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

[Krill]

I could do that, but there are other considerations: the availability of tiles for the Monks Halo/Long/Mullet/Lumberjack great metropolitan area being the main one, another is the ease of access to that whole strip oof land which is guarded by cliffs and a reef is another. I was going to do this, as I was planning a cheap commercial district from Long between the useless campus and and that harbour but as I captured a CD at Burmese it is no longer "cheap".

So far the Seowon has generated 189 beakers for me. I'll probably fix it for the great person point though, and libraris and universities generate the same beakers regardless of where they are.

[Krill]

T145 - Whosit bungles diplomacy and declares war on the world.

No really, that's the update. I can't exactly screenshot it either. He moved the Zanzibar troops east: I saw that coming a mile away, and the scout got a peek at an out of place unit. That leaves his west mostly uncovered, but I can't sneak past his armoury: I'll go for Galileo so speed up Refining, whilst tech pace will naturally get to Steel relatively quickly. So long as I have oil I can then grind through anything he has, but I need to keep gold for unit upgrades now whilst managing amenities with the extra cities. The previously posted plan remains in place, I just a bit more time to usurp Whosit as the most hated man in PBEM23.

[Krill]

T146 - reset

Due to Whosits' (attempted) invasion of Chev, I'm taking a turn to re-evaluate how to play the two pronged approach to a Khmer with no pressure and a Rome that can't make headway with a military tech advantage.




Using the formula thread but adjusting for the number of techs in the game (76 not 67), I get a a ratio of 100 production to 22.5 great person points generated. Two campus projects gets me Galileo, and open borders with greenline gets me 750 beakers. That leaves Emilie du Chalet who is complete trash for me, and Newton up for grabs. Four turns production from MH gives that, but I can get it slightly slower but with better timings. However, TAD had a recent spike in bpt, which does not really correlate with anything other than a campus project, so we are in a race. First person to 310 wins, and I think I can get there first.

The great Admiral, Drake, is more interesting. I will get there first, I make the most admiral points per turn, I'm in the lead. Drake will empower ironclads and frigates but not battleships. TAD can faith buy any Admiral, possibly gold buy but I doubt that: I can't stop him with a purchase so worst case scenario I expect an equal fight, but who are the next Admirals?

• Santa Cruz who pushes a TADian Caravel to 72 (82 if he gets Nationalism) as a last ditch effort? Last ditch is fine, it means I win at a production cost, but I win. A basic Ironclad will be 75, an ironclad fleet will be 85 but I will have two with Embolon at 92, so I can afford to face that.
  
  
• Yi Sun-Sin gives TAD an option of a single IC (which I could blow up with battleships). I don't care about getting on extra ironclad later on.
  
  
• Magellan - total trash to everyone.
  

tl;dr: I know I want a great admiral, as nothing after Drake really helps TAD do anything except neutralise that great admiral at the cost of losing the ability of buy a bunch of land units. Once I have Drake on the board, best TAD can do is equal that effect, so he dances to my tune, and that's a win.

However, TAD has Mercantilism, if he gets any privateers out he could cause a lot of pain whilst I raze cities...or keep a hidden force which could try and swing a battle, so I need to err on the side of caution.





Long will finish the shipyard SoT147, and then should be pushing 60 production per turn. Part of the challenge is that with Press Gangs It needs either 65 or 48 production per turn for ironclad builds. I have to marry this up with MH: if MH builds frigates I can get Long to 65 without issue. Long can only build ironclads though, due to the niter requiresments. However, I need to work out the campus project requirements, on which note here is Long





I have enough niter to be inefficient with one frigate, (and build it at Long), but I would much prefer to be efficient and save the niter for line infantry upgrades. I have 11 turns left on the alliance with TAD. Frigates take two turns. Four turns for Campus projects and with Refining "bulbable" I lose the ability to build frigates. I can't delay the frigates either as I need at least four to get four fleets in play (as I will be coal constrained very quickly for battleships), although I could delay the GS firing.

The preferred choice is to let Long complete the second campus project, but that will take four turns and is one turn slower. I think I might have to check the micro next turn: lose a turn at MH, try and gain a turn at Long.





Burmese is starting to tune up nicely. I will get an ironclad out of here after finishing the IZ. Probably dump the overflow form the IZ into the workshop (might even one turn it). I will play around with the options but I will get one ironclad out here before the alliance with TAD ends. Lilja (food) is on the cards to burn to size 10, shore up the loyalty, and get the other yields in play. Just the IZ will reduce growth times to ~35%.

Part of the reason I'm fixing the IZ now is to goad Whosit. Will he try and pillage it again? I doubt it. He knows I have the frigates and crossbows in play now, if he puts a unit on that tiles he must expect it to die. And he doesn't have many units on this side of his empire.

Ultimately I'm trying to ensure I have sufficient naval units to wipe out whatever TAD can put together on the Antarctic ocean and then focus on land military for Whosit. However that land military will be oil based in nature and until I know what I have to play with I'm a little hesitant to commit to building too many land units. A couple more knights are fine, a few cavalry will be useful, but I can't build bombards. I need to upgrade warriors to line infantry to use the niter then very quickly build trebs (make treb corps, upgrade to arty). That's 325 gold a piece for the line infantry upgrade and I would need to upgrade three of them, probably four to use the niter. I need the gold for frigate upgrades though, that's essentially all my gold for the next 10 turns. The order or priorities is Galileo first, navy second, army third.

[Krill]

T147 - confirmation

I "knew" TAD had done it without even checking, given no one has a faith economy. He took Crusade, which just means I have to go on the offensive.

Full steam ahead to battleships and and Steel, and fighting in his back yard, not in mine. He can't threaten Burmese with Crusade, and on the inner sea only Long has his religion only Ponytail on the outer sea. Defend inside, blitz outside then return through the canal to work up the coast city by city. Use frigates as support and upgrade as needed, bait out the attack and then run him through. Whosit looks completely inactive (famous last words).

[Jabah]

Could an occupied city even grow with Lilja (food) ?
(I know you can grow them by chopping rainforrest and marsh, but I thought that was the only way)

[Krill]

Cities grow whilst occupied. Burmese grew to size 7, but I cant change tile assignments. I wasn't sure before playing a recent turn, but it looks like loyalty is the system which manages captured cities, which places far greater importance on managing that system.

Interestingly that means captured large cities are more stable than fishing villages, don't bother skirmishing, go for the throat.

[Krill]

Turn 148 - TAD incoming attack on T157




TAD has units in the Antarctic ocean, but the main concentration is at Babelfish, threatening Ponytail. I see three caravels and three frigates to be, expect more, probably double. I'll be able to build ships out of Ponytail from next turn (although will likely use overflow to complete a one turn ancient era wall) but it won't do much in terms of the number of units TAD already has. I'll have to move a large number over and force a fight.




Given that tech is calculated at the start of the turn, I'll have eight turns of research. I should be fine to get Steel in place for any potential war dec, which means 400 health urban defences in place at the last moment, with no way that TAD can expect them to go down unless he is counting techs extremely closely. However, I have a much larger problem if I want to have battleships on the ground at that point:




Simply put, I need to run two more campus projects in MH and one in Long to get 129 points, so a 310 point GS on T152. The third campus project in MH is necessary to bring Galileo forward, without it I think I would reach 310 points on T154. Even with me railroading into greenline, it will take one turn to move, and then another to move and trigger Galileo. This allows a move on T153, and trigger on T154. And expect something to go wrong.

I need to have a turn worth of tech into Refining to get it the turn I trigger Galileo. That means Rifling due SoT151, Steel researched T152, then swap to Refining for SoT153 when I kn ow I am safe, and finally Refining T154 and Steel SoT156. Achievable, but at a cost of limited frigate production beforehand. Good job I haven't used that governor title yet.

[Krill]

Turn 150 - Calamity

Well, that's a little harsh, but this is certainly a suboptimal situation to be in:




TAD paid about 1200 faith for stuff, and most of it was for Galileo. He has a 500 science spot, so that is a 1250 science swing to him, but there is a better way to look at this: He just researched Industrialization. He will trigger the eureka for Steam Power over the next few turns, and with that GS will be about 300 beakers short of finishing it.

He is still down 6 techs on the run to Steel and Refining and has a single coal resource. And for Jabah: the Campus at Venice was repaired two turns ago, Newton insta-builds the library and university for 12bpt and 2 GS points, so that isn't a total loss.

It's bad though: I can only get Steel before the end of the alliance, I cannot reach Refining until several turns into the war. I'm going to be on the defensive for a while, and that means defending where TAD has crusade. It's going to be brutal if he just zerg rushes Ponytail. I'm shifting units around for a different defence posture.

OTOH: TAD just got into the Industrial era, so he has Industrialization. He will see he has one coal. I'm kinda wondering if he is going to declare and rush me. He does have the option of a religious victory (and all my cities are converted, and I can't get inquisitors out), so there is an interesting scenario where he tries for more enforced peace. Now that would be very interesting...





Great Scientists: greenline is a lock on Emilie, which is actually a good fit for him, she gives more beakers than Galileo if he can play his cards right, then that leaves the Industrial GS up:

• Darwin: 500 beakers for each adjacent natural wonder (TAD can get an easy 1000 beakers here), I have to float over to Ha Long Bay and avoid Whosit to get anything).
  
  
• Mendeleev: Chemistry eureka is good for everyone, it gives flexibility. Chev is likely to ditch our alliance if he gets peace with Whosit, which leaves me in the cold. TAD declares on me and he has to get it from scratch with Whosit (likely military alliance there would absolutely suck to fit against). I can get the two banks built so it would then trigger Sanitation, straightforward.
  
  
• Young: Oil reveal is worthless to me given the situation, but Sanitation eureka from the Industrial era, and then Flight, Radio, Chemistry and Combustion are all helpful to unlock.

Essentially, hope that Darwin does not come up as the first GS, and then skip the GS. If he is first, then might have to consider another GS rush (at least I'm making 9 points per turn now).

Admirals: Chev will force himself to Yi Sun, because he will trigger it immediately for the straight strength 60 cities. He gets there in the next 5 or so turns. Then greenline picks up the next, and I would be in line for the final one. Santa Cruz will be a pain to fight into, the way things are looking now, but I skip Magellan. I can live with no more admirals at this point.

Engineers: I'm now in line to get Sinan, but I'm going to skip in 10 turns and try and force TAD to take it. If he skips, then fine. Whosit will probably get there in 25 turns or so.

Merchants: Not going to get there in time to trigger the inspiration for Mercantilism (need it in the next 8 turns. Daguan is trash though, worthless to all players, so people might skip? The GM after is little better.

The more I look at this list, the less sure I am that anyone is in a particularly great position. TAD needs to faith buy an admiral, but not sure he will get Yi Sun-Sin, so he might end up having to faith buy Magellan. TAD is behind a lot of science, and Darwin helps, but then both of the other GS give more beakers! And TAD has to keep on pouring faith into great people means he isn't buying units.





Overview: I screwed up the production at Ponytail and couldn't one turn the walls, but I'm now considering if I want to try and get Medieval walls down for the extra 3 strength before I invalidate the build from steel (in which case the mistake just wouldn't matter). I'm likely to corps up the trebs and leave them on the lumbermill tile to hit any unit that tries to get onto the Pt shipyard. Against crusade I need to be careful, I need them in one piece to upgrade to artillery. That tile is safe from frigates but will pound at any

MH is on two turn frigates. I'll have to pause for a turn to get up to 40 niter, but then I have four warriors to upgrade to line infantry (Replaceable Parts eureka) and turn into corps to defend the encampment and canal.

Walrus and Long are on ironclads, and I'm going to need lots of them to buy time to get to battleships (well, the few turns I need). Mullet is basically putting the production into field artillery because there is nothing better for it to build, but I do have a spare trader and I might want to consider if that makes more sense.





Burmese is out on a limb at this point, but is not completely undefended. It's not far from size 10 either, so I might have to consider 5 turns of Lilja (food) which would get it most of the way there, but that is after I know what is happening with TAD. Until then, navy.

Venice is getting tiles repaired, but will likely go onto Lilja (food) once the granary is done; it will very quickly get to a decent size and level of production, the greater issue is amenities (more later). There is nothing else for it to do at such a small size. I need to stabilize this theatre until I have oil and TAD is under some form of control





Rifling SoT151, Steel SoT155, Alliance ends SoT157 and Refining due SoT160. Science rate will drop to 160 bpt with no campus projects running due to growth at Walrus this turn, but I do have population working the universities (due to having to slow down MH). It's a faster tech rate than TAD, and I have the better eurekas. My loss of Galileo is not a slam dunk for TAD, he still has significant problems unless he can raze my cities (captured cities I think will revolt back to free city status, so I'm planning for every city attack to be an attempted raze).

After Refining, oil dependent, I'm heading for Flight and depending on the GS (ie if it's Young) and the game state I might random the GS to see if I get lucky.




This is the biggie, the real challenge.

I'm going to have to give up the amenity cards; it was a mistake running Retainers, and I will have to run Professional Army and Retinues. That means either Press Gangs (how? I need it for frigate production), Craftsmen (painful but can be afforded), or Republican Legacy (Housing doesn't matter, but a straight loss of 2 amenities in all cities...?)

Mercantilism will take 7 turns. That's 7 turns of utter pain, but Mercantilism will land and then I can drop Retinues (all future upgrades will be resource-less or for oil/coal using units). Professional army will have to stay to upgrade battleships. Long might have to build that arena just to keep two cities in the black.


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OK, so taking a step back from all this: What to do? I have to react to TAD, he has first move once the alliance is ended. If he attacks me, I need to play for time and battleships, take the trades I can, and hold at Ponytail. Then once I have enough battleships upgraded (I need to work out what I need to upgrade beforehand, four warriors to line inf, one caravel to ironclad, I have three knights and a courser that might need upgrading...and 9 turns worth of gold is 1350 gold plus what I have now).

If TAD doesn't attack but doesn't move forward, I need to hold off on upgrading units I don't want to, but I don't think he does nothing. But he knows he lacks coal, he knows he can't get battleships out, but he will see Steel defences and know I am about to land Battleships. There is nothing stopping him moving units forward though except the reprisal. Can I communicate through unit positioning?

If TAD offers DOF and alliance...? What then? Any immediate rejection gets me rushed. But I save a turn just by being sent the proposal. Learn the lesson from post 158 - don't fight a two front war unless you have no choice. Between Crusade, a military alliance between TAD and Whosit that's 15 strength I can't replicate, which would mean that I need to fight immediately with a tech advantage and win (but Galileo does put paid to that at this juncture), or not at all (can't win any other way than with war, even a science victory will have fighting). A further alliance would put paid to Whosit getting any military alliance, and would secure the flank and give me 30 straight turns to take him out completely. 30 turns of Newton and a faster tech rate, two cities I can push to size 10.

And I do have a plan to actually benefit from a war with Whosit, and rails to move units back over there incredibly quickly... This potentially sounds like a better choice in the current situation, but it isn't my choice, I still have to react to TAD making the first move, and I can't do anything but prepare the defence and upgrade everything at the last moment.

[Krill]

T152 - Whoops

I realised this turn that I misunderstood a critical part of this game. Artillery only have a range of 2, not 3. I need Flight and Observation balloons for a range of three, which is 6 turns for Banking/Astro/Scientific Theory, plus another 10 turns or 5 and an Ind era wonder for Flight. That pushes back any potential attack on Whosit too far for me to actually be planning it right now and I need to re-evaluate the options (although if TAD attacks, the only option is defend, and because of Crusade that means attack). At this point I think we're all in a bit of a rut, or maybe it's a clown fiesta? I'm not excluding myself from that comment BTW.




One point of note though: Two warriors ended up on the same tile due to lack of movement points. There were both embarked, and the game put them both onto the same tile when I ordered them to move towards the canal. Anyone know what happens when get the turn back? Does one of the units get deleted?

[pindicator]

I can only think of instances where two units are in a city center due to production, so I don't think they would delete one