TBS finds Superdeath's title Ominous

[superdeath]

I am cool with the video idea or whatever works best for you.  Thanks again for joining in and looking forward to prolonging our eventual demise together.

[Donovan Zoi]

So I think I'd like to split up the duties like so, if it works for you. 

DZ

--I'll log in first to do city micro and maintain the unit whips since I have the best idea of what may be coming at us from prior scouting.
--I'll move any remaining workers, and scouts to get you the best intel to run the wars.
--I'll set queues for new units based on what I think we need
--I'll post my thoughts for each war front, which we can talk about

SD

--Make any changes to what I've done, or post where you'd like to.
--Kick the crap out of Lazteuq and Tarkeel

I didn't change any of the Choku builds since I understand the reasoning for them.  I also like that we will get overflow from 2-whipping.  My goal is to be able to produce 8-20 new troops per turn, and I'd like to follow up with some Pinch Knights for speed and cleanup.

The reason I was taking so long in game was due to my overthinking every single unit move, so your taking those duties over frees up my time immensely.  I was also able to check into the game briefly before Miguelito requested I leave.  I had been refreshing the Zulan screen every couple hours to make sure I got in to take a look before the turn ended, but for some reason we are bouncing off each other and I only got about 10 minutes in game.

Here are the other things I noticed that were pretty noteworthy:

- Amicalola declared on Tarkeel and took 4-5 cities.  This should ease the tensions in former Rome a bit but I still think we should make a play at Innsbrook to flush out those ships before they become Destroyers.  Then start choking that forest near Aylesbury once we have some Woods II Muskets.
- Not sure I agree with the way the ships were stacked near Beijing as it puts Shanghai in play, while allowing the Persian ships to disembark and go back to safety in Albatwitch.  My plan with our naval deficit has been to overproduce ships and then see if we can take out some exposed stacks before Galleons can go back to pick up more units
--I see that you put some scientists in Xian, which is a great call.  I can't believe I missed that backup plan. Sadly, I've been exploiting our National Epic city to whip Knights.  But it's good to see we may be able to salvage a Golden Age and that we may be able to keep Kaifeng to boot with the Musket you sent.

I'll be able to join the game in about 45 minutes.

[superdeath]

Works for me! If Laz has steel for Ironclads, whats an estimated ETA for his Railroad (and MG's) research? Wouldnt mind taking over some more Tarkeel cities so long as we can fight off any Laz landings.

[Donovan Zoi]

Works for me! If Laz has steel for Ironclads, whats an estimated ETA for his Railroad (and MG's) research? Wouldnt mind taking over some more Tarkeel cities so long as we can fight off any Laz landings.

Great!  I checked and Laz has either Assembly Line or Railroad next in queue.  I would bet that getting Infantry is more important to him, so we may have a bit of time there.  And I know how much you want to sink your teeth into Tarkeel, but I think our options may be limited at this point.   Amica has taken another round of cities, including Innsmouth and the island city north of Rockport.  This is bad news for our long term prospects because it means Ethiopia now has a canal into our Inner Sea.  But it looks like Amica also took all but 2 Destroyers by boating Innsmouth.

The good news is that this practically takes Egypt of of the naval game so I recommend moving all ships west from the southern and inner seas immediately to engage Lazteuq.  I suggest this for two reasons.
--There's no point in losing our whole stack to Destroyers or Transports and yielding either one of them a GG from the obvious stack of wins they would get. I had this happen with Commodore and it hindered my progress on another front.
--I'd like to focus solely on land units for awhile, and adding another 20 surprise ships to the front (without having to build them) could be our key to stop the bleeding from Persia.

Oh and:
--Amica waited to engage Tarkeel until you were conquered, so I am guessing it would be the same for us if he chose to take us on.  So we have a bit of time.

Here's the Inner Sea.  We can bug out through Opogogo and then the Souzhou canal, perhaps dropping off the Muskets so they can travel to protect Shanghai.  We have the Globe Theatre coming there in 1-2 turns, and I would like to explode the heck out of that city once that happiness barrier is released.




No pics, but here are my thoughts on the 3 other fronts:

Former Rome

I am gonna bet that Amica takes Rockport next turn, and will have the best shot at the 3 other cites on the Egyptian wedge.  I think all we can take Goatman, Owlman and Snallygaster since they are mostly vacated now.  I've queued up Knights in Jersey Devil and Sasquatch to join the two others in the former Roman capital.  The Galleon stack will fall just short of Jackalope, and I'll leave it to you to dump them this turn or let them hang back so they disembark and advance as a surprise.  I believe there is an additional Knight in this group as well.  Sending some troops to Goatman could be advantageous as well.

Beijing

Well, there was no landing outside of Beijing this turn, so maybe Laz is waiting for reinforcements.  I'll leave it up to you on how you want to handle the ships here.

Nessy

We will likely lose this city next turn, as it is undefended and we don't have a way to cover it.

So as far as that goes, let's send all ships west.  Let me know if you have any problems with that.    I have a few more thoughts but will get this info to you now.

[superdeath]

No problem sending ships west since Tarkeel's navy is shot. Honestly, wouldnt mind just punishing Laz by pulling away from the soon-to-be-Amica lands anyway. Since Tarkeel is taking the full pounding from Amica.

[superdeath]

If cities are ready to be 2pop whipped/ect feel free to do so. Ill just maneuver the troops. I think i found a way that might trick Laz into giving us a free-ish frigate kill and able to reconquer Ness.



I assume he will send the frigate/galleon pair down towards Nessy. In most situations he would amphibiously capture the city and back off a tile, i assume. Im placing the privateer in its current location to tempt him to take what is normally an "easy" win and hope for decent damage on his frigate and slap it with 1 free galleon or a bunch of galleons (after they unload next to the city of course) Probably not the BEST plan, but id like to trade ships whenever possible.

[Donovan Zoi]

Golden Age Soon?

I decided to put Xian on steroids and devote all 5 pop to GP points.  This gets us a GP in 3 turns, removing two GP off for the 3rd turn to keep from starving.  My only concern here is lowering the percentage on the Merchant, which is currently 28% to 36% for the Artist.  Using a Spy and Prophet GP to up the odds.  Don't think it's worth it at this point to whip a Pavilion to purify the Artist a bit.




This gives us a good shot at landing the MoM GA in that 3 turns, so there is some discussion to be had here as well.  I had planned to open the GA by going into Serfdom.  There would be a boost to Farns, Windmills and very few Watermills, but I am not sure that this is the best idea with Cannon whips coming available around that same time.  We can also GA and stay in Slavery and perhaps leave the last half of the GA for Serfdom.  Either way, I think our tech path should be Steel > RParts > Rifling, which should be hastened with increased city size.

Sasquatch

I boosted the gold over hammers here and it looks like I actually went with the Choku here.  I noticed we only had one worker in the area, sitting on the tile to road a path from Jackalope.  So we can either take our chances that the road build can complete next turn or lose that opportunity altogether and add a extra turn for the units coming from Jackalope.  You can also change Sasquatch to a Worker build so that both units can complete the road next turn and allow those seafaring 1-mvers to station themselves outside of Cornish Owlman.  Snallygaster and Goatman should fall easily if we get there first.




That's pretty much all I have.  I did not whip as many units as I thought I would, basically because I've decimated our city roster so badly.  That Maceman in Kaifeng?  I was thinking of promo'ing it to CR2.  This could be helpful in retaking cities when we are able to upgrade Maces to Rifles.  It's my favorite cross-category upgrade strategy to provide otherwise unavailable promos to advanced units, along with upgrading Garrison 3 Grenadiers to Machine Guns.

[Donovan Zoi]

No problem sending ships west since Tarkeel's navy is shot. Honestly, wouldnt mind just punishing Laz by pulling away from the soon-to-be-Amica lands anyway. Since Tarkeel is taking the full pounding from Amica.

Perfect, I think we are on the same page here. I have been vacating Joshyland for quite some time because suicide, but I'd still like to get a few units out from this region before Amica comes callin'  If he does, I think that the remaining player field will have to take notice.  Maybe Cairo gets involved, or Miguelito joins us against Laz to keep the pace.  I don't think anyone wants to let Ethiopia gobble up an entire continent.  That would give him 100+ cities lol.  But only Cairo is in place to punish him directly. Cannons and Rifles will help us to slow the advance, but we'll need to be pretty crafty.

As for Nessy, I like that plan as long as we leave a provision to possibly send some units to camp outside Owlman next turn. And it looks like you've left us the moves to do so.  I am all for the trade off as well, when possible, or at least coming out of things at a better ratio (taking a 14-8 battle down to 7-2 for instance).

[Donovan Zoi]

So I opened the turn to this:




I haven't left the diplo window yet, so we could go over the pros/coms here.

Accept Peace

I am inclined to take it for the following reasons:

--It gets us out of a two-front war
--We get to keep Beijing.
--We're not really prepared for Laz to hit our maniland.
--It will allow us to safely (for the most part) go into Serfdom for the GA, something I have been preparing many tiles for.
--We get to enhance a few more domestic builds before the GA and the extra gold we'll get.
--We'll get to help wipe out Tarkeel and be better prepared for Amicalola should that happen.  Amica may even back of if he knows we are no longer committed elsewhere after Egypt is gone.
--Our GA should get us close to Steel and Rifling for better chance at parity with Lazteuq after 10 turns.
--We can grab the last two cities form mjmd on the Astro island (if Laz doesn't get there first).

Reject Peace

It's likely that something on the French border has set Laz off, so there's a case to be made for staying in the fight

--If Miguelito joins the war, we ensure we get our share of the spoils...eventually.
--We get our islands back...slowly.
--You have something fun to do.


I think it's pretty obvious where I stand, so please let me know if you see anything missing. Laz boated 3  units  outside of Beijing, so no risk of taking it just yet.  As you well know, I have been plagued with war since I took over from TBS, so this development could be a nice shot in the arm to get economic engines churning again.  Let me know what you think...

[superdeath]

I am fine with peace with Laz. We all know who the real enemy is.. >