[SPOILERS] Seven Russias Into the Periclous Fray

[SevenSpirits]

I mean yes, I value the continuation of the game over any personal grudges. So I guess you can take advantage of that by threatening to kill the game if I declare war on you or whatever.

Reminds me of the book I am reading, "It's Even Worse Than It Looks", which seems to be a good, depressing book about contemporary american politics. I think we're avoiding political discussions here so that's all I'll say.

P.S. If I make dramatic proclamations while I'm angry, don't take them too seriously, especially if they have gigantic loopholes (oh hey, I have a plan now that I didn't have before).

[SevenSpirits]

Here's the promised domestic update. 8 turns have passed, but I have the screenshots so here you are.

My capital is one of the best cities in the world. With concerns of war weariness about to be removed by monarchy, I'm growing it again.

Speaking of monarchy, my tech path: I teched up to civil service while pumping out the scientist for the golden age. Then swapped into bureaucracy and caste and buddhism. The following turns were spent churning through mysticism, polytheism, monotheism, monarchy to make the most out of the next civic swap. Spoiler: after monarchy I will continue on to metal casting, machinery, meditation, aesthetics, literature, and philosophy before the golden age is over.



I don't have great cities for the epics, but this one's good enough for Heroic.



Not much to mention here...









OK, so I decided to get out the GPs for golden age #2. It seems like I actually have a chance at liberalism and/or taj simply because no one has philosophy or paper yet, and because other contenders are also feeling the need to run enough military. I think with a 12 turn golden age, I have a shot. And failing would be OK - I'd get half-price Research Institutes at least. I may also have an advantage from PHI in generating enough GPs to both have a second golden age (which is long enough to help with both research and taj hammers) and also get a couple scientists for bulbs.



Not much to say again...













Here's my copper!












Some empire overview shots:



The northern chariot captured two workers from HAK after my own worker finished chopping that forest.


















Some stats:







I think I've clawed my way up into a three-way tie for 3rd-5th.

Will Mackoti be so far ahead that he can take ALL the first-to-tech bonuses?

Will Gawdzak be up to the task of being a counterweight?

Will Haram decide I need to be taken down a peg?

Will I be able to crunch my way through all the pokey legos that HAK has left lying around in his cities?

How many players will die to knights while I mess around with peace-loving techs?

Find out! in this thread (and in other threads, sooner).

[Ceiliazul]

These reports are quality over quantity. I like them.

And I agree with Seven about negotiating with timer terrorists: the game is more important than 15g. ...and while Parkin doing this is true to form, if a normally honorable turn-taker did it to me I'd take it personal. And kill them. (Or die in whatever way does them most harm.)

[NobleHelium]

What's up with the hamlet by the city ruins? And why would you punish a normally honorable turn-taker more than a habitual (and definitely intentional) one? That makes no sense whatsoever. Stop this Parkin appeasement bullshit.

[SevenSpirits]

That's a pre-placed improvement that a barb city happened to spawn near. I razed the city and captured a worker shortly after settling my own city on that landmass. I didn't wait for it to grow to size 2 because it was probably going to take 7t or more, and the city was close to Donovan Zoi, who also had a galley nearby.

For the second question, could you clarify? I don't know what you mean.

[NobleHelium]

I was responding to Ceil in the second part.

[Ceiliazul]

Regarding Parkin, I wont even join a game with Parkin or ASM (due to his ip stalking of players in I think PB5)

So its not like im a Parkin apologist. What im saying is I'd rather take one for the better of the game if everyone KNOWS the guy is a timer bully. Then people would also understand why im doing it. If its a normally good guy and hes just bullying ME... no such luck.

[SevenSpirits]

Brief update:

1) HAK has been incredibly passive so far this war, just stacking units in cities and not taking opportunities to counterattack. However, when I got back from holding up the turn for a few days I played really hastily and I guess left him too tempting an opportunity. He moved the vast majority of his garrison from Toledo (15 units) to the spot marked 15 on the map below. Unfortunately I only have the "after" picture...




At the time I controlled Shenanigans , and had just moved most of its garrison two tiles south towards the next target. HAK's stack threatened both Quack, which was guarded by an archer, mace and catapult, and Shenanigans, guarded by a catapult. (For the most part, these cities had just been staffed by units on their way down to the front.) In addition, HAK forayed out of the city to the south to heavily wound my units moving south.

My assumption upon seeing HAK's foray was that he would easily capture both cities, and then I would have to whip the cities to the north for maces in order to prevent further issues. I upgraded my archer to a crossbow, dry-whipped an archer, and retreated my stack south of Shenanigans to the plains hill S of the city. I also offered 200g to HAK for peace (I remembered that you can't offer cities this time!) and then also 422 gold, which was close to what I had.

HAK did not accept either peace offer, but to my surprise he ignored Quack and just retook Shenanigans. I pillaged the road on the hill south of Shenanigans so he couldn't follow, and moved the units back south.

I ended up being able to take the southern city with my southern stack, and the wounded stack from Shenanigans made it safely there. Meanwhile, a couple extra maces made my defenses in Quack quite solid.

Big props to HAK for actively fighting back with slightly backwards units and a crippled production base! I am curious to know though why he decided not to take back Quack. My guess is that since he didn't know what I had north of it in the fog, it seemed too dangerous.

2) GermanJojo and Haram have reached something of a standoff. Jojo whipped up quite an army and Haram had to retreat, losing one of his two conquests back to Jojo. The net effect of that war in terms of city control is now that Haram razed one city. The war has probably been pretty rough on both of their economies though. Not that I should be talking - I'm pretty sure my economy is worse than Haram's if not both of theirs.

3) Mackoti looks to be pulling clearly ahead with post-conquest growth. Interestingly, I am the only player in the game who does not have open borders with him. I do have open borders with everyone else (except HAK, with whom I have "open" borders).

4) I'm going for the Taj longshot plan. No one has Nationalism yet, and no engineers have been born. It's possible that Mackoti got Philosophy a few turns ago (he must have picked up SOME tech that was spiking his GNP, and maybe it was that...?) - I obviously can't tell due to already having philo. But I started a golden age last turn and will get Nationalism in 3t more, and will then have a pretty heavy hammer setup for building it as well as a ~20% change of popping an engineer for the safe immediate build. In the first 5t of the golden age I am in pacifism for a total of 5x gpp multiplication (philo, parthenon, golden age, pacifism) which is helping in four cities. I think it's worth trying for Taj because it would be so strong, and even if someone else is close to racing me I have a good chance if I get the engineer. And if Mackoti gets it that should significantly help to lock up the game, and I would prefer players like Gawdzak to still have a strong chance. If I miss Taj, drafting is always incredibly strong too, and I have to happiness to take advantage of it - that would really help me finish off HAK in the most efficient way. One big advantage I have here is that none of the top opponents are bordering me in any meaningful way, so despite them all having guilds (I think... or at least being close to it if not) I feel fairly safe with just maces, catapults and horse archers for defense for the moment.

Since the last update I've also gotten heroic epic built (now pumping out 5xp cats and 7xp HAs) and national epic underway, and I'm in the process of getting extra monasteries in the capital.

[SevenSpirits]

Wow, big turn as Gawdzak declared on Donovan Zoi (sort of my eastern neighbor) and Grimace declared on Haram (my western neighbor). Haram and GermanJojo are still at war, and if I'm not mistaken, the majority of Haram's troops are on the far wrong side of his territory to respond to Grimace's invasion.

Meanwhile I checked back in the event log and apparently Mackoti DID get an engineer. Right on the turns when I was deciding whether to tech Nationalism and studiously checking the event log for exactly this. Whoooooops. So chances of us getting Taj are down to 20% I think, those being the odds of getting an engineer next turn when Nationalism comes in. There's also an outside possibility that Mackoti reaches Nationalism in time to race our engineer, but he's been saving gold for a few turns now. I'm expecting that the massive GNP spike was him getting meditation, and the subsequent teching was philosophy, and the gold saving is preparing for a nationalism run very soon. Finally, there's a possibility that he's not going for Nationalism, but come on, we all know that's what he does. Anyway guys, check it out: I'm in the bottom quarter of players in terms of tech and I still have about a 20% chance to get Taj. You too can do this!

[Ichabod]

Can you post a picture of your tech tree? I want to know what you skipped to reach nationalism like this.