[Spoilers] Shallow Thought and Hitru's series of (unfortunate?) events

[Charriu]

I totally have to agree with Magic on those last paragraphs.

[Hitru]

I had to remind ST quite many times about our lead in demos. ? Lets say that I was much more optimistic about our position than him. But that last dogpile was truly scary, in the long run we could not have won SD and Elkad simultaneously at that point. We needed to break their alliance.

And indeed fear of praetorians did keep RFS alive.

[Hitru]

Typing on mobile, that question mark is just a typo. In any case I was always much more positive about our position for exactly the reasons MS mentioned.

[shallow_thought]

I totally have to agree with Magic on those last paragraphs.

In the cold light of day you could well be right. It just that this game felt so unfamiliar from the inside - I kept pulling the levers I normally would but the whole thing felt sluggish. I'm naturally pessimistic, which doesn't help. Amongst the many things that worried me at various points in the game:
- Praetorians
- The cultural pressure we were under from both Zulu and Rome on key fronts
- Superdeath's better GNP and more direct push for military tech
- CHA/SoZ commandos

So, yeah, I sat there having made clear gains at small cost by waiting until people were already in trouble and then beating up on them and wondering why it still felt like a struggle. Too much Monarch SP playing. Oddly enough, one of the clear turning points for me personally was when we built Sistine and began to push back culturally - I'm sure that in absolute terms there were better plays, but it was the point at which I began to feel more in control of the game, with something we had actively planned taking effect and moving us forward. As opposed to the wars where we switched potential targets over and over, eventually piling in when we saw clear weakness (albeit to good effect).

Winning in MP civ appears to be as much about breaking the will of the opposition to continue playing as it is about actual position in the game, and in those terms ... this was close.

It also turns out that I don't actually enjoy brutally crushing human opposition, which is a critical flaw in MP .

[superdeath]

I totally have to agree with Magic on those last paragraphs.

In the cold light of day you could well be right. It just that this game felt so unfamiliar from the inside - I kept pulling the levers I normally would but the whole thing felt sluggish. I'm naturally pessimistic, which doesn't help. Amongst the many things that worried me at various points in the game:
- Praetorians
- The cultural pressure we were under from both Zulu and Rome on key fronts
- Superdeath's better GNP and more direct push for military tech
- CHA/SoZ commandos

So, yeah, I sat there having made clear gains at small cost by waiting until people were already in trouble and then beating up on them and wondering why it still felt like a struggle. Too much Monarch SP playing. Oddly enough, one of the clear turning points for me personally was when we built Sistine and began to push back culturally - I'm sure that in absolute terms there were better plays, but it was the point at which I began to feel more in control of the game, with something we had actively planned taking effect and moving us forward. As opposed to the wars where we switched potential targets over and over, eventually piling in when we saw clear weakness (albeit to good effect).

Winning in MP civ appears to be as much about breaking the will of the opposition to continue playing as it is about actual position in the game, and in those terms ... this was close.

It also turns out that I don't actually enjoy brutally crushing human opposition, which is a critical flaw in MP .

yeah, if you hadnt slapped my rifle stack before i killed Elkad, i would have had commandos from at least 1 city, if not a couple in... 11 turns or so? I tested max wealth/research builds and could get to military science, and my HE city ( Deadpool ) could spit a rifle/cav out about every turn.

Also, Those were clearly my gems