While I was waiting for the next turn to grind around to us I made some notes on our competition from a nakedly self-interested perspective. Yes its time for the:
Turn 133 Power Rankings
We'll concentrate on our neighbours and the top of the scoreboard as we don't know much about the rest of the world. Its very hard to keep track of what's going on in a 33-player game
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1. dtay: Mao (EXP/PRO) of Ethiopia (Hunting/Mining/Oromo Warrior/Stele)
Founded Judaism, Oracled Metal Casting, built Colossus, beat us to guilds by five turns and has taken four cities off Whosit so far. He's also the only player we've met with Paper, so has started his Liberalism run already... He's got a couple of cities on Pindicator's continent, which *should* be a bit vulnerable, but is deservedly atop the scoreboard. He's faded in other games though, will the same happen here?
Reasons to be fearful: Cheater Hater is helping dtay dogpile Whosit and is possibly leaving himself open to dtay's attentions in a post-Whosit world. dtay showed himself to be a strong fighter in PB13 and PB19.
Reasons to be cheerful: Novice/Krill the pre-game favourites are his neighbour, and if anyone can stunt dtay's development it'll be them. Also he won't want an early Astronomy, which could give an opportunity to target his overseas possessions...
2. Boldly Going Nowhere: Pericles (CRE/PHI) of Russia (Hunting/Mining/Cossack/Research Institute)
Bulbed Philosophy for Taoism, built the Great Library, Statue of Zeus and Angkor Wat and his score is mildly inflated by CRE land, I don't know much more about him than this!
Reasons to be fearful: Neighbour Dhalphir is playing very short turns. This may not be all that bad as it implies that he's just queuing up military builds (or possibly building wealth everywhere with a tech target in mind) and Dhal did defend okay in PB13.
Reasons to be cheerful: Not much in the way of late game traits, the Buddhist holy city is no longer sitting temptingly just over the water from him, so he may not contest our plans for Mardoc.
4. German Jojo: Shaka (AGG/EXP) of Ottomen (Agriculture/Wheel/Janissary/Hammam)
We haven't met him, which is excellent news on a map this watery as he only needs 5XP for Amphibious Mace/Jan/Rifle/Inf, but does make it a bit hard to judge how he's doing. Did he get a wonder? Did he run over a rival early on? Has he just expanded well?
Reasons to be fearful: Amphi/Commando units.
Reasons to be cheerful: Amphi/Commando units for one of our rivals.
5. Plako: Louis (CRE/IND) of France (Agriculture/Wheel/Musketeer/Salon)
Replaying the French, Plako also seems to be replaying PB13 with the Great Lighthouse and bobbing along just below the score leaders. He must have a plan for world domination though, right?
Reasons to be fearful: Its Plako.
Reasons to be cheerful: He's got close naval borders with dtay and Novice/Krill and seems to be sharing his continent with spacetyrantxenu. None of those are going to donate him land.
6. WilliamLP: FDR (IND/ORG) of Mongolia (Hunting/Wheel/Keshik/Ger)
Based on the continent north of Pindicator William doesn't seem to have built any wonders or got involved in any warring yet. He was pretty conservative in PB11 and PB13, so perhaps he's just happily buildering away?
Reasons to be fearful: Org gets more powerful as the game goes on, his mounted units start at 7XP, so aren't far from Amphibious.
Reasons to be cheerful: We don't share a watery border with him.
7. Pindicator: Qin Shi Huang (IND/PRO) of China (Agriculture/Mining/Cho-Ko-Nu/Pavilion)
Crushed Barry Lyndon very early on, gaining the Hindu holy city which he shrined on t121, but did he over extend himself? He hasn't really caught back up after that and has been skirmishing with dtay and keeping a carefully quiet border with both us and Cynheard. He settled one tile off his southern coast - is that to avoid antagonising us - I think he read our naval PB13 antics...
Reasons to be fearful: That shrine will only become more powerful as the game goes on, Cho-Ko-Nu can deal collateral to siege - I haven't faced CKN in MP yet, so I don't know how worried to be about them.
Reasons to be cheerful: We could think about trying to gain that shrine...
8. Novice/Krill: Willem(FIN/CRE) of Babylon (Agriculture/Wheel/Bowman/Garden)
Got the Pyramids and hold the largest amount of land in the game (although it looks to be heavily tundra-y like ours), they recently declared on dtay and Whosit, but signed peace with dtay, so must be looking to pick up scraps/slow down dtay's progress against Whosit. If they are running a GP strategy I'd have expected them to start bulbing already, but haven't noticed anything (note: that doesn't mean they haven't
).
Reasons to be fearful: They bulb their way to the first-to bonii that we're after.
Reasons to be cheerful: They are mostly dtay's problem!
9. TBS: Gandhi (PHI/SPI) of Native Americans (Agriculture/Fishing/Dog Soldier/Totem Pole)
The last of the score-leaders that I'm including, TBS has mid-late game traits and is a proven strong player, so could be due for a late surge. He's been winning a war with Furungy for a long time, which may have put him too far behind the curve to be a threat, but I wouldn't count him out. He bulbed something on t120 and built the Confucian shrine on t127.
Reasons to be fearful: Again, bulbing the bonii that we're after.
Reasons to be cheerful: It looks like he's spent too much time fighting to do that.
[skip a few that we haven't met or are so far away that we're not interested in them - sorry Xenu!]
12.
DazedRoyalty: Elizabeth (FIN/PHI) of Khmer (Hunting/Mining/Ballista Elephant/Baray)
Got MoM. We've met him, but I've no idea what he's been up to.
Reasons to be fearful: One of the bigger guns might steal MoM off him.
Reasons to be cheerful: They haven't stolen MoM yet!
13. Cynheard: Mehmed (EXP/ORG) of Egypt (Agriculture/Wheel/War Chariot/Obelisk)
We're trading whale for wine. Seems to have built up a paranoia military in response to Pindicator's exploits, will we need to prop him up against a Pindi attack or pile on to establish a beach-head on that continent? Mehmed is a good expansion leader so he could be a bit disappointed that he hasn't done that very well. He is spread over two continents though, which may be costly...
Reasons to be fearful: He could cause trouble for Kirby and No Homers.
Reasons to be cheerful: But not at much gain to himself, so let's assume he's acting rationally
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20. Mardoc: Wang Kon (FIN/PRO) of Spain (Fishing/Mysticism/Conquistador/Citadel)
Grabbed Buddhism, then got into a bitter fight with Azza after razing a typically-Azzan early stretch-city. The measure of how bitter is that even while we are eating Azza he razed Mardoc's capital - the Buddhist holy city
- with some kind of great general trickery. I'm so glad we don't have a coastal capital in this game! He's currently got a huge stack of Catapults and Chariots with a couple of Longbows poised on Azza's border, but may be holding off to try and snipe the city after we do the heavy lifting.
Reasons to be fearful: Mardoc seems to know his meta, even if he's misjudged his fight against Azza this game, that still means we need to dance around him a bit if we want to absorb him after Azza.
Reasons to be cheerful: No capital means no more tech - if we can't eat him straight away we can always come back a bit later...
23. Cheater Hater: Bismark (EXP/IND) of Zulu (Agriculture/Hunting/Impi/Ikhanda)
We are gifting him Iron. Was having fun buildering away until Whosit rudely interrupted, and is now taking his revenge in concert with dtay and Novice/Krill. I haven't paid his progress enough attention so I'm not even sure what level of tech he's fighting at right now
. This is a bit remiss so our scout is making his way back in this direction.
Reasons to be fearful: Hasn't shown great strategic awareness in his other game so could be leaving himself open for dtay or Novice/Krill to swallow him as an afterthought after Whosit.
Reasons to be cheerful: Could be leaving himself open for us to swallow him as an afterthought after Azza or Mardoc.
24. Dhalphir: Hayuna Cupac (FIN/IND) of England (Fishing/Mining/Redcoat/Stock Exchange)
Playing very short turns with a very small civ could be the new North Korea or the new Nakor. As BGN's northern neighbour we can hope for the former.
Reasons to be fearful: Could give BGN an easy ride for conquest.
Reasons to be cheerful: Could give BGN a bloody nose instead.
28. Azza: Washington (EXP/CHA) of Arabia (Mysticism/Agriculture/Camel Archer/Madrassa)
Played a traditional Azza opening of settling a stretch city and losing it. Was lulled into a false sense of security by us, possibly due to our friendly reaction to his settling Hello Joe, and really should have had something scouting our open borders in the run up to our attack. Hasn't built any Barracks, which with CHA giving the second promotion at 4XP is a bit bizarre. Perhaps he just built Madrassa's for border pops? With all that said he never really stood a chance being stuck between us and Mardoc with no real backlines. His decapitation of Mardoc was just brutal though
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Reasons to be fearful: A drawn-out Mexican standoff over Dental Plan with us and Mardoc could make us do something dumb and fail to press on with our plans for world-domination.
Reasons to be cheerful: Everything that's happened so far
29. Whosit: Hammurabi (AGG/ORG) of Vikings (Fishing/Hunting/Berserker/Trading Post)
When he originally declared on CH I was paranoid - AGG Vikings just over the water from us
- but happily he got bogged down and driven back and is now being devoured
.
Reasons to be fearful: Whosit is such a tiny speed bump for dtay and/or Krill/Novice that Cheater Hater falls straight after giving us an unpleasantly bristly border.
Reasons to be cheerful: No Zerks
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and finally:
3. Old Human Tourist: Victoria (FIN/IMP) of Aztecs (Hunting/Mysticism/Jaguar/Sacrificial Altar)
We used our hut money and IMP very well early on, allowing us to hit 20 cities and run a decently powerful golden age by turn 115, now we're into the always war phase of the game - we don't want to stop using our army until we hit the domination limit
Reasons to be fearful: We're painting a target on us that we didn't have last game, meaning we need to be careful of naval attack post-Astronomy. We need to be sure not to under- or over-commit to the fighting and don't lose our army or our tech edge.
Reasons to be cheerful: We still have #1 crop yield even after whipping out 15 Knights and 15 Horse Archers over five turns.
Azza played, so I'll pop in game and see what's going on...
for weakening Mardoc
no Buddhism holy city for us though..
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