Turn 127
I must not cackle like a mad scientist in my turn reports...
I must not cackle like a mad scientist in my turn reports...
I must not...
Turn starts me off here. We've got a unit lost, two diplomatic notifications, a faith purchased apostle available (lol), an extra trade route, and a promotion.
Let's deal with the lost unit first. There's really only one candidate, barring nasty surprises, and sure enough sub attacked out to break the siege, trading his sword for a bit of extra city-healing. A spare frigate easily polishes off the sword:
More distressing is the lost gold from the mine pillage now. Marco has so many cheap builders the Blueprint can kick out, it's not like he'd even notice it. 200 gold, down the drain...I console myself by pillaging the lumberyard on the other side. Three frigate bombardments drop the walls to 57 and the garrison to 128 hp:
Once the walls go next turn, the garrison will also fall quickly. We could capture it ourselves next turn, but we want Australia to at least try for the x2 production bonus, so we'll delay a turn. I don't see anything Sub could do about it at this point, with no units and no faith or cash to rush anything here.
On to the production notifications. Mikasa can build a caravel in 7...
...while Navarin can build a frigate in 5. Over in Svalbard, Nakhimov finds itself with a spare build and rather than build a shrine or my aqueduct, in the same time I could get another caravel out:
That seems obviously worthwhile, so I order up another Caravel. I'm working 0 production tiles at this city, by the way - if I swapped off growth we'd drop this build time to around 5. Do I want to delay the campus to build more ships here?
...wait, obviously, yes, yes I do. Should have done that during the turn. Dummy.
Defogging Woden's core, I find a beautiful 5 adjacency campus next to his plaza:
Neato. That's like 20% of poor Norway's science output right there.
One other thing to note on global research rates - Sub and Roland have both increased their science by 50% in the last 20 turns and are approaching respectability, even staggering into the Renaissance one and all last turn. This is, of course, excellent news for us. Why? Because every hammer invested in a campus isn't one invested in ships. If they're building this many campuses and universities because they have to, due to those cities not being coastal, well, thank God they didn't settle more coastal cities, then.
Actually, that's not fair, I've no idea how many of China's cities are on the coast, 3 of the 4 Chinese cities I know the locations of are coastal.
Anyway, this big science isn't much of a threat - they won't get to any dangerous techs before I'm burning down their shipyards, and who gives a damn if you have battleship tech if you've no place to build them?
Let's get on with the war:
Scouts report that the Indonesian galley has vanished, sailing God-knows-where, so I order GalRon2, slightly more healthy than GalRon4, into the harbor. If all goes well, I can pillage the lighthouse and harbor using 2 adjacent galleys, grab that trade route, and then skedaddle. I should lose one galley to jong fire if he concentrates on the pillagers, but that's a decent trade for ~600 gold and the attendant economic damage to Indonesia. I close in to give sub a surfeit of targets:
Now, he might mock this 'attack' as obviously doomed, but you know and I know dear reader that this attack is not an invasion. This is a smash-and-grab job, we have no intentions of attacking those walls with galleys. We're trading some of our many, many hulls for upgrade gold and hurting the Indonesians. We'll see how many ships he can muster next turn in response - if I'm lucky, this will draw the jong at Shikishima north...
Because 1st Fleet is edging nearer Chinese waters. I know 3 frigates are out, maybe more - 20 Indonesian niter vanished without a trace, but Roland didn't spend enough gold for 2 upgrades, so I'm not sure what the story is. But 5 frigates COULD hurt me if they all come in for a scrap - but I'm accepting that since I would also sink all 5 in return, I think, without risking my modern ships overmuch. So we have a screen of galleys, which will scout, guarding our modern ships. Then it's the same story as at Good Time - smash, grab, loot, pillage, burn, and then get out of dodge before Indochina can muster a response.
Together, I hope the two piracy operations draw their attention abck to their home shores and leave Shikishima vulnerable to my main assault, which will start in ~8ish turns.
Here's a decent overview of where everyone is in relation to each other:
Okay, the last thing I do is, after ordering up a trade route to Woden for 20 gpt and 1 science, I have 2 more. One is starting next turn out of GAGA, but I could get a final one going if I had the lighthouse...
After some thought, I pull the trigger. The purchase, a steep 480 gold, will pay for itself in 24 turns - relatively quickly, only 3 weeks in the life of the game. But what about upgrade gold? Well, not only am I grabbing ~600 off of suboptimal next turn (360 of which will go to Oz for a pair of Caravel upgrades at Mercenaries, assuming his economy can sustain caravels!), but my gold income will be up to 180 gpt with these two routes next turn!
Even if Australia were skint broke, that would put our GPT above the Raiders and the Central Powers, and our combined military scores are very near theirs. It gives Russia the highest GPT in the game, to go with its faith, production, science, and population, and now I'll be earning enough gold for a caravel upgrade every turn. Thus, getting this trade route online earlier and keeping Mikasa on Caravels all game long will be 1 extra caravel out of the city, but also spares us the time spent on thel ighthouse so Knaz Suvurov or Petropavlosk could ALSO build their lighthouses sooner, meaning more GPT, etc.
So it's an out of character move for me but I think it'll pay off.
Other news: We damage the barb spearman at Donskoi, at Nakhimov our warrior has a slinger and sword coming out of the tundra, so I withdraw. Might need to upgrade there, but will monitor the gold situation since I don't see a clear payoff here. Ljubljana rethinks his rejection of my alliance and offers a cultural one. After some thought, I take it - I COULD flip Oracle Bones if he hits a dark age, but williams and I proved how damn hard it is to flip a city against a determined player, Carthage has the special loyalty project on top of that, and in the meantime if he trades with me I get some extra culture - not as much as he does, but it keeps him from trading with anyone else, so by all means. Australia hits Civil Service next turn and should offer me a military alliance, so I'll be able to hit the Indochinese VERY hard next turn as I start my probe.
Overview of the east/Fuji Bay:
No changes. Center/Russia Proper:
Everyone's on ships now.
West/Svalbard:
And the three battle fronts - Australia, Good Time, and Indochina:
I must not cackle like a mad scientist in my turn reports...
I must not cackle like a mad scientist in my turn reports...
I must not...
Turn starts me off here. We've got a unit lost, two diplomatic notifications, a faith purchased apostle available (lol), an extra trade route, and a promotion.
Let's deal with the lost unit first. There's really only one candidate, barring nasty surprises, and sure enough sub attacked out to break the siege, trading his sword for a bit of extra city-healing. A spare frigate easily polishes off the sword:
More distressing is the lost gold from the mine pillage now. Marco has so many cheap builders the Blueprint can kick out, it's not like he'd even notice it. 200 gold, down the drain...I console myself by pillaging the lumberyard on the other side. Three frigate bombardments drop the walls to 57 and the garrison to 128 hp:
Once the walls go next turn, the garrison will also fall quickly. We could capture it ourselves next turn, but we want Australia to at least try for the x2 production bonus, so we'll delay a turn. I don't see anything Sub could do about it at this point, with no units and no faith or cash to rush anything here.
On to the production notifications. Mikasa can build a caravel in 7...
...while Navarin can build a frigate in 5. Over in Svalbard, Nakhimov finds itself with a spare build and rather than build a shrine or my aqueduct, in the same time I could get another caravel out:
That seems obviously worthwhile, so I order up another Caravel. I'm working 0 production tiles at this city, by the way - if I swapped off growth we'd drop this build time to around 5. Do I want to delay the campus to build more ships here?
...wait, obviously, yes, yes I do. Should have done that during the turn. Dummy.
Defogging Woden's core, I find a beautiful 5 adjacency campus next to his plaza:
Neato. That's like 20% of poor Norway's science output right there.
One other thing to note on global research rates - Sub and Roland have both increased their science by 50% in the last 20 turns and are approaching respectability, even staggering into the Renaissance one and all last turn. This is, of course, excellent news for us. Why? Because every hammer invested in a campus isn't one invested in ships. If they're building this many campuses and universities because they have to, due to those cities not being coastal, well, thank God they didn't settle more coastal cities, then.
Actually, that's not fair, I've no idea how many of China's cities are on the coast, 3 of the 4 Chinese cities I know the locations of are coastal.
Anyway, this big science isn't much of a threat - they won't get to any dangerous techs before I'm burning down their shipyards, and who gives a damn if you have battleship tech if you've no place to build them?
Let's get on with the war:
Scouts report that the Indonesian galley has vanished, sailing God-knows-where, so I order GalRon2, slightly more healthy than GalRon4, into the harbor. If all goes well, I can pillage the lighthouse and harbor using 2 adjacent galleys, grab that trade route, and then skedaddle. I should lose one galley to jong fire if he concentrates on the pillagers, but that's a decent trade for ~600 gold and the attendant economic damage to Indonesia. I close in to give sub a surfeit of targets:
Now, he might mock this 'attack' as obviously doomed, but you know and I know dear reader that this attack is not an invasion. This is a smash-and-grab job, we have no intentions of attacking those walls with galleys. We're trading some of our many, many hulls for upgrade gold and hurting the Indonesians. We'll see how many ships he can muster next turn in response - if I'm lucky, this will draw the jong at Shikishima north...
Because 1st Fleet is edging nearer Chinese waters. I know 3 frigates are out, maybe more - 20 Indonesian niter vanished without a trace, but Roland didn't spend enough gold for 2 upgrades, so I'm not sure what the story is. But 5 frigates COULD hurt me if they all come in for a scrap - but I'm accepting that since I would also sink all 5 in return, I think, without risking my modern ships overmuch. So we have a screen of galleys, which will scout, guarding our modern ships. Then it's the same story as at Good Time - smash, grab, loot, pillage, burn, and then get out of dodge before Indochina can muster a response.
Together, I hope the two piracy operations draw their attention abck to their home shores and leave Shikishima vulnerable to my main assault, which will start in ~8ish turns.
Here's a decent overview of where everyone is in relation to each other:
Okay, the last thing I do is, after ordering up a trade route to Woden for 20 gpt and 1 science, I have 2 more. One is starting next turn out of GAGA, but I could get a final one going if I had the lighthouse...
After some thought, I pull the trigger. The purchase, a steep 480 gold, will pay for itself in 24 turns - relatively quickly, only 3 weeks in the life of the game. But what about upgrade gold? Well, not only am I grabbing ~600 off of suboptimal next turn (360 of which will go to Oz for a pair of Caravel upgrades at Mercenaries, assuming his economy can sustain caravels!), but my gold income will be up to 180 gpt with these two routes next turn!
Even if Australia were skint broke, that would put our GPT above the Raiders and the Central Powers, and our combined military scores are very near theirs. It gives Russia the highest GPT in the game, to go with its faith, production, science, and population, and now I'll be earning enough gold for a caravel upgrade every turn. Thus, getting this trade route online earlier and keeping Mikasa on Caravels all game long will be 1 extra caravel out of the city, but also spares us the time spent on thel ighthouse so Knaz Suvurov or Petropavlosk could ALSO build their lighthouses sooner, meaning more GPT, etc.
So it's an out of character move for me but I think it'll pay off.
Other news: We damage the barb spearman at Donskoi, at Nakhimov our warrior has a slinger and sword coming out of the tundra, so I withdraw. Might need to upgrade there, but will monitor the gold situation since I don't see a clear payoff here. Ljubljana rethinks his rejection of my alliance and offers a cultural one. After some thought, I take it - I COULD flip Oracle Bones if he hits a dark age, but williams and I proved how damn hard it is to flip a city against a determined player, Carthage has the special loyalty project on top of that, and in the meantime if he trades with me I get some extra culture - not as much as he does, but it keeps him from trading with anyone else, so by all means. Australia hits Civil Service next turn and should offer me a military alliance, so I'll be able to hit the Indochinese VERY hard next turn as I start my probe.
Overview of the east/Fuji Bay:
No changes. Center/Russia Proper:
Everyone's on ships now.
West/Svalbard:
And the three battle fronts - Australia, Good Time, and Indochina:
I Think I'm Gwangju Like It Here
A blog about my adventures in Korea, and whatever else I feel like writing about.
A blog about my adventures in Korea, and whatever else I feel like writing about.