[SPOILERS] Serdoa, Ichabod and Ex-Girlfriends - co-starring NH,Bigger and Lewwyn

[NobleHelium]

The high water mark of our capital, as we research Astronomy and obsolete the Colossus this turn:




And yes, we did in fact build a cathedral for happiness. And the monk bonuses of course. It also bloats our GNP by a solid 21 points.

[NobleHelium]

I swapped Fernanda over to another missionary for Jenne, and moved Beta northward accordingly. I'm not sure we need a market there near term - we'll lose the draft unhappy before we hit the cap. I'd rather build a bank which is more gold per hammer or a university.

Also swapped Kristen back to the coast over the mine, figured we'd work it for one more turn while we still have the Colossus bonus.

[Serdoa]

Set a few new builds, feel free to veto them Noble. For Iris I did queue an Observatory before Bank and Uni as it will finish in 1 turn and give an immediate benefit.

I've also set research to Mil.Trad. I think the calculation for upgrade-costs is difference in hammers x 3 + 20. That would be 110 gold per Knight that we upgrade to a Cavalry. We could upgrade all 15 Knights we still have left (1540 gold, general for free). That's again quite expensive but we have to wait 10 more turns till we have 20 rifles in place. That way we could research 2 turns and save 1 or 2 turns gold and should be good to go.

Obviously the issue is that we could as well wait those 5 more turns. I'm just not sure if those 20 rifles will be enough, we will have to wade through many, many units and I think we probably need those Cavalry in any case. But I haven't ended turn so we can discuss this tomorrow maybe?

Lastly, one galley unmoved. I saw no place it is immediately needed but maybe you had something in mind already? If not we could upgrade it to a Galleon, load 2-3 rifles and just move to BaIIs back-cities and take / raze them (we should reach them around the time we attack his capital if we go with the upgrade plan, so either he'll split forces of to retake the cities if we keep them or he'll have all forces in the capital and nothing in the backlines. Either way, its probably the quickest way to finish this war as we most likely won't have to wait for the capital-battle and subsequent healing plus moving through enemy culture to end it.

[NobleHelium]

Observatory is definitely good because I think we should do a missionary afterwards, MilTrad and upgrading to cavalry is fine too. Upgrade cost is 3h + 25 gold though, not 20. If we were waiting 10 more turns we probably should have asked for a peace treaty earlier to see if he'd take it. Anyway I'm fine with the upgrades, this war is definitely getting shitty. Just make sure to get 1 more experience with the GG so we can build West Point.

About the galley (Gamma), I was planning to park him for a turn 3NW to pick up the Martina settler. The settler can take the spot east of Lisa on the island and we can see what's on the island to the northeast. I'm guessing WK doesn't actually have a galley route to the island which is why it hasn't been settled yet, so since he just got Astronomy we could potentially nab it quickly. We can pick up a rifle with the settler of course or walk the Lisa rifle there. I think we can walk the Lisa rifle there and then come back with Gamma to pick up another rifle or maybe even two to land on the further island to stake a claim.

As for getting a galleon down there to shuttle rifles, that's a good idea too. But we can use the new galleon out of Sabine for that, right after it takes out the pesky trireme on its way south. We need at least three turns to tech MilTrad and upgrade anyway.

[NobleHelium]

Hey, there's an island almost due west from Steffi. We should check that out ASAP, using the galleon from Isabella I think. Commodore map usually means post-Astronomy goodies...

[Serdoa]

K, we'll do that scouting due west from Steffi.

And yes, we should have offered peace again probably, but I honestly didn't expect him to have that many units when I started the war. Nor that he would let us raze one of his core cities despite being easily able to defend it. That was just weird. He also could have killed our exposed Knights, didn't do it either. I'm really not sure why he let us do that.

[NobleHelium]

Thinking about it further, we should actually ship a rifle with the settler. That way we don't have to go back to the mainland and can explore with the Lisa rifle instead. The galley needs to move south to pick up the worker, so there's no time to return to the mainland.

[NobleHelium]

Hmmm, BaII moved all his units out of his capital again. Still no Engineering. Also moved in several workers. I almost feel like we should attack with two galleons (we can attack from the fog) and then run the knights up. Still several turns before we can get two down there though, and a rifle won't get odds on the top longbow even without the amphibious penalty, so using only one galleon is out.

[Serdoa]

Lets first see what we need to do to stay secure. As you said we need several turns to get the Galleons down there (we could upgrade the one near the NE-isle that we recently settled and that is on settler-duty right now). In general though I wouldn't mind sending Galleon-strikes to take out the city. Especially as we could move deep into his territory when his culture is gone.

[Serdoa]

Looking at the situation right now, I'd suggest we move the rifles from the city onto the stack. Leave one and the scout in the city just to be certain that he won't snipe it with a chariot.




edit: Ok, forget that. I checked and he has Guilds now. I assume he is building some right now. That probably means some more turns no Engineering, but it also means he can snipe from out of the fog. Therefore I moved the chariot on the plains hill to check the fogged grassland one. Nothing there.

Further thinking then told me that he needs Iron for that and he doesn't get it supplied from anywhere, so it if isn't in the 4 fogged tiles in his cap he doesn't have any. Ok. Shall we move a Knight onto the Chariot for more security if he does get Engineering this turn?

Also thinking about it, he most likely moved his stack back south to bait us into attacking his capital. Similar to what he tried at Rageinald. I can only assume that he gets Engineering this or next turn, so that he can if we move closer attack us.