Random macro thoughts:
Because speculating about our position is always one of my favorite topics...
1. Economy
Things look pretty good. Dtay has now spent his first 2 GAs and practically for my "C&D" is running 0 % research this turn: he makes 960gpt per turn. That's more or less the same amount we will be making next turn once we have PP finished.
Dtay's war gains are in much more consolidated state than ours (and we still are about to settle/capture 10 new cities unless anything surprising happens).
--> Unless dtay manages to get more land from somewhere (there are no easy targets around anymore, but it's not impossible either) I think we will start gaining beakers on him and reach tech parity/lead in future. Dtay won't enjoy reserching Astronomy either as he is getting quite a lot of commerce from Colossus. He probably can switch into more Representation-specialist heavy economy and just stop working coast in many cities, but it's good news for us anyways.
There are other decent economies out there, but dtay is still commerce-wise our benchmark. I wonder if we can create a position where we will be a full era ahead of players like Krovice/pindicator/WilliamLP, time will tell..
2. Military
Our 12th rank in soldier points is pretty damn low. BGN's power is significantly bigger than ours.
Well, this situation is basically the end result of us investing a lot into infra and producing our Azza-Mardoc army mostly in few dedicated cities (Daisy and Hazelnut). Assuming we can manage the clean-up process without too big hiccups and our neighbors don't interfere I'm not regretting this and we should be in good shape for the next phase of the game. Currently it looks still doable, but we'll see.. Anyways I see our military development progressing in 3 steps.
A. Finish Azza and Mardoc before anybody interferes.
- Mardoc's SW cities should fall within next couple of turns and his final city, "Communist", will cause us again some losses (I guess it will have 4-5 LBs by the time we get there), but we have some reinforcements knights and cats joining the party and Mardoc should not have more than 10 turns left in this game. OH, please execute
- After quick healing Azza's southern cities can be taken easily, but we want to have couple of cats that we throw against axes/spears/archers behind city walls so that we don't lose unnecessary knights.
- Finally we finish our continent by taking Azza's Nothing at All in the Northwest. Again the city won't have "real" defenders, but we probably want to throw couple of cats in for efficiency reasons
---> Our standard stream of knights out of Daisy and Hazelnut should be enough for the fights we have left on our continent, but I think we need to sacrifice 6-10 cats (Green-cats not included) in order to things go smoothly. We have already started some of those cat builds and some of them are already ready and can move towards Communist, but I think couple of further cities might need to sacrifice a pop point or two in the coming turns so that we get our sacrificial lambs in place timely for Azza attacks.
B. Secure our continent from our neighbors
- It seems that we will soon only border BGN, Cyneheard, Pindicator & dtay. While I would estimate that everyone of those guys has a well below 50 % chance to attack us even if we run very low defenses, we should take basic measures for diverting their interest in other directions. In practice, as said, I would like to see some of those LBs that we are currently building heading towards west and protecting us from BGN. Cyneheard and pindicator are less dangerous, but we have some semi-vulnerable spots in the north that could use for example a victorious knight as an extra defender once our war is over. Dtay should not be a problem as long as we can keep his city visibility, but if we lose it, there are couple of cities in the east that could display some defensive strength too. Our power graph position should start improving once we stop losing units to Mardoc and more of our planned hammer-cities come online. Our HE city also soon reaches its full potential, which is awesome.
- In a bit longer term we need to think whether we want to defend our continent with land units or navy.. I guess we prefer navy for multiple reasons, but lets try to avoid a cold-war like navy build-up with of our neighbors.. And I don't believe that some kind of minor stand-offs can be avoided and thus grabbing Gunpowder soonish for Muskets is probably worthwhile. Well, I guess we want it soon for Cuirs/Rifles/Cavs too..
C.Build an army for opportunistic attacks / eating a certain neighbor
- In my initial dreams I was thinking that once we are finished with Azza+Mardoc we will immediately turn our heads and go after another neighbor. CH was the prime target, but he collapsed way too fast and now it seems that there might not be anyone who we can punch immediately. However, we definitely want to build a real and potent military and our plans to turn several former cities of Azza&Mardoc into military pumps fits that plan nicely. 50 cities won't likely be enough to win this game and they definitely won't satisfy our dreams of domination victory, so multiple neighbors still need to die..
So far we have benefited greatly from Azza-Mardoc conflict, let's hope that there will be another one those and let's make sure that we can actually use our chances. The longer the game gets, the more difficult it is to defend without holes and more exhausted players without winning chances tend to get ---> There will most definitely still be openings, but l would prefer a new conquest sooner rather than later
- Attacking BGN seems currently as the most far-fetched idea considering our neighbor portfolio. Well, I could see us getting a naval edge and fighting over former Dhalphir area (cross your fingers that agent427 can fend off attackers and we get to fight him instead..), but that would certainly create a long long border and a game-long conflict in the west. We don't know enough from BGN's part of the world, but it seems that he has the easiest geopolitical position from all the contenders and attacking his mainland and getting someone strong to join a dogpile seems unlikely at the moment..
- Attacking dtay seems actually from tactical perspective most feasible as we have a nice cultural control of most of our border area and dtay's land is not really practical to defend. There exists a scenario where we take former CH land pretty fast and stalemate isn't established until we have grabbed 10 decent cities. In the best scenario Krovice and pindicator also pile on dtay and dtay does not throw everything he has at us out of spite. In my opinion dtay has a tendency to invest too little in military unless he is planning an attack himself (based on that PBEM where TBS beat him and partly PB13 as well), so despite his strong position this kind of thinking is not completely crazy. Of course as a current tech and food leader dtay has all the possible means to make an attack that much more difficult.
- Attacking pindicator does not seem too attractive to me unless we get a very clear tech edge. Yes, we should be able to control the waters between us and capturing couple of cities is probably no problem. However, I don't see geographically any kind of a sustainable border between us if we leave him crippled so that war would not end until one of us is dead. Let's add here that if pindicator stays focused I have respect for his tactical skills too and he surely can make our life miserable --> as said we really need a big advantage before we can dream about a productive war.
- Attacking Cyneheard is obviously the most feasible option of our pretty untasty set of neighbors
Cyneheard is no pushover, he has researched Guilds already and has a decent position in this game. For geographic reasons it is difficult to organize an efficient surprise attack in the similar wayas my PBEM45-attack on Sareln or our PB13-attack against Ichabod, but once we get Cavalries on board things might be feasible. 20 Cavs, 30 Cuirs and 20 knights ferried over with 12/24 Galleons could be a fun attempt to run over Cyneheard.
Aaaanyways, what we really hope that there will be a some kind of conflict that cripples one of our neighbors and we get an opening. I thing we and dtay are fairly squeezed at the moment and even though we should be both very competitive in the mid-term I have a fear that BGN and Krovice have much more lucrative options available. Also the northern half of this game still has many many civs that would perfectly suit our mid-term expansion plans, but I guess with our current geopolitical luck we are not allowed to complain that we might be semi-stuck from now on. Anyways, when given enough time, players such as William/TBS/GermanJoye/Zanth might be able to reach a very winnable position. Also, CH is an absolute catastrophe from our perspectice in this game :P First he handed his empire way too easy to dtay (based on our limited info) and now it seems that he is trying to open a comeback-door for plako by attacking xenu (based on even more limited info: plako has now taken at least couple of cities from xenu after CH's declaration on xenu).
Heh, I dunno if there are many people out there, who a) are lurking this game, b) have energy to read my walls of text, but in any case here is OH's fairly recent map overview, which should help in evaluation of my thoughts (I doubt that many lurkers can remember how players are located in respect to each other):
Click here for the full 3Mb image, this is a thumbnail. (Is there a better way of incorporating large images?)
EDIT: Now that I'm looking at the full picture again.. Is there any chance we could just fight our way to NW-direction and gradually eat Agent547, Nakor, HAK, AT/Yuris/Bacchus... They are all so tasty and so far away! :P
Because speculating about our position is always one of my favorite topics...
1. Economy
Things look pretty good. Dtay has now spent his first 2 GAs and practically for my "C&D" is running 0 % research this turn: he makes 960gpt per turn. That's more or less the same amount we will be making next turn once we have PP finished.
Dtay's war gains are in much more consolidated state than ours (and we still are about to settle/capture 10 new cities unless anything surprising happens).--> Unless dtay manages to get more land from somewhere (there are no easy targets around anymore, but it's not impossible either) I think we will start gaining beakers on him and reach tech parity/lead in future. Dtay won't enjoy reserching Astronomy either as he is getting quite a lot of commerce from Colossus. He probably can switch into more Representation-specialist heavy economy and just stop working coast in many cities, but it's good news for us anyways.
There are other decent economies out there, but dtay is still commerce-wise our benchmark. I wonder if we can create a position where we will be a full era ahead of players like Krovice/pindicator/WilliamLP, time will tell..
2. Military
Our 12th rank in soldier points is pretty damn low. BGN's power is significantly bigger than ours.
Well, this situation is basically the end result of us investing a lot into infra and producing our Azza-Mardoc army mostly in few dedicated cities (Daisy and Hazelnut). Assuming we can manage the clean-up process without too big hiccups and our neighbors don't interfere I'm not regretting this and we should be in good shape for the next phase of the game. Currently it looks still doable, but we'll see.. Anyways I see our military development progressing in 3 steps.A. Finish Azza and Mardoc before anybody interferes.
- Mardoc's SW cities should fall within next couple of turns and his final city, "Communist", will cause us again some losses (I guess it will have 4-5 LBs by the time we get there), but we have some reinforcements knights and cats joining the party and Mardoc should not have more than 10 turns left in this game. OH, please execute
- After quick healing Azza's southern cities can be taken easily, but we want to have couple of cats that we throw against axes/spears/archers behind city walls so that we don't lose unnecessary knights.
- Finally we finish our continent by taking Azza's Nothing at All in the Northwest. Again the city won't have "real" defenders, but we probably want to throw couple of cats in for efficiency reasons
---> Our standard stream of knights out of Daisy and Hazelnut should be enough for the fights we have left on our continent, but I think we need to sacrifice 6-10 cats (Green-cats not included) in order to things go smoothly. We have already started some of those cat builds and some of them are already ready and can move towards Communist, but I think couple of further cities might need to sacrifice a pop point or two in the coming turns so that we get our sacrificial lambs in place timely for Azza attacks.
B. Secure our continent from our neighbors
- It seems that we will soon only border BGN, Cyneheard, Pindicator & dtay. While I would estimate that everyone of those guys has a well below 50 % chance to attack us even if we run very low defenses, we should take basic measures for diverting their interest in other directions. In practice, as said, I would like to see some of those LBs that we are currently building heading towards west and protecting us from BGN. Cyneheard and pindicator are less dangerous, but we have some semi-vulnerable spots in the north that could use for example a victorious knight as an extra defender once our war is over. Dtay should not be a problem as long as we can keep his city visibility, but if we lose it, there are couple of cities in the east that could display some defensive strength too. Our power graph position should start improving once we stop losing units to Mardoc and more of our planned hammer-cities come online. Our HE city also soon reaches its full potential, which is awesome.
- In a bit longer term we need to think whether we want to defend our continent with land units or navy.. I guess we prefer navy for multiple reasons, but lets try to avoid a cold-war like navy build-up with of our neighbors.. And I don't believe that some kind of minor stand-offs can be avoided and thus grabbing Gunpowder soonish for Muskets is probably worthwhile. Well, I guess we want it soon for Cuirs/Rifles/Cavs too..
C.Build an army for opportunistic attacks / eating a certain neighbor
- In my initial dreams I was thinking that once we are finished with Azza+Mardoc we will immediately turn our heads and go after another neighbor. CH was the prime target, but he collapsed way too fast and now it seems that there might not be anyone who we can punch immediately. However, we definitely want to build a real and potent military and our plans to turn several former cities of Azza&Mardoc into military pumps fits that plan nicely. 50 cities won't likely be enough to win this game and they definitely won't satisfy our dreams of domination victory, so multiple neighbors still need to die..
So far we have benefited greatly from Azza-Mardoc conflict, let's hope that there will be another one those and let's make sure that we can actually use our chances. The longer the game gets, the more difficult it is to defend without holes and more exhausted players without winning chances tend to get ---> There will most definitely still be openings, but l would prefer a new conquest sooner rather than later - Attacking BGN seems currently as the most far-fetched idea considering our neighbor portfolio. Well, I could see us getting a naval edge and fighting over former Dhalphir area (cross your fingers that agent427 can fend off attackers and we get to fight him instead..), but that would certainly create a long long border and a game-long conflict in the west. We don't know enough from BGN's part of the world, but it seems that he has the easiest geopolitical position from all the contenders and attacking his mainland and getting someone strong to join a dogpile seems unlikely at the moment..
- Attacking dtay seems actually from tactical perspective most feasible as we have a nice cultural control of most of our border area and dtay's land is not really practical to defend. There exists a scenario where we take former CH land pretty fast and stalemate isn't established until we have grabbed 10 decent cities. In the best scenario Krovice and pindicator also pile on dtay and dtay does not throw everything he has at us out of spite. In my opinion dtay has a tendency to invest too little in military unless he is planning an attack himself (based on that PBEM where TBS beat him and partly PB13 as well), so despite his strong position this kind of thinking is not completely crazy. Of course as a current tech and food leader dtay has all the possible means to make an attack that much more difficult.
- Attacking pindicator does not seem too attractive to me unless we get a very clear tech edge. Yes, we should be able to control the waters between us and capturing couple of cities is probably no problem. However, I don't see geographically any kind of a sustainable border between us if we leave him crippled so that war would not end until one of us is dead. Let's add here that if pindicator stays focused I have respect for his tactical skills too and he surely can make our life miserable --> as said we really need a big advantage before we can dream about a productive war.
- Attacking Cyneheard is obviously the most feasible option of our pretty untasty set of neighbors
Cyneheard is no pushover, he has researched Guilds already and has a decent position in this game. For geographic reasons it is difficult to organize an efficient surprise attack in the similar wayas my PBEM45-attack on Sareln or our PB13-attack against Ichabod, but once we get Cavalries on board things might be feasible. 20 Cavs, 30 Cuirs and 20 knights ferried over with 12/24 Galleons could be a fun attempt to run over Cyneheard. Aaaanyways, what we really hope that there will be a some kind of conflict that cripples one of our neighbors and we get an opening. I thing we and dtay are fairly squeezed at the moment and even though we should be both very competitive in the mid-term I have a fear that BGN and Krovice have much more lucrative options available. Also the northern half of this game still has many many civs that would perfectly suit our mid-term expansion plans, but I guess with our current geopolitical luck we are not allowed to complain that we might be semi-stuck from now on. Anyways, when given enough time, players such as William/TBS/GermanJoye/Zanth might be able to reach a very winnable position. Also, CH is an absolute catastrophe from our perspectice in this game :P First he handed his empire way too easy to dtay (based on our limited info) and now it seems that he is trying to open a comeback-door for plako by attacking xenu (based on even more limited info: plako has now taken at least couple of cities from xenu after CH's declaration on xenu).
Heh, I dunno if there are many people out there, who a) are lurking this game, b) have energy to read my walls of text, but in any case here is OH's fairly recent map overview, which should help in evaluation of my thoughts (I doubt that many lurkers can remember how players are located in respect to each other):
Click here for the full 3Mb image, this is a thumbnail. (Is there a better way of incorporating large images?)
EDIT: Now that I'm looking at the full picture again.. Is there any chance we could just fight our way to NW-direction and gradually eat Agent547, Nakor, HAK, AT/Yuris/Bacchus... They are all so tasty and so far away! :P