Mmmm Im glad to hear it. Its working fine the specialist economy without mids? Is it too bad? What kind of tiles you work if you dont work farms nor windmills? just cottages?
The specialists are OK, they feel like about the same as working an average tile. I wouldn't really call it a specialist economy, I think that only works with representation. Without pacifism and/or golden ages, I think the specialists would be mostly a waste of time. That short burst of Caste+Pacifism I just did was pretty effective, but now I've starved most large cities down so their food bars are empty, and they need time to recover. I'm definitely happy to go back to serfdom.
The tiles I've been working are still a lot of farms, mines, and workshops. The farms kinda suck, but it's necessary to feed specialists. I recently built some workshops after the workers were done with lumbermills and watermills. In caste with guilds they're pretty good. I only have about 8 cottages, but I did keep working them the whole time. The other big difference is I've been working very few coast tiles.
It's turn 147. I swapped to Vassalage+Serfdom while staying in Pacifism. I also started the second GA with a merchant and scientist, and the capitol produced another scientist that I think I'll bulb Astro with (researching Calendar right now). Should get yet another GP in 4 turns from Vaquita. Eventually I might have too many units to afford Pacifism, but for now it seems pretty good.
I just realized spies are allowed, so I should get one in Charriu's territory ASAP, and then have another in reserve if he gets caught.
Turn 149
Charriu attacked, no great surprise there. He razed my wine island city at the cost of two crossbows. Oh well. He also killed an axe and spear on our land border. Much more importantly, he has 3 galleys approaching Manatee, probably loaded with crossbows. Manatee only has an axe and a cat, so I expect him to easily raze Manatee amphibiously next turn. That's especially troublesome because I had the GP bar almost full. It was a good city. Alas.
I've made a terrible mistake: I positioned my units as if I already had engineering, but I don't. So I can't get any more defenders into Manatee in time, they're all one tile away. I remember thinking about this a long time ago, in our previous war. All I had to do was position my stack halfway in between Manatee and Humpback to cover both. It's been a few months since then and I forgot after reshuffling units against GKC. It's just frustrating because this was so avoidable: I literally thought about exactly this kind of galley attack from Charriu back then! I even knew he could see into the city from his fur island.
I have a lot of knights in the pipeline but none are able to reinforce Manatee just yet, so this is going to be painful. He might also go for Spotted.
As you may have seen from my PB60 thread, I haven't been very committed to pitboss games recently, mostly because of work and travel. Lately I've been focusing on it a bit more though, and this game now has a interesting decision for me to make: Who to attack?
First, a little background:
Charriu did very well in that war I last posted about. He managed to hold onto the border city Humpback, as well as razing my two southernmost cities. He really shouldn't have been able to get away with all that, but my mistakes enabled him:
1. I attacked his stack with catapults piecemeal, and then didn't have enough hitters to actually do much damage. So he was able to just heal and promote, while I burned through a lot of hammers. I made that same mistake in PB60.
2. I miscounted the units he unloaded from galleys in the south and didn't realize he had one left. That crossbow went on to raze the city of Spotted.
3. As I said before, I subconsciously thought I had engineering, but I didn't, so there were a few times when my units were just out of reach.
We reached a standoff and made peace, with him keeping a stack in the border city, partly surrounded by my culture. Now, that peace treaty has expired, and I declared war again. I built quite a few galleons (about 8) and loaded some of them with maces and knights. I sent them south along Charriu's coast. He has seen the galleons, and I managed to kill a couple caravels. However, he has a decent defense set up and I don't actually think I'll be able to do much amphibious damage. He's basically at tech parity with me, except he got Gunpowder while I got Astronomy. He's been maintaining a little bit above me in military power as well. So I think it's somewhat pointless to attack him.
Instead of pushing back against Charriu, I kinda want to attack GKC! He has many woefully underdefended coastal cities, and I have load galleons only a few turns away. Those galleons were intended for Charriu, but the shape of the map means I can easily redirect them.
My fish4fish agreement with GKC was like 30 turns ago and we've had no confirmation since then, so I'm not worried about that. However, I am worried that attacking him will make him want to stop playing and contribute to the downfall of this game overall. I think GKC's already very disinterested and I'm sure being caught in that eternal war with Ramk isn't too much fun. Meanwhile Charriu seems to be pretty actively playing and I'm not worried about him giving up. I know attacking Charriu would be a much better choice for the health of this game, but it doesn't seem like a good strategic choice at all.
This turn I sent Charriu a peace offer. Soon I'll find out if he accepted.
Ok, my opinion has solidified: I think I'll be capturing 7 or 8 of GKC's coastal cities in 1 or 2 turns.
Charriu didn't make peace, but he also didn't attack. He did bring up 5 more knights and a Sentry explorer. I don't think he'll be able to see either of my main stacks even with that sentry explorer on a hill, so hopefully he gets lured into a false sense of security and attacks. Of course Charriu might have spies in my land. I doubt it though-why would he have made a sentry explorer then?
I'll post screenshots whenever blood starts to flow.
Turn 169: My first Pitboss galleon surprise attack!
I was a little scared to attack this turn, because GKC has a stack of 20 knights just sitting on his border with Ramk. I was really hoping he would send them to attack Ramk if I waited a turn. However, I know that by now Charriu and Mjmd have definitely seen my galleons suspiciously swarming just outside GKC's borders, so they might warn him. If he got early warning, I'd have to deal with whipped longbows probably. That would have totally ruined the amphibious attacks. I decided his 20 knights will be manageable enough so I attacked!
7 coastal cities captured, for around 1100 gold! Only two maces died, both to a very heroic axeman on a hill. Being able to get the Amphibious promotion on maces is pretty cool, but it's not actually much of an improvement over just taking City Raider 1+2.
By capturing all these cities before he had time to react, I've reduced his production by about half. He'll still have around 50 population to whip, which means he'll probably build over 2000 hammers of additional units if I'm not fast enough.
Next turn I should take Barbar8 by overland attack with knights, opening up a path for the 1-movers to pour in. After that, I'll try to consolidate my knights and cats into a big stack and push for the capitol. I'll have about 14 knights and 16 cats already at the border, and more will consolidate soon. I haven't seen any catapults from GKC, so as long as I keep my stack together, I should be pretty safe. I really should have brought more pikemen though, since he's focused so heavily on mounted units. He is Mongolia after all.
GKC 20 knights are in Barbar7, his border city with Ramk. That means those knights are 2 turns away from hitting my newly captured cities. I did bring along some longbows and pikes in the galleons, but not really enough. I expect him to split up the knight stack and recapture a city or two. Maybe I should have razed and resettled some of them. I doubt he'll attack my main stack head-on until he's had time to whip some more units.
Here's my total miltary:
Nearly all of these guys are somehow participating in the GKC war, but they're scattered, which makes them vulnerable. I have nearly 2x GKC's power, but he still can do some real damage.
The timing is kinda weird: Mjmd and GKC were making breakthroughs against Ramk, and he seems to be collapsing. Now that the GKC pressure's off Ramk, he might be able to defend against Mjmd better. Also, Mig/Rusten just declared war on Mjmd. I wonder if that's a intercontinental invasion, or just killing some carracks. In either case, I want to support Mjmd against Mig/Rust with their Steel and 40 cities.
I think Mjmd he was worried about my galleons in the inner sea next to Sei, because I'd intentionally positioned them to be confusing. Here's what it looked like before I played this turn.
I wanted Charriu and Mjmd to both see them pointing West to hopefully confuse them as to who the real target was. I guess I got Mjmd concerned! I don't know if it was actually a good idea, but it was kinda fun.
I gifted Ramk iron and gems, I have no idea if that was actually a good strategic choice.
I want to colonize the astro island to my southeast, but I really can't afford to be building settlers right now. In 9 turns I'll have to deal with the Charriu threat again. By making peace, Charriu has enabled me to freely send everything north to the GKC border, so I am very thankful. Even if Charriu remains cooperative, finishing off GKC will be tough. I do expect to fully kill him, and I know that means I should build pretty much nothing but military. I also still want to take Donovan Zoi (TBS)'s border island, but that should probably wait. If you chase two rabbits...
I might go for Chemistry-Steel. All this capture gold will seriously speed it up, but still, Steel is REALLY EXPENSIVE, so it's probably like 15 turns away even if I maintain 100%! And my economy is still very medieval. I have basically no markets, courthouses, universities, observatories, etc. I've managed to sort of keep up with tech in the short term by building wealth, but that came at the cost of very little infrastructure.
There's something beautifully ironic about Close to Home's Aggressive: It has synergy with Pacifism! Agg's -50% unit maintenance counteracts the extra unit cost from Pacifism, and Pacifism itself is a No Upkeep civic, so it's the cheapest religion civic for me, better than Paganism (the default option).
I'm building nothing but units, so there's no reason to run Organized Religion. In case you're wondering "What about Theocracy?", I'm getting +2xp from Vassalage instead. If I wanted to run Theocracy, that would allow bureaucracy, but then I'd have to research Theology, which feels like a huge waste of beakers. The capitol is not that great for bureau anyways.
I'm really liking this Aggressive. It makes Formation muskets and Barrage III catapults easy to get. I've been using both to good effect. Formation muskets should let me deal with Cuirassiers decently well, without needing Military Tradition myself. Of course the cuirassiers can take Pinch and then still get odds, but at least it's not as severe.
I've been putting Spiritual to better use lately, switching back and forth between Serfdom and Slavery. I'd like to run OR and Caste for a while, but units come first. Caste will enable the Third Golden Age.
It's turn 179 now. 10 turns in to the war, conquest against GKC is going well. I recently took the capitol and wiped out the majority of his threatening forces. He has 6 cities left and I think I'll have them all cleaned up in about 5 more turns. He's defended pretty fiercely, and until just recently I was losing the hammer trades on average. It was only after taking the capitol that I started feeling pretty secure.
I got Chemistry for better workshops and frigates, but Steel is still far away because my economy is so garbage. TBS/Donovan Zoi seems to be making serious gains against Commodore and Superdeath, so I really want to use my naval advantage against him ASAP.
The peace treaty with Charriu ran out last turn. I gave him Wine for free and a world map trade to hopefully remain on good terms. He's focusing all his knights and cuirassiers against Mjmd, but I do have to maintain a small force on our border so he can't get some easy pickings. Even though we have Open Borders, he doesn't have any units in my land. Maybe he's just using a network of spies instead.
I'm thinking about what happens next: Assuming Charriu doesn't invade from the south, I think I'll start taking over Mjmd's land (which used to be Ramk's). Also I should really use frigates to press my naval advantage against Charriu while I still can. The ability to bombard coastal defenses should force him to devote a lot of units to defense. Charriu is doing far too well economically, I need to do something against him.
And then there's the 45-city elephant in the room who's currently researching Steam Power in 9 turns: Miguelito/Rusten. Their beachhead in Mjmd-land seems secure, and I don't know what to do about it. We're bound to be in direct contact eventually.
Superdeath scammed me by asking for a loan (300 gold for 31gpt) and then immediately declaring war to cancel the gold per turn. He offered peace afterwards, but I didn't take it. Then this turn he came back offering 10gpt with peace. I took it, but in 10 turns or so I'll be showing up on his coastline with a little surprise. I'd actually been planning to raid TBS/Donovan's coast, but plans can change...
In other news, I'm working on National and Heroic Epics finally, but I'm increasingly worried by Charriu so I might have to switch back to all unit builds. Charriu's economy is dramatically better than mine, and he brought in 5 cuirassiers to our border last turn. If he attacks right now I may lose at least one important city. Once I have cannons I'll feel secure on defense, but that's a long time from now.
Finally, some pictures:
GKC will be eliminated next turn, so this will be a 15 turn long war. It could have been a bit faster if I'd landed enough troops to have an proper 2-front war. That would have required a lot more setup time to get the units in position though, so I don't regret just attacking ASAP with the galleons I had.
I think I was lucky that GKC had a severe shortage of catapults. If he'd had 5 or 10 more, he could have wiped out my main stack in the battle at the capitol and then I would have stalled. It was a close fight, sort of like our earlier war when he invaded with Keshiks and I barely had enough units to hold on.
Despite losing almost all of his homeland to Miguelito and Charriu, Mjmd's power is surprisingly still about 60% of mine, and he has a bunch of potentially dangerous boats. I'm starting to question whether attacking Mjmd is a good idea, but I don't know what I'd do instead. I don't really have enough spare boats to attack two people at once, so I need to choose whether I'm serious about attacking Donovan Zoi or not. Also, Superdeath gave back an additional 10 gpt, so I think I'll withhold that surprise attack for now.
Going for Steel will further delay important economic techs like Printing Press, Replaceable Parts, Corporation. Any one of those would have a significant effect. Especially Replaceable Parts with Serfdom. I think cannons are more important though. For the long term, I might just stop researching after Steel and Rifling, and then focus on making a pure war machine. Since winning isn't an option, I'd like to at least finish this game owning a whole continent worth of land. That sounds like fun.
I also recently realized that Military Science lets Great Generals boost unit production by 50% in key cities with Military Academies. Grenadiers and Ships of the Line seem kinda lame, so I don't rate Military Science very highly overall.
My biggest confusion lately has been: How is Charriu's economy so good? Check out this graph: His GNP is keeping up with Miguelito's!!!
I think religion has a lot to do with it. He has the Hindu shrine and the Spiral Minaret. Also he has more cottages than me, and has Printing Press. I think he's taken better advantage of Spiritual than me also. Also, his GNP may be inflated by a lot of culture.
GKC's last city has fallen, I lost a few units because I didn't hit it with any collateral, but whatever. GG GKC!
Ethical dilemma: Mjmd offered fish for fish.
-If I reply with fish4fish, and then declare a few turns later, I'd be a massive dick.
-If I don't reply with fish4fish, I pretty much telegraph to him that I'm plotting war.
So I see no good option here, and I decided to do nothing.
He's already in the tough spot of trying to defend against Miguelito. I feel bad for Mjmd. His cities are already so brutally whipped that his army as it stands can't grow much.
Mjmd also deleted a stack of about 8 triremes and galleys which he had parked on the north coast of GKC-land. I know he deleted them because I can see every tile they could have possibly moved to. I guess he was worried about me amassing enough ships to sink that fleet on the first turn of war. Well, that's exactly what I was planning to do! I had no idea whether the galleys were loaded. Why did he not keep them around as a credible threat? Maybe he deleted them as a peace offering?
Mjmd is safe from me for a few turns at least, because my units need to heal and I don't have enough catapults left. He has enough knights, war elephants, and catapults to be prickly.
I'm setting up a fort canal and I'll be shipping a lot of units inward by galleon to hide them. Also having many galleons on the inner sea will be another deterrent for Charriu.
Charriu is sending some units eastward to his new border cities with Miguelito. I think he expects war when their peace treaty expires in 7 or so turns. It's a tense situation for both of us, we both want to balance forces between two fronts. Neither of us can fully commit to one war.
Charriu has about 13 cuirassiers exactly 6 tiles away from the border city. They're close enough to defend, but not close enough to attack. I wonder if he's doing that to intentionally position them in a non-threatening way? Well, good try, but I still feel threatened.
He's also bringing in a Sentry explorer to scout the front. Charriu surely knows he can't win an actual war of conquest against me. If he declares, it will be to snipe a couple cities, and/or to slow me down and force me to divert away from attacking Mjmd. (He's already succeeding at that!) All I have to do is make a credible enough defense that he won't want to try scoring an easy kill on some important city like Bottlenose or Vaquita.
There's a good chance that we're both "only" planning for defense, but still we both keep bringing in more units! As the stacks grow larger, they become more viable on offense, and the tension rises.
Even though I saw a weakly defended TBS island city, I decided against attacking TBS or Superdeath, because the balance of power on that continent seems decently stable anyway, and I need every unit at home. Also I don't want to screw up the turn pace even more by creating new turnsplits.
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