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

[GermanJoey]

Thanks man, lookin' forward to it too. Dtay's income's gotta be insane now, but my max bpt was still over 2200 so I think I can still compete in the tech race.

I have no idea how I can actually win this sucker though... the Sistine hasn't landed yet, perhaps I just forget about space and go for the Hail Mary?

[GermanJoey]

T189.

Things gettin' spicy!




dtay took this little island from Furungy last turn, but now Gawdzak has taken it back! For himself! I couldn't get a good look at what Zulu forces were in the area, since some of Gawd's privateers were lurking around, but I do know he has a stack of 12 ships (4 frigates, 8 galleons) heading down off his southern cape, his invasion stack from China that I've been following. At first I was worried that he wanted to hit me, but by now I've about a dozen Frigates in the area and feel pretty safe.

Embarrassing dot map time: I had meant to settle this city 1N, but when I was landing the settler I misclicked just as someone started to join the game. I figured it wouldn't matter, since I could just move the settler 1N the next turn, but then I forgot. Oh well, this city was always gonna be garbage, its only there to collect trade route income, just like all my little iceballs.




dtay's MFG spike!




RP next turn; my MFG this turn was 530 for reference, I wonder how many free hammers I'll get?

[GermanJoey]

T190.

I got +56 hammers from RP without changing tiles, ending the turn at +60; about +10%, not shabby.

The FSH's score increased during their play of T189, and it appears they resettled this city:




Oh no no no, you're not escaping my blockade that easily. Enjoy your turn of ICTR fellas, it shall be your last.

On a business trip until Wednesday night, so reports will be short and sweet (or not at all) until then.

[GermanJoey]

T195.

Some thoughts on this game.

Basically, right now the situation across the world is officially "Freaking Nuts" but I'm not able to really react to any of it. There's two reasons for that: my recently emphasis on economic development and Korea's continued existence as a boil on my ass. So, before I talk about the interesting stuff, let me bore everybody with a little backstory.

In the last dozenish turns or so, I have built up my economy in order to directly compete with dtay and Gawdzak in the tech race. I've built many more libraries, markets, grocers, custom houses, and observatories in my core cities. I even have my first Courthouse (!!) completing soon in Dominic Deegan, wowy. So, cash money is pretty good - I think I'm the top break-even bpt researcher right now, as I'm already back to my final GA income level and have almost caught up in total beakers researched. Gawdzak just got Steam Power but I think it'll take him awhile to get AL (needing Const+Corp+AL), if thats where he chooses to go with that, and I've pretty much got parity with everything else he's got.




However, my former dominant military presense has declined. It's not that I'm totally slackin' here, as I'm still gaining a good 60-70k power per turn - 100k last turn even! - but the rest of the world has gone truly apeshit with war buildup. Commodore and plako draft 4 times pretty much EVERY TURN (e.g. http://www.civstats.com/viewplayer.php?g...layernum=5 - 38 times in 10 turns, and he's been drafting like this for much longer), Gawdzak didn't lose anything from his earlier war and thus still has all his drafted rifles, and Gavagai I think queue-upgraded about a billion redcoats and shot up to first-place power. So, I'm slipping further behind in the worldwide trend. I've pretty much stopped infrastructure builds, just got Rifling and almost two-turned Steel, so I should catch up soon, but the workshop economy has a lag-time to it that drafting and upgrading does not.




Further complicating matters is that Korea is still not dead. THE HOOLIGAN ARMY MARCHES FUCKIN ON! I will state that I plan to remove the Korean menace from this game within 20 turns. However, until that happens, I need to keep a significant portion of my military dedicated to kettling them inside their tundra hellhole. They still have full civ visibility on me and I'm sure would love nothing better than to go out in a blaze of glory and raze my chokepoint, whipping down their cities to size 1 in the process. I've counted that they have 55 units remaining in their cities, perhaps more in the fog. I'll have Steel in 2 turns, and plan to have MCG dead in about 5 turns, between queue-upgrading cannons, upgrading existing cannons and muskets, etc. Cannons and Rifles will make efficient work of Knights, Muskets, and Pikes. I'm considering adding MT to my collection of techs, as I have many high XP Knights that would make for fine Cavalry.

However, I need to be very cautious here. Portugal, in defiance of my domination of the seas, still has Carracks ferrying troops near their island. A few turns ago, they blasted a Privateer down with Carracks despite the Privateer staying clear of any city's BFC, meaning that they have something to hide. I immediately moved another one in but haven't spotted anything particularly suspicious yet. Portugal is very advanced, having both rifling, chemistry, and steel, but still lacks Astronomy, presumably in order to prevent the Colossus from obsoleting. Very strangely, they have been researching at a break-even slider, keeping a constant 5k gold reserve that I presume is intended for upgrades of some sort. Muskets, catapults, and carracks could turn into rifles, cannons, galleons, and frigates very quickly and I'm very worried that some kind of revenge-stack will drop upon my shores. So, I need to keep a extra-strong naval garrison to watch out for them.




Keeping on-guard for Korea and Portugal is annoying because it stretches me thin in regards to England. Gavagai settled a forward site near my holdings in Korea's former upper penninsula... it's not extremely aggressive, but does overlap BFC tiles with one of my cities there... it is a site that does not say "lets have a lasting border here." He is ruining a lot of the good-will we've shown each other so far with this site. My spy indicates that he does not have a lot of troops here and, furthermore, he's in a very hot war with China again. In fact, he is completely wrecking Donovan, fighting redcoats vs muskets with a 2X power difference and opening with an artist bomb. However, my hands are tied... my garrison on my chokepoint border with Gavagai is small and antiquated.








Gavagai eating all of China is a terrifying prospect, as this will bring him to like 50 cities, about what I'll have +Korea, but with his empire completely contiguous and mostly land-based. Eventually, he'd overpower me I think. In fact, if he can safely integrate China into his core he has become the clear front-runner. I really expected DZ to be a better counterweight, he had a big, advanced civ when he took over. I can't see Gavagai wrecking Mack or Krill so easily.

FURTHERMORE, Gawdzak has been acting insane lately. First off, he war-decced dtay, taking some little worthless island city formerly owned by Furungy. Next, he war-decced Furungy himself, taking (and keeping!) a city right smack-dab in the middle of his empire. I have no fucking idea what to make of this. I'd think it was some kind of feint, but he has his entire navy down here, like 25 ships in total and just as many land-troops.






I'm tempted to jump in but Furungy still has 20+ troops garrisoned in his capital, ho hum. I can't seriously believe Gaw wants to actually conquer Furungy - that would stretch his territory from North Pole to South, ice to ice. Perhaps he wants to compete with me for building the most misshapen, indefensible empire in the history of Realms Beyond ?!?? Gaw's core is also quite far from Furungy's land, and without islands that I own as stepping stones, his Furungyland could be completely isolated. However, if he war-deccs me over some shitty island, I'll sink his entire navy and then he'll be at the mercy of Gavagai and dtay, both of which he's pissed off in the past. I mean, you can't war with EVERYBODY, right? So, I don't think he'll fight with me anytime soon. But then what the fuck will he do with Furungy's land??? I don't understand what he's doing at all.

The big question is what dtay will do right now. He's got the death-spiraling Dutch above him, paranoid Portugal and their big warchest to his east, and big bully Zululand to his west. I can't see him winning with just 30 cities when its likely that the other three front-runners will be at 50 within a couple dozen turns. So... what will he do?

[GermanJoey]

T196.

Furungy's stack... I could kill this with cannons pretty easily, but would be pretty vulnerable to Gawdzak after that...

[GermanJoey]

pitboss........... PITBOSS................. C'MON PITBOSS, I EVEN LOGGED BACK IN TO DOUBLE CHECK THIS SHIT.






Oh, pitboss, you canard... Between PB18 and PB22 how many times has this happened so far? 4? 5? Cripes, when will I learn my lesson and just add some freaking margin. Anyways, my attack on Korea will be delayed by a turn. The initial invasion will be, I think, a dozen rifles, 6 knights, 6 muskets, 6 various medieval/classical junk, 6 cannons, something like that? And then I'll reinforce with another 6 rifles, 6 knights, and 6 cannons once MCG falls, where I'll also upgrade the Knights to Cavs. Korea is pretty spread out, in rightful fear of backline boating attacks, so even though I'm only bringing 1 unit for every 2 they have total I don't expect to take many losses.

Portugal nap'd me last turn, after trading another two caravels for another of my privateer (why??? it wasn't even bothering them, just blockading a Korean city!!), and then war-decced dtay. They spent their entire cash reserve (5k!) on upgrades and shot up like +300k in power, eyeballing the graphs. Maybe Commodore will pile on and bring this down to a 3 horse race? He has a NAP with plako at the moment, it could happen...

[GermanJoey]

T198.

I lost the Sistine by 4 turns, to plako.



Really too bad, one of the Hooligans' cities just got Islam recently so I woulda had all 7 religions, alas. I guess there's no real reason to delay SM now... nobody has it still. Do I skip MT and just go straight for Physics? Hmmm, a bit of a gamble - I'm really surprised that dtay hasn't raced towards the Communism spy yet, what with his strong incentive to grab the Kremlin. That said, he did grab lib near the end of his GA for free religion...

Steel in and 60h drydocks are goin' up all over the goddamn place, sick. Had forgotten until recently that Agg gets a boost here, and boy howdy is it nice for my ridiculous geographic situation to have all them extra hammers for boats.

[Ichabod]

First place!

[GermanJoey]

First place!

[boak]

why doesn't borsche post here any more.