LURKER THREAD- No Players

[Mjmd]

That is a lot of lost commerce. Thanks for the updates! That mini map is certainly looking more consolidated.

[civac2]

Follow up 2: North America




North American politics was shaped by two major threads. The first was wp (greenish Russian) starting on the (lower) east coast devouring 2metraninja (Mississippi area) and BaII (Middle America) with an axe/cata attack. The other one was Rob (China) expanding extremely aggressively by settler party and chariot blitz. He stepped on so many toes that he eventually was at war with every single one of his neighbours except the French sitting in eastern Canada. He held them off until wp was finished with his other conquests and joined the war with limited force and aims while trying to salvage his economy at the same time. Rob is now down to his last two cities and will be eliminated soon. This is complicated by wp starting yet another war against the Egyptians (western Canada + Alaska + Kamchatka). They came in proximity during their wars against Rob and wp took the opportunity to wipe out an Egyptian stack. While this was a prudent course of action wp refused to make peace afterwards and even advanced on Egyptian cities.

wp has enough land to be a potential contender. However, his economy is not close to competitive with CocoRico's let alone the true economic power houses of the world. It is unlear how much of this is due to his ceaseless warring (limited though it my be after his first two conquests) or other reasons. wp is an extremely hardheaded man and this may work to his detriment here.

The Franco-Canadians attacked Greenland (England, Elizabeth) while they were still in a war they had started against Alexander on the British Islands. This cut off the English trade routes. Both enemies also had caravels while England had not. But Alexander made peace after taking some islands between them and ultimately nothing came of it. More on Alexander in the Europe edition.

wp is very big but too backwards to be a contender. He may even get conquered by CocoRico. wp declared war on South America in an unsuccessful bid to cut off their trade routes. The entire North-American continent is becoming increasingly irrelevant (as is only proper).

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Thanks for the update!

[Amicalola]

I remember you said a while ago that no one from NA had ever won a Big PB like this before. It seems this game is similar. Do you think there is a reason beyond 'circumstance' for this, or that they've just had poor luck/players?

Thanks for the update.

[civac2]

I'm really not sure. North America does have a decent amount of good land. But the result is likely to consistent to be entirely random. Note that there were world map PB winners from South America.

In this particular game North America was a bit overstuffed with civs. wp had less cities than a few people expanding peacefully after conquering his first neighbour completely.

[civac2]

Follow up 3: Europe




The preeminent power in Europe is Ziankali (Joao, started in Germany). He expanded the fastest and later conquered neigbours in Italy and France + Iberia. However, due to his careful nature his conquests were too slow. Even though he maintained humunguous armies for most of the game he often waited for new military techs to then build yet more units. As a result he is behind in tech and also did not gain as much territory as he could have. In particular he only got a couple cities from nafraugar in Eastern Europe when he could have gotten all of them. He will reach Rifling in a few turns which gives him safety from his more advanced neighours (Frozen and Dullland in Africa, aspi in Scandinavia) and opportunities to expand in Turkey and Eastern Europe.

Nafraugar (Montezuma) had been attacked by Carthage (Ukraine + Baltic area). The stronger Carthagians overplayed their hand and lost most of their army besieging nafraugars capital. Both empires were then divided with Ziankali, Holland (playing England in the Georgia, Caspian sea area), Sven (Pericles in Finland) and even Plemo all taking a cut.

The other major power in Europe is aspi playing Mansa Musa in Sweden. So far he has been doing Mansa Musa things, peacefully teching ahead. Though he has mediocre land the power of BTS FIN allowed him to reach Astronomy and Steel in a very competitive time frame. He has now gone on the offensive blockading KSL's Greeks on the British Islands and taking a few of their outer cities. KSL likely will succumb to Frigates, drafted muskets and cannons. He has muskets himself but not Astronomy, let alone Chemistry/Steel. After taking over the British Islands, aspi is planning to conquer the other Greek to his east with whom he has been in a cold war since the start of the game.

[Miguelito]

I find this picture emblematic for a couple of players in this game.

Flunky here did a lot of things right, achieving a top 3 or so position before his failed Australian invasion. But, it's past turn 200, he has MoM, and this screen. He missed a scientist roll or something for his second GA, but still. It seems to me that a number of otherwise very good players are neglecting their GP game a lot, the other prime example imo being WP with Peter in NA, who afaik has bulbed mathematics and run his 1 person GA, and that's it. Meanwhile he laments having weak traits. When I pointed this out in the lurker thread I was told that spending early GPs would spoil industrial age GAs, so this seems to be at least partially meta. Now, the civforum folks obvously have played a lot more games into the industrial age and all the way to AC, so I try to respect that experience. But if PEter had actually used his second trait during the first 200 turns maybe he would not be in the situation that civac described above.

A counterexample is Plemo, who has documented some solid GP planning in his thread.

[Amicalola]

Isn't EXP the second strongest trait in base BtS? Or competing for it, at least...

Thanks, these were both very interesting. I think it will be a lot of fun to see the industrial era play out. Especially so considering that there are still multiple people in winning positions. It's really cool that these big PBs are sometimes played all the way to an actual victory condition.

Civac, I remember you mentioned that Aspi was considering a (very) longshot cultural victory. Is that still in the cards?

[Mjmd]

This is actually a good question. For these large long games on Diety I imagine the Germans see traits differently. Is expansive still considered the 2nd best?

Also, I've been wondering has anyone ever been in contention that isn't financial, organized, or has a shrine? Once everything hits late game?

[Amicalola]

This is actually a good question. For these large long games on Diety I imagine the Germans see traits differently. Is expansive still considered the 2nd best?

Also, I've been wondering has anyone ever been in contention that isn't financial, organized, or has a shrine? Once everything hits late game?

Yeah that's true. ORG at least must go up a lot, like you say.


Plemo seems to be doing very well, and he's running IMP/PRO charlemagne. I would guess rathaus' are helping them a tonne there though, so it might not be a fair comparison.