[Spoilers] Breaking Newbs: A Title I Already Regret Writing

[Bobchillingworth]

Update:


For empire, please see the images posted on Dec. 10; now imagine that all of the cities are a few sizes larger and most of the hills are mined.


I'm somehow second in score. This should not be happening. HAK, né Jowy is in the process of dying to REM. REM has whipped his empire into the dirt in order to throw Cataphracts at HAK. Cornflakes is scouting me with Axes (??) and doing okay in tech despite being way behind in cities. Retep is retep.



Foreign relations:


* HAK is too busy dying and doesn't have nearly as much personal reason to want to avenge himself on me as Jowy would have.

* REM appears to be my Best Bud, we're both freely running shitty garrisons on our mutual border and flashing unescorted Workers. I'm also still feeding him Iron.

* retep could totally wreck me at any time, I'm teching Feudalism so I can stuff LB on our border.

* Cornflakes doesn't hold a grudge, does he? Buddy?



Tech situation: sucks.


Wonders: Don't got none.


Plans: Uh!


Hope: See "Wonders".

[Commodore]

How much free commerce are you getting from Fin at the moment?

[Bobchillingworth]

+47, IIRC.


Obnoxiously, I might be heading for yet another war with Cornflakes, who looks to be able to beat me to a city spot by a turn. I sent him a diplo warning that he'll probably misunderstand. I haven't been preparing for war, too busy trying to claw my empire out of its hole, but I don't believe Cornflakes is packing much power either. Literally whipping up a military will hurt, though.

[Bobchillingworth]

This game is still chuggin' away, it seems. My score is... actually quite good now. Going by it, I'm second only to retep, and not by too much either. In reality, my position still mostly sucks; my army is small and entirely ancient-age junk (although I can produce LB, and will complete a couple waves of them once my Mints finally all finish building), my borders are still mostly indefensible and I still keep making dumb, FFH-influenced mistakes (like forgetting that Drama kind of sucks in BTS).


Cornflakes sent me what I assume is a friendship trade, and I just opened borders with retep this turn, so maybe I've achieved Peace In Our Time???


I'll try to remember to post pictures next turn. I have two more cities now!

[Bobchillingworth]

Holy shit, pictures:


The empire:







I founded "D War" in a fit of pique after Cornflakes founded his stone city one turn before I could make my own plant. Got space for one more filler town, next to my soon-to-be ex-neighbor HAK. No rush though, I don't have the spare units to garrison it nor free labor to improve it atm.


Koreaboo engineers are famous world-over for their magnificent feats:





Demographics:




As noted previously, they aren't very good, although Top Dawg retep's are temporarily inflated by a golden age. (Of course, as others have noted before, just because someone's golden age boost is fleeting doesn't mean those numbers aren't real).


I'm starting to fill in the remainder of my map. A couple oddities have jumped out at me-




Why is Cornflakes building workshops at this city? I get that he presumably can't see the Iron he's 'shopping over currently, but the two he already has hardly seem worth working in their present state.





I was baffled when REM founded this city eons ago, and I still don't really understand what he's doing with it. Why hasn't he even tried to compete with me culturally in the area? Doesn't he at least want to work that FP tile? It appears to be some sort of military pump given the infrastructure (granary, barracks, forge), but it isn't large enough or using enough production to be particularly well-suited for that role. Although then again, all of REM's cities are tiny. He's going to end up with an enormous empire full of tiny cities. I wonder if he'll even bother trying to get back into the tech game, or just continue on to Cornflakes or me next.

[Bobchillingworth]

Oh, and if a certain someone hadn't traded Iron to you when you didn't have a source, that might have also made things turn out slightly different.

I'm sorry, man! When I started trading it to him I...

A: Thought he had another source already.

B: Needed those wines.

C: Had recently wrecked relations with your civ under Jowy's leadership and needed a regional ally.

D: Was disgusted with the turn-a-week pace and was just accepting every offer to appear before me. Hence why I have OB with everyone.



Thank you for the two free Workers, btw; I tried to signal my gratitude with the free Iron loan.

[Jowy]

Next time I'll just bolster my own defenses to force the crazy bloodhungry warmonger to conquer his other neighbor :P
Really didn't expect you to feed him free iron when I try to stop our shared neighbor from building a million cataphracts..

[Bobchillingworth]

To be fair, it has kind of worked out okay for me- REM whipped his cities into the dirt to get all of those units, he took out the neighbor I was most worried about and he now shares a long, ugly border with retep.


Of course it will all blow up in my face if he turns around and attacks me, or retep decides that eating me is the best way to counter REM's new land advantage, but I've been vulnerable for a long time regardless.



Sorry for razing your city, I just couldn't allow you to cripple one of my best production locations with your Creative culture. Plus that opening was just too good to ignore.

[Jowy]

That city was also a test to see if I can trust you. If you didn't take it, I could leave less defenders on your border when I fight REM soon after. I was really paranoid this game..

TBH I haven't kept up with the game so maybe it did work out best for you to feed him iron. At the time I was thinking your best move would be to have us stuck in a long stalemate rather than one side destroying the other.

[Bobchillingworth]

Bleh. REM is producing yet more 'Phracts and has a really nasty doom stack with FFH levels of promotions on one border, and I've got retep building up Knights on the other. I'm teching Engineering and have most major productions centers producing Barracks or LB, but it'll be too little, too late if either attacks.