[SPOILERS] Cornflakes Returns to Civ 4: Forget 1UPT, STACK OF DOOM!!!!!

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Lurker thread has been very active the last couple days   Lots of different names showing up on the “Last Post” ... I wonder what is drawing all the attention?

"Dude, I'm telling you, logistically, Superman would break Batman in half!"

"Who are you kidding, nauf!? Superman doesn't even have a cool identity. He just puts on glasses and acts like a jackass."

"Chevalier, he can melt things with his eyes! His eyes!" 

[Cornflakes]

I climbed to #2 in food ranking GNP is still not competitive

[Cornflakes]

Did Superdeath artist bomb me 15 turns ago? I noticed a mid-turn score decrease for me at the time while Superdeath was logged in and thought this was odd, and I just was going through the graphs and happened to click the culture graph after the standard GNP/MFG/Food. There discontinuity on Superdeath's culture graph. I don't know what else that could be. He only claimed like 2 tiles with the artist if I remember the score change correctly 

[Cornflakes]

Wetbandit has been trying to buy health for a couple turns (offering me resources I already have). This turn he sweetened the deal with 10 gpt plus several duplicate resources for my only wheat (I’m trading my other wheat for corn from DZ). I accepted and then begged some corn from Superdeath. Not sure if he’ll interpret that as a beg, a demand, a threat, or something else entirely if he does accept I can cancel the trade with DZ and get my wheat back. I do have several cities in health trouble already (notably max-size Maoi at -4) so I can only imagine what the industrialized nations are feeling with their factories and coal and oil.

[Cornflakes]

I'm not quite as far behind in tech as I thought ... Superdeath is researching Constitution now (1T remaining). I have constitution > Corporation > and am 2 turns from Assembly line. Ignore the fact that Superdeath has more than 2k gold in the bank and at minimum Steel > Railroad + Scientific Method + Music line + Liberalism [EDIT: and Astronomy]. The others are all further ahead than that.

[Cornflakes]

Also I'm 99% certain that Superdeath is burning my fishing nets with a Privateer (there was a privateer stacked with his frigates a turn or two ago). That won't help relations any. I demanded 240 gold from Superdeath to voice my displeasure. If the privateer continues to burn my nets I'll institute the draft when Assembly Line completes and declare war on Superdeath. If someone else is burning my nets it will be a little hilarious But I don't see any reason why anybody else would be burning my nets. I have positive trade relations with everybody (except maybe Wetbandit who had to pay for Wheat).

[Cornflakes]

Mr. Cairo is in the driver's seat right now. If nobody does anything I think Cairo is within a month of victory. I haven't been following closely but have been periodically checking in ever since he built Sistine Chapel. He has 3 cities over 20k now. I'll monitor progress closer over the next couple turns but the last 30k culture should be doable in 30 turns, right? I've see a bunch of Great People born in Cairo's cities over the last 100 turns but very few artists. Seemingly merchant after merchant. I wonder if those are intentional or low odds?

[Cornflakes]

Also JR4 has a half dozen assorted great people standing around, some for centuries on end now. Surely there has to have been a better way to use them? Snowball effect of compounding returns over time?

[Cornflakes]

Superdeath got the message, offering crabs back and refraining from pillaging the other crabs in the area. I proceeded with swapping into Nationhood, drafting 3 rifles, and reduced my demand to 200 gold from Superdeath. I do not intend to declare war if he refuses. But I will continue drafting. I am working every land tile in my territory and a couple cities are starving due to lack of health and feeding of specialists. I’m losing tiles on all borders due to cultural pressure so in some border cities I’m working up to 5 specialists. Those specialists will be converted to Infantry over the next few turns to bump the power graph up. I’ll have plenty of happiness since I also swapped to HR and can move knights around for MP as needed.

I’ll have Steel in about 10 turns for Cannon and will probably turn off tech at that point since the next generation of military is impossibly far away. I may or may not go for railroad first to unlock Machine Guns.

[Cornflakes]

Superdeath declined my demand for 200 gold and offered 123. I accepted and offered back crab/crab as a sign of peace.

Mr. Cairo isn't quite as close to culture victory as I thought and posted about above. His 3 top cities are at 21k/15k/15k. 30 turns is probably still a rough timeframe. But one of those 3 cities is coastal so that might be a problem if he doesn't have a close backup somewhere.