[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

oh yeah, for sure. But I meant don't leave any garrison at home whatsoever. Throw it all at Eleanor.

[williams482]

Well in that case, mission accomplished! Not every unit is on the border, exactly, thanks to healing and logistical hangups, but I don't believe we have any military units south or west of Bruins.

[williams482]

Turn 266 World Congress:

Now we get our special session. All in on +3 combat strength and +1 movement, plus some extra hammers if Woden choses to jump in:



And that's that. Ichabod can totally shut this down if they are so inclined, so hopefully they won't be! And even if they aren't, a maxed out vote from Suboptimal plus one downvote each from the others would be -6 votes to our +5, so we're really hoping Woden takes a pro-Canada stance.

[williams482]

Turn 267:

So, did Woden take a pro-Canada stance? Did Ichabod shut us down anyway? No and yes:



Instead, this is what was pushed through without our involvement:



That could be significant if there was any doubt whatsoever about the outcome of this game, but, uhh, lol to that. Woden has liberated Venice, relieving the loyalty pressure on Oilers. He also has a settler right outside Oilers, for reasons that aren't entirely clear:



But on to the interesting part of the turn. Compo and Kathy Staff have both flipped. Marina appeared to be back to positive loyalty, but updating it's tiles reveals it is actually six turns from a flip. Likely caused by Compo changing hands. On the bright side, it is much improved by the dispersal of it's radiation field, and sets to work repairing it's EC.

So, can we take Compo back? Our artillery army shoots for 45 damage, the artillery corps shoots for 30. The tank army on the aerodrome deals 69, taking 13, our infantry corp deals 37 and takes 19. I try to get cute and take the city from the water with an injured cav army, but am stymied by poor dice rolls, leaving that unit readlined in the water and the city with two health. Our solitary tank finishes the job:



With Liang in place, Compo now has 50/100 loyalty and is losing 16.8 per turn, on track to flip back in 3. We can afford to let the city flip and take it back again if we have to, but we do need to make significant progress somewhere first, either taking back Auntie Wainwright, or knocking a notable amount off Foggy Dewhurst's walls. That second one is what will actually bring us closer to a final solution, so it's the one to pursue. Next turn we'll have two artillery that can hit the city, boosted by a balloon, a GG, and our glorious new fascist ideals, for effective strength values of 107 and 100 against a 101 defense city with 400 wall HP and 200 regular HP. That will take a bit, but it might be enough damage that pushing the tank armies into the fray will actually benefit us. We'll see.

Kings finishes a tank, which sprints to the front. We start an artillery in it's place. Red Wings repaired it's lighthouse and sets to work fixing the shipyard.

Scores:

[williams482]

Turn 268:

Totalitarianism completes:



Somewhat disturbingly, Auntie Wainwright has managed to fully rebuild it's defenses this turn, so no easy gains to be had there. To the capital we go. On the bright side, however, it seems likely we'll get some help soon, as Ichabod is down to a single completely defenseless city:



First, our new government:



We now get +50% production towards all units, and an extra +50% when building tanks. Those units are finally almost as cheap as they were with the World Congress price discount in effect, with only overflow losses holding them short. That production bonus is very likely meaningless so late in the game, but whatever. +5 combat strength, though? That's a big deal.

Civics research begins on Conservation, which has the possibly useful Resource Management policy, and is exceedingly unlikely to ever complete anyway.

I push a tank army forward to get eyes on Foggy, then open fire with the artillery:



The army takes 35 off the defenses, then the corps follows with another 30. Baby steps against the 400 HP walls. That tank can't do much further damage this turn, so I pillage the mine for 338g, and immediately spend 2580g of my 2786g reserves on a new artillery corps in Bruins. I fully expect Suboptimal to hit back against my artillery one way or another, and concentrated fire will probably kill one. Between this purchase and the now-almost-healthy artillery army between Wild and Marina, we should be able to handle at least a little bit of attrition. Our melee attackers can't do all that much to help out right now, but they can provide more non-artillery targets for Suboptimal to shoot at. Every reasonably healthy unit pushes forward, taking care to give Woden one maximally convenient spot to drop a bomb:



If they are so kind as to do so, this will be over very quickly. If not, things get more complicated. But we'll figure it out. 

Suboptimal is hard at work pillaging our harbor buildings again, presumably for upgrade gold: 



Why they moved on to Penguins instead of finishing the job at Red Wings is a bit of a puzzle. Oh, except this time:



Sadly, we get a bad roll on this attack and have to settle for just 81 damage. That should at least force sub's sub to back off for a bit.

Scores:

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Well, now we know if Ichabod or Sub was the holdout.

Possibly both!

[williams482]

Turn 269:

Well first the international news, revealed to all in the tech thread. Brazil is no more:



On the front, Suboptimal has delivered four strikes against our forces but killed nothing: 



Marina has completed repairs on it's EC, and can start a B&C project which pushes Compo's inevitable flip back a turn, from t270 to t271. The artillery corps Suboptimal redlined pulls back into Compo and takes a promotion, and the nearly healed army pushes up to take it's place with a little help from the Military Engineer's railroad repairs. That army shoots for 18 off the walls, The other artillery army takes 24 off and earns a promotion. That leaves the walls at 293/400, still far too much for our tanks to attack into effectively. Instead, we settle for some light pillaging, burning a coal mine and a jungle lumber mill for a combined 676g, then attack the machine gun guarding the bomber in Truly Of The Yard's Aerodrome. Strangely, killing the machine gun with our second tank did not move that tank onto the tile, but I was able to move a cavalry onto the tile unimpeded (just without enough movement left to pillage). This is not exactly how I would have drawn things up if I'd been aware of that particular movement quirk, but here we are:



Note the spies which established this turn. I know from Woden's Brazilian escapades that it is completely possible to nuke your friends spies, and they are entirely unharmed. So, Both of these two start on listening posts, which will be helpful in the highly unlikely scenario where this game is still ongoing with neither city captured on t277.

Suboptimal did pillage both a fishing boat and our shipyard at Penguins, but was not so kind as to leave his submarine in our line of fire again.

As you say, we should learn very soon if Suboptimal was blocking a concession. 

Scores:



For the first time all game, only one of these is necessary. To the degree that any were, that is.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Unless you count the two penultimate loyalty flips, Canada is the only power all game to never lose a city to enemy action.