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Lol. I accepted that mistake when I saw Scooter didn't have copper connected, as highlighted in earlier reports
I do feel that Byzantium's starting techs contributed to my slow start, as was the fact that I was late in the snake pick and ended up with one of the weaker starts. Which meant slow early game. The first units I built had to be axes, simply because I didn't have Hunting at the time
That said, I had to be better prepared for chariots, I gave too much weight to the fact that I was still ahead of Scooter on the power graph as of last turn, but with the insane mobility he gets from Viking UB + circumnav, I should've thought more about possibility of an opportunistic attack and what I could do about it
And it's fair to say that my scouting this game was bad, I have very little idea where Scooter's units are and what he's doing
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In your defense, 4 move galleons are broken, and there's a reason we're not usually playing on base BtS.
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Hey, I can come up with plenty of excuses myself  starting with the fact that when I decided to come back to Civ MP, I promised myself not to join more than one game at a time. I had severe doubts about joining this game, thinking that I'm not good enough to come up with an interesting starting setup.... ended up joining because it struggled to get off the ground, I realised that just taking a military tech and seeing what I can do with it was as good an idea as any, and it looked like I was on the way out in 71. Well, somehow we're almost 70 turns into this game, and I'm still alive in 71 but I would be lying if I didn't admit that playing 2 games affected the level of play in both (which wasn't that high to begin with)
4-move galleys are broken, and I got so used to circumnav being nerfed, I didn't even think that it giving +1 movement was one of the consequences of playng base BtS. And maybe when I open the game and see the stack Scooter used in his attack, I will realise that there was no chance of saving Adrianopolis in any case. But putting a spear in the City to avoid losing it to 2 chariots on a 4-move galley was definitely something I could've done. To put it bluntly, I'm disappointed that I'm not even making it difficult for Scooter
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So it was chariot + axe on Scooter's galley, I would've been fine if I put a spear in Adrianopolis
Oh well, we make do with what we have. Nicaea will be resettled next turn, I was able to still finish HBR at the end of the current turn despite losing the city. Will get out a few phracts, and see what I can accomplish
Won't lie, at this point I'm kinda looking in Oxy's direction, after Scooter did such a good job delaying and weakening my strike, and is very likely to have too many war elephants for me to fight with a small stack of phracts. But at the very least I need to go and check. I don't even know for sure that Construction was the tech he oracled
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Chopping the forests around Antioch into granary to kick start it. Granary overflow will go into phract
Will also save up 200g to upgrade the chariot into a phract
Fingers crossed I can still make something happen
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No much comments from me - I read all stories - but I have  and follow your report
But I allow me one question.
How high is your deficit if you run 100% research ? - So how many research turns is 1 upgraded chariot ?
200 seems a bit much during this stage of the game.
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My thoughts for this game are - for those of us who took a military tech to start with, once we unlock our ahead-of-the-era unit, research is not a priority, priority is getting as much as we can out of this unit. This is especially the case for me, due to Scooter restricting the number of build queues I have available. But even if he didn't, even I still had 4 cities - I can't play fair, I can't compete on research with Scooter and Oxy and their 9 cities apiece
So my focus needs to be on getting something out of this attack, in which case I think the difference between having 4 or 5 cataphracts in the stack is more significant than whatever research I can get out of that 200g. Additionally, I posted my thoughts on research recently, and apart from Sailing (which I will need to pick up, I do believe there's a decent chance I will not be able to make headway against Scooter and will have to go after Oxy) there isn't anything I will benefit from in the short term. The focus therefore is on expansion via conquest and turning on research once the gains are integrated into the empire
I do agree with you that spending this much gold on unit upgrade at this stage in a normal game would be madness
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So immediate plans:
Build 4-5 phracts
Check scooter's defences
Research Sailing
If Scooter is as well prepared as I think, build a couple of galleys and sail towards Oxy's islands
Research after Sailing has to be Metal Casting - I need triremes. Not sure if I need to get Writing / libraries before then - as I said before, I have serious doubts if I can afford to put hammers into libraries
Thinking if I want to resettle Adrianopolis (looking at those improved food resources I can't work pains me), and if so, if I should resettle it 1W of the old location. Yes, 1 off the coast, but at least it won't be as vulnerable to 4 move galleys
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This amount of cataphracts can’t be enough to seriously hurt someone.
And then I remember that most (all) player don’t have catapults and catapracts trade better than knights.
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Yeah that's the thing. Scooter put a lot of effort into preparing for this threat after realising we were sharing the continent, and (I think) has access to war elephants and catapults. Others aren't likely to be as well-prepared. Oxy in particular probably doesn't have anything better than spears. Even a handful of phracts will be able to accomplish a lot
This is actually something I've been thinking about. If my plan is to go after Oxy, should I peace out with Scooter?
My inclination is no. I would prefer not to give him 10 turns of peaceful development with the advantage he already has. I also need to get a scouting stack into his land and see if he actually has Construction. Since I'm currently putting hammers into phracts and will not be able to resettle Adrianople for a while, I don't think 10 turns of peace benefits me right now
So declined for now. May re-offer in a few turns, depending on what I see in his land
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