[pb74 spoilers] Miguelito and Ginger bring about the end of the world

[Miguelito]

The stack can be killed easily, but not this turn as we'd have to being in units from the south. His (illegal) cease fire offer tells me that he knows it but didn't expect to fight alone, with MS holding back.
The tough questions are a) can we win as easily against his and MS's combined stacks (I think we can, but it's a lot of units) and b) can we afford some limited offense against GKC at the same time (here it gets dicey...)

[Miguelito]

Ginger talked me out of attacking GKC without DZ peace. We bide our time until definitive tech advantage.

Donovan gets a peace offer, and a trap laid out for him in case he advances.

Also forgot to mention, metal asked for 90 gold, which we gave him with our best wishes, as it doesn't delay Rifling. Finally a friend . Dying of curiosity what he intends to do with that army. Maybe he wants to hit DZ even?

[Ginger*]

https://imgur.com/a/DsD3L7h

Does this mean we win? 

With the northern alliance collapsing at the hands of the perfidious Incans, we march our stack into GKC, going slow and steady with one movers and knights together. We have about 13 turns to rifling, delayed by grabbing Drama to unlock the goody hut's astro roll and by the obsoletion of our Colossus, and by gold upgrading some galleys to Galleons.

[Dreylin]

Congrats! That certainly puts you high on the list of Hut rewards for the game.

[Miguelito]

Fixed this for those who are too lazy to click on links to trumpet out that we in fact did pop Astronomy from a hut!  

This might be the coolest thing ever done in a game I've been involved in (tbf it was mostly Ginger's plan, who even researched Drama just to maximize our chances*).

* the list goes

40    TECH_FISHING
40    TECH_HUNTING
50    TECH_MYSTICISM
50    TECH_MINING
60    TECH_PRIESTHOOD
60    TECH_THE_WHEEL
60    TECH_AGRICULTURE
60    TECH_ARCHERY
80    TECH_POTTERY
80    TECH_MASONRY
100    TECH_SAILING
100    TECH_ANIMAL_HUSBANDRY
120    TECH_WRITING
120    TECH_BRONZE_WORKING
200    TECH_LITERATURE
200    TECH_IRON_WORKING
250    TECH_MATHEMATICS
250    TECH_HORSEBACK_RIDING
300    TECH_MONARCHY
300    TECH_DRAMA
300    TECH_AESTHETICS
350    TECH_CALENDAR
350    TECH_CONSTRUCTION
400    TECH_CURRENCY
400    TECH_COMPASS
450    TECH_METAL_CASTING
600    TECH_MUSIC
2000    TECH_ASTRONOMY

Commodore's explorer arrived a turn later  

There also was a battle:


This is the aftermath.
GKC during his 8 minute turn threw 10 catapults at our stack, then lost 7 knights and a bunch of war elephants attacking while killing 5 muskets and 3 knights. Ginger then killed some survivors in Chartres together with the city itself. Notably GKC did not use all his knights, and since our stack is pretty battered and is not healing this turn (catching up with the Chartres razers), next turn we're rather vulnerable. I expect GKC to have 8-10 healthy knights around .  No idea why he stopped attacking.
Joining stacks might have been smart, but we'd either sacrifice 6 knights or not raze Chartres so on we go.



 
Finally in the north, in another episode of "we define our aims not by what is realistic expectation, but by what we really feel should happen actually" I offered peace for Timbuktu to MS

To sum up the history of the Great Love Island War:

1. We are first to knights but only by a bit. Decide to hit MS because GKC is less likely to stab and because hubris
   
2. DZ offers fish/fish, we respond with copper/copper, because we delusionally believe we ccan finish off MS in <10 turns and turn on DZ right away. And ideally want to lure him into attacking MS together with us so he spends some forces. Idk what he made of our signal, but he joined the war on MS's side, sending cat/phant stacks
   
3. We disassemble one or two DZ stacks and offer peace. He takes it and proceeds to harass us pillaging roads in MS land that we'd like to use, having MS attack us from his borders where we can't respond, and finally planting an unattackable city where MS razed ours.
   
4. Because while we slowly take a brown island from MS, and quickly the border cities of Kati and Sikasso, MS sends knights through DZ's borders and we get our 4th city burned like little schoolboys. We push into MS and burn his capital, but then hubris strikes again, we move onto flatland just to get to the next city faster, and suffer bad losses after eating a bunch of catapults.
   
5. We manage to retreat when the DZ peace is up and he helps MS recover his border cities. However GKC declares on us and moves in with an immense pile of catapults and elephants.
   
6. Which we turn to shreds. Our luck is that MS and DZ don't attack simultaneously, else we'd likely lose Atlantis or Ragnarök, either of which is game over pretty much.
   
7. DZ makes a belated invasion attempt (or maybe it was a misclick), but MS doesn't go with him. We would annihilate his stack, but need 2 more turns (which we have) to get there because we've been fighting GKC and then healing. However in the middle of it DZ signs peace and ravages MS's stack that was parked on their mutual border.
   
8. We try to use the peace to conquer the weakened GKC. At the same time, we conclude that even a limited campaign against MS is counterproductive at this point, and offer peace, with DZ likely to get all of his mainland. After we offer War with GKC to metal, he sends a stack and walks it all the way around GKC's territory through ours, while ignoring his former city whose first ring he still controls. However he has no engineering and we outrun his units. Guess we'll see yet if they'lll be good for something.
   

Meanwhile we have to hope to get somewhere against GKC in the limited time we have, without suffering significant losses. Already hubris is showing again, with us splitting stacks and advancing with wounded units on flatland. 
9 turns to rifles is plausible. IT might get delayed though by astro settling. Which means that there will be a critical few turns where we don't have them but the DZ peace is up
Honestly, while the astro thing is super awesome, it is costing us hard on the rifle timeline. Obsoleted Colossus, we spent a turn on Drama, and now added maintenance might further affect the economy... If it makes us vulnerable to DZ in 7 (?) turns, that might finally teach us some humility. Otoh the thrill is awesome every time.

[Thoth]

The infamous and elusive Astronomy from a hut.....Awesome!   

[Mjmd]

In hindsite do you wish you hadn't teched drama or still glad for the free uber tech even if it obsoleted Colossus?

[Ginger*]

Strategically we're in a really awkward spot where we need to look to launch our second and third golden ages and try to hit Factories (the next major snowball), but we're choked by needing to conquest then regrow. I mean our empire had its peak productive and research capacity turn 138 and it's only fallen since then with the whipping and the loss of Deluge. In hindsight we had not fully capitalized on our research advantages by going Guilds over Nationalism, as Cat/Ele is a formidable defense at production parity. Also Gavagai was able to suck all the first-to juice from the tech tree *and* have a free knights conquest which doubly makes our old decision the wrong one.

All accounted for this was probably a 3 turn delay on Rifling.
Furthermore settling a bunch of islands will cost settler production and money, which seems unwise when we want to be hard-whipping for Rifles to overrun the continent.
So again, we might be getting distracted by the flashy* and probably this decision is "bad" relating to our wincon of unifying the island and recovering as fast as possible before our opponents get Combustion and Assembly Line. 

*Even so I want to clarify that this adventure is so awesome and funny that I'd still do it all again even if "for want of a nail" we lose the game off the delayed attack.

There are several competitive advantages though
1) deny islands to the two leading players, Comm and Gav
2) better standing if they or Pindicator wish to have a little adventure overseas
3) Naval attack on GKC's island holdings
4) Flexibility. Maybe this is redundant with point #2, but civ, especially big pitboss civ, isn't just a snowball simulator where you go through the motions of timing attacks and tech spikes, it is interactive, especially with capable and engaged players like Gav, Comm, Pindi, Piccadilly**, and Plemo. We do not have an urgent need for Astro, but it absolutely reduces some tail risk scenarios

Colossus losses will probably be eventually offset by a couple Observatories, coast will anyway have been converted into rifles 

**Idk how engaged Piccadilly is tbh, he let Gav roll GT for free, although we have neither the EP nor the scouts to know the context. Actually a lot depends if Piccadilly is playing with intent. Is he reporting frequently? Because he's been playing <10minute turns for a while which is a really bad sign
Plemo might be out of the running with his Lilliputian struggles but I'll bet he's too much of a perfectionist to not be still paying attention

[Qgqqqqq]

What did you mean by the list of techs?

[Ginger*]

It’s the list of possible techs from a Hut