[PB78] Dreylin boldly goes

[Dreylin]

T191 -

The unthinkable has finally happened!



Uhura has finally found religion.

Meanwhile I've started the road to Rifling, while Superdeath is on the way to Cannons?



My army is now mostly unloaded into Riker. I have a couple of Knights with movement so I've advanced them on Marathon to support Superdeath. He's still bogged down, but I need the culture gone before I can develop the local cities. My intention is to snipe easy targets and accelerate the capture, but not capture myself. I'm not sure how to convey that to him via diplo, so I decided not to try and instead if he sends me anything I will try to decipher and mirror it if it makes sense.

[Hitru]

How long has siege of Marathon lasted?

[Dreylin]

How long has siege of Marathon lasted?

It's got to be around 10t since SD first reached the walls. Long enough that the defenses have recovered to ~40%!

My stack has just about reached the walls, so SD has reiterated his diplo:



I think the 8/Iron is Marathon - though the city was down to 5 pop by my turn following a Musket draft and a whip(?) - not sure what the Silver means since the local one is actually 3rd ring to Marathon and in New Tabriz's 2nd ring. It could mean the Silver on the coast South of Khaaaaaaan; I had a Settler poised to grab it a couple of turns ago but pulled it back because I don't actually want /any/ city in that spot. Settler is stashed nearby / for the future.

I sent back 5/Iron on SD side to hopefully reassure that he can take the city - it's not worth fighting him over. There's an argument that I should just leave him to it, but I really need that culture gone so I can develop my own interests in the area.

Magic has been using his Galleys to chain in additional units from across the water, but SD & I between us should have enough Triremes to shut that down next turn.

I lost visibility on Donovan's advance in the South, but should pick that back up in a turn or two. Once again though, I will have gained the least out of the war, and am probably solidly in 3rd place. OTOH, all 3 of us are basically trying to finish the war off without building too many more units waiting for our next level of tech to hit.

I got PP at the end of turn, a couple of turns saving gold while rolling through some older techs, then RP will be 3-4t of max research and Rifling maybe 8t total after that. Meanwhile Superdeath is finishing Chemistry and we'll see whether he's heading to Cannon or Grens first. Donovan is researching Astronomy; I can only assume he's looking towards Gav - who is also researching Astro - but I will need to keep watch for Galleons on my borders. I'll have Optics myself in a few turns and an odd caravel to keep an eye out.

Civics were available last turn; I ran an extra turn in Slavery to get a few more whips in newer cities, but this turn we went back to Caste. I also went to Bureau for a spell as well since I don't currently have more than a handfull of units in production right now. I expect to switch back fairly quickly though as we start to gear up for Rifles.

[Dreylin]

T194 -

More SD Diplo:

First off a Fish/Fish with 230g. Sure, I send that back.

Then these:



Does this imply Donovan is preparing to attack me in 4t? That's about when he'll have Astro, so maybe he's planning to boat me? I'll take a look around and see if I can spot a stack, but last I saw most of his power is still in Magic's underbelly.

Anyway, 4t should be enough to take Magic's head and free my stack up, but I guess I'll start switching in a few more military builds. I send SD back Iron/Iron + War with Donovan to show I'm onboard, though exact timing might be fuzzy - I'm look at RP on T200 and then Rifling ~T208, I think, though I might be able to push it a turn or 2 with Specialists & Wealth builds.

[Dreylin]

Thinking about it more, I've come to the conclusion that the first is a warning from SD that Donovan is about to get Astro, rather than warning of an attack. In which case, thanks I guess? I mean I do have research visibility on both of them, but also I don't think that naval tech is really going to break anything open on this map ... at least not for Donovan against me. We have two shared bodies of water; the one around La Forge is almost entirely mine - he has only 1 city and no way to Canal in anything else - whereas the one NW of Sulu is almost entirely his and so I've been defending that city accordingly (and will beef up defenses over the coming turns as I finish Sankore there). Most of his cities here are relatively small and new; he can Fort in from SW, but until he has at least Frigates to bombard, he'd have to go through Castle defenses (or 60% Culture) against PRO hill city defenders.

Also, I think he may have made the same mistake as Yuris in PB77 and forgotten that CtH Galleons require Paper, which I'm reasonably certain he doesn't have.

Anyway, I do hope this game gets going again more regularly now that Christmas is over and hopefully Superdeath has more time. There's definitely some play still to go; I may be ~10 cities behind the other 2 and not likely to get much more out of Magic, but I also may just have the best economy at the moment and post-rifling may be able to grab some of the first-to boni...

[Dreylin]

T197 -

I'll do a large update for t200, by which time I hope we'll be moving faster. We'll just do greatest hits of the last few turns now.

Last turn Donovan sent me a Fish-Fish; he had just whipped off 30pop over 13 cities, but the numbers per city were all over the place so it felt more like a prelude to revolt than a military build-up. This turned out to be correct and he revolted this turn. Anyway, I sent back Fish-Fish at this point since as previously noted I have no immediate plans to attack anyone after the Magic war is concluded. I figure a Fish-Fish now wears off before the t220 date that SD & I have tentatively agreed to attack him.

Last few turns have been bombarding Marathon back down to 0% defenses, and today was the day to attack:


Pretty flawlessly, TBF. I had half a dozen units left to take it, but I honoured my deal with SD and have left the last redlined Pike for him to deal with (and the Longbow that was in queue). With the Iranian culture gone from the area that's the end of the war for me, so I offered Magic a Peace deal. No idea if he'll take it, but it would pull one of us out of the pseudo-sequential turn order and maybe help to speed things up. He's going to be around for a while longer though; that island pimple will be a PITA to take and New Tehran has a sizable stack for Donovan to get past before this will be put to bed.

Sankore completed, and I decided it was finally time to pick up Meditation before RP - even full-price Monasteries might be worth it in a few places - I should be able to finish RP next turn with some jiggering.

[Hitru]

How long did siege of Marathon last in total?

[Dreylin]

How long did siege of Marathon last in total?

Hmmmm. I don't have an exact idea of the start; it couldn't have been before t183, and had been underway for at least a few turns by t187, so let's split the difference and call it t184 ... so that would be 140years!

[coldrain]

Looking forward to that T200 update!
 

[Dreylin]

Well here's a taster..

T198 and(!) T199

Magic didn't take the Peace deal, but did offer a Cease Fire, which I accepted. Superdeath sent me 100g for my help with Marathon (he explicitly tied the two together in one offer and then just sent to 100g in a second). I think this is a reasonable gold gift, but with the recent discussion during PB77 I would accept an overrule and return it if pressed.

For the record it did not make a difference to my completion of Replaceable Parts:



Yeaaaaah, I guess I didn't factor my fleet getting trapped like this. What a pain. I sent Magic an Open Borders offer, but I might just have to re-declare to get them out. (this time I would take the first half of the turn so we're not back to full sequential!)

I also thought I'd highlight the remains of Magic (so I can skip it next turn):



Here are his three remaining cities; Map is an inconvenient pimple, but New Tehran and Granicus are going to be hard nuts to crack for Donovan. I assume that Superdeath will leave it mostly to him, though he is in the same "need that culture to evaporate" situation as I was.

Oh, here's another question; how long should it take for culture to reset, because it did not do so at the start of t199?

My stack is healing; I'm adding siege units and more Knights, but we're really waiting for Rifles before going all-in on military again. The border with Donovan is lightly guarded on their side, but also Fish-Fish'd and relations with Superdeath are still good. Infrastructure builds are mostly finished in the core cities, though I'm sprinkling in a few Monasteries if they feel worthwhile. Newer cities are getting the basics in, but I could do with another round of whips soon. Revolt is available, but I don't think the new cities have grown enough since the last one for the value to be there yet ... TBH it may never be.

Now after RP I'm saving gold on Aesthetics-Literature and then will push for Rifling; should be ~8turns to get there.

Anyone want something specific highlighted for T200?