[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Fintourist]

No, no, no, don't get my wrong, we were definitely lucky reg both geopolitics and land quality etc. I won't ever deny it. In a 33 person game you need both to even reach a somewhat competitive position.

When we just consider our geopolitical luck in the very specific context of secondary land acquisitions targets in comparison to others who got that far (i.e. 2nd neighbor whose land you try to steal), I think Mardoc wasn't the jackpot

[von Adlercreutz]

How is the viking raid going? More loot?

[Fintourist]

Mostly just putting pressure, I think we'll raze one city again as an additional signal to pindi + krovice. Our morale is pretty high actually, our worker found a nice wounded stack of pindi and our interpretation is that good things have taken place..

OH, will probably do a nice report again and explain our thoughts/situation more thoroughly. Somehow my gchat and civ don't enjoy each other and my civ keeps crashing so I can't provide any pics yet.

[Old Harry]

Turn 171

The dtay/Pindi war weariness is 187, ours with Azza is only 155 and with dtay is 18. Over the last two turns 11 Great Generals have been generated . Webandit declared on Nakor, I'd guess that two of those GGs are in that battle, but the rest must be Pindi, TBS and Dazed (I think we have sight over all the cities they could spawn in for dtay, but I could be wrong). Fintourist realised that this stack means Pindi killed ~20 units last turn . We checked the demos from last turn and the top power lost about 250k.

How is the viking raid going? More loot?

Not a huge amount, we got about 12 gold from pillaging nets but I'm worried that with dtay getting Astronomy this turn, he might have some Frigates completing. I tried out the sabotage production formula.

Their EP: 436

Code:

City    Sabotage Building Cost    Investigate Cost    Hammers
Boyce    528    1029    91.7
Mayo    640    1039    110.1
Ryan    627    1018    110.0
Bell Preston    633    1029    109.9
Avondale    607    986    110.0
Tarkir    574    932    110.0
Regatha    567    921    110.0
Ravnica    574    932    110.0
Lorwyn    574    932    110.0
Mercadia    594    964    110.1
Muragana    600    975    109.9

And discovered that every city had 110 hammers invested . Then I looked again and realised that RBmod has taken out the Sabotage Production mission and that's probably what it costs to sabotage a granary .

Down south we have a choice of three cities to hit.


After a bit of thought we went for Muraganda.
- C3 Amphi Cuir vs Cav 65%... WIN! (3 hits)
- C2 Amphi Curi vs CG2 Oromo 68%... WIN! (4 hits)
- C2 Amphi Cuir vs Knight 89%... WIN! (3 hits)
We pillage 116 gold and burn the city, hopefully dtay will send a unit to kill the victorious Cuir, giving our boats another city to target...


Up north I chickened out and covered our Galleons with a Frigate. I want to preserve as many units as possible up here, because if we can get some commando units (133/180 for the next GG - about ten more battles needed) we'll need a lot to bust through the defences of one city. Mayo is the ideal target right now - from there three commandos could kill three more cities!


Zuchini is making 50 hammers a turn now, but it really needs Azza to die so it can be happy again.


We started Oxford with a bit of overflow . Switching a cottage to a citizen would give us a six turn build. Is that worth it?


This is how Spain looks now, Herbs and Orinoco are a bit slow to get going, but the rest is looking good.


Demos and power

[Fintourist]

The situation is very interesting at the moment. A LOT will depend on whether Krill+Novice are willing to make a move. I think we + pindi have now given them the opportunity to improve their position on their continent and do something about dtay. I doubt that they will get a better chance in this game, you don't get such open dogpile invitations in a no-diplo game too often.


1. Dtay has lost a significant part of his army, and has certainly still some troops in the pindi continent
2. Meanwhile we are forking ~15 cities and tying ~50-80 defenders in those coastal cities (numbers are very rough, if I have energy and time to log in I might do some actual counting)
--> I think Krovice has a real chance to move in with their cannons and cut dtay's main continent in half.

That would lead into situation where dtay can't afford to build a big enough navy and we can control the waters. This will give pindicator a real chance to take back the shrine city and maybe even force dtay out of his continent. If Krovice joins we obviously upgrade our tempo as well and actually move in and capture a part of former CH land. To be honest, I'm fairly confident that this dogpile would actually work and dtay would lose half of his cities in a controlled way without taking too many risks. Krovice would then be in position to take rest of dtay's core at latest when their land advantage off-sets dtay's current tech advantage.



If Krovice does not join in we probably keep dancing with dtay for a while and try to give pindicator some time to take the shrine back. As said before, our own position/land is good enough that we have a fair chance of winning against dtay if he does not succeed in further land acquisitions.

However, in the end it does not really do much good for us or dtay to fight 1 vs 1 (pindicator will become more and more backward in the future even if he gets some cities back) ---> so our fight with dtay will end. Assuming both sides evaluate the situation semi-rationally we start looking opportunities elsewhere while maintaining some sort of cold war with of course hurts us both and benefits BGN, but is still less costly than mutual suicide.



So those were my quick thoughts, haven't had time to really analyze all the angles, but there is definitely some room for

[Ituralde]

I'm looking forward to either outcome. it is!

[Grimace]

More money! More prizes! I love it!

[Fintourist]

Catch me in gchat!

[Old Harry]

Turn 172

Ruff would like our Marble. I said no. Dtay had a Cuir to flawlessly defeat our injured city-burning Cuir. Moving our Galleons forward reveals a size one city to kill (we got 9 gold). This time our Cuir will have a coinflip if dtay tries to kill it with his (although he gets some retreat odds ) and next turn we have a shot at burning Rath too.


At the Hindu holy city dtay must have used an artist bomb to prevent Pindi retaking it . He's heading towards Scientific Method, presumably he'll carry on to Physics for the G Sci and for Airships to fix the information disparity he faces against us.


We're debating how long to give Krovice before asking dtay for peace. Thing is, this looks like an offensive stack - if it were defensive it wouldn't be two tiles from the border where a stack of Cav could destroy it... So hurry up!


We whipped a few more Frigates and thought about running a citizen for three turns to make Oxford a 5-turn build. But we're going to be saving cash anyway after we get Mil Sci, so delaying it a turn doesn't hurt.


After I finished turn Fintourist noticed that Dreylin and BGN can both hit weakly-defended western cities. We just have to hope they don't want to get involved with us...

Demos and power

[Ceiliazul]

Citizen over grassland tpwn. Even if its for good reason, still yucky.