[Spoilers] Gavagai, Bacchus and Elizabeth Form a Romantic Trio

[Gavagai]

All of sudden Nakor switched to a berserker mode. He suicided his two wounded catapults into my mini-stack of two axemen and a spear, then killed my spear with a War Chariot at 19% odds and then killed an axe with an archer at 48% odds, taking no damage in process. Well, I'm still ahead in this exchange hammer-wise and it's OK to lose axemen, they are obsolete anyway.



State of affairs after I reshuffled my troops. Observe Egypt borders in the east. Funny thing is that he settled on Iron without knowing it - he doesn't have IW yet.



Finally, haven't forgotten to take a screenshot of Serdoa's galley. He unloaded his axe, so we are save.
Moved a workboat away and...



Oops...

Meanwhile, Kurumi...



...has done nothing. Only added two catapults. Huh?



A random city in which I have micro screwed up. I wanted to whip a forge for two pop after this city growth but it will have too many hammers in it. I think, I will just do a one-pop whip next turn as this city has a lot of surplus happiness.



And a new addition to our Empire.

[Gavagai]

Turn rolled in the morning and I jumped in to check out techs. Noble/Serdoa researched Paper and Slowcheetah researched... Machinery!?
...
...
...
OK, it looks like Serdoa/Noble are going to whip out an army of knights and win Liberalism race. Wow, that's humiliating. Can I read their spoiler thread already. Oh, well, a few more turns, I guess...

[Gavagai]

Came from work at 01 a.m. local time, exhausted to death and was greeted in game by this:





Of course, I rejected. Game will end soon anyway, why not to have some fighting? But seriously, I don't think I'll ever play with Kurumi again. His game was nothing more but a huge troll from T0.
Sorry guys but no proper war report for you, I'm seriously tied.

[Gavagai]

After turn rolled, I offered peace for Karlye. Should have actually just given up the city immediately to return after ten turns with a proper force. Whatever I do now, the city will get razed in a blink and I really don't want this.
Instead, I DOWed, attacked his mega-stack with a spear at 62% odds (loss, of course, barely made a scratch on his Keshik) and dry-whipped a half of my empire. Pretty dumb play but I just returned home after 15 hours work day and seeing that some idiot decided to randomly screw me over in a computer game was just too much for me to handle.
Of course, I may want to take responsibility too, really had to defend properly in South. But easier said then done. I have a hot war in the north and I my heavy military has been dragging me behind during the whole game. Building a stack strong enough to stop the one which Kurumi has would kill any kind of hope to keep up with leaders.
Well, at the very least, I should have sentry net up much earlier.

[Gavagai]

Sorry guys, don't have a motivation for proper reporting as the game has no intrigue left. Concession may be proposed any turn now and I don't do it myself only because I still have unfinished business with Kurumi. But, I guess, I need to say a couple things about what's going on in the game because Slowcheetah is doing funny things:



I decided to allow him to pass to Londra but asked SC for 200 gold in reward which is pretty generous in my book. He countered with 100 gold, I took that. Also, Slowcheetah has researched Compass after Machinery. Now he cashed in his Great Merchant and started another golden age sitting on something like 2000 gold. Some pretty cunning plan is in action here; sadly, we will likely never know what this plan is because SC doesn't report.
Sian has Guilds now and is whipping stuff, knights, I presume. Also, he has quite a lot of Numidians and good enough GNP to collect upgrade cash.
I'm still taking cities from Egypt:



I have few units left in the north and they are spread pretty thin. Nakor is helping me, however - there had been a period when he attacked at every opportunity, even at terrible odds. He lost quite a few war chariots this way and now I cut off his Horses at last. Also, he settled another city somewhere on islands, so I will (hypothetically) need to hunt that too. But I think he'll be able to survive until the end of the game, after all, good job for him.

And, at last, this:



Guilds next turn and a kilohammer of knights going into Kurumi's face soon after that.

[Bacchus]

That's a lot of spare happiness.

[Gavagai]

Happiness has a separate story. When Kurumi took Karlye, this city had my unique gems resource; also, it had my ivory duplicate but I've traded it away to BaII just before that happened. So, my happiness situation had been pretty harsh for a while. Slowcheetah actually saved me by trading fur for banana. And this turn I cancelled Ivory deal to BaII, so everything has improved. Also, in a few turns we are taking back Karlye and taking over silver in the north.

[Gavagai]

In a different place Jowy stated that he is "not sure" that PB12 will end soon. Which made me assume that he is actually doing something to stop that from happening. But instead he is supplying Serdoa with Marble so that he can build Taj faster.

[Gavagai]

Logged in and saw this:



Why? Well, may be because of this:



All Kurumi's neighbors we know have their power spiking and he can't keep up. I accepted the deal but will attack next turn anyway. Don't feel bad about it given how Kurumi treated me in past and how he played his game generally.

I will invade with these guys:



and 12 knights. I checked for defenses in Karlye a turn before and it had three axes; but I'm pretty sure that his megastack is lurking somewhere around. Last time I saw it, it had about 16 Keshiks, something like 10 axes and only three cats. According to his power graph, Kurumi shouldn't have added much after that. So, I can assume that he is pretty low on collateral and if it's true, we should be fine.

[Gavagai]

...and I saw on civstats that Sian has captured a city off Kurumi. Jumped in and saw also this:



Uh-oh, Sian, you are truly playing with fire now. Please, be a good boy and leave this city alone. If you would raze it, I will not be amused...