[Spoilers] Commodore as Darius of the HRE

[Ceiliazul]

Oh, and settle that hills beaver spot ASAP, hmm? Triple food sites do wonders for your crop graph, and intercontinental = cheap(er)

[Ceiliazul]

As my back seat driving gains momentum, how about this crazy idea:

If the war against MNG doesn't pan out as Seven has been leading you to believe..

What's stopping you from declaring war on Egypt and razing New England to the ground? Serves notice to GES to stop running a famers gambit, and solves that border issue forever. It's not like he could really do anything to stop it.

[Commodore]

So "Zen Sleeping Moogle" means using the secret "minimize hammers" governor in all your cities? :neenernee

Hah. I swear, I get no respect. Sleeping Moogle's PBEM 18 thread is just a bunch of pictures, makes the watchers do the work. It requires someone a little less verbose than I, alas. It's a whippin' time to help that hammer issue there.

All I see is your population and food primed to give up the coveted turtle prize. Grow upwards! I see your Feudalism research, may I presume that guilds and HBR is next?

Well, longbows are decent options too. My main security concern is to get Gunpowder, on to rifles soonish while leaving the knight direction an option. If I get both Guilds and Education it's considerably cheaper.

I'd like to throw out a suggestion: pit stop at drama, if only for the benefit of your GES border city. Egypt gained 2% culture in your first ring in 2 turns... since no one is going caste system any time soon, drama is the way to go.

...especially for someone with visions of a dark horse cultural win.

Yeah, noticed the culture issue, which is why I'm building a monastery there now. Good news is the occasional engineers I'm going to be running there to help with builds are also +2 culture.

The visions that dog me aren't unique, apparently. I'm not, please note, pursuing it to the exclusion of all movement in the world. Yuri might be a little bit more desperate though:

[COLOR="Lime"]Hey Commodore,

Our listeners are bored with Buddhist broadcasts, and are demanding
more variety Would you be interested in trading missionaries to us,
for one or both of your religions? We would be happy to send Buddhist
missionary(ies) your way, or discuss another form of payment

Cheers
Yuri[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hi Yuri,
Sounds reasonable, you send your bald guy, we'll send you ours. I'll send you a Hindu missionary if you can send me a Buddhist missionary. Always like to add more monasteries to the Bureaucracy capital.
Until later,
-Commodore[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Lime"]Excellent! I will send one to you in the next few turns

Cheers
Yuri


We have Christianity, too, so we can add on a Jewish-Christian trade if you'd like.

-Maestro[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Yellow"]Ah, yes, certainly, but just note, I've never gotten any free Judaism spreads, and Nemedia, the Jewish Holy City, is in a hardcore infrastructure push for the next dozen turns, the missionary might take a little time. Beyond that, sure, we'll trade them too.
-Commodore[/COLOR]

So...yeah. In an always-peace game with just me and the Ottomans, I'll take an even playing field for cultural victory racing. And if they manage to win with their current behind-ness...I'll eat my hat. They have better MFG and CY, but everyone knows that's just for losers, right?

Oh, and settle that hills beaver spot ASAP, hmm? Triple food sites do wonders for your crop graph, and intercontinental = cheap(er)

Koth is going worker -> settler right now, sirrah! It'll be known as Xapur.

What's stopping you from declaring war on Egypt and razing New England to the ground? Serves notice to GES to stop running a famers gambit, and solves that border issue forever. It's not like he could really do anything to stop it.

10-turn NAP cancellation period, an artifact of the WC trade/me running the farmer's gambit. I'm going to cancel in either two turns (t100) or after MNG looks to be on the way out, depending on how successful RL7 is. More to stop him from ignoring defense than to actually try and make headway against him...but yeah, New England is gone come any warring. Or maybe captured, he's been kindly growing cottages for me.


*wanders off, wondering if there is an "avoid production" button and how his got pressed...*

[Ceiliazul]

*wanders off, wondering if there is an "avoid production" button and how his got pressed...*

I think that's button is labeled "Caste System"...

[Commodore]

Well, began to take screen shots of the others' lands. I think I might have found out why my MFG is in the tank, although for crop yield I have nobody to blame but me.

First off, Yuri/Maestro, Ottomans.

Their capital is a nice hammer-heavy site with a decent food surplus and a few good towns, with a ton of forests still (about to go into the Taj Mahal, I'm willing to bet). Nashe Radio is the first objective in any conflict, with a nice double-ivory (forested too!) hammer set and the Colossus, otherwise known as "the only thing keeping them in the game". Note the huge amount of riverland in this core, which is also helping out.



Over-spread and oddly bunched at the same time, the Ottoman west is home to another obscenely fertile river valley. Note the lack of desert hills as well...this place is a MFG powerhouse without exactly sucking for food, although the commerce potential isn't exactly great. This whole area is oddly underdeveloped for such a long-held land, although that means a lot of lumber is still around for wonder builds.



The long-settled Rock FM is another generalist city spot without specializing well in any one particular thing. The three other cities here are all relatively new, rather dry and not that impressive now, although with enough worker love and cottage growth this could be a very commerce-heavy area. There is still a good city site to be squeezed from this place, probably ignored in their rush to claim hub territory.



Speaking of which, here's their hub-land. Decent enough area, I would call it better than mine except for the lack of silver. Still, they have furs, deer, and rice added to their pot from this area, and those nice Colossus coast tiles don't exactly need much more to turn a profit. The middle-area will be a bone of contention I'm sure between Radioland and Egypt.

Nextly, Ranamar, Lewwyn, Seven Spirits, and Noble Helium of Mali.

Core land looks just a leetle dry, sign #1 being windmills. I can see how Barad-Dur managed to sweep all those wonders though, that's a ton of good hills. They had an insane production when those were mined, and it's still pretty darn good. Minas Tirith is made of awesome, and I'm sure they've been ensuring naval presence in the inner sea too...because that's one pretty vulnerable capital location.



Dry, hungry, and hilly. Leading crop yield at any point in the game is rather impressive, and I'm pretty sure it was due to Expansive. The hammer output they're getting now due to this disciplined growth is excellent, and the those cottages are going to help them stay up. Analysis of the RL7 core has upped their threat level to red.



Their hub spoke is long and marginal, and although these are three nice fishing villages, I don't see anything here being critical to any war effort I find myself in against or for them.

Finally, GES of Egypt.

Stone is a monster. In that entire BFC, notice how many tiles are not riverside? 4. I mean, yeah, it's had to permanently gift that corn to AleSmith anytime that place wants to grow while producing, but still. The east is slightly cut off in this image, but it's pretty generic, dry and not particularly specialized. Still, once again...must be nice to not have to mine desert hills.



Um. Yeah. Let's look at what isn't nice in this image; Alpine settled on iron for lower tile yield. Um. Port needed to mine a desert hill? (A first outside of the HRE!).

How about nice? Well, the second long river is nice. The land that longs for cottages is nice. The grassy hills are nice. I think my next military objective is this screenshot. The borders need to be in a slightly darker yellow is all.

I honestly don't mean to whine, I'm sure someone else could do a complainy post about my territory too. It's small and a toroid and has lots of coast. Darius of the HRE couldn't ask for a better setup, see, why I've been trailing in the important development demos all game yet still have #1 GNP. There is some nice areas for conquest around here though.

I know, I know, vertical growth. I'm doin' it. But horizontal growth is looking very, very nice on this map too.

[Ceiliazul]

...I'm sure someone else could do a complainy post about my territory too.

Oh, that's my cue! Let's do it ad-lib style:

<ahem>

Any game of Civ4 is better than ___________. As we know, Realms Beyond is the __________ embodiment of the Civ community. Unfortunately the land given to my chosen civilization is ___________. My land is short on ____________, and my ____________ opponent has way more _____________ than I do.

However, though the mapmaker *may* have shot me in the ___________, I will continue the __________ RB tradition of overcoming this ____________, and doing my best to squash my ____________ opponent's ____________ into dust.

Long live Realms Beyond, the only place where this game could have even taken place! And may the mapmaker be ___________ forever. -Ceil

[Ceiliazul]

Cheer up Mr. Commodore, the game aint over yet. A little well placed aggression can turn this around right quick.

I don't mean to be too snarky in the above post, but it's kinda boilerplate for some of the stuff I've seen in other games. I hate mirrored maps so much, I'm willing to accept a certain level of imbalance. While this particular map isn't perfect, the differences between each continent are much smaller than the differences the players. As it happens, I think the map is very interesting on a macro scale.

If each team were a kid in elementary school:
MNG is always trading his lunch for something better
GES is the rich kid who's never quite happy
Yuri is the kid who picks his nose, but is friendly to everyone
RL7 is the overachiever
...
You are kid who's smaller than the others, but goes to karate practice every night. Your chance to shine will come soon.

[Ceiliazul]

More game-related, I see GES still has some viable cities spots to settle. Someone needs to knock him out of his farmers gambit before it requires a 3 or 4 team dogpile.

[Commodore]

We're packin' it up and headin' home folks, my ded-lurker just won the internets. You're awesome.

More game-related, I see GES still has some viable cities spots to settle. Someone needs to knock him out of his farmers gambit before it requires a 3 or 4 team dogpile.

Wise man.

me: Hey Seven
Ranamar: hey
1:33 PM me: So, a thought for after MNG is on his way out. (Because with just maces, spears, and axes, he really is).
1:34 PM I'm not about to start trying to invade GES and I don't think you guys are either, but what about cancelling the NAPs to stop him from running the huge farmer's gambit he's go going on?
1:35 PM Ranamar: sure
well, as soon as we can, yeah
me: Naturally, waiting to see how the war goes.
1:36 PM Oh, and I'll be in position ideally at 100, not 99.
1:37 PM Ranamar: ok
me: I can DoW one turn early but thanks to a recent culture pop I'm actually able to position myself one-turn from Parthan on his blob
Ranamar: lewwyn and I are doign the attack right now
cool
1:38 PM me: I expect it's going to be a cakewalk up there.
Most of his maces were more southward, think my WCs were making him nervous.
Ranamar: he might have more maces than you realize, we see 4 in the north
2 in the nothern coastal city as of this turn
1:39 PM me: With a T100 DoW I think he'll be out of position for both of us.
Ranamar: 1 we just killed and 1 more that was en route to Orleans too
yeah
2 promo knights just own maces in the open, let alone in a city
me: Maces are all well and good, but honestly I'd be more worried if he had cats.
1:43 PM Longbows would have been better for city defense too.
So, you have Orleans yet?
1:44 PM Ranamar: yes
that part's easy

[Commodore]

So, first up, no war dec yet! Had a small exchange with MNG though.

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hey MNG,

I see you've lost Orleans this turn to a Malineese blitz, I have a few forces in the area...do you have much chance of turning them back, with or without my aid?

Good luck,
-Commodore[/COLOR]

Yes, blatant fishing.

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Hi Commodore,

Looks like I was beefing up defense in the wrong cities. Sadly, I don't have much chance of stopping them now, but I will be playing a bit of a scorched earth strategy at this point. We'll see how the balance of power shifts once they start having to pay the costs of warring so far from home..
MNG[/COLOR]

That's the sound of despair. But the bloody Rohirim-chanting-death-and-charging despair, not the quittin' sort. I expected nothing less. Let the two of 'em bleed each other hard for a couple more turns as I position my own far more meager forces. A city-by-city Turn 100 is coming later, for now, we shall concern ourselves with reporting on the war.

As alluded to above, the first attack was a big success, capturing Orleans and routing the light French forces around it. (Also, please note the primary winner of today's conflict, making the University of Sanklore of all things).



My friendly, innocent tourist neutral observers took a gander at the huge knight stack assembled by RL7. That's ten in the Paris-ward stack, two more peeled off to check out Tours. Assuming one more attack set of one or two galleons' worth in the north at Rouen, and one more load at Orleans still, that's 6-7 galleons that RL7 own, conservatively. Check me on this, but 18 knights and half a dozen galleons accounts for quite a lot of that power rating, right? Not much more in the tank as a second wave.



Meanwhile, MNG is in whip-self-into-ground mode, which does make for a massive troop surge.



Operation Anklebite is now in progress.



The cats and their escort are going to get teleported to my foothold in MNG's land once war is declared. Boy, that didn't take long for the Sistine to prove its worth. Thanks to being in my territory, I can also let my chariots auto-port into that hill...and be upgraded to knights.



Turn 100 rolls around and the whips are flying. Also, oops. MNG has guilds and HBR. This is going to be a bloodbath.



Parthan is still decently defended, although I'll be able to take it with cats. Wish I had woven in a trebuchet to help bombard, but I kinda have been preparing for this war on the cheap as I keep on vertical-growthing and building needed infrastructure.



Beyond that, it's all "scrape up whatever you can" time. My poor galley force is a big overworked. Still, nobody is an active threat at the moment, which is nice...RL7 and MNG are occupied, and Yuri/GES are NAP'd and trying to push the farmer's gambit to the max. My balanced approach must be good for something.



Certainly rather not be in the middle of that mess. Man, Creative borders are a soup.



I'm not gonna win this without good diplomacy...so, progress is continuing I'd say. I'm bestest buddies with every player here, it would seem. My intention is to be no threat to win until I win. Objective One, achieved, now I must fill in the "???" before Three, "Profit".