(January 4th, 2022, 17:30)Ginger Wrote: Do they have to be loaded onto the cruisers in port or rebased directly to the Cruisers? If they can be rebased to the Cruisers I suppose they can serve the purpose of very rapidly transferring MFG from home to the frontlines to replenish or sustain action across the map.
That seems to make sense - a 60h missile (I had not quite grasped how cheap they are) might keep a 200h mechinf alive. Sadly you can't rebase them to ships but have to load them up in ports instead. So the first attacks will have to go without, but once we catch an island we can rebase them there and load them up on missile cruisers immediately, in addition to airlifting. So I set afew of the least productive cities in former Ramkia to 1 turning them.
Amicalola conquered the whole continent to his west in an amazing 15 turns !
He's at something like 125 cities now, so two times more than us . Here's the best shot I could come up with:
Note how many of these are still in revolt. On the horizon are Lazteuq and Charriu. With the latter we have a defensive pact. They are a bit more spiky than Amica's other victims so far. Both have AL and Charriu actually has competitive GNP. We have to figure out yet what to do if Amica comes for them regardless. Definitely support Charriu, unsure about Laz. And whether to send some troops that way already. What I've seen of Amica's army in former China: tanks, MGs, infantry; lots of all of these. Also a great number of transports, all with 6, many with 7 moves. Only destroyers so far, and not too many. Fwiw I saw Donovan defending with CKNs and pikes.
So let's assume our adventure with Picc turns out favourable, what happens next? We can't really expand anymore, and it doesn't make too much sense either because cities need an executive and courthouse first before contributing anything. I don't think we can really hold territory on the western continent, given that the supply lines go right through civac. Or maybe we can, if civac stays passive?
Anyways, Amica is totally back to contender, but to win he needs to knock out Picc first together with us, and then us, because we are ahead of him in tech, are researching faster even wwithout building any wealth/research, and can produce spaceship parts faster since he can't whip them. So from the moment on when it's clear that Picc is not winning we have to expect him to turn on us. That is pretty incomfortable, not least because right now he is providing us with the majority of our Mining Inc resources. Currently we are managing to gain power a bit faster than him, but that is going all in and with so many of his cities coming online yet. But it's not hopeless; he has to get to us first (far more way than from us to Picc), and we have defender's advantage and also technological, thus far.
He also seems to be pretty enthusiastic about nukes, having sent several Uranium-Uranium trades with the War with Piccadilly messages. He has had Fission since I believe t228 (we are at 233 currently), and I expect him to finish Manhattan Project any turn now. I am purposefully just not finishing it this turn, since I am wary of Picc's counter nukes and want to reduce his capabilities as much as possible by conventional means. Laser for SDI has high priority.
We cracked 10Mio soldiers this turn, still behind Amica who has been adding full steam as well.
Meanwhile it seems that Dulland/Frozen annoyingly researched Advanced Flight. So if we go for it now the Internet will gift it to Picc as well
Here's an interface bug; with many deals active this otherwise awesome BUG screen doesn't allow to scroll horizontally, or at least I don't know how to. I hope to remember to show it to Charriu once that's possible.
I might've made a mistake: I want to declare on Piccadilly next turn taking the first half. I played first the current turn, but when yesterday late evening I saw Amicalola connect who was last to play, I loved in just to ask them how long it would take for the turn to roll, because I was heading to bed. I was logged in for about 4 minutes according to PBspy, and didn't move or even look at anything. Would anybody object to me declaring in the first half next turn (hasn't rolled yet)?
(January 12th, 2022, 03:04)Hitru Wrote: I think that's ok. Might be good idea to send pm to Picc and explain you did not move anything etc
Thank you for the reply, but it's moot anyways. Picc uncharacteristically logged in right after turn roll (1.5 hours afterwards, but I was very much unavailable). That got him a double move to get into position. Sucks for the lurkers, because you don't geta war this turn.
We have an interesting chicken race with the wardec going on, as he has defensive pacts with both his continental neighbours, which he doesn't want to lose while I would rather not trigger them, mostly because I don't want to get my airships ported out.
Anyways, I will try to mirror him and get a double move into next turn and then declare on the first half the turn after hopefully. Not going to camp the timer though, and I don't have too much availability over the day, so it well might not work out. If I stay in the second half we can start things next turn just as well. Here's an appetizer:
By virtue of the double move he got enough ships into the area that we can't just put ourselves into the line of fire. I'm bringing in reinforcements, and meanwhile try to get an advantegeous angle. Also using civac's cities as airfields.
The fleet in range of his island has something like 6 battleships/missile cruisers, 4 destroyers, and a bunch of frigates (mostly meant to draw collateral from battelships). And 4 galleons and 1 transport with another trailing.
I'm biting myself endlessly for not being in theocracy . When I picked free religion I genuinely believed that war with Piccadilly was a pipe dream. Living that dream now, and planning for war with Amica on the horizon.
I saw a fleet of like 5 transports plus escorts of Amica's approaching Picc from the west. Picc has also seen it. His tank/collateral stack has moved where we can't see it.
On turn 235 already, as promised, Amica already started the campaign to stop Piccadilly's space ambitions, taking 2 islands right next to Picc's capital. In the first place, that's nice for us, because it consumed (and consummated) Picc's DPs with Frozen/Dulland and Ichabod - which meant that upon our declaration our trade routes with those two were not nuked, our air reconnaissance in their territory remained in place (somewhat, see below), and I have to worry a little less about Ichabod's 25 destroyer fleet lurking next to our secondary invasion force. Ichabod in fact promised iron/iron when I first announced our intents some 12 turns ago, and I would hope that I'm interpreting him correctly that he wants to join in on our side (which would make perfect sense for him. he can easily conquer Cornflakes' former territory). However if he throws those ships at us I'm not quite sure that we would not lose some loaded transports or galleon.
Looking at the signs in Picc's territory you'll also see that taking the core will not be a cakewalk for Amica. I think his first wave has just 5 transports or so which probably is to little to do more than maybe burn a coastal city or two. I've spotted some reinforcements:
At least it puts enough pressure on Piccadilly to concentrate forces in the west, which is great for us coming from the east.
So, off to our own efforts:
It's just the two islands for now, because that was what was in range. Next turn we'll go for mainland cities. Burning/taking* Poverty Point (Ironworks) will be difficult, but I'll attempt to. As you see I'm also splitting off some ships to put pressure on the northern coast.
Piccadilly's fleet will escape through the channel, which we could not really prevent, but we can just block that channel (will have trouble guarding inland sea cities though, but there're means and ways).
I had planned to raze and refound Puyo Cliff, in order to rush an airport and airlift in unlimited reinforcements. I'm second guessing for two reasons. One is that we can only take Casa Grande and unload units there if we sail through the city (from SW of Dia where the bulk of the invasion fleet is). The other will be discussed below.
* keeping HG is tempting. We have a lot of unhealthy cities, not least because I have been building units over cheap aqueducts. Otoh, most of these cities are using all their tiles and are not starving yet, so more food is not overly useful.
I'm pretty happy with the air reconnaissance.
As you see, we cover nearly all of Picc's territory, and so have a pretty good idea of his current forces. This is without city visibility from espionage! I suspect the original tank/cannon stack that was stationed next to Kangaba is now on the galleons E of Stony Lake, at least partly. Picc might be able to disrupt our vision though by picking up unprotected airships in Dulland's/Ichabod's territory (also 3 bombers. They don't give XP so it didn't make sense to disband). I forgot to take an F5 shot , but as you see I protocolled all of his forces this turn.
Btw I think Picc, while playing an impressive game in many regards, really failed recon. I think I managed to hide the main fleet of 26 transports plus escort until turn 234 (while showing the minor fleet in the south). I had to maneuver around his single caravel in our territory, which was difficult with double moves happening, and then a single privateer in the northeastern passage, but really a single airship in a civac city 10 turns ago would have monitored the entirety of our build up without us being able to do anything about it. Not sure if it woul have changed anything about his production priorities, but I think his research speed has only slowed down for the last two turns (he still lacks Robotics for the spaceship, which would also be rather useful for his defense. Not sure why he went Genetics and Ecology first).
He stationed a number of airships in neutral cities where we had air units, so our units got teleported upon the war declaration, in the case of air units to other neutral cities. That means that a number of airships are in suboptimal places, and some bombers were completely out of range (but I was able to send them back into position this turn, and sicne there has been no serious combat yet it didn't matter too much). This is of course particularly effective in remote Ichabod/Dulland islands where I can't just send some infantry to recover the spot. Nice trick to remember for the future.
Have a power graph:
So, it is the upper green and the upper blue line against the brown one. Should be a sure thing, right?
Actually I have a secret to tell you:
You might remember that when I had agreed with Amica regarding this war that I was very anxious about ensuring civac's neutrality. Well I never told you but when I asked him to tolerate our campaign he offered to join the war on our side! And actually his fleet was sailing in the right direction as of turn 235. civac doesn't report anymore, so you heard it here first
However I screwed up with the coordination, signalling to him that we would attack only on turn 238. Then the buildup went a bit faster than expected, I had to eschew Picc's caravel and escaped forward, and Amica was also pressing for an earlier start. However I have played the last few turns distractedly (RL...), and it only now occured to me that it would have been swell for me to tell him . So he's perfectly on schedule to arrive turn 238, when I should have taken care at least of all the coastal cities already, and I could not really fault him if he turned his navy our way.... Well he definitely could see our ships moving , and could have concluded what was happening, but still, not my proudest moment.
So I'm trying to make up for it and signalled to him (via resource offers), that I'll leave Little Bighorn, Casa Grande and Awkar to him, like this:
Orange would be his cities, purple ours (It is annoying how nearly all remaining players are some shade of purple-blue-green)
But that still leaves two or three problems:
I still need to kill most of the units in those cities, or else they'll reinforce Poverty Point. This in turn means that he'd ship a large army for basically no purpose, which he could then still sail back and cause us problems.
He may feel offended for getting just 3 cities for his efforts
I already mentioned that I may need Casa Grande to quickly advance on Poverty Point.
All of this could be solved by leaving Poverty Point to him, and instead focusing on . It would also create a beautifully tense border between him and Ichabod (remember, they have fought before). The issue is just leaving Picc's IW city alive for longer while we are trying to stop him from building a spaceship (or nukes, but Manhattan Project hasn't fallen). I can ponder it a bit more but it might be the correct approach. That is, if it is still an option. He played after me and may have turned his ships already
Btw, the last post I said I wanted the first half of the turn, which I really think is very beneficial in these modern wars, and I managed to, logging in 5 minutes after turn roll, and only because Ichabod was blocking me before he logged off. The result, which I did not think too much about beforehand, is a four way turn split us->Piccadilly->Amica->Ichabod (the latter two are at war by virtue of the defense pact, and at least did not make peace immediately. I don't quite see how they are going to fight against each other within the next ten turns, so it would be nice if they could avoid the split)
So, did I unnecessarily doom this game to 72 hour turns? Probably not (not unnecessarily, that is). After all, I promised you a World War, and a dogpile on a 40something city empire doesn't quite cut it, does it?
Because Amica in his endless hunger also used the turn to take over all of Lazteuq's islands (basically all the seemingly unsettled spots you see in the picture), and his transports are pointing for the mainland. That is of course unacceptable. Of course, while I did see it coming, I am totally unprepared, having sent every bit of material towards Piccadilly. I pondered a bit whether to defend Lazteuq or rather just take as much of his territory as possible, but the first option seems more feasible.
Things move fast in the modern era, and I am already starting to airlift in mobile infantry. Lazteuq has no rail network, so we have to build it, and will do so as fast as possible. Also probably rush buying an airport next turn. The main issue might turn out that we have no fleet to speak of in the east yet.
My attempt to warn Amica:
He will see this bomber and hopefully understand the hint.
I sent iron for iron to Lazteuq, and War with Piccadilly for iron to Charriu which he returned. At least our units, while few at least at first, will be an era ahead, fighting tanks and infantry with mechinf and ordern armour. I think it is possible to hold him off if the alliance holds. Ideally of course Amica takes some cities from Lazteuq which we will then conquer, and since city trades are disabled, sadly will have to keep .
Anyways, war with Amica will be utterly ruinous because we get so many Mining resources from him (he also gets all our grains for Cereal Mills, but we just have a lot less cities and territory, so it should bother him less). Well at least losing that will be good for our finances. Him establishing a solid holding on that continent is just not something we can live with.
As a reminder that this game is called Civilization not Barbarism, who can tell what's happening in this screenshot?
We'll start with an overview of the operations so far:
As you see, by now we have taken all islands but the one in the inner sea, and the first couple of mainland cities. All of them were defended by token ancient units, and occasionally a recently finished infantry unit or MG. Piccadilly could take back any of the mainland conquests; only at Tiraqqa am I even leaving some defense so far (it's on a hill, and a good launch pad for bombers). Still I generally went for keeping conquests over razing for a few reasons:
ports accelerate the eventual inland campaign
trading units is beneficial, even if he gets the better hammer trade rate. Our force and production capability is vastly superior
keeping conquests lets us airlift in units. Currently it seems like we will not even really need a transport chain. Eventually we'll want to rush buy strategic airports, but it is not practical yet. This is very important - so far every turn we have increased our total forces in the area despite losses. A newly conquered city can airlift in a MechInf that otherwise would take half a dozen turns to the front, and that will at least make him think again if he wants to reconquer.
I have also marked civac's and Amica's advances. Civac should proceed this turn yet to take Casa Grande and Little Bighorn (the order is us->Picc->Amica/civac->(maybe Ichabod?)). Picc's main stacks are in the golden rectangles.
You also see that Picc has moved his capital. He might do so again.
On turn 237 I sent out a 4 MechInf expedition onto the hills by Blaupunkt, with subpar results:
(the hover is over Kangaba)
However losing them is not the most embarassing part in that log - notice the carrier snipe? It was loaded. Badly miscounted tiles there. And I was somewhat lucky for that carrier to randomly be there, because underneath was the bulk of the loaded transports .
Bad moment, but ultimately not too significant, or so I hope.
This turn I am making a more serious landing attempt:
The thrust is towards Spiro. He may give battle and kill a bunch of units, but unless there are some really strong forces on those galleons I don't think he'll get us quite down. And I don't think there will be either: The pics did not take, but I sniped a 7move transport NW of Spiro with guided missiles (yes they can kill, that's nice) and confirmed via Demos that it was empty, so I don't quite see why the galleons wouldn't be. *by the time I'm posting this Picc has played, so the stack may already be history
The goal is the channel (there is a fort below our stack, which is not ideal if he promotes his modern armour to CR); however I am unsure if that will work - from my WB tests it seems that if Spiro has 4th ring culture he will keep the fort tile because he previously owned it. This is a mechanic question for savvy lurkers: If Spiro has 4th ring borders, will it control the tile of the stack even after Picc loses all of the mainland cities?
Alternatively we can build a canal south of Blaupunkt.
We have mobile forces in reserve on transports, and the plan for t239 is an all fronts approach on Kangaba, Poverty Point (IW city in the south, hopefully together with civac), and Blaupunkt. Silent is also a very tasty target with the shrine and Ethanol HQ, and we have a number of transports threatening it, but I feel it's more important to actually gain territory first.
Picc's stack in his former capital is wounded significantly:
So it seems like Amica tried a landing and got routed. Well, he has more transports incoming.
We conquered Cornflakes' former capital:
It had to be razed, sadly. Or maybe it didn't have to, as Picc might have let it live in particular if we airlifted in some defenders. But raze I did. The Parthenon is obsolete anyways, right?
Here I kept the wonder:
Also such a nice building haul. However we don't get Rock Hits yet for lack of a trade route . We'll see if Picc lets us keep it.
As you see, we are achieving complete vision on Picc's territory, so aside from possible units on those galleons we have a pretty good idea of his total forces:
Those SAMs are pesky btw. I think the only counter are stealth bombers? Edit: Now I realize that I have it backwards: F5 shows all military including units loaded on galleons - so what I couldhave done is make a complete tally of the visible units and compare to what the list tells me, in order to know what is on the boats. Looking at it now without being able to log in, I think we were seeing all of his tanks (well they are all upgraded to MA by now), but maybe not all of the infantry units.
This is us, for comparison:
Note that we are not in Nat. All those MechInfs were built in regular queues. Obligatory I hate myself for not being in Theo (and Nat) .
Included are 5 tank->MA upgrades which I did against my usual aversion and without thinking too much about it. At 200g each I feel like it's not too bad of a bargain though.
Add to this Amica's steel avalanche and this war should have a clear loser (the winner is another question). However, Picc has not been lazy, and here he's showing how it's done:
t237:
t238:
So he's launching this turn, and then only has to hold for nine more . Exciting times!
(also note Amica's land lead )
That's all I have on the western theater for now. In the east the situation remains tense. Charriu has declared on Amica. I am really trying to avoid doing so as it would cost us many hundreds of Mining Inc hammers (and Amica friendly reminded us by cancelling a single 5 resource trade, which might already be worth 200hpt net, which 2hammers in each Mining city). So I'm doing my best to signal to Amica that them holding mainland cities is not acceptable:
That diplo window might be confusing him more than anything, so I hope that little stack speaks a clear language. More is on the way. Note that they evacuated Barbar8, although that might be just because Lazteuq was going to smash their wounded units there otherwise.
Obviously having to divert these forces from the Malinese front is very annoying, and I would be angry with Amica here, but I think I have come to understand their motives.
Basically they have a huge city advantage now, with >140 to our >70 (and ~10 of ours are going to be revolting for a good while yet), but they are behind technologically:
(note however the massive pile of gold they have been building up. Meanwhile Picc seems to spend his fortunes on unit upgrades or rush buying; at least he's not researching anymore outside of corp beakers.
Together with the unability to whip spaceship parts, they have to stop Piccadilly's but then they also can't expect to outrun us, so taking Picc out is useless for him if he does not also prepare to raze our core.
If you remember my previous walls of text, I was quite annoyed when they gave a credit to Picc and cancelled our resource trades right when I was desperately trying to compete with Picc for the Internet and Fusion, all the while Amica was proposing us war with Picc. But from the perspective that I layed out that makes perfect sense. They needed us to fall behind Picc in the space race, because we were too far away yet for a swift conquest, and also a more difficult target. And now they need to approach us in our east while the bulk of our forces are busy with Picc still, to have at least a reasonable chance to then overwhelm us once/if Picc's spaceship goes down and we start on ours.
The world at war:
I just hope Charriu isn't too annoyed at us for not declaring on Amica (yet). I think a second round between Ichabod and civac might happen. Their fleets are already threatening each other. Or was Ichabod going t declare on Picc? In the tech thread he was talking about observing a turn split, which lead to him missing his turn so he could not declare on whomever he wanted anyways. I think if superdeath had taken over already I might have a much easier time of convincing him to stab Picc.
Demos:
Finally a question for whomever is still reading: Are you happy with these reports? I notice that Amica is getting a lot more views and also replies, so I'm wondering what they're doing better over there. If you have any questions / requests for what to show, please tell. I fear I will not be able to manage a much detailed report on battles, but I will try if there is interest.
I can't confidently speak to the Spiro culture question, but for SAM infantry counters, note that ground units can only intercept one time per turn, unlike Fighters, so you can still bomb down a stack with some more investment. As for Amica's thread, some of it is from comments that do not strictly relate to gameplay. I am following all of the threads here that still report, and appreciate this one
I think I can speak for any reader to say that these reports are wonderful and much appreciated, and I do have a couple questions. First, if you’re worried about Pic moving his capital like you mentioned, can you get EP city investigate on him? So in ten turns either Pic wins or its game on, what’s your current tech situation and ETA for completing a space ship of your own? What do you estimate your chances are of successfully razing Pic’s Capital? Or perhaps a better question, what points of failure do you identify in your attack, and as a corollary, to what extent do you rely on your allies in this dogpile?
(January 25th, 2022, 15:47)Miguelito Wrote: This is a mechanic question for savvy lurkers: If Spiro has 4th ring borders, will it control the tile of the stack even after Picc loses all of the mainland cities?
Yes: If a city has popped borders to a given ring, it controls all the tiles within that ring where its owner has a cultural majority (including all of the culture its owner has put onto that tile in the course of the game) - even if the city and tile are on different landmasses with 2+ tiles in between them. A city can never add any culture to a tile outside the "culture range" of its landmass (i.e. outside of tiles in the virtual BFCs of imaginary cities placed on every tile on its landmass, including peaks) - but if the culture is already there, that city still controls the tiles until someone else pours enough culture onto them to overcome the tiles' cultural history.
Quote:Finally a question for whomever is still reading: Are you happy with these reports?
Yes, absolutely!! Thank you so much for reporting this thrilling, fascinating, and still-unpredictable endgame so thoroughly!
Just had a peek in.. Amica declared war, bombed our forces in Persia (we intercepted five of their planes, including two kills ) and offered peace. Not going to let them conquer Lazteuq without interference though , a cease fire is the most I'll offer. Not sure if I should go in the offensive yet, they're stuffing the cities with MGs and it turns out Mechinfs are not really great against those, who knew. They also sank my privateers/caravels observing the Malinese theater, which is quite annoying. I hope they understand that even though we are fighting in the east we have to cooperate there. Of course war makes communications with gold timers and such infeasible, duh.
MfG went down to ~4700, and a lot of units didn't finish and will be missing in the west, together with those that I have to commit in the east.
On the Malinese front Piccadilly launched his spaceship, but I'm not seeing a countdown. Am I correct that if he launched on turn 238, the countdown goes like this:
238 10
239 9
240 8
241 7
242 6
243 5
244 4
245 3
246 2
247 1
and he wins eot 247?
Civac took Cornflakes' former coastal cities, and Ichabod also joined into the fun, taking Wounded Knee and advancing on Poverty Point. He just missed Piccs galleon stack with his destroyers though, where Picc presumably had evacuated the Poverty Point garrison (I'll assume that Picc knows how to count tiles, unlike myself ). In an ideal world he captures Stony Lake and saves us so many headaches, but I'm not overly optimistic.
Overall it's not looking great. Apparently Timbuktu was not threatened this turn, so Picc was able to send those units in our direction, putting nearly all of his forces in range of Kangaba, and we probably don't have enough reserves on hand to advance there. Blaupunkt should be feasible, but that might be too slow.
I'm deliberating when to finish Manhattan Project. Picc has a Uranium right by his new capital, and I'd have to trust Amica to bomb it regularly, but there are no carriers of theirs in sight yet. And he might get Uranium from Dulland or whomever anyways. My interpretation is that nukes are the end of stacks of doom, but a carpet of course benefits the guy in control of the railroads.
!
. Here's the best shot I could come up with:
. So he's perfectly on schedule to arrive turn 238, when I should have taken care at least of all the coastal cities already, and I could not really fault him if he turned his navy our way.... Well he definitely could see our ships moving , and could have concluded what was happening, but still, not my proudest moment.
. 
. 
. We'll see if Picc lets us keep it. 
. Exciting times! 
) and offered peace. Not going to let them conquer Lazteuq without interference though 
, a cease fire is the most I'll offer. Not sure if I should go in the offensive yet, they're stuffing the cities with MGs and it turns out Mechinfs are not really great against those, who knew. They also sank my privateers/caravels observing the Malinese theater, which is quite annoying. I hope they understand that even though we are fighting in the east we have to cooperate there. Of course war makes communications with gold timers and such infeasible, duh.