[SPOILERS] Serdoa as DeGaulle of Maya

[flugauto]

Could you post you tech tree and unit screen, please.

[SevenSpirits]

Can you post a map of the land you've uncovered?

[Serdoa]

Map (big)

As you can see, no Iron nearby. I marked the spots with Iron in red to make it easier. Also, dismiss the "c"-signs. I'm not able to expand there with xenu and BRick next door. I simply won't have Iron this game.

Foreign news: Bigger attacked my former Barb-city, as expected. I offered it for Peace but I don't really care. I took that city, slaved a worker. Now I deleted that worker and lost the city. Net: 0. Well, slight positive maybe, because I got gold by taking the city and my Axes had nothing to do anyway at that point. Still hurts, but mainly because I had hoped to keep that city a little bit longer. I wonder if Azza will let them keep it. Anyhow - if you look at the picture above, losing that city also made certain that I lost the Iron in the north - not that I would ever go there anyhow. Thats why I had NO defenders in that city at all (yes, I would have slaved one next turn and I took its defender only last turn with the possibility to bring him back). Should have simply razed it.

Anyhow, Xenu also showed up with a spear on my borders in the east, probably intending to harass me as well. I assume BRick will join shortly. Not that it matters - quite the opposite, I'd be happy if they would take me out. But in reality, they will only take those holdings in the east. Leaving me sitting with my 2 big cities and my 2 island-crap-what-did-I-think-settling-this-shit-cities. Probably for another 100+ turns. *sigh* And definitely all my fault. The missing iron hurts and I am not sure how I was supposed to play from this start-position (I'd be very interested to hear your take on it Seven, what would you have done?) but I could have done much better. Guess getting an IND-leader when I really didn't want to play one didn't help matters.

To recap:

T40: 2 cities, building Oracle
T50: 2 cities, building Colossus
T80: 4 cities, 2 of them absolute atrocious
T100: 6 cities (this turn 7, but that doesn't count), 2 still atrocious, 1 only half-bad, one just settled

@flug__auto

My military consists of 2 warriors and 4 Axes. My workforce consists of 5 workers. Thats it.

Tech:

1st tier: Fishing, Wheel, Agri, Myst, Hunting, Mining
2nd tier: Sailing, Pottery, AH, Medi, Poly, Masonry
3rd tier: PH, Mono, BW
4th tier: Writing, Metal Casting, IW

I guess this can count as the worst game I played, mainly because I just screwed around for 80 turns before I actually started to think about what to do. Oracle -> MC -> Colossus was a HUGE investment and because of my few cities and pop, it hasn't even paid. I mean, what I am building Colossus for if I then work like 6 water-tiles? Same goes for Pyramids in the end. Getting Representation is nice. If I do only have 2 engineer-specs running and whip my cities down to under their normal happy cap, it isn't helping though.

I think the better play would have been to go for a really early IW, still trying to get Oracle -> MC for workshops, so that I can make that jungle productive. Not sure though, I still miss food. scooter seem to have a similar problem, though looking at the map I think he had more spots to expand to easily. Alone that 3 clams,1fish should be enough for 3 cities. Pig, corn is no. 4, Sheep, Iron no. 5. Bigger I am not sure, but it looks not that bad. The missing food in the southwest hurts of course, but I do see 4-5 worthwhile cities already. Especially with SH helping with border popping. Commodore and Azza? Well, I'll better not start, both have great land. India as well and Xenu I think has it too, at least from the Food-numbers. Again, I don't want to say that I lose because of the bad start, I most certainly simply played very bad. Just saying the atrocious land + hated leader didn't help to actually motivate me to play better. Learned my lesson and I won't join (at least not alone) another PB-game with random leader / random land.

[SevenSpirits]

(I'd be very interested to hear your take on it Seven, what would you have done?)

I think with this rather challenging start, after essential techs I would go straight to sailing and build a galley. Then I guess IW as first classical tech.

However the path you chose with oracle and few cities is pretty interesting. I bet if you did that but otherwise focused better on expansion you could have a top position right now. In fact, even though you are glum about current affairs I won't count you out at all.

Do you have a shot of demos?

[Serdoa]

Forgot to take a shot at demos (because I didn't look at them) but I should be around 60-70 food with the highest around 110+, GNP should be around 80, with the highest around 110. Not sure on that one. MfG I have no clue, but middle of the pack most probably. I try to think about taking a screenie the next time.

Also, I attacked Xenus new city with my woodie2 axe. Failed on that 28% shot to raze it. Oh well, offered him peace, doubt he'll take it though. Don't care, was still fun to use that unit. No it was not in any way, shape or form making sense. Yes, I have given up, bad day today. Sue me.

[flugauto]

Where's your spirit?!! Fabricate something cunningly adventurous!

[Serdoa]

Well, besides still not really using Pyramids I am easily having the highest GNP now. But it really is making me sad that I can't use them. Well, biggest issue is that I have 2 core cities and all others are basically just bringing in commerce. 2 will soon (10 turns?) be unit producers though, 1 more will be a commerce-city that is running and another one might be either, depending on what I really do with it.

Still, I probably should have gone with the "build 10 axes, take Azza out" approach. I don't think he could have defended against that on T50 or some such.

[Serdoa]

Oh, and I did build HG. Btw: If I use a GE on a wonder and someone else finishes it the same turn, will that still be decided by a coinflip who gets it?

[Krill]

Yup, still a coin flip in simultaneous turns, not a coin flip in sequential.

[Serdoa]

Bottom of the forum means I have to "update" again.

So, what to say? I still won't win this. Apart from that? Hm, lets see. I did expand quite a bit, I did take a city of xenu - who got wrecked by BRick in the meantime. Now they made peace while xenu refuses to make peace with me. Hey xenu, BRick was the main attacker, I was just opportunistically taking a city that you could not have hold against BRick anyhow. And I'd rather have it myself than him in my face, so I am not sure why you agree to peace with them but not with me.

Anyhow. As Xenu and BRick are now at peace I am pretty certain that BRick will come for me - after all he needs to use the units he still have according to the graphs. If he does, he might take a city or two but I think in the long run that will lose him the game. I will have Feudalism in ~4 turns and can nearly 1-turn LBs in my capital now. And I will be able to produce Maces long before he will have an answer for that. I don't want to - I'd much rather concentrate on Azza, Lew and Commodore.

Also, if he attacks I would assume that Xenu attacks him. I actually am not sure why Xenu even accepted peace. If I look at the soldier numbers he seems to have roughly as many as BRick. Anyhow, if BRick moves several of his forces over to me, Xenu would be dumb not to take the chance.

So, looking at all that, logic seems (from my PoV) to dictate that they will sit in a stalemate that BRick should win in the end (though looking at his cities and the sizes they are, they look atrocious.... sorry BRick, but why didn't you actually do anything with the land you had?). But I somehow doubt that. I unfortunately have not landed near rational players (hi xenu) imo. So more likely as said above is that BRick attacks me, losing the cities he took from xenu in the process who will after taking them back attack me as well, no matter that the city I took from him is at that point probably in BRicks possession... ah the fun

That said, I do have fun with the game as it is a completely different challenge than our PBEMs. But I do have a hard time to motivate me if I know that I can't win no matter what I do. And I knew that after a few turns into the game seeing my land and the endless jungles without resources. Right now I take my motivation from building up my capital into a powerhouse-city (as good as possible with those many coastal tiles at least). But if I get attacked, I doubt I can keep my spirits up for anything else than "kill the attacker".

Oh.. and retake the city Bigger took. I haven't forgot that either. Please BRick, let me in peace. I promise in 20 turns I'll move 20 Knights against Bigger if you do that. And 20 turns later I move 60 against Commodore