Gavagai, the God-Emperor

[Gavagai]

If Gawdzak doesn't attack me during next 8 turns, I would say that I'm a contender in this game. May be I will even make a real update.

[Gavagai]

Well, there are signs that Gawdzak isn’t going to attack me after all. I’ve been tracking his EPs lately, they are split between German Joey and Donovan. He isn’t spending anything on me. Also, he sent me an open borders offer which he earlier refused to give me and thrown in a symbolic fish resource on top. Last but not least, I found a small stack of Galleons (Gawdzak move them away while I was writing this text but they were under my caravel):



This is a rather awkward angle to attack me, he would want to fork me there:



and approach from the south-east.
Of course, I still may be wrong about this but it more looks like that he wants to take this island from Donovan:



Well, these are very good news for me, as just a few turns later I would have enough ships to defend against, well, anything. And that means that I’m stable enough to consider playing for win. And also, it gives me a motivation to write an update. I have a lot to say and, I suppose, something to explain.

1. Foreign politics.

1.1. Historical perspective.

I think I should start with a bit of political history. Soon after start I discovered that I have two relevant neighbors: HAK in the west and Mackoti in the north. Also, there was German Joey in the south but he was very far away:







And when you look at Mackoti’s geography, you would understand my frustration which almost killed my motivation to care about this game: Mackoti can’t do anything until he kills me.
His own land is pretty barren just as the land between him and HAK. Me is his only other direction of expansion and also a constant threat as I’m relatively close to his capital. So, figured out that it is mathematically inevitable that he would attack me at the earliest possibility.
On the other hand, I absolutely didn’t need an early war as I had a lot of high-quality land to settle peacefully. That determined my initial strategy: establish a firm, fortified border with Mack in the north, peacefully split with HAK the land in the west. I assumed that HAK also has a lot of possibilities for peaceful expansion and that he should be at least slightly worried about Mack who Is pretty much boxed in by two of us. So, from the beginning I saw HAK as my natural ally and friend.
Remarkably, it turned out that I completely misjudged both of my neighbors.
HAK attacked me and this attack was an utter and complete surprise. I didn’t even have a real army in the region, only a symbolic screening force. My army was mostly concentrated in the north, against Mackoti. If HAK wanted, he could have taken my shrine city. Luckily, he offered me an immediate peace.
I still can’t understand that. He didn’t even tried to keep the city he attacked, he just burned it. May be he thought that I expanded into his natural sphere of influence? But lol:



To consider this city a transgression, he should have wanted me to stay at my chokepoint and surrender a half of the continent to him. Was that his premise? If yes, then wow. He couldn’t seriously hope to hold that much, given that he already was significantly behind me. What he achieved was the militarization of the whole region: I built an army in response to his attack and Mackoti built an army in response to my build-up. As a result, all of us became backward and HAK, suddenly, turned out to be the one who couldn’t keep up in arm’s race. Really, what’s wrong with this guy?
This occurrence made reevaluate my whole strategy. In a complete accord with my naming theme, I found myself surrounded by enemies. I decided that my only chance to return into the game is to push back HAK by force and to secure myself an access to western reaches. The problem with this plan was Mackoti. I expected him to attack me at the earliest opportunity and my war with HAK should have become a very good opportunity for a backstab. That’s why I conceived an attack against HAK as a very short blitz with rather limited purposes and was going to pull back my forces and regroup as soon as possible, before Mackoti was able to react and attack me.
And once again I was surprised. For some reason which I don’t understand Mackoti wanted to keep peace with me and to fight against HAK. It really makes no sense: in any reasonable split of HAK’s land between me and Mack, I’m going to take the tastiest parts, dogpiling HAK is a losing deal for him. What he should have done is to try to advance against my core while I was busy. Instead he DOWed HAK and emptied our border. I decided to take this chance to make an advance of my own which worked out pretty good: I captured an important border city and razed another one. Also, I forced Mack to overreact and screw up his GA. But even after that Mackoti gave me an easy peace and, after a while, attacked HAK again. Really, wtf?
At this point history ends and we can move to the next part of a foreign policy survey: individual neighbors analysis.

1.2. Neighbors analysis.

1.2.1. Gawdzak.



Threat: existential.

Gawdzak had taken an early lead due to building the Great Lighthouse and having no early threats which allowed him to expand with impunity. Currently he has a very technologically advanced empire. However he started to fall behind in population: not long ago I outstriped him in food count.
For last 20 turns I looked at Gawdzak as the most serious threat. He can easily one-turn my core, provided he has Rifling and Astronomy (see fork picture above). Not long ago he got both techs and also Chemistry. A little earlier than I anticipated, I must say.
However, currently his window is closing. In two turns I will have Chemistry and in 4 - a significant number of frigates. And Gawdzak, as I said before, appears to aim for Donovan's island.
After I have my fleet in place, threat level will be scaled down.

1.2.2. Donovan Zoi / Mackoti.

Threat: substantial.

For a long time they were by far my gravest concern. China had a significant tech lead and attacking me was their only sensible foreign policy move. Fortunately, they missed the chances they have. Currently their tech lead has almost disappeared and in all important demos they are significantly behind. This war with HAK was a serious mistake: they may be able to take HAK's capital (more on this later) but all other cities they have taken are of marginal use and I have claimed much better land. It was pretty obvious that any dogpile against HAK would benefit me more, not sure I understand why they have chosen this path.
China currently can't hope to defeat me and ran out of room to expand in other directions. Also, if I'm right about Gawdzak's intentions, they are about to suffer a significant blow. I think in time I will be able to completely eclipse them and slowly consume. However, at this moment they still pose a substantial threat and may cause a lot of harm if I'm not careful or get distracted.

1.2.3. German Joey.

Threat: circumstantial.

German Joey rules a huge and powerful empire to the south. Early in the game I surrended to them almost all the land between our capitals and that contributed greatly to their success. Not that it was entirely intentional - this land was of low priority and I was busy elsewhere.
However, it turned out to be a good idea. I still have more than enough land to settle, so I sacrificed, essentially, nothing; on the other hand, I earned a friendly neighbor. German Joey, like me, has a lot of stuff to worry about. He is in the state of a constant cold/hot war with REM/Adrien and Furungy and will now have a long and awkward naval border with Gawdzak. I think that having at least one demilitarized border is as important for him as it is for me. So, I don't expect trouble from this direction and am not going to cause one. My only concern is this island:



It is very rich, very vulnerable and very undefended. German Joey is my friend but I don't want to tempt him too much and for too long. Strengthening defenses there is on schedule.

1.2.4. HAK

Threat: local.



HAK is now reduced to a single city. However, it contains a nice and well-promoted stack, so taking it won't be trivial. Also, I have a competition: Donovan's forces are closing in. Several turns ago I war/peaced Donovan because otherwise we can be dancing around this city for forever, being scared of each other. We have 5 turns of enforced peace left and it doesn't look like to be enough for the city to fall. I just don't have enough troops and it will take time for reinforcements to arrive. May be I will have to war/peace once again.
It is actually acceptable for me if Donovan takes this city as I will eventually claim it anyway. I mostly want HAK's culture and units to disappear ASAP, so that I can work and improve this land.
Also, Commodore DOWed HAK and razed a useless foodless city which he had to the west of his capital. I don't know what Commodore is up to but he'd better stay away of these towns. They are one of the few things of actual value in this area and I will defend them with force.

1.2.5. REM/Adrien.

Threat: none.



Don't really have mich to say about them except that they are going to fall to German Joey at some point. Also, I will take their northern colonies. At some point.

To be continued to domestic politics issues.

[Gavagai]

...and here we go. Gawdzak just took a city off Donovan exactly as I predicted. Now, after it happened, I can say that consider it a mistake. He should have attacked me.

[Old Harry]

Thanks for the update, really enjoyed it. What would have happened if he'd attacked you?

[Gavagai]

2. Domestic politics.

2.1. Historical perspective.



Once again, I would like to start from a little bit of history. My starting position was quite good in a sense that it had a lot of food resources. However, its specific challenge is the lack of land tiles. It means that I can't built as many cottages as others which spells problems in the late game.
My answer to this challenge was to choose a financial leader to make abundant coastal tiles useful. I also was going to build the Colossus which would allow to build a strong early economy around these coasts and to make some early gains. That's why I took Industrious trait as I expected to build wonders and to unlock Forges early.
However, I screwed up the start totally. I underestimated the importance of early happiness for this start. It has very few easily available hammers and I had to rely on Slavery a lot. In this manner I ran into a brutal happiness bottleneck and couldn't really use all these food I had. The fact that Slavery is nerfed and I was getting less hammers per happy face than I used to also didn't help things. I now think that RB-mod Slavery nerf is too brutal for starts like that. I would suggest a different way to nerf it: make production bonuses unapplicable to hammers received from Slavery. This way it still would be strong in the early game but much less so later.
In retrospect, I now think that my mistake was taking Metal Casting from the Oracle. I should have taken Monarchy. Of course, this is given the fact that I lost the Colossus race, I didn't even start to build it.
Anyway, I was able to untangle this issue in time but, together with HAK's war, this is the reason I was far behind great powers for the most of the game. Currently my economy is in an OK shape but lack of cottages is going to be a serios long-term issue.
I have a plan how to play around this problem but first I want to make a more detailed introduction of Imperium.

2.2. Segmentum Obscurus.



This is a border region which neighbors both Donovan/Mackoti and Gawdzak. This fact defines the purpose of cities there: most of them are unit pumps. Basically, this Segmentum is a huge fortress and military base. The only exception is the city of Fenris which historically shaped up to be a commerce city.

2.2.1. Notable cities.



This is Cadia, the primary military base of the whole Imperium and the very heart of Segmentum Obscurus.

2.3. Segmentum Solar.



This is the core of the Imperium, currently my primary source of commerce. Also, it serves as a reserve military pump when other segmenta can't meet the demand.

2.3.1. Notable cities.



Holy Terra, where the Emperor resides.



Armageddon, the northern gates of the Segmentum.



Necromundia, the shrine city.

2.4. Segmentum Tempestus.



This is a quiet and a relatively small Segmentum which brings in commerce and GPP.

2.4.1. Notable cities:



Bakka, National Epic city.



Amarah Prime, one of the largest commerce centers in the Imperium.

1.4.5. Segmentum Pacificus.





The yooungest and the least developed of all Segmenta which, however, is also by far the largest one in terms of land area. It harbours the great potential. After a while it should become the strongest science hub in the world and an engine behind my space race play.

2.4.6. Future plans.

I think it is now too late to build cottages in mass. The game most likely will go on until space era and they will have plenty of time to grow and to become useful but now I just can't afford a lot of citizens yielding 1 commerce for 10 turns. I need something more flexible, something, which won't tie up my resources for a long time before I can hope for a pay back.
So, my plan is to run late-game specialist economy. Vast green fields of Segmentum Pacificus would surely be instrumental in this regard. I need to research Biology, Constitution and Liberalism and to run Representation/Environmentalism/Caste System. With these civics and Biology one farmed grassland tile would allow me to feed one specialist and bring a total of 8 commerce. This is the same value which fully developed financial town would bring with Free Speach and Printing Press. And I will still be able to run Free Market or State Property on top of that.
Of course, this economy has its weaknesses. It is very happy- and health-intensive but I don't feel particularly coinstrained by those and these new specialized science-cities can skip factories/power plants. Another weakness is that I will need to give up Universal Sufferage, Nationhood and Slavery and won't have any way to rush emergency units. But I don't expect intense conflicts in the late game (more on this later), so, I think, I would be able to get away with this.
That's how my domestic issues look like.

3. Why optimism?

So, what of these makes me optimistic about this game and gives me hope of winning? After all, I now clearly the weakest of great powers. Well, yes, but on the flipside I'm the only one who has a big block of uncontested land. Also, I don't have long borders with other powers. My only potential difficult border is with German Joey after we split REM/Adrien but this is the very person I'm on good terms with. Hence, unlike others, I can hope to mostly avoid unneeded conflicts and to pick my battles.
Of course, there are difficulties but they always are. What I believe in is that the Emperor is still alive, he sits on the Golden Throne and has a secret plan to save us all.







That's about it. Any questions, comments, requests are greatly appreciated. I will try to do regular or at least semi-regular updates from now on.

[Gavagai]

Thanks for the update, really enjoyed it. What would have happened if he'd attacked you?

Well, if he approached to this in a smart way, he could have taken most of my core in a single turn. After this I would have few in which I could produce frigates. In particular, if he took Armageddon, I wouldn't have an easy channel to the eastern seas from my western cities. After that he would need to hold his grounds until the second wave of units but with Rifles against Knights it's not a difficult thing to do. Also, Donovan would jump in after our enforced peace had ended and that would be the end.
Of course, he would need a little more units to do that. I think, I saw 5 or 6 Galleons. That's 15-18 Rifles and that wouldn't be enough but would be pretty close.

[Bobchillingworth]

You'd better found Catachan in the middle of that jungle

[Gavagai]

You'd better found Catachan in the middle of that jungle

Will do. I mostly try to name cities after planets of respective Segmentum but Catachan fits there perfectly. Also, I'm not sure that I can find enough planets of Segmentum Pacificus to fill all this land.

[The Black Sword]

Nice update.

[Gavagai]

Actually, this new development makes me reconsider my priorities... Earlier I was going to focus on domestic issues while maintaining mostly defensive military doctrine. However, if China is weakened, I may want to move against them early and decisevely. That would mean an entirely different tech path. I will need to beeline Rifling instead of Biology/Constitution. On the flipside, if I take the Pyramids, I wouldn't even need Constitution to revolt to my desired civic combo. This deserves some thought...