[SPOILERS] naufragar, Charriu, and Zalson's Threepenny Opera

[naufragar]

Opened the turn up to this from Rusten. Do you think he knows, guys?



Wait a minute. What's this?


Rusten, did you found yet another city on my continent? After naming your first city Pink RedDot? My money is on this being the wales city. Also note that Rusten is burning through his gold stash and is almost done with a tech. If this is any tech at all, it's bad. If it's Optics, it's terrible. If it's Feudalism, game's over before it's begun.

Here's the army.


We attack next turn. It would be nice if Rusten played early, so I could have the latter half. But life might intervene. My only hope is that he doesn't know exactly when the attack's coming, and he doesn't feel up for camping the timer next turn. One turn man. Just give me one turn. I've set research to Feudalism. I think this is right, although Optics might be better. I'll have a think. Great Scientist bulbed Machinery (thank you Great Library).

Power over last 50 turns.


So it's not like our growth is completely atypical.

Because the whole graph makes superdeath (and me) happy.



Again the MfG debacle.



Crop Yield is eh. But we have no more land to expand into peacefully.



Finally, last look at peacetime demos.



As I've said before, I'm shooting this shot once. If it fails, I fall back and find some other clever way to attack. It's very, very possible that city has multiple protective longbows on a hill with a wall. If there are longbows, we assume Rusten doesn't have Optics. If there are no longbows, but next turn Rusten revolts to vassalage, we assume he does have Optics and therefore a trireme blockade + seige won't work. I'm not sanguine about my chances.

I notice the lurker thread has been abuzz. I'm sure the conversation has been "Wow. That naufragar is a tactical genius." "Yes. And he sure knows how to pick the wars that make the most strategic sense for his empire."

Between the power spike and everything esle, this will be the least surprising surprise attack possible. The question is if Rusten has the defense on hand or if speed will prevail. (Protective/Spiritual Rusten.)

[Zalson]

You gotta shoot your shot.

I concur. The only response from the lurker thread can be recognition of your warmaking acumen.

In less sycophantic terms: He has spent 1800 (1900?) hammers on settlers. I know he's outpaced you much of the game but if he's #1 that's ... okay that means he can put out 1.5 settlers a turn and the games only gone on for 128 turns...

We could probably go back through careful C&D work to determine exactly what he has built but I think you're calling his bluff. At this point, you have to. Security is PARAMOUNT.

But you should expect him to have walls. He is protective after all.

[naufragar]

We could probably go back through careful C&D work to determine exactly what he has built but I think you're calling his bluff. At this point, you have to. Security is PARAMOUNT.

But you should expect him to have walls. He is protective after all.

I definitely think he's running thinner on military than we are. The trouble is he has his whole continent, so he can focus his troops on his western and eastern edges. Plus as Protective his hammers get multiplied by a ton. He'll have City Garrison 7 or whatever. He'll have walls. He's on a hill. Saving grace is that swords are great offensive units, but even that is tempered by archers having bonuses against them. I didn't mention this in the report, but if Jujyfruits is at the southern tip of our continent, he can reinforce RedDot without harassment unless we can units to the iron hill. I'll put the chariot there I think, but it could get dicey. Lastly, he has a couple of techs that give him outs. Machinery, Optics, and Feudalism all put us on an incredibly short clock.

I hope you're right about him bluffing. I hope, too, that he's counting on being able to reinforce and that our triremes can stymie that. Feels like the razor's edge. Exciting times!

Rusten is last to play this turn. If he plays this turn and immediately plays again, we're groovy. If not, we chew our fingernails down to our knuckles while we see if we can out wait him. Stupid clock games, but he's Spiritual and can swap to slavery whenever, so every half turn is crucial.

[Mardoc]

I concur. The only response from the lurker thread can be your warmaking acumen.

What, we're not allowed to indiscriminately root for blood?  We've got to actually have opinions on what's going to work?

If I wanted to come to more definite conclusions than 'ooh, let's see what happens!', I'd be a dedlurker!  

Good luck!
   

[Zalson]

I really missed the opportunity with this one. Sorry.

"Do not throw away your shot."

Which is what I should have said before. Hamilton reference FTW.

[naufragar]

Would be at work when the turn rolled, so...


Chariot scout discovered only the once archer, plus a nice surprise, so we moved the army up.


I think we found Jujyfruits. The marines on that galley reach Jujyfruits at the same time as the main army reaches RedDot. If Jujyfruits is defended by only an archer, that cat+sword pair should take it. I was delighted to see Jujyfruits on an island for a couple reasons. The city can't reinforce RedDot. It means at least one galley is likely out of position and can't ferry troops across the water. In fact, if we're lucky, that galley hasn't made it back home and can be intercepted by our triremes. I won't post the graph, but know that Rusten's power has been climbing to keep pace with ours. If it's not at RedDot, we still have to worry about it, potentially in a counter attack.

I declared war this turn instead of waiting until we crossed his borders for what was probably a stupid reason. I worried that because of caste he could be near the 100 culture mark with artists and pop borders quickly which would bump us back a turn. I didn't bring workers into the forest to road, because I didn't see the need. Perhaps this comes back to bite me.

Now to domestic news. I opened the turn up to this.


I accepted. We have more markets than forges. But I wondered, since when do we have gems?



      My MfG is already terrible, and now the game is weakening my mines?!?!?

Also, I hope I'm not actually building a harbor.    Every single turn, my game takes forever to load, finally loads and lets me handle pop up dialogues for city queues and tech, and then bumps me out of the pitboss. Then I log back in perfectly fine. It's an annoying 3 minute ritual, but since I haven't seen anyone else with the problem in civstats, I guess it's my setup.

Edit: Also switched from Feudalism to Optics.

[naufragar]

I really missed the opportunity with this one. Sorry.

"Do not throw away your shot."

Which is what I should have said before. Hamilton reference FTW.

Just like my country, I'm young, scrappy, and hungry.

Some of the songs (like this one) from the mix tape were great.

[Charriu]

I declared war this turn instead of waiting until we crossed his borders for what was probably a stupid reason. I worried that because of caste he could be near the 100 culture mark with artists and pop borders quickly which would bump us back a turn. I didn't bring workers into the forest to road, because I didn't see the need. Perhaps this comes back to bite me.

I don't think this was stupid. On the contrary this was good. This forces him into a turn split.

PB40 Spoiler

When I started my war against Coeurva back there. I did not force a turn split in a similar situation. This allowed Coeurva to log back into the game and whip something before the turn ended.

      My MfG is already terrible, and now the game is weakening my mines?!?!?

That's awesome. Yeah you lose 1 hammer, but you gain a lot of commerce and another happiness resource. Great. Just don't let Commodore know that you have found gems on his continent.

[Zalson]

Too bad there's no artillery yet, otherwise you could steal their cannons catapults.

[naufragar]

Great. Just don't let Commodore know that you have found gems on his continent.

Although, honestly, the guy has so much land already. How much can a civ player want?

Rusten is still in Caste system. He's cool headed enough not to let our little foray through off his entire empire's micro.


Rusten's galley was miles ahead of us, so no luck catching it. We'll see where reinforcements come from. If it's just the one archer when we attack, we can use the cats to bombard defenses instead of throwing them at the city. I'm hopeful that the position of Rusten's galley means that he's only dropped off one pair of units (settler + defender) at the Jujyfruits location. Nothing's changed. We continue, all the while wondering where Rusten's power is going to be directed, if it wasn't defending this spot.

The big world.


It's still far too early to discuss post-war plans, but this map hopefully is a thinking aid.