[PB58] Tarkeel and Amicalola's rule through fear

[pindicator]

Endor was a case that really proved the worth of Vodka.

I feel like this is QotM material

[Tarkeel]

Turn 193 (1330 AD)
AT is going down fighting; he birthed a great artist and triggered a two-person golden age.

AT's inner sea navy has moved up and is threatening  Kuat, Tatooine and Nal Hutta. We think that galleon is empty, but it's not a risk worth taking so we have to cover the cities. Corulag was due adraft anyways, so that is sent to cover Kuat (along with a passing cav), while the archer and warrior from Kuat can stop Tatooine from being a free kill. Nal Hutta finishes a cav next turn, and will also get cover from a passing cav from Fondor.



In the west, Redcloak is reinforced enough that we don't try to take it. The advance stack is instead sent to pillage the riverbend (and the hill it was on), making the garrison at Vaarsuvius unable to strike at the Nale besiegers at Nale. It also places a nice on fork those two cities, but there is some risk that the garrison will try to hit the pillaging party.


There's not much room to maneuver in the east right now, so we just trundle up to Durkon. We might be able to do something interesting next turn, but most likely it's another turn before we can assault.

Losing the Colossus at Astronomy has predictably hurt our economy, but was necessary to get out a navy. The plan was to get Steel for cannons next, but we expect cannons to arrive on the battlefield just as they're no longer needed, and we also need to build a navy, so we're going for Democracy and a certain green lady instead. We're at about 50% breakeven right now. Here's an updated look on our Empire and city list:

[Tarkeel]

Turn 194 (1340 AD)
It seems like AT managed a morning turn so we're getting a second turn in today. He went on one of the bigger whipping sprees in the war, but didn't do much else. The inner sea frigate bombarded Naboo, and the other pillaged Mon Calamari's clams. This meant the situation in the western theatre was much the same as before, but an extra musket had appeared in Nale.

The Battle of Nale
Catapult vs CG1 Musket, 2.2%: loss
B1 Catapult vs CG1 Musket (8.4), 3.2%: loss
C1 Shock Cuirassier vs Musket, 87.8% + 1.8%: Win!
C1 Shock Cuirassier vs CG1 Musket (7.2), 88.4% + 1.7%: Win!
C2 Shock Cuirassier vs Longbow, 96.5% + 0.5%: Win!
C1 Shock Cuirassier vs CG1 Musket (5.9), 98.7% + 0.2%: Win!
C1 Pinch Cavalry vs C2 Praetorian (7.3), 96.3% + 1.1%: Win!
C1 Pinch Cuirassier vs C1 Praetorian (7.4), 88.9% + 1.7%: Win!
C2 Cuirassier vs C1 Praetorian (7.4), 95.3% + 0.7%: Win!
C2 Cavalry vs C1 Mace (7.3), 99.1% + 0.3%:
C2 Cuirassier vs C2 Praetorian (6.6), 95.7% + 0.6%: Win!
C1 Pinch Cavalry vs C1 Praetorian (6.6), 99.1% + 0.3%: Win!
C1 Pinch Cavalry vs Musket (7.7), >99.9%: Win!
We recapture Nale, this time with only 5 gold and no buildings. Unfortunately all three of our stacks are captured by culture shadows, limiting their reserve movement.



Not much happened in the east, just moving up forces and will probably strike next turn.

[Amicalola]

This feels like a good time to look at graphs, since you can see the effects of our recent decisions clearly. We'll start with the power graph.


We've drafted 2-3 cities pretty much every turn since that spike started. It's just under 40 units drafted across 15 turns. Happiness issues mean we'll probably turn the brakes on for a while (5-ish turns?), but as you can see, the results are pretty impressive; our power has doubled since the build-up started.  The majority of those units are either in the main stacks, or increasingly garrisoning the coasts from invasion.

Note AT's fall despite the whipping; we've been killing A LOT of units. Meanwhile everyone else is building up, if not quite as vigorously as us.


Here's our food graph.


This graph is the best for seeing how behind we used to be. The first recent dip is when we whipped out all the monk buildings, while the second is a combination of unhappiness and AT pillaging our seafood. The 3-drafts-per-turn are also responsible. We hope to recover our seas within the next 5 turns, which should help dramatically. 

This graph most clearly follow how I think the players are doing; I'd rank our chances of winning in this order. You can see AT's fall, as he whips ~2-4 units per city (so far). Jowy's increasing dominance is concerning, while Cairo and especially SD are stagnating.


Here is MFG.


This has been our strength since the first GA, and Monk buildings + Serfdom give us a commanding lead. The trade-off is that we can't whip, but we have enough of an army now that we don't really need to. Once (if?) we get ORG factories online, our lead will only increase.

Jowy and Cairo are fighting for second here, though Jowy is taking the lead with his new conquests. Superdeath is a little further away, and we think he's been building a significant amount of wealth/research, which accounts for his very low power. AT has dropped significantly, for obvious reasons.


Finally, GNP (smoothed to be readable).


We are doing very well in GNP, as we caught up during the Golden Ages, and have established a tech lead with the Monk Wonders. We have fallen back into the pack with Colossus obsoleting, but are still among the leaders. We are also outputting a lot of culture, so keep that in mind. Still, the situation is as good as can be expected with such an important wonder gone, and if we can land SoL it will be even better. 

Everyone is relatively equal here. I believe Superdeath's lead is mostly an illusion backed up by wealth/research builds, though I may be wrong. His traits will catch up to him soon either way. Jowy is in the best position, with Altars everywhere and 2 great shrines, but Cairo is also doing very well with FIN.


Overall, I'd rank our positions as Jowy->Us->Cairo->Superdeath->AT. We are gaining on Jowy though, and it's very close between us. If everything goes to plan, we could become the frontrunner soon (if we haven't already). So that's exciting.

[Tarkeel]

Since Jowy hasn't rolled the turn and I'm bored, here's a corollary to Amica's graph dump.


With the lessened cultural pressure from the latest conquests we've pushed into 4th in land area, but everyone except Jowy is pretty close here. We still have the second highest number of cities, only 4 less than Jowy, so we've packed our cities much tighter than everyone else. This city-centric focus started with the Great Lighthouse, and only grew with monk wonders and mercantilism. The result is that just about every single land-tile in "our continent" is being worked, while other players even have unworkable tiles in their cores. Our approval rate is the lowest in the world, signaling just how much we've drafted, but war weariness is also starting to set in.

We are doing very well in GNP, as we caught up during the Golden Ages, and have established a tech lead with the Monk Wonders. We have fallen back into the pack with Colossus obsoleting, but are still among the leaders. We are also outputting a lot of culture, so keep that in mind. Still, the situation is as good as can be expected with such an important wonder gone, and if we can land SoL it will be even better. 

I would call it more tech parity than a lead, as we're still down Education and Steel, but are up Constitution on everyone and Nationalism/MilitaryTradition on Jowy. Most notably, Superdeath has both cannons and cavalry now. We're not the only ones with inflated GNP either; Jowy has been running a lot of espionage, and MrCairo has even more culture than us. Still, pushing virgin technology at 50% in 5 turns (and #1 in GNP) feels good.


We're also planning to open a new front in the war with Operation: Aquaris. Ord Mantell is finishing a galleon, which can load two drafted rifles and a fresh amphibious cavalry from Fondor, and a frigate escort traversing the Dantooine passage this turn.


It's also time to do something about that island, before he decides to load the garrison onto the galleon to threaten coastal holdings. Rahital is holding a freshly built galleon loaded with three cavalry, which can be safely deposited on the mine next turn.

[Tarkeel]

What are people's feelings about renaming captured cities? Out of respect for Ruff I waited on renaming his city untill he was eliminated, but it will be some time (if ever, with all those islands) until AT is eliminated. I really appreciate that AT has kept Endor's name all this time. I think I'll settle for renaming cities that are out of revolt and are in no danger of being recaptured, which so far is Thog.

[civac2]

That's what I do. I only rename cities after I am sure I keep them.

[Charriu]

After all I have a naming scheme to complete

[Mjmd]

I prefer leaving the cities named as they are so lurkers don't have to relearn names.

That being said if you have a good naming theme like yours I will let it slide.

Just don't go renaming your cities after 60 odd turns so your ded lurkers have to relearn everything! ( hi Amica )

[pindicator]

I wait until the city comes out of resistance