[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

10-4 = message received and understood?

I got nuthin'.

[williams482]

Turn 223:

Steel completes:



Our alliance with Kaiser has expired, as have some luxury trades. Bruins and Wild are definitely at risk, but we do have time, 13 and 15 turns respectively.



Ichabod has made no visible progress this turn, but Woden has conquered Ed Mercer:



Ichabod makes us a shockingly generous luxury offer:



We accept, obviously, and suddenly all our cities are back to either +1 or neutral amenities. It seems Ichabod needs our luxuries as much as we need his. Hopefully that dissuades him from attacking us immediately, but we are going to have to pick a side between him and Woden soon.

Suboptimal sent another diplo favor for diplo favor offer, which I accept, and follow by offering the cultural alliance I hope Suboptimal has been signaling interest in. If he accepts or not will make a major difference in how we approach the rest of this game.

So, what to do with Turing? The odds that I both can find and artefact and will find it sensible to construct an archeologist to dig one up in the near future are slim indeed, and Combustion is clearly the most valuable military tech I should be heading towards. What is the information that I would get it in 6 turns instead of 10 worth to me here? If I set it off and boosted Flight instead, would it be sensible to pursue that path for balloons instead of tanks? Balloons are definitely useful, with the three artillery corps we expect to have active a balloon will make it much easier for them to all hit the same thing. The problem is that an extra artillery shot on a high value target per turn is worth a lot less than an extra 16 city defense strength, so I think the wisest course of action is to chase Tanks regardless of if we can boost them. That favors having Turing chill for a bit, just in case Brazil doesn't try to kill us and we can afford to boost Combustion the hard way. Otherwise, I'd just set him off right before researching past the boost on combustion.

One other thing to keep in mind regarding unlocking tanks: they don't get a production card until Lightning Warfare at Ideology, which is a very long ways away. We can still build cavalry with the card once tanks are unlocked, but cuirassiers are definitely (slightly) better at being expendable swarm defenders because they are two points stronger. Blues, Blackhawks, Kings, Penguins, Bruins, and Wild will all be able to 3 turn cavalry/cuirassiers with Chivalry in place, with the real limiter being resources. In an ideal world, we kick out enough cuirassiers that we can upgrade most/all, then get a wave of additional cuirassiers to just shy of completion before completing Combustion and upgrading them in queue, same as we just did with artillery. That trick gets a lot harder when we don't know when we'll be finishing a tech, but we'll figure something out.

Civics research is going into Scorched Earth, which completes next turn. As nice as encampment buildings are these days, and as important as Fascism will be if we can get there, both are a long ways off and we need units now. We'll swap in chivalry and crank out however many units seem appropriate (so, lots). Blues starts a cavalry, mostly because we have a lot more horses than iron right now. Bruins starts an artillery corp, due in 7. Artillery at Penguins, Kings, and Red Wings are 2, 3, and 3 turns out respectively, which along with the cat upgrades should give us a decent looking milpower spike.

Our naval screen continues to find no evidence of an embarked Brazilian sneak attack force. We do find one cavalry, likely there to prevent Egyptian pillagers sneaking through the Venetian pass:



One rather embarrassing complication has emerged: our war reporters are no longer welcome in Kaiser's territory! I back the two cavalry off the front lines so they aren't in anyone's way, and offer Kaiser open borders. No idea if he'll accept, but in a worst case scenario we should be able to slip these units back through conquered Brazilian or Phoenician territory.

Our paltry, outdated army converges on Blackhawks:



On the bright side, the terrain here is decent for a fight. There's a river line to defend, with enough elevated tiles behind it (both the Theater Square and Commercial Hub are on hills) to get good firing solutions. Obviously things would be much improved with an encampment on the pinned tile, but at least Stars and it's lake are close enough that naval units and the city center will be able to fire on units that attempt major flanking maneuvers. I will definitely need more and better units to make a stand here winnable against Brazilian tanks and air support, but I can at least slow them down and hope to get lucky.

The Stars trade route to Ed Mercer was canceled once the city was captured, and the trader is now freed up. I make a somewhat hopeful choice and reassign the unit to Blues. If Suboptimal accepts our offer, that will be the city that will benefit the most from the GPP bonuses, and I'll want a trader from there to England as quickly as possible.

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Hm, Ichabod's hurting from war weariness, I think. Still, his best bet HAS to be to plow through us next, right? He can't take Woden in an open fight and he can't hold still or he'll slip further behind. He needs to expand and Canada's the only choice.

So for now I assume either

a)it's a bluff to get us to lower our guard
b)Ichabod is worried about attack from another direction (Woden or sub? Both possible) and doesn't want to open a new front.
c)Ichabod is dumb.

© is unlikely.

With the fall of his capital and the near-total destruction of his army, Kaiser has, what, 10 turns left? Woden should be able to take a city every other turn or so and he's got 5 in range, Ichabod can polish off the other 2. How does that stack up to my earlier prediction, I wonder? That should also mean we have enough time with Wild/BRuins to wait and see if we can get Woden with a cultural alliance. Woden probably doesn't want to attack us next - not because we'd be anything more than a speedbump but because it would thrust his neck between sub and Ichabod, both of whom actually match him in military power albeit not in advanced units.

[williams482]

Let's assume Suboptimal rejects our cultural alliance. We have three choices:

1) Immediately offer Woden a cultural alliance. This is a completely unambiguous statement (to all parties) that we want to be on his side, and that he should polish off Kaiser's cities as quickly as possible to make sure Suboptimal doesn't come away with any of ours. It also mandates continuing to run B&C projects in Wild and likely Bruins as well, hurting our ability to build military.

2) Immediately offer Kaiser a DoF, then cultural alliance. Follow that up by sending Woden cryptic trade messages: 1 favor and a culture luxury on each side, plus one gold for each city Kaiser has left. Send again each time the city count changes. This has the advantage of keeping Bruins safe and Wild safer in the short term, allowing more investment in military and fewer other accumulated yield penalties. The risk is that if conquest of Kaiser stalls out at the end, we wind up being crushed under phoenician loyalty for a while until Kaiser's demise frees up our cultural alliance slot. It also completely eliminates the possibility of making an opportunistic stab at Burke, and makes for a much more ambiguous statement about our medium-term intentions.

3) Send no alliance offers yet, send Woden countdown messages, and offer the alliance whenever Isaac falls. This is the lower risk version of option 2, but without the up front benefits of immediately reducing loyalty pressure.

I favor option 2, because I don't anticipate Kaiser's fall being delayed in any meaningful way (although Suboptimal could orchestrate such a situation via DoF blocking if he chose to do so) and there's no genuine chance we could capture Burke off Kaiser before someone else does anyway. That said, I don't love any of these options.

Regarding Ichabod's position, his military is very close to Woden's in strength, and the gap is going to be almost entirely naval units which Brazil couldn't give a damn about. Whatever disparity in production exists there likely isn't overwhelming, especially with units being so cheap right now. Technology and civic progress is effectively a draw. With all of the really good units in this era requiring oil, I believe that resource is likely to be the primary differentiator in how much death developed empires can throw at each other, and that's the one thing Kaiser's empire isn't going to provide to a conqueror in any volume.

Here's the breakdown of oil resources by civ:
- Canada: two sources connected (one of them double yield), one other source outside the borders and likely to be hooked up soon. Currently 9 per turn, peak at 12 (additional +3 with the Resource Management card, unlocked at Conservation)
- Egypt: one source connected at Gordon Malloy (although Kaiser can and should swap the tile to Klyden or Burke to delay it's capture). Maxed out at 3 per turn, +1 with Resource Management.
- England: five sources connected, one more aquatic source yet to hook up. Currently 15 per turn, peak at 18, +6 with Resource Management.
- Brazil: two sources connected, one aquatic source in borders, second aquatic source 4th ring of Rio De Janeiro and likely the next cultural expansion. Currently 6 per turn, peak at 12, +4 with Resource Management.
- Phoenicia: six sources hooked up, one more two tile buys away at Fez, two others that could be claimed with a settler. Currently 18 per turn, peak at 27, +9 from Resource Management.

So, uhh, yeah. Phoenicia has enough oil to soundly defeat anyone else on the map. England would be close if they'd managed to eat us, but they would still fall short of what Woden can pull in.

That makes Ichabod's predicament an interesting one, I think. He loses the short term military battle by a little, but he loses the medium term one by a lot, and likely the long term as well (when Aluminum and Uranium become the critical resources, and Woden's production advantage becomes more important for building monstrously expensive end game units like Giant Death Robots). He probably can't see most of Woden's territory, but if he's smart he's been tracking oil resources and should have a pretty good sense that Woden's oil income is bigger than his.

If he can maintain enforced peace between him and Woden for long enough to eat us, he should. Their alliance started on t211 will expire on t242. Ichabod moves first and thus gets the first strike in any conflict. If he attacks us on t227 when our alliance expires, that gives him 15 turns to take something significant from us and fortify his borders. That's enough time to make progress, but also a small enough window that if we can appear both strong and ready for an attack, that should be a relevant factor in his decision making up until that last turn.

What's the alternative for Brazil? Push hard against Egypt, take risks trying to steal an extra city or two that should probably go to Woden (special emphasis on whichever city has that Oil resource in it's borders). Then when the alliance expires, use that first strike for all it's worth and try to deliver a massive alpha strike. Much of the border between Phoenicia and Brazil is broken up with lakes and mountains, but there's a big, flat alleyway from Belem right into the heart of Punic industry:



Those are valuable cities, and valuable districts. If you're ever going to kill this Phoenician monstrosity, I think you have to hit it here, and if Ichabod expects Woden to turn on him (as I bet he does), he should be trying to strike first.

With all that said, gambling that we'll be an easy snack, or that we'll slow him down but Woden will rest on his laurels instead of going for the kill, might be the smartest choice for Ichabod. If he tries that, we'll be ready.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

For the record, Gondor and Rohan still annoy me.

Edoras and Minas Tirith were right there, man.

[williams482]

Turn 224:

Several important diplomatic questions to be resolved this turn. First off, Scorched Earth completes:



Suboptimal has rejected our cultural alliance. Kaiser wants a DoF, and someone else has an offer for us. I can see that Suboptimal has added two Great Works in Barry, and I suspect he's running a B&C project in Marina too. That cuts Wild's time to flip down to 8 turns, although the 20 loyalty from its' own B&C project completing will slow that further. I can get to the mystery offer without opening Kaiser's by going through each civ's diplomacy screen. Turns out it's this:



Uhh, yeah. No thanks bud. I'll give you one more chance at the clearly better Cultural Alliance after accepting Kaiser's DoF (to make very clear I have other options available). If that's still a no I'll get the Alliance with Kaiser, accept your economic alliance because the extra gold definitely is better than nothing, and start sending Woden countdown messages. If you want Wild, you take it from us the hard way.

Except, something much bigger has happened here, which I did not expect: Suboptimal has declared war on Ichabod! Our warrior in Brazil's backlines has seen no evidence of any English sneak attack force:



Nor are there any english units moving through our territory. This is baffling. What is Suboptimal trying to do here? One element does occur to me, which factored into my decision to declare on Kaiser despite being unable to deliver a first strike many months ago: A denouncement remains active for 30 turns, and prevents many useful diplomatic options such as declaring friendship, forming alliances, and opening borders. A declaration of war, however, resets that and only needs to be active for 10 turns. By declaring war here, Suboptimal might be trying to create a situation where the two of them can be allies in 11 turns, which otherwise wouldn't have been possible for an additional 15 or so. We'll see if Brazil has the same thought.

In the short term, at least, this is favorable to us. Ichabod has to be at least a little bit less likely to attack us now that England has declared on him. His progress into Egypt has also apparently slowed up a bit. He appears to be shelling Talla Keyall, taking the walls to ~50% and the city health to ~25%, but the mountains in the area make for an awkward approach, and our scouts can see no ground units in immediate striking range of that city or John Lamarr, with his army instead massed around Cassius. Woden, meanwhile, has already captured Klyden despite having made no visible progress against it last turn, and seems ready to pounce on Gordon Malloy (although Kaiser's city strike may be able to kill that injured tank army). 



His milpower has actually jumped 194 points this turn. Barring an extraordinary show of collaborative aggression between England, Brazil, and Canada, I see no way Woden does not win this game. The only point in our favor on that front is that we're locked in peace with us for another 24 turns, and the countdowns for him to go after England and Brazil are (somewhat) shorter. Long enough for us to get AA guns in play, hopefully.

Also relevant, Stars is totally capable of building an encampment. It's at pop 7 and has two districts. I would need to purchase the tile I'd place the encampment on for 160g (or 128 with the discount card), and the encampment itself would take 7 turns with the production card and the 16 overflow from the lighthouse, or 10 turns with neither. That encampment placement would be very helpful to stymie a technological peer opponent with a numerical edge, but with Ichabod possessing both unopposed air power and units stronger than our cities, peripheral defenses just aren't that useful right now.

With Suboptimal deciding to be stubborn, we make a rather minor policy swap, Veterancy out for Chivalry:



Civics research begins on Urbanization. Stars starts a cuirassier, due in 5. Blackhawks, Penguins, and possibly Capitals will start cuirassiers when their current builds complete next turn, and Red Wings will be available for similar projects the turn after. We have 61 iron now, and earn 4 per turn, so we can start three more cuirassiers next turn if so inclined, and a fourth in three turns. Capitals has slightly over half the production capacity of Red Wings, so we'll probably start the lower value cavalry unit in Capitals and save that 20 iron for Red Wings to use.

Blues does send a trade route to Foggy Dewhurst, worth 18.1g, 1 beaker, 1 clef, 1 faith. The Blues builder places a mine on the desert copper hill. I miscalculated the movement point requirements for the builder traveling from Stars to Blues, which will be forced to chop on t226 and t228, simultaneous with the other builder. I don't think that will be a problem. With Urbanization due to complete in 10 turns unboosted, I do still have the time to delay one of those sets of chops one turn. Losing 50 food to dumb overflow bullshit would be a disaster, so I think I will do just that. Meaning, I could have placed the Stars hockey rink this turn at no cost. Oops, but oh well.

One other item of note, Kaiser placed a mountain tunnel between Isaac and Wild. That makes trade routes flowing through there much more lucrative, and also has obvious strategic considerations for any battles waged over either city.

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

That tunnel would have been real scary about 150 turns ago, bud.

Serious question: is suboptimal actually trying to win this game? He's been sitting passively on his peninsula literally the entire game, and his entire efforts thus far have been bent on

a)acquiring a monstrous number of great works, which thus far have netted him
-not a single city flip, not even one held by the weakest civ in the game with only a single supporting city, surrounded by 4 of his own
-not even a chance at a cultural victory

and

b)building (still!) the largest military in the game, while signing alliances with all his neighbors, which thus far has netted him
- Geneva.

I'm utterly baffled trying to work out what his plans are. Does he want to flip Wild? Why did he refuse to settle Avalanche, or run B&C projects for so long, then? Does he want a cultural victory? What was his plan after the WC resolution, then - did he pivot to Plan B, did he give up, is he just going to assume the game isn't over in 30 turns? Did he intend to conquer Kaiser? Why did he scatter his army all around the border and half-heartedly shell Isaac then? Did he intend to use his military to conquer the backwards, military weak, and vulnerable neighbor on his border? Why did he keep signing alliances with us then?

So, I'm with you. Suboptimal, due largely to being left in peace on a fertile peninsula that he refuses, for some reason, to fully settle, has built up a decent civilization that he refuses to do anything with, and his window of opportunity is basically shut. He never had the science to build any sort of significant lead on any sort of important tech on Phoenicia, and now Woden is not only catching him up in science but will also be able to massively outproduce him.

Ichabod would need a miracle - Woden either opting to sit on his laurels and turtle, suffering some sort of catastrophic military blunder that leaves him open to Brazil and England (I have no idea what that can be, the Phoenician industrial heartland can whip up a brand new army group in about 3 turns), or deciding to quit Civ and live in a monastery in Tibet. Brazil is surrounded, would probably be able to conquer Canada but won't be able to do that before Carthage does far nastier things to him.

Kaiser is on the road to being the first (and thus far) only player eliminated, which is incredibly satisfying after his shenanigans back in the late summer and fall.

On the whole, I approve of pushing for tanks to get military strength into cities. After that, we must have AA to have any sort of chance of stalling Ichabod - look at how Woden's bombers are going through Egypt's more modern cities like a knife through butter.

[williams482]

Turn 225:

Suboptimal has not accepted our offer, which I can't claim is a huge surprise. Ichabod sure showed me, capturing Talla Keyali:



Goron Malloy still stands, but it's defending tank army is nowhere to be seen:



I expect it will fall next turn. I check on Suboptimal's counter offer, and it does surprise me:



I accept, of course. It seems he rejected the deal so he could look around, realized we had a point, and offered it back. This completely eliminates all loyalty pressure from not just English cities, but also English great works and england's Amani governor promotion. Bruins is now at +14.6 per turn, Wild all the way up to +37, with B&C completing next turn for a one time shot in the arm. Of course the UI displays these figures as negatives for some reason, but we know that's purely a display issue.

This is obviously a huge boon for us. Wild will be up to 95 loyalty next turn (so no yields malus) and immediately able to get to work on useful things. For this turn, because Wild's production doesn't matter, Bruins steals all three contested plains hill mines to get an extra 10h into it's artillery army. Penguins and Blackhawks begin cuirassiers, due in 2 and 3 turns respectively, Capitals begins a cavalry due in 6. It also allows us to free up our two +loyalty policy cards that we've been running nonstop for what feels like half the game now. I switch civics research to Natural history so we can do that next turn.

There is some extra movement from Brazil in the Venetian pass:



Probably nothing to worry about here, but I'll continue to keep my eye on things. Three turns left until Brazil can declare on us. Helpful to have two invisible privateers on hand. I also start the frigate fleet near Red Wings tracking back towards Stars, to be in position to provide fire support. The ironclad holds it's current position, watching out for any surprise embarked armies coming the other way. Ironclads are faster than frigates, don't have a ranged strike, and have less melee strength than a cuirassier corp, so not a unit likely to be useful on the western front any time soon.

Gossip screen reports that Phoenicia has traded with Brazil, and England traded with Egypt. What was exchanged, who knows.

Scores:

[williams482]

Turn 226:

Natural History completes:



As predicted, Gordon Malloy is now firmly in Punic hands:



At this rate, I'm not sure Kaiser will live to see t230. Ichabod has not made explicit progress, but has pushed his troops forward and taken a shot at John Lamarr:



I'm going to file this as "bad news." Ichabod clearly has a decision here: go after Bortus, which Woden is no doubt also racing for and won't be there for the taking for much longer, or go after John Lamarr, which is essentially backlines and can be taken almost at his leisure, with little competition from the Phoenicians. John Lamarr also leads straight into Canadian territory (although as discussed many moons ago, Bortus unlocks a straight shot at the Canadian capital). I fear Ichabod's choice to take the seemingly lower priority target first suggests he plans to continue his conquests right into Blackhawks, obviously not an ideal situation for us. Right now our alliance reads as having one turn remaining; our alliance with Suboptimal at one point read as having zero turns remaining, so I think the first turn Ichabod can attack us is t228. Still, preparing for the worst, an assault to open our next turn.

To my surprise, Suboptimal has left us several antiquity sites to plunder, including this one right next to Blackhawks:



An archeologist is a ten turn build. There's no way in hell we are bothering with that if Ichabod turns on us, but if we are misinterpreting his actions and can secure a DoF in the next few turns, I will pivot to that. The Archeologist is worth nine culture per turn (18 if we are lucky enough to theme ours, but don't bet on it), 548 beakers from the Combustion boost, and three era score, all told an acceptable return for 400h if we're locked at peace for a while.

Kings and Red Wings have completed artillery units, which both speed towards the front. Kings begins a cuirassier, due in 3, Red Wings a cavalry, due in 4. Bruins and Wild are both pulling in less loyalty than the displayed figures from lat turn suggested (+9.9 and +18.5 respectively), but both have safely cleared any yield malus thresholds and are operating at 100% capacity. While investigating this, I spot the reason for Kaiser's tunnel, and I'm suddenly very grateful that Suboptimal didn't force me to make a tough call taking an alliance from someone else:



Where Kaiser intends to send this lifeboat, I don't know. He could be intent on the Avalanche site in tandem with an English cultural alliance, perhaps, which won't work for several reasons he may not be aware of. Alternately, he may be intent on sailing aimlessly through the oceans until someone signs a peace deal with him. I don't know if owning a settler will keep him alive when his final city is taken, but I think we're about to find out.

The cavalry garrisons in both Wild and Bruins abandon their posts and dash towards the front lines, something greatly expedited by the railroad we've been slowly building in that direction. I am sorely tempted by the prospect of a two turn library in Wild (taking advantage of 20ish overflow), but I opt for the more immediately useful two turn cavalry, accelerated by the acquisition of those three mines from Bruins, which does have some lesser but still useful tiles to work instead. Our two war reporter cavalry sprint back to friendly lines, one of them merging with the former Bruins garrison. I make a policy swap: Limitanei and Praetorium out, Professional Army and Merchant Confederation in:



This plus depositing our 10 (!!!) unused envoys in Venice, the final city state on the map, bumps us to 71 gpt. Nice to have a whole government's worth of useful policies again! I immediately dump 945g into upgrading the catapult and catapult corp, then merge the upgraded single cat with another single artillery. I with I had another military engineer on hand, the road network behind Blackhawks is shoddy at best. Too late to help that now, unfortunately, as an extra cuirassier costs the same and will be more likely to save our necks right now. Civics research begins on Urbanization.

Okay, let's talk food chops. Blues needs 40.5 food to hit pop 12, plus 139.5 food to hit pop 13, plus 152.6 to hit pop 14, plus 165.9 to hit pop 15, a total of 498.5 food. We have four chops available, which at 43 techs completed are worth 119 food each, for a grand total of 476 food. Uhh, shit. That's 22.5 food we need to cover before we can chop. As currently configured, Blues will net 8 food this turn. Any chops will push us into a housing penalty, dramatically reducing food income. At maximum growth configuration, abandoning science specialists for a turn and shuffling tiles between cities with some loss in efficiency, we can net +17 food this turn, or +16 with less abandoned production. That means we need to wait two turns, then start our four turns of one chop per turn, ultimately reaching pop 15 on t231. That means we'll need to divert research into something else (almost certainly Conservation, 14t, which unlocks the Drill Manuals card and planting forests. Reformed Church, 3t, gets us the Wars of Religion policy card, but that's actually useless to us and any military rivals because we don't have a majority religion), but we'll still finish Urbanization faster than we would hard researching it. This is definitely a micro error on my part not making sure we had enough food in the box to start these chops when I'd planned to. Oh well. Alternately, I can accept the double chop turns and just kinda hope nothing dumb happens as a result. That could shave a turn off of the completion date. Decision for later, for now all these builders have to do is nothing.

I decide to let Ichabod know I'm ready to fight, but happy not to:



Let's hope that's how he interprets that. Or better yet, if he wasn't planning to turn on us, let's hope he's just really confused. The Brazilian units spotted last turn stay where they were:



I wonder what that Egyptian cavalry is doing. It apparently isn't pillaging, because the tile it's on hasn't been damaged. Just chilling out in enemy territory, awaiting the sweet release of death? Fair enough, I guess.

Our defensive positioning at Blackhawks is not exactly a source of personal pride, but it suffices. Next turn should be better, and if I get a second turn to position everyone I think they'll be as well set as possible considering the lack of roads.

Scores:

[williams482]

Turn 227:

Our Alliance with Brazil is still active, expiring in zero turns. Ichabod accepted our message from last turn, who knows if that means anything. The Brazilian military has made no visible progress against John Lamarr, but Punic troops have already seized Bortus:



If I felt I could spare the troops, I'd take a look around in there. Unfortunately getting units into defensive positions seems a much higher priority right now. Blues and Penguins have completed their builds and start on cavalry, burning through the last of our horse resources. Phoenicia is the first civilization in the game to start accumulating uranium:



There appears to be a display error with the production costs of armies and corps while this unit discount World Congress policy is active. Corps cost the same as two units by default, but can only be built with a Military Academy that gives a 25% discount to their production cost. For example, artillery cost 430h. An artillery corps would theoretically cost 430 * 2 = 860h, but in practice costs 860 * 0.75 = 645h. That is the cost currently displayed in Bruins, but based on the production times, it appears the actual price of the unit under this World Congress resolution is simply that value halved, 322h.

We are at or very near the point where our next turn of research will spill into the boostable part of Combustion, so It's time to let Alan Turing do his thing. We uncork the genius bottle, and receive:



Well, apparently I could have waited a turn on that one after all. Thanks a lot, game. Hope that doesn't come back to bite me. We also boost computers, which I guess is a little more useful than normal because our culture rate is lagging so much. If this were single player I'd be pushing hard for that tech to get flood barriers up in Stars to save our campus, but military needs trump all under these circumstances.

So, how can we get Tanks on the field as fast as possible? We already have two cuirassier corps, which will cost 305g each to upgrade with Professional Army in place. We have 480g in the bank, we're making 53 gpt (which will rise or fall depending on tile micro at Blues and Bruins especially), so we can reasonably upgrade both by t230 but have nothing left over, so we'll have to hard build the tanks. As discussed, there will be no production card that works on tanks for some time. Right now we have a cuirassier one turn from completion (with a bunch of wasted overflow) at Blackhawks, and two more two turns from completion in Stars and Kings. It seems to me the strongest play is to get those builds as close to completion as possible without actually completing them, such that they are upgraded in queue when we complete the tech on t229 and can be hard built the rest of the way as tanks. Kings and Stars both micro tiles (sacrificing science specialists as necessary) to get as much production into those prebuilds as possible this turn. If I had time to futz around for two turns until we got up to 15 iron stockpiled I'd start Bruins on a cuirassier corps prebuild, but I don't. We want those tanks upgraded yesterday. In order to preserve the tank prebuild, Blackhawks will put one turn of production into a Military Academy. I strongly considered a military engineer to improve our mobility on this front, but it would take three turns, much too long to wait for the tank to come out, and once that build finishes our existing engineer (now hurrying to the front, instead of leisurely placing sequential railroads) will likely have cleaned up the worst of the navigation hazards.

Here is my current defensive deployment:



Worth noting that the 2 and 3 promotion field canon corps are actually much better units than the artillery in these situations. When deployed on a district, they have 85 and 92 bombard strength, respectively, and both defend at 70 strength. The artillery corps have 90 bombard and 70 defense by default, but they also have -17 strength bombarding units. That can be reduced to -10 with a promotion (two of these corps have one pending, thank you Victor) but that still puts them at just 80 range strength. Plenty useful (and plenty scary looking) but of secondary importance to the field cannons. 

Bizarrely, I now have the ability to propose an emergency for Woden's capture of Bologna. I pass, obviously.



No movement from the Brazilian units near Venice. Our warrior meets an English submarine on what was once the Brazilian coast. Whatever they are up to, the crew isn't keen to share.

Scores: