[SPOILERS] Novice and SevenSpirits play Suleiman of Korea

[spacemanmf]

Maybe persuade someone to march 50 knights through your territory or something.

[novice]

Maybe persuade someone to march 50 knights through your territory or something.

Wouldn't want that, Mackoti's beating us fair and square.

He's been one step ahead of us all game long. While I feel his civ/leader combo is better than ours, he's played it very well.

[novice]

So Mack did indeed chop out Taj. We'll grab Economics with the failgold, unless Mack 1-turns it on his turn.



Chatted a bit with Seven and we can't really see any way now to gain an edge on Mackoti. We're not giving up in that we'll still try to play optimally - but we expect to lose.

Our only idea after brainstorming is the good old dogpile, so we'll attempt to repair relations with NoPardon. They do seem to have it in for us though, they're currently beelining Astronomy.





Next turn we'll offer a look at our capital reconfigured for its brand new Oxford University.

[Commodore]

I have to say, you guys look dominant on the minimap, apparently owning half the world.

I'm sorry, Korea/Persia here, Egypt/Zulu in 23, I won't be doing that again. It doesn't help that "Not Mayors" seems to be a Persian theme. Any chances of capitalizing on Mackoti's forces playing on the other side of the world? Where is the GLH city?

[novice]

Yeah, editing the WB file and assigning nice, contrasting colors seems like a good mapmaking checklist candidate.

We have forced peace atm. with Mackoti and Gasbleh, and attacking Lewwyn seems geopolitically unwise. Besides, we're trying to build a Coalition of the Reluctant here. The GLH city is just east of Mackoti's monstrous Moai city, boatable by Lewwyn along the mainland and by us across the islands. It's pretty deep inside Mackoti's culture though, and only has one coastal tile in its first ring, IIRC.

Edit: Lewwyn needs galleons for bypassing ice to reach Mackoti's GLH city.

[Rowain]

Besides, we're trying to build a Coalition of the Reluctant here.

Hopefully it will be more successfull than the CoW a long time back.

[novice]

Mackoti's GLH city of Portul minunat:

[novice]

Mackoti did not 1-turn Economics this turn, instead he picked up Alphabet. He can probably get Economics with overflow then, but that's too late. We cranked up science to 80% and grabbed the free merchant for ourselves.

GrimNobs countered our generous 10 gold, map trade and OB offer with a similar offer where we gave 100 gold instead. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. So instead we gave them the 10 gold this turn, and offered a map trade, OB, dyes for silver trade separately. We also offered a horse for fish trade separately (us giving horses, them giving fish). I actually think the message behind it should be easy to decipher.

We also got a new map trade with Lewwyn, so here's the updated front between Lewwyn and Mackoti:


Domestically, two national wonders completed. Attach Mimes completed Oxford University:

AM now makes 90 great people points per turn. Also, 200 of those 240 bpt are from specialists.

We finally built the Moai Statues, in Iced Mine:

It's late but good. Not as good as Mackoti's golden age-fueled Moai city though:


Demographics after ending turn:


Second to Mackoti in everything that matters.

Btw last turn we picked up Drama to preserve/build up beaker overflow so we could 1-tech Economics this turn if it was still available. So I went ahead and built some Theatres in our border cities. Globe Theatre is an option now too, not sure if we need it though.

(builds are before ending turn)

[novice]

It just occured to me that GoSpare might see our economics merchant and conclude that we're angling for OB for a trade mission. Maybe that's why they think it's worth 100 gold.

But A) our trade route modifiers with them are nuked, and B) we're probably using the GM for a golden age. I think.

[novice]

Seven's taken to submitting his turn reports directly to me along with the eot save. I guess we need more lurker feedback.

Hope you don't mind the playing without consulting, I figure we shouldn't put too much time into the individual turns at this point.

I accepted NoGas' resource trade (dye for silver) and OB/map for all our gold (37) as I believe signalling cooperation is paramount. Did not accept their fish for horse counteroffer as I'm just interpreting it as acceptance of our own. I didn't initiate any trades.

After ending turn, we got a great scientist and... lewwyn and mackoti made peace? I asked mackoti if this was expected because I didn't want to have to re-play the turn later and he said there was an AP resolution for peace, so everything checks out. I'm assuming that's good news for team notmack, but it's unclear.

Our tech rate is amazing, 450/t easy. It's too bad Mackoti's about to get Oxford too. Btw I moved our merchant for a possible trade mission at NoGas's size 17 island city, but I'm thinking a golden age may be necessary. We don't have another non-scientist due for the indefinite future.

Tech: Lewwyn got CS. NoGastroYet continued to live up to their moniker. And Mackoti saved gold and is either waiting on oxford or will get PP next turn. Probably the former. It looks like he whipped a bunch of unis.

I don't mind playing the turns uncoordinated at this point. It shaves a few percent of the quality of our (my) play, but does wonders for the turn pace, which is important to keep everyone interested.