Gavagai's procrastination bin

[Gavagai]

How much garrison do you expect to see in Rome?

Right now it is defended by a warrior and a rifle. I do not need to "expect" anything, I have enough EPs on them to see all their cities. Keep in mind, they have a railroad network and nationhood which means it can be extensively reinforced in one turn.
Actually, here is a picture from a few turns ago:
I need a seven-mover to reach the city from my territory. My hope is that they don't realize I can produce those (West Point) and don't expect me to attack without building a fleet first. This is not much a hope though - there are two of them and they take their turns very seriously. But if I can do that, it will be cool.
The thing between me and Rome is that I have massive operational advantage in the sea between us - they have lots of high-value cities right next to my territory, while all my coastal cities save two are pretty expendable (some are expendable on purpose - I don't develop them because I expect to lose them). But this also creates a strategic advantage for them as their high-value cities have much higher production then mine and in any proper arms race they will outbuild me. This means my only hope of victory is surprise: to strike with a couple of lonely transports before I have a proper fleet in the area and before they reacted to my deployment by their own.

[Gavagai]

Of all possible places, P&P chose to put the Pentagon in Springer Mnt - former Amicalola's capital. It is even better from my perspective than if they have put in Rome, now, at worst, I always have the option to force peace with them in the Tanks era (and at best I will get myself Pentagon).
Seriously, am I a joke to them? They play like they do not consider me a threat at all.

[Gavagai]

In other news - both mjmd and Tarkeel confirmed that they want to participate in the dogpile against Rome. mjmd even expressed the wish to start off the fireworks three turns earlier than me. He is also researching Flight which is something I cannot make sense of. The most natural idea for him would be to beeline Tanks but if I were him I would actually research Artillery. It opens up an underrated unit that can significantly shift the balance on land, at least until Tanks show up.

[Gavagai]

Rome attacked mjmd. I need about six more turns to set up a raid on Rome and other stuff. I fear in that time mjmd will be overrun. I sent him a complex charade asking him to tell me where my oil is (I do not have SciMethod yet), let's see if he figures it out.

[Qgqqqqq]

I love AI diplomacy.

[Gavagai]

I love AI diplomacy.

Yep. No answer from mjmd btw, so I do not know where my oil is. It could be a mistake to research Combustion before Sci Method but I have Great Library and lots of monasteries and I am kind of greedy.
In a paradoxical way, I do not really want to build too many Oil ships before attacking because I do not want to put P&P on alert. As I said, they will always outproduce my shipyards long-term, so my only chance is to catch them unprepared and cause disproportional amount of damage with a very small force. I love this strategic paradox where being weak increases your chances of success.

[Gavagai]

Miguelito declared war on Plemo and invaded with the stack you can see in the picture. The target seems to be Springer mnt. It is defended with an Infantry plus something like ten Rifles that can be easily upgraded. It also has a bomber inside. Not much practical significance probably bu underscores the gap in tech level.
This war makes little sense to me. I think his idea is that P&P are busy with mjmd and he can use this fact as an opportunity to quickly grab Springer mnt. with overwhelming force. I don't think Miguelito quite understands with what power level he is dealing here. Rome has Nationhood, lots of money, excellent logistics, and two turns is more than enough time to stuff the city with as many defenders as needed. Were it any other city, Miguelito could hope that P&P just would not bother but Springer has Pentagon inside and just recently they also added Christo Redentor to it. This city will be defended at all cost. Even if Miguelito takes it somehow by suiciding his whole army, they would just take it back. Maybe he wants to burn it but what's the point? It is not like Miguelito competes for victory in this game.
For me this is more a bad development than a good one. I will attack on turn 230, and already am discretely putting forces in a position for operation "Penguin". A strike in that area is a big part of the plan and I do not want to draw the Roman army here prematurely, especially their air force. What will most likely happen is that Miguelito will never attack because the opposing forces would be too strong and then I will have to deal with the Roman army by myself.
In other random news - I was afraid there is no Oil on my territory but there is lots of Oil. One is underneath a city of mine, so immediately connected. Good stuff.

[Gavagai]

As predicted. When Mig logged in to do his next war turn, he saw a total force of 35 Infantry and 2 Machine Guns (there are also 5 Muskets in the city but I decided not to count those). I sent him a message that I will attack soon, hoping he at least would not make peace and would just hang around instead or maybe go south, pinning this army to this area. But he decided to take peace for a useless city further to the south which did not get into this screenshot. It will culture flip to me in a few turns most likely but I don't think I have resources to defend it, so probably Rome would recapture it at some point.
I moved my attack one turn forward, to T229. Partially because mjmd pretty much begging me to attack sooner and partially because there is no really a point in waiting longer. I am going to face a total force of around 40 Infantry / Machine Guns with two Bombers in the area (as of now) and a bunch of Fighters. Against this I will have on this theater about the same amount of Infantry plus around 25 Cavs (over thirty if I decide to upgrade all the rest of my Knights) and seven cannons. This is easily enough to defend if P&P decide to invade; it is enough to attack if they would want to split their army leaving a large chunk of it to defend Springer (it was their positioning before Mig's attack). It will not be enough to break through if they decide to do the smart thing and deploy everything to my border. So... thanks Mig, I guess? Before you acted, their army here was three times smaller, I would wipe it out.
To be fair, there are some positives. Mig no longer sells corp resources to Rome and supplies them to me instead. Also, Rome burned around 1000 gold on upgrades. But still, man, Mig's timing was horrible. I probably should have informed him about my plans but I did not because I actually was worried he would snitch me to Rome!

In the large scheme of things though, the Southern theater is nothing more than a distraction. This is where the main drama will happen.
Next turn I will deploy a transport to a tile to the north-east of Ardea that is marked as "Penguin point". The transport will have four amphibious Infantry inside and will be able to take Nav2 and get 7 moves. This is just enough to reach Rom (in the bottom left of the picture). 
The transport will be unescorted. Penguin point is five tiles away from Aegirheilmr where it will be built and on the way to Chicago (at the very top). I am already staging my ships in Chicago, as P&P can easily see. My hope is that they would take this movement for a routine transfer and would not expect I can build Nav2 transports (I did not promote any of the units that came out of Aegilheimr to conceal the amount of promotions they can take). If they are properly careful, however, they can easily cover Rome with enough units to defend against my attack. If it happens - I do not think there is even a point in attacking, I would just shut down military production (except navy) and go hard after Industrialism. Tanks will greatly change the balance between offense and defense on land and the invasion of the former Amica territory will again be on the table. Sure, I can take their two island cities near my borders but they will burn half of my coast and I do not think I like this exchange.

Power graph is a bit misleading. A large chunk of P&P's and mjmd's power is navy (Destroyers add lots of power points) and I have three Destroyers in total. If we only count land units, I would be much closer. Still, I do not at all look like someone who is planning a war - at least, I hope.
On the other topic - mjmd is proving me wrong so far. I thought his late-game slavery is a meme strategy but for now he is keeping up in military production with someone who has Mining Inc and is almost fully industrialized. He actually has the initiative in their war. He has a bigger navy that gradually zoning out Roman main fleet and he burnt two small border cities. There is also no sign that his production is in any way unsustainable. I still think he will have trouble during the space race because you are supposed to build research and this is not something that can be whipped. But he can argue that the fact that he covered everything with towns will take care of that.
(And by the way - he is not in Universal Suffrage, so he is not even using the full potential of his approach. So, very good stuff from him.)

Production. Just so that you could see that mjmd truly sustains his war effort mostly through whipping. Also, observe that Tarkil has higher mfg than me despite the fact that I have Creative Construction and he does not.

This is really embarrassing demos for someone who is so much ahead of everyone else in land. Main reason - I have archaic civics. I am running Representation - Nationhood - Serfdom - Merc - Theocracy. And the worst thing, I will have to stay in this garbage for the foreseeable future, my GA is around 30 turns ahead (I hoped to capture Christo Redentor from Rome but Mig jinxed this option). My last two GPs were spent on Creative Construction and Taoist shrine. The corp was definitely worth it but I question the wisdom of buiding a shrine that late. It worth something like 90 gpt (after multipliers).

Victory screen for your information. Very close in population to Rome after the recent developments.


And the last thing I want to show is the comparison between my Moai city and its Roman counterpart that is just across the straights. Things to note.
1) 50 base hammers for me versus 40 for Rome. Unsurprising, I have more land tiles.
2) They produce more gold despite the fact they have 25% multiplier and I have 75%. This is the power of free market and protective trade routes for you.
3) 10 hammers from corp for me vs 14 for them. If another deal with Mig comes through next turn, I will have 11.
4) They must be building lots of research if they can research Industrialism that quickly while on full gold.

[Gavagai]

Any questions? Anything you want me to show you? This is an interesting game, really a shame it is underreported and underlurked.

[Gavagai]

Oh, another interesting thing about Rome that is actually not visible on the screenshot. In Adrea they lose 8 food to unhealth while I only lose one. This is the effect of me being expansive and having Hanging Gardens and them being shunned by all other players.