AT loves it when a plan comes together!! [Spoilers]

[AutomatedTeller]

I'll do an update next turn with power ratings, etc. HOPEFULLY, Azza killed a lot of Cornflakes units with his huge cat stack.

Jowy has only 2 elephants now, so the lack of pikes is less important - he's concentrating on maces.

[MindyMcCready]

Any initial thoughts about stripping defenses down or not? I'm asking that question in and of itself but its also a question of "What if Jowy retreats his troops into Citadel". If Citadel still stands and Eden Prime's defenses are 0%, he should abandon the city and maybe cause us a longer campaign.

That's a reason to raze Citadel if we still have the opportunity. Jowy would be more inclined to make a stand in Eden Prime which would be good for us I think.

[AutomatedTeller]

I'll sim it out - bringing his defenses down will allow more catapults to survive the attack, which is good. also, maybe another turn to get reinforcements in for us. Course, it's another turn for him to get reinforcements in.

We pretty much have to raze citadel, i think - I hate it, but killing his primary unit source is too important. plus, maybe he'll suicide.

[MindyMcCready]

Actually I think that there's another reason to raze Citadel. If Citadel is razed and he abandons Eden prime then his last stand is Thessia, which isn't a really great hill to die on. So he'd likely stand his ground on Eden Prime which pretty much ends the war instead of dragging it out a bunch more turns.

[AutomatedTeller]

yes, i agree. I hate razing citadel (I feel like it's putting us behind Cornflakes, who I think managed to capture all of Azza's cities), but then, he attacked Azza early and crippled him. Also, I'm still worried about TT and I think that too many turns in Jowy's land will hurt us with him.

here's a question - assuming we manage to take Eden prime without destroying our army... do we still need to switch to heavy mil mode in the GA? We will have a lot of infra to build - courts, FP, Libs, Unis, several cities - would it make sense to consolidate for awhile?

I guess it partly depends on where we are in a few turns.

[MindyMcCready]

Post-Eden Prime.

If the Battle of Eden Prime goes well, I really want to sneak a settler in between the culture of Thessia and Ferros and plant a city NW of the Iron. That city site is going to be strategically important especially if we can also land Ferros. We now have a strait through all of those lakes.

TT would be in for an awful surprise down the road if we can pull these sites off.

Lots of forests to get up to speed in a hurry, iron, wines and rivers. Longbows on that hill and its our primary fortress site.

[MindyMcCready]

yes, i agree. I hate razing citadel (I feel like it's putting us behind Cornflakes, who I think managed to capture all of Azza's cities), but then, he attacked Azza early and crippled him. Also, I'm still worried about TT and I think that too many turns in Jowy's land will hurt us with him.

here's a question - assuming we manage to take Eden prime without destroying our army... do we still need to switch to heavy mil mode in the GA? We will have a lot of infra to build - courts, FP, Libs, Unis, several cities - would it make sense to consolidate for awhile?

I guess it partly depends on where we are in a few turns.

I think that we need to finish our land grab. Round out to a defensible spot.

Personally, i think that we save the GA for an emergency civic swap or when we're good and ready to truly enter builder mode.

It really depends on how we come out of this and if Jowy makes a stand in Eden Prime. If he makes a stand, a half dozen Knights and we'll have this wrapped up. But we'll need to hold our new land, which will require at least a 50% city effort on military.

I think the default would be that the mature cities support the infrastructure developments of the newer cities.

[AutomatedTeller]

It looks like TT pillaged the horses near Rannoch/ER, which, if true, is pretty petty and almost certainly means he's coming for us, so I'm going to make more knights, as they are good against muskets. Plus, of course, more catapults.



Jowy's moved his maces up, so Operation Raze Citadel is a go for next turn - knights are loaded and ready to go.

Slowly moving my forces up - I'll move more knights in.



We lose cornflakes' graphs, so I'm burning 20% on espionage, to get his and TT's.

We are still #2 in power, though closer to #1.

Cornflakes is scouting our western end - no big surprise there. I think there's a chance we end up in a 3 way war in 5-10 turns, which will, of course, kill us. 2metra got printing press, so I traded for it. cornflakes has banking, which sucks - I was hoping to go for it and economics and pick up the GM, but that's not going to happen, so I'm going to switch to constitution and hope to get rep. I offered a trade to TT for gunpowder - compass + incense for gunpowder, stone, sugar - we'll see what happens. I might offer fur, since we should, maybe, get furs from Jowy.



our offer to TT:



His counter



7 turns ago, he offered education and stone for compass and 300 gold, which I had to turn down, cause I needed guilds.

now, he's asking for more cash, an upgrade to a happy and marble - might be worth it - stone would make Moai go pretty fast. What do you think? I turned it down, but presumably if I reoffer, he'll take it.

Tech situation:

[AutomatedTeller]

Apparently, I don't understand about sightlines across water, as Jowy now has a mace and LB in noveria, and a mace, LB and archer in Citadel. I cannot imagine why that is except in reponse to a galley that can boat either city - a galley I thought he could not see and clearly can. So, that's a little frustrating. Of course, those are maces that aren't at the front, so that's a plus. I think I'll offload the knights so they can be used against eden prime...

[AutomatedTeller]

I moved in.

I think that this is going to end horribly - the raid is clearly blown in a way I don't understand. I think Jowy is gonna smash my stack. And, it really doesn't matter, because cornflakes has a huge freaking army and I think they are coming for us. He's begun scouting out defenses and we don't have enough to hold him off - maybe I should close borders, I dunno.

TT's power isn't really close to ours yet, which is the saving grace - we can't handle a 2 front war, so there's no way we can handle a 3 front one.