It's Chevalier's Thread and He Can Do What He Wants To

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Note to self, I owe you guys update - 2 turns. 

Quick hits:

1)Archduke's fleet is gathered south of Moustakas, not taking the northern route to Cain. I am shifting my fleet accordingly. 
2)I bit the bullet and upgraded 80 gold into a swordsman. The sword will boost the defensive strength of my cities above that of galleys, and make it harder for Archduke to take any city with a quick raid.
3)I have a hefty amount of gold in reserve for archer upgrades, which will come on turn 95. 
4)Overall, military score has shifted to 2nd (from dead last 10 turns ago), to nearly 300 total points. Unfortunately, the Archduke has topped 500. :I 
5)No interesting economic news as all cities are building ships.

[Grotsnot]

How many turns until DoF expires? Any chance the captured Davis harbor will get a GA in time to be relevant?

Couple military design questions that are half-suggestion half-my-own-education :
* Is it worth getting catapults from the landlocked cities for coastal batteries? Since R&F nerfed basic ranged vs naval but buffed siege vs naval
* Are quads worthwhile at this stage or is Arabia taking a page from the EU4 handbook and going with Ottoderp Galley Spam clogging the Bosphorus?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

How many turns until DoF expires? Any chance the captured Davis harbor will get a GA in time to be relevant?

Couple military design questions that are half-suggestion half-my-own-education :
* Is it worth getting catapults from the landlocked cities for coastal batteries? Since R&F nerfed basic ranged vs naval but buffed siege vs naval
* Are quads worthwhile at this stage or is Arabia taking a page from the EU4 handbook and going with Ottoderp Galley Spam clogging the Bosphorus?

DoF should expire in the next 5 turns or so. Not sure of the exact date. But for once turn order favors me! After being last in every previous game, for once I'll get a chance to move first! But our GA won't be online for a long time - I need more harbors to get the points really ticking in. Emperor is gobbling them up, and Archduke has finished a couple Harbors of his own. 

1)Catapults...eh, I forgot how much ranged was nerfed vs. navies in R&F, so that's a thought. But apart from the Siege Tactics eureka it's a lot of wasted production. Probably not. Which would I rather have - a catapult, or another ship? Another ship, always!

2)Quads are deffo better than galleys. In a straight-up fight, the Quadrireme wins. In a fleet battle, Quads also ahve the advantage thanks to ranged strikes. The same holds true for Frigates vs. Caravels. We wanted ranged whenever we can, so I'm building quads out of all cities with the production to get them out in decent time. Galleys will be mainly support and final blow ships.

[Grotsnot]

Which would I rather have - a catapult, or another ship? Another ship, always!

Well yes but the question was specifically about landlocked cities Are catapults worth having around for attacking cities or are they too slow for MP? (either in general or in particular for water maps)

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Generally too slow, I think. Bombards with Obs. Balloons are scary in the right circumstances (look at Pin's and Alhambram's final pages of PBEM5), but probably not too useful in naval maps.

Full update tonight, but quick hits from this morning's turn:

1)Archduke seems to be backing off! His fleet has turned around and is sailing south, in the direction of Hattusa island. I am cautiously shadowing him, I want to conquer that city-state, not him!
2)My mil score has topped 300, with another round of ships finishing that should push things to about 500. Going to tentatively queue up infrastructure mode again.
3)Next priority is getting down campuses, holy sites, and monuments, maybe a couple of harbors. Also want to queue up builders for a Serfdom -> Limes chop ->???? play.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turns 92 - 96:

Busy week for me as the quarter comes to an end. I've been better about reporting, I think, but obviously my consistency has fallen a lot. It helps that I don't have any real plans or rapidly evolving situations, most turns are making a few perfunctory moves and punching the "end turn" button.

Well, it helps for reporting purposes, not so much for, y'know, winning. I should fix that. Right now my vague plan is "build lots of districts and Madrasas, get some kind of science advantage ???? and then win" which probably won't work. On the other hand, figuring out what WILL work is calling for far too much from my overtaxed brain at the moment. 

So let's dive in! I got a lotta screenshots to sort through. I'll skip the score ones, unless Banzai wants them to make a graph or something. Let's just focus on the highlights. Let's see...





Emperor comes proposing a trade. I naturally accept. Emperor is a natural ally against the Archduke, so I want him on good terms. His previous strike against the Dutch is the only reason this is still a competitive game, and while he's falling behind, there's still a slight window to make something happen with Quads and Galleys before they're obsolete. Increasingly, I'm leaning towards foregoing a renewed DoF with the Archduke and seeing if the English are interested in a joint war. If we can together bring down the Dutch - as we could have 30 turns ago, if only I hadn't signed a DoF - then the game is wide open for any power, even the Indonesians (who are slowly climbing back into relevance). 

Here's a look at Gordon:




Growth remains slow, but otherwise Gordon is blossoming into a decent city. I'll plant a Harbor here, and I've begun work on a monument. My culture is my weakest area relative to my neighbors (thanks to monasticism! Which strikes me as flavorfully wrong - I mean, medieval Europe had a vibrant, creative culture, and not much in the way of scientific progress - but whatever Firaxis didn't ask me to sit on their history board), but I have a lot of young cities to start pushing out monuments. Down the road Morales can add a theater square, but keeping up with the Dutch's river & GotOS-powered culture will be tough. Archduke is up to 30 clefs a turn. 

Turn 93 saw the height of the Dutch crisis:




Powerful Dutch naval forces gathered just off the coast of Moustakas and Cain! My strength 15 cities would quickly crumble in the face of a determined attack by most of the Dutch navy, and that would be a severe blow (it goes without saying, he said unnecessarily). Most of my navy was out of position near Davis, so I'm transferring it. In the future, I plan a more forward defense near the chokepoint near Cain, and will maintain strong active scouting - it's a long sail between the two fronts that border Archduke. Caravels can do it quickly and defend both points, but galleys need to be more creatively employed. 

Anyway, my navy wouldn't get there in time (the DoF is due any day now? I really should go and check), so I took another defensive measure:


 

Finished Iron Working this turn, and lots of gold in the bank. Which means...




First swordsman in the world! Interesting. This gets me more useless era score, and increases maintenance costs a bit, BUT more importantly, it raises the defense strength of all my cities from 15 to 25 - making any city a match for a galley. This is what caused me to abandon the planned assault on Johnny as hopeless, and while the Archduke could still press home his attack on my two southern cities, it will be a much bloodier affair - and he'll have my navy, Rowain, and Emperor all nearby to contend with. This being the 'Duke, he might still go through with it, but this was the best defensive measure I could think to take. Later, I'll transfer the Sword to Cain or Moustakas where it will bump defensive strength to 36, well above what any galley can threaten. 

Sure enough, on turn 94 the Archduke started to withdraw:




However, he wasn't pulling back west, towards his island, but rather going south, towards Hattusa:




Also has a warrior abroad on the island. I was worried taht this foreshadowed a strike on the city-state, and had my paltry navy shadowing south. I wasn't sure what I'd accomplish - snipe the city? It's not like I had the strength to stop him from taking the city if he wanted. 

Turn 95, Morales completes his slinger, and we FINALLY finish Archery:




With the war clouds receding, I'll hold off on upgrading for now. Save money, yeah? Now we take Horseback Riding and then Apprenticeship. 

In the southwest, I'll start to gather my navy at the end of Archduke's island. My thinking here is if he goes for Hattusa, then I'll declare war and go for Johnny to raze it, counting on my Sword and archers to defend Cain and Moose in the meantime. Then we can have a brawl in the straits, I might lose lots of ships, but so will he, and then Emperor can swoop in from the rear (and Rowain swoops in on my rear, but hell, one problem at a time). 




Meanwhile, over by Davis, off Perez Island, I maintain more active naval patrols. I held off on settling Perez for a while, since I couldn't defend it, but now I think I have the muscle to assert my claim to the island, and the present settler at Zobrist will head here next:




Perez will probably become the main operating base of my navy. I'll use it as a stepping stone to the northwestern island, with Mohenjo-Daro on it. I intend to add that to the Arabian empire next, since Hattusa island is so difficult ot access. Note that the Archduke also has very good access to Mohenjo Daro island, so it's not ideal, but hell, what are my better options? 

Which brings us to turn 96. Hattusa has 25 strength and no walls. By contrast, Mohenjo-Daro has 44 strength, with walls. Life just isn't fair sometimes. I'm not sure the Archduke is going through with it, but I'm posturing aggressively:




He has a lot of ships in the north, but so do I. I'm gathering them near Johnny, mostly as a bluff, but one aimed at pinning his navy down and defending my city-state. I want to conquer Hattusa myself!




I also fired off a DoF to Rowain, thinking I'd like to secure that flank, at least. Plus, Rowain might be worried about Archduke's lead, too, and freeing me to concentrate on that has to help him, right? My milpower is second in the world now, and if combined with the English outweighs the Dutch. They can't be excited about a potential war now, so hopefully I can force him to back off Hattusa for a bit, long enough for the city to get its own walls up. 

At home, I've bypassed Rios to found the distant Colon:




Looks like a much stronger site. Rios and Hosmer will be the two final cities on my island, plus Perez, which will give me ten total, I think. A good base for jumping into another island. 

Score and overview. We're back in infrastructure mode, with a good number of ships 1 turn from completion in case of emergency. We also have archer upgrades in our back pocket. We're going to get out some harbors, campuses, and monuments, and I also aim to swap back itno Colonization and churn out some more settlers from Zobrist at the first opportunity. 






Sorry about my overall poor reporting on this game, guys. I did a much better job in PBEM7 and 8, I'll try to get up to speed in this game, too.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 97

Trying to be better about timely reports. Most of the action remains shadowboxing with the Archduke over Hattusa. He's moved more of his fleet near the city:




However, note that Hattusa has stationed a heavy chariot within the city - I'm pretty sure the AI is programmed to do that when players move military units nearby. What this means, of course, is that the city has strength 38 and will deal 48 damage to the STR 25 galleys, taking only ~20 in return. Archduke will be able to position 3 galleys and some quads, but each galley will be wrecked by the first attack, and one attack will be negated entirely by city healing. Quads will deal only 15% damage, unable to outdamage the city without the galleys' assistance. I think the attempt would ruin most of the Dutch navy, and if it is made, I aim to move on Johnny and then go to liberate Hattusa afterwards (or take it for myself, more likely). It'd be an error on Archduke's part, if I'm reading the numbers right. 

Accordingly, most of my fleet is gathered:




Archduke needs a sword of his own to upgrade Johnny's defenses, and while I'd rather not fight, I'm ready to in order to keep him from regaining his lead. He has better research rates than me - science is even but culture is 50% in favor of the Dutch - but I'm steadily moving towards a science explosion soon. I'm also second in milpower, with some upgrades and nearly-completed units in reserve, I have the largest empire, and I'm continuing to expand. My main lagging area now is in districts, and those are starting to go down around the empire. 

Here's a look at research:




Rowain and I are tied for hte most techs finished, but Archduke is one tier ahead of us - probably Apprenticeship, bypassing something like Iron Working or Animal Husbandry, maybe. I am doing poorly on boosts, though - I need a water mill and ancient walls, then I need to upgrade my slingers. I can manage that within the next couple of turns, balancing my research in the meantime. Feudalism is a ways off.

I'm toying with the idea of planting a few more farms (I need - yikes - 4 more), grabbing Feudalism, and then building a bunch of chariots. I use my religious gold and some timely harvests to upgrade a Mamluk army, then I land on a neighboring continent. Rowain is close, but he gets +5 against me because he and I share a continent (because of course we do). On the gripping hand, he has a lower military score, few coastal cities, and I think his overall force mix is favorable to me - in the event of war he'd probably try to expand his navy, anticipating that as the main threat, and not my Mamluks. However, I'm more inclined to hit Archduke, because Archduke is a more proven builder and general, and I think the main threat. My navy seems strong enough to cover a landing, and his strength needs to watch the English, as well. Emperor is sure to pile in, given the chance, and my army would give me an edge in acquiring the main island possessions. I think that's perhaps my best bet to get ahead in this game.

Civics:




A tier ahead of me, probably Recorded History or Defensive Tactics. Boosts here are lining up - Theology is finishing, and I will soon chop out a Campus at Zobrist for the Recorded History boost. Nothing to be done about DT unless Archduke or Rowain or someone attacks me, but you can't control that. I'll finish it next, most like. After I grab this tier, it'll be time for Feudalism, I think, to boost Stirrups, then Mercenaries.




Escobar is a good candidate to keep building military, since it has few useful buildings at the moment. It can start a Madrasa next turn, though. With Pingala in place that will be quite powerful! Zobrist is going to chop that settler into a campus, then build a holy site, most like. Magnus will move on to another chopping city, and eventually Liang will settle her to pump builders. Gordon and Davis are working at getting trade up and running, though Davis does have a Campus placed. We'll finish that after the lighthouse, I think. Morales is pumping out a monument, then will work on its own campus. Later, it will add a theater square, then at size 7 a harbor. 




In the southern half, Moustakas has a ship near completion, but is working on a monument. Cain is working on a campus, my 5th placed. It also has a settler near completion, but I am holding off on finishing it until I have Colonization in place next turn. Then we'll settle Hosmer. 

Notice movement in the scores, as everyone is exploding in infrastructure right now. I need to work out my next set of Magnus plans to keep ahead of the curve! 

-----

Baseball update! 

The NLDS between the Brewers and Rockies showcased the power of the Brewers: a really solid bullpen and flashy defense.

 

In the 3-game series, Milwaukee thrashed the Rockies, holding Colorado to just 2 runs. Not 2 runs in a game, mind you. For the whole series. 2 runs. Yeah, you're not gonna win many games like that. This one nevertheless was the most exciting division series in my book, simply because most games in the sweep were fairly close. In other news, the Dodgers handily dispatched the Braves in 4 games, the Astros absolutely crushed the Indians in a series that never looked competitive (the Indians to my knowledge led for like, an inning in the entire 3-game sweep), and the Yankees were in turn crushed by the Red Sox, though at least New York took a single game from Boston. 

The Championship series has been more exciting, but I'll touch on that later. Basically it's the Astros vs. Red Sox, and the Dodgers vs. the Brewers. A repeat of the 2017 World Series (Astros over Dodgers in 7) is possible, but I'm rooting for the Sox and Brewers, personally.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Dodgers vs. Braves highlights:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Astros vs. Indians if for some reason you want to watch that. Important to note that these teams are the last two AL pennant winners since the Royals (2017 and 2016, respectively):

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

And finally the Sox vs. Yankee highlights. Game 4 is quite close!



These recaps aren't up to my standards of writing about the Royals, but a)I didn't watch every game myself, and I'm not about to put in the research time to find every twist, turn, and storyline like I did with my own beloved team, and b)I just want to chat baseball with other people who are interested.