Gavagai and the gods of underground

[SevenSpirits]

I would say it was less than 5% your fault.

[Gavagai]

I think, I should drop Great Library plan...

[Gavagai]

I would say it was less than 5% your fault.

That's not even the first time I have terrible GP luck. I remember a game where I wanted Great Merchant really badly and planned to get it by running lots of merchants during the GA in one of my cities. Well, I got Great Artist because ages ago I ran an artist in that city for a couple turns to expand borders. Also, I had a really terrible luck with GPs in the end of AlaePB, where I wasn't able to get my two-persons GA until the end of the game but in that case it was a reasonable side-effect of my strategy of getting a lot of GPs early, so I can't really complain.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Really, really disappointing. Hate when RNG bites so badly, but it was my own fault.

I know the sting of this quite well. I pretty much get this feeling in every game, and it is always my fault. Or Xenu's. Mostly his, actually.

I would say it was less than 5% your fault.

Subtle jab, perfectly delivered. Thanks for the chuckle. Also, congrats on your wedding since I neglected to comment elsewhere!

[Gavagai]

OK, interesting things are about to start:



This is my warrior, right in the middle of Gawdzak's `phracts stack. And this is the same stack from a little different viewpoint:



So, what happened? Gawdzak has played a close to perfect opening and entered midgame in an excellent shape you are able to witness right now. That's unfortunate as I have mostly caugt up with the pack in findamentals:



GNP is at breakeven, at 100% I would be second. This is without Bureaucracy which everyone but me is running and which I will adopt next turn. If I had anyone other than Gawdzak in neighbors, I would be pretty optimistic. As you can see, numbers are pretty close for all players and formally it's still everyone's game. And I'm only just about to start leveraging my traits. If the leader was far away, I would feel myself comfortable challenging him.
On a happier note, I can be reasonable sure that I'm not the target: Gawdzak is putting most of his EPs into Zanth and many arguments can be made that Zanth is an easier target. That gives me a possible way out. I plan to start a GA of my own soon, rush to Guilds, generate a Great Merchant, mission him, mass upgrade WEs to knights and add even more knights after that via Police State-enhanced whips. In this manner I plan to drop something like 30 knights out of blue on Gawdzak's head around T155, just at the point when he would be heavily tied up at Zanth's front. I estimate that I will make some initial gains and then he will regroup, stabilize and a war of attrition will start. In such war I will have decent chances due to Police State, Statue of Zeus (yep, I built this thing) and Zanth's support.
Overview shot of my Empire:



Cities:

[Commodore]

Are you sure WE can upgrade to knights? I thought it was cuirs...

[Gavagai]

Are you sure WE can upgrade to knights? I thought it was cuirs...

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/War_Elephant_(Civ4) - this page agrees with you. Strange, I was pretty sure about that. Well, good to know, will have to build HAs then. Of course, it would make me even more vulnerable during the window before Guids is researched.

[Gawdzak]

I don't think I played significantly better than you. I just think you sacrificed a lot to get the mids, which really stunted your tech rate by delaying Currency until ~turn 110.

Good game.

[GermanJoey]

Perhaps he did sacrifice a lot but... the Phi forge engineer into a GE on the mids into another GE for TGL is a really goddamn cool play!

It seems like most civs' economies really suffered badly in the pre-currency era other than yours, Gawdzak. Org was really a great choice for this map.