems to be respecting the detente he and Mistabod have reached along their short border, though his power does continue to rise.

The big news in the international scene has been NoGas's declaration of war on Yuri and capture of Samsum. I expect they'll run him over. I expect Mistabod, seeing this, will redouble their efforts to expand through me and improve their economic situation once they land rifling. Commodore is the big unknown here. Does he:

A. Attack NoGas
B. Attack Mistabod
C. Attack Me
D. Sit back and tech

I think the first is the most likely. It will be a slog, but it will prevent them from attaining a significant lead coutesy of Yuri. D also seems pretty likely, but will be a losing proposition if Yuri's completely collapses and NoGas start teching faster than he does. C has to be pretty appealing, with our long DMZ. However, considering he just asked for stone and pigs from me last turn, I doubt he will; unless he has a sudden change of heart and those requests were indicative of nothing (I did start gifting him pigs, however, I'm keeping the stone for one more turn to finish Notre Dame). Attacking Mistabod just wouldn't be profitable for him, though razing Bravery would do a number on the Byzantine economy. All in all, he's in a pretty interesting spot. I just hope he doesn't attack me. That would suck.

For my part, I'm trying to survive. I'm currently in OR, and churning out forges, barracks, and a few scattered economic builds everywhere to prepare for round 2 with Mistabod. The majority of my armies, about a score of pikes and maces, are hunkered down in Irune. I have small force of pikes locking down Palaven. I seriously doubt Mistabod will come for it again, not while they're still at war with Commodore, thus the small garrison (though I plan on adding to it nonetheless). Halfway between my two fortresses, I have about a dozen catapults. To hold off the Byzantine rifles, I'm going to need a lot more. I expect the next Byzantine offensive will be at Irune, ignoring Palaven altogether. I'm planning on holding them off with maces and leftover pikes backed by catapults.

Since the last time I updated, I've finished Monarchy and LIterature. Monarchy to hook up the wines for happy; and it's along the Feudalism -> Guilds -> Banking line. Literature because I want to build the Heroic Epic as soon as possible while I still have access to Marble (Either in Irune or Rakhanna). Throwing up the National Epic in Kahje would also be nice.

With those two side projects taken care of, I'm resuming research on Paper. My tech goal at this point is Gunpowder for Musketeers which is not that far away thanks to my GS on hand to bulb Education. If I'm still alive at that point, I'll either head for Nationalism. I currently have a spy hunkered down in Jumping, waiting to get a full discount before stealing a tech. Right now, I'm leaning towards Feudalism for vassalage and longbows.

I had been planning on leveraging my three GP into a pair of golden ages, during which I would run CS + Pacifism and a shit ton of merchants. With 3-4 Trade Missions under my belt, I might be able to stay competitive a little longer. However, I doubt at this point I'll get 12 uninterrupted turns to do that. A real pity, I'd like to see what I can do. At this point, I'm torn between going for it and just forgetting it entirely in favor of MOAR UNITS NOW. In the case that I do not use my GP for that, I need to figure out when I want to hit my next GA. Now? When I'm building infrastructure? Or later, when I'm building units. Choices choices...

All rather academic though. Either way, I'm mostly irrelevant at this point in the game. Just doing everything I can to survive a little longer.

On a happier note, unless someone built Notre Dame last turn, I'm about to land it A bright spot in these dark times.

Fingers crossed.

End Turn.

[oledavy]

Threw a lot of text at you with the last update, so le's catch up on pictures:

[SIZE="7"]Turn 120[/SIZE]



Abroad, the Noble and Gaspar took the reborn city of Istanbul. Poor Yuri
Mistabod ran counterespionage on me, it sucks but meh, they're spending valuable commerce on me, so there's that.

My crop yield has been making an amazing recovery the last several turns:



Me and Mistabod's power levels have basically leveled out at this point, though Commodore and NoGas's continue to rise:



It's been a long time since I showed all my cities, so here they are, spoilered for length:

The Citadel

Thessia

Sur'Kesh

Palaven

Irune

Tuchanka

Dekunna

Kahje

Earth

Rakhanna

Virmire

After much debate, I decided to put the Heroic Epic in Rakhanna. It came down to three cities: The Citadel, Irune, and Rakhanna. Irune has the best hammer potential, but is on the front lines and likely to fall in the event of a determined offensive from the Byzantines. The Citadel is has hammer potential and is in a good location to get shuffle it's troops to the front lines quickly. However, with bureaucracy + HE, it would be hammer overkill. Rakhanna has excellent hammer potential, but has the misfortune of being far away from the front lines. However, since I'm most likely fated to be eventually consumed by one of the other civilizations in this game, I would rather my Heroic Epic be in as hard to reach a location (barring galleons) as possible, so it can keep pumping out units until the very end.

I also decided after some debate, to sit on my golden ages for now. In the event I do decide not to go for the Pacifism + CS madness, I'll want to spend them when I really need to get units out quickly, not when I'm leisurely building barracks and forges. For now, I'm continuing my infrastructure push.



I'm paying way more than I'd like to be paying for army upkeep:



But there's really not much to be done considering the circumstances.

Since Notre Dame was completing this turn, I made an offer to Commodore:



Now he can build Moai/Oxford.

I also made a trade offer to Yuri, now that he has lost his iron:



I'm not even sure if he an use it for anything, but I thought I would offer it. If he accepts, I expect NoGas will hate me forevermore, even if Yuri doesn't really need it. I don't really care though, they're spiteful jerks anyway and me being friendly with Commodore is apparently already reason enough for them to hate me.

Here's what my military looks like:



And here is what the opposition's looks like:



So, this turn I did a little maneuvering with my forces to get on better defensive footing. Mistabod are not going to be attacking me anything soon - both their border city's garrisons are decidedly defensive. So, I've moved my military to a central staging zone. I have enough pikes in Palaven in Irune to parry a thrust from the visible mounted forces in range, in each case, one more pike than they have attackers. I intend to keep it that way. So, it's basically impossible that either city will fall in such a fashion. Thessia and Tuchanka are defended by a Warrior and Archer respectively, but I'm not expecting any aggression from Commodore. Even if he does attack, it'll be with one-movers. I've positioned my primary stack in such a location where it can reach the outskirts of any of my four border cities ahead of any one-mover attacking force.



Right now, I can handle anything up to about a dozen units. More than that, and I'll have to give up ground - trade space for time (AKA Russian Defensive Method). I'm going to try to hold the Palaven salient for as long as possible. However, in the event my defenses are being overextended, I'll cut it loose and retreat to The Citadel - Irune line. Irune gets the overriding defensive priority, thus my stack's proximity to the city. Anyway, I'll be adding more forces to this stack soon, but hopefully for now it'll be enough to hold off anything Mistabod can throw at me. I'll say it again, having all those EPs on them helps a ton. I'm considering just not spending those EPs to steal a tech in fact. I did, however, lose investigate city on everything but Acceleration this turn thanks to their counterespionage mission. I'm holding my spy in Jumping for the time being.

Other than how miserably far behind I am on tech and the impending doom of an era of rifle drafting, things are looking up







End Turn.

[oledavy]

For the record, Noble and Gaspar are really starting to piss me off with the vassal state talk. AI diplo does not equate to NO diplo. And if they weren’t busy opportunistically razing Commodore’s marble city, they might have good relations with their neighbor too.

I mean, I really don’t know what they expect. I’m at war with my southern neighbor - the guys with Phracts, who are on the brink of rifles, AND are 10,000 beakers up on me - and they think I should me to NOT be friendly with Commodore? It benefits me none to antagonize him, we have a long border that’s impossible for me to defend. Furthermore, he’s been relatively friendly with me all game, giving me a favorable luxury trade, and offering me iron when mine was endangered. We’re both fighting the same guys right now, and those two expect us not to be on good terms? What the fuck are those two smoking?

I guess they want Commodore to attack me, which may happen soon enough. I think it would be a game losing move for Commodore however – depending on how much of a fight I am able to put up. It will do him no good to slog through my lands while NoGas are coasting to an easy victory gobbling up the Ottoman Empire.

Anyway, tired of those two’s whining, especially when they’re winning. I hope they lose.