[SPOILERS] yuris125 on a Pitboss77 boat

[yuris125]

Thanks - yeah, based on the estimates to full heal once I got the medic 3 to Silver Lake, it does seem to apply

The reason I asked is that I didn't want to unload the samurai who stayed on galleons last turn. No reason to show to Scooter how many amphibious samurai I have, and which other promos they have (it's just Combat 2, and he probably can figure it out, but why make his life easier)

This is the situation at One Eye Cat




Scooter has another galleon with (presumably) reinforcements sailing there, and he adopted Nationhood this turn. I'm actually not convinced SD has enough. The city has a castle, so maces will still struggle, and he doesn't have enough ships to fully bombard defences

I checked if Scooter can threaten retaking Silver Lake this turn, and I don't think he can. I have 5 defenders, 2 longbows and 3 samurai, the city is on a hill, and I haven't seen any amphibious units from him yet, and he only has 2 galleons in normal range (and the one next to One Eye Cat probably brought in reinforcements and is empty). He would have to have some fast ships ready. It's not impossible (I did note that great general he got earlier), but a lot of things would have to go right for him to retake it

I also consider the possibiltiy of taking Drift Avalii, I do think he's getting value from this city thanks to trade routes, and looks like it has oil (the extra hammers on the tile NEE of the city). But razing it this turn would almost certainly mean losing a galleon and leaving a samurai stranded. Better to do it next turn, when I can do it with frigate/privateer escort

Building wealth in many cities to ensure getting MilScience in 4 turns (unless SD asks to repay more of his money)

[yuris125]

I think Scooter gave up on One Eye Cat




The city no longer has any grens on defence, looks like all three were moved to Drift Avalii. SD's stack shouldn't have problems against 3 muskets and a longbow

With regards to "what next", I'm still not sure. Honestly, at this stage, it would probably be wise to wait for MilScience and unit upgrades. Realistically, I have two vectors of attack. One I discussed before, completing the fort in Nagoya and hitting Kartool and the Ubaryd island




I need to take a look at Ubaryd before deciding if this is viable

The other is northeast, via Barcelona




I don't have fully up to date info here, last turn I miscounted the moves I had on the scouting caravel; I took care to always end its turn in Cairo's territory, assuming Scooter wouldn't declare war on Cairo as well just to kill it, but last turn I didn't realise it already moved, and didn't have the move to return to Cairo's waters as a result. But from what I've seen, these cities have real defenders, but nothing unbreakable

The big problem, of course, is airships. A surprise move would be impossible

On the other hand, time is definitely on Scooter's side. He finished Steel this turn, meaning once he gets drydocks up, I no longer have the advantage with ship promos, and he can produce them faster. So even if I intend to wait for MilSci, I have to keep the pressure on, I cannot just wait 3 turns for research to finish, plus however long I need for upgrades (don't know how much it costs to upgrade a samurai to a gren)

With this in mind, I moved the ships from Silver Lake towards Nagoya. This does leave me open to Scooter pillaging the crabs SW of Silver Lake and blockading the city. But I cannot fight the stack shown in the first screenshot head on, and didn't think it was worth keeping most of my fleet at this island to protect the seafood

I'm also thinking about the upcoming golden age. Mostly trying to figure out if I'm going to get another one, and the answer is almost certainly no. The great person coming out of Kagoshima is the 700gpp one, and I don't see a reasonable way to get three more, let alone three different ones. Scooter of course claimed all the "first to" ones. This means I will have to delay firing the golden age until I'm certain I can finish Constitution by its end

[yuris125]

SD did indeed take One Eye Cat




Scooter left the 3 grens in Drift Avalii, so no razing it. Obviously it's a crappy city, not worth the effort at this stage, and I'm happy for 3 grens to be stuck there. Although one has to be concerned if Scooter considers 3 grens, including one with a great general, to be not essential elsewhere

Scooter did complete Kremlin this turn (to be expected, one of the reasons to beeline Communism of course). What was less expected was him declaring war on Cairo. Him feeling strong enough to not be concerned about adding another front is very worrying

That said, he did research Replaceable Parts this turn, and could well have enough cash to research Steam Power. If he gets to Combustion, that's the game

So while I would like to wait for MilScience and upgrades before the next attack, don't think I can. Every turn Scooter gets is another turn for him to get further ahead

So I set up to be able to hit Kartool next turn




The city currently has one gren, one longbow, and three trash defenders (2 archers and a warrior). I have 12 samurai in position to hit it next turn (one more galleon is inside Nagoya). We'll see if Scooter leaves an opening

Ubaryd, by the way, isn't well defended at all (three defenders, musket is the best one). But I'm one move short of being able to reach it next turn, and Scooter has to be able to reinforce

I also found myself short on galleons - I have 9, but only 5 have Nav 1. So building more

[yuris125]

Well, Scooter returned from the break, wasn't 100% sure on the game state, and whipped / drafted / upgraded units all over the place. Or he's just good at the game and sensed danger




Kartool is up to 5 real defenders from two. Ubaryd is a little less well defended, but I'm out of range to bombard its defences. I ran the numbers, and they gave only 41% of taking Kartool

We don't take those odds. Feels wrong to launch a marginal attack now anyway, when we're about to discover grens

This turn's puzzle was deciding what to do with my fleet. Bing's caravel stack complicates things, I want to be able to take advantage of an opening in case it gives me one, so I don't want to move from the current position. Also two of my frigates were damaged by airships and would like to heal. At the same time, I see the danger of Scooter sailing north of Nagoya and towards Satsuma / Nara

Ultimately I decided to send half a dozen frigates to cover the north and keep the rest in place. I know, I know, splitting the stack always gets me in trouble. But it can't be in two places at once. At least I only see 2 galleons, so the game isn't really about taking cities at the moment, it is about manoeuvring and trying to catch opponent's naval stack in a vulnerable position

[yuris125]

Played the turn quickly and perhaps not with as much attention as I should have. But not much happening on my side right now. SD seems to be fighting, he just got a GG, and I found damaged ships, both his and Scooter's, on the border far away from me

The deal of SD sending my money has run its course, and he could well ask for a repayment in the near future. We'll see when that happens. Upgrade from samurai to gren is 110g, and with a bunch of wealth builds I can just about afford two a turn. I will probably keep building samurai to take advantage of XP from tataras, and upgrading them to grens. Probably the best chance to make some kind of progress

I'm trying to set up an attack on Barcelona with 6 amphibious grens, while posturing on the main border, which saw no movement since last turn

[yuris125]

I'll be honest, I think we're not far from concession. I gained research visiblity on Scooter, and he's 3 turns away from Railroad. I expect he's 10t away from Combustion at most. I don't see a way to stop him from getting there, and don't see us winning if he does. Until then, Railroad gives him unbeatable defenders. He doesn't even have to fight a war of aggression any more, all he needs to do is sit back, swat backwards ships we have, and tech to space. All cities within my reach have solid defences, and he now has more than enough airships to stop any surprise attack

If I'm the last remaining player who didn't concede, I'm happy to concede now. The game isn't over over, I can try a thing or two, but I think Scooter's position at this point is impregnable, and with how well he played throughout this war, I don't see him making a game-losing mistake now

[yuris125]

Started reading Scooter's thread (although don't know how long it will take me to read all 77 pages), and it's impressive how he saw the weaknesses of my pick from the start

* Lack of economic boost. Undiscounted markets and grocers were hard to spare hammers for, and ultimately I couldn't keep up with Scooter's trade route economy. This was exacerbated by me delaying CoL to keep Philosphy bulb blocked off, after I was forced to research Meditation instead of Polytheism for religion
* Difficulty of finding a window for a samurai attack. During the first half of the game my thinking was that I was ok to be slightly behind Scooter, because I would catch up by attacking someone else. All I managed was 2 cities off Cairo, one of which wasn't even useful and kept revolting to the end of the game

Basically, Scooter foresaw the difficulties I would have, and I didn't find a way to overcome them

[Tarkeel]

Finally got around to reading your thread. Well played and reported!

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

If you queue up research, the second bulb-list will show the priority after the queued techs are completed. Very handy for situations such as these.

Quick question, if I have a medic 3 unit on a ship, does the healing effect still apply to units not on that ship? And does it apply to units on the same tile, but onboard other ships?

It should. Not only that, the units loaded technically didn't move so they will get the full healing.

Started reading Scooter's thread (although don't know how long it will take me to read all 77 pages), and it's impressive how he saw the weaknesses of my pick from the start

* Lack of economic boost. Undiscounted markets and grocers were hard to spare hammers for, and ultimately I couldn't keep up with Scooter's trade route economy. This was exacerbated by me delaying CoL to keep Philosphy bulb blocked off, after I was forced to research Meditation instead of Polytheism for religion
* Difficulty of finding a window for a samurai attack. During the first half of the game my thinking was that I was ok to be slightly behind Scooter, because I would catch up by attacking someone else. All I managed was 2 cities off Cairo, one of which wasn't even useful and kept revolting to the end of the game

Basically, Scooter foresaw the difficulties I would have, and I didn't find a way to overcome them

As you've seen, Japan was actually one of the first civs that we also considered. I didn't like them because I felt the window for Samurai to shine wouldn't line up properly, and it looks like that's what came to pass here. I did like you swapping out AGG for CHA though!

[scooter]

Ok it's taking me WAY longer than usual to get to threads because this game ended right over the Christmas break. So, trying to catch up now.

If I knew Satsuma was going to become my holy city, I would've settled it on that hill - would've been much better for food. But alas, no way to predict that

This is some foreshadowing as I came quite close to burning it a few times. It felt like my white whale the entire late stage of the game as it was valuable and on flatland and crucial tactically, so I was constantly angling for it. Was not meant to be as you pretty much always had it covered. On that one failed attack I had, my sims had me killing it around 40% of the time, but a flawless loss early in that fight swung it immediately. (Then I took one or two attacks too many out of tilt.)

The marble city should be secured - admittedly, for now it looks like a city AI crammed into an open space it managed to find

Did you ever consider ignoring the Aesthetics-Lit-Music detour - which also probably would have avoided this Bing conflict from this city - and just going straight to Samurai? I was somewhat nervous at one point you were gonna beeline them and have them online super early, and it seemed like you had other priorities. But maybe it was too hard to actually build/transport them early. Reading a little further, it seems like this delayed you to CS, then when you would have slotted that in, you had to react to me getting Astro early. Or maybe your plan was always Astro first?

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

Funny thing about this. I actually had that Galleon in the fog by Bizen right before this and had the ability to boat it from the fog. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think I had like 60-70% chance to raze? I was on the fence about it, and Tarkeel talked me out of taking the shot. But I've always wondered if the attack would have worked or not.

[Tarkeel]

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

Funny thing about this. I actually had that Galleon in the fog by Bizen right before this and had the ability to boat it from the fog. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think I had like 60-70% chance to raze? I was on the fence about it, and Tarkeel talked me out of taking the shot. But I've always wondered if the attack would have worked or not.

I had to go back in the chatlog and check:

my gut says it's not worth it, but that might be because I'm soft on yuris

Mainly, I didn't feel that Bizen was a good enough city to be worth the cost of the attackers, and they had more value on the ship threatening other cities. While the city did have some infrastructure and would be a pain to replace, it was small and not working the best of tiles.