Your weekly report here
Building UoS, b/c why not? Not that expensive, should pay back if I get it, and if not #failgold
GJ beating up on Furungy. Might eat the island remainders if this continues
If GJ succeeds here his civ is going to be comically undefendable. Like worse than my civ in PB18, and I thought THAT was comically undefendable.
Massive CY lead over the neighbors
But the terrorists to my east are equaling me in MFG, and I'm in a golden age!
Like really, their tech is mediocre and their CY sucks, but they have tons of MFG and will presumably turn that into an army at some point. They're basically North Korea.
But not thus far:
Beginning to build the cat stack
Demos
CY depressed by the 3 cities currently running 8+ specialists
Overview shot
Long term strat:
Neighbors - eventually I need to attack the Portuguese terrorists. I thought long and hard about trying to go for the kill in the next 15 turns by beelining rifles and drafting up a storm. I decided I can't justify it while empty islands abound and I can pick the corpse of Furungy via the sea. But it was close (see my civics choice below). Very close. But I'm going to outtech them as time passes (I already am), so as long as I'm vigilant and build a collateral stack I can defend against them pretty easily should they choose to move beyond random annoyances and actually attack me. I realistically need a navy in any case just to defend extensive number of islands, so a long land-focused beeling could be dangerous if any of GJ, Gawdzak, or Commodore decided to go for Astro.
I was being humorous with the North Korea comparison, but honestly it is pretty accurate. I've traded maps around a lot and no one seems to have their map. They have attacked any troops/workers I leave unguarded near their borders. They have absurd stacks defending single workers building farms. This sums up to one paranoid outlook on civ. 2metra is the only one of the players with a backbhistory I've read about, and this seems consistent with him anyway. Though he seems to be the member of the triplet playing the least.
Commodore has been tussling with Plako. Our border is peaceful but militarized. I have an ideal defensive position (as I've mentioned before), and intend to keep it like that unless full war starts between Plako and commodore and I see some power dips. Until then east and west seem like better paths to expansion.
Furungy appears to be dying to GJ. Will grab the two easternmost cities if it continues, they aren't actually connected by land to the rest of the civ, connected by a single mountain tile.
GJ - one of the other quasi leaders (this game appears to lack a runaway thus far). He might neighbor me soon. If he does, his empire is comically stretched out, very vulnerable to the
Sirian Badass Doctrine (see: PB13, PB18
).
This feels like a game where a quick Astro could pay dividends. I have a large naval empire, a weak neighbor over the sea to the west, and a neighbor to the east that is very coastal and has the Colossus so won't want to follow.
Gawdzak - islsands are getting pretty close to him. He has lots of points but not a lot of cities, so I don't need to drag him down or anything. I could get into an island fight with him, but don't plan on much beyond that for now.
Civics - I thought a ton about whether to grab nationalism and switch to nationhood/(serf or caste) at the end of this golden age. Nationhood would make me feel safe without slavery, though I still could use slavery on the islands to whip in infrastructure. In the end I think war isn't likely enough in the next 20 turns to justify it, the better GNP combo of bur and slavery won out. This will also let me finish developing all the islands I'm working on, which are a TON harder to get off the ground without slavery.
Triple GP Golden age will aim to switch to US/nationhood/(serf-or-caste)/(theocracy-or-FR). If I happen to have state property available I'd probably switch into that (haven't done the math, probably GNP equivelent to FM but the food on workshops and watermills is sweet), but don't mind being in FM permanently. The US is the hardest part of that above desire, I very well might want nationhood available before I have Democracy. But I will have so many towns that the hammer boost would be very very significant.
Tech - I grabbed printing press and replaceable parts because I think I'm almost certainly going to want Rifling reasonably soon, I managed to 1t both of them (bulb and overflow), and both give constant output bonuses to a significant number of my tiles so getting them sooner is better than later. Now I'm just backfilling stuff a normal person long since acquired. Got iron working 2t ago, getting HBR next, then Enginneering and Aesthetics->lit->music. I need theocracy or liberalism before the next golden age but not before, until then pacifisim is fine for getting that next golden age (and isn't actually that expensive cause of a middling expected army and no civic cost).
After filling in going for Astro and rifling seems likely, and possibly aim for an amphib assault. I'll want nationalism before next golden age, and would love to have democracy for US and SoL by then as well. And we're approaching the time where I start vaguely thinking about Communism and Physics great people, but that's at least two steps ahead for now.
But as long as I can continue expanding peacefully by sea I don't feel pressured to cash in for military right now. GJ feels like the only one who could run away in that time, but I feel like it'd be easier to deal with that by directly taking Furungy land from him than by trying to quickly eat the portugeuse.
