Sure dude, no problemo. I'm glad you're enjoying the thread so far.
Long story short, Gawdzak and dtay are up a half-era on all the second-tier civs; me, plako, Donovan, Gavagai, DNF, and Commodore are at roughly tech parity.
A more detailed rundown:
Gawdzak Up: Music, Philosophy, Printing Press, Replaceable Parts, Rifling, Chemistry, Nationalism, 300 gold
Gawdzak Down: Nothing
Gawdzak GAs: 3, including Taj and Music Artist. Has an Academy, and I suspect has used 1 bulb.
DNF Up: Drama, Divine Right (founded Islam this turn)
DNF Down: Astronomy, 200 gold
DNF GAs: 2 (finishing their second now)
Plako Up: Drama, Philosophy, Nationalism
Plako Down: Astronomy, Monotheism, Theology, 300 gold
Plako GAs: 2 (just finished his second). Also has a shrine.
Donovan Up: Drama, Philosophy
Donovan Down: Theology
Donovan GAs: 2 (just started second). Has an Academy, and has used at least 2 bulbs.
Commodore Up: Philosophy
Commodore Down: Astronomy, 800 gold
Commodore GAs: 2 (just finished second). Has an Academy too.
Gavagai Up: Nothing
Gavagai Down: Astronomy
Gavagai GAs: 2 (just started his second). Also has a pocket GS (could be an Academy now, forgot to look), and a shrine.
Furungy Up: Philosophy, Nationalism
Furungy Down: Education, Economics, Compass, Optics, Astronomy, 600 gold
Furungy GAs: None. Has an Academy.
HAK Up: Nothing
HAK Down: Meditation, Priesthood, Monotheism, Theology, Alphabet, Paper, Education, Economics, Gunpowder, Banking, Compass, Optics, Astronomy 1000 gold
HAK GAs: 1
Gavagai just kicked off a GA this turn and started teching something... I wonder what he'll get? I think it has to be an MS beeline... I saw a Caravel and Trireme of his near Gawdzak's territory this turn, so he sees the danger. Based on Gawdzak's movements last turn, I'd say its about a 75% chance he'll hit Gavagai within the next few turns. He had a stack of 6 Galleons right near him, and he's got to realize I'll have frigates before he can bring anything in as close in as my core. On top of that, he knows that I have a large amount of troops and a large number of galleons down near Furungy, so even if he hits (and devastates) my outer island holdings, I'd be able to flank his backside fairly easily. At any rate, Gawdzak will be able to take one of us out of contention for sure... I regained demos on him this turn, and he is indeed the one who surpassed me in power - up 75k soldiers this turn, and that's before he drafts another 4x this turn. (I accidentally saved over the power graph screenshot, heh, sorry)
A couple random city shots:
My Moai finally topped out at size 20... I'll eventually get a pair of specialists here too. This city will look so sick in my upcoming GA, due in 5 turns. (assuming that I don't get a third 10% Prophet in a row, heh)
A funny thing about having an early HE is that if you build any unit other than a Knight, you end up with ever-increasing overflow that you've eventually got to flush it on a building so that it doesn't go to waste. Here, I am 1-turning a library instead of a 4-promo musket (the correct choice, as it is actually able to get odds defending against a pinch rifle in a fully-bombarded city) because my brain is broken and can't stand to waste hammers.
It really should be a musket that I'm building here, I should log back in and change that... if Gavagai gets attacked very soon, I may need to gift him some of my super-units to slow Gawdzak from blitzkrieging through him until Gavagai can get Grens. (also... if, instead, I get attacked soon, I'll need them for the same reason! )
I don't mean to sound too much like Thomas Friedman here, but IMHO the next 20 turns of this game will be critical.
If dtay is allowed to continue to play sim city without any conflict, and if both Gawdzak and I stall out (either fighting each other or our own wars of aggression), then I think that could be game. dtay's GNP is just too fucking high and his neighbors have been very passive. Gawdzak's 0% gold saving rate is actually a lot lower than I realized, only 700gpt, 200 lower than mine. His break-even bpt is likely a lot higher than mine, and we have roughly similar peak-bpt I bet, but... it really doesn't matter because dtay crushes both of us on 0% gpt, break-even bpt, and max bpt. And, right now, that's what matters because our military advantages don't mean a single fuck when dtay's land is a half a world away. We both gotta get some kind of other leverage to compete!!
Logged back in to change the build in Ma3, and a couple of map trades came in from Commodore and Gavagai.
Gavagai's two new settlements are in HAK's jungle; in both cases, their eventual output will be fantastic but they'll be super slow-going at first. But, like, what can you do?
also, le ren-era barb city, 7 tiles from le capital:
and DNF has started getting feitora's online:
look at the output of this fucking city, HOLY SHIT, that's like more output than all of HAK's remaining empire put together.
Somehow, my scouting Caravel lost sight of all of Gawdzak's ships except for one Frigate, which was heading North by Northeast. Next turn, I settle 3 cities and upgrade a bunch of Caravels to Frigates... should be a glorious turn for the empire, assuming that all my trade routes aren't nuked and a big stack of Galleons aren't sitting in my borders. ;p
Well, looks like I'm not getting attacked, oh boy. It doesn't look like Gavagai is either though, as I woulda expected a wardec last turn... perhaps Gawdzak will take Donovan's huge island after all? IMHO, that's def the best play for him. Gavagai's been going bananas about this btw, he's logged in like 20 times in the last few turns when he doesn't usually do this at all. I hope he appreciates the warning I gave him!
Three new cities this turn, bringing me up to 34:
T179 I settle two more, the last fillers I can get until I can take more territory by force.
I'm getting Philosophy this turn, and then will start saving gold... if it looks like I can make a run at Corp before MS I'd like to do that, kind of a desperate play but I need to catch up to dtay somehow, and an extra raw 250 commerce per turn might be just the trick. Speaking of dtay, he's up to 7200 (!) gold saved now, although it seems like he'll finally start spending it this turn.
Gawdzak ended up declaring on Donovan and taking a city, presumably up at that big island. That will be very good for him, there's room for somewhere between 10 and 13 cities I think. (its not completely unfogged for me so I can't tell for sure). Meanwhile, I settled 2 more cities this turn; I discovered, after settlement, that one of them was NOT connected to my trade route due to a previously unseen ice blockage, so I will lose 13 gpt for 5 turns until it is connected. Dammit. This stupid city will also have to build its own workboat.
Current city counts:
Me - 36
Plako - 31
Dtay - 29
Gawdzak - 28
Gavagai - 26
Donovan - 24
Commodore - 23
DNF - 15 (out of their GA now, switching into Nationhood w/o rifling on their last turn of GA)
Furungy - 12
FSH - 11
HAK - 1
I had a really good idea this turn that I wish I had last turn, but I'm glad I had it nonetheless. Next turn will be a spicy one, so you'll have to wait till then for what it is as well as more extended commentary. BTW, I have an 87% chance to start my GA next turn, and if I whiff that (for a third prophet in a row) I think my chances of winning this game drop dramatically. So, there's a 13% chance that all you'll get next turn is a crudely-drawn MS Paint frowny face on top of a zoomed-in Great Prophet.
Good news, lurkers. I got my great scientist, so you'll get your big spicy report after all.
So, the big news of the turn is that Gawdzak is WRECKING Donovan Zoi, taking 4 cities this turn for a total of 5, yowza. I think he'll end up getting about as much as I got out of my war with Furungy; I'm up +12 cities down there, between what I took and what I built with now-freed land.
I have a war of my own to wage. First of all, speaking of Furungy, the Vikings' stack is still sitting impotent, so I have nothing to worry about there as I have a roughly equal-sized stack of my own in Uppsala. I'll have a pocket Galleon in the little lake in 2 turns in case he decides to try something, though.
That leaves the bulk of my forces free to deal with Korea. A few turns ago, they put a full 100% slider turn of EP on me to get city visibility, probably thinking that it would stop any surprise attack. That wasn't really a problem, however, as I have many, many Galleons and simply loaded much of my forces onto them and out of city LOS. I then struck in three places:
First, here at Rose Bowl:
I lost 2 knights against a longbow, but the third (a C3) won flawlessly and I razed the city. Definitely worth it, as that city could whip longbows and pikes every 2-3 turns. This was also supposed to kill their iron, but it turns out they're getting gifts of it from Donovan and Gavagai, ho hum.
Next, I scouted out their capital with my SEVEN MOVE FRIGATE () and Wembley Stadium to see if I could get easy razes there too, but it was not to be. I'm fairly sure they saw one of my Galleons with a worker a couple turns ago, and so took precautions against a naval invasion. So, plan B was to unload at Stade de France, but... what is this?!??
Y'ALL BEST BE STEPPIN' OFF, SON!
Do y'all seriously expect you to take all this lush, lightly defended land for cheap after I've been fighting these fucking soccer hooligans tooth and nail for 160 turns?!?? Are you out of your goddamn minds??!??? ??????????????????????????????
Also, 3 Carracks, 4 Knights, 2 trebs - that's it?? That's the saddest ass invasion force I have ever seen, I doubt y'all would even be able to take this city! If there's one thing REM and Adrien do well, it is to pump shitloads of units. If y'all don't have more than that nearby you better just load that trash back up and slunk the hell home, cause you sure ain't won't be able bring over any more troops than that with my heavy-hitting ships nearby. Portugal doesn't even have have Astronomy, much less Chemistry, and their GA is behind them. I did not declare war (to preserve routes), but did I send them this:
Which actually is a real offer: if they pay me all their gold, I'll let them take a couple cities here, sure. (pig/wheat/crab are the resources in this city's BFC). However, if they try some sneaky shit, I won't even have to declare war to mess with them, because I also have these coming out by the bucketload:
(also barely shown is another 9-unit stack of my units unloaded from another 3 Galleons, I'm bad about SS's heh)
The original plan for Privateers was to bleed Korea dry if they try to turtle up in MCG after I take their northern colonies, hopefully goading them into one last charge up the chokepoint into the waiting arms of my C1 CG3 Muskets. However, these Privateers will be even better against Portugal and their beautiful Feitoras. I wish I had them up at the front sooner, but I didn't even think of them until last turn.
Domestically, we're having a very good time. As mentioned, we got a non-prophet (a scientist) and fired off our GA! Check out this beautiful bean footage:
I was actually still 2nd power before I lost 2 Knights and a Caravel this turn, so its a pretty tight race there. I'm not actually #1 CY, this screenshot was with me fake-removing all my NE scientists for farms... one's GA demos have got to wear their Sunday Best, after all.
I also revolted Vassalage -> Bureaucracy, which nets me ~ +90bpt. It should look a little better once the CH completes here in 2 turns. I don't think I'll stay in Bureau unless it looks like I can get two GGs out of this war, rather than just 1.
And how about that Moai, eh? Lookin' a little better than my last GA, ain't it?
My goal for this GA (I always like to have specific "goals" for a GA) is to hit Corporation and switch into Representation. I think I can hit Corp in like 8-9 turns, which should be enough time to then grab MS before Gawdzak consolidates his forces and heads to a new target. Ideally I'll also get 1.5 more GPs for my third GA, targetted towards AL and factory gear-up.
No time to play this morning (wife needed the car, I took the train), but I was able to sneak a quick peak.
Commodore requested a 900 gold for 100gpt loan, which is really not a great rate but I took it anyways in case he was getting invaded by dtay. However, dtay war-decced Furungy while I was logged in so it looks like another Commodore/plako conflict. Oh well.
Portugal rejected my gold demand, instead sending back iron-for-iron - they're willing to fight. They landed 6 more Knights (seen with my spy), took (and kept!) Korea's little size-3 city of Santiago Dos, and bombarded down Stade de France to 8% defenses. So, that's my 6 triple-promo knights, 2 swords, and a cat vs their dual-promo 10 knights and 2 trebs vs Korea's 3 LB and 2 pikes. They certainly have an advantage on land there for now, but if they take the city I'll have the advantage again and also completely control the sea.
Hmmm.... I really need to think more about whether this is worth going to war over or not. Part of me is completely outraged that these guys think they can just steal this easy land while I do all the hard work, AGAIN, but then part of me understands that they probably feel like their backs are to the wall and that a few cities over here are one of their last chances to stay relevant. I think they'll only get 3 cities, most of the other ones up here are closer to my side of the landmass than theirs. I also want to keep their trade routes as I'm rushing towards Corp... this still don't sit right with me.
Well, I suppose I can move onto that hill this turn and see how much they lose taking that city. As my other stack is fighting 3LB, 1 Pike, and 1 Mace on 20% cultural borders, I need to see how well I do there to know whether I'll have reinforcements available or not. While I have a very big army, I don't want my mainland forces to dip below 30 units in case Korea tries one last charge at my choke. I've also got to consider Gawdzak quickly swinging around back at me, as the speed at which he annihilated that Chinese island suggests that most of it was completely ungarrisoned.
REM had a pike nearby to snipe my Knight, ho hum. I also saw this:
that isn't a new GG, that's the one he got when he sniped that Knight/Cat stack in our last war... was it on the galley? Was he planning on using a GG Galley??? He knows I have Astro and Chemistry, right? o_0
Up north, I sniped this little city; lost a decent-odds C4 Musket, then won a low-odds Knight, then won 4/5 of the rest at 70-80% odds and finally a pair of 99%+. I have no idea why this city has a lighthouse, but you know what, I'll take it.
The second to last battle was supposed to be this pike against a scout, but my freaking cat jumped in my lap as I was right-clicking on the city and I ended up moving the stupid thing backwards!! That meant I had to use my last Knight to take the city, where it was supposed to take Maracana via the road network 2W->2NW.
HOWEVER! It turns out kitty knew best, because when I moved over my healthy Knights, taking Sentry 1 on one of the unpromoted ones, I saw this:
Yikes!!! Very clever play by REM, if I hadn't taken sentry and my cat hadn't screwed up my plan, I think he would have been able to retake both Old Trafford AND Maracana. I certainly didn't see these units with my spy. When I first saw this, I thought I would lose two units for sure, but then I realized I still had one more full Galleon fnear 3CD (just chilling there, hiding units from spying Korea), and I was able to chain the units up in time to defend with the help of one of the transport Galleons from last turn. The Knights on the ship turned out to be perfectly promoted for this situation, one with Formation and one with Shock.
I moved my stack near the Portuguese interlopers 1NE, onto a desert tile, and bombarded the city for them. We'll see how they do there... I miscounted their forces, it turns out they only have 8 Knights (1 highly and one lightly damaged) and 2 trebs available. We'll see how they do... if they end up whiffing the city or barely taking it, my bloodlust may overwhelm my better judgement...
![[Image: O4ZdpXs.gif]](http://i.imgur.com/O4ZdpXs.gif)
)
) and Wembley Stadium to see if I could get easy razes there too, but it was not to be. I'm fairly sure they saw one of my Galleons with a worker a couple turns ago, and so took precautions against a naval invasion. So, plan B was to unload at Stade de France, but... what is this?!??
That meant I had to use my last Knight to take the city, where it was supposed to take Maracana via the road network 2W->2NW.
