Taj Mahal is ours! 
|
[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon
|
|
Good to see that not playing timer games isn't unrewarded. Wait...good to see that playing timer games isn't unrewarded. no...that isn't it....Good to see that playing timer games is unrewarded....no that isn't what happened here, either. Dammit, I just can't follow the thought to its logical conclusion.
 (Seriously,) Congrats on landing the wonder and not forcing me to reply to your PM. I'll go ahead and admit here that I've been less than patient sometimes in using the lurker thread as a sounding board for advice, and I may or may not have necessarily always been nice. Nothing to think on for now, just...several months from now when you're reading through the lurker thread after the game don't get too miffed about your elected game admin and all the mean things he wrote. You knew he was a jerk before you ever hired him.  To the game at hand, now what? Taj + MoM golden age is a decidedly delicious thing. What's the plan for the next dozen glorious turns? Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
I did my best to avoid timer games, and no pausing was necessary. That being the case, I feel that my play was in order. zanth did also log in after I whipped (2metra took forever to play), so he could have whipped if he felt it was necessary. No worries about using the lurker thread as a sounding board, I'm a big kitty and this whole PB experience is still new to me.
Rough plan is to be in Caste + Pacifism for the first 6 turns, then Theology + Nationhood the last 6 turns. Tentatively planning on invading Jowy after that, he won't hold up well to a big stack of maces with his army of horse archers. 
No time for a proper update, will throw out a few comments.
GA: Switched to Caste System + Pacifism (still Hereditary Rule and Bureaucracy) I'm running specialists in 4 cities for a total of 264 GPP per turn, 66 of those are from Pacifism. Pacifism only costs me 12 gpt, surprisingly. The extra army upkeep is 52, but my handicap deduction also went up by 21. Pacifism costs 20 gold less per turn in civic costs, add 14% inflation and you get a net cost of 12 gpt. Not bad at all for 66 GPP. I should have sent troops up to Sian long ago to poach those two coast cities from 2metraninja, or at least raze them. He's waging a highly succesful campaign against Sian who's crumbled completely, he'll be gone in a few turns and 2metraninja will have all of his cities. This could well make 2metra a real competitor in this game, although he has a lot of catching up to do. City upkeep will be a stranglehold on his economy for a long time now, but the low difficulty level will help cushion the blow. I'm not that well set for an army pump in Nationhood. I have several large cities and several small cities, not so many in between. It would have been much better to plan on having 10 cities at size 8, that would be drafting heaven. Even so, I expect to be able to draft like crazy and send a huge army after Jowy by the end of the GA. He'll probably know what's coming and whip his empire to pieces, though. For fun, I hired 7 artists in my border city this turn to see how much it'll take to steal another ring of tiles near his border city. Probably won't make much difference, since he'll know what's coming. His power is still spiking, I guess I should do everything I can to not alert him, hoping that he'll go pick on Yuri. Yuri just launched a golden age, btw.
Gawdzak produced a great engineer (maybe intended by Azza for Taj Mahal?) and I now have graphs on zanth for the first time in the game. I won't have much time the rest of the week for playing and reporting. Guilds is finishing this turn, just got Theology.
Jowy's power is still spiking like crazy, he's been in all out military mode for a long time now. I don't think an imminent mace rush will be sufficient with that much militaristic determination. Plan for now is to go Banking => Gunpowder => Alphabet => Printing Press => Replaceable Parts => Rifling and own the world with red coats. That means delaying Theology and Engineering and not going for the planned draft session. Going after Nakor is also an option, but I worry greatly about boosting zanth in doing so.
Also, just got another Great Merchant. I can cash it in for 1700 gold in slowcheetah's island city of Delft (Dishes is now size 16).
Jowy declared war on Yuri and invaded him last turn, I'm now repositioning my troops so I'm ready for a mace draft push in a few turns if it looks promising. This is the opening I've been waiting for, too bad it didn't happen while I only had a few turns of NAP left but if I hadn't signed that NAP then there's no way he would have committed to war with Yuri. My hope is that this turns into a lengthy campaign, both bleeding Jowy's troops and keeping them far away from my borders. If it does, I want to be ready to pounce!
EDIT: I can get Gunpowder in 4 turns, letting me draft musketmen instead of macemen. That's a pretty good deal, strength 9 instead of strength 8 at the same drafting cost. I'm flashing Nakor some units to demonstrate that my border against him is not weak, but I'll be shifting my units over to Jowy en masse now. I'm guessing Nakor is fine with peace for now. He took the NW barbarian city a few turns ago, I can probably live with that and let slowcheetah deal with him instead.
Apologies for sloppy reporting, I'm still busy. Jowy has a huge army in Yuri's lands wrecking him left and right, has razed two size 10ish cities so far and seems to be marching on. I think I have excellent chances of walking all over his defenseless core in 3 turns, then consolidating my conquests with drafted muskets. There's also potential for easy expansion up north, with Sian crumbling before 2metra who himself is very weak economically. This game just might get to see a kitty cat with fangs bared, the pieces are lined up for it. zanth is still rocking everybody in demos and technology, but I want to give him a run for his money.
Turn 147
I have a very messy invasion of Jowy planned for next turn. My heart hasn't really been in this for the past week, partly because I've been super busy and sick and partly because zanth and Gavagai are such a juggernaut. I think my ideas in this game are pretty good, but my execution leaves a lot to be desired and it's costing me. Even if I luck into a succesful campaign against Jowy, my economic management still falls short of zanth and Gavagai, even with MoM + Taj Mahal + FIN/PHI leader. I'm due for stock exchanges and red coats soon, maybe that will help. I switched to Nationhood and Theocracy this turn, will be drafting maces for the next 3 turns. Then I get Gunpowder and can draft musketmen. I have a great merchant which arrives in slowcheetah's island city of Delft in 4 turns, that will help me get Engineering for faster reinforcements. I'm ignoring knights completely for this campaign, going with a slow stack of spears, axes, catapults, maces and muskets. If he decides to completely call off his campaign against Yuri, I may well be in pretty big trouble in a few turns. Not in the sense that I'll be facing a counter invasion, but in the sense that my gains from the campaign will be next to nothing and I'll have to commit very heavily in order to make any advance at all. Jowy may well decide to call off the campaign, and Yuri will have no reason to turn down a peace offer. His capital is about to be razed in a turn or two. Looks like I'll be relying on luck again, and maybe even a bit more kingmaking from Jowy. I suck at this 
War is on. Jowy signed peace with Yuris, and I invaded. This is not good news for me, but I'm getting antsy and frustrated with zanth's economic prowess. He just launched another golden age, rubbing it in. I may be able to raze Jowy's border city of Cray before his cavalry arrives, and I've also sent a smaller force up to Woldemort. If I raze both of those, my strong cultural borders will give me a big tactical advantage for the long haul.
|
