[SPOILERS] yuris125 on a Pitboss77 boat

[yuris125]

Scooter is now threatening Bizen and Hakodate (I keep playing as if I was at war with Scooter, even if technically we aren't)




Bizen is an interesting case, it's a city which has everything it needs in the first ring, and I didn't bother with culture there, assuming it would get Buddhism sooner or later. It still didn't, and now is under threat with no cultural defences. It does have a longbow, but I didn't think it was enough

I did still have some reserves to reinforce the city - last turn when I unloaded units into Seville, I left 3 samurai on a ship, in case I still had a chance to strike Barcelona. That didn't happen, but now I had just enough movement to use them to reinforce Bizen

For Hakodate, I whipped a longbow and added a samurai and a couple swords from the reserve stack. Not amazing defences, especially if Scooter has multiple crossbows, but I think it should be enough

In the south, Scooter's stack is still holding steady at his island - doesn't look like anything is at risk right now




Remember how I mused a few turns ago how many frigates Scooter had, and how scary it would be to go to war with him? Well, turns out the answers are "more than enough" and "very"

Here's an unfortunate situation - when I signed peace with Cairo, the galleon I used to check the situation last turn got bounced into a tile it can't leave




I went ahead and sent an offer to renew OB with Cairo. Worst case he says no - and he could well do that, now that the value of our trade routes is ruined - but there's always a chance he agrees and I can get it out

In terms of overall plan at this point, I really need to build a stack of privateers, so that I have at least some means of defence against frigates and SotL. However cities which don't have production focus also need observatories, as well as markets/grocers (about time I built some markets, eh). And I need to do some Buddhism spreading, I now have 5 cities without Buddhism

It pains me to follow Scooter's path, but I do think I need to also get to Military Science. Ultimately I want to upgrade my samurai, taking advantage of their natural promotion as well as the extra XP granted by Tataras, and they don't upgrade to muskets - grenadeers is the easiest upgrade to reach

All in all though, with the lack of military success, my hopes are slowly going down. Even if I stop Scooter from finding weaknesses in my defences, grens give him an insane advantage against everyone else. He has peace treaties with SD and Cairo, but I think the SD one will run out in a couple turns, and he hasn't attacked Bing yet, who still doesn't have Astro. With Scooter's city count, I likely would need an ally to have a chance in an eventual showdown with him, and I just don't see one. Cairo could have been, if he didn't slack on defences and didn't lose 3 cities to Scooter (yes, I also contributed, but I don't think he was recovering from that strike). Bing is already too far behind. SD, if doesn't lose any further ground - maybe? Even though I don't know how he will fare once the world adopts Representation

I think the best hope is to join in a war against Scooter next time he attacks someone - assuming he does, and assuming it won't be a blitz smash and grab operation like his last three wars. I have to be ready to be opportunistic. Which circles back to the earlier point - I need to build up a stack of privateers, so that I'm not defenceless against frigates

[yuris125]

Diplo from Bing




I welcome it, but mate.... 30 turns? we will all be dead in 30 turns if we let Scooter live in peace

Cairo accepted OB

I've been thinking about the best way to stop Scooter, and which advantages I have in this game

* I have Heroic Epic, Scooter doesn't. It really isn't an advantage worth speaking of, it's not an amazing Heroic Epic (21 base hammers), and even if it was, it can't compete with 13 extra cities
* Parthenon and National Epic. I haven't done much with great people to be honest, but basically I think after the current great scientist I should build market/grocer in Kyoto (why are they so expensive?! 150h is so much!), hire every specialist I can, and hopefully get several GP of different kinds in quick succession - either for a long golden age, or for more bulbing. I definitely need my second golden age for Representation / Mercantilism switch in the near future. Yes, I don't have either tech yet, but I'm well on the way towards them, and the great scientist I have and the one about to be born are both earmarked for bulbing. So I absolutely need more great people
* Faster ships. This is the big one, and I will keep this advantage until Scooter has Steel and Drydocks. Which to be fair isn't far, he has Steel on the "can research" list - guess it's just too expensive for him right now. Or he's going for Consitution and Democracy himself, to finish them during the golden age; he did just research Printing Press, so that's probably what he's doing

Speaking of ships, I've been looking at my western border, and there actually are a few interesting things I can do




I don't think Scooter can see Nagoya's tile. But with 5-move ships, from there I can reach not only Silver Lake, but also Black Coral. The latter is currently defended by a single archer. Forting the desert tile would also open the way to Ubaryd and Kartool; the former has decent defences, but the latter only a longbow and 2 archers. Now, forting a desert tile takes 13 turns, but it's not like my workers have much else to do, and I even have a bunch of unused galleys to transport them to Nagoya. I can pre-fort the tile, cancelling orders at the end of the turn, so that Scooter cannot be sure what I'm doing. He almost certainly will figure it out - but at least it will give him a decision for whether he wants to declare war not to capture cities, but merely to stop workers from doing their thing. Ultimately, what I would like to do is stop playing whack-a-mole against Scooter probing my defences, and try to force him to be on the defensive himself. It helps that if I capture cities from him, I don't need to hold them, and they don't need to be high quality. For his trade route-based economy, every city loss would be noticeable

So the immediate plan:
* Build a dozen privateers
* Build a good stack of 9XP samurai and get them to Nagoya along with 5-move galleons
* Pre-fort the desert at Nagoya
* Bulb Printing Press, research Engineering and Philo, bulb Chemistry
* Declare on Scooter as soon as I see a good razing opportunity
* At the same time, be ready to jump in if Scooter goes to war again, and either gets stuck, or his target starts crumbling

[yuris125]

Got a turn before my 3am bedtime went ahead and bulbed Printing Press. No immediate benefit, this has not been a cottage-heavy game, I only have 8 towns. But it's still a little bit of extra commerce, and I did need to clear it out of bulbing way, so thought might as well get it done sooner rather than later

I am a bit heavy on the whip, some cities are finishing privateers, others observatories, and others still some safety longbows. Guess it's unavoidable in a game like this, where hammers are hard to find. Plus happiness is rather plentiful, Izumo is the city which feels the whip the most, has 50 turns of whip anger, and still isn't really struggling

[yuris125]

Scooter's peace treaties are coming to an end, and his unit movement suggests he's preparing another attack. I could hit Black Coral next turn, and it's still defended by an archer. But probably smarter to wait until someone else can join - if all I can do is raze one city and give Scooter a 10t enforced peace, it doesn't get us anywhere. I'm just a handful of turns away from Chemistry as well, 5 at most, probably less. So it is a bit of a waiting game for a few turns

Speaking of Scooter's peace treaties, I noticed that Cairo is paying him 35gpt for peace. One of many reasons his smash and grabs have been so effective

[yuris125]

Scooter used his golden age to beeline to Communism. He did not adopt state property - in fact, he didn't do any civic switches at the end of the golden age at all, staying in caste/pacifism. Which suggests he's just going to fire off another one shortly

He sent me a fish for fish. No way I can take it at this point. Finding a way to slow Scooter down is essential

Unfortunately I missed Scientific Method on the scientist bulb list. I cannot bulb Chemistry after all. So it will actually take me about 8 turns to get there

Going to send a joint war with Scooter offer to SD. Erratic though his diplo is, hopefully he sends back something that will help me figure out what his plans are. At this point I don't think attacking anyone else is going to help. My peaceful plan would be to work towards the second golden age and switch to Representation/Mercantilism in like 20 turns, but that just lets Scooter get farther ahead. He just has too many cities to leave him alone

[T-hawk]

Unfortunately I missed Scientific Method on the scientist bulb list.

It is, well, right there in the name

[yuris125]

Yeah it makes sense, just didn't realise I had it available for research, and was too focused on the lower part of the list

[yuris125]

So Scooter did start another golden age and switched to State Property / Slavery / Free Religion. I knew from PBSpy that he went back to whipping, so this wasn't unexpected

He also declared on Superdeath this turn. No cities changed hands yet, and SD sent diplo suggesting I attack in 2 turns, he attacks in 3. Not sure what he means by him attacking in 3 turns, he sent his diplo after the war was already declared, but I expect he has a plan

I sent back that I will declare on T182

I will attack from this tile




There's little chance of hiding this attack from Scooter, with caravels all over the place and no way to kick them out, but I can do my best to hide intentions. From this tile I can hit Silver Lake, Black Coral, or Kartool through the fort

As expected, Scooter did figure out what my workers were doing (at least his frigate placement suggests so), but it's still something for him to worry about

My main attack direction will be Silver Lake, which is away from his mainland and the most difficult location to reinforce. I will be landing with catapults on the hill south of the city, unfortunately not much chance of taking it from sea with crossbows on defence. And we'll see if what I have is enough

[yuris125]

So as I'm sure you know, I'm at war with Scooter




This is a lot of red, but honestly, not as bad as it looks for the first turn of a war. No transport ships were lost, and 3 scouting caravels. 4 privateers was the biggest loss, since privateers is what I have to rely on against frigates. But it did leave a few wounded frigates I could try to clean up

Scooter did offer white peace, but of course I couldn't take it. This is likely the game-deciding war. Letting Scooter pick on others while I sit back would only let him get further ahead. Bing joined in the war as well, without prompting - although he still doesn't have Astro and doesn't have better ships than caravels - but he does have a lot of them, maybe they won't be completely irrelevant

It was a bit of a puzzle to figure out the attacks, and the outcome was well above expectations, but I did manage to sink 4 frigates and a caravel at a cost of just one privateer

The stack 2E1S from Nagoya had a healthy frigate and 2.6/8hp frigate. I sacrficed the privateer from 2S of Kyoto to redline the healthy frigate (~20% loss), then killed the 2.6hp one with a galleon, and the one which survived the privateer attack with a galley (both attacks were ~90%)

The stack 2N1E of Nagoya had a 6.8 health frigate and a caravel. Frigate died to a privateer at 44%, caravel to a galleon at 70%

Then the 5.3hp frigate 3N of Nagoya died to a privateer, also at 70%

I had follow-ups for all these attacks if they failed, especially as I have a lot of galleys in Nagoya which were used to bring workers over, and they're completely expendable. Of course I can't use them for initial attacks on frigates, but they still can be used for clean-up

Scooter is also sending some ships in the east, but for now there's no transports, and I'm going to ignore them. They probably can't do anything much worse than blockade cities and pillage seafood, and any ships on that side of the map are away from the main action

[yuris125]

Yuo know, once upon a time I would've been tempted. This is even a city I wanted




But no, I understand the state of the game well enough to see that a single underdeveloped city is very low price for Scooter to secure 10 turns of peace with one the players who still has a chance to challenge his win

Those gold and gpt numbers are also very very scary, even keeping in mind that Scooter is in golden age

SD finished Chemistry research. Mine is 5 turns away, maybe I can make it 4. We have have to keep the pressure on

No combat this turn. Just maneuvering and trying to set up an attack on Silver Lake without exposing myself