Let's Test Ruff's Memory

[Ruff_Hi]

I wasn't even planning to write anything on this game ... just play it.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Probably the record for longest delayed thread

[Ruff_Hi]

First 10k years ...

Here are our starting positions (based on the map from today) ...



I started top right, Sian started by himself and Twinkle and Mardoc started in each others back pockets. I was in 100% builder mode for most of the start of the game. My capital was surrounded by floodplains and mostly riverside tiles with some production hills. I turned planted early cities to help work my capital's cottages and even now, it is producing over 50% of my beakers (bureaucracy, +225% beakers). I also have an early military city that can spit out 0.8 turn (or so) riflemen. Another good food & hammer city has the Globe and I drafted from this extensively once I hit rifles.

Twinkle and Mardoc went back and forth on the military front early with little to show for it. At one stage Twinkle looked like he went 'all-in' against Mardoc and captured a few cities. Mardoc went whip crazy and flooded Twinkle with horse archers - pushing hard initially and then rolling over Twinkle (1 civ down).

While Twinkle was fighting to stay alive, he had the time to send 2 swords (or was it 1 sword and a chariot) my way and razed a just settled city. I knocked together enough axes to discourage any further Twinkle menace.

After that Mardoc flooded towards me and held all the land south of the red line ...

[Ruff_Hi]

However, at this stage, I was able to finish the +50% Golden Age wonder, kick off a GA with the Free Artist from Music and rocket towards Nationalism (another GA) and then onto Rifles. Drafting up an army of Rifles that then marched south chased Mardoc's Cho-Ko-Nu and Horse-Archers. He gave ground waiting for me to make mistakes. Unfortunately for me, I was sloppy (that is a huge understatement) and he killed my catapult stack and then my main rifle stack. I saw over 70 Cho-Ko-Nu at some points ... quite a nice fighting force ... I must talk to Mardoc about how he managed to put together such a mass of them.

While this was in the planning stage, I reached out to Sian (who had Astronomy and had settled that other island to the west) and discussed a joint attack against Mardoc ... me concentrating on the east, him attacking first in the west.

It seems that he didn't like that amount of 'easy' progress I was making and decided not to join in on this plan. Instead, he Sirian attacked my two main production ports ...



... (guarded by warriors) and razing them. He offered peace but took the string of 3 ex-Chinese cities on the south east of the mainland as tribute. Since then - I haven't seen any war action, reverting to tech civics just at the end of my 3rd GA.

[Ruff_Hi]

It was at this stage that Sian decided to Sirian Mardoc and managed to capture several cities in the west. I think that Mardoc had the main part of his army on my front. Mardoc had been stacking up EPs against me ... planning to steal his way to Rifles. I ran some anti-EP missions against him to make it as costly as I could. My newly captured Chinese cities made stealing tech even easier (right religion for him, nice cultural situation).

Mardoc asked me for some happy resources so that he could draft up some units to counter Sian. At this stage, Mardoc has recaptured all of his cities - he did lose 1 or 2 from razing.

I have just bulbed the rest of Scientific Method (revealing Oil) and finished Combustion on the same turn. I now have 6 destroyers in the water with 2 more upgrades from Frigates coming next turn. Sian has Scientific Method but is missing Railroads and Combustion. As such, I now control the waters.

My game plan from here is to control the Oil. I have 2 sources (both on land but both on the ocean edge). Sian has 4 (3 on land but right on the ocean edge, 1 in the water) and Mardoc has 0.

Once that is taken care of ... the game should be well in hand.

[Ruff_Hi]

I was hopelessly trailing in score at one stage, but my tech rate has always been good. Beating Mardoc to rifles by a considerable margin enabled me to take a fair chunk of land from him. Winning the tech race to Oil should now enable me to control the waters and the game.

[Mardoc]

Twinkle and Mardoc went back and forth on the military front early with little to show for it. At one stage Twinkle looked like he went 'all-in' against Mardoc and captured a few cities. Mardoc when whip crazy and flooded Twinkle with horse archers - pushing hard initially and then rolling over Twinkle (1 civ down).

Not quite. Twinkle and I skirmished at first, mostly just killing scouting units. About the time I was running out of land, he invaded my stone city - I just barely managed to reinforce it. Didn't actually lose anything! But since I was out of land anyway, and I was miffed at being attacked, I invaded full force.

After that Mardoc flooded towards me and held all the land south of the red line ...

Biggest mistake of the game! I...sorta...took Krill's advice to grab all the land I could. But I neglected the important bits: to hit you with the leftover army from the Twinkle war and keep pressure on - instead I just scouted you and went farmer's gambit.

I also should have settled the south gradually, as I could afford it - I pretty much crippled my economy to grab it all. Was barely positive at 0% tech at one point. I maybe could have made that work if I'd hit you and made you whip/rebuild and defend, but it didn't have a chance with you growing organically.

EP econ was a Hail Mary play to try to get back in the game. I didn't execute it very well - should have built spies much earlier, and probably gone against Sian instead of you since he doesn't know the countermeasures as well. But really, the losing move was the land grab that I couldn't defend or afford.

As for the war and ChoKoNu production: it's amazing how much you can build if you've got population, Slavery, and don't care about the long term viability of your cities. 20ish cities each producing a Cho every other turn adds up to a lot of units. Sure, it wrecked my economy, but not as badly as if you simply conquered me. After that I was pretty demoralized, though, and Sian's attack left me with the simple goal of survival and revenge.


Thanks for the game, it was fun! Even with all the imbalances in the map, my loss was squarely my own fault, and I think I've learned a lot.

[Ruff_Hi]

@Mardoc - I haven't got your graphs. Do you have graphs for all three of us? I would love to see a 'score' version - I think there are stories (ebb and flow) from this game in the score graph.

[Mardoc]

@Mardoc - I haven't got your graphs. Do you have graphs for all three of us? I would love to see a 'score' version - I think there are stories (ebb and flow) from this game in the score graph.

I think so. Haven't looked at them in a while, but I've got city visibility so I should have graphs. Will post those up tonight.