[SPOILERS] Bob is the Garrbage Man

[Bobchillingworth]

T100-


Here's my empire:









Images taken right after my golden age ended.

I think I used my double golden age to expand fairly well, particularly given the impacts of Stasis. I did elect to give up the Form of the Titan in preference for starting my second Golden Age; I could have built it with a Great Engineer, beating Auro by a turn, but instead figured tech and production were more dire needs. I'm surely screwed either way (Cairo is already down to four cities, and will likely be eliminated in the next 5 turns).

My boast about not needing more labor was clearly misguided; I'm rather badly in need of Mud Golems.


Speaking of which, here's my military:





Second-highest after Auro, sigh. Obnoxiously, Cairo has traded his palace Body and Law mana to Jim for Jim's copper. I don't care about the Law mana, but I could really have used the Body. Mr. Cairo has my map, so he should have at least seen the Mages Guild in my capital; all of my cities have them now, thanks to the Catacomb, while I'm not certain Jim even has KotE yet. Total waste.


For the record, I'm ready to concede at any time. I can't do damage to Auro until he's too powerful to stop (assuming things don't change dramatically), and I fully expect Jim to be equally inert, if not more. In an ideal world he'd declare on Auro himself and help defend Cairo's cities, but I'm not sure even I'd do that. Why he still isn't in FoL remains the greatest mystery of the game.

[Bobchillingworth]

Seriously, any time Superjim wants to throw in the towel, that's fine...


Last I checked, he was below Mr. Cairo in power, and I think Cairo was down to three cities at that point.


Auro has literally twice my land and I'm at least a dozen turns out from Mages... and my Mages are going to be starved for useable mana anyway, because Cairo gave his Body and Law mana to someone who couldn't even use them, and I only have two nodes (I'm actually going to claim two more next turn, but holding them will be very challenging).


I'll fight Auro to the last city if I have to, but I'd really rather just move on. I'll send Jim a copper 4 copper next turn at least, to signal that we're fighting a 2 v 1 until we're crushed.

[Bobchillingworth]

Hooray, it's Final War time!



Looks like I beat Auro by a turn to claiming the double mana:





I can probably hold this spot for, like, a turn, but then I'm in trouble. Didn't even bother to name it.


Sent Jim an offer for OB, a world map exchange, and copper4copper, but he's still giving Auro OB and did nothing as his neighbor was devoured, so not expecting any help there. Heck, he might use this opportunity to pop his WS and attack me.


I think I can hold my capital for a long time, once I mass Slingers there, but that sounds really lame. Hopefully Jim throws in the towel soon. I hate playing pointless turns, where the game is already decided and I can't even claim the dubious pleasure of being a potential spoiler.


Never did get a free great person event. Lame. Actually, I think I've only gotten three events total- two + gold events early on, and the useless witch one.

[superjm]

I'm not sure what I could have done to help Cairo outside of giving him favorable trades, there isn't really a good unit I have early on that can stand up to Priests of Winter and their ice elementals (remember that Elven units are susceptible to cold damage) and even aside from that, it would have taken 10-15 turns to send anything substantial his way anyway unless I roaded over there immediately with workers that weren't even in that area.

The answer from my vantage point was Assassins as that would hard counter everything he has, and by the end of the game I was fully capable of getting an average of 1.5ish Assassins out every turn. Mass enough mobility Assassins to pick off any mage stack that comes my way, transition into FoL priests to actually push back. I just overestimated how much time I had to actually do that.

[Bobchillingworth]

Totally backseat gaming here, but I think the best play would have been to move as large a force of Scouts, Fawns, and maybe Hunters as you could muster into Cairo's land, and try to claim the initiative to attack Auro's units, while Cairo provides the bodies to hold the cities. A half-dozen Fawns / Hunters could have likely killed the PoW. At the least that'd slow Auro's advance and force him to choose between using his summons to attack cities or cover his stack. Also, stop giving him OB .

But yeah, that would have required having a large mobile force ready to rush to Cairo's aid on short notice, and Cairo coordinating defense with you without any communications beyond resource trades, certainly a tall order- and it's not as though I covered myself in glory keeping Auro honest either.


I think in an ideal world, Cairo would have gifted me the Body Mana, I'd have used it to rush most of my Warriors at Auro, you'd have helped Cairo play zone defense in his lands, and between the three of us we'd have had enough to beat him back. Without diplomacy though it was never particularly likely to work out like that.


RE: Assassins, certainly yours were powerful units, but I think hammer-wise they're actually inefficient even if you can trade them 1-for-1 with Auro's Mages, as he was producing Adepts with almost Mage-level exp right out the gate. Given enough time both our civs could have become quite powerful, but Auro was never going to let us build up ideal forces.

[Mr. Cairo]

re: the mana trade deal, I actually sent that deal to both of you, not really thinking about how it would be useful to you, I just wanted copper. Unfortunately, superjm played before you, so he got to see the deal first.