March 14th, 2015, 14:49
(This post was last modified: March 14th, 2015, 14:52 by GermanJoey.)
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Well, lasting peace is certainly not possible after I clobbered them on that northern peninsula, I'm not stupid here - I certainly understand why they're prioritizing revenge on me even though it is a stupid, pointless move. However, a short-term peace would be nice to buy time to get airships and 5-mover ironclads built and shipped over here to regain naval control of the area... my cities capable of producing these things are like 25-30 tiles away. 
Basically, right now, my conquest of Korea is slowed because I can't really use my galleons to speed troop transport through the Hooligan's very thick culture in fear of a potential 3-mover ironclad. (every Korean core city got 4th ring culture, blugh) Furthermore, Portugal's fort port, shown here in this older screenshot:
is just 2 tiles away from Soccer City, meaning 2metra could try amphibiously sniping my damaged stack the turn I take the city. Carracks are a terrible fucking unit at this stage of the game but I still need to take them seriously in this situation because 12 of them could transport 24 quality units such as Cavalries and Cannons, and their leaping out from that port means that I'd be not only unable prevent the force from landing with Frigates, I'd also be unable to wipe them the turn after if they were guarded with ironclads. Fuck. I need either peace, a bigger stack, or ironclads + airships to secure that site, and the only one of these options that is fast is a 10T peace treaty.
I was kinda hoping that they'd be interested in 10 turns of not needing to cover their ass, what with dtay sniping a city a few turns ago, but I guess that's not the case?
edit: I just looked at the tracker and dtay just razed a city of theirs worth 83 points this turn, holy smokes, I wonder if that was the double holy city + AP? Shit, and I just finished building a bunch of christian temples, lol... anyways if these guys are getting fucked up this badly yet still coming after me then they're either just stubborn or stupid - I don't know which, but it's one or the other.
March 15th, 2015, 05:41
(This post was last modified: March 15th, 2015, 05:46 by GermanJoey.)
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T210.
We've finally caught up to PB18 in turncount!!!
2metra took the peace offer, whew. I think I can finish the Hooligans off within 3 turns now that I can use my Galleons again, or maybe I'll get lucky and Portugal will help me kill them faster. To start off with, I took Camp Nou, scoring a Granary, very nice:
Then I found a trio of workers attempting to deforest Ghuzz, naughty naughty. Ghuzz has just a single pikeman inside, whereas I have 4 Knights that can strike there next turn.
Finally, I finished off Furungy, losing in the process a C2 CR2 Rifle at 99% odds, redux of the PB18 turn I had just taken. It was just that kinda day today...
But, at least we have an amazing haul here in Birka!!
With these two, I'm now up to 50 cities; IIRC, Gavagai has 54 and Gawdzak 48 I think? I've got 2 cities left to take and 7 fillers left to plant.
I estimate that my GA will be in about 8 turns. I'm trying to desperately spread Hinduism to former Furungyland to accelerate my mass-factory construction (i.e. I'll switch to OR for 7 turns), but I've whiffed on cities with just one religion twice in a row now, and I'm starting to get insanely pissed about it. I only have, like, two cities total with Hindu monasteries and yet missionaries take like 8 turns to travel to these cities, and I can't build any more in the meantime. Fuck!
During the GA I will research Liberalism to end up with Vassalage + Free Religion as my endgame civics, as that will give better income than Bureau+Theocracy for my goofy strewn-out empire. I haven't yet decided on whether I'll get Facism and/or Communism as well, for those civics. I'm starting to become convinced that State Property is superior to Free Market for me this game in a 1:1 comparison, but that doesn't take into account the 10k beakers or whatever that I'll need to spend to get it...
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Man, you are baaaad at rolling dice. Let's play Risk!
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T211.
Hmmm, gonna have to keep an eye on this...
Gavagai's also got a stack of ~15ish Frigates that I've been watching slowly grow a few tiles to the east. This buildup is especially worrisome since he canceled our longstanding pig/sheep trade from forever ago after I canceled our furs for 16gpt last turn. Our whales for ivory + 4gpt is still there, though. My first airships are ready next turn and my first fast-ironclads the turn after that. Gavagai is quickly shooting above everyone in the demos, unsurprising since all his big cities from China are now coming out of revolt. It is so irritating that Donovan barely even whipped at all, whereas Gawdzak and I had only size-1 cities left for us from Korea and Scandinavia.
AL + GA in 6 or 7 turns, depending on whether I can secure a small loan from somewhere or not (I'll be just short). The war weariness from Furungy has no disappeared and I'm happy to report that only Claretin has any WW unhappy, and just 2 faces at that. also, KOREA WILL FINALLY BE DESTROYED NEXT TURN, HALLELUJAH.
March 17th, 2015, 15:38
(This post was last modified: March 17th, 2015, 15:46 by GermanJoey.)
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March 17th, 2015, 16:06
(This post was last modified: March 17th, 2015, 16:07 by GermanJoey.)
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One last act of defiance from these fuckers. 
I actually had to google this, but it turns out to be the message from a "Forment Unhappiness" spy mission. Why did they even have spies if they had full visibility on me for ~50 turns?
Whatever. Y'all ruined your own game, I've had enough of that noise. The city will be fine next turn.
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So, REM. Adrien. I've gotta know... why such a duel mentality towards me from the start of the game till the end? What was with stepping on my pig at the start of the game, and then the warrior rush? Why keep banging your heads against that nigh-invulnerable choke instead of taking back what you lost from Portugal or expanding to your north?
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I haven't read your thread yet, but I'll answer the direct question first : did you even take a look at the lay of the land ? It was clear from the start that we were going to have to fight : you were our only land neighbor and had a chokepoint to box us into irrelevance. We tried to pink dot you on it but it was just too far. As long as you had control of the chokepoint we couldn't really attack you while you had all the flexibility in the world as to when and where you could attack us. We tried to take avantage of your weaker moments (like when your stack was fighting Furungy) but you played well and we never succeeded. The land to our north was subpar IMO (and we had huge barb problems there) and we couldn't counter attack Portugal because you would have used that to conquer our east (wouldn't you ?)
You were pretty unlucky with who played the turns, I don't think I would have stepped on your food with the scout nor would I have fomented unhappiness at the end (maybe poison the wells though, to illustrate how you were sick of us  ) but REM played those turns differently. There had been a spy in that city for almost 100t, from the second war.
March 19th, 2015, 13:09
(This post was last modified: March 19th, 2015, 13:26 by GermanJoey.)
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(March 19th, 2015, 10:08)AdrienIer Wrote: I haven't read your thread yet, but I'll answer the direct question first : did you even take a look at the lay of the land ? It was clear from the start that we were going to have to fight : you were our only land neighbor and had a chokepoint to box us into irrelevance. We tried to pink dot you on it but it was just too far. As long as you had control of the chokepoint we couldn't really attack you while you had all the flexibility in the world as to when and where you could attack us. We tried to take avantage of your weaker moments (like when your stack was fighting Furungy) but you played well and we never succeeded. The land to our north was subpar IMO (and we had huge barb problems there) and we couldn't counter attack Portugal because you would have used that to conquer our east (wouldn't you ?)
It isn't true that neighbors can't get along in these big AI-diplo pitboss games, nor is it true that I had the flexibility of when and where to invade you, at least until I got Astro. I'll agree that war between you and I was a hell of a lot more likely than war between either of us and, say, plako. But, on the other hand, look at Gavagai and I, or dtay and Commodore, or, famously, scooter and Commodore in PB13. None of pairs are what I'd call "friends" or even "cooperative," (hell, Gavagai had the gall to haggle for some fucking furs just 15 turns ago), but just essentially agreeing to leave each other the hell alone and stay out of each other's affairs has been a huge, mutually-beneficial boon to each side.
The fact that we had a very secure, non-conflicting border should have made this kind of peace for us even more likely, even despite hard feeligns after the ancient era, as it was just as hard for me to attack you as it was for you to attack me. MCG was 6 tiles away from 3ChordDorks, a 4 turn travel-time at best... add in at least 1 more turn to strip cultural defense with catapults, necessary due to MCG's insane defense, and that's 5 turns you had to rally troops from the onset of invasion. And this assumes that I have an invasion stack instantly appearing in 3CD, where the reality is that any kind of real power buildup from my side (or you from yours) would be telegraphed many turns in advance due to our similarly-horrible logistic difficulties. That meant that invading you was impossible for me if you were paying attention at all. The fact that you had available the best possible classical-age defenders against my best attack units (Hwatcha vs 5 XP Agg Swords) made the impossible even more impossible. Hell, I wiped your stack completely during your second invasion and STILL couldn't touch MCG despite having a huge troop advantage on the turn I stepped into your culture. By the time I escorted my few remaining catapults to the city, you had already rallied enough to stop my advance cold.
I admit I had plans to invade you around about T100, but, once you started to build up to match me in the power graphs, I abandoned that idea as it was clear there was no profit in it. I saw us as a standstill until Astro at least. Why bang my head against the wall once it was clear that neither side was a pushover? The constant struggle only served to embitter relations over time... by the point where you invaded on T154, I was totally furious with you guys, so much so that even after I saw that taking MCG wasn't possible I still wanted to inflict whatever damage (reparation gold, razing cities and towns, etc) I could despite no real profit to me worth the risk.
As far as your mainland goes, your land truly did suck ass compared to what some other civs got at their start. I do think my immediate capital-surrounding land was comparable to yours resource-wise, with the caveat that mine forced me to expand towards the chokepoint (an advantage for me) while yours did not. You better overseas prospects, while I had better mainland prospects. That said, I don't think you managed what you did have very well. Your development was slowed by settling MCG as your second site, as it is a weak city that required a lot of work to make even moderately productive. The land immediately to the north and west of your capital was very good, those would have made better early sites. MCG was also a dotmap disaster, as all the land between 3ChordDorks and MCG became wasted - you could have gotten two really good (productive + defensible) spots in there were MCG just 1 tile further away, to claim fish, sheep, deer, multiple plains incense, and much grassland. You also had, to your capital's southwest, multiple solid (multi-food) fillers unsettled 200 turns into the game just 7 and 8 tiles away from your capital!
As far as that northern overseas penninsula being subpar? No way! I don't know what you had seen of the world map, but that land was way better than plako's starting land. There was lots of annoying jungle up there near HAK, sure, but by the time you worked your way up there, serfdom would have been an option to clear it and open up perhaps the best land on the entire map. The spots immediately available, on the southern tip of the coast, were especially good for getting an overseas colony jump-started, with pigs, shareable crabs, copper, more plains incense, six floodplains, an oasis, and about a billion rivered tiles in general. I'm planning to put my Ironworks in Maracana - it has about as more levee-able tiles in its BFC than the rest of my 55 city empire combined!
like, do you really think this:
is really worse than this?
I'd rather have your offshore than mine, especially since yours opened up to huge acreage of green, rivered jungle blanketed in food rather than truly-worthless rivered ice and impassable coast.
I think your other island, to the west that you lost to Portugal, was very good too. I couldn't figure out why you kept coming at me and not back at them...
Quote:You were pretty unlucky with who played the turns, I don't think I would have stepped on your food with the scout nor would I have fomented unhappiness at the end (maybe poison the wells though, to illustrate how you were sick of us ) but REM played those turns differently. There had been a spy in that city for almost 100t, from the second war.
Well, so it goes I guess.
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