Scene of the crime! (That's a lot of good financial coast).
Still in a saving gold/spend on upgrades cycle. GNP spike from someone. Best guess is that OH/Fin are starting to spend that pile of vaulted gold.
Recaptured, with some losses.
Still licking wounds, now featuring Curis. Oh well. On my side of the ditch you can see my Cossacks loitering.
And Cossacks growing.
T179
Too slow on the screenshot, but there was an alt+click vs. Nakor. OH was in game and got jealous and war dec'ced the lurker civ. After declaring, I moved my sentry chariot to the hill 1N of Ruff's Waltham, capturing two workers and seeking to discover Q's collateral stack. Bingo! This sets up nicely.
I hope that Q will burn his cats attacking my stack. The 10 cats won't do much direct damage attacking the 10 Cossacks and my 16 cats will hopefully soak up most of the collateral. I'm leaving a second, smaller stack of Cossacks on the spice tile so they will be full strength next turn after the cats are dead. Note that the cultural defense has reduced from 50% (walls) to 40% now that I have Rifling on the selected unit.
Elsewhere, I have units in position to strike Nakor. This seems like the right moment. He has wasted a number of units attacking (or defending, actually) wetbandit. He has teched to Cuirs, which is worse than if he just had knights, but he has low pop in several cities so whipping will be limited. I could wait a little longer for some Frigates to bombard down cultural defense in coastal cities, but I want to strike now.
That MFG lead is very strong. I like the caste/workshop economy in this mod quite a bit.
OH/Fin have started to spend (they're almost certainly the GNP leaders). Target unknown, tech visibility in a few turns. Krill/novice are on the road to Rifling.
Random screenshot, just checking to make sure he doesn't have any cities stashed away overseas.
As expected, Q attacked with his cats, achieving nothing, but granting me total flexibility with my second stack. I can now flank him through Ruff and not have to worry about whatever he can hit me with because I seriously doubt he has either another collateral stack or enough hitters outside of Adrianople to do my stack any serious harm. So the blitz is on.
There's some known tech bonus inflating my GNP here. At least 3 other civs know Chemistry already. The actual number may be higher, I can't recall now.
Lurkers, who wants more war?
I came up a unit short at 5647, but there are always more units and other cities. AND GIMMIE BACK MY WHALES!!!!! hammer
Is that all?
The city has existed 52 turns and surrenders 80g on capture. What's the mechanic that determines city capture amounts?
That's more like it. Gotta have my forge.
Will Nakor employ his workers in defense of his city at some point? Please settle the GS! Placing this stack here protects 5353 from whatever slow-moving stack he may have had here, but his main garrison is further west.
Doable and worth the cost if he doesn't reinforce too heavily.
The main stack, out of position. I want to kill the cats ASAP. The curis don't do more than tickle Cossacks head to head.
I lost a few high odds battles on this turn. The surviving musket beat a C3/amphibious Cossack. All in all, though, combat rolls were fine. I'll reinforce with Cossacks from the English island.
Bottom to top, Q cats me, I bombard his city and heal my units staring at the gate, then go to war on Nakor. Lastly, I pillaged his horse. I don't mind him building Cuirs over pikes, but I'd prefer to limit his counterattacking mobility while I'm tenuously holding onto cities with damaged attacking units. We'll see what he does.
(January 17th, 2015, 09:29)Mardoc Wrote: Wow, starting two wars in two turns. I can't decide if that's more Hubris or more Being Awesome . So what's the third war you start t181?
I didn't start a war this turn, but I thought about it.
Seriously, I considered declaring war on Ruff and killing his units that are scouting the newly uncultured midlands between former Q-land and Ruffmurrica. Two turns ago, Ruff closed borders with me. I guess he didn't like me scouting him. I'm not scouting him for information for an invasion, I was scouting him to make sure he wasn't going to make an attempt to counterattack me when my units are damaged and exposed due to the absence of any culture. But Ruff can't really know this. He just knows that he's probably next (he's not). And my track record with my neighbors isn't all that great these days. But the upshot of doing this is that I've shown aggression yet again and he has little reason to believe that I won't just throw my weight against him as soon as it's convenient. This isn't a bad read, so he's probably totally right to do as he has done. The last consideration is that I don't want him pillaging the cottages in neutral territory. I killed Q, I want the profit from all of those tiles. I'm probably going to pillage them myself and set them up as workshops, unless there is a pocket of mature cottages (villages and above). Other than that, it's time to look to the future and that means hammers.
So, Hubris? Possibly. One of these days one (or more) of the contenders will probably humble me so there's no need to worry there. Being Awesome? I haven't exactly screwed up so far, so there's that. But Being Awesome would mean winning, and that hasn't happened yet. I don't expect to win and I didn't expect to from the outset. But the way the game has progressed, I have a good chance. I've not had a lot of adversity to overcome, I've just played efficiently and avoided big mistakes. And, crucially for my success, and no offense intended to any of my neighbors, I haven't been swimming in the shark end of the pool over here. There are several players in this game who starting from my position with my set of neighbors would likely be doing just as well as I am now, if not better. I'll take some credit for playing well because this has been a try hard game for me but I won't say that I've done anything to celebrate quite yet. We have a long way to go to get to the end.
From the outset, who would have believed that we'd be thinking about actually getting to the end.
Since I've posted about recent events, I better get a report up. I haven't actually killed Q yet, but he's certainly in the soup now.
A militarized border. I wonder how long OH/Fin will plug away at dtay instead of looking westward at me? Maybe they'll stick with Krill, who has #1 power, and divide dtay. This is my hope, and that they then look at Dreylin (who can research Rifling very soon) as the next target for conquest. At this point in the game, I think that avoiding war with OH/Fin helps me more than it helps them so the longer this conflict is delayed the stronger I'll be. In theory.
There's the collateral stack that I need to kill. This is a different kind of war than in Q-land. These cities are all very tight and can reinforce each other whereas Q's are far-flung and out of reach for help. I have to be more careful with how I attack and defend over here. Killing this stack will help a lot. Will Nakor use them judiciously in a decisive battle? Spoiler alert:
I won't leave this stack sitting here to get collateraled. I thought I might be able to take it in an effort to get rid of all his cats in one go but in the end decided that sacrificing these 6 units to kill his cats wasn't a good enough deal. So I put them all back on the boat except for the guerillaI rifle and the c2/formation Cossack. If he wants the hill, he'll have to pay for it. Keeping this hill protects 5353 from counterattack by units in his capital. If he decides to take the hill anyway, the most likely scenario is that he then won't have enough units to capture 5353 anyway. So load up the boats and sail them west toward 4653, where his stack just left.
The idea is to take Pokemon and Psycho. Psycho is the more important target because eliminating that 60% culture will open up the rest of Q's territory to easy movement and a rapid conquest. Virtually all of his troops are holed up in Adrianople. Speaking of Adrianople, I'm not in any hurry there. Now that I've gotten behind his stack there is less need to take risks with my units.
T182
Lost one. Bah.
I love it when the forge survives conquest!
Goodbye GG medic LB thing.
The pike being out of the city made things easier. I guess that's worth the pike killing my scouting chariot earlier. I unloaded and mopped up the pike with a rifle.
Forges are invincible today!
Meanwhile in Q-land... he had a warrior and two scouts. Thanks for the xp!
Another forge!
Another warrior massacre. Q really had nothing outside his capital fortress.
I guess he hadn't built a forge here yet. The city is still pretty new since our last war where I razed his capital.
What remains out west. I actually made a slight tactical mistake dropping the Cossack on the plains rather than on the gems where it could attack either city. I expect that Q will whip either a pike or musket in both cities. Pikes are harder to kill in this situation (14.4 vs. 12.6) but I don't expect Q is paying close enough attention to that. He's probably just going to whip whichever costs more pop, so the musket. Fair enough.
The absence of a forward stack of knights is a good sign. I really don't intend on encroaching any closer to Krill just now. I may leave Ruff (mostly intact) as a buffer zone. He has a decent chunk of land, though, so I don't think leaving it all with him as buffer will be necessary. But one step at a time!
Meanwhile, Nakor has stuffed his collateral into his capital, so my plan to capture 5053 and then unload cossacks from galleys and directly attack the cat stack to (hopefully) flank away his cats is thwarted. But this also means that he won't counterattack my new acquisition at 4653. But he can now counterattack 5353, and in fact he did, with spectacularly bad results. I must not have taken a picture, but you can see that he has removed my guerilla1 rifle and c2/formation Cossack. It took him 5 cats and 4 cuirs to do it! Or maybe I'm confused now because I have a highlighted c2/formation Cossack, but I could have had more than one, and he has two damaged cuirs as surviving attackers so that must be right. Anyway, he's spending collateral and doesn't have enough to kill 5353. My Cossacks there have healed some. I expect that if he attacks with his catapults and throws EVERYTHING at me he can recapture 5353, but that would be a good result for me. If he moves his muskets or LBs it resets the fortification bonuses when he inevitably hunkers down in the capital again. I'm fine trading units. I can replace them. I just want to make sure I'm extracting maximum value in the fights I allow.
Commodore had asked for this previously. It isn't quite a flying camera shot, but it's....something (a mess). I'll get a better overview in a subsequent report.
Soldier count is holding steady. I'm going to try to hold off on more unit upgrades so I can build up cash and blitz toward a new tech. Path undecided, but Steel would put an end to Q's fortress city in a hurry.
More troops in the pipeline. And a million forges. I bet I've spent more time building those things than anything else in the entire game.
This is what remains of Q's military, which is nearly as much as he started with. I should have been faster about pillaging his iron, those pikes are going to be a nuisance. Maybe I'll let him keep building units until I get to SM and just build up a pile of airships. I can weaken his units and survive the exchange, but I'd need so many that this probably isn't viable. I could hit 10 LBs or pikes per turn and he'd still have enough defenders that I wouldn't reach them before they had a chance to heal the next turn.
(January 17th, 2015, 17:51)fluffyflyingpig Wrote: Multiple turns without new wars? You are slacking! Declare war on more people ASAP
Lurker scum.
Ruff was logged in for over an hour this turn. Usually he takes ten or 15 minutes. You may get your wish yet. I don't think he took that long to dot map the borderlands. I think I'll start loading up the southern galleons and maybe look at my options. Fighting him now is not my preference but preemptive war is a thing, right?
Or, I could be making this up just to keep your hopes up.
(That's a lot of good financial coast).
After declaring, I moved my sentry chariot to the hill 1N of Ruff's Waltham, capturing two workers and seeking to discover Q's collateral stack. Bingo! This sets up nicely.
All in all, though, combat rolls were fine. I'll reinforce with Cossacks from the English island.
But the upshot of doing this is that I've shown aggression yet again and he has little reason to believe that I won't just throw my weight against him as soon as it's convenient. This isn't a bad read, so he's probably totally right to do as he has done. The last consideration is that I don't want him pillaging the cottages in neutral territory. I killed Q, I want the profit from all of those tiles. I'm probably going to pillage them myself and set them up as workshops, unless there is a pocket of mature cottages (villages and above). Other than that, it's time to look to the future and that means hammers. 
