[PB22 Spoiler] Joey and Borsche puke on the funny pages

[GermanJoey]

Naw, it was just the name. I try pretty hard to avoid cross contamination. Even when I have to pass on taunting you about repeatedly attacking PRO guys!

My target isn't Pro this time!!! REMAI are piloting Exp/Org Mehmed... its just that they're in Vassalage (hence all the CG2 Longbows) and got an event that gives all their Pikemen shock. So, kinda like Pro, but worse.

[GermanJoey]

T168.

So, after the peace-treaty back and forth business yesterday evening, REM logged back in, whipped 4 more times, and then picked off the other Numid and the Knight. This, like, really pisses me off just on the principle of the thing. They ended their turn and gave me the go ahead to look at the situation, but then played again afterwards after I made my decision! I had been assuming that we were both "done" - as would have been the case if I hadn't had responded to their PM at all. These guys, I swear... well, luckily karma got my back this time made them whiff twice, first on a Numid at 96% odds and then on a C2 Knight with 50% odds. Nice!




I cleaned up the 6.7hp Knight at with a 9XP one 88% odds and then reinforced the tile with a pair of C3s. Then I did this, nasty surprise #1:




That's a pocket G3 Longbow I had hidden in my stack as a blue G2 + 11/5 XP unit - able to move onto that hill and raze in a single turn. On the same tile as him is my last Numid. Next turn, the numid can raze and move onto the next hill, while the longbow can move and then raze. If they want to dislodge it, they'll likely need to sacrifice 4 Knights - two to beat down the LB, and two more to sacrifice to me next turn. Meanwhile, the main bulk of my stack moved into a fort this turn, and, well, how about that - it turns out I had ANOTHER longbow, this one at 7/0 XP, that I could upgrade to CG2 this turn. Did you know that forts count as cities for CG promotions? I'm glad I ended up bringing these guys; they were just supposed to be yet another generic hitter/collateral absorber for my stack, but now they're extremely useful. Even with 10 units less than it had originally (5 on adjacent tiles, 5 dead), my units are still quite safe. Long story short, I'm cutting off his road network to isolate his stack from his core.

Why? Because his core is basically completely empty, the only units he's got are what he whipped last couple of turns:




So, you ask, what's to stop him from just following your stack back, catching you in a pincer attack? Well, there's this:




I've got enough units to move in a SECOND offensive stack, these 11 units + another 5 knights next turn. If he follows my main stack, my secondary stack can move in on MCG. If he holds at MCG, my main stack will gut his core. And oh yeah, I've got these things called Galleons in a few turns, I wonder if there's anything I can do with those...

Speaking of Galleons, Gawdzak got Astro this turn! That's a bit earlier than I expected. I checked to see if I could get it in 2 turns with 5-6 research builds in my better hammer cities, but no go, just short. Oh well, at least I save some money this way. I still wonder if he wants to attack me... he's also got Gavagai and dtay as options, and I just noticed this odd bit on the map this turn:




I think this was revealed in that map trade I got from Gavagai a few turns ago? It's not from Mack or else the tiles around the city's borders would be revealed. Interesting, this is actually galley accessible. y'know, Mackoti settled a bunch of cities like 15-20 turns ago and I couldn't figure out where... I wonder how much land is here? It seems doubtful that he'd sail galleys past Gavagai's land to settle a site that would be cut off in a pre-Astro war. I offered Donovan a map trade this turn to see what else is up there; as a sub, he probably doesn't know that island is secret info...

What else did I do this turn? Oh yeah, I declared another war this turn, on Furungy again. Hmmm... ever since the bloodthirsty Dr. Ceiliazul started reading this thread I feel strangely compelled to go to war as much as possible... funny thing, that.




My amphibious Sword won on the first try, easy does it, only 40 more XP till my "Commando" GG Instructor. No buildings were left in the city, but all it had was a newish monument anyways. I sent Furungy an immediate white peace treaty to signal that this is all I want. I dumped a settler on the island as well, to be settled at that fish site in 2 turns. I have a few more settlers coming out - including fillers, I have 6 spots that I immediately want to settle, 9 if I'm able to take MCG.

Final thing to note is that dtay completed a quest:




Largest force of Knights??!? I've seen your power graph, like hell do you have the largest force of knights!! I've got 4 different stacks that probably each have more knights than you have total!




Uh, dammit, I somehow took the screenshot when the blinking white dots showing my Knights' locations were blinking down. Um, just pretend there's white dots all over this map here, ok?

[GermanJoey]

T169.

Furungy accepted peace, and there were no new battles on the Korean front. Gawdzak got Rifling this turn (!) but I didn't spot any Galleons around; I have a 5-move Caravel near the one other spot he could be hiding stuff, so I'll know for sure in two turns. We'll see if we start to see the draft counters start flying when he plays this turn. He has a shitload of EP invested against me, so I'm guessing that he has city visibility. I wish there was some other way to cheaply generate EP from buildings besides the slider. =/ Maybe I should run it at 10% for a turn or two if he see him start drafting? I'm starting to get nervous, I didn't expect both so soon... I'm nervous enough that I convinced myself to send an exorbitant peace treaty offer to the Soccer Hooligans, peace for 500 gold. Honestly, I'd be willing to take less, if Gaw has full city visibility he can see how exposed my back is right now.

Donovan got Astro this turn too, and I can see why thanks to him accepting my map trade. He's got this HUGE secret island (I took a picture but forgot to send it to myself at work again, heh) to his east that currently has 5 cities and like ~40 pop with room for at least 5 more cities too. Wow! too bad he didn't find that earlier... its actually accessible via galley from a mountain island in his northeast, in addition to a passage near Gavagai. I sent a map trade to Gawdzak to show him... hell, if he refuses again, I might just send him my map for free next turn. Just stay away from me, man, I need time to consolidate my ridiculously-shaped empire.

[GermanJoey]

lol, i'm totally referring to korea as TSH (The Soccer Hooligans) instead of REMAI from now on

[GermanJoey]

T170.

Blugh, crappy turn for me. Woke up this morning to a smug PM from REM declining my peace offer - they attacked out and did well. They wiped my mini stack near 3CD, killing 7 Knights, a Pike, and 5 cats, losing only 4 pikes in the process. I really shouldn't have moved that stack in without a crossbow for cover - I was just too greedy, and a smart play by them to punish my mistake. My extortion might have actually worked if I just left that stack out of range... They also sniped my G3 Longbow and Numid before I could completely cut their road network off, at the cost of a Knight. Well, this sucks but its not the end of the world for me, as I haven't whipped down all my cities to size 2 and 3 like they have. I sniped one of their triremes in retaliation and sent them a white peace, that I'm sure they'll decline now that they're in full spite-defensive mode. I really got the absolute worst neighbor lottery, didn't I? Sigh, these fucking soccer hooligans, I'm so sick of them, the way they play civ disgusts me. I just wanted them to die so fucking bad that I couldn't help myself, I guess. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll try blindly charging up the hill again? I can only hope.

Astro due next turn, and I put 10% EP into Gawdzak to shut down city visibility.

[Ceiliazul]

Hmmm... ever since the bloodthirsty Dr. Ceiliazul started reading this thread I feel strangely compelled to go to war as much as possible... funny thing, that.

That's it, my lurker skill is maxed out! Nothing left to achieve now... may have to actually start <shudder> PLAYING again.

Also, I know its easy to get upset when people dont follow the script that makes sense to you. This is cheaterHater's great folly. But if you sink into the "disgusted" mindset, that really hurts your chances of seeing the action from their side. That, in turn, hurts your chances of winning.

I say that cuz you're rally good at mechanics, and I think you could be a top level player... but you dont have that intuition about how others will react. Gotta see their side as much as possible. Scooter in pb13 is a great example of this. (And its a fantastic read regardless)

So there's some unasked for advice. Guaranteed to be wrong or your money back.

[GermanJoey]

I have a bit more time now, being stuck in an all-afternoon training. I'm certainly not going to pay attention to that, right?

There's not too much to say about the units I lost; I kept thinking all last night that moving there was a mistake, that they wouldn't fall for the bluff, but I was too chickenshit to log back in and move the Knights back, sacrifcing the cats and pike for nothing. Instead, I just sat on my hands and hoped my opponents would make another mistake, but this is a bad way to play. I think I need to bring back my method of handling tense situations in roguelikes, which is, whenever I need to make a tactical life-or-death decision that matters (and I knew this mattered), I *always*, even if I'm 99.999% sure I think I know what to do, close the game and then load it back up. The very fact that I can't see the map in front of me clears my mind enough to let me make a more rational decision... whether I have to run and cut my losses after a mistake or unexpected situation, or to fight. Well, I'll know I need to next time. I think I could still leverage this situation... their pikes were pretty badly damaged in this attack and luckily they did not kill every Knight I had in the area, so this very well might be the opening I need to take MCG. In fact, had I not advanced towards their capital with my main stack last turn this would have actually been a great tactic for taking that city; it may still work out now, but seems less of a sure thing. Well, we'll see how they respond to the peace treaty offer. I'm still half-expecting that they'll charge at 3CD again.

Anyways, here's something else I've been thinking of a lot the last few weeks, a followup on my comment from last post: a neighbor analysis. Beware, Krill, I am in the mood to type a lot of WORDS.

This isn't ranking player skill, by the way - this is not a tier list! NOT A TIER LIST! - but more a ranking of how much freedom an averagish player here would have to do what they wanted strategically in a given map position, and how much would they be forced to react to what their neighbors were doing. (the same particular neighbors playing the same particular civs) The more you have to react, the worse your neighbors are. Note that this doesnt mean that if things turn out good, then you had an easy neighbor set, or if things turn out bad that means you had a hard neighbor set. This is all about opportunities.

Anyways, there's two parts to my ranking: one is player skill/personality (that you're playing against), the other is map position. First, the players. In terms of pre-game impressions of skill and reputation, my feeling about who I wanted as neighbors was something like this, where the lower you are on this list, the more I'd like to have you as neighbors:

1.) Commodore tier: Commodore
2.) super good player tier: plako, mackoti, dtay
2.) aggressive, solid player tier: gavagai, gawdzak
4.) unknown tier: DNF, REMAI/FSH,
5.) snack tier: HAK, Furungy

Commodore, of course, is in a class of bad neighbor all by himself. Its funny, when I first started reading this site my impression of him (heavily influenced by his own perspective, as I'd always (and sometimes only) read his threads first because of how much effort he puts into them) was that he was just an enthusiastic, playful guy, but the more old games I read (and from other players' perspectives) the more I realize what a nightmare he is to deal with. Everyone else is more of a tossup. A player like Mackoti is more likely to sniff out some strategic weakness of yours and gut you for it in an instant, a player that will beat you in a duel almost every time. However, we're not playing a duel, we're playing an FFA, and so if he's just teching up or beating on someone else, he's not really a bad neighbor. On the other hand, someone like Gavagai or Gawdzak typically will always carry a big standing army and force you to play around the *pressure* of it even if they're otherwise not your enemy #1. This will slow down your development and lead to a weak-point that they or another player (always the trouble in these FFAs!) can exploit.

The other big factor for neighbors is the map, which has both a static quality to it as well as one that changes through the various eras. For example, Gawdzak is my neighbor - our borders are separated by just one tile, and things are quite tense between us right now. However, for the first 170 turns, we were basically not neighbors due to the impossible logistics of transporting a reasonably-sized army to land 10 turns away via galleys. In contrast, dtay borders Commodore, a potential crisis, but was able to secure an absurdly unassailable chokepoint separated by an oasis and hills. Long-term, its an even safer choke than what I have with Korea as its not even vulnerable by sea! On the other hand, they bordered each other very early, and thus had to account for some pressure between them for a long time. The longer you have to actually deal with a strong neighbor, the worse of a setback it is.

Here's my "neighbor ranking" for PB22 based on what I can tell so far from this map. The higher you are on this list, the better you did in the neighbor lottery; this ranking includes opportunities/problems each player might have had earlier in the game rather than being a snapshot of the current game state. The quality of one's only land matters a some in this ranking, but isn't the biggest factor.

1.) Gawdzak: 2 sea neighbors, no worries - he might have problems once we enter the age of Combustion, but he has no problems now, none in the near future, and has had none so far all game. He's had the freedom to do whatever he wanted. Will his choices lead him to winning the game? It is very possible - we shall see.

2.) Furungy: He's got one chokepoint-neighbor, me. I'm not the world's best neighbor by any stretch of the imagination, but we really didn't even have a shared border. Like Gawdzak, he also had the freedom to do pretty much whatever he wanted, but didn't make such good choices and ended up with nothing to show for himself. He didn't even bother to send out an exploring work boat to meet people despite his isolated position! He will soon have to deal with dtay as well as me, a new neighbor via sea.

3.) FSH: one chokepoint neighbor (me), one sea neighbor (DNF). These guys had almost an ideal setup - with a safe chokepoint on one side, giving them room for like a dozen cities in their core, and then a retarded amount of empty, lush land to expand to by galley to the north. They should have developed like dtay, except bordering HAK instead of DNF and me instead of Commodore, an enviable position. I mean, sure these guys had some tundra and ice, but then dtay had at least an equal amount of desert and look how he turned out. Actually, hell, I'd have to count it but I think dtay has more tundra and ice in his borders than these guys do too. But, instead of building an empire and trying to win the game, the hooligans had insane tunnel vision on taking my small, shitty chokepoint city, losing 100+ units in three attempts and having nothing to show for it in the process. They're a full era behind in tech (and only so good there because of RtR KTB), super behind in cities despite getting three cities for free from barbs, almost no infrastructure except for granaries, no shrine despite Hindu holy city, etc, etc. Their tunnel vision is so extreme that they seem to have not even bothered defending their island holdings from DNF, nor made plans to take it back, nor even hold the slight against them!

4.) DNF: One land neighbor (dtay) and one sea neighbor (FSH). dtay's been playing sim city all game (he's had an extremely low power all game until just recently) but seems to have still managed to pressure these guys somehow. How could he settle 4 rings of cities without going to war for that land? It is a huge mystery in this game, something went wrong there. They were still able to get some good wonders and the Christian holy city and have a true powerhouse GNP and MFG. Unfortunately, the fact that dtay's just got rifling will be a big problem. On the other side, the hooligans been basically a snack-tier civ for them: they sniped a three city island at no losses and then somehow got the Fucking Soccer Hooligans to be their preferred trading ally. I wonder why they haven't tried for the cities on Korea's northern continent already? They'd need just a few Caravel's full of Knights to take 6 cities, every single fucking Korean unit is down near me.

5.) Mackoti: One land neighbor (Gav), one chokepoint neighbor. (HAK) Gavagai is a fearsome neighbor to have a big, intertwined border with, as he is one who is sure to not only develop a big standing army, but to also use it. On the other hand, HAK is a snack, and Mack (and his replacements) have gotten several cities for free from him. Soon, he will only have Gavagai to fear.

6.) HAK: Two chokepoint neighbors (Gav and Mack). Both of his neighbors are dangerous players, sure, and he didn't have the cleanest borders in the world, but he had did not take advantage of his opportunity to settle a huge amount of empty land. Instead, he built a bunch of useless wonders and then provoked a fight against a stronger opponent that he couldn't have possibly won.

7.) dtay: One chokepoint neighbor (Commodore), and one land neighbor. (DNF) He should rank lower due to bordering Commodore, but their border is absurdly secure. Not even an artist bomb would do any good there because the border tiles are fucking hills and an oasis, and I'm sure the border city is 4th ring culture by now. DNF don't have much of a standing army but have war-decced dtay a couple of times, maybe just settling bluffs or something like that. I haven't seen any fluctuations in either of their power graphs. As far as I can tell, dtay was able to settle 4 rings of cities towards DNF somehow. That is a lot of fucking freedom.

8.) Commodore: two chokepoint neighbors. (plako and dtay) Both of Commodore's neighbors are extremely fearsome players, but they've just been playing sim city this game so I think he's still had a lot of freedom to do whatever. For example, plako has not whipped a single time all game and dtay has expanded in every direction except towards the Netherlands. That's not to say that Commodore's map position is like, actually good due to being fairly land-poor, but part of that I think is his fault too. Commodore will have a hard time from here-on out, I think, as both of his neighbors have developed stronger than he did.

9.) Plako: Only one neighbor, Commodore. Bordering Commodore is probably roughly as bad as bordering two tier-2 neighbors, and plako's already lost a couple of cities to an early Commodore-style artist bomb. He also has a ridiculously huge stretch of ice above his land, so I'm sure he's had horrible troubles with barbarians. He's since stabilized his border problems and probably has the safest position in the game, going forward.

10.) Gavagai: 4 neighbors: one land, two chokepoint, one sea. Before Big Mack got a sub, I would have ranked Gavagai as having the worst neighbor luck of all. It surely must have been super stressful to deal with someone like Mackoti having two gold mines and landing two major wonders in the classical age, but fortunately (for Gavagai) Mack didn't have much food and the crisis eventually passed. I now completely understand why Gavagai hit Mackoti when he did; with snack-HAK going the way of the digestive track, soon Gavagai would be sandwiched between three front-runners (yes, a three-sided sandwich, a triangle of bread, PICTURE IT IN YOUR MINDS AND DESPAIR) - me, Gawdzak, and Mackoti - in the ren era. He'd essentially have no freedom to move at all... the fact that HAK was weak actually made things WORSE for Gavagai, as now Mack would border him in two (three?) different regions. So, he took a risk and tried to cripple Mackoti while he still only had one dangerous neighbor to deal with. Unfortunately for him, it didn't work out, and made his situation worse. Was it the wrong move, if he wanted to win? I don't know, but it might have been the best chance he had. He needs to finish off HAK quickly and come to some sort of stable arrangement with Donovan, as Gav's eastern flank is the most exposed location to a Gawdzak invasion on the entire map.

11.) Me: three chokepoint neighbors, one sea. My early map position wasn't actually too bad; Furungy, Gawdzak, and Gavagai were far away, and I had what I thought was a safe, stable chokepoint to ward off further aggression from REM and Adrien. And, had, like, any other set of players on earth piloted Mehmed of Korea, I think I would have had an easy time of it, only needing to hold back the hordes of barbarians that seemed to find their way to my borders. However, it turns out that The Fucking Soccer Hooligans are the neighbors from hell, the worst possible kind of neighbor that isn't named Commodore. First, we had the infamous, unprovoked pig stepping, THEN the warrior rush (I still can't believe they warrior rushed from 19 tiles away, the mind boggles), then the first 40 unit ancient-era stack, then another 40 unit classical stack, then a follow up dozen unit Medieval stack, and now I'll soon be dealing with yet another 40 unit stack - perhaps even two of them. These guys do nothing but whip units, over and over and over, shitloads of units sent to the slaughterhouse. Their average city is at maybe size 3 or 4. Their cities have almost no infrastructure (besides Granaries, of course) and work mostly farms and mines. They've even been heavily whipping their Moai! Who does that! I think I've dealt with them as efficiently as possible, killing more units of theirs than perhaps any other player in this game has even built. However, it is difficult to keep up with the Joneses in an FFA at the same time as all this... gold burnt on upgrades instead of techs and hammers burnt on units instead of markets, libraries, and banks has seen me slip behind dtay, and the further I get behind the worse my situation gets. For example, I'll lose an entire turn of gold saving next turn on galley->galleon upgrades to secure myself against a Gawdzak invasion. If that's not bad enough, I've had the constant worry of Gavagai's huge army and soon he will share a large border with me via sea. Worse yet, Gawdzak has now finally come "online" with Galleons and draftable rifles at his fingertips, and I am certainly on the shortlist of targets. I've also seen a bunch of Knights galloping around his borders, so its very possible that, as he is one tech away from MT, that he'll soon have Calvaries too. What can I do against that except to have more and better boats? What a pain...

[GermanJoey]

Hmmm... ever since the bloodthirsty Dr. Ceiliazul started reading this thread I feel strangely compelled to go to war as much as possible... funny thing, that.

That's it, my lurker skill is maxed out! Nothing left to achieve now... may have to actually start <shudder> PLAYING again.

Also, I know its easy to get upset when people dont follow the script that makes sense to you. This is cheaterHater's great folly. But if you sink into the "disgusted" mindset, that really hurts your chances of seeing the action from their side. That, in turn, hurts your chances of winning.

I say that cuz you're rally good at mechanics, and I think you could be a top level player... but you dont have that intuition about how others will react. Gotta see their side as much as possible. Scooter in pb13 is a great example of this. (And its a fantastic read regardless)

So there's some unasked for advice. Guaranteed to be wrong or your money back.

You have a very good point, thanks for the kind words of advice, Ceiliazul. Disgusted was too strong of a word there, this is just a game after all... I'm very grumpy when I wake up, so my wife tells me, and have a tendecy to be overly dramatic. Or, at least, I like to express myself dramatically.

As far as understanding these guys from their own perspective... I do think I have a bit of a feeling for it. I think their initial reaction was similar to how I initially felt about Haram in PB20, where I felt very backed into a corner and felt like I had to do something about the situation or else the situation would continue to get worse. I can see that looking back, although it was (and continues to be) baffling to me due to the huge distance between us. Even the distance between MCG and 3CD is huge, 6 diagonal tiles! Later on, in present day, their motivation is clearly to go down swinging. They just want to do as much damage as they can to their long-time enemy and prove that they ain't no bunch of chumps. That I can understand very well too, and can understand that my extortion attempt really pissed them off and was not a smart play if my aim was to efficiently attrition them down... I was partly thinking that I could recover some of my economic loss relative to Gawdzak that way, but honestly I just wanted to punish them. It was a duelish mindset, the very trap that I've been trying to avoid. They've just been such a pain in the ass for such a long time, y'know?

I suppose I can even understand their trying to get the choke that first time. I did a lot of tricks to hide my power buildup and had that stable quest in my back pocket as well... my aim was to invade them, but my stack worked out defensively just as well. I don't know why they thought that invading me was a better idea than simply expanding freely, as that's what I expected them to do, and I don't know why they so easily forgave Portugal yet held a grudge against me. Perhaps they thought that I did more damage to their chances of winning despite not doing any actual damage to their empire? Or perhaps they blamed me for the damage they did to their own empire from such heavy whipping?

What I truly don't get is all that's happened in between T120 and T150. Why the continued obsession with that choke by that time? I caught a spy of theirs, they must have seen that the choke was not empty, and that even if they could take that city then they would get nothing further. I cannot believe that their motivation was anything beyond spite by this time - a Captain Ahab-esque disposition of "...To the last, I grapple with thee; from hell's heart, I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."

Would they feel safer if they had that spot for themselves, that I'd still sit back passively while they could fork my core? That makes no sense to me. What's the payoff here? Did they think I'd crumple easily if that city was gone? Why continue pumping so much military at all by this time, and not settlers and workers in an attempt to recover and get back in the game? That's what I tried in PB20, and although it didn't work out, I could have seen it working out. It certainly did work out for Haram, he stayed in the game and ended up finishing fourth despite huge early setbacks and several more in the mid game. I had a lot of respect for his play in that game. These guys... I dunno, maybe I'm just too far up my own ass at this point but I can't help but feel like they're playing to make me lose rather than to help themselves win for a very long time, and that's what I find so... in-admirable.

Hmmmm.... perhaps their second invasion was a more extreme example, similar to my mistake with that little Knight/cat stack, of realizing that one has made a mistake but, instead of accepting that it is what it is, you go all-in on the mistake in order to try covering it up? I don't know what I could have done in reaction in that case. I certainly was not inclined to offer open borders in the spirit of friendship, in the turns before I decced on Furungy, when I knew they still had a large stack of units sitting near my borders. What else has weight in a no-diplo game that means, hey, stay the hell away from me and I'll stay the hell away from you? A fish-for-fish deal would have meant nothing here... I would not have believed it myself if I was in their shoes.

I dunno, I guess I'll learn something once I can read their thread when this game is over.

[GermanJoey]

I logged in because I forgot to set a new city of mine "Lucky Penny," to a caste specialist, and discovered that they accepted the peace treaty without even sending it back, to my surprise. So, that's that for awhile I suppose.

[GermanJoey]

T172.

TBS man, I've been looking forward to this astro island (I could see the ocean food indicators east of RIPFF) for like the last dozen turns. Couldn't you have thrown me a clam or something?




Sigh, I'll still probably end up settling this turd anyways, it has a lot of value for me strategically. I had a settler+worker on an upgraded galley all set up to move here the turn after I got Astro, but I sent them to another filler instead.

I got my 3rd Great Person a few ago, a second great prophet at 16% odds. I guess I'll just save him for my 3rd GA, a 12% world pop shrine in a level 1 city won't be worth burning a great person over. I'll get my next at T179, IIRC. I burned 1030 gold in the last few turns upgrading galleys and triremes to Galleons and Caravels; I think I have one more Galley I'd like to upgrade and then that's it. The GA would have really helped catch me back up in tech; the one economic advantage I have right now, against the other 3 contenders, is that I haven't burnt my second GA yet. My peak bpt is probably similar to Gawdzak yet with double expenses, while dtay's gold saving rate is +250gpt higher than me with probably way more libraries, universities, etc. I'm trying to catch back up on infrastructure, I've focused so much on unit production that many cities don't even have Markets yet. I've got 6 settlers about to plant over the next few turns too, which should help. New cities still yield a profit despite my enormous city expenses. (iirc, something like 210/turn pre-inflation but after my Agg discount)

I've been trying to decide whether I want to war with Furungy or FSH... I think I can kill one, but not both, if I shuffle my forces around and use my Galleons wisely... I need to decide next turn which to hit, my Peace Treaty with Furungy expires in just 6 turns.