[Spoilers]C6PBEM23: Krill sidles yonder, and probably fails

[Jabah]

Is Mullet sea completely locked down (on the eastern side) or is there a southern passage // option to build a canal (in Korea) to reach another sea ?

To know if any boat made in Mullet (that might be needed in case of a Korea war) will be trapped forever ?

[Krill]

I sent a GS out there (Arya) 40 odd turns ago, I didn't get to check all teh way, but it runs all the way into the ice fields. Given the terrain to the north, it looks like the oceans are all separate bodies of water, with a couple of canal access points (ie TAD and I have canal access between the northern Antarctic ocean and the Rheic ocean), but there is no access between the Antarctic ocean and the ocean north of Whosit which Chev also has access to via his western coast. What I don't know, and I'll take a screenshot of on the next turn, is the connection between the Rheic ocean, and greenlines eastern coast, because that long spear of land south of Chev also runs into the icefields. It probably has canal access, but I don't know if it has natural route between the two bodies of water.

Short answer, yeah, any boat built by Mullet is likely trapped. But if Korea starts a war I have to end it ASAP, and that involves Urtin Duu coming into my possession and I don't think that requires a navy (at the very least would not use a coal resource unit).

[Krill]

T140 - Last turn of Medieval era.

I had some time today. I checked what happens with buying a coal plant. Turns out that you don't get the era points, and for once this makes sense: you get era points for generating power. Power is worked out at the start of the turn, so buying a coal plant now would give the power era points on T141, too late for my purposes.

Sadly, Chev came through with the gold. I had enough to buy both the coal plant and upgrade an ironclad, but even with the two era points for the admiral kill on a musket which was available, I was one era point short of the golden age. I'd like to feel something, maybe anger at this, but the reality is that this is my mistake: the game is actually doing what it says it would do.

I had to buy a crouching tiger for the 4 era points, and I still upgraded the iron clad as that gave the extra beakers into Steel. I should be able to pillage a tile next turn and buy the coal plant, but the reality is that this costs me far more gold than I should have paid. If I just bought that builder on T139, if I hadn't used the last one charge builder on the fish at Burmese and got the farm a flooded grassland for 1 era point, if the game actually would have let me buy the GE and give the correct number of era points, if, if , if...(one thing I don't question, I could have built the crouching tiger and left it one turn from completion, but if I had realised that this turn it still would have been too late). Maybe even not buying the university until the last possible turn at Long? But that gives me far more beakers than the coal plant this turn would have

On the one hand, this is me being greedy and trying to push. On the other I could have wasted a lot of era points if I did this wrong. I think in future I'm going to plan what era points I intend to gather at the start of every era rather than at a mid point. I can't really complain about not buying the coal plant this turn, it only came to my attention much later than it should have done.

All this to say I've changed my plans again and I've slipped into Raid instead of Limes. There are four mines and a campus at Venice I can pillage, the extra gold and beakers should make up for this loss. I will need to play T141 very carefully but things still look OK.

[Krill]

T141 - Start of Renaissance era

Era points: 76. Need 101 for normal age, 115 for golden age

Unique tile improvement: 4
Splendid theatre district: 3 (build at Walrus, 150 production)
First resource consumer for power: 3 (get T142)
First Railroad connection in the world: 3 (get T143)
Free city joins: 2 (either me or Whosit, B&C running)
Admiral defeats enemy: 2 (oh god, don't tempt fate, but really)
Canal completed: 2
First civic of new era: 1
First tech of new era: 1 (modern, might be first so 2 EP)
First fleet: 1 (might be first to Nationalism, so 2 EP)
First corps: 1 (might be first to Nationalism, so 2 EP)
Great person recruited: Great admiral 1
Great person recruited: Great Engineer 1
Great person recruited: Great Scientist 1
First improvement after natural disaster: 1 (farm at Burmese)

=27, no chance of golden age, normal age should be attainable

Possible:

First encampment fully developed (build Military Academy at Long): 3
First enormous city: 1 (will have to push for this)
Governor fully promoted: 1 (unlikely)

News at Venice: Whosit is running B&C, now has a 3 point lead on me, and Long is running B&C this turn, I have no idea what is going to happen because none of the numbers make any sense,

greenline is losing every city though, as he is in a dark age. I wish I had more time, need about another 8 hours per day to do everything.

[Krill]

T141 - Start of Renaissance era

Era points: 76. Need 101 for normal age, 115 for golden age

Unique tile improvement: 4
Splendid theatre district: 3 (build at Walrus, 150 production)
First resource consumer for power: 3 (get T142)
First Railroad connection in the world: 3 (get T143)
Free city joins: 2 (either me or Whosit, B&C running)
Admiral defeats enemy: 2 (oh god, don't tempt fate, but really)
Canal completed: 2
First civic of new era: 1
First tech of new era: 1 (modern, might be first so 2 EP)
First fleet: 1 (might be first to Nationalism, so 2 EP)
First corps: 1 (might be first to Nationalism, so 2 EP)
Great person recruited: Great admiral 1
Great person recruited: Great Engineer 1
Great person recruited: Great Scientist 1
First improvement after natural disaster: 1 (farm at Burmese)

=27, no chance of golden age, normal age should be attainable

Possible:

First encampment fully developed (build Military Academy at Long): 3
First enormous city: 1 (will have to push for this)
Governor fully promoted: 1 (unlikely)

News at Venice: Whosit is running B&C, now has a 3 point lead on me, and Long is running B&C this turn, I have no idea what is going to happen because none of the numbers make any sense, the points were increasing at about 19 per turn between us then he had this large jump, but I have no idea why he made about 9 points in a single turn. I'm (continuing) to move military to secure the area including a treb, I might still capture it before the city flips, I should take the walls down.

greenline is losing every city though, as he is in a dark age. I wish I had more time, need about another 8 hours per day to do everything.

[Krill]

Question for lurkers.

If a city has 30 strength less than an attacking unit and no walls, what is the expected damage range?

[Krill]

T143 - Offered Chev 300 gold for 20 coal. He can have his gold back now if he needs it, as I've been watching Whosit move units back towards him.

I hope to do a good update tomorrow. One thing I learnt is that you do not need railroads in a city to trigger the historic moment for connecting two cities. The air turned blue when I learnt that, waste of gold buying that crouching tiger.

[Krill]

T143 - teaser




With the right policy card, this city can two turn almost anything, resources be damned. In fact a large part of the micro is actually slowing MH down and boosting the other cities. It's like the good old days of Civ 3.

[Krill]

Turn 144 - Capitulation of Venice




Here you go Jabah. This was plan B. It should not have been possible, but because greenline took the brunt of damage from the muskets I managed to get both the knight kill for Military Science eureka, and to clear out the last few units for limited losses. Whosit should never have let me get close to Venice, this is a far more important city than Zanzibar. It generated 189 faith, about 1050 gold and 189 beakers from pillages, couldn't quite get the last mine.

Whosit would have taken the city via loyalty if I hadn't intervened, because he started B&C one turn before I got Long onto the project. I could have skipped a knight and would have been safe, but then I would have been skimping on a potential attack force and I wanted to hedge.

Here is what it looked like on T143:




I moved two knights up from the south, and a courser and knight down from the north. Whosit could only see the northern units, and he only saw them move once he took the lead in loyalty. He never saw the trebs moving up. I used the two southern knights to pillage and also pinged the walls once each, to get enough XP to promo heal. Whosit wouldn't have known what did the damage, but the frigates couldn't attack over the hills so he should have known there was more real stuff in the fog. He should start planning a a real defence.

As it was a musket got built this turn but moved out of the city, so the treb and the two promoted knights finished the city off, and the northern mounted units were not needed.

The original plan was a raiding party but Venice is more important, and frankly if I couln't raze a city a raiding party would have been a bad idea, and drawn more units back towards me. I don't want that, I want them wandering over to Chev (good luck with that invasion Whosit, you just tighten Chev to my side and I get the military alliance for as long as I need).

I'll buy a Pingala worker next turn, or possible the turn after to fix all the tiles. I may need to buy a tile to drop down both forts for the Ballistics eureka. I'll run the rail road straight into the city, and also to the tile west of Venice to give easy access to a harbour.





I had to move Amani into Venice, which essentially stops growth in Mullet (now about 6 turns and 10 food from size 11, whatever). The trade route finished this turn, so just moved it straight to Venice and I'll run it to MH from next turn, the yields will quickly fix everything and get the city growing again.

With Venice in my hands, Burmese will not flip so long as I match Whosit for normal or golden ages. Scarborough Fair is also holding fine, and Urtin Duu has the decent into revolt slowed. It should stabilise now I've stopped running Bread and Circus in Long. Tourdion needs a governor or it's gone, but greenline is refusing to move the guv from Arirang into it.

I think this is the end of the loyalty games for a while, but greenline has to fix Tourdion or all bets are off: he is trading silver from there and I still want that resource.





13 turns until the alliance with TAD ends, and on T146 Magnus gets promoted to Black marketeer and starts two turning frigates.

Even in the world where I think I can win without interference from TAD, I don't see how he has a route to victory without going through me. So I don't see how he could afford to leave me alone, so it's navy all the way even though it's likely to be used once and then done. 4 frigates allows me to join the four frigates already extant into fleets, and then they should be upgradeable to battleships, within the coal budget I already have. Add two ironclads from Long post shipyard to join the previous two caravels (one already upgraded to an ironclad, the ships should take 3 turns apiece) and that's the core of a navy which I will try to use to defeat TAD in detail. They will be powered by Drake, Himeros is likely to be retired for +10 strength versus ranged attacks on an ironclad fleet.

Ponytail will just finish the canal in 4 turns (with tile micro and no overflow), Lumberjack is getting the market but building the knight as well (queue upgrade to a cuir) because I might need to run a trade route from MH to Burmese for extra production depending on amenity situations. It will place the 165ish production theatre district on T146 (it grows in 2, not 1 due to stopping Lilja (food); used it for 2 turns to shave 5 turns off growth. Seems a reasonable exchange of 80 production for 50 culture, 50 beakers and 100 gold.

Mullet will continue with the cavalry, Walrus will swap onto the theatre district, I think it will need to go onto the archeological museum ASAP for the inspiration





I'm now relying on both amenity cards, especially with the near term growth in Venice. I probably have to fit in the arena build at Long. Naval Infrastructure is not going anywhere, and Praetorum has suddenly shown me the value of green cards. Craftsmen almost got dropped but when I looked more closely at MH and Lumberjack it gives significant flexibility in tile assignments and I would have struggled to make used of any other card to the same extent. Press Gangs is mandatory due to the number of ship builds about to happen.

I'm stuck with this set up for another 10 turns or so. Even with growth I doubt I get Nationalism in better than 12 turns.





I think that Ballistics will be finished SoT147 but I might be off. Rifling costs me 513, so should only take 4 turns so SoT151, leaving Steel at 600 from completion and Refining at 750. Given the alliance with TAD ends T157 it will be tight but I can get to Steel first, and if I build campus projects (which I should consider due to Galileo, he basically gives me Refining for free!!!) then I could have Battleships ready for the start of any war.

Whosit is back 4 techs, but he has Ballistics, so he is actually down Military Science, Printing and Siege Tactics, plus Steam Power and Industrialism, and then down one of Square Rigging, Mass production or Castles (he was down Castles ages ago).

TAD is down 5 techs: Industrialism, Steam Power, Square Rigging, Siege Tactics and Military Science, and has all first row Renaissance techs except one. I expect that to be either Printing or Banking, I expect banking (I can't see any banks being built). He will not be happy if he beelines Industrialization

Chev and greenline are on 27 techs. I have no idea what they have or don't have, except they both have Niter and greenline probably has either Siege Tactics or Metal Casting (I expect Metal Casting).





TAD has one more civic than I do, and he has Mercantilism and Reformed Church so he must be missing Enlightenment or Exploration. I think he is making a run at Civil Engineering or Colonialism but he should be grabbing Exploration for Press Gangs: privateers is probably he best way to play the naval war, and running for Nationalism for fleets and corps. Any attack at Ponytail is along an isthmus, so he has to stack the units as high as he can which means corps.

Whosit has one fewer civic than I do, but he has Mercantilism. I think that means he is missing Diplomatic Service (he must has Divine Right for Chivalry, that would be nuts if he didn't?!) That puts him really far from corps even with his good culture rate.

Chev and greenline are well behind and aren't anywhere near getting a first row ren era civic.





A contiguous empire at last. A shame about losing the Zanzibar amenities and gold, that would have allowed me to settle for Fishtail and be a bit more growth orientated, but this empire might be the best placed one in the game. Whosit doesn't have a viable victory condition, greenline is trying to not lose cities, Chev is just behind and TAD, even for all his cities and culture and faith, can't pray for boats, can't get an army down a thin isthmus, and can't catch up in tech. It doesn't feel like I'm winning, it just feels like I'm not losing as badly as everyone else

[Jabah]

Minor detail. You don't have to buy a tile for Venice harbour, you can swap a better "+3 seafood" tile from Long 3rd ring.

How bad is Venice campus ("0 bonus" ex Korean special