[SPOILERS]Zara Yaqob of Byzantium and the Melancholies of Gawdzak and BaII

[Gawdzak]

Ehh it was fun working with u for the limited amount of time though.

Agreed, some of your contributions were extremely valuable. Although the game seems to be back on.

I got another city. Zanth's got Engineering now, so things might get difficult.

Our power is absolutely ridiculous, more than doubles the rival best.




Btw, the PB23 forum now has more posts than this forum even though this game started 4 months earlier.

[BaII]

Wow that is a very impressive feat. Do we have enough power that we can swallow both oppenents on our island or is that too much to ask for in terms of maintence costs?

[Gawdzak]

Wow that is a very impressive feat. Do we have enough power that we can swallow both oppenents on our island or is that too much to ask for in terms of maintence costs?

It's possible only if Gavagai does nothing, which is highly unlikely. In fact, I fully expect a backstab from him at some point. Why? Look at this:




Why else would he be stacking troops on our borders? I hoped that Gavagai would be trying to snipe Zanth's two northern cities which I deliberated left for him in order to relieve pressure on us. He doesn't have the units to pose a true threat to us yet but it's worth keeping an eye on.

Anyways, we captured Amber Gogohn this turn. I meant to take a SS of what defenders he had, but I either forgot or the SS didn't take. He left a couple catapults defending the city, which I believe is a mistake. This is how I positioned our troops, both Emergentor and Lilac Eye should fall next turn baring some unforeseen circumstance.




The capture gold even gave us enough to be able to get a coin flip chance at landing the Music Artist.

We got Literature and can think about starting the Heroic Epic. It's probably going to go to Yuno:




Although cities like Misaki is also worth considering, even though it will take time for that city to grow:




Archerland will grab us that marble soon.

[BaII]

Is their a possibility of a Gavagi stack hitting us from Zanth territory? Or is that minor stack on our border the extent of his military? I think the Nationalism route this game for a possible shot at Taj Mahal is a big deal, or we could just go for Astro and try to scout for some islands to take advantage of. Either option I see as very strong.

[Gawdzak]

Is their a possibility of a Gavagi stack hitting us from Zanth territory? Or is that minor stack on our border the extent of his military? I think the Nationalism route this game for a possible shot at Taj Mahal is a big deal, or we could just go for Astro and try to scout for some islands to take advantage of. Either option I see as very strong.

I'm keeping an eye out for any Gavagai attack from the fog but I don't see a threat at the moment. I'm pretty sure that stack is his main force.

I would love to get the Taj of course but the chances for that happening is pretty low to be honest. I have a feeling that Barteq is going for it. He founded Daoism a few turns ago and was last seen researching Nationalism. He's also been heavily investing EP into us so I cannot see his research at the moment. Someone also got a GE, which I suspect is Barteq's from the Hanging Gardens GE points.

My point is that it might be too risky for us to go for that route. I'm trying to regain visibility of Barteq's research before we make a final decision. Besides it will take a little while for us to recover our economy. Building almost 50 cataphracts tends to slow down one's tech rate.

Here you can see how much we are paying for our army:




Astro will important later to control the seas, although I don't exactly fear a naval invasion at this point in time. It would be suicide for the others to launch a naval invasion when they've got two land neighbours.

I'm not too sure what to tech next. What would give us the maximum benefit with minimum investment at the moment?

Turn 144

We got the Music Artist, heck yeah!

On the Zanth front:




We got the two cities as expected, including Zanth's former capital. 12 phracts can hit Void Spider next turn, Zanth's new capital with the Buddhist Shrine. I will attack Void Spider depending on how many units he have. Also I'm trying to cut off his iron pictured above, he has another source but it's unconnected. He will probably gift another one of our rivals a lot of gold for their iron. Would it still be the right move to pillage?

[Gawdzak]

Game is still paused, but we did get this:

[Gawdzak]

"This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."

The game dies, a few final shots I guess:










A last look at Mikasa, I had a lot fun building this city:




Commodore, thanks for the map.

BaII, it was a pleasure working with you.

[GermanJoey]

Man, you nailed the picks perfectly with Cre/Org of Byzantium, that was so perfect for this map. Very nicely played all the way through, GG Gawdzak!

[BaII]

Dam this game would have been fun to see play out..... *internet handshake it was fun working with yah. Hope you enjoyed the game while it lasted