[SPOILERS - El Grillo PB54] Staying home and stargazing

[El Grillo]

We got EP research visibility on Miguelito and they're showing 2t to Literature, while we completed the tech with overflow to finish Music at EoT. Small comfort considering Elkad lost his capital (his new capital is Uxmal the island city). Superdeath sent a message implying war with Mjmd, and I duly responded, but we have 6t of enforced peace and in any case this game has shown again and again how unreliable these signals are.

I suppose I should show a screenshot or demos at some point but suffice to say we're solidly 3rd-4th with no real plan to catch up. All the relevant events in this game are going on in Miguelito's thread

[El Grillo]

The Music Artist is ours, and after some thought, I think the plan is to play safe and tech Engineering first for road movement to give our units the flexibility to actually threaten an attack on Mjmd while having the option to withdraw and defend against superdeath. For one, we don't have enough gold to make the run all the way to Nationalism, and I still bear Mjmd a grudge from earlier for his attack which effectively cost me any chance I might've had to win the game (my fault, of course, for not scouting and then mishandling it). I said earlier I was willing to give him a blank slate if he attacked Miguelito, but he passed on that opportunity when given the chance, so...

Also, if I'm supposed to be entertaining the possibility of interacting with Miguelito somehow, the closest route is to attack ex-Elkad through Mjmd.

[El Grillo]

Cairo opted to invade naufragar instead of defend the mainland, and then lost two of his core cities the following turn. I bet Miguelito's war plans didn't account for that! Poor naufragar just can't catch a break this game... This probably means Miguelito gets to seize his continent ahead of schedule and then gets a window to attack vanrober and put the game away.

[El Grillo]

Turning on tech for Philosophy-Nationalism, GP born in 2 turns, with about 20% odds for an Engineer. If I do roll one I think I might take the longer route through Liberalism, but more likely we just throw the 2-man GA and build it manually in the capital, then swap to Caste and try to generate some Scientists for Liberalism-route bulbs. I haven't planned this out to any degree of precision, unfortunately.

[El Grillo]

GM born, GA launched. The foodhammer deficit compared to Byzantium is disgusting, but it is what it is. Philosophy @EOT and then 5 turns to Nationalism, and war with Mjmd. I gave up exchanging diplo signals with him and superdeath, so maybe this will go sideways, but I have some nice espionage visibility on Mjmd in the inner sea and better units with my UU and Machinery-tier support units, especially with him needing to defend two fronts. It's about time I actually tried to make a proactive move this game

[El Grillo]

Question for lurkers:

It is currently T160. I was planning to declare war on Mjmd in the first half of this turn, and played T159 and T158 before him, though he played T157 and T156 before me, and there was no communication about a turn-split existing. Mjmd now played T160 before me by being the last to play T159 and playing the rolled turn.

Can I declare war this turn, or do I need to wait until T161 and play second?

[NobleHelium]

You can always declare war in the second half.

[El Grillo]

I see, thanks for the quick reply.

[El Grillo]

I decided to play right away despite it being past midnight, so here's a brief battlefield report. What's an economy anyway?



At start of turn, my main stack and superdeath's. We've been friendly all game and exchanging signals, but that might mean nothing, but we have to risk it. This really depends on how he acts, so I hope he thinks it'll be more fun to attack Mjmd with me and hopefully divide him to our mutual benefit than it would be to stab me and make no progress and make it even more clear that Miguelito will win.



We razed his lightly defended border city at the cost of a Catapult at 75%, the Crossbows all had 99+%. Moved in a Sentry Chariot to see what he has in response:



Plus, thanks to espionage city visibility:




So in 2 turns he'll have at least:

6 WEs
1 Crossbow
2 Spears
8 Catapults
7 HAs, if he commits them up here
~some number of garrison Archers
~ +3 WEs
~ +3 Catapults
from whipping the local cities

Based on his power rating, I expect he's split his WEs/Catapults roughly in half across his two borders with the HAs in reserve. If superdeath really does commit alongside me here, we should be able to make substantial gains, and his two one-mover stacks will be too far from each other to join up unless he completely abandons one front in favor of the other.

We'll have:

16 BEs
1 Mace
6 Crossbows
6 Longbows, including a dubiously promoted Guerilla 3 GG
2 HAs
10 Catapults

I haven't run any sims yet, but I have faint hope that the weight of numbers, the BE-vs-WE advantage, and my superior promos should allow me to march up via hills and be okay until he collects more hitters. No matter how this goes, it'll be a learning experience, unless superdeath declares war on me in which case I just turtle back my stack before Mjmd can hit it, and offer peace to Mjmd and a concession to Miguelito

[El Grillo]

I had been thinking for the past few days that I'd be going to war first in turn order, and played my first war turn going second after midnight, so I got confused. I was more confused when I saw that Mjmd hadn't moved any of his units, and then I realized my error and logged out. I hadn't made any moves yet, so I don't believe he'll be adversely impacted this turn.