[Spoilers] Commodore as Darius of the HRE

[Commodore]

Thanks Ceil, and I agree, it's been an amazing game. Now I'm just kicking along while we wait for the vote.

For comic relief, Ranamar and I are embarking on a settling race in ex-Egypt. It's funny, and if he was annoyed it'd be easy as pie to crumble those cities. Still, I can at least give a larger portion of the world a chance to live under less restrictive governance.



I think he's got the bulk of this world's pitiful wretch supply though. New objective, beat out Yuri in population % before game's end!



Also, because I'm curious, I'm setting my three cities on a cultural path. My civics just got swapped one last time, so anarchy this turn. I'm thinking it'd have taken maybe 30, 40 turns? I wouldn't have been able to win before Mali hit domination limit, even if I had finagled a long NAP.



Peace reigns again, at least, and my still-strong core is recovering from the starvation and trauma of the past war.



Crescendo past, it's now time for the peaceful theme of the end-credits.

[Ceiliazul]

Well done commodore. I learned a lot by watching, and the smoothness of this game contributed heavily to my decision to finally try a PBEM of my own.

Well done all 4 of you, keeping your heads and having fun. I wish all games ended with as much cameraderie.

[Commodore]

Well, define "keeping your heads". MNG and Luddite lost theirs, literally. No longer needing to propagandize one way or another, I can say I honestly like each person playing and it's been a blast. Just succeed where I failed (I want to do a postgame thread, but we'll wait...five turns per resolution, right)?

Yep, it would have taken too long, by the way, even if all candidates were inland. Still kinda cool what kind of cultural output a late-game city can attain, and this is still less cathedrals than ideal, too.



Scraping together more population is fun! Brythunia is back, and no longer starving in one more turn. Yes, I also have awesome little Vanir settled, as per my ancient settling agreement with Yuri.



The settling race in ex-Egypt is particularly funny to me. My Free Speech 100% culture cities might actually flip for Dejenne.



Re: Laxing.

[Ceiliazul]

Keeping ther heads in the more important real-world sense. I know some games in the past have ended in Bitterness, but MNG and you have shown how to have fun and keep friends without necessarily winning. Winning is a bonus... and worthless if it comes at the expense of the forums.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Not to threadjack, but I'll re-iterate how much fun I had. Even warring with you was fun. Now to get you involved in Werewolf games!

Really though, I just hope the next game I play can have this kind of a quick pace and fun attitude with other players.

Okay, I'll butt out now until a postgame thread is started.

[Commodore]

Well, that's the end of an era. I gave it a good run, but I voted Ranamar as per our agreement.



Final empire pictures later, but for now...it's been fun.

[Commodore]

So here's the twilight of Hyboria, captured in pictures. I like to think my citizens lived the best lives in the new world order.



My core was never touched by war, making it and Central Mali unique in that regard. In the end I am rather happy with my initial dotmap, although if I could have played things over again I would probably have settled Zamora first, then the capital-leeching Koth and Ophir. Still in all, my early cottage focus carried my GNP throughout the game against much better and bigger empires.



My poor shattered and reclaimed (but not regrown) western core was an excellent set of cities that, again, I should have pushed out faster, particularly my excellent Moai site. Earlier claiming of the landbridge between MNG and I would probably also have helped.



"My" hub area, although half of the cities here are wearing an ugly brown. I liked the high-resource tundra as a concept, although it was a little unfair to have all the silver on our side. I'm very proud of this area, and I think I timed things perfectly in attacking after MNG had settled it, but before he had reinforced it. I liked this place a lot.



My east, slightly expanded. Early (ok, Landsknecht-era) aggression might have yielded good results over here, as that second huge river valley powered GES's terrifying numbers in the mid-game. I should have pushed more into the inner-sea islands and control, they were turning a great profit before the war.



Here's Hyboria at the high-water mark, although at this point the writting was already on the wall. Maybe a determined beeline of Mass Media at this point would have pulled the win, but I felt like I owed it to Luddite and Yuri to at least try slowing down Mali's juggernaut.



Civ's evaluation of me. Tough, but probably fair potatos.



Good game!

[luddite]

Not that mine's been shattering expectations either. Yuri will be playing this war smart, going for the raze rather than the capture in his initial strikes, and his next objective is Chem-Military Science for grenadiers. Foolishly, GES did not research nearly enough...I mean yes, you're in a great GNP situation right now, but notice a lack here? Actually, a couple? The roads will be two-move...sweet.

Sounds like it was a big mistake of me to put off researching rifling for so long. The thing is, I knew how fast we were teching, so I knew I could always grab rifling at the last minute before a war. Not to mention spiritual, for an instant switch to nationalism, and lots of gold for upgrades. But from an outside perspective I guess it seemed like I was defenseless. I should have teched rifling immediately just to dissuade you guys from attacking.