[PB78 SPOILERS] GT and Magic Science in the Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland

[scooter]

This is about when I realized that flipping Megaton with New Tehran wasn't that clever and special, it was keeping up with Joneses. Everybody was going to flip the Barbarian cities! It was the way to go!
Did Scooter know this would happen?

Sort of, yes. I knew many were flippable and some more than others. However, in my testing these cities were so juiced that they built Monuments quite early, and as soon as they popped borders they were basically unflippable. As a result, it seemed unlikely more than 1-2 max would flip. I figured going for a flip would be a gambit that would often not work out, so I was fine with it being an option. What I didn't quite account for was that the aggressive flip-seeking would take away tiles from the cities in a way the AIs in tests did not, which resulted in much slower Monuments, which meant a much longer flip window. Maybe there are other reasons too they deprioritized Monuments here relative to my tests, I don't know. So yeah, the city flipping was a bit more frequent than I anticipated.

What is there to say about The Great Lighthouse and The Colossus? They seem like obvious good ideas on this watery map, I am IND, Marathon is an incredible hammer city. Not many actual resources, but we don't need resources in Scooter's Wonderland. . Getting them as quick as reasonably possible took some doing with whipping and Workers (chopping that island Forest, chopping out-of-culture Forests), and I don't know if anyone was close behind, but I got the Wonders in the end. My economy is booming. .

If/when you do Part 2, I would be interested in seeing inside Marathon and/or any other cities you think are especially good.

[Magic Science]

Dogpile?

[Magic Science]

No PMs? So impolite! .

Anyway, now I am waiting on Gavagai to make it a 4 vs. 1.
I am tempted to declare war on him myself.

Feudalism next turn. Their window of opportunity is short, and it would already be closed if I had not indulged my worst habit: procrastinating a decision for no reason. If I had started the Golden Age immediately when the Great Merchant was born instead of waiting 5 turns for no good reason, then I would already have Feudalism and multiple Longbowmen in every threatened border city (which is almost every city, ). 
Only Thrawn has Construction, so Longbowmen would stop the dogpile dead. But I waited for no reason. 
Two specific vices compounding together: delaying Golden Ages for no reason, and misjudging how big of an attack my units can withstand. You always try to get by with as little as possible, and I am terrible at it.
A similar thing happened to me in Pitboss 74, I think, though I was not the leading player then.

[Magic Science]

Gavagai declared war too. That makes everyone. 4 against 1. What can I do? That bit about Longbowmen was bravado. I hope it is true, but I don't know. My military is not that powerful at the moment.
4 against 1! And the 4 are at peace! They have Open Borders! Everyone with everyone. And no wars between them for a long while. Never many at all. Just Thrawn and Gavagai, I think? I hoped that the EP spending between Superdeath and Dreylin indicated some tension, but I guess not, or at least not enough.

I anticipated this, believe it or not. They embargoed me because I built The Great Lighthouse, and they embargoed me because I was the leader, somehow. No Open Borders means no demilitarized borders. That is what I was struggling with a a while. I had the #1 Military for 20 turns or so, and it still wasn't enough units to safely expand. Not enough to just to settle new cities in the wilderness and keep them safe. Because my 4 enemies could concentrate most of their military on their border with me, because they could be secure with Open Borders and peace with everyone else. But I had no safe border anywhere. Every border needed strong protection. This is a Toroid too. That isn't helping.

What could I do? Maybe building The Great Lighthouse was a mistake. Really. It made the embargo so easy for them. If I built something else (The Pyramids, I guess?), then I would still be strong thanks to IND but the specific anti-The Great Lighthouse response would not have worked against me. I could have signed some Open Borders agreements.
Or I should have swallowed my pride and tried to pay for Open Borders. Insistently. The first deal would have been a boost of +10 or more Commerce after Currency, so I could afford to pay a lot. And surely it would be worth actually losing money on the Open Borders deal if it made me safe.

We will see how badly this dogpile goes. At least it is one for the history books, I hope. 4 against 1! Everyone else in the game against one player! BARBARIANS AGAINST CIVILIZATION! WHO WILL TRIUMPH? MAY SCIENCE GRANT VICTORY TO THE RIGHTEOUS!
We are still an atheist civilization. I was pondering Free Religion with that one Gold Wonder but it is probably too cute and moot now anyway.
Oh yeah, and the immobile Barbarians can finally move in 2 turns. There are a lot of them around. I probably should have worked to clear them out sooner to prevent a compounding crisis like this, but I was distracted. #1 military and still not close to enough for basic security for all that time. Ugh.
Anyway, maybe my plan was not so bad. I did have a plan, like I said. After Currency, race for better military. Use my excellent GNP to unlock superior units to solve my military problems. The MoM Golden Age was supposed to boost this, so I wanted to work in technologies for better civics too. Easy enough along the path to Feudalism. But I hesitated to pull the trigger on the Golden Age. I always do; it's a character flaw. Triggering a Golden Age feels irreversible. What if the optimal time is a little later? Now I didn't have Feudalism in time to meet the attack. 3 turns earlier could have made the difference.

P.S. Imagine me sighing deeply often throughout this post.

[Mjmd]

Heh you were doing well enough to warrant a 4v1 dog pile. That signals you were playing pretty well.

Can we have an empire overview screenshot?

[T-hawk]

As we always say, neighbor luck is paramount in these games... and well sometimes you get unlucky enough that every neighbor turns against you.

[Magic Science]

My prayers have been answered! Gavagai declared war on Dreylin. Thanks a lot, buddy.

(posting this to encourage myself to post something more substantial in a day or two).