This game feels very impish

[The Black Sword]

Mack built the Great Library. That's pretty terrible news. The more I thought about it I was never going to build it, Literature is over 1k beakers away through the religion tree which I've ignored. Anyone but Mack would have been fine.

I finally got Rusten's graphs and he's pretty out of it. He's got a big army but he needs to do something with it, everything else suggests solid tier 2 civ. And I think he might have problems using that army. Superdeath is looking like a tough meal. He's Pro/Cha of native america - a more defensive setup for this era you could not pick and he looks willing to fall on his sword, 6 more whips this turn. I need to think a bit more about how efficient the invasion will be. Dreylin and Pindicator are both floating along on next to no units, if it weren't for Rusten I think I'd really consider going for one of them first and picking up superdeath later when his units are really obsolete. Still we finish construction this turn and we'll start a boat load of catapults, since they're the best build anyway.

Gav - plako war is also interesting, it seems plako is taking things very seriously on civstats. I assume Gav has a decent opportunity to cripple him since he declared and if he does so, he's firmly up there with mack. If it doesn't work though, a grindy war with plako is not a recipe for winning.

[The Black Sword]

Here's my set of graphs with most of the major players. I think I'm going to get Gavagai next rather than try for research visibility on mack. I'm pretty sure he'll go for either Knights or Astro anyway and it shouldn't be hard to figure out. Still trying to figure which is better myself.









MY GNP is feeling very slow and I don't see how to really fix it in the medium term without wealth builds. I think my golden age will get to about 300bpt and 200hpt. If I want Bureau I need to delay my golden age to hit all my tech goals and with a weak gnp that means a big delay in the GA. Not sure what to do. We seem pretty competitive with mack at least.

You can also see how far Rusten has dropped in the Food graphs, far below Commodore. Superdeath looks like a serious quagmire to me with walls and CG3 archers. I need to hit someone I think and I have ok targets but nothing that really screams free food. You can see on the power graph Pin and Dreylin look tempting too. If Rusten is going for superdeath though I feel I have to be ready to pile on. We're building some stuff:


Slow 1-move stacks into entrenched culture is good right? Dreylin obviously thinks we're great friends btw:


So I let him keep thinking that for the moment. Some random mod thoughts I had:

-I mentioned the nerfed MoM at the start of the game. Well I researched Calendar recently and had to put my money where my mouth was, I am not trying to build it. It's just way too expensive for a non-Ind civ. If I had the option I'd rather a stack of WE or horchers. I didn't really have a problem with it before, but the complaints I saw about it where a)too powerful in a 50 city late game civ, b) too powerful when captured. Obsoleting at Nationalism solves both of those problems, while taking away the marble modifer does not.

-Mack and Rusten have war-peaced each other twice in a row. There is some trade route cost to these moves but I'm not a fan of pseudo-NAPS, it makes the game less interesting IMO. I was thinking that the maximum length of a peace treaty could be Min(10, #turns at war) to make them a bit more unreliable.

[The Black Sword]

If you agree not to laugh at my paint skills then you can have a battle plan* for a superdeath invasion.  Red dots in my territory are tiles he can't see. His river protects his city south of the capital, which is why I take an extra turn to go around it. His capital may similarly be protected. The capital would be the main priority since it's the one Rusten might begrudge. Seems they've both lost some troops recently with no cities changing hands. I'm happy with that.


*The author gives no guarantee of future blood spilled.

[Mardoc]

*The author gives no guarantee of future blood spilled.

   

[The Black Sword]

I still don't like guaranteeing things, but it does look like blood is on the menu:

Big sharkfins, no cities changing hands, that's what I like to see. BGN and Rusten are also skirmishing around Rusten's latest settlement, which hopefully makes it harder for Rusten to compete for superdeath's cities. I can get about 30 classical units(cat,HA,WE) and 15 ancient units(axe, impi) ready to enter his super-death's sight on T118 and his territory T119.

Demos look pretty but are deceiving. I have a lot more population than mack, so us being so close in food means his surplus is much bigger than mine. Which is what you expect when he's got a conquest and new resources while I've crammed things in. He's top hammers as well I think. I don't have a clear picture of his GNP, but he has quite a lead in tech researched anyway(my gnp is no wealth building but lots of pre-reqs from iron working). I think I usually have quite an unseen lead in gpp per turn that is not shown on the demos(I'm working 6 specs for 45gpp this turn, often I work 8), but given mack built TGL I doubt it is true this game. He got a bunch of new happy resources from the Aretas invasion too, so his capital depressingly sits at size 15. In summary, I don't think I'm ahead of him on a single economic indicator.



I'm looking at my golden age around T120 with about 145 population. By T129 I should be in Bureau and have Astro, spitting out pre-built Galleons. I really hope I can maintain the tech rate to hit that, the invasion will cost me gold but I might be able to pillage some back. I'll probably be forced to do some wealth building(ugh) regardless. This golden age will have been delayed 10+ turns, all so that we can fit the Bureau revolt in. I wonder if it was worth it. We did get a couple more pop underneath it too at least.

I'm still not sure if this is better than the knights path. I do need some sort of opportunity to catch up with mack, I'm hoping I can be the second person into a dogpile on Dreylin or Pin and make some ground.

[The Black Sword]

Rusten and Superdeath had a second clash. This time it looks like Rusten came off 2nd best, though maybe superdeath lost more on the following turn. No cities have changed hands though, which makes me think not. In the midst of this stoic defense on the Rusten border, dtay declared war and captured a city from superdeath on the first turn. What happened there? I think superdeath only had 1 city planted forward toward dtay, so next up would be his capital. I need to try take it before he gets any ideas. So we are going in 1t early:



This large stack of catapults will be outside his city 1t early and can bombard down the walls while the rest of the 1 movers catch up. They'll get a little bit more cover as the Horse archers get there but I'm not really worried about him attacking into my stack. I am a bit worried that CG3 archers in hill cities will be too expensive to break. Usually I keep pumping units until I'm sure of victory, but I'm switching for a round of forges now and I'm hoping to start pre-build the Astro units afterwards. I may regret that. I think if I can take the capital then I should be able to take the 2 southern cities along the river at a more leisurely pace, without threat from Rusten or dtay. I doubt dtay wants to get in a fight with me, he has other targets, so probably whoever gets there first keeps it. Rusten could be desperate at this stage and get in a fight for the spoils but his ability to do so is looking weaker right now. My army:



Add to this, 2 HA, 1 Sword and 1 more sentry chariot, that's it for the immediate future. Hopefully it will do. Demos(guess the person with more food and hammers):


Some interesting local politics going on with the other neighbours too. Plako took a city back off Gavagai. Commodore doesn't seem to trust Gav either, he feels the need to guard workers on the Gav border but hasn't felt the same need for my exploring warrior. Squeezing that extra city out of plako earlier may come back to bite him.

Comm agreed to give me open borders too. I was worried he might see me as too big a threat and withold the (7)gpt. I'm also slightly worried that his scout can now see my southern garrisons, which have been stripped for the invasion and are still being rebuilt. Our border is just way too defensible though, so long as I be careful with the island city I should be fine. 

 Pindicator looks a bit checked out to me, looking for a sub without giving instructions. I was wondering how much I needed to respect a galley+sword attack on my east coast but now I'm feeling easier. I got a silk for incense trade off him. Unfortunately that was my 2nd source of incense(I have no other duplicate happy sources that people want), but it still gives +1happy in my two market cities where it matters the most. He's also pushed culture here which is quite strange:


That pig city is not making any commerce, I don't see why you would build a library but for the culture. And obviously I can just build my own cheaper library back and we've both just wasted a bunch of hammers for no reason. I'll try look on the positive side and let him improve that sugar for me before I push the culture to retake it. On a side note Pin looks very vulneruble right now, but me and Gav are tied up.

Dreylin whipped 5 times last turn which makes me twitchy. Attacking either me or dtay while we're entrenched in superdeath's territory might be his best opportunity to change his fate. Still not seeing much on the power graph though.

Naufrager also picked up Alpha, so I hope to get some OB money there too. I think the war with superdeath will block our trade though. I'll probably be teching alpha myself after Col, but it's only worth ~2gpt per player after the first. Need it for the asto bulb anyway.

[The Black Sword]

That city is defended a bit stronger than I expected, based on the Rusten's difficulty and Dtay's ease, I thought more of the army was over by Rusten.

I'm mulling over the option to bulb Optics. I guess I'll be about 600b short of my golden age targets if I throw my GA on T120. One option is to wealth build all that. But Perhaps Great Scientist bulbing Optics makes more sense. Generating the extra GS shouldn't be too difficult. It is only a 1035b tech though.

I'm also a bit worried about WW unhappiness, I probably need to see if I can buy a resource off someone.

[The Black Sword]

This is a you take Mice and Men, I take the capital offer. Or is it I take the capital, you take Mice and Men?   Which one do I even want?



It looks like his units are going for Mice and Men. That is not a great city(Dreylin's culture will take the eastern resources), but it is on flatland with no reinforcements. The cap is on a hill and may be reinforced. Rusten may have a claim to it too. I sent back an iron for iron to say I agree with the principle, not sure the details, then moved my stack to fork Superdeath's pair of river cities. I think I need dtay's co-operation here to come out of this profitably and quickly. Instead of trying to fight superdeath on my own and sidelining part of my force to hold dtays, I get to use his units to help my conquest.

Not sure whether I go for the cap next or continue down the river, or whether my second stack turns back for Mice and Men. Let's see what everyone does.

[Ichabod]

Are you sure that settler can take Of Mice and Men all by himself?

[Thoth]

Are you sure that settler can take Of Mice and Men all by himself?

Combat settlers FTW!