T217:
Nothing to exiting happened this except that I noticed that I need coal or oil for building railroads and my coal trade with Frozen still lasts 5 turns. So I send out a flood of diplo to get back a coal or oil.
I also see that I did my last player review in T189 and since then some things change, so we need an update. This is also a nice way to show of my tech tracker again.
But I think you may excuse me when I did those tech tracking only on the best players. But first I want to say something that will come up a lot in this analysis. I think this game won't end with a concession but rather with a space victory or culture victory. Here are my reasons why:
- There are more then enough relevant players competing for the win
- Two players from civforum are among those. And I hate to say this, but the civforum players are more resilient and do not concede as fast as our RB players. Sorry for saying it so bluntly.
- Winning by domination (aka concession) is unlikely as you would have to gain so much land on this map, basically 3 continents. The closest player who can do that is Miguelito and there is a lot stopping him from that.
With that in mind on to the analysis (in order of likelyhood to win).
The big players club:
Piccadilly:
Most advances civ and on a good course towards a space victory with the recent addition of Standard Ethanol. It will be very interesting to see how he deals with his two neighbors Frozen and Ichabod. The former has a lot of wonders that might be useful for Piccadilly, but then again this will be a very hard conquest as Frozen is on a similar tech level.
Frozen:
I'm still amazed at what Frozen did in this game. He is still second in tech with just 17 cities. To be honest his position in the game boosted my morale considerably because I knew I can get back from this without 40+ cities. Only problem for Frozen in this game is he has Piccdilly, Amicalola and Mr. Cairo as neighbors. Thankfully Amicalola is occupied otherwise and Mr. Cairo militarily behind. This may help him against a potential conflict with Piccadilly in the future. I really hope he wins this game. That would be just amazing and a testament to what a builder type player can achieve.
Miguelito/Rusten:
Third place in tech, highest production base thanks to execive deals with Mining Inc. Now if he can manage to get ahead in tech he might turn this into a space victory thanks to that production. The big question for him is also if he will start any additional military conquests. Civac starts to be less of a threat for him so he might turn more attention towards our continent. Then again this may slow down his ever so important scientific development. We will see.
Amicalola:
Amicalola has a great standing in this game. Last turn he started a war against Superdeath and established a foothold on the Donovan/Tarkeel/Superdeath continent similar to what Miguelito did on our continent. The problem that I see with this is that this may delay his tech rate throwing him back behind the other leading players as he tries to develop that continent. Like I said above this game won't end in a concession by military force. Because of that I doubt that Amicalola will have enough time to make an economic advantage out of this conquest.
Civac:
Great game so far, but I have the feeling morale is low for some reason? Conquest of Ichabod's astronomy island went smoothly, but I was shocked to see him behind in tech on some important fields considering that he had the biggest empire for the longest time and therefore enough time to develop it. This once again shows that we concede to early. Civac was on a great course for victory thanks to the early conquest, but as tech shows he is no longer in a leading position.
The midfield:
Mr. Cairo (formerly mackoti):
What happened here? You might remember I had him in the big players club before, but I think I can't justify that any more. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Cairo won't die immediately, but he's fallen back considerably. He's just 3 main techs ahead of me and I'm surely not winning this game.
Ichabod:
Still alive after he lost his astronomy island. I also doubt he will suffer any additional loses towards civac as that would bring the major power on that continent (Piccadilly) into play. That together with being technologically relevant may yet gurantee his survival.
Charriu:
I think my position has improved thanks to Oxford and soon Wall Street. Thanks to the latter I will soon only pay around 100 gold in maintenance. I also noticed that the HQ for Creative Construction is still up and I have a Engineer for that at hand. Only 4 more turns and I could grab that. I think this might be a great play since players are more likely to spread Creative for hammers then Mining as the latter helps a major player (Miguelito)
Tarkeel:
Got a good chunk of Commodore and is the technologically leading player on that continent. Recently suffered another attack by Superdeath, but thanks to Amicalola that threat should soon be gone. I think he may end up in a similar situation like me soon with a major power (Amicalola) and a bigger but technologically behind empire (Donovan) as a neighbors.
The chopping block:
Lazteuq:
Lazteuq is thoroughly behind in tech compared to both of his neigbors (Miguelito and Me). Still he managed to stay alive thanks to some important military techs. But even right now as he is in a golden age his GNP never got higher then mine. Miguelito could crush him easily, then again the same could happen with me at Miguelito's hand although I have better military.
Donovan Zoi (former? TBS):
Still alive after the recent conquest of Commodore, but can he get enough tech to survive a major power like Amicalola
Superdeath:
Soon dead at the hand of Amicalola.
Mjmd:
Poor devil still lives mainly because nobody can safely conquer him on his central island fortress and Lazteuq can't safely conquer him on the astronomy island. Wait a minute maybe I can conquer his astronomy islands which hold some valuable luxury resources (silver and dye) Have to check that next time in-game.
Oh I was just teasing! I was referring to PB62, in which I was the only one who hadn't conceded despite being down to two cities.