[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[Catwalk]

Turn 123


slowcheetah and zanagai signed a peace treaty this turn, sucks. I finished Monarchy and revolted to HR + OR as planned, 7 turns left of my golden age. Philosophy still hasn't fallen, so I may have a shot at grabbing the Taj Mahal. If I get a great merchant from Always Wrong (only 62% chance, rest is artist points from MoM) then that may give me the research edge I'd need to beat my rivals to it. I feel fairly confident I can get to Nationalism fast enough, but I'm worried about one or more opponents having a great engineer to finish it with. I'm #1 in pop and crops again, zanagai are still above me in GNP at 100% research.

[Catwalk]

Turn 125


zanagai finished Philosophy this turn and founded Taoism. I could have founded it this turn instead, but I see little value in the religion itself. This way I'm able to finish Philosophy one turn later and disguise my run for Taj Mahal. I think I can beat zanagai to it unless they produce a great engineer, seeing as they don't have marble. For fun I offered them peace for 40 gold this turn. I'll start storing whip hammers in Vacuuming, after it finishes a settler next turn.

I declared war on Jowy and offered peace for 3 gpt, he has a buildup of horse archers near my border that would be annoying to have to deal with. I hope he takes it, if he starts trying to bargain I'll drop the bribery and get more units instead.

I produced a Great Merchant as hoped, and I've discovered that it can get an 1100 gold trade mission up by one of Sian's close size 1 cities. I have no idea why, but I'll take it. Jowy's nearby cities are 700 gold by comparison.

[Gawdzak]

Turn 125

I produced a Great Merchant as hoped, and I've discovered that it can get an 1100 gold trade mission up by one of Sian's close size 1 cities. I have no idea why, but I'll take it. Jowy's nearby cities are 700 gold by comparison.

haven't read your whole thread,but sustained peace bonus or intercontinental perhaps?

[Commodore]

Not having a clear picture myself, but just going by "Jowy"...sustained peace bonus, definitely.

[Catwalk]

That explains Jowy, but I'm also puzzled that Sian's size 1 city gives me 1100 gold while his size 7 city 4 tiles away gives 900 gold. Both are across a pond and the land route to either one is long, does that factor in? I thought you couldn't get a 3c trade route with a size 1 city on the same continent, no matter how far away. All cities on the map are continental other than tiny island cities, btw.

[Catwalk]

I guess I need to quit trying to pay Jowy for 10 turn NAPs, he's being dense about it. He also just burned one of my farms with a teleported chariot, for which I can kill it easily next turn. He does have a sizable military still, and he could annoy me with it if he so choose. Going to build up more military, have been slowly getting more the last several turns.

[Gawdzak]

Not having a clear picture myself, but just going by "Jowy"...sustained peace bonus, definitely.

I guess I need to quit trying to pay Jowy for 10 turn NAPs, he's being dense about it. He also just burned one of my farms with a teleported chariot, for which I can kill it easily next turn. He does have a sizable military still, and he could annoy me with it if he so choose. Going to build up more military, have been slowly getting more the last several turns.

What are your big picture plans,ie how are you going to improve your chances of winning this game?

[Catwalk]

I just woke up from a very vivid dream about this game. Notable points include:

- Hyboria invaded Always Wrong (MoM city) with a stack of knights, I was admonished by everyone for only having 5 units defending it. I recall being really confused about who Hyboria was and why I hadn't been aware of an impending invasion.

- I sent a zergling over to one of zanagai's border cities to scout it out and possibly invade it. The zergling could swim.

- slowcheetah started dedlurking me, and contributed an impressive analysis of when everybody had researched every tech in every game in RB history, then taken the average of all those turn numbers (weighted for game speed setting). It was a very long post, and it included techs like Listening Services. I'm not quite sure where he got the numbers from, but he was very systematic about it.


Now on to your question Gawdzak. It's a boring one: Keep pulling a farmer's gambit, while making sure not to run too low on defenses. Jowy and Nakor aren't major threats, but they can force me to build up extra military. BaII has been running even more of a farmer's gambit than I have, I'm guessing zanagai have been running higher military than both of us. That's why these 10t NAPs for small sums of cash have been useful for me, and I hoped they also helped improve my relations with Nakor and Jowy. Jowy's recent action and post in the tech thread suggest the opposite, which is bad news. I don't care about him destroying a farm, but the fact that he seems to see me as an antagonist for declaring war and immediately offering him 3 gpt for peace (without having done any offensive actions) likely means I can't count on his good intentions anymore. Maybe he feels my NAP gambit is poor form or something. Last time I did it he did kill a worker for no reason (didn't even try to bring it back to his own territory), also suggesting that Jowy is in harassment mode wherever he gets the chance. Long story short, I'm bolstering my Jowy border over the next 5 turns. Vacuuming (copper city, about to start building Taj Mahal) and Mother in Law (Moai city on elephants, bordering Jowy) will be committed to cranking out units.

On the Nakor border, I'm still seeing a big power spike. I'm fervently hoping that it's directed at zanagai, but I have no knowledge about that. He has relatively few units over by me. He has, however, recently completed a road that looks somewhat suspicious. I'm going to try the same NAP gambit with Nakor, offering him 4 gpt for peace. If he refuses, I'll take it as a warning sign and mobilize further over here as well.

As for doing a farmer's gambit better than both zanagai and BaII, I think I'm making a lot of progress there. My curves have been spiking the last dozen turns now, aided plenty by my extended GA but also looking very nice before then. I have a lot of land to expand into, and I expect to be able to conquer Jowy without much trouble in the foreseeable future given his terrible economy. I'll be planning on a ton of golden ages to win me the game, I think I'll set up a third GP farm somewhere as I don't have enough food anywhere to go all out. I also can't put National Epic in my main GP city due to having only 3 base hammers and chopping all of its forests to snatch MoM right in front of BaII and possibly Azza.

[Catwalk]

Jowy seems genuinely confused. Is there a precedent for whether or not 10t NAPs are allowed? If allowed, how common are they?

[Catwalk]

Xenu's response to the double moving question:

Thanks for the update, Jowy.

I checked Civstats, it looks like you guys are on the first turn of war still, right? Catwalk played, declared war, and offered peace, then forgot to end turn. Jowy logged in, saw the war status and began playing, and then a few minutes in to his turn playing noticed Catwalk was still logged in and stopped playing at that point. Is that where the game remains now?

If so, it seems to me that as long as this war continues Catwalk plays first and Jowy second. This is because Catwalk declared war before Jowy logged in to play. Catwalk forgetting to end turn doesn't change that he played before Jowy and declared war.

So for the current war turn Catwalk has already played and Jowy can finish his turn as he will, including doing whatever he wants with his army in response to Catwalk's war declaration this turn.

If I am not correctly reading the situation or have any of the facts incorrect please reply here, and CC your war adversary as well so we have the conversation in the open.

Thanks,

Xenu