[SPOILERS] Roland and Suboptimal Team Up

[Bruindane]

Turn 142: Lament for Borna Barasic



I offer peace.



Chinese ships finally coming to the big island.  Now we know why Have A Good Time survived a few extra turns.  Marcopolothefraud is suzerain of Brussels.



I send Bhasa packing. Those Russian caravels in the area are fast, saw one with 9 movement.


suboptimal, I sent you diplomatic favor to enable you to summon the world congress if you so choose.  Turned out printing was Eureka'd by the Great Library when CMF got Galileo, finishing it for me and passing it to Indonesia.

[suboptimal]

I don't think the WC is going to do any good. The likely people who will vote would be me, CMF and MPtF and I'm not in position to retake Under African Skies.

[Bruindane]

I don't think the WC is going to do any good.  The likely people who will vote would be me, CMF and MPtF and I'm not in position to retake Under African Skies.

I'm not sure we need to be successful, as the participants get a 2 combat strength modifier.   There's those Chinese frigates too, they might be able to survive long enough to shoot at Under African Skies's walls.

CMF took the Hic Sunc Dracones dedication which give ships and embarked units an extra 2 movement.  I don't see any possibility to win a fleet-to-fleet battle, so I could send some ships capture Valleta, and wait for the ice to melt.

[suboptimal]

You make a good point about the combat modifier. I'll call the WC on my turn.

[suboptimal]

Turn 142

A bigger pile of ships has turned up and Steve Davis is also under threat.




That frigate off Ryan Kent has two friends in the fog. My crossbowman on Big Island was killed by a courser. All other units hold position except Confucius, who approaches Russian territory. I’ll have two more envoys in 6 turns and that can’t come soon enough – I’ll need them to suzerain Valetta and get better walls in Al as I’ve only got Ancient walls there.

Bruindane, what do we want to do here? Borasic is gone on CMF’s next turn.

[Bruindane]

Nothing to see for me.

There’s no peace in our time if I recall, so we resist as long as we can, just out of fairness for the other participants in this game.  If we do get a peace offer, maybe we’ll take it, but we don’t control the ball.

[Bruindane]

Roland could return in time for the next turn set.  If the turn does come to me this evening, I will play it in the morning just in case. My notes and current plans.

The combat strength differential is closing but the Australian-Russian alliance led by admiral Ferdinand Magellan is still a rough 10 combat strength.  With printing researched we evened diplomatic visibility (3 cs), and we will establish the spy Xingjuan in Mikasa in two turns (+3 cs with a listening post), and have the wars of religion policy (+4 cs).  We didn’t participate in the emergency, so no potential cs help there.

The military alliance with England/ArchDuke expires in 18 turns.

Next civic change is urbanization which comes with Force Modernization policy combing the Retinues and Professional Army policies for cheaper upgrades .  Another option is to switch to Nationalism civic for another Spy build, a governor promotion and the national identity policy, but it is leaf tech.  Never had a chance to run Chivalry to build knights, but would like to (also should put a knight in queue to use iron).

CMR/MPtf are eagle eyed may have spotted medieval walls were close to finishing and shot at them.  Shooting Glen Kamara’s wall, which is inland, suggests land troops are on their way.  There’s nothing I can do to save Borna Barasic at this point.  The Chinese fleet chose to not engage until the combat odds improved, but that time is now— though Russia’s golden age speed will slice us apart tactically, so the Eastern fleet will try to engage at Steve Davies and Ryan Kent to inflict as much damage as possible before going down.

Diplomatically, I’m not sure what the fine line is.  We can offer and luxes for ten turns of peace, but what would we accomplish in that span and why would CMF take it?

[suboptimal]

Turn 142 World Congress

Ok...who called this hot diplomatic mess? Oh, wait. I called this hot diplomatic mess.

I throw everything I got into the military emergency vs. Russia. Let’s see if it sticks. Bruindane, looking at the diplomatic favor the vote’s success will depend on whether or not Australia got to vote. If they did then the emergency will fail. If they don’t then we’ve (I’ve?) clawed back some combat strength from Russia.

---

Your analysis of the diplomatic situation is correct - I doubt CMF takes any peace deal that does not include the entirety of Big Island.

Has it been three weeks already?

[Bruindane]

Has it been three weeks already?

Let' see... looks like two. Definitely feels longer as adding this game into my routine, has been challenging.  There's been the mix of excitement of trying this out, exhaustion from playing in the middle of the night as I wake and think, let me check if the turn is here.   Overall, a great experience, and a reminder, as with may things, I need to plan ahead a bit more of what I want to do in-game a few turns ahead, instead of the ad-hoc play-by-late-night that I have been doing.

[Bruindane]

Turn 143: Diplomatic Prologue

There were two military emergencies, both of them failed, but excellent timing to do them together.



I'll take the turn in a little bit when I get a quiet window.  Suboptimal, you have diplomatic favor to gift back to China.