SPOILERS-Tatan's PBEM10 Thread

[Tatan]

A Carthaginian leader from Persia
Went after the game's top researcher
As history shows
He will bloody his nose
It's the lack of destroyers that hurts ya

Does this novice's clunky prattle
give rise to a poetry battle?
Your challenge seems absurd
when I'm matchless with words.
Your brain will get blown to Seattle.

Of course Orange v Green is unfair
but Mackoti must still aware,
for he is but one
and we still have guns.
Remember this game has six players.

Consider Cyneheard the tactician.
He will fight as would a magician.
A city was here,
now it disappears.
Good planning will come to fruition.

And Serdoa still techs very well,
while he's safe from Arabian Hell.
For a NAP remains
and until it wanes
Mackoti can do nothing but yell.

And you must not forget the last three.
That is, Twinkletoes, Ad Hoc, and me.
We are not as strong,
but we come along.
For then some damage is guaranteed.

[novice]

Here I thought my rhymes were borderline
I've been outclassed by this dutch philistine
Even if you typed it on the phone
There's no way to atone
For your lack of respect for the divine

[Tatan]

Here I thought my rhymes were borderline
I've been outclassed by this dutch philistine
Even if you typed it on the phone
There's no way to atone
For your lack of respect for the divine

Normally I'd dispute
this ill repute,
but I'm tired
and wired
and trying to eat some fruit.

-----

So for the Great Person, I popped... a merchant. Sigh. Since I discovered Rifling at the end of turn, I decided to use him for a GA to revolt to Nationalism. Honestly, though, I'm going to try and get away with not really contributing anything substantial, because with Mackoti's fleet hardly anything of mine would get through. Besides, I want to get to Steam Power before my economy peters out and curls up dead. So, uhhh, yeah, that's pretty much it. Weeeee.

[Tatan]

[I'm away from my civ computer ATM, so no screenshots, but in this case they wouldn't really add much anyway]

Rifling is in! I popped the golden age and revolted immediately, and then went ahead and drafted 4 rifles. I'm not completely sure how much I'll be doing with them, though. Mackoti's destroyers make naval assaults impractical, especially since my rifles would be severely out-matched against his Machine-Gunners anyway [oh, and he can research Assembly Line, too]. I might try and send them to help repel a potential invasion [still discussing things with Cyneheard and Serdoa], but things are still unclear.


For the tech path, my immediate teching is into Chemistry and then Steam Power. Together they take 5-6 turns at 100% research; unfortunately, I ran out of gold, though, so it will probably end up being at least 7 turns. On the bright side, I can run 80% research with a surplus, even without the GA I think. And it only took all game...

Next, I was thinking of grabbing Constitution for Representation. MP happiness from HR is nice, but I'm running out of tiles to work in most of my cities [IIRC, only Monopoly, Canasta, and A&A have more than 1-2 tiles to spare], so the extra beakers with specialists will be simply too nice a boon to pass up. I may suffer for happiness between the loss of MPs and the accumulation of drafting unhappiness, but I think I can manage; I'm still lacking markets in many cities [which on this map was kind of bone-headed; I would be getting +4 !], and if necessary I can dash out some coliseums or something. Of course, revolting to Representation brings up a problem: I can't get there within my golden age unless I delay Chem/Steam Power, which I really don't want to do. The solution I was considering? Well, between my great people counter being incredibly low and the +100% GPP generation from the GA, getting more GP is pretty easy, so I could always pop a second golden age. Of course, the problem is that I would need to GPs, and even if I could get two in a hurry it might not be advantageous to blow both of them on a GA. I wasn't sure, and I'm still not, so I decided to simply run a bunch of specialists in A&A for now and think about it more later. A&A is a relatively ideal choice because it is small enough to have a sizeable food surplus, but only has coastal tiles to grow onto and thus I don't feel as bad about running lots of specialists. 7 turns at the current rate, although that might increase to 8 after the GA ends.

Other teching considerations [wait, we're still talking about teching?] include:
-Steel: pretty critical tech; cannons, drydocks, on the way to Combustion... this will be coming sooner rather than later.
-Aesthethics/Literature: "Holy craps, how are you still missing those?!" Yeah, yeah, I know. I've just always had other priorities; the Epics are nice, but with my poor teching I wasn't able to afford unnecessary items. Now, though, since it should only take 2 turns I'll knock these out eventually.
-Corporations: trade routes on an archipelago map speak for themselves.
-Scientific Method: I already basically know where oil is, but this also leads to a whole bunch of important techs, so this is a priority.


So I'm looking at something [roughly] like:
1. Chemistry
2. Steam Power
3. Constitution
4. Steel
5. Corporations

And then probably SciMeth [and Aesthetics/Literature in there somewhere...]


So what else is happening?




...nothing! Woo-hoo!

[Tatan]

Hey! We haven't talked in a little while. I just discovered Rifling and revolted to Nationalism, so I plan to start building up my forces. What's the situation between you and Mackoti? Do you think I should I try to assemble a strike-force to attack him and/or assist the you now, or try to tech up more?

My production right now is miserable, but in ~7 turns I'll be getting Steam Power for Dikes, so for me the ideal time to start amassing an army would be fairly soon.

-Tatan

Hey Tatan,

well, game is going so slowly that my mind is not really on it to be honest. Situation between mackoti and me is that we simply to do not talk with each other since some time and that T150 our NAP runs out. I am preparing troops but I won't be able to hold my island city. I was thinking about attacking him but my Airships show that he has some troops in all cities, mostly Rifles, which will make it not possible to simply attack from sea. I fear more and more that he will have the upper hand, because I can only since last turn produce troops which can (maybe) withstand what he has. I will lose any possible naval battles as well because I can't produce as much Destroyers as he can (I won't be able to start producing them before T148 I think anyway).

So, it does not look that great. If you can I would suggest you assemble some troops to be able to simply burn down a city of his. Most of his mainland cities seem to have only 2-3 defenders. Mostly rifles. Not sure how many you would need to take them out with an amphibious attack though. But everything else probably won't work that well because he could assemble forces from all over his mainland. Though if war does not break out on T150 immediately, I will try to assemble some ships to attack from several angles at once.

Anything I can help you with?

Kind regards,
Serdoa

[Sorry for the delayed response, I was hoping to get a look at the save before I answered]

I still have a pretty large navy of East Indiamen, so I can load them up with drafted rifles and some of my less obsolete units. I think I could have ~20 rifles and knights ready within 4 or so turns, and I could use any remaining ships as a giant meat-shield for the fleet, which would hopefully be enough to avoid destroyer sniping. I'm not sure how well this would work, but I could try to sail south through your territory, swing around, and hit Mackoti's main island from the south where he might not see it coming. Thoughts?

Re your question: Actually, this dogpile on Mackoti is working out quite well for me; I've been able to focus on my economy and stay technologically relevant without having to worry about Cyneheard or anyone else. Once I get Representation and Dikes, I might actually become relevant again! So to answer your question, I'm fine.

And BTW, did you ever work something out with Ad Hoc to get a back-up iron? If not, I can loan you mine for a little while; nothing I'm building right now actually needs iron.

-Tatan

[Tatan]

So, one of Cyneheard's cities got razed [the one that started with a 'c'], but with that came a timely AP resolution for peace. I voted yes, but expected Mackoti to defy--he does, after all, have very few cities with Hinduism. And yet, upon ending the turn they made peace, so Mackoti apparently did not. Actually, I'm now realizing that that was pretty smart of him, considering that now he can focus more on the others. Wait, why was Cyneheard making peace at all, I thought we were all against Mackoti? I need to start doing more diplo...

Also, I've been having second thoughts on Representation; with all the Drafting going on, my cities actually will not be working very many specialists for now, and the happiness I can get from MPs far exceeds the bonus from Representation [thanks, obsolete army! ], which should help a lot with managing draft unhappiness. So, after Chemistry being discovered at the end of turn, Steam Power is up next!

Actual turn was meh; basically I shuffled around a bunch of units and deleted some useless ones to save 3 or so GPT. I now have 9 rifles, of which all but 1 are draftees. Most of my cities are still finishing up infrastructure, actually. :zzz:

[Tatan]

Oh, and I forgot to mention Espionage Points [last time you'll ever read that particular sentence in this thread].

So I have had preexisting espionage agreements to limit spending at 43 points with Cyneheard and Meatbalz/Mackoti for ages. Even when I went to war with Cyneheard, neither of us ever spent any points on each other, so I consider the deal to still be on. And it really didn't ever make sense to spend EPs on Serdoa, obviously, after our second war. So this just left Ad Hoc and TT as possible EP targets, so that is who I've been spending EPs on--for the past 30 turns! Guys, when you read this post-game, know that I did not have some weird vendetta against you, I just couldn't spend those points on anyone else. Sorry.

But zoom to the present day. I suddenly noticed that I no longer had Mackoti's graphs, and sure enough, he had spent a handful of EPs on me. Finally, it's about time! Er, I mean, how dare he! So anyway I now have all of my whopping 15 points directed at him. Huzzah.

For some reason I thought this was really important to post up, but in retrospect, umm... I think I need some sleep.

[novice]

For some reason I thought this was really important to post up, but in retrospect, umm... I think I need some sleep.

[Tatan]

If game continues and someone bothers to replace me, password is "realmsbeyond" [creative I know].

[Commodore]

Ouch, this game lost a dang entertaining reporter, Tatan.

Assuming (and probably making an ass out of u and Ming) this game resumes, I suspect this would be an entertaining educational slaughter. The EI wide attack seems pretty interesting, although at best it would raze a handful of rear cities and enrage Mack, and at worst it would fail miserably and enrage Mack. Still, what's a dogpile without the terrier biting the ankles?

As far as actually winning, Cultural and Diplomatic are both included as allowed options under the Serdoa Surrender Accords. Diplo is right out for a replacement player, as in a PBEM it's just a "screw the guy(s) we hate" option which a newcomer couldn't hope to capitalize on. Cultural is a bit more interesting...on Quick speed it only takes 25k, if I'm not mistaken, and thanks to Tatan's "Great People are for Wimps" policies a determined GA push might be possible. Not quite sure what sort of infrastructure is in place for this kind of win, though, and the three cities would have to be obscenely defensible.

Still, nice read.