[SPOILERS] Pindicator emerges from the wilderness to play pb74

[Hitru]

I think we would have hurt badly with whipping, but attacking city with walls against str 6 axes does not sound nice. Before collateral there was not much to be done there.

Was there truly no other avenue for expansion than trying to capture Waimea? We though you could expand towards Tarkeel and we could both live in peace. Tarkeel was at war with Plemo already then IIRC so we thought you would attack that direction if you can't expand peacefully.

[pindicator]

Pre-177

Donovan is crazy.

He just attacked Miguelito, razed a size 2 insignificant city, and has messaged us asking to help attack Mig now.

Meanwhile he's still at war with Metal, who took Seoul back from him.

We're still at war with GKC. As is Mig.

Here's the Battle of the Five Armies, Civ4 version:




Now I did move the knight by Paris towards the razed city (circled in red), and found about 13 DZ knights. So he isn't entirely helpless here.

And what we have moving up (3 galleons already unloaded their knights into Rouen as that was always going to happen).




So we have 30 knights on the eastern continent now. We just don't have much else - just 1 catapult, a couple longbows. That's the stuff that still needs to come over.

If we had all 30 knights in Rheims I would be very tempted to hit Mig's stack. But we don't and he has rifles. So maybe we need to sit back and plan how best to take cities off of DZ? Even if that means we come into conflict with Mig soon after.

Anyway, waiting for Hitru to opine before I play.

[Mjmd]

Pre-177

Here's the Battle of the Five Armies, Civ4 version:

Love it.

[klops]

Love it.

+1

Two blue/purple and two yellow colours, you can hardly tell apart, makes it perfect

[pindicator]

We decided to stay away from attacking Miguelito and instead moved a dozen knights to take Lyons. With Mig now having to fight DZ, I can't imagine he wants to also take us on. We found 3 knights and 3 WC at Lyons, in the fog, which was unfortunate - clearly not enough to take the city anyway, and we will have to see what Mig does there. But our plan is to use this time to mop up GKC and then Metal. I'm going to send DZ my best "I said in 15 turns because I'm not ready now, idiot!" message, but I'm still coming up with how best to put that on trade goods.

Great Prophet born in Cispus. Next GP will get us our next golden age and ideally into something like Rep - Nat - Serf/Caste - Free Trade - Theology by the end of it.

We're debating going RP > Rifling or Chemistry > Mil Sci. I'm leaning the latter right now but we have some turns to save gold. Gunpowder finishes end of turn and then we make a round of Privateers and Muskets.

Next turn we pick up the task force for striking Avignon. I think 3 trebs and 9 units to start, and then start bombing culture.

[pindicator]

178

I really don't know what Donovan Zoi is thinking:




Trying to sneak up on Miguelito by taking the slowest route? Trying to finish off Metal while ignoring the sleeping bear he just woke up?

Unfortunately Miguelito had some units on a galleon that I didn't account for and was able to take Lyons. Fair enough, we move on to Avignon.

We discussed our options, decided poking the bear was not in our interest, and retreated our knights to Rheims. There's now 30 knights on the new continent, and we're getting some other catapults, pikes, and workers landing soon. The plan is to mop up GKC in the turns to come and then when our peace deal with metal expires we will head up to him.

We also are getting our Avignon force together.




Already there are 2 knights and a sentry horse archer on the way to Avignon. We have 5 galleons ready to load up and set sail next turn: 1 knight, 2 trebs, 2 cats, and 10 vultures load up for Avignon. On t180 they'll all unload. The only question is to whether we want to drop off additional catapults to speed along bombing down Avignon, or if we want more catapults on the mainland for safety.

And finally, the position gets even more complicated:




I'm really hopeful that this is just a scout, but in all likelihood we see Plemo settle on crab island the turn before we were due to land there. Been our story all game: just a turn or two slow.

Right now Hitru and I are discussing whether we fight him for it.

[pindicator]

179

Still have no idea what Donovan is thinking.  He sent us demands to attack Miguelito and to stop trading with Miguelito.  And then he razed Seoul and moved his army into a worse position.




Yeah, I would have loved to attack Miguelito with you, DZ:  around turn 190 when we would have our units ready.  You going early like this has completely screwed up any chance at coordinating, and moving your army here while metal and Mig take cities off you?    An apt play for April 20th.

At this point we half-expect him to attack us.

And we're settled on attacking him.  I think our plan is to now try to control everything in here:




Turn this into a [i]mare nostrum[i/].  First clean up GKC by launching on Avignon and Marseilles.  Then roll over metal when our peace is up with him in 5 turns.  Finally launch an attack on DZ's island when we are ready for that.  At the start of all this I was the one advocating for working with DZ against Mig (because it's obvious what Mig is going to do after it's just the two of us left), but DZ has rather forced our play by his bumbling of this.

We also decided not to contest Plemo's city on crab island.  It's undefended and our galleon is in range; we could ahve burned it.  But I think with him tied up against Commodore, we want to let them fight and then come land on this island when it reaches size 2 and he's done some of the work of developing for us.  I personally do not like how it is a doorway into launching against the entire northern hemisphere.

Next turn we land on Avignon.




And we have to decide on a tech next turn too.  I think Hitru is winning me over to researching Rifling ahead of Chemistry.


*If the pictures aren't working, Dropbox seems to be acting up today.  Hopefully they get their act together.

[yuris125]

Dropbox started acting up for me yesterday as well. Seems to be PC / browser dependent, I can't see your (or my) images in Chrome, but can see them in Edge on the same PC

[pindicator]

180

Landing at Avignon




I think we drop defenses and then try to attack without using any of the siege. We'll need those for Marsailles.

Wonsan fell to Mig after we played

[pindicator]

Could we have a lurker kindly nudge Miguelito about playing his turns within the turn order? I don't know if or when we'll attack him, but when he plays both before and after us in a highly chaotic situation it's impossible to do so fairly.