[SPOILERS] Will: Thread title to be decided

[WilliamLP]

So, I can tell by CivStats and generals in the game log, something exciting is happening somewhere, but it's all out of my sight.

OT4E has been whipping like it's his last stand and I've seen cities change hands between him, Elkad, German Joey, and Harry. A four front war is probably not a winning one!

I'm coming short on any plans for this game for myself other than trying to stay alive. Harry has Crossbows already, the counter to my UU. There's nothing I can build in the near future that could make a dent in him. And meanwhile Elkad is ahead of me in tech too, though I think I can catch up to him at least. But sadly I don't see any age of Samurai in this game, they just aren't a play when the opponent has muskets or rifles. Also, there are the balance of power issues of getting in war with either Harry or Elkad. The other would surely look for opportunities.

I'm getting Iron now, just to see where it is. After that I'm thinking of going straight to Feudalism, which buys me time for another couple of eras. An alternative would be HBR for elephants, but I think I can get away with the slower tech to longbows first.

I'm running HR now through Monarchy, which solves my happiness problems for a while. It means I can delay Calendar for a while.

[WilliamLP]

Rare report from one of the most boring empires in this game, I'm sure. I just finished Feudalism, meaning I'm not going to be an appealing target for a very long time.

Harry is in a golden age, and I see his tech, next for him is Civil Service. He got Optics a while ago. I may not see his tech for long as he builds courthouses and outpaces me on EP.

The intrigue in this area of the world is who has / who will end up with the better part of OT4E's former lands. I haven't been following closely and / or don't have enough map info to have a good idea of what is going on there.

I now seem to have a stronger position than Elkad, so I wonder if there are any realistic attacking opportunities there. I know that when attacking with 1-movers seems like a good idea this late in the game, it still probably isn't. And I'm a long way from knights.

The news in this game just isn't going to get better for me. For now, larger civs are paying some price support their weight but very soon more numerous and valuable trade routes will mean large empires are only asset with no liability and my tech will be more outpaced. It's a snowball game after all.

Does this map have any wildcards? There may be astro land and new world opportunities but I'm not going to be a player at that either. Harry will be _far_ ahead of me to astro.

I think I'll go for Alphabet as my next tech and see if Elkad will open borders now. With longbows and a catapult stack I no longer fear him using the info to plan an attack. If he will open borders I might be able to get trade routes all the way to Mackoti which may be worth a lot. From there, I don't know, maybe I have a moral obligation to tech to Samurai even though I doubt they can do much? I'll certainly need Engineering soon. Any first-to bonuses, forget it, I've already been out-snowballed...

Thoughts about my general gameplay, one thing I clearly don't do as well as the field is plan great people. I guess I should view them as just a really efficient use of population over time, so starting to allocate the points quickly as possible, maybe starting the second GP before the first is even done, and so on? Another part of my game that's lacking is simply teching as quickly as people do here. Is it as simple as starting cottage spam earlier? I don't know.

[WilliamLP]

I've been playing this game passively lately, just quietly building my population up. From the power graphs and a GG in his lands, Elkad has seen and / or is seeing some major conflict. Perhaps as a result his northern border is almost empty other than singleton spears. I'm going to take an iron-for-iron offer from Harry as a loose signal of interest in pushing south at the same time.

So, I declared on Elkad.

This stack is really not impressive for this era. I really don't intend to push far here, but if he is so stretched that he can't defend it all I'll take what I can get.

I'm not sure if Elkad thinks differently but I don't think there's any trust to be betrayed here. With open borders I've been able to scout out his territory and he hasn't really been doing the same.

He recently revolted to Bureau and Caste, so I don't have whips to worry about. I can take Hyangen at least, it isn't a great city but on a hill it makes a pretty nice fort and it means I'll have marble. Pusan would be an amazing result, but I don't know if I can get there before he can defend it. I have two longbows that might be able to amphibiously attack Paegam, but I'd need to sim that out before trying it.

[WilliamLP]

War turn with Elkad:

I captured Hyangsan with a Shock axe after bombarding with all 10 of my catapults. I'm not sure if I should have moved them SE instead.

My trick was two longbows off of a galley to raze his NE coastal city with no culture, defended by a spear. Shock longbows are no joke right now. I'm mad at myself because I could have had an additional longbow 2T away from Pusan, by moving the galley 1 tile to the west.

My stack is what you see, not much for this part of the game, but Elkad is just so strung out and distracted that I just might be able to press a little further. If I could take Pusan it would be a game-changer but I'll see if he's able to defend what I've got in the next couple of turns. Elkad is missing the whip right now. If I'm actually able to get that city it's definitely worth considering long term plans anew.

Meanwhile, Harry and Fintourist are several levels above as far as spending time analyzing the turns, and I think it shows. It looks like they got the Music Artist. I see them heading up the Monarchy line now, so I'm not very worried about a focused attack very soon from them. I need to make sure I have Engineering at least soon after they tech knights.

Now that I have a chariot in open foreign borders, I can see what is going on to the SW. There has been some combat down there! I only see the aftermath of something. There is a border now between OHT and German Joey. Once upon a time I remember OT4E's presence around here.

I think it's very clear that GJ is a much better target for OHT than I am from their point of view. So maybe I can focus fully on pushing south soon?

[WilliamLP]

I'm deciding to press on against Pusan, with my troupe of ancient-age junk and 3 longbows. I really haven't played this well, if I barely miss this conquest it's my own fault. I should have had the 10 cats in position to bombard Pusan next turn. I'm not sure what I have on the board beats what he has, but I have a feeling like he had a decent stack 1-2 turns away. I do have to press this though, because otherwise I'd be wondering what would have happened for the rest of the game!

Note Elkad has to be a little careful leaving a single warrior in Seoul like that. With the hills around Seoul there are some possibilities here for future tricks with G2 units...

[WilliamLP]

Elkad abandoned Pusan but for one spear. I wasn't expecting this but it does tell me he didn't have enough reinforcements in range to defend what I was showing.

Insult to injury, I won with a shock axe at 29%, to collect a nice 200 gold. The culture is a big problem but I've decided to try and keep this city. If I can hold it for a while it will get some of its first ring tiles someday. And I like my defensive toolkit with PRO longbows on a hill.

My attack here (or more like backstab) is finished for now. Elkad still has a sizable empire, so I feel like pushing forward and giving up first strike vs siege on open ground would be pure suicide.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at the west with nothing but size 1 and 2 cities and just trying to imagine what kind of bloodshed has recently happened over there. OT4E will be running a one city island game for quite a while until Harry can efficiently remove him.

So sad, but I don't feel like Samurai are going to have a long enough shelf life to bother with in this game. Crossbows tear them up and Elkad can't be far from machinery if he doesn't have it already. I think the soonest I could make a realistic push would be at knights, and even then I'm not sure.

The thing about multiplayer civ though, if you're not predator you're probably prey. And Elkad is very much the prey at this point. I'm sure Harry and GJ are looking at that land and I wonder how well he can defend his cities to the west. So it's quite possible I'll have another opportunity when Elkad's army is diverted again.

[WilliamLP]

Well, my question about whether Elkad can defend his western cities was answered, Harry took two of his cities that very same turn!

I foresee Elkad getting torn into pieces soon between Harry and the threat of GJ to his southwest. It would be lovely to make off with Seoul in this scenario but I feel like waiting until either Samurai or especially knights would be too late. Maybe I should kick into total war mode right now and mass out Horchers and Longbows, I don't know.

On the plus side, since I have no idea what I'm going to do next, I doubt Harry and Fintourist know either! Even though they spend several hours in this game, probably scrutinizing every tidbit of data they can find.

[WilliamLP]

OH wanted to lock in peace for 10 turns. I didn't want this and offered back ceasefire. So I guess we have a turn split now, which isn't a terrible idea anyway. Even though I have no intentions of attacking, keeping some of his units at home means he can't roll over Elkad and GJ too quickly.

I misclicked and stumbled into an Immortal in GJ's land. But I retreated at 9% winning odds. Okay, I'm kind of a lucker with these small yet annoying fights in this game, lol. I didn't know that Immortals got defensive bonuses until quite recently. I wonder if that would have changed my play earlier on? Haha though, I will fess up to being quite the noob still.

I'm actually going to beat OH to Guilds. I have a bunch of HA's queued up. The question is, do I have enough force to hit Elkad while also having enough to defend an opportunistic strike from OH?

With OH, well my job is to be a bit of a thorn in their side. There's nothing about this game that becomes more interesting if they're simply allowed to expand freely, since I'm always the most geographically logical next foe. From aside, they appear to have done an excellent job taking advantage of chaos to their south.

Looking at the world map, there's obvious space for Astro land to the east of me. It's too bad my tech isn't just a little stronger, to have a real shot at a new world play. But I feel I need at least Guilds and Engineering to be allowed to keep playing.

[WilliamLP]

Fairly complex situation with Elkad's moves:

I'm only spending about 15 minutes per turn these days, and this game could use far more analysis than that. I'm dry whipping walls in Pusan. I should have put a few hammers on walls already, but then again I don't really care about population in that city given the culture map. It does still have an academy though!

Elkad has 8 HAs (that can also fork Hyangsan), 10 Hwachas, 5 mace, 9 spear, a couple Elephants, and a handful of ancient trash. I don't think that can take Pusan efficiently if at all. If he can, there's no way he can take it with enough to defend vs my counter stack.

On the other hand, since Elkad can afford to be entirely focused on defense vs me, I don't think I can make an attack here soon unless he throws his whole army at me right now and takes heavy losses. Not only would I need a decisive win, I'd also have to be sure OH couldn't jump on the opportunity when I'm occupied.

Nope, I still don't have Civil Service and my UU! It could be a mistake, and a few Samurai could be good in this exact situation, but I just don't think they are great unit when behind or have enough shelf life compared to knights and pikes.

My only long term prospect is to try and avoid being food tier for OH for as long as possible. I've seen a galleon pass and I'm guessing there's some new world land in the fog to my east.

Anyway, if I'm ever dumb enough to play another PB game, I sure hope I'm not dumb enough to play two at once. I'm a bit worn down on Civ vs real life at the moment.

[WilliamLP]

Three score increases at once means OH found the new world I guess?

In other circumstances I might be upset about Elkad getting two shots at playing this turn, but meh.