[SPOILERS] Rusten and Hitru laugh off any and all mistakes as bad RNG

[Rusten]

I see. In this case naufragar was the aggressor, but the roles have quickly been reversed.

If he won't pay then we follow the plan above and raid his coast and give blank peace when it suits us more. We can never trust him again this game, so slowing him down is required.

And he still had a chance to offer blank peace with no gold involved after seeing the galleon. He's brought this onto himself. Doing so after razing a city is too late.

[Rusten]

You may ask why we want to attack someone else when naufragar has clearly shown to be the enemy. The thing is that naufragar has one of the smallest and most compact empires of the people left in the game. He hasn't settled many cities in the later stages. It's harder to take advantage of our mobility against him than against BGN who has sprawled wide on to multiple landmasses. This is why it's so frustrating that he decided to attack us.

To eliminate or capture cities from naufragar there also needs to be a substantial ground force. When it comes to BGN we should be able to capture and hold island regions. For the short term we would be so much comfortable if naufragar was an ally rather than an enemy.

[Rusten]

Still just the 2 warriors in BGN's Moai.
It would've been razed last turn if not for the naufragar distraction -- hopefully BGN doesn't randomly complete a longbow end of turn. 2 turns away from attacking an island city of his, but if the Moai city is up for grabs we go in 1 turn early.

Doing a few extra turns of slavery+PS to whip infrastructure. Military from here on out will mainly be supported by workshops. We have a golden age in the works soon so we need the population points. During that GA we hope to complete 2 GS to bulb chemistry for frigates and privateers.

[Rusten]

The hammer will drop this turn. Todd Gurley still with only 2 warriors in garrison. The axe+xbow+sword is more than enough to more or less guarantee success.




The plan is to raze his Moai, and then capture (and keep) Deandre Baker in 2 turns. This will effectively cut off many of his island cities and we can easily claim the cities around sugar island without him being able to reinforce.








We also have 2 galleons (with only 4 units total though) to the west of naufragar who can possibly surprise some of BGN's westernmost cities. 

Definitely feels like the right move at this point. Easy gains for profit and it's pretty clear that BGN considers us a natural enemy. He's trading with everyone else except Gav (but he has GLH) and always rejected our OB treaties. Better to cut him down now than dealing with circumnavigation from a significant power later. At this point in time we are strong enough to take on 2 civs. The next stage is trying to make sure we can get to frigates (chemistry) before they have a chance to build (many) galleons. If naufragar refuses blank peace in a few turns then it's crucial to keep control of the seas.

[Rusten]

The attack on BGN shouldn't need much explanation. The intelligence we do have leads to distrust over trust and he's a natural target geography-wise. Having to constantly worry about 5-moving galleons on a border such as ours would be a nightmare and if we take him out we control the area top-down. We are at our strongest compared to him right now and he had the potential to grow into a major power so it seemed the right moment to strike. Should be able to capture multiple cities and eventually the shrine with an added military tech or two.

As for naufragar, we are prepared to sign a peace treaty in a few turns, but we don't expect the reason for the conflict to have gone away, so he'll be considered an enemy. If the reason for the conflict is the settling of RedDot, then all I have to say is that you should've settled it sooner. If you care enough about a city/area to go to war for it then you should be able to settle it before turn 115, especially when said city is only 9 (!!) tiles away from your neighbour's capital city. It's an island map. People are going to cross the pond. I refuse to accept that settling this city at that point in time was overly aggressive or an act of war by us.

[Mardoc]

The attack on BGN shouldn't need much explanation.

I'm clear on 'why', less clear on what. Part of that is just geography, I don't have a clear picture of what you mean by "the cities around sugar island".

Also don't have a clear picture what you have in terms of navy and marines.

[Rusten]

The "freebies" are the culture spots north of the sugar colony in the image above. He'll not be able to reinforce them.

Right now I think we have 9 galleons, 20+ swords and some xbows, with the numbers still increasing. I can check the exact number next time I log in. Our success relies on the hypothesis that BGN can't keep up with our movement. He's got longbows, but even if he's protective we should be able to crush through his minor cities without many losses thanks to 50% withdrawal chance. Longbows are one of the more advanced units our swords don't mind too much. We have effectively 5 movement if you count the disembark and he'll only have 1 turn to reinfroce. And we can go from island to island.

Heads up that I'll be travelling abroad on Monday so updates won't be frequent in the near future. I may need Hitru to play some turns too, but I hope to settle in quickly enough to play the turns in time.

[Rusten]

Forgot to take note of # of units.

BGN just played a 14 minute turn and only whipped twice so he looks pretty uninterested. Probably gave up on the game. Don't expect to capture his entire core with just galleons and swords, but we'll pick it up later. Captured 'Damn Good Dawg' last turn and decided to keep it despite it being on his starting island. The fish, the city tile and the gems are all in neutral territory so it won't be swamped and it kept a granary, lighthouse and forge. Deandre will fall this turn. As you can see the combat odds are acceptable even against a CG2 longbow. We'll have feudalism soon and then we can add CR to the promotion list right out of the gate too.




Razed the Moai a couple of turns back for ~200g. No casualties. If I find the time tonight I can put some extra effort into a final post post before I leave.

Overall fairly optimistic, but we'd be happier if we were at peace with naufragar* and could hit Commodore before he has a chance to fully rebuild. As it stands that seems very difficult. A 3rd war is too much. In an ideal world someone like Cairo or Gavagai attack Commodore.

*with him never having attacked that is. A peace right now is nothing but a 10-turn guarantee.

[Rusten]

Too lazy and tired to make a thorough post, sorry. One part of it is me being very busy IRL right now, but as the game goes longer more time is spent playing the turns which means less time available for reporting. You're all going to have to rely on Commodore I guess, because this may be my last post for a while.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. We weren't happy with naufragar attacking us obviously, but the decision to stick to our plan and raid BGN (while more or less ignoring naufragar) looks like an inspired decision so far. I'm not sure if BGN was already checked out of the game or if he was blinded by us being at war already and having a city razed, but either way the results have been great. Big city raze (his Moai) with 2 city captures already and more to follow. Next to no casualties so far. In part due to good combat rolls, but also thanks to the Celtic UB.

In short, naufragar has a bunch of units over a small area while BGN has few units over a large area. Looking at naufragar's land there are very few cities we could expect to take, let alone keep. OTOH we successfully took Deandre from BGN this turn and we still have some defenseless BGN cities remaining, such as this one below (right) and probably the one in the fog as well. If we were to attack naufragar we'd just hit a brick wall of xbows. The plan is to take at least these 2 cities over the next few turns. What happens after we'll see, but a GA is due in ~8 turns to take us towards chemistry, banking and guilds. Banking in particular will feel real good here with what's going to be 25+ cities.




Got tech visiblity on naufragar and he's teching engineering, which suggest purely defensive intentions. Can't remember seeing any harbors on the map which he'd certainly build with EXP (need to double-check this), so he's likely missing both compass+optics. Shouldn't have to worry about astronomy from him any time soon. He may be more keen to sign peace at this point than expected. 160 turns for engineering with 80-something gpt is not very speedy. Not entirely sure if we are mortal enemies or not (probably), but either way he can't hurt us that much without a good navy. We did raze a city of his from sea, but he was the initial aggressor after all, maybe he'll forgive -- hard to say. We'll probably offer peace in 2 turns and see what happens.

Started settling some filler cities near our soon-to-be Forbidden Palace city (The Switch). Clam+horse was just planted and the fish+iron will be up in ~4-5 turns. Once we switch back to caste+rep and get the FP rolling our economy should be back in good shape. Tech is fairly stagnant right now, but we are set up for bursts this middle game so it doesn't worry/bother me much.




ThePuffyShirt has been running 2 scientists religiously during everything and never been whipped. When we adopt caste in ~4 turns we'll starve it for the remaining GPP and launch our golden age. TheDoubleDip and WorldsCollide will be getting the 2 Gscientists for chemistry during the GA.

[Rusten]

I wasn't planning on updating, but we captured a real gem this turn. Kept a forge+LH too.




Combat was outsourced to Hitru, and me being less around should not be harmful as he did it losing only 1 swordsman (against 2 longbows, axeman and spear). Much of it was luck, but this is also where G3 shines, scenarios with limited combat without siege. We're jumping around to capture whatever is weakest and having retreat odds to retain units is simply fantastic.