I hate to see Xenu take any blame here. I didn't give much more guidance than a text message that said do your best. I had requested a sub for this game and PBEM 32 (before Gawdzak started eating my civ there) weeks before Xenu took over because of my schedule and travel at the time. And, tbh, I was getting burned out on civ again. I signed up for this game after being recruited for an awesome, can't miss kind of game, and also under the pretense that Xenu would dedlurk and actually help some. Instead I had a long, solo slog in a very strong field. Given this, I'm surprised this civ survived into the end.
I always put the most effort I could into managing the tactical situation as the turns came around, making sure I was always
just on this side of the line between easy to chew and tough to swallow. I didn't want to throw the game one direction or another unless someone really made a strong, game-deciding move to kill me, and in that event there are other trade-offs and counter-factuals that could have occurred to decide events away from me. I kept close track of what was happening elsewhere while trying to drag my super slow-developing civ into relevance. This accounts for my constant low soldier count until after industrializing, when I finally built up a military. Prior to this I could usually find a better rationale for either Dreylin or REM to fight someone else so I felt decently comfortable under-building units. I did at one point get a military tech ahead of REM with ironclads, and I can only assume that helped dissuade him from eyeing me as plunder for a little while.
My passivity in the later rounds of wars was due more to my attempt to become relevant than to reel in the leader. I had already lost the game by this point and the only way to win was to develop what ended up being very close to my fair share of the land, in spite of my horrific expansion rate, as contenders bludgeoned each other competing for the win. I could only hope that you guys would fight it out and my position would become relatively stronger as the game went on.
Demos from the last turn. I'm the only one that had logged in at this point and I 'm sure others have build queues empty, techs not selected, etc which is making my stats look comparatively stronger than they really are. I put everything on wealth and research to see what GNP potential we had. The answer is not all that much. I simply didn't develop early enough to get a critical number of hammers into play where I could feel safe swapping hammers into economy. REM was able to build a broad empire much sooner, which enabled more hammers to chase other things like SoL, which was incredibly strong on this map. I'd consider whether that wonder is unbalancing too. I agree with Sullla that Taj at the very least should be banned for this kind of setup in the future. Anyway, no one to really blame on expansion except myself.
I'm not sure how differently my game would have played out if I had rolled a GA rather than that GM. Would I still have won the Kremlin? I don't remember now how it played out with subsequent great persons. I do know that I invested heavily in this strategy in lost growth and expansion, and in the end it set me back significantly. Cash rushing settlers would have been much faster than what I ended up doing though.
Great setup, Brick.
One of these games I'll actually get a teammate that I can help instead of getting stuck playing solo. Until then, I'm probably out of civ for a while. I'll be reading through threads with interest as I get time. GG everyone!
And Xenu, thanks for subbing. You kept us alive, which isn't nothing. I think from this position if the game had continued we would have had a decent chance of surviving until the end the way people were fighting all over the place. Maybe.
In any event, though, giving REM peace on one front probably wasn't a game changing event, but I haven't read other threads yet so I could be wrong.
Dreylin/OT4E took the tech 1 turn after your team would have had it if that Great Person had popped out as an Artist. We would have had a different game if those dice rolls had been a bit more kind...
