[spoilers] wetbandit prioritizes civ4 over more profitable endeavors, again

[wetbandit]

Amazingly, things seem to be going well:



Sure the MFG is crappy, but I have a pretty healthy tech lead, even while the northern half of the empire rebuilds infra.  It's particularly painful in my border cities with Mr. BGN as they don't have a whole lot of food surplus to whip, and whipping pop off of FS Towns is extremely unpalatable. 

Yeah the power also sucks too.  But, take a gander at the tech situation:



I'm about 6-7 turns from Cav.  There's nothing really meaningful to research other than that.  Steam Power is too expensive, requires Chemistry, and both give too little of a return.  I don't really need Corp because half my cities get the extra TR from the Great Lighthouse.  Astro makes no sense, other than the observatory in the capital.  So the top half of the tree seems like a no brainer.  Not quite sure what to do techwise after that.  If it's a beeline to cannons or to play for Democracy/SOL or factories, I'm not sure what makes sense.

I'll get Cav WAY ahead of anyone else.  Comparative military advantage can let me expand my territory somewhat.  DZ looks very juicy with an even lower power than me.  Mr. Cairo and JR4 have too much military to take head on, and moving towards Cornflakes infringes on Superdeath's quarry. It's a shame that DZ's elongated territory will net me less than what I'd like when Mr. Cairo jumps in.

Also I declared on Cornflakes and took this city, again.



I would like to keep it.  I hope this doesn't bother superdeath.  He can have the rest East of Frankfurter and north of those horses.  He deserves it. That settler in Napierogi will claim some of the barren area, probably the coast 1W of the ivory.   I've been invaded across this area twice now for reasons which I discounted.  I don't want it to happen again.  It's such a barren, foodless area that is awful before Biology.

I found superdeath's stack, and his 2 movers could hit Frankfurter, but it would cause him to take quite a few casualties with 2 rifles and a few knights in there.  And then he's in war with me and we nuke our trade routes.  Can't we just be friends?

I offered OB and JRSteel accepted.  I'm not interested in war with them at the moment.  I am concerned that they are in the most favorable position, but they may need to expand their territory to get into a winning position.

I love the capital.  It's a shame I've been denied Oxford for so long.

[wetbandit]

This game is going for the long haul, so I am tardily investing in banks and other multiplier buildings where I can.  Like this one:





I jest for Oxford, obviously.  It was difficult after the invasions to get 6 universities, since I had 5 cities for a time.  That's tough.  This will be worth ~185 beakers at 100%.  I have a lot of gold banked for a 8-10 turn full science run on something.  I think I'll be forced to draft JR4/Refsteel to Astro, but I'd love to get Democracy for US and the ability to slow build SOL somewhere.

There aren't really any big economic techs for me.  Astro gives observatories...and I can't help making the fart sound to that.  Steam Power is more expensive than Democracy and requires me to actually build the damn levy.  Of course, it's on the way to AL, but that's going to take quite a bit more research.

We're at the point of the game where falling even slightly behidn militarily is risky.  I don't have the quantity, but I have quality.  So I need to maintain the quality theoretically.  If I fail to get cannons quickly enough that could be enough. 

This game may end up being decided by who decides to all in with cannons and cav the quickest.

It's very disappointing that the northern half of my empire was reset to various stages of development.  They've made a comeback, for sure, but one of the biggest losses is GP production.  I haven't produced a GP and won't for some time.  I've already fired by 2nd GA, so I don't think I'll make it to a 3rd unless I get the physics GS and make two other GPs.  That's a big long term detriment. 

I'm just getting the NE back here:



Demos are...ok?



That's at all gold, here's 100% science:




I'm certainly concerned with the hammer disparity, especially since I can't really whip efficiently at this point.  I'm seriously considering a 1 turn revolt once Constitution comes in to Rep and Serfdom/Caste.

While land area looks good, my spoils of the former Germany are lackluster:




Two wasted grasslands, but this is part of the whole reason why I thought this would be a safe border: THERE'S NO FUCKING FOOD HERE>>>>>

Errata:

Fun With Culture:



I HOPE this is why others GNP is so high:




Power is finally "respectable:"



Superdeath and I signed a defensive pact in response to the defensive pact signed by Mr. BGN and JRSteel.  I like superdeath and think our interests align still.  Maybe I'm a big jerk but I don't think the defensive pact does much more than signaling benefit.  I don't think anyone has anything to gain from war at this point given that there is a tier of 4 potential winners, the top 4 on the scoreboard.

The next major fight will be over who gets to carve up DZ.  Whether that happens before cannon, during cannon and before infantry, or after infantry is anyone's guess.  He's running ~2x below my power and is on the track towards rifling.  This makes him the low hanging fruit.

I have a lot of common interest with Cairo/BGN.  DZ is an easy target.  JR4/refsteel is a strong team and should be countered.  I can understand why he dogpiled me, but I see him as a natural ally, at least until his culture attempt becomes an issue.  It's unfortunate that the North Korea that is cornflakes is DZ's other neighbor, so we really can't count on any cooperation or diplomatic benefit from carving up a portion of DZ.

It's an interesting game.  I think I could have played it better, but I do believe I've been on the wrong side of some irrational animus, and maybe I was the cause of that.

[wetbandit]

It turns out that losing half your empire for a number of turns and then having to rebuild infra really sets you back.  Who'd have thunk it?  Also the former Elkad land is not quite productive yet.  I've essentially been trailing/keeping pace (charitably?) with everyone else running 10-13 fully developed cities with 6-7 for the last 50+ turns.

Much of the rebuilding is complete:




I revolted into US and CS and ate a turn of anarchy.  I felt the hammers were necessary.  I also won't have a chance at a GA for another ~27 turns.  CS helps bring that down as well. MFG improved well enough, especially in the cap with 15 modified hammers factoring in Bureau.  I don't expect to cash rush unless I can build the Kremlin.  



Cairo/BGN's GA just ended.  I expect their GNP is inflated by culture, but they probably aren't too far off in science.  They are clearly making for a culture win, but I don't think 1) they are anywhere close and 2) they don't have 3 defensible city locations.  Their 3rd city, which I'm not clear will be the 3rd legendary, is a coastal city on an ocean to which nearly everyone has access. 



They followed me to democracy.  I am building SoL not to necessarily get it, but for the failgold.  I think they birthed a GE which they could use to guarantee it.



I think long term I may need to pave over a number of towns and move to the seemingly stronger SP/CS workshop spam.  I'll need it to compete with army production. 

Assembly line seems like the next Important Tech, but I think it is possible that getting to Communism first, to guarantee a GP I don't and won't likely get, the Kremlin, and SP may be ultimately worthwhile.

This game is going to take another 100 turns I'm guessing.  It'll take some time until GNP and production advantages create too much of a gap between DZ and Cornflakes and the rest of us to attempt to eat them.

[Hollybombay]

What do you think is everyone's chances of winning right now, and how would they go about it?

[wetbandit]

What do you think is everyone's chances of winning right now, and how would they go about it?

I don't think ANYONE has much incentive to start a war for awhile, possibly until after both assembly line and steel are on line.  Accordingly, we are entering a phase of the game where I don't think the Refsteel/JR4-BGN/Cairo alliance is going to hold up.  BGN/Cairo is making a concerted play towards a culture win condition, or at least keeping it in their back pocket.  That threatens everyone, including their ally.  I can't see JR4/RefSteel tolerating them falling behind, and may join punishing them.  The interests of both players are starting to diverge: I don't see how BGN/Cairo would go to war to defend JR4 if superdeath were to attack.

I'd still rate BGN/Cairo as a better chance to win than me, or possibly even.  I think the game will come down to superdeath and JR4.  I think if the game goes long enough to allow superdeath to consolidate, his chances of winning are going to be about as good as anyone, and possibly the highest.  He's got a lot of land, a lot of internal development, and decent prospects for external expansion. 

JR4 is fully developed and, aside from getting tech and new infra, his potential may be capped.  State Property is No Joke, however, and I think they will attempt to exploit an opportunity with their relatively advanced military and production capabilities. That said, JR4's external development opportunities are not as great as superdeath, unless they want to stab/dogpile BGN. 

I think a global war/stab is a likely occurence on BGN/Cairo, especially once mass cannons enter play, and their culture irritates the shit out of everyone.  They have long indefensible coastlines.

BGN has excellent opportunities for expansion in DZ land.  I don't see that happening with the culture focus.

I have decent opportunities to continue growing and expanding into former Elkad and DZ lands.  My production is stinky, so I'd need to focus on a military build up to do that.  I feel very confident that I can acquire some additional land in DZ land, and possibly from cornflakes as well.

[wetbandit]

JR4/Refsteel in a GA and recently switched into FS.  Not too far behind in GNP in light of that, even though I do have the benefit of researching a 2 arrow tech. 

I have visceral pain in not researching steel.  Cannons would absolutely wreck cornflakes.  His western coast is prime for invasion, not to mention an overland campaign with cannons and rifles would be very cost effective.  The problem is I don't think I have the ability to create a 3(!) front army to deter my northern and southern neighbors from attacking me.  So we will all limp forward through the industrial era where SP will elevate JR4/Refsteel and Superdeath way beyond my output.

I will benefit from everyone needing to dogpile Cairo/BGN relatively soon.  Cairo is really not positioned well for a culture attempt.  He has indefensible coastline and borders the 3 main military powers.  He should probably keep the culture attempt in his back pocket, which I suppose he could try to do still, and play a conventional game.  It would be great to try and split DZ with him, for instance.

Tech path is to research Sci Method to 1 turn, then get Corporation.  Corporation does very little for me, aside from unlock AL, because of the Great Lighthouse.  I suppose I can Wall Street the capital as well.  Can make a decision then about heading to AL, Steel, or completing Sci Method.  My strong inclination is to get Communism first.  I am WAY behind on great person generation and the Great Spy would be critical to any hope of triggering a 4man GA.  Two competitors are PHI and I can already see their stashed GPs.

Kremlin would be a big help as I intend to stay in US.  I don't think I can compete long term without it.  I think gold rushing will be a big part of my long term strategy.  Cash rushing cannons/cav/rifles/inf will be what a lot of cities will be doing.

I don't see a detour for Fascism or MilSci anytime soon.  I'm still 10xp from getting my HE city to being able to produce commandos out of the chute.  Of course, even with West Point, I would still need 3 generals or 2 + a very unhelpful Theocracy.  I haven't even unlocked West Point yet, so I think that's a pipe dream without another war.  I believe I have an 11 or 12 xp cav, so lvl 5 isn't too far off.  But the commando dream is on life support.


AL is a great tech, but I think I can afford to draft JR4/Refsteel there in light of the priority for the Kremlin.  I can build my factories quickly with the ORG bonus.  Health really sucks on this map so aqueducts and other health buildings will need to follow the coal plants.

Building a levy in the capital and paused Statute of Liberty.  Still not expecting to actually win the SoL.

Starting to build some galleons for future possible naval shenanigans.  About time vikings do something.  It's disappointing to have essentially played with a vanilla civ thus far, aside from the starting techs. Possibly I have been at a disadvantage with how berserkers lose some of their city attack bonus during that era.

My main thought is that any aggression I take west or east will be countered by a war dec from the north and possibly the south.  I don't see JR4 ready to stab his ally at this point.  It's possible some opportunistic boating city razes may be worthwhile, but that's about it from a war standpoint.

All of this plays to superdeath's advantage, even though he remains far behind in tech.  He has a material land advantage which will he can leverage within the period of time this game will be decided.

[wetbandit]

My primary goal is to assemble a coalition of the willing to take down BGN/Cairo.  I underestimated their ability to tech and build units.  They can do both at the same time to a disturbing degree, and keep up a decent culture progression.  While they are the only team with a victory condition identified, I find it very annoying that the top power army has been 3 tiles from my borders basically for the last 100 turns.  I'd like to get that army away if I can.  It's clear they see me as their threat.  And it significantly hampers my ability to expand, which I'll need to do to win this game.

My focus is to prevent any war which doesn't involve the florida men, at least any war which I don't start myself.  To that end, Cornflakes is up to some shenanigans with superdeath's border, founding an indefensible border city and claiming two cultural tiles.  He hasn't done anything for eons so I viewed that as a prelude to something.  I moved 35 ish Cavalry to Frankfurter in case he was planning something with me from his fog and to also show him that I will move if he attacks.  It's a possibly empty threat given the location of Florida's army.  But I also have some Vikings on Galleons to boat cornflakes coastal cities because spite.  

If cornflakes seriously attacks superdeath, I see that starting a potential dogpile on superdeath, at least for JR4/refsteel.  If that happens, I'd have to make some move to attack cornflakes or JR4, which in turn leaves me open to Cairo/BGN.  There is no good result from that situation for me as superdeath and I can't win a 3vs2.

So I want to keep the peace and eventually turn everyone against the florida men.  I offered a DP to refsteel/JR4 and they accepted.  I think our interests are more aligned to prevent not just a culture victory, but to balance against what I would view as the #1 civ.

AL is in and I'll limp to steel as the GA ends after next turn.  Factories are in progress everywhere and thank you ORG.  I believe I may switch to SP, but I haven't firmly decided because I do want to roll through a few more techs like railroad and infantry.

Built the kremlin and am hoping that will allow me to keep pace with the workshop spammers.

Annoyingly rolled a low odds scientist which significantly reduces the value of physics for me.  And my ability to trigger the 4man GA.

Old demo screen which reflects insane GNP of Cairo/BGN.  Even though I realize a good chunk of that is culture, I think they research better than me outside of a GA. 



Location of Shenanigans:



Note annoyingly location of Cairo's stack.

[Hollybombay]

How would you rank everyone now?

[wetbandit]

How would you rank everyone now?

Sorry for the delayed response.

1. Mr. Cairo/BGN - Not just for the culture, but they are the top economic power and has room to grow with SP in the future.  If anything, I think the culture attempt has hurt their  chances as it put a big target on their back.  The three main powers have cancelled DPs and OB (except Superdeath).  Come on Superdeath!  Except I still have my resource trades with them, especially wheat.  Only cornflakes and them have wheat.  If they cancelled wheat to me it would be a HUGE problem for me and little cost for them.  Thanks for not doing that!

I haven't been counting artists, but I don't think they have more than 2 saved up.  Which means they have to go hard culture in all 3 cities and that's not realistic.  They also have to invest a significant amount of resources to protect their long coastline and that investment can be wiped out if either of the next 2 get to metal ships materially sooner than they do.  That's a significant possibility.

2a2b. JR4/RefSteel + wetbandit - I think the two of us are fairly even in ranking, but:

(1) I think I have a much better chance to win, but also the greatest chance at being the next player eliminated;
(2) Refsteel/JR4 are a lock for 2nd or 3rd.

JR4/Refsteel is the critical team.  They have limited opportunities to expand, both diplomatically and geographically.  They have well defined borders with every player, except possibly superdeath.  They are building a huge military.  I haven't been.  Superdeath won't get infantry/machine guns in appreciable numbers soon (though I can't see his tech, which sucks because I don't want to dump a whole lot of EP on him and unintentionally trigger suspicion).  But if they decide to attack me, they eat the cost of fighting my army, and I have no problem with sending my army against them, and everyone else expands on the cheap.  And that benefits only Cairo/BGN and superdeath.  It's a shame there's no way to communicate this intention, but it's a risk they should appreciate.  It's unfortunate, but I would consider them a kingmaker at this point unless they decide to focus on BGNCairo.

3. Superdeath - The longer stalemate goes on, the better his chances become because of his land advantage. 

4. Donovan - he's had the luxury of teching for the majority of the last 100 turns and outsource his military protection at the same time.  So paying little in unit costs really does add up.  he's almost at tech parity and has been growing his army somewhat, but I think he could be a BIG pain to me or possibly to BGNCairo.  That's it.  Cornflakes could take 2 cities from him with his current knight stacks and DZ wouldn't be able to do shit about it.

5. Cornflakes - The next kingmaker.  He's got enough of a stack to make life hell for someone right now.  And he only materially borders superdeath and me.  The longer the game goes, infantry/machine guns/cannon, let alone arty, will be something he simply can't deal with cost effectively.  While I think I am the most likely to be eliminated next, he is after me.

The diplo situation I think has finally come around such that I likely won't face 4 wars at the same time.  I still don't understand why JR4/Refsteel didn't declare on me at the time I was fighting Cornflakes, BGN/Cairo, and DZ.  I would have been reduced to a rump state at that point.  The biggest portion of this game for me is still getting JR4/Refsteel to turn against cairo/BGN.  As long as that happens I live and have a chance to win.  If not, I lose and the game is over.

Demos aren't terrible, but not close to ideal.  This is with about 50% wealth/research builds.  Hoping to get RR in 6. with movement to research as coal plants finish  Physics just came in and I won the GS.  Predictably, but unfortunately, uranium was under a town in the BFC of the capital so mining it is out of the question. bulbed part of Physics with the GS I had sitting around.  There's no chance I can trigger the 5 man and there is no point in holding onto a 2nd GS given next bulb preference is Biology. So thanks for your service in shaving 1 turn off of Physics and getting some decent overflow into RR.

I debated going Artillery first.    I was deterred from doing so from my observation of the scary part of JR4's stack closer to my borders, and with his railroads, within striking distance of Napcakes.  Maybe Artillery is a better deterrent because Cav get wrecked by Machine Guns, and I likely won't have enough airships to scratch enough top defenders to make a difference.  But the mobility from railroads is huge.  Plus MGs are the best stack defender and I the HE city can make lvl 4 MGs which is Drill 3 MGs.

But with my thoughts on the game above, if JR4/Refsteel decide that attacking me is in their best interest, I will not hesitate to throw my army at them.  I did that initially against Cornflakes before being dogpiled.

[wetbandit]

I haven't been paying much attention to other games for some time so I have no idea what is acceptable in recent RB "Don't be a dick" rulesets.  I would assume that outright gifting of units, eg airships, is being a dick.  That's what I would think at least. 

That's still the case, right?  No gifts have been made by anyone as far as I can tell.