[PB79] MirOh No, what am I doing?

[Miro]

T231:

War Update:

Summary:

• I'm invading the south island
  
• I'm invading by land across NA territory (sneak attack!) 
  
• I'm invading the north waters and razed an island
  

xist sent a 2nd 10T peace offer T230 stating he wasn't sure if he sent the first one. Declined again.
I spent my whole 7K bank on navy upgrades after you DoW'd, we fightin' bro.

I cleared xist's NA Explorer, but other than that we had no action over xist's past 2 turns. He's whipping like crazy, though.
I'd whip more, too, but all of my cities are producing units in 1T - 2T right now, so I just draft and throw a whip or 2 in there.

South Invasion:

I took Mjmd's advice and only loaded up to invade one sea.
I dropped off 2 Infantry + 2 Cannons at xist's island Royal Valley on T230 prompting him to prepare a few more units. I could have attacked it this turn with my loaded Infantry + Riflemen, but it's a 3-pop city too far for a Transport to arrive, so I dropped off more army:


Land Invasion (thru NA):

I'm so proud of myself for this one. It may well fail, maybe I got duped, and even if everything works out it will probably spark an invasion from Gira, but this is the kind of moment I can be happy about at the end of the game.
I hid most of my army on a tile that I believe was invisible to xist's airships (noted in last post) and built 5 railroads to and through North America to reach Oea.



Brought my army up through NA after my Spy did a tour around his cities and can hit Oea next turn.



I sent coldrain a Sheep offer. Maybe odd and premature. I mean for it to say that coldrain can settle a city over near Oea after I clear it, but maybe that was already obvious and if my army gets wiped, I'll look so stupid for the offer lol.



North Invasion:

I pushed my north Destroyers forward to find some scarcely defended cities.



Dammmmn I hope I have time to invade before xist reinforces that island, but-



Oh. Oh that's hot.

-5 Infantry later and that city is gone!



Also I lied, I didn't take Mjmd's advice about only loading up on one side. I'm a Zerg main, I gotta split up and multi-prong attack.

Here's my remaining navy in the north:


No sign of xist's recovering Destroyers and he had 5 loaded Transports back around T227 that might be lurking in Gira's waters, but I'm guessing he split some up and I just cleared 2 (empty) Transports.

I know xist or Gira will have something in store for me because happiness can't last too long in war, but at least tonight I get to go to bed happy about 3 invasion forces and got revenge for losing some navy!

Non-war Update:

xist finished Cereal Mills, Biology, and Literature

Gira is building up Destroyers now that he finished Combustion

I sent Gira Fish for Fish

[Miro]

(...)
Love Bluey as a parent of 3. Has some good parent humor / emotion in there. Watched 3 episodes tonight with my kids in fact.

That's what I hear! Kitboga was talking it up for the parent humor and how he'll even watch it without kids in the room.

[Mjmd]

FOR THE SWARM!!!

Good luck. I don't hate the mass upgrades, but its certainly a roll of the dice as it will mean you are delayed getting to industrialization. Also, do you have physics yet?

Also, its a little risky moving your fleets that far forward without vision, but maybe bold moves are the thing to do. I would have liked them fully promoted though.

Why are there cannons in your transports if you were going to amphibious assault? Did you drop them off?

I like Bluey, but not that much.

[Mjmd]

So how did a key turn (s?) of the entire game go? Just going to leave us on a cliffhanger.

[Miro]

So how did a key turn (s?) of the entire game go? Just going to leave us on a cliffhanger.

Lol, I'm on a tight schedule on Wednesdays. Took some screenshots and can post a good update later.

In summary: I razed his south island and unloaded on his other south island (sure kill this turn?).

My land invasion is getting wiped 
Xist split enough from his main army early enough (or had loaded boats nearby). I retreated some back into NA, then he surrounded my Cannons + MG.
I tried to retreat further, but one of his surrounding units was in FoW so I learned that when you try to use your full movement and only get to move 1 tile because the FoW unit blocks your escape, you lose all of your movement points even though you only got to move 1 tile 

I retreated the north invasion and then xist's Destroyers came out of nowhere and killed my 4 (empty) Transports! I didn't realize he moved his canal system to be much closer to our border.

I have some 50 - 55 total Destroyers, I saw 31 xist Destroyers in his canal. IIRC I've lost 1.6x - 1.9x as many production as xist has lost, so he's winning the battles and may lose 3 cities.

I don't have Physics yet, haven't spent anything on it but could get it in 2T - 4T. Xist is building up a small bank as he queues Electricity.

Coldrain started NA's golden age and started moving his navy from the middle of his coastline to the east. He sees my stack getting wiped and I'm going to offer him xist's 2nd island when I wipe it, so maybe coldrain would be my ally?

[Mjmd]

Good and ouch.

I am curious on that mechanic, but in general always advance with 1 unit first. Just moving a whole stack into fog isn't advised in general.

I mean SOME losses are ok for city razes. Have you lost much navy other than the transports? That is the most important aspect.

Keep going full bore on military.

[Miro]

T235 Update:

T232:

OH LORD I MADE A MISTAKE. Xist's army was ready for that land-based sneak attack. He threw 13 Cannons at me and then wiped most of my Infantry, I'm forced to retreat.

My remaining army:



I still stand by what I said, I'm very proud of that move with the railroads and a hidden army showing up right on Oea. The "Oh shit!" moment xist must have had seeing it is what I live for. Execution wasn't good enough - I needed a larger invading army and was too worried about having enough army at my western border in case xist invaded.

I lost my Destroyers up near Baria in an ugly naval battle.


(T231 map for reference)


I razed xist's island Royal Valley at my southern coast, taking out 5 Infantry.


T233:

I lost 4 (empty) Transports in the north after retreating from razing xist's north island.

My Destroyer losses at Baria and these Transport losses are both because I thought xist's navy was far from the action (naïve!). Now I see what happened - xist built a new canal!



This canal is more costly (Rice, Stone, Copper), but so close to the action.

My retreating army could only move 1 tile out of xist's land last turn and got hit again by xist's forces.


This turn, that army had the chance to move 10 tiles through NA. 



My MG + Cannons were at the railroaded border tile, but xist's army surrounded them. xist's Infantry in the coastal forest tile was in FoW, so my army displayed the ability to move to the hill I placed 5 Infantry on (costing all movement points) by moving through the FoW tile. Once I clicked to move, the FoW tile was revealed and my MG + Cannons couldn't move through the Infantry, but still lost all movement points. Agggggh. I was able to bring 2 Infantry up and clear 1 xist Infantry.

I unloaded 4 Transports at xist's other southern island, ready to hit next turn.

T234:

The retreating land army got wiped


In brighter news, I razed the other southern island and founded my own city where Royal Valley was!


New City:

Salem 1692 - I played this game a few months ago and it was a ton of fun! It's another social deduction game with simple rules where you have 5 cards facedown that say "Witch" or "Not A Witch". If you have at least 1 Witch card, you're evil and the witches collectively choose someone to kill every night while townspeople (and witches in hiding) use action cards to throw out accusations to reveal the facedown cards and hang the witch(es)! One of my friends and I became so suspicious of each other that we would start conspiring against each other before the Witch/Not A Witch cards were even handed out.

Speaking of new cities - are we sure this filler city is still out of the question? (Q4 below)



It ain't pretty and I understand why Mjmd said not to build it some 100T ago, but with Mining Co. it could be worth something.

I sent coldrain this message so he can settle the newly razed island:


xist placed some Machine Guns on a hill near me, kinda cool.


I don't want to hit them (bad trade), but they could build up fortify bonus and help him initiate a land invasion later. I've never thought about doing something like this.

T235:

xist's navy approached my naked north with 4 Transports and offered peace. My navy is almost entirely in the southside and my Transports are 2T from unloading on another city, so I figured I either accept peace or we "base trade", losing my northern islands and his southern islands, but that just benefits Gira. I took the peace offer and now we're at peace until T245. (Q1, Q2 below)



Total War Casualties:


Ouch! But I razed 3 cities and founded 1 new one, so I'm happy with that. Xist has -195 War Weariness.

I may have misinterpreted Mjmd's advice about north/south naval invasions and left my northern seas completely empty, vulnerable. I tried to go 100% all in on the south. Maybe this is still the right way to do it? (Q3 below) I think I should build up island defenses, though. I think I had ~6 units per city. It seems OK to lose one island to 4 - 6 Transports, but a 2nd island city should be healthy enough that xist needs to reinforce. 

xist's island losses and new canal system took away 1 hpt from his CreCon cities, so that's nice!

Tech Situation:

xist has a 4,162g bank to my 900g bank, so he'll have Industrialism much, much sooner than I will.



Tech Table: (hiding the Pre-Industrial techs that everyone has)


General:

I'm building Wealth/Grocers/Cathedrals in my inland cities and still building 100% Destroyers in my coastal cities. Next turn I'll think about tapering that off so I can rush to Industrialism - it depends on how long xist will be able to produce Battleships before I can hit him again.

coldrain started NA's GA last turn. NA and Dutch have solid National Wonders, but xist hasn't built any besides Wall Street (very recent) and Moai.


I had to check previous screenshots to figure out when I messed this part up - Mansions of Madness has been without Fishing Boats at their Crab tile since NA's invasion back around T205! I never noticed. Ouch. At least we got it back this turn.
 


I also got a Great Spy during the war and just settled it in Blood On Clock. +tech per turn in Oxford is at least something, but I don't expect to have another Golden Age this game and I didn't think the +3000 espionage was worth it, especially with Airships out.

Espionage:


Charts/Dems:



Questions:

(Q1): IIRC, in SP you have the peace treaty active for 10T but on the 10th turn, you have the option to cancel it or let it naturally expire on the 11th turn. If I wanted to go back into war, can I cancel the treaty on T244 and DoW?

(Q2): What do you think of accepting peace? This gives time for xist to unlock Battleships before me, but island trading while I'll be slower than xist would've hurt us both greatly.

(Q3): Does putting 100% of my navy on one side while bolstering island defenses sound like the right plan? xist's canal system is much closer to the action than mine and my canals include 9 land tiles, so it's sluggish. I can't maneuver back-and-forth with my whole navy like xist can. I don't like that one side would be vulnerable, but going 50% / 50% will just lead to a huge navy loss.

(Q4): Should I build another filler city now that we have Mining Co.? Might check for other possible city spots if yes.

[greenline]

The constant back and forth skirmish wars in this game have been interesting to watch. I don't know if I've seen a civ 4 game quite like this one in the late era

[Mjmd]

Q0) I'm assuming the cathedrals are border cities to help fight creative con culture?

Q1) Peace treaties only naturally conclude.

Q2) It depends how much more you think you could have pushed south. Trading 2 for 1 is acceptable and since you were up 3-0 even evenly trading 1 for 1 a bit could have been fine. I will try to write up something for modern battleship warfare.

Q3) Ya I understand it. That new canal does give him advantage. Its possible you keep a very small navy north to keep him honest / dedicate more if he wants to push you. Once you have battleships that is more possible.

Q4) The payback for a new city is pretty long and cost to spread and maintenance on mining inc isn't nothing. You have a bunch of tech racing catching up to do to stay relevant. A new city with practically no tiles of its own or own food is a definite no.

[Miro]

The constant back and forth skirmish wars in this game have been interesting to watch. I don't know if I've seen a civ 4 game quite like this one in the late era

Well, cool! I think the north and south sea setup plays a major factor in that. Or that fact that we're all green 

Q0) I'm assuming the cathedrals are border cities to help fight creative con culture?
Q1) Peace treaties only naturally conclude.
Q2) It depends how much more you think you could have pushed south. Trading 2 for 1 is acceptable and since you were up 3-0 even evenly trading 1 for 1 a bit could have been fine. I will try to write up something for modern battleship warfare.
Q3) Ya I understand it. That new canal does give him advantage. Its possible you keep a very small navy north to keep him honest / dedicate more if he wants to push you. Once you have battleships that is more possible.
Q4) The payback for a new city is pretty long and cost to spread and maintenance on mining inc isn't nothing. You have a bunch of tech racing catching up to do to stay relevant. A new city with practically no tiles of its own or own food is a definite no.

Q0) Yep! 2 Cathedrals both at the border with xist.
Q2) That's fair. I think I could have taken more islands and his Moai. He may have struggled to take my Moai city, especially with two cities on that island. Hope to get back into war soon lol.
Q3) Didn't think it'd be much different than the naval warfare I've had so far until I looked them up - Battleships do collateral damage wtffff
Q4) Fiiiine, I won't.