[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[Catwalk]

My current tech plan looks as follows:
Civil Service
Polytheism
Monotheism
Priesthood
Monarchy
Philosophy
Nationalism

Taj Mahal would be a big scoop for me, and I'm contemplating whether I'd be able to get it or not. BaII has marble, and there's a marble island close to slowcheetah and 2metraninja. Azza may still have a great engineer hanging around or be busy producing a new one, and zanth might be getting one ready from a forge. All IND players are also potential rivals. I don't think anyone without IND, marble or a GE will dare go for it. That leaves the following potential rivals:

HIGH RISK
BaII (marble, strong research)
Gavagai (GE potential, strong research)
Azza (IND, GE potential, one GE produced, unsure about research, Pyramids gives synergy with Taj Majal as he already wants to use many specialists)

MEDIUM RISK
slowcheetah (marble potential, unsure about research)
Sian (marble potential, unsure about research)
Nakor (IND, mediocre research)

LOW RISK
Jowy (IND, weak research)
2metraninja (IND, weak research)

I'm hoping that one or more of the HIGH RISK players will choose to go for Liberalism instead, a prize that I'm easily willing to forfeit if I can land Taj Mahal. If I use a great merchant to accelerate Nationalism with a trading mission I feel confident that I can beat anyone planning on taking Nationalism with Liberalism. It also doesn't seem that impressive to plan on getting Nationalism with Liberalism, you get to Nationalism later than you would otherwise with the added benefit of Free Speech + Free Religion and eventual access to Communism. What do people usually take with Liberalism?

On a related note, Great Library still hasn't fallen. I really hope zanth isn't able to steal this one as well. I don't think I'm in a position to go for it myself, I'm tied up hunting Civil Service for the next 8 turns and I don't have any good locations to put it. It'd be a waste to put it in Vacuuming or a small border city with forests. Sadly, if zanth doesn't get it I think BaII will as he has marble. On the other hand, it's quite cheap to build. It sucks that I had to put MoM in my GP farm, I should have landed it in Vacuuming instead. I'd have 192 hammers available from chopping, leaving just 33 to be produced by the city. I then could have gone for Literature before Civil Service and chopped out the Great Library in Always Wrong for amazing GPP production. I really need to plan out my wonder locations better, forest usage is critical and I'm choosing somewhat randomly.

As for Taj Mahal plans:

White boxes give me 30 hammers, circles give me 24 hammers for a total of 192 base hammers from chopping. With OR I'll need 312 base hammers, without it I'll need 350. With a production of 19 hpt, that's exactly 2 turns shaved off. After chop hammers I need to produce 120 hammers. If I set up a whip with 1 hammer left on something I'll get a total of 48 overflow hammers, taking me down to 72 base hammers which lets me complete it in 4 turns. That matches chopping pace nicely, means I'll need 4 workers total to chop 7 forests.

I feel quite confident about beating zanth in a race, he'll have to produce an extra 155 hammers (assuming OR + forge but no marble). Assuming his city has the same production as Vacuuming and he's also able to chop 192 hammers, that's a 9t lead for me. On the other hand, he already has Monarchy and could have gone straight for Philosophy and Nationalism after Civil Service. Is he likely to have done so? He got the Colossus on turn 94, and he's gotten a GS so far. His second GP will cost him 200 GPP, that will take him 40 turns if he tries to get it with Colossus + an engineer = turn 134, 23 turns from now. 60% chance of getting the engineer. That means I'll need to get Nationalism on t129 at the latest for a t133 finish. If I scrounge up another 15 overflow hammers from another whip I can shave off another turn. It's t111 now, leaving me with 18 turns to get the following:

Status t11:
213 gold saved + 134 failgold incoming + 1100 gold from impending great merchant = 1447 gold
Gold to beaker conversion = 2:1 rate at current numbers = 2894 free beakers
Current breakeven research = 108 beakers per turn with one prerequisite, going to estimate 160 per turn over the next several turns due to growth and GA

Civil Service (1232 - 56 beakers = 1176)
Philosophy (1232 beakers)
Nationalism (2772 beakers)

Mumbo jumbo magic numbers = Nationalism in 15t on t126. That leaves me time to pick up Organized Religion, and a slight chance of being able to pick up Monarchy as well. One big problem with the plan is that it relies on generating a great merchant on time and shipping him to a 3c trade route city. I can generate it in 3t with a 63% probability, and I'd probably have to ship it off to Jowy's border city for a payoff of 900 gold instead of 1100 gold.

Max, did you understand any of that?

[Catwalk]

While I'm sitting here bored waiting for Azza to play, here's something else to worry about:

Nakor is very well poised to strike at my core with immortals from his new expansion. With Nine as the staging tile, he can move a stack of immortals to the forest SE of silk. Even worse, with two workers sitting NE of Nine and two sitting in Nine he can move 2W of my capital! My capital is defended by a single warrior, so is Groceries. Both of them have a spear almost completed, but that doesn't help very far against a stack of 6 or 8 immortals. And Nakor's power is still going up:

I think I have cause for concern here, and it was a huge oversight that I did not secure that location earlier on. If I'd settled there with an axe and a spear for an escort I doubt he would have tried to dislodge me. What to do here? I'll finish those two spears shortly, then start another one. Also going to train a spear in Punching Bag instead of the market I'll never finish up there. Sad thing is that I just finished a lighthouse in Punching Bag which could have been almost two spears instead. Deprivation will also get to work whipping out defenders. Where should I position these? I can either stick them in my cities, or I can seat them on the forest SE of the silk in order to try to control the area. I can also bring back my exploring galley in order to keep a very close eye on any buildup happening here, will give me another turn or two to prepare and may help discourage him as he knows I'm keeping an eye on him.

Many things point at Nakor gearing up for aggression:
1) His power is going up steadily
2) He has 3 barracks, one in his capital and two in his eastern cities
3) He is cramped for land, squeezed between me and zanth
4) Based on his crop yield, he may well feel he's losing already and be in the mood for attempting an aggressive gambit instead

Another potential move would be declaring war on him and offering him peace for 20 gold. In addition to securing me 10 turns of peace, that would also send him a strong signal that I'm on to him. Combined with close scrutiny of his cities, I think that may help persuade him that I'm not worth the hassle. More importantly, he has very little recent intel on my cities. He last wandered about some 18 turns ago, although he did see back then that my capital had one warrior and Punching Bag had no defenses.

Alternately, I could go ahead and claim a city either on the silk or east of it, that would deny him several tiles that can be roaded and let me reinforce a single strong point more capably. Suggestions are more than welcome.

[Catwalk]

For anyone wondering, yes I plan on talking with myself some more until someone responds! I've decided to attempt the following with Nakor:

1) Offer him 15 gold per turn for the city of Nine. That way I have certainty that he won't declare war immediately after, letting me get spears into the city.
2) If he refuses, up the offer 20 gpt the following turn. That's probably too generous, but it'd save me a lot of defensive trouble. He'll probably turn it down anyway, this is mostly to let him know that I'm paying very close attention to him.
3) If he refuses again, I'll declare war and offer 10 gold for peace. This will give me a much needed 10 turn NAP. Is this against any written or unwritten rules? If he refuses that as well, I'll go up to 25 gold the following turn.
4) If he refuses 25 gold as well, I'll move in with 3 spears and 2 axes and try to camp the forest tile NE of Nine. That will both serve to tie up his forces there and make it difficult for him to dislodge me.

I also need to ask about turn timer games. I know they're frowned upon and I understand why, but what am I expected to do here? Is the attacker always entitled to moving in the second part of the turn, denying me a turn of whipping and troop movements? Either way, I need to get more units cooking next turn.

[Catwalk]

Seems Nakor also wants to play second, strengthening my suspicions of an imminent attack. How should we resolve this? Only the two of us left to play, with 10h left on the timer.

[Catwalk]

The small scuffle with Nakor confirms that he does indeed have aggressive intentions. What's worse, I just discovered this turn that he may have very specific plans against me: 3 of his cities have forges. This means he got Metal Casting a while back, and might be en route to Machinery. It'll take him around 10 turns to get Machinery, so worst case scenario he could have access to crossbows in as little as 5 turns. It's possible that he made up his mind long ago when I cut him off from the northern part of the disputed lands between us, I may have been too confident there about the likelihood of remaining at peace with him. I don't fault him for his plans, and I won't hold a grudge over this however it turns out. However, I do hope that he will back off if I defend succesfully rather than push on out of stubbornness. I'm concerned that he sees this as his last chance to get back in the game, and if he has nothing to play for following a failed or only semi-succesful campaign he might decide to make me his project for the rest of the game. I know he's none too happy about the turn ruling.

This is dire. I have no useful counters to crossbowmen, and I'm headed for a golden age and revolt to Civil Service. I had started preparing for an invasion of Immortals, and was counting on spears and axes to keep me safe. I have four important questions facing me now:
1) How much time do I have?
2) Which units do I defend with?
3) Do I need to abort my CS and GA plans?
4) Will I be able to bribe him into cancelling his plans?

I believe he got Metal Casting 5 turns ago, based on Civstats score changes. He got a score increase of 16 points that turn. He also got a score increase of 11 points last turn, which definitely seems to be pop growth. He is theoretically able to bulb Machinery with a GS, but that requires him to either have researched or not have access to the following techs: Philosophy, Alphabet, Sailing, Calendar, Iron Working. I know he doesn't have Alphabet, as I'd be able to see that on the tech part of the relations screen. HOWEVER!! This turn he got an 18 point score increase. I will need to read up on point mechanics and see which techs can give him that much. If he does indeed have Machinery already, I may be in deep shit already I know he doesn't have Construction yet, though. So at the very least I won't be facing catapults just yet. This is a lesson to me about slacking (read = completely ignoring) cloak and dagger surveillance. I have had all the relevant information needed to check up on this without much effort, and now I'm being punished for failing to do so. Had I started being suspicious of this when I saw his first forge I would have had the chance to prepare better.

The answer to #2 seems to be archers, chariots, catapults and horse archers. I don't have the tech for archers and catapults, and I don't even have my horses hooked up yet Was too lazy to build the connecting road there. I can get that sorted shortly, though. Horse archers are also an option, HBR isn't that expensive.

On #3, the good news is that I have a lot of gold saved up for Civil Service which can be directed elsewhere. I should be able to get Archery, Horseback Riding and Construction very fast if I decide to postpone my econ plans. If I'm reading his development correctly, it seems that I have no choice but to cancel my plans.

On to the last and most important question. Can Nakor be dissuaded from going through with these plans? I believe he's playing to win, as mentioned above, and that he sees this as his chance to catch up. If I can make a convincing show of military preparations, he just might change his mind. I will likely also have to offer concessions to him in exchange for peace. I would be willing to do so, except I would have no guarantees of him actually staying at peace with me after giving him a bribe. There would be a 10 turn enforced NAP, which is better than nothing. If I time it just right so he's in the middle of mobilizing but not yet fully committed to sending his troops my way, he might go after zanth instead. As for what I can bribe him with, I have gold and a border city. I'd be willing to give him Kitchen Bitch to the north west. I won't do so happily (and it would actually give him control of incense), but it would be a worthwhile sacrifice to make for peace. If full or limited diplo was enabled in this game I might be able to work something out here, but with only AI diplo it's going to be enormously difficult and a guessing game at best.

Tentatively, this is my plan:
1) Return second half of the turn to Nakor. I wasn't planning on doing this, but it may help soften him up. I'm also not sure that second half really helps me any, there's no real surprise element to his invasion so all I'm doing is really losing half a turn to him. On the other hand, it could further piss him off because we lost a day sorting this out. I still think I was justified in how I played, but he may well see it differently. Not sure how to handle this one properly, but I'll try playing second this turn and first next turn.

2) I'm keeping borders open with him this turn, he has no troops in my lands and I'm getting useful intel on his south coast with my galley.

3) Next turn, I'm going to attempt to trade his forward coastal city Nine for my far-flung city of Kitchen Bitch. Mine is a much better city than his, and his city gives me improved strategic positioning. How do city gifting mechanics work? Can he declare war on the following turn and take it back? Regardless, I expect to declare war soon so it can be part of peace treaty negotiations. I'm going to offer him the trade straight up to begin with, and I'm willing to go as high as 50 gold on top. I'm not sure if he's aware that he gets incense along with that deal, so I will add an incense gift along with the offer to hint at that.

4) If he accepts this deal, I will have enough time to finish Civil Service first and launch my GA, then get defensive tech and build up a proper defense. I hope to get Monarchy right before my GA ends, which should be doable. Tech plan will look as follows (base tech costs, multiply by around 1.4):
Civil Service (800) => Construction (350) => Archery (60) => Horseback Riding (250) => Priesthood => (60) => Monarchy (300).

5) If he doesn't accept the deal, I will drop Civil Service research and commence the above defense research, getting Archery before Construction and spamming out some archers in a feeble attempt at holding my own.

6) I currently have 4 axes and 4 spears stationed by Jowy, I'm pulling 1 axe and 1 spear back west. I will give up patrolling the jungle area, I still think I can easily conquer him later so I'm not too concerned if he decides to settle there. My pigs are safe now, I doubt he'll be able to take anything valuable from me with additional cities. I need to make sure he doesn't get any aggressive ideas directed at me, though. I saw his first horse archer this turn, I hope he wants to send them east and south.

Final question: What happens to troops stationed in a city that is gifted away?

[spacetyrantxenu]

If you have open borders with the player the city is gifted to nothing happens to the units. If you don't have open borders they're teleported out. In your case if you gift your incense city I would expect your units to be teleported in the direction of your nearest city to the south, but you shouldn't build a plan around this claim as it comes with no warranty. You may want to sim this if it is important to your defensive plans.

[Catwalk]

Turn 113 - now with screenshots

25 of them to be exact! May as well document my impending demise in detail, should that happen I feel I have a chance of getting out of this in good shape, but that chance may well be 50/50. Also, if I do end up surrendering Kitchen Bitch that does actually harm my long-term expansion prospects quite a bit. Cities are still cheap, so land is very valuable. Comments are inside the spoiler tags.

Overview

All of Nakor's 9 cities are visible here. He seems to be squeezed from both sides, only place he can go right now is up. I will keep my galley near Three in order observe troop movements going from west to east, or at least making it slightly more complicated to slip them through unnoticed. I haven't seen many Persian troops anywhere, he might be hiding them in his core. Alternately, his power surge comes mostly from barracks and tech. Those alone give him a 24k lead on me, I think we might be about even on troops at the moment. Doesn't mean much if Crossbows are incoming, but it's good to know that he has to start assembling his force mostly from scratch. It's possible that his tech this turn was ancient instead and he grew 3 pop, took him 5 turns to get it. Seems unlikely, though.

My western front. Kitchen Bitch has 2 axes and 1 spear, Deprivation has 2 axes and 2 spears. Punching Bag is unguarded, Empty Wallet has a single spear. I've been toying with the idea of offering Jowy a loan to finish Currency, getting on his good side in the process. This could be done by offering him a lump sum now (say, 200 gold) and a trade deal of 12 gold to me over the next 10 turns. Problem is that he'd be able to cancel this deal and keep the money. If I declared war on him it'd be possible, though. If I get that sorted this turn and reestablish peace next turn then Nakor would be able to see that my eastern front is safe for a while, making it easier for me to focus on my western front. What the hell, I just decided to go ahead and declared war on Jowy. And it turns out I messed up twice For one thing, I can't make any trades while negotiating for peace. For another, he is running at break even research and would only have been able to offer me 1gpt. I offered him peace for 20 gold, I think he'll take that without reservations as he's currently limping to Currency. Also, he now has a teleported chariot next to an unguarded worker I'm able to capture that worker right back, though.

My stone and marble cities will be of very little value, but I've secured MoM and will have Moai shortly. There's a spear in stone city and an axe in marble city, I'm not going to be immensely upset if Sian decides to poach them from me. I could have put them on wealth and coast usage for a total of 12 gold per turn, around the same amount they cost me.

Always Wrong has 2 axes and 1 spear, Mother In Law has 2 axes and 2 spears. That's very light defenses for one of the best wonders in the game An axe and a spear can return to Always Wrong if need be.

And this is what Jowy's tiny empire looks like, with borders of a fifth city showing up north and two unknown cities somewhere to the east. I now have vision on both Thrawn and Cray, and a scout checking out his lands. Somehow Azza managed to get a chariot down here (east of the elephant), so I suspect that Jowy is connected by land to the lands north of us. An interesting thing to note is that Jowy has a vertical empire, same as Nakor, while both myself and zanth have a mostly horizontal empire (speaking in terms of geography, not city sizes).

Very long and stretched empire zanth has here, vulnerable to attack! I've been having wet dreams of Nakor invading him at one end and BaII invading him at the other Xenu, more map whining!! Why does he get to have incense on top of a plains hill when I get it in the bloody desert? Also, very nice religion spread throughout his empire. He has two cities somewhere that I can't see, guessing one is north and one is south. He's connected by land to slowcheetah whom he just had a brief skirmish with.

And this is just plain ugly. 201 gpt? Even without Nakor planning to invade me, this looks so runaway it almost makes me cry. I'm guessing his MFG and crops have taken a hit and that he's working a whole bunch of cottages and coastal tiles. I've scrapped all hopes of securing Taj Mahal, those numbers are crazy.[/spoiler]

City tour (without comments)

Demos and graphs

Don't like that teal curve going up. However, 24k of those points are barracks and tech as mentioned earlier. Not that those don't help him, but he doesn't have a big army ready to whoop me right this instant.

Such a pretty sight, soon to be blown up. At the very least I can happy that I've been succesful in pursuing my crop strategy over the past 20 turns or so, now we'll see if I'm able to put it to good use or if it will all be in vain.

I'm glad zanth's curves aren't here. I feel that I'm keeping pace with my other competitors, although BaII's numbers are much stronger than represented here.

I haven't really been focusing on hammer output, so it's nice to see that I'm holding up well compared with the competition. I'm also about to get a whole bunch of hammers from my GA, and Mother In Law will get a nice boost of 6 or so hammers in a few turns when Moai finishes.

I cranked up research just for this screenshot, so it looks pretty before I (might) die. Note that zanth's lead is with 100% gold

I think I want to fire off that GA regardless. However it goes, I think I can get Civil Service and Monarchy before those 12 turns are up, and I need the extra research and hammers quite badly right now.

Are there any rules I should know about that prevent me from using peace treaties as 10-turn NAPs?

[Catwalk]

Turn 114

Operation SMA (Save My Ass) is now in session. I have done the following:
- Gotten 10 turns of peace with Jowy, allowing me to move troops west temporarily (to my embarassment he was able to steal a worker and did so, but that also meant that he had to pass on my offer of 20 gold for peace)
- Declared war on Nakor and offered him peace for 10 gold + 2gpt
- Bought wine from BaII for 3gpt, also offered 3gpt for silk + ivory (will try to trade them away)
- Set research to Archery this turn, I will still be able to finish Civil Service in 4 turns (same turn my next GS is born)

Archers behind walls will be able to provide a reasonable improvised defense against crossbows at a good hammer exchange rate. They will not do anything against a massive pillaging army, however. If Nakor refuses all peace offers my plan is to get a bunch of archers first to ward off disaster, then get HBR and Construction immediately afterwards. It won't be pretty, but I think I can survive.

Other than detecting Nakor's plans earlier (through proper C&D) and figuring out that I was vulnerable to a crossbow rush, I'm not sure what I should have done earlier to better prepare for this. I suppose I could have built a bigger garrison and gotten some archers earlier on (against crossbows they're str 4.5 for 25 hammers compared with axes being str 3.3 for 35 hammers). Flashing Nakor an archer or two in every city would have tipped him off that invading me would be nigh impossible, even with crossbows. Adding a few horse archers to that would have been further discouragement. That seems so expensive, but that's probably the gambit farmer in me talking too loudly. If any lurkers have non-spoiler perspectives on what I could have done earlier on, feel free to offer them. Military is still by far the weakest part of my game, and it seems likely that I'll be punished for it in this game.

Max, haphazard, anything obvious I'm missing here?

[Catwalk]

Turn 115

I have a NAP! It's right here!

Nakor felt that 30 gold for a 10t NAP was a fair offer, so I have at least 10 turns now to finish my gambit farming and get something resembling a real military force. I'm confident that will be sufficient. I will also confess with slightly blushing cheeks that I peed myself a little in bed last night, worried that Nakor and Gaspar would come at me with crossbows soonish. Chances are good that I misread scores entirely and he doesn't have Machinery yet, in which case I gave away 30 gold far too easily. Either way, unrestrained peace for 10 turns is very valuable. On the screenshot above, notice a a few more things:

- flugauto also has CS now, giving me a 5% bonus on CS research. That's like a discount of 23 beakers! flugauto switched to Caste as well, looks like he's in peace mode too.
- Nakor's city of Three turned orange. Such a beautiful gesture of peace Nakor. Also very handy if I decide to pour EP on him, gives me half-cost city visibility. Together with vision from Deprivation and Kitchen Bitch, that would give me a comprehensive view of all his cities in my direction.
- Nakor has cut down a forest on a PH to the north in the screenshot. Think he's planning on settling there? The city will get nothing much of anything to work with, other than a bit of cultural pressure on Kitchen Bitch.


Here's a possibly bizarre attempt at C&D tactics:

I realized recently that I can see the EP levels of all other players with each other from the Relations => Glance tab. These 4 stood out to me:
- zanth is being spied on heavily by both slowcheetah and Nakor. slowcheetah is already a hinu, and Nakor may as well be one given that he's gotten 5 or so natural hindu spreads to his cities! And only one buddhist... some people get all the luck However! This means that both of them will be able to get easy vision on all of zanth's cities. I have high hopes for forming a Feline Alliance against the evil Babylonians, with Nakor invited as honorary cat. We can stitch a tail on him or something.
- Jowy has a ton of EP on yuri, strongly suggesting that he's still not best buddies with him. This helps ease my worries that Jowy might try to pull a fast one on my eastern territories, he seems to have picked out his target.
- Azza has a bunch of EP on BaII, can also only be a good thing for me.

I've decided to start posting a whining screenshot about how unfair the map is with each turn report now. I already know how much Xenu hearts me, so I figure he'll appreciate additional unconstructive criticism. This one I'm leaving as a not-so-subtle puzzle for the lurkers: Guess what I'm whining about here!


Demos, graphs and two more cities being planted in the near future:

I get to keep my pretty numbers for many more turns
10t of peace really will work wonders here, now I need to work out a proper plan for how to manage the next 10-15 turns.

EDIT: One last thing, it looks like Nakor is also playing after zanth. That would help explain why he was so miffed at me trying to play after him, as that would require him to both play before zanth and after me. I'm hopeful that Nakor feels like going after zanth, even if only to make him mobilize instead of growing even bigger. I might try another little gambit where I declare war on zanth and gift 10 gold to a few players along with some kind of fake copper trade, then see who follows suit and declares on zanth or at least closes open borders. Whoever stops trading with zanth gets another 10 gold gift, or maybe a 2gpt gift.

[Commodore]

I will also confess with slightly blushing cheeks that I peed myself a little in bed last night, worried that Nakor and Gaspar would come at me with crossbows soonish.

Your Viking forefathers weep in shame. Please turn in you penis; all man privileges are hereby revoked.