[SPOILERS] Zanth's thread

[Gavagai]

Well, let's continue our story - though I hoped to do it a little earlier. Krill's attack complicated the situation greatly. I'm afraid that he may have given others a bad example and we will suffer from more sneak attacks of this kind. BaII, Mardoc, 2metra - all these people have both means and motivation to harm us. Especially given that we have no Astronomy (which is already researched by both BaII and Mardoc) and our seas are currently wide open.
Also, losing two cities noticably reduced our output and together with continuous war effort it put us below Mardoc in GNP and MFG. He was ahead of us in food for, I think, forever, so in some way it was long expected and long overdue. So, that's how he has become a clear frontrunner in this game.
What also contributed to Mardoc's success is geopolitical luck. Not only he has the more uncontested land than anyone else, but his only real neighbor is Furungy who is currently engaged in a ridiculous grudge match with TBS. So, Mardoc has no reason to build military and prudently doesn't do that. Currently he is one turn from Communism and most surely will take Physics scientist (as we don't plan to research Astronomy anytime soon and all others are very backward). Also, his population exceeds ours by almost a quarter. He has every chance to build up enormous advantage and become unstoppable.
So, is the game over? Not yet. We still have some stuff up our sleeve.
First of all, our war effort wasn't completely pointless. We currently have broken Slowcheetah; some of his cities (including the capital) are taken, some will be taken soon. Also, we want to take at least two cities from Nakor, the northern ones. We didn't actually plan to but, well, if he insists... We already have more land than Mardoc and are very close to a first place in land (occupied currently by Gawdzak). I'm pretty sure that after we wrap up our conquests we will have a solid first place.
Also, we have out third GA coming soon. Actually, we already have all GPs necessary, we are only waiting for Ironworks in QC to be completed and Democracy to be researched. GA will be used to jump to Assembly line and spam cheap factories everywhere. We are still tech leaders and this GA will give us a short-term advantage to sustain this lead.
At last, I think, we have found a way to survive without Astronomy and to keep our Colossus working. We will have Steam Engine in four turns, I think, and will start buildin Nav1 Ironclads. I think, they should be a quite decent way to defend our shores against wooden navies. Also, Combustion isn't exactly far away already...
So, that's my outlook for this game. I feel a little embarassed that we screwed up and missed what seem to be an assured victory (though, much earlier in this thread I wrote about Mardoc's food advantage and how it makes him a contender). However, now the game promises to become really epic. Not only we are evenly matched with Mardoc, but we have players like 2metra, BaII and especially Gawdzak who are still capable of doing stuff and will have a lot of say in the final outcome of this game.
Any questions, requests? I'm in the mood to answer.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Thanks for the detailed reports.

So assuming your conquest of Slowcheetah continues and that you handle whatever challenges Nakor presents, what is your longer term path to victory? Do you have a victory condition chosen yet, or are you still just playing the long game and trying to remain the top dog until a path to win becomes apparent?

[Gavagai]

So assuming your conquest of Slowcheetah continues and that you handle whatever challenges Nakor presents, what is your longer term path to victory? Do you have a victory condition chosen yet, or are you still just playing the long game and trying to remain the top dog until a path to win becomes apparent?

Second option. It's too early to speak about victory condition, a lot would depend on a strategy Mardoc would choose. If we are able to take all the land we want and hold it (also quite a challenge) Mardoc will be forced to expand somehow as he will have land disadvantage.
Current plans is to consolidate gains and to rebuild economy. I'm actually still unsure what our economy would look like: we may go all-in with FS/Emancipation/US and spam towns or we may want to try some more balanced approach.

[Gavagai]

Our strategy would actually strongly depend on number of real contenders. In two-horse race more aggresive play would be favored, while three fronrunners make serious wars impossible. And I do think that Gawdzak will be able to become a third world power.

[zanth]

"We already have more land than Mardoc and are very close to a first place in land (occupied currently by Gawdzak). I'm pretty sure that after we wrap up our conquests we will have a solid first place."
Well, atm we are in 11 tiles from land leader, and only 2nd circles of all cities would grant us more then 30 tiles.

[zanth]

Mardoc took communism, and started GA w/ State Property. It seems he would make a huge jump.

The good news is that we've captured last Slowch city we'd wanted and Nothern-Eastern (with 2metra) front would be fine and easily defended.
Plus there's a buffer zone between us.

Gawdzak is now 1st on Soldiers w/ Grens as best possible unit. Quite fearsome.

[Gavagai]

So, we assembled a mega-stack and moved it into Nakor's territory:



I had one more Cavalry but it died to Nakor's city defenders before I remembered to make this picture.

What was his response? Well, on diplomatic level he made a pathetic offer of white peace. Come on, man, you have rejected exactly the same offer only a few turns before, what have changed? On military level he put 12 units (mostly knights and some junk inside the city) and assembled 1 tile south a stack which I pinned. Well, the solution was obvious - I captured the city with Cavalry and then, after the culture has been cleared, killed his southern stack with Rifles. As a result, Nakor has no visible knights now (and we have visibility on most of his cities), all his army which we can see consists of city defenders, junk and a handful of Catapults. He will have Steel in three turns but I think it will come too late. We lost only a Rifle and a Cavalry, our army is basically intact.
Really, I think we were able to achieve a perfect strategic surprise here. It looks like Nakor truly believed that we are not going to bother him until after we eliminate SC and he will have enough time to research Steel or even MS. But, in fact, we are relatively satisfied with our SC border:



We actually consider offering SC white peace. I don't think he would accept it but we really accumulated A LOT of war weariness against him and we will now have another surge due to fighting with Nakor. We also have a huge supply of happiness but we are starting to run out of it. Currently it looks like this:



Keep in mind that we have a looming golden age during which we would really want to switch out of Heredetary Rule... Yeah, happiness is our biggest concern now.

Also, there is a 2metra factor. 2metra has a formidable military, he is actually closing the gap with us.



I don't think that he is going to attack us, as it makes no strategic sense. But, on the other hand, against TBS it is an overkill and humans often do weedt stuff. I would really like to keep SC as a buffer here.

And another thing of note. After we kill Nakor and Gawdzak kill Jowy, partitioning of a former Catwalk Empire (which is currently for practical purposes unmanaged) will become a real possibility.

EDIT: forgot to mention, 2metra's units are scouting us aggressively which also elevetes my concern.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Why do you say the English empire is essentially unmanaged? Is Dick76 mailing in the turns or what? He's not missing turns right? Bad management is one thing. No management is another, and not fair to the other players. I'd rather have an AI than no management.

[Gavagai]

Well, he usually spends about 3 minutes per turn. At this point of the game he would need to automate everything to be able to do that. On the other hand, last time he spend a whopping 9 minutes and even made three drafts. May be wars near both his borders woke him up from lethargy...

[spacetyrantxenu]

Yeah, that empire was still in too good a position when he started playing to waste it on three minute turns. That's disappointing. He probably couldn't have won from effects he started but he could have mattered within his region. Three minutes doesn't matter at all in the game.