[SPOILERS] Bismark of Sumeria (luddite + Atlas1998)

[luddite]

I entered Mackoti's culture this turn. 15 rifles, 10 cats, 1 macemen, 3 chariots, and my GG scout medic. I can raze his border city next turn, assuming he doesn't move in everything to defend.

And I'm in nationalism/theo now, so I'm drafting 5 rifles every turn.

[luddite]

I burned down mackoti's border city this turn. Lost 1 rifle attacking a longbow at 85% odds. I decided to wait for reinforcements before going for his capital though.


Meanwhile I've got a total of 45 rifles (currently 3rd place in soldiers). All the ones that aren't attacking mackoti will go towards Parkin.

[luddite]

Meanwhile, parkin has researched combustion. I'm starting to worry that our attack is hopeless.

[luddite]

OhhhhKaaaaay so rego just declared war on plako. WTF is he thinking? Whatever personal problems he might have with plako, surely he realizes that this is just handing the game over to Parkin. I mean it was already a longshot that we'd be able to take him down, but now it's just ridiculous.

Is rego just sick of this game and wants to end it as quickly as possible? Has he massively overestimated how strong we are, and thinks we'll beat Parkin despite his attack? Is he deluded enough to think he can take land away from plako and then out tech parkin?

This just doesn't make sense any way I think about it.

[luddite]

He's got a lot of units (14 cats, 1 trebuchet, 30 knights, 5 muskets, and 5 macemen), but I think i've got enough to beat him. I advanced my stack.

Honestly if this attack doesn't work I won't be too disappointed, since I have a feeling this game will be ending soon anyway. The other guys are declaring on Parkin next turn but it seems hopeless. The only plan we have is to stay on the defensive and try to last long enough to build the UN, or hope parkin makes some major error.

[luddite]

Yeesh... parkin sank nakor and plako's entire fleet in just one turn. I knew we didn't have any chance of success, but that's even worse than I expected. When will I learn, you can never be too cynical...

on the plus side, I guess there's no point sending any units against parkin now, so I can just concentrate everything against mackoti.

[luddite]

Ha! mackoti offered me a peace treaty in game. yeah, i don't think so.

The game is pretty much over, anyway. I might as well have some fun before it ends.

[luddite]

For posterity's sake I'll do a quick wrapup of everything I had at the end. First, here's the forces I had ready to attack Mackoti's capital city of Hagi. 40 riflemen ought to do the trick I think.


Here's what I have in the east for fighting Parkin. Not nearly enough.


Total military


My demographics are totally shot to hell right now, since I've been totally focused on drafting and slaving for the past 20 turns.


Techs
I have everything before this, except for archery, optics, and theology (didn't need them).


Core cities


Middle


South (I fought so hard to get this land lol)


West (with the ridiculous silver city)


My only regret is not being able to do my original strategy of sailing through silver city to make a direct attack on Hagi.

[luddite]

OK so this is a little self-indulgent... but I have to whine about the map a little bit more



This is the map of my starting location and neighbors. I'm the red X, Parkin is yellow, and Mackoti is pink. The lines mark the area that's within 10 tiles of the starting location, moving by land.

The 10 tile line between me and Parkin is exactly where our borders ended up being! Everyone said I gave up far too much land to him- well, how could I have gotten more? He had a perfect diagonal of plum city cites leading directly to the center of the landmass, giving him a lock on the whole center area. He didn't even need to sacrifice to block off territory- there's a perfect line of pigs-gold-gold-corn-pigs-gems-corn-ivory! No one else had such a sweet line of expansion- I had to make do with Gold-fish-cows-rice. Not to mention the sweet land east of his capital that was always guaranteed to him, which I didn't even include in this screenshot. Maybe I could have gained a little in the north while he was settling southwest, but I'd have to ignore all my best city sites just to poach a little land from him. And then I'd end up with cities much closer to him than to me- totally indefensible if he wanted to attack me with war chariots.

My own best line of expansion was clearly to the south, starting with the fish/gold site and moving south. I really should have settled there with my first settler. But, as soon as I settle there, I'm committed to a conflict with Mackoti. If I let him gain control of that chokepoint between us, he'd get a massive amount of land. Basically, everything from the sugar on the left to the mountain peaks on the right would have belonged to him. That's much more land than Parkin got!

The main problem was that I had two totally different directions I needed to expand. Parkin only had one, so of course he pushed out far in that direction. Mackoti technically had 2, but his western route was much less in conflict than the land in between us, so he of course focused on settling towards me. It was a no-win scenario for me- do I settle towards mackoti and give up all the land in the east, or settle towards Parkin and give up all the land in the west. If I try to settle both equally, I'd end up cut off from both chokepoints, and basically get nothing. I chose the path with the best city locations, and I still don't see what else I could have done. Where could I have settled that would have secured more land for me away from Parkin, without giving up everything to mackoti? Even if I decided to run full speed towards Parkin, and given up the oracle, how could I have settled any of the center land before him? The combination of the resource-rich diagonal, and a completely safe rear, made Parkin's position way too strong.

So yeah. I blame all problems on Krill :neenernee. If anyone still thinks I gave up way too much land to Parkin, show me how you would have settled it instead.