[SPOILERS] Emporium For Sale. We Don't Rent Pigs.

[Ceiliazul]

I'm not up for taking over, sorry boldly. for sure quit reporting if you think that will help decrease the burden you feel on this game. You can always swap to xenu-pb8 mode and pop spiny things forever....

at least the turns aren't a *daily* grind, more of a weekly thing :-)

[spacetyrantxenu]

That would be counter-productive if he doesn't want to have to keep playing turns forever.

What if you treated this like a SP game and whipped all your population into knights and try to kill someone? If it works...well whoever you don't attack probably wins in this scenario. Maybe it isn't sporting. Sorry, I don't have any good suggestions. I've been saying this game is a stinker for months now. The trireme stacking did me in on interest, I'm afraid.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

And, to be fair to my purchaser, whoever that should turn out to be, pictures:

T129



I think this was in answer to Commodore's long ago (3 weeks/3 turns ago) question about how bad would it suck to swap to Vassalage. Short answer, badly. The gold savings on units is not nearly enough to make up for the losses from missing my Bureaucap (still no Academy).



At least half of the cottages in the empire, give or take, are here, with all the multiplier buildings and the Bureaucracy bonus. Can't make that up in Vassalage.



A long time coming for this GP. The result doesn't matter, as long as I get a scientist either here...



Or here. The run for Liberalism depends on it, and even then it may not be enough.



Stashing gold for the Liberalism blitz.


T130



Uh oh. This won't end well. I moved as indicated, but should have actually moved 1NE of the clam so the surviving caravels couldn't just retreat into the city where I couldn't counterattack, but I only thought of this after I made the move.



My great Moai city is in dire straights. I split my trireme stack to force zak to fight to the city. GB's garrison at EoT is highlighted. If I'm remembering this correctly, I upgraded two archers and two impis, then stuffed the knights, mace, and chariot in, the latter two at the expense of Deadwood.



Leaving this is as the garrison at Deadwood, plus the completing longbow, facing the highlighted units. If I had this to do again, I would have attacked out with the cats. I basically counted hitters and defenders and concluded that zak couldn't take the city before I could get more units in.



GP savings about to be realized in both cities. Otherwise, units, and some economy buildings, and wealth in preparation for a push to Liberalism.



GNP is better when I build wealth. Soldier count has dropped in some bloodletting with novice/zak. I typically come out on the short end of these battles because they initiate the fight when they can get the advantage. I just turtle up and take body blow after body blow.



Well, we got our Great Scientist. Let's see if I can actually get Liberalism.



The plan, after me spending an hour with a calculator and picking out which cities need to build research vs. wealth. We ended up 6 beakers short of finishing Education after the bulb, allowing a ton of overflow to go into Liberalism for a 1t research. If zak doesn't take it first. If he does, I'll probably have to follow novice to caravels, because he's just wrecking me.



The blockade is still going, but not for long. Apparently it's pretty cheap to upgrade a shitload of triremes into caravels, and caravels get ~75-8% odds on triremes. Hmm. Novice lured my fleet into his waters, far enough that I'd have no hope of getting them out after he upgraded his navy. And, he hid his navy in the ocean culture so I couldn't get a crack at them ever, eliminating my numerical advantage. This navy has been pretty much a waste of hammers, totally not worth the investment. I've blockaded novice mercilessly for quite a while after getting a decisive win (at significant cost) when we both had triremes. It is frustrating to say the least to see my boats destroyed because I couldn't engage his boats due to the ocean tile in his culture. But, that's the way the game works, and I've known it and failed to move out, so this is my fault. This is just another "feature" of naval warfare that I think is not well implemented. I think it is enough that the civ controling the culture should get visibility without having to have a unit in range to see the opponent. To allow your boat to hide out on tiles that your opponent can't reach with equal technology seems bogus to me, but meh.



The same picture as before, but with numbers drawn in and production complete. Hanging by a thread here.

T131

Lots of pictures, and none of it good.



So, zak is a tricky SoB, I'll give him that. He moved his galleys from the fort on the desert tile on his side of the water into a new fort SW of Liechtenstein, unloaded a fuckton of knights, chopped the forest that I had nearly finished (1t left) before his earlier attack, and captured Deadwood. I had seen his workers on the tile but they had been "cottaging", as he left them cottaging previously without cancelling the orders. I didn't check with my own workers to see if he had turns into a fort, I was totally blindsided by this clever move. Nice job! Obviously his knights cut through my meager defense after he catted down my defenders.



More of the carnage, and a look at what novice also did to me...



That's a lot of blood... And, of course, I can't hit these units on the ocean tile, but at least that makes sense to me: They're technologically superior, ocean-faring vessels. I'll just continue retreating my stack as best I can, but they're doomed, basically. Obviously, rather than shadowing novice's fleet with my own, I should have retreated at some point to my territory to prevent him blockading my stone/marble and saved the fleet.



Hopefully he doesn't have a massive amount of overflow. That's all I can say. He doesn't have a large stockpile of gold, at least.



Nothing to do but go for the bulb anyway. I thought for a moment about an academy in LD, but I need to knock some techs out in a hurry, so the bulb is the way to do it.



Flush with disappointment from novice's beatdown and zak's win at Liberalism, I decided I'd take Deadwood back, knowing it was all but certain to be a futile and temporary win. I did win, but I probably should have just saved my units. I really wanted to get to Zak's knight stack, but I lacked the numbers. And, a blockade is totally killing Great Bend. Ugh.



Ha. I'm totally winning.



We still have the gold, and still need rapid techs, so the research builds will remain. And more units. San Antonio has the shrine, so the bank needs to finish too.



My fleet is sitting right there. I just need a couple more boats to clean up zak's stack. I dry whipped this for 3pop because I'm going to need it soon, no doubt, and I'm going to starve anyway.



Novice cleaned up some of my boats, I limped back toward poart. He can kill two boats with what he has there, but I'd get to kill them back, maybe, so I didn't hide in the city.



Novice is showing a couple of galleys down here, but I don't think they're going to do anything to me. Goliad's garrison is shown here, and I have a stack of knights that can hit any tile that novice would land on. Not worried about the galleys at all. Also, Fall's garrison. He's moved his knights out.



Liberalism in 1t, so at least my time with the calculator wasn't totally wasted. Let's see what happens.



The GA is over. Not terrible, but not going to win.

T132 (not yet finished)



Well, crap.



Zak had moved his blockade further south, so I threw my stack at his. I don't have a picture yet of the carnage, but he has a couple of survivors. I lost more than he did, but I'll probably kill off the rest of these guys unless he runs away. With circumnavigation, he can run away two tiles and blockade with his third movement point.

The circumnavigation bonus in such a small field does provide a significant boost, and at zero cost, is kind of unbalancing. I'm trying not to come across as whining/complaining (although it probably is), but just stating how it has impacted the game in a variety of situations. I think probably that it should be removed unless there is an investment required to get it, either by having to build an early boat (which is an investment over perhaps an earlier worker/settler, as well as the research required) or by requiring later exploration over some ocean tiles (caravels).




So, who's interested??

[Qgqqqqq]

Your doing too well for me to be interested

[spacetyrantxenu]

I didn't want to buy a pig, I just wanted to rent one. I guess yours isn't the right emporium for that.

[zakalwe]

Some great reporting in this thread, you documented some of my moves better than I did.

Nice failgold economy, I really wasn't exploiting that possibility very well myself. I poured almost all of my hammers into troops until I had taken back what was rightfully mine.

You did a great job keeping Novice in check so I could catch up.

As for the trireme stacks...

[zakalwe]

Oh, and the ToA was just for the GPPs, priest, and +4 commerce in my shrine/NE city. (Could be +5 with a castle.) I think it was worth it, but I didn't do a real cost/benefit analysis.