[68] Miguelito's famous last words, and Amicalola's sighs

[Mjmd]

I may just not be remembering because of all the   but what is the target for lib?

[Miguelito]

I may just not be remembering because of all the   but what is the target for lib?

hm, the screenshot kinda gives it away  


yuri took Comm's city!


We don't have enough around to interfere at this moment. I had seen a little counter stack of Commodore's, but I think it is too little to do anything.

I do send a stack in the south, to apply some pressure if anything.

[Miguelito]

pondered a while, but iseems not worth it to throw our knights into that particular meat grinder. Maybe we'll do a more traditional siege though. Could refound on the jungle tile? We might not even need to pop the artist, if Comm's culture protects us from yuri attacking (sounds like a bad idea)

[superdeath]

What do you think was the turn that really put you on this dominating path?

[civac2]

Congratulations Miguelito and Amicalola. This was a very well played game.

[yuris125]

Woah, didn't realise how hard you had to work defending against Thoth and Commodore - I didn't have eyes to the east of Thoth's capital and didn't know if there was action happening between Thoth and you. Makes you coming out of it without losing a city all the more impressive

Never felt I was in a position to go after you, but once we had a shared border thought I could defend - that great artist bomb was devastating

Very well played, and congrats on the win!

[Miguelito]

Well played Miguelito!
Thanks for a fun (and fast) game everyone!

Congratulations, Migucalola, a very well played win.

Woah, didn't realise how hard you had to work defending against Thoth and Commodore - I didn't have eyes to the east of Thoth's capital and didn't know if there was action happening between Thoth and you. Makes you coming out of it without losing a city all the more impressive
Never felt I was in a position to go after you, but once we had a shared border thought I could defend - that great artist bomb was devastating
Very well played, and congrats on the win!

Congratulations Mig and Amica, and good game to everyone. It looked like you all had fun, and it was definitely fun to lurk.

Thanks everybody for the nice words, the fun game, and dedicated play! And of course Tarkeel again, for providing the lovely map . Also last week when the game ended I had had a pretty exhausting time, hence why this comes so late.


Quick victory lap:


Awesomest city. It was going to 1 turn cannons pretty much indefinitely as well.



Hastur surpassed the capital in raw commerce output (if it were not for bureaucracy), and also was the second best hammer site. Getting this plant down early and making it holy was also the first major strategic success, preventing the Romans from settling in our direction - and also causing Thoth to go

I'm going to burn that city to the ground sooner rather than later.

- luckily yuri kept that from happening.



Brute's first career was as a city so food rich that I constantly whipped and it was still at the happy cap all the time, without a granary. Oracle of course was decisive, not least because of all the culture, which ultimately controlled the other isthmus as well. Getting this plant up after Hastur prevented Commodore from settling nearby as well. Then we built all the wonders you see and in a space of about 50 turns it produced 6 great people, whose bulbs ultimately triggered the concession.



It was a filler from the start, built for the purpose of getting a quick chariot during Commodore's first invasion, and because we could not control our inner sea shore. It grew on the crab, and even built a wonder together with some units in times of need, but when Hastur took it because Moai, Vivo! was rendered a stub pretty much. But with Colossus a net positive stub nontheless, and every now and then a fresh catapult rolled off the ramps here.



Weird city. On the one hand it worked those silly plains farms, because it had grown a bit too much early on when it was working cottages for More Light, but it also build a fair bit of units. But it was never the splendid port to control the inner sea I may have dreamt of. Couldn't even justify a lighthouse. The corn was juggled between TTS, More Light and Hastur, to prevent either from starving.



The city that won us the game. It had a splendid future full of hammers with the Roman capital ressources and those plains waiting to be workshopped.



Foodless strategic plant. With the wheat it would have been more useful, but unlikely to actually contribute before the game would be over. With some time, yuri could have forced a raze or defensive battle against his collateral here, so I considered the city expendable.

The empire:





This stack was going to pick up a few more trebuchets, then try and take Comm's capital even before cannons would be rolling. That seemed more profitable than Yellow Comet and its hyperdefensive stack.

[Magic Science]

How close were you to an actual Domination Victory?

[Miguelito]

1. Miguelito: Stalin of Japan (Start SE)
2. Yuri: Pericles of Babylon (Start NW)
3. Thoth: KK of Rome (Start SW)
4. Commodore: Boudicca of NA (AGG/CHA) (NE)

During most of the game I was feeling like we had lost the pick phase. We were sandwiched between Thoth and Commodore, who both had picked scary UUs that we had no counter for:

• Comm's out of the gate 2 promo + C1 dogs make me uncomfortable to think of. I don't really know how to respond, just more axes. Eventually we might hope to gain a leg up with the power of wonders, but...
  
• Agg Rome is Agg Rome, in this edition with pre-known capital iron. Again, more axes until better units?
  

more axes in the end did work out for defense at great pains. We both rubbished yuri's pick, but later it hit me how the bowmen both neutralized NA's ancient era supremacy (and turned Comm towards us as a consequence) while also at least making actual conquest more complicated for praetorians, potentially also directing Thoth towards us (although we had 5XP Agg axes). And then yuri even used bowmen to take over Agg Rome's second city ! So that turned out pretty genius.

Btw I doubt Cre was a very strong pick for this game. With few players and few cities there are several early culture bombs available that can provide border pops, and indeed faster 3rd rings. We did that with Buddhism (of course religion not being contested because 2 other players had Cre and the other Totem Poles at Archery helped), and then Oracle (and then more wonders ), which provided us with great map control. yuri has commented himself how he underestimated Agg as an economic trait (we may have done so ourselves, mostly picking it because lol 3 promo samurai, and AW means we want shock axes).

So, our prospect was to get swarmed by superior units from two sides (because yuri on the other side with Bowmen was less appetizing), having to hold out at least until the machinery bulb - and that more or less was what it turned out to be. So what went well, so that we made it?

1. yuri stopping Thoth in his tracks before he actually got rolling - I am pretty sure an intact Rome would have killed or maimed us after Commodore's invasion in the sixties, which in itself we could only barely defeat. Again, great respect for yuri, also for just having the guts to take up that fight. yuri, as we reported we actually harassed Thoth's economy at least a little when we noticed what happened, so we weren't entirely freeloading on your efforts - but yes we benefitted enormously off that.
   
2. Got Hastur down + holy. I think we played a rather efficient start overall - there has been some critique that we didn't go WB first, but I think by the time we were roading towards Hastur it waspaying off
   
3. Got Tataras whipped off shortly before Commodore's attack. That extra promo was essential, even though we still wouldn't get odds one on one. It also meant we had to 1pop whip lots of axes when the attack came, which is of course a pretty mixed joy.
   
4. After Commodore and Thoth were repealed at pains we were left alone to recover for a pretty long time. At the time I didn't notice because it wasn't evident on the power graph but yuri had to handle some serious fights, so he couldn't run away with the game as expected. Somehow we were first to monarchy, which freed us of the shackles of unhappiness from whips and pillaged luxuries.
   
5. We then got ballsy and researched aesthetics - polytheism - literature before mathematics. It was a mix of high risk - high reward against a perceived runaway yuri, and I also figured that with Tatara axes we'd be able to hold against Commodore even if he came back with catapults. It was around the time when we witnessed something along those lines happening in pb66 . Anyway, the risk  didn't materialize, we reaped the reward, and it was high - Parthenon, Great Library, Paya, Epics. Heroic Epic would have the capital 1turning samurai and then knights for the rest of the game. Paya gave us Pacifism during the GA and Theocracy afterwards - theo wasn't as decisive thanks to tataras and the stable in ML, but still quite helpful no doubt. Part/GLib/NE (pretty big investment admittedly) made all the GS for the final bulbing spree (plus the dubious academy, and an artist we might have used during the upcoming turns). Around that time winning started to look plausible again, but it was a long ways to go.
   
6. with regards to the above, we stumbled into some immense strength of Stalin's - when we picked I had not really given it much more thought than Ind would help to oracle MC and get the tataras up, but it ended up saving us around 550 raw hammers - compare that with what Cre could save on libraries. And in fact I think other players never even got around to building their national wonders, while the Epics and also Moai were just awesome for us and a big part of how we could afford
   
7. permanent caste. That felt great, with lots of workshops built (because if the map offered anything it was food), and also allowing us to run 5-7 scientists permanently in Brute and never having to get mroe buildings for slots. It was a spontaneous decision during the GA but I cam to love it. 
   

So yes, a lot of thing just fell into place, luckily for us, and we did a few plays that I at least found unconventional that paid off.

What surprised me was that neither yuri nor Commodore were very eager to get bureaucracy, it's so clearly strong on a 5 cities/empire map.

yuri, I was positively surprised how well you did here, both because my record of your old games didn't have you as that strong, and moreso of Pericles in the shark tank. Great game. One thing that I also learned this game, crossbows can keep you reasonably safe at home from Agg praetorians, but they are pretty hopeless attacking.

Commodore, that opening .... . Luckily we decided against the NW start in time. I was just wondering if the pick meant that you had to succeed with dogs befor eanybody had construction, and if that doomed your game in a way. Also, is Agg really required for NA? (well it's an awesome economic trait as we've seen so maybe just that justifies Boudicca).

Thoth, props for surviving so long, almost till the end, and thanks for always being a good sport and keeping up the turnpace even if at time I guess you didn't have the most exciting turns to look forward to.