Gavagai comes back to his roots

[Gavagai]

3) What will he have to change in future games to stop being seen as a piñata?

Nothing? There is nothing wrong with this game in my opinion.

You see nothing wrong with Donovan's endless wonder spamming? Or did you misread the question.

I see a lot of wrong things about it but those are not wrong things about the game which should be "stopped" on the level of design. Every game would have players playing suboptimally and making things easier for their neighbors. This is how civ works. For that matter, so far you have done more to imbalance the game than Donovan 

EDIT: Oh wait, I did misread the question. I read it as "what will WE have to change in future games". Sorry. Donovan should expand more, obviously, and only build select few wonders he really needs. In that game he should have built Oracle + Colossus + Shrine, that would be excellent. Adding in Hendge and SoZ was too much.

[Lewwyn]

3) What will he have to change in future games to stop being seen as a piñata?

Nothing? There is nothing wrong with this game in my opinion.

You see nothing wrong with Donovan's endless wonder spamming? Or did you misread the question.

I see a lot of wrong things about it but those are not wrong things about the game which should be "stopped" on the level of design. Every game would have players playing suboptimally and making things easier for their neighbors. This is how civ works. For that matter, so far you have done more to imbalance the game than Donovan 

Boom, roasted. 

[superdeath]

I see a lot of wrong things about it but those are not wrong things about the game which should be "stopped" on the level of design. Every game would have players playing suboptimally and making things easier for their neighbors. This is how civ works. For that matter, so far you have done more to imbalance the game than Donovan 

[Gavagai]

3) What will he have to change in future games to stop being seen as a piñata?

Nothing? There is nothing wrong with this game in my opinion.

You see nothing wrong with Donovan's endless wonder spamming? Or did you misread the question.

I see a lot of wrong things about it but those are not wrong things about the game which should be "stopped" on the level of design. Every game would have players playing suboptimally and making things easier for their neighbors. This is how civ works. For that matter, so far you have done more to imbalance the game than Donovan 

Boom, roasted. 

That was actually unfair on my part, given that I have in fact misread the initial question

[Gavagai]

Some news is respect to Donovan's tech. He has Construction which means that his best unit is most likely a highly promoted War Elephant. Also, he revolted to Vassalage, so he has Longbows. I can deal with that.



A funny problem to have: Donovan's capital is going to hit 5000 culture before I attack

[Gavagai]

Here is an interesting opportunity:



It looks like my EI can loop to BGN's city and still be in place in time for Donovan's invasion. Will look inside the city in a cople turns and reevaluate. A brief war with BGN would also have a benefit of putting Donovan in a more relaxed state.



This is Commodore. He started the GA and converted to Hinduism. It may be a sign that he expects Hindu shrine to fall in his hand eventually. We will see. If he tries to make a bid for Donovan's land, I will have an option to open a second front here and devastate his coast.

[Gavagai]

Rusten took the sugar city and sent me a troll-offer of a sugar for 8 gpt. It looks like he really wants me to be his enemy...

[Gavagai]

Well, that was unexpected:



This is his southern tile. On the nothern tile he has an axe, a spear and two catapults.

The real choice here was whether I want to save Khemi at the cost of upgrading an archer and delaying CS by two turns (which means that I would not have maces in my second wave of attack). I decided to try to save the city.



Very possibly a mistake, a very close decisions. The thing is, I do not want those triremes roaming in western sea and I definitely do not want to reveal EIs until my main operation in the north. He should not be able to take the city this turn but he very possibly will be able to do it next turn. He has reinforcements: a HA in Adventure (spotted by sentry chariot) and whatever he has in a galley lurking in Dig Dug (not visible on pictures but very much present). I think the attack was actually premature, triggered by the fact that I have started to chop jungles near Khemi which he wanted to remain in place. He would have preferred to have more units concentrted.

A big disappointment. I can understand Donovan's motivations here and, of course, there is no way I can actually lose this war but it seems like all players have conspired to give Commodore an easy win in this game. I can stop him from winning but I need at least one person cooperating with me and no one seems to share my agenda.
(Rusten was attacked by his own personal maniac and decided to dig himslef even deeper into the hole by opening a second front with BGN. I know almost nothing about that war but judging by the demos there should not be a way for him to score a decisive victory. The most likely outcome is the whole region getting weakened and falling to Commodore.)

[Gavagai]

Well, the decision to keep the units in Khemi backfired:



I hoped to bait Donovan into suiciding Catapults. But I did not take into account that his Cats can take city raider 2 and get a pretty good odds. He killed everything I had in the city except a lone LB which is left with 1.5 HP. I killed nothing, both cats survived. If at least one of them died, I would be somewhat satisfied with this exchange. The city will fall this turn.

In other news, Naufragar made peace with Rusten. I do not know his situation but from what I see his decision-making is questionable. Building Great Library into attacking a more powerful opponent into peacing out of a dogpile? What? Now he has to attack BGN, or his actions make no sense at all.
And I would really like to know what magic is Rusten doing to be able to win that war. From my perspective it is good: I need a strong power in their region to prevent Commodore from expanding.

[Gavagai]

What do I do after taking a gambling and losing? I take two more gambles.
Here is the first one:



I assembled a small stack of units on the jungle tile, inviting Donovan to attack. This is exactly the thing which backfired last time but this time there is a difference. Previously I forgot that catapults can take CR2 and get excellent odds against my top defenders. But this time Donovan has already spent his promotions. If he attacks me in the jungle with CR2 cats, he will first face a Woodsman2 Sword (strength 12) and then an unpromoted Longbow (strength 9). Chances are high that I would kill his cats with little damage and still have decent odds against subsequent attackers. And if he attacks without catapults, then his odds are just terrible. A normal player would not take this engagement at all but Donovan is not a normal player, so I expect a battle to happen. Worst case scenario, he sacrifices catapults and kills everything, in which case he will have one wounded unit on the tile. I will have an option to recapture it with a Crossbow I now have in the city. In any case, I will win myself a turn and in two turns I will have CG2 Longbow defending. Without Catapults he should not be able to push through.
Of course, all these considerations are mute if he has more HAs in the fog who can attack this tile. But, I think, in that case I am fucked on this front anyway. Ultimately, if I have to take a battle, I rather take it in this jungle, then in the city.
A few words about what other units we have in play here Khemi has 2 spears and a trireme. One of those spears is CR2 (Donovan promoted pretty much everything along the CR line except this terrifying axemen with Woodsman3 - another reason to try to force a battle in the jungle) and another one is Medic2. Not sure what is happening here, maybe he thinks Medic1 and Medic2 stack with each other. In that case I think he is wrong? Not sure. My own city has an Xbow without XP.



Naval situation and another one of my two gambles. The trireme at the bottom has nav1, so three moves. My galley 2N from Kyros has a Chariot and a 5xp Xbow which were loaded up this turn and cannot unload. Potentially, next turn I can move this galley inside Kyros and unload these units inside the city - an opportunity I value highly. But Donovan can move his trireme 3 tiles north and block my passage.
My play was to put an empty galley in his way. Once again, a reasonable player would decline to attack as it looks like an obvious trap. Donovan knows for certain that I have a trireme in this area - it killed his own trireme during out previous war - and he has not yet seen it. Of course, this is Donovan, so I assume he attacks. In this case there is a significant chance that next turn I would get very high odds for the northern galley to kill the trireme and break through. Triremes are low base strength units which makes them really fragile. Of course, what is more likely is that I will get something like 68% for victory and will have to unload units on a hill first and only then attack.
The most worrying thing about this whole situation is that I cannot understand where are Donovan's units. He is attacking me with a token force while he should obviously have more. A nightmare scenario is that he just has his whole army sitting in the capital for some random reason. That would be such a bullshit
In other news. Firstly, this is happening:



I have an axe and a chariot in the city with no reinforcements in sight. Very likely to lose the city.
Secondly, BGN offered me Iron for Iron. I did not send Iron for Iron back but asked him for OB instead. This signal can hardly be taken seriously. BGN is currently losing a war to Rusten, and Naufragar will very likely invade him in a few turns. Of course, a petty border conflict with Donovan is a priority in this situation