[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[Catwalk]

I think I'll have to speed up my plans to take out Jowy, this does not bode well for future relations. I can kill both of his scouting chariots this turn, I'm going to let them live and offer him peace with 4 gpt.

My invasion plan will look like something like the following:
1) Keep racing for Nationalism and Taj Mahal
2) Tech Construction, Metal Casting and Machinery after Nationalism
3) Start producing catapults as soon as Construction is done
4) Draft an army of macemen once Machinery is done

Basically, overwhelm him with superior numbers and superior tech. Not fancy, and possibly not cost effective either. Time frame for this will be something like the following:

In 6t: Nationalism finishes
In 7t: Construction finishes
In 8t: Metal Casting finishes
In 10t: Machinery finishes

I may be a little too optimistic on those numbers, but they won't be far off. I'll have many cities capable of drafting maces, and I'll have plenty happiness to support around 2 per city. MaxPower and haphzard1, if either of you have a better plan please let me know. In the meantime (assuming Jowy refuses to sell me 10 turns of peace), I'll be building more axes and spears to discourage Jowy from attempting an opportunistic strike.

[Catwalk]

The Jowy situation is sorted. Jowy, when you read this, I'm sorry if you feel I overreacted but I really don't understand your stance here. It really came off as if you were trying to mess with me, maybe you're because you're bored with a game that went horribly wrong for you from the start. Lesson learned about being extremely particular with timer rules, even in situations like this. It looks like Jowy agrees to peace, so I can continue with my wonder plans for now.

I'm still interested in opinions on the legality, morality and frequency of signing 10t NAPs like this. To prevent a similar situation from arising with Nakor, I'll cancel my 2 gpt deal with him and upgrade it to a 3 gpt deal.

[Catwalk]

Turn 127


So the Jowy situation isn't sorted after all I logged in to a demand of 25 gold per turn for peace, which I declined. I then see the following invasion force:

That's 9 horse archers vs 3 spears and 2 axes. And I only have 20% defenses in the town for another 2 turns before it jumps up to 40%, his timing is good. What's worse, I have low defenses behind this city as well. I'll try to bribe him with a 30 gpt offer, which frankly he shouldn't take. And if I make him that offer he'll likely be intrigued by why I'd want to offer him more money and check out the situation first. If he sees that he can take Mother In Law with high probability, that's easily worth far, far more than 300 gold. Sigh. I think I did a good job earlier of maintaining enough defenses, but over the past 20 turns with my diminished attention to the game I've simply forgotten. I was too comfortable with the initial 10t NAP I got with Jowy, and too confident of his plans to strike at Yuri. This is just awful play all around. What's worse, I can't even whip for another 3 turns due to my recent revolt. I probably should have taken the 25 gold per turn offer without bothering to check, knowing that he had several horse archers in the vicinity. Compounding my failures is the fact that I was actually planning several turns ago to station a scout in his lands to keep a close eye on his military buildup. And what did that scout do instead? Whistle off to check on Yuri and Azza. Curiousity may well have killed the cat here.

Back to the matter of begging. I'm going to offer him a staggering 50 gold per turn. That may be high enough that he won't be tempted to check first, as he can't be sure he'll get an equally generous offer if he declines. Moreover, he just might be flattered or amused that I'm willing to grovel before the most backward economy in the game. Since he's still starved for happiness I'll try to add wine and silk on top, as I'll have spares of those imminently.

This was terrible, terrible play of me. And it was against my better judgement, realizing that I might end up in this situation and still failing to remedy it. The farmer's gambit is just too ingrained in me, maybe this will help cure it.

Jowy (when you read this later), I still find your double move nonsense bloody annoying but I applaud you for making a bold move against me. I have to admit that part of my mistake was underestimating you, both in terms of skill and interest in the game. To clarify, the "messing with me" part of the last post was in reference to the double move discussions not any actual aggression. I guess I just happened to attempt my NAP gambit at the same time you were getting ready to go for my throat, so I can understand your frustration.

[Catwalk]

Jowy finished his turn without any score changes, so he either failed the invasion or (much more likely) accepted my offer of 40 gpt (decided to lower it a little). That means I can get on with my life, and let this be a bitter lesson about how to almost toss your game for absolutely no reason. I may be facing a similar situation on the Nakor front imminently, going to shift troops over there right away and build a lot more.

[Commodore]

my offer of 40 gpt (decided to lower it a little).

Liar liar.

[Catwalk]

Hmm, did I offer 50 after all? Thought I changed my mind to 40. EDIT: Yep, it's 50.

[Catwalk]

Turn 128


Back to building sand castles, while building troops for defense against Nakor and shifting some units over there. 2 turns left of Golden Age. Taj Mahal micro looks as follows:

- Nationalism finishes in 4t, greatly aided by a trade mission next turn
- 1t whipping a worker to 87/60, then switching to an archer (24 hammers per turn)
- 2t archer is at 24/25, switching to axe (18 hammers per turn, GA over)
- 3t axe is at 18/30, switching to archer
- 4t archer overflows with 17 hammers, switching to Taj
- 5t 38/700 on Taj, switching to worker
- 6t worker overflows with 45 hammers, switching to Taj
- 7t 179/700 on Taj, finishing chops for 84 base hammers
- 13t 610/700, switching to axe and whipping to 48/35
- 14t axe overflows with 28 hammers, switching to Taj
- 15t Taj completes with 713/700

Sadly, zanagai now has marble. This makes me much less confident about 15 turns being soon enough, on top of the off chance that he can generate a great engineer. He may well be betting on both horses, although that seems like a bit of a waste. Or he could be going for Liberalism instead of Nationalism, hoping to grab Nationalism with Liberalism and Taj Mahal with a great engineer.

If he slow builds Taj Mahal, I think I have a slight edge on him. His best hammer city with forests has an output of 14 base hammers (16 with a plains forest, potentially 18 with two barren plains) and 78 forest hammers. It's size 10 though, allowing him to whip it to completion from 532/700 if he decides that's worth it.

I think I have a 1t lead on completing Nationalism due to my trade mission, and I think I can scrounge up another 1t lead from a slightly better hammer city and hopefully more pre-paid hammers than him. I'd be happy to assume that he's going for Liberalism, but the fact that he recently hooked up marble suggests that he wants to use it for something.

In other news, BaII built the Great Library. That's fairly good news for me, I wouldn't want Azza or zanagai to have it. BaII still looks strong, though. I hope someone will punish his farmer's gambit, he's been running even lower military than I have. Gogo yuri!

[Catwalk]

Turn 130


Busy building troops to defend against a possible Naspor onslaught. He doesn't seem to be mobilizing heavily against me, he's spiking quite high and most of his troops aren't over on my border. I've sent a spearman into his lands to check up on any heavy movements going my way. Even so, he'd be able to do some damage with the troops he currently has over by me. I'm not going to try any NAP gambits this time as that seemed to annoy him last time, but I'll offer a free happiness (hooking up wine which I don't need) and 3 gpt next turn to encourage him to stay at peace. He is also sending a settler west somewhere, I also tentatively take that as a sign that he's not gearing up for war with me right this instant.

zanagai got a big point increase this turn, probably Nationalism. That's a full 2t before me, which probably spells doom for my Taj Mahal plans. I think I can build it 1t faster than his fastest city can build it, I don't think I can beat him by 2t if he goes full throttle. My one advantage is that I don't think he has vision on my cities, I'll need to go back and check old posts to make sure. He may also not be aware that I'm racing for Taj Mahal seeing as I finished Philosophy right after him, thus not tipping my hand by founding a religion. If he eases up just a little in his race for Taj then I may still have a chance, so I'll keep pursuing it.

Jowy has around 13 horse archers sitting around, I hope he'll go beat up Yuri with them. Yuri and BaII both have even lower power than me, I'm not the only proud gambit farmer in this game! Azza has Cho-Ko-Nus and he just declared on flugauto this turn. slowcheetah signed peace with 2metraninja and has a really big army sitting around doing nothing. I can think of a target for it down south

I'll upload some screenshots next turn, still busy. Demos look great: #1 in MFG (after GA finishes), #2 in GNP (and another great merchant is about to be born for another 1100 gold) and e shy of #1 for crops. Awful power rating is being patched over, and I'll be able to rapidly pick up some better military technology in half a dozen turns if all goes to plan. I'm also first in both pop count and land count. I still feel that I need some good diplo/wonder luck going my way and some bad diplo/wonder luck going zanagai's way to beat him, but it definitely feels like the gap is decreasing. The next handful of turns may well be deciding, peace + Taj Mahal will be a game changer for me if I'm able to play those advantages well.

[Catwalk]

While logging in to pause the game I noticed that zanagai completed the Parthenon this turn. That likely means he didn't get Nationalism anyway this turn, and he might not want to prioritize getting two wonders right after each other. Civstats is down so I can't check the point change, but this is good news and restores my confidence in snatching Taj Mahal from zanagai.

In other news BaII offered me 1gpt for 5 gold. I'm not sure if that's a gesture of friendship or if he's planning to trick me out of 4 gold! If it's the latter, he will pay... I went and accepted it.

[WilliamLP]

Haha! I take your 5 gold, pay you 1 and declare a phony war. I will nickel and dime my way to the top!