[SPOILERS]PB34: Gawdzak and chumchu

[chumchu]

Np. I will definítely play more games here but I will try to play a smaller game next time I think, maybe a pbem.

[Gawdzak]

Hey that sounds rough.

Then again, this is a completely unwinnable situation with 'our' close neighbor getting two civs worth of land so early. So really there's no pressure, just learn from this game and do better next time.

Sorry for bailing on you, I thought the mapmaker was trolling us. But turns out he just didn't know what he was doing, and everyone else was too nice to tell him that.

Good luck going forward.

[chumchu]

I like having no pressure, so no problem. Thanks!

About the map. I can see the idea behind it, opening up for both peaceful and aggressive play. However, starting this close to someone putsthat decision out of your control if you want to try something peaceful. This makes the game even more dependent on neighbors and those that manage to kills their neighbor cheaply will be ahead like Zulu and OT4e, those that have peace to expand to their backlines will be in mid tier and those that fight with their neighbors like me and Korea did will be in the bottom.

Speaking about trolling: Elkad peaced out so I took the opportunity to do the same for status quo ante bellum (minus 5 of my cities razed). I might have razed one of his cities but I would not make more gains than that. I actually offered Korea land in the early war, a 2 city peninsula connected to his empire but he decided against it. He did not try to conquer the cities close to him really either. Now he has basically managed to claw me back down to just above his level. He has a slightly better military but I have an economic edge. He has been incredibly slow in settling his back lines so I will raze away from him again. I am building 9 settlers now to replace the lost cities and settle some spots left. [my capital is 2 turning them] Then we will see about settling an island. I will have Nationalism in 2-3 turns which is 20-30 turns to late but still decent compared to those in the mid tier. Korea is nowhere close. After that I will go for education to gunpowder and probably pick up construction/HBR on the way to be safe until then. His play screams: I'm irrelevant so lets try something desperate/fun.

DTG on the other side of the Zulu has been asking me to join a war against them. I see the point but it's a very bad timing. He has knights which will wreck me until I get triple promoted elephants and I can not afford engineering. I'm 110% certain that Korea will attack me if I attack Zulu. I had a window to attack him with maces/trebs/xbow vs. axe/spears when he was going for nationalism without machinery to get Taj Mahal. This was when Korea attacked and warring me all but guaranteed Zulu runaway. If I had been in his shoes I would probably have attacked Elkad as I was poised to do and tried to stab me in the back when I was fighting the Zulus as I was too big for him at that time. Turning against me cost him an attack from Elkad instead. For now my plan is to get muskets for defense. I might be able to attack with heavy horse as I will want MT for cossacks anyway. That is 20+ turns away though. I replied to DTG with 20 g which I hope he understands. He should be able to deduce from my embarrassing point situation and demographics that I have been losing cities and whipping like crazy and is in no position to attack right now.

[chumchu]

Update turn 150.

Have more than doubled the number cities since the peace, settling 15 new ones. I have replaced what was lost and colonised the back lines but I need time to grow them to be productive. After whipping out some settlers I have gone into mercantilism, caste and nationalism (together with pacifism and no government civic). The free merchants are keeping me afloat in techs and the artists helps immensely with border pops for the new cities and for vulnerable border cities. Now I am drafting heavy footmen while getting the last settlers. New cities are all building infra while the old ones builds military, missionaries iand workers. It pains me to have to draft my larger core cities but it is the only way to keep up militarily at this moment. When the smaller cities grow and I get gunpowder, it will be more efficient. That is still a long way away and I detoured for construction to build elephants in the meantime.

Now my tech choices boils down to constitution or paper, edu, gunpowder or aesteth + litterature or monarchy, feud, guilds, gunpowder. The plan is constitution as I really want those 6 science times 25 cities. It would double my effective tech because of how high my costs are at the moment. The extra happy will help as well. I have a scientist and will get a merchant for a potential golden age in 10 turns. That is a too early, both for for my new cities and for getting constitution in that timeframe. I might use the merchant on constitution instead. The golden age would be to get gunpowder and exit the GA in nationalism/slavery to beef up my defenses before I get knightrolled by the Zulus (who have 3 times my Mfg!) but I will have to chance it again.

If there is interest I can do an overview of my phailing empire.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Sure, pics would be welcome.

[chumchu]

I have been a bit checked out from this game as it is quite obvious that OT4E and MR Cairo are leading. I took a bunch of screenshots 15 turns ago at the turn of the millenium. The state of my empire is still a sorry one. Finances are bad from settling a huge amount of cities. Not that much infrastructure has been built because of the war and a long period in caste instead of slavery to get the economy back on track. Growing back my cities for a golden age when I get constitution.

My quite pathetic old capital. I changed it to macchu pichu with the intention of making moskau a military city but macchu picchu got conquered and I needed commerce despereately to get to constitution so Moskau has been changed to a commerce city.


My first specialist/commerce city. Right next to the zulu capital so the culture pressure is real. A good contributor but it is still a bit whipped/drafted down.




Military city that is now pumping missionaries and growing back whle giving me my second GP for the golden age.


My new capital after the fall of Macchu Pichu =( Focused on military production with all those mines but now it is generating a GP.


My second commerce city originally. Low on food


Choke point that was razed in the war. Being rebuilt slowly.


My beatiful old capital. Low on production so it will take Ages to move the palace back here. Should probably build more workshops. I mostly missed out on bureaucracy benefits during mid game as I had no great capital and a need to draft.


Just rebuilt.  A slow grower before LH.


Unfortunately I had to settle over spices to get iron in range. Was a good city until it was razed.




Will start generating GP when I get a missionary with pacifism in here.


The new "island" I have settled in full after the peace 1


2


Another "island" that gives me incense.


Other




Yikes that GNP




And prod



How in the world am I number three in GNP . Mercantilism is super strong here.

[chumchu]

Mr Cairo is still ahead. He has a few more cities, lots of pop and 10ish techs over me. Crucially for me he has rifling and is teching music which means cavs.

Meanwhile I'm also teching towards music to get heavy horsemen to have some counter to cavs. It's not great but better than pikes in the long term. To supplement that I will draft max muskets every turn after the end of the golden age. Most of my periphery cities are sizes 5-8 and have no unhappiness so are prime candidates to support their country. I plan on having 10+ units fortified in both of my border cities. After that it is a straight beeline towards rifles and therefore cossacks. I estimate turn 195 for that which is a long time.

NC is getting banking after getting knights so he has a fair bit to go before getting into renaissance military. If I do not get attacked by Cairo my heavy horse should be good against his crossbows, shock elephants and knights. My antiquated troops would be ok against him as well with a bit of collateral.

Pindicator is focusing a bit of espionage on me but I do not read any hostile intentions from him. We have a common enemy in NC.

Demos are looking up during the golden age. The big question is the civics I end it in. I'm pretty certain that I will switch from pacifism to OR to save money and get production. Atm I'm paying 80 for pacifism and I'm planning on increasing that fast, whereas OR would cost 17. Getting infrastructure out faster and spreading my religion is also important. I'm also quite certain that I will continue in caste over slavery as it would cost too much to whip out specialist slots everywhere to keep the economy going. Markets are not cheap and I prefer merchants in the periphery to enable me to tech at a higher percentage in my core cities with better modifiers. With guilds in maybe 10 turns the workshops I have everywhere are quite decent. The basic idea is to survive until cossacks with loads of specialists and then go into a slavery frenzy. I could get more heavy horses with slavery but they do not trade favorably with rifles/cavs.

[chumchu]

pc screenshot

Mr. Cairo got military tradition last turn. He has also turned a bit of espionage towards me. I'm 3 turns from MT myself. I also need rifling which is further away. My economy is doing great now, so I guess it is time to crash it again.

Maybe I should have gone for slavery over caste, accepting that I will probably not get to Cossacks this game. But that is a darned shame when I'm up against a cavalry horde and they are 15 turns away.

The grand plan is to delay him long enough to get cossacks. At the moment I will draft every man woman and child into the army stack up insane amounts of Maces/Muskets/Trash units in cities with hills and culture to delay him by forcing force him to siege them down. An exception is that the collateral will be put in reserve to be used with the heavy horse. I will detour for 1 turn to get engineering as pikes are the most cost efficient defense unit at the moment and extra move will be crucial to contain him. Having a viable counterattack stack with a move advantage on the cav is what I need.

[chumchu]

He has closed borders after I spotted his stack, mostly rifles and catapults.

What is more worrying is that he has moved up a 3 galleon stack, into threatening positions. A lot of caravels are all over the place to scout and pillage. I think cavalry is in those ships to take vulnerable back-line cities. It might be a cheap diversion, all of his moves thus far seems probing rather than an all out assault, after the intial whip round he has just drafted/whipped 4 times each turn.

If he goes for an all out naval invasion I'm toast since I do not even have caravels and the map makes it possible to fork 4-5 cities with galleon in a lot of places. Fortunately he is teching scientific method and not chemistry which means that he cant take down city defenses. This makes it much easier for me to defend against sea. I do not think I can take the time to get better ship until after cossacks and I do not want to fight galleys against galleons.

[chumchu]

He has invaded, but has only taken 3 cities as of yet, the two cities on the land border and one lightly guarded island city. I have just barely held onto the closest island with draftees.

Now he is healing his huge armies in my land cities. They had decent defenses and it cost him about 20 units and 6 turns to take them. I lost about 20 defenders. Considering his tech advantage and that he has 3 times my power, I'm quite pleased with that. I withdrew most of my defenders into a counter stack to buy time. I now have a stack with 15 collateral and 40 attack units countering any light advance. He has to advance in force and defend the cities, which should make it difficult for him.

Cossacks are about 8 turns away, I can actually reach them with a lot of cities left =9. Then I will whip my civ into a bloody paste of horses and fur hats. A few other cities are building some forges and barracks and not cuirassiers. It might be worth it to one turn theology as well before the civics swap. Hopefully I can reach frigates with decent speed after that despite the whipping by running on specialists. The problem is that I have no markets for merchants. State property would be a more natural choice for me with my workshop economy but that is too far way to consider at the moment.