Haven't updated in a bit, but this game is still very tense.
My border with REMAI is heavily militarized, both on land and sea, but stalemated. I tried to sneak a pair of amphibious swords along their northern coast to raze their capital, but unfortunately they blocked my way with a trireme. If I come back with multiple triremes to take it out, they'd be unlikely to fall for the sneak attack. Oh well.
The situation with Furungy resolved very simply; I razed his city and sent him white peace, which he accepted. A quick check by my Numidian the next turn revealed I could have easily taken his next city, so I hope he appreciates that I did not.
So, that's two borders secure, but now I'm panicking about my next one because of this sight on my most recent turn:
I don't know what I've been told, but those English boats look mighty bold. I've been too lax on security up here, keeping too much of my army in the south, and it looks like Gavagai sniffed out this weakness. If there's a galley behind that trireme, 1NW, he can boat Dumbing of Age, and, of course, the one near Dominic Deegan is quite easy.
In response, I sent REMAI a white peace offer, hoping that they'd play before Gavagai and take it as-is. If I'm lucky, Gavagai will see that and stand down, knowing that my huge stack will be freed up and able to respond to his aggressions. Cause, man, if you hit me here, I will be so freaking mad. That barb city? Don't really care about it, if you want it, take it. I won't count you as a friend after that, but I won't bear back retribution. But DoA - that's an important city to me, not now necessarily but longer-term.
Y'see, I've started comprehending that my empire, which spans 34 ridiculous tiles top to bottom, is just too elongated to think about in a unified fashion. Troops produced in "Gay Sharks!" would take a dozen turns to reach "Dominic Deegan" right now, for example. Thus, I need to think of it as essentially existing in three abstract "cores," each with its own standing army and defined by a major production city. One is centered around my capital, the "central core," and is responsible for the REMAI border, one in the south, the "southern core", centered on my Moai upon completion and responsible for the Furungy border, and one centered around Ma3, the "northern core," the location of my Heroic Epic once I get around to it, and responsible for my Gavagai and Gawdzak borders. Each of these centers has a ring of cities around it, ensuring that each core is stable and semi-self-sufficient. Unfortunately, this situation will break down if I can't get this third, mostly undeveloped core up and running... meaning that I'll start getting insecure and paranoid... and need to assuage my fears with three-move galleys packed with amphibious swords...
Finances and demos after the civic switch, on the turn of the GA (3 turns ago now).
Agg is saving me 31 gpt, not bad. Org would be 38 gpt. Bureau would only net me an additional 35 gold/beakers per turn right now, since I don't have an academy, while Vassalage saves 5 from civic upkeep and 16 from units. I think I'll just get guilds sooner, keep producing swords for longer, and just skip Bureau until the next GA.
Civics in the GA:
My biggest domestic goal for this golden age were to catch up to dtay again in CY; the mass whipping spree had, at its worst point, put me 100 food below him. (yet always still in 2nd place!) However, I've been growing back like crazy and founding new cities, whearas he fired off a GA of his own, 1 turn after mine, and switched into Pacifism. Thus, the difference has dropped to only 50 food. I'd like to catch up completely by the end of my GA. My secondary goal is to get forges in as many places as I can...
The international situation is pretty complex at the moment, but I don't have a lot of time to go into it right now. Maybe Friday! Merry Christmas y'all!
REMAI accepted the peace treaty, and then Gavagai sent back my cow for pigs trade, WHEW. Perhaps I'm being overly paranoid here; I was pretty surprised when I saw the boats, thinking that he had enough problems with HAK and Gawdzak, who have been very aggressive towards him, each declaring war over settlements (not exactly sure what went on with Gav/Gawd, but I presume its the same deal as Gav/HAK), and Mackoti, who's got a very close and advantageous geographic situation over Gav and no other border tension to worry about. Anyways, WHEW, I'll say it again.
+ Meditation (128)
+ Aesthetics (483)
+ Literature (322)
+ Philosophy (1288)
+ Music (966)
+ Paper (966)
+ Civil Service (1288)
-----------------------
5441
Pretty good, although I've also got half of guilds, 300 gold, and 4 GA turns on him too. If I had to guess, I'd say he's making a run at Lib. I've played enough CFC Lonely Hearts Club games (single player game w/ isolated start) to know that that GLH -> TGL -> Bulb Astro or Lib is the way to win an isolated start. If this were base BTS, I'd say he'd want to lib Astro, but Economics is the big lib prize in RtR so my guess is that he'd go there first. Dtay looks to be making a run at Lib too though... he has an almost identical gold-saving rate to me (~390 gpt), but is up Philosophy. He switched into Bureau AND Pacifism at the start of his GA, and has like 5 turns worth of 100% research saved up. I'm guessing he also has way more libraries than I do too, and very likely an Academy in his capital.
City count comparison
Gawdzak: 17 cities (still completely stagnated... his GA and switch into caste was too early, I think. He shoulda whipped more settlers. Wasting time on the Parthenon instead of settlers was a mistake too, IMHO...)
Me: 20 cities (21 next turn and then I'm pretty much out of spots until I'm able to kill a neighbor)
dtay: 21 cities (still ahead of me by 42 CY)
plako: 21 cities (he's taken 3-4 barb cities I think)
Commodore: 17 cities (similar situation as me, I think, but with way scarier neighbors)
Gavagai: 13 cities (stagnated)
Furungy: 11 cities (still has a million spots left unsettled)
HAK: 13 cities (finally pickin' up the pace!)
DNF: 15 cities
REMAI: 8 cities
Mackoti: 13 cities (stagnated, and I was the only one giving him ICTR for AGES, although he finally met plako and DNF, who just recently gave him some.)
Of course, Mackoti may be small, yet is still in this... why? Because of this:
ARRRRRRRRGHGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh my fucking god these guys are driving me crazy. Big Mack got a 25 point score increase this turn, which is almost certainly Nationalism (he's almost for sure the tech leader, with a large score (very close to mine), consistently huge GNP, and low land and population), and is now getting Marble for basically free. Its like, OK, its not doin' y'all any good, I can understand trading it away even to Mack (reminder that he has the MoM and has yet to throw a GA. We're going to see a 60 turn one this game, mark my words. Who needs more cities if each one is doubly effective?) but at least ask for something for it. 30gpt, 40gpt, AND dyes for marble? Even then, some people would still accuse you of kingmaking.
That said, dtay is feeling more and more like a runaway... the big problem here is that while the other leaders have Issues to deal with (Gawdzak - island empire; me, Commodore, Gavagai - aggressive neighbor pressure; Plako - sterile sprawl), dtay seems to have no problems at all.... just REX REX REX...
P.S. Screenshots of my empire that shoulda accompanied my "core" paragraph from last turn:
I got Guilds (1610 beakers) in this turn (the exact same turn I got it in PB18, heh), while Gawdzak just got Education (3621 beakers), yowza. So the real beaker-gap between us is 4700 beakers almost exactly, and I have 400 extra gold banked. Meanwhile, dtay has 2100 gold banked and a stashed merchant. I have not a clue what anyone else has. I decided to grab Theology at 100% this turn and switch into Theocracy at the end of my GA. (along with Caste) After I settle my GG, I can crank out 11 XP knights and 6 XP galleys from my soon-to-be Heroic Epic city...
I just got an updated map on him this turn; I was shocked to find that he still has only one offshore city, while his mainland is pretty underdeveloped. Despite having stone for ages, he still hasn't built a Moai, either. I really don't get what's going on with him here. I mean, you have the GLH and 60 hammer courthouses, cities are better than free, bro. What else could he have been doing? One thought I had is that he's just been building random wonders, landing TGL and the Parthenon but failing multiple others... then using the failgold to leap ahead on tech. That would explain his big tech lead without ever having a peak GNP that was far ahead, because the failgold meant that his AVERAGE GNP was far ahead.
My food gap with dtay widened back up to 54, but I think he took off a lot of caste merchants last turn, after I played, after he generated that GM last turn, so, so it goes. I still have a 21 hammer lead on him though.
Someone else, perhaps Commodore, has shot past REMAI/Gavagai as the #2 soldier count. I went up to 457k this turn, while this mystery person is at 384k.
Been lazy about updating because of Christmas break, heh. Anyways, the situation is that REMAI are quiet, Furungy is still quiet (and still flatlined last in power), and Gavagai has finally shot up to first (505k to 497k) and power and has many knights. I wasn't the first to Guilds after all! However, it does not appear that he is going after me - I had a trireme poking around his island, and I didn't see any galleys, which would be his only avenue of attack considering that 4 jungle tiles block the land route. It is still possible he has some to the NE, but I doubt it. At any rate, I have knights of my own and can quickly grab Engineeirng, so I don't think I need to worry much. To the other side, Mackoti has finally started his infinite golden age. It is thus much more likely the target is HAK. That's fine with me; a stronger Gavagai is better for fencing in Mack, and frankly HAK has it coming to him for provoking Gavagai in the first place.
Domestically, I have my six forges built already and many more half done. I've got a grocer done bank started in GoatKCD, and a couple more grocers in progress. My Moai is finally done too, so that's nice. The epics will be started very soon; I think I get CS-Aesthetics-Literature three turns in a row before making the plunge towards Education and Economics.
More trollish religion spreads:
Finances:
Agg is saving me 41 gpt, while Org would save 52 gpt with current civics. (that'd be a bit better if I was in Bureau)
I put together a formula to see how much I'm paying to stay in Vassalage instead of Bureau. The hammer cost is easy (half of 13 is 6.5 hammers), but the commerce income was more complex. Here's what I came up with:
CC*BB*(1 + GM*(1-BE) + SM*BE) - (VS)*I = effective commerce cost of Vassalage instead of Bureaucracy
CC = Capital's Commerce = 59 total commerce
BB = Bureaucracy Commerce Bonus = 50%
GM = Gold Multiplier in Capital = +50% (market + grocer)
SM = Science Multiplier in Capital = +25% (library only)
BE = Break-Even Slider % (roughly 53% this turn)
VS = Vassalage Savings = Bureau Upkeep - Vassalage Upkeep + Vassalage Units = 7 difference + 19 units = 26 gold per turn
I = Inflation (currently at +14% and rising)
ecpt = effective commerce per turn (that is, commerce after multipliers)
So, a drop in the bucket I think, given my current empire setup that relies on trade route income. Factoring in the inflation costs on upkeep turned out to be important for accurately analyzing this tradeoff, I think. If you were wondering, had I an academy, that number would go up to 20 ecpt. Having some courthouses would lower this number (increasing the slider), as would not having a market or grocer. Having a market+grocer instead of an academy works out to be the same, overall, if your slider is about 50%.
At any rate, I'm glad I made the decision to stay in Vassalage; 11 XP Knights and 9 XP Melee units is truly worth that cost...
I am probably not going to hit REMAI with Knights. I know that's not what you lurkers want to hear, but its just too much grind for too little payoff. First of all, they're in Vassalage now, which means infinity 5 XP longbows to chew through, in addition to what will probably be a stack of 20 Hwatchas sitting in the holy city. Also, even though Gavagai canceled their ivory deal, they still have I think five? 5xp War Elephants left. That means my Knights will not be very effective stack breakers. I think I'd probably need a stack of at least 50 units, backed by constant reinforcements, to conquer their land with medieval era tech. At that cost, it's no longer worth it. (They still haven't even generated a shrine for me! What use is founding an early religion if you don't get a shrine?) In addition to that, Gavagai's power is enormous, which means I need to leave a sizable horse-based garrison to the north to respond to anything he might do. If I wanted to conquer REMAI now, I'd need to slim down that garrison, which means I'd need Engineering (for pikes and 3-move roads) to keep my north secure. However, I want to skip Engineering for a bit in order to get my Epics and Economics faster, as I feel like that path has a more likely chance of success and thus a better payoff.
So, I'm still gonna get a lot of Knights (Ma3 and ZP can each 3-turn them right now; Ma3 should be able to 1-turn them once the HE is done there), but I just won't be able to bring them to use on offense any time soon. I seriously thought about hitting Furungy for awhile, but the majority of his land is just SOOOOOO far away from my unit producing centers that unless I hit him with overwhelming force, maybe 20 Knights and 8 Amphibious swords, he'd be able to stabilize by the time I took 2 or 3 cities... and then I'll find myself languishing in another eternal stalemate. No thanks.
As far as my chances to win... not bad. I'd tentatively put myself in second place right now, behind dtay but ahead of Gawdzak. dtay has the best position on the map, with neighbors of no concern (Commodore pointlessly messing around with plako and DNF being too weak to do anything), and tons of land left to expand to his south and across the sea to the west. He's still up 80 CY on me, which, considering that I'm working many workshops, which lowers my overall yield a bit, is at least 20-25 pop. (For reference, I was at 151 total pop this turn. I could count 167 pop in his cities but I can't see 3 of them) Eventually, he'll run into the very weak Furungy, and I bet we'll end up splitting him in two.
On the other hand, I have two relatively weak neighbors and one strong neighbor; if I can conquer my weak neighbors efficiently I can emerge as the front-runner, but to do that I need to improve my production and ameliorate my logistic nightmare. I need tons more ships, Astronomy, Engineering, and more horse-based troops. I need something like fifteen thousand beakers and like three thousand hammers into units in the next 25 turns. If I can do that, I have a decent chance to win.
Gawdzak, I feel, is third; his current situation is currently very strong due to his tech lead, but he made some big strategic misplays and will eventually find himself competing with bigger empires in every direction for large (continent-sized) islands that should have been completely his no-contest. I don't think he'll have the production to maintain control over such a big, messy area. I'm still not sure though. If he gets econ AND astro before anyone else gets either, he could open up a long enough window to have his cake and eat it too. Mack is the big wild card; he's gearing up for his 60 turn GA, and the big question will be whether that's enough to conquer BOTH Gavagai and HAK. Similar goings for Gavagai; he needs to conquer HAK and then take a big bite out of either me, Mack, or REMAI, and then settle that big swathe of unclaimed land between us. Plako needs to conquer Commodore, while Commodore has forced himself into a situation where he needs to conquer Plako. (they warred again a few turns ago and Commodore took a city and burned another). I can't see either of those happening without a huge cost. DNF needs either for dtay to delete all of his units and turn himself over to the AI, or for Commodore to invade dtay with an extraordinarily big all-in army such that dtay is forced to cede his entire eastern half to them. HAK, REMAI and Furungy... I can't see any path to victory for them.
I enjoyed reading most of this straight thru (for the first time) today, nice thread. Your mechanics are as strong as your narrative, keep up the good work.
I especially like the diplo/geopolitical analysis, good stuff. Nicely done dealing with the "alae style" bay encroachment. That line made me laugh.
You initially planned to cede the isthmus to gavagai in the north, but then the barb city was too tempting so you reached across your planned dmz line. Then you said if he razed the barb city you'd be unhappy but not vengeful... how do you see that relationship shaking out long term?
I liked the buildup for aggressive war, complete with sandbagged builds, only to barely (thanks.to rng) repel an attack from your victim. Pretty unfortunate timing for them, which you nailed perfectly. I bet those two turns with your free horchers out of pocket were tense for you... and would have been moreso if you knew what he was bringing!
Also the "three cores" concept is cool, but three standing armies sounds expensive!
Oh hey Ceiliazul, always a pleasure to have you in my thread. And thanks for the kind words!
Those horcher turns... lol yeah, that was very stressful, I started freaking out over the next couple days irl about it, running through different scenerios trying to figure out how to bring the units over faster. In the end, just bringing them over the simple way was as fast as anything else. I'm just glad I didn't wait until the very last second with them like I originally planned.
The situation with Gavagai... yeah, you're right, I've kinda done a 180 on it. I wonder if I'll regret that down the line... it's interesting how the long pace of these pitboss games allows the mind to drift afar on policy over the course of just a few dozen turns, which, IRL, of course, is actually a couple months. What I think happened is that as REMAI started to go whip-crazy, I needed to focus more and more production on military to keep up. Thus, my crop yield, city count, worker count, etc - all the usual growth metrics I had been measuring our civ against the competition - started to stagnate. At the same time, dtay started to explode, and I started to worry about falling behind again... both of Shaka's traits peaked at the mid-game, while the Wangster has the premiere late-game trait, so it was not a good sign that we were being passed by during the period that we shoulda been at our peak. That made me feel a lot more greedy... and hey, free city, right? I said I wouldn't settle there, but I didn't have to settle there! Clearly the Civ Gods want me to have it - it grew to size 2 on the very turn I had planned to just wipe it out! At the same time, I noticed that Gavagai had settled as such to block himself off from that jungle and had his own problems with HAK. Part of me just felt like, well, if you're so apathetic about the area that you can't even be arsed to send a single axe down to spawn bust, much less settle this area before the barb city even spawned then... well, I guess I'll just take it then. Going forward... I think I'll be more and more attached to it as each new tile is improved. I'll have the area finally "legit" in about a 6 turns... the city will be lvl 4, working 4 improved tiles and finishing a Granary. Regardless of anything else, it has a lot of strategic value as a crumple zone... I'll just have to remember that when it's size 16 with a half dozen buildings inside!
Three standing armies will indeed be expensive (less so with Vassalage, thank god for thinking outside the box a bit) but... I'm not sure what other option I have, other than to try to bluff that my army somehow exists everywhere. My territory is just soooooooo wide... units from my prospective HE would take 10 turns to reach my Furungy front AFTER I have Engineering! If we had espionage off and spies as illegal builds (like we do in the Civ4 games I play at another website) that would be a very viable option, but... that's not the case, and I'm not in any position to deal with someone calling me on it until much later in the game. (combustion/railroad later, to be specific)
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