[spoilers] AT makes a funny thread title

[AutomatedTeller]

Another double turn for me

SD sent me an iron/horse for iron/horse deal. I guess that means he wants to be friends so he can kill something with knights?

I dunno - I'm currently #1 in GNP, food, hammers and power. I don't really see a reason to secure his backline so he can go kill Krill or Mr Cairo. I turned it down.

3 turns to paper.

Current plan is:

Get Paper - kick off GA. Build Sankore. Get Optics->guilds->banking->gunpowder. Stir up some crap on the ocean, take over Mr Cairo's islands.
Drama->philo->nationalism->build Taj->gunpowder->mil tradition->cuirraissers.

What can go wrong?

[AutomatedTeller]

Turn 159

Turns are coming fast and furious, now that there are only 4 players and everyone is at peace.

I got a GP from TinyDesk, got paper and



well, I knew I was the tech leader.  I didn't realize it was by that much.  I'm up like 2K in research costs on everyone.   

The only tech anyone has that I don't is SD with guilds, and I'm up 7 techs on everyone - important ones, like CoL or calendar or civil service.  And that doesn't even count the techs like paper and music that the others can't even see that I have, because I'm so far up.

Maybe I should just go to guilds, switch to police state and theocracy and build a stack of 30 knights and kill someone, stop screwing around with tech.

[AutomatedTeller]

turn 160!!

not very exciting.  Switched to guilds, getting it in 3, running wealth.  At that point, I turn off research, switch to knights everywhere, switch back into Theo/police state and upgrade everything.  Build a big stack, go take some cities from SD.

This isn't really just because he attacked me - I have to deal with SD before Mr Cairo, because if I go for Mr Cairo, I have a long, long border.

[Cornflakes]

If you are going to turn off research at Guilds now, is there any tech that (looking back now) you could have skipped in order to get Guilds X turns quicker?

[AutomatedTeller]

If you are going to turn off research at Guilds now, is there any tech that (looking back now) you could have skipped in order to get Guilds X turns quicker?

Sure.  Compass, Paper, music & engineering, maybe calendar.  Probably aesthetics & lit.

And I'm still building Sankore, so that will give me some 50 beakers on it's own.   And I suspect research will only be off for 5-10 turns - I don't have THAT many units to upgrade.  

I'm really doing this because I didn't realize how far ahead I was - I think Curiassers will be more elegant, but using my production advantage in police state to simply have a huge stack of knights is faster. 

I expect SD to be a tough opponent - man make melee that are C4/formation !!

[AutomatedTeller]

SD has a lot of knights and keshiks in Earth - 17 of each. he's roaded from Mars, so he can hit RadioLab first turn. He can't do that yet, though.

Building up a lot of units. Everything is on a knight.

Is it a change that a War Elephants don't upgrad e to knights, or has it always been that way?

[AutomatedTeller]

That went well.

SD dowed and dumped his stack of keshiks and knights to where he could hit WaitWait next turn.

First, I burned Titan, losing 1 war elephant, killing 3 war elephants and an axe.

Then I hit the stack.

Hit them with 8 cats and a bunch of stuff - pikes, maces, knights, war elephants, spears, horse archers.  Killed 27 of his units, lost 16 of mine.  Half of my losses were suicide catapults.  He'll have some basis to be unhappy - I should have won 23 of those battles, not 27, but it would have messed up his stack anyway.

He might be able to kill RadioLab, anyway, but all his units are hurt.

Pics in a few.

[AutomatedTeller]

oh, you want details?

I don't have good pics from the beginning of the turn, sorry, but I can put it together from a couple of turns earlier



Since then, I've done some upgrades to spears and horse archers, but that's about the forces in play.

This is his stack at the end:



He's pretty much done.

The battles:







SD will be a little upset by this results of this battle - I got a bit lucky and won something like 4 battles more than I should have.  At the end, I won 2 43% and one 33% battle.  I also won 4 out 6 battles that were essentially a toss up.  I did lose a couple of 60% battles.

Overall, I won 27, lost 16, and withdrew once.  Half of the losses were suicide catapults.

[AutomatedTeller]

awesome. Well, now i"m in a triple split.

SD killed the small stack that burned Titan - he lost more than he killed, I think. He pulled his wounded stack back. I didn't have enough to kill it, so I didn't.

MrCairo DOW'ed and took the opportunity to burn WeekendEdition.

I turned on research to get Optics for privateers to beat the hell out of MrCairo if he presses things.

[AutomatedTeller]

Or, I guess that's it.

My analysis of the game:

I didn't see most of the others land, but Mr Cairo's looked pretty terrible. His best 2nd city had, i think, clam. And Ruff's capitol was, not connected to freshwater and had 2 saltwater tiles, but wasn't coastal.

I didn't think mine was great, but it was good. Well, WaitWait was pretty awesome, mainly because of the grass oasis. Beyond that, I think my advantages were:

1) The combo
2) The capital
3) SD choking Ruff.
4) My position on the map
5) Building a second scout

To be honest, I think the combo is broken - Imp/Inca is very good at expansion and in this mod, is a little less constrained by costs. I think that loosening was actually pretty big - because of how's its figured, it mattered almost from city #2 on.

The capitol was outstanding for imp - a ton of hammers, easily made. I didn't have to whip at all. I didn't get city #2 out first, but I got cities 3 and 4 down first.

And SD choking Ruff meant that neither Ruff nor SD were really expanding, which means I was able to get a fair amount of Ruff's land, too. Everything south of WaitWait would have at least been contested by Ruff had he lived.

And being on the end meant I had a backline.
And the scout was critical to me finding the site for WaitWait. Knowing the land was a huge advantage for me, I think.

That said - my first 3 cities had 2 cows between them for food resources that were there's, plus 2 that were shared between them and the cap. Plus the 2 oases, one of which was grass.

That said, WaitWait and AllThings were awesome.