Dave Fires Up The Epstein Drive [Japan]

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I can understand where Singaboy is coming from. He's just pulled off a brilliant campaign, completely destroying another player with minimal losses on his part, seizing vast tracts of fertile land. In the singleplayer game, such a campaign would be decisive. Here, though, instead of getting to enjoy the fruits of his victory, he is faced with the prospect of three other players instantly uniting against him. That can feel like a kick in the teeth, even though it's a perfectly logical move from everyone else, and so his frustration is totally defensible. 

I think he exaggerates the use of the diplomacy thread against him, though - none of the 'cheese' moves he listed have been attempted, and of course he ignores the downsides that two players coordinating also broadcast their moves to all their enemies! I thought that giving your enemy tactical information on a silver platter was more than enough downside to balance the advantages in coordination broadcasting moves would have. 

Anyway, he may be frustrated because of the usual trap everyone falls into of overrating their opponent's position while underrating his own. Maybe he sees himself with a thinly-spread military holding these new conquests. I bet the Viking cities aren't all that great, since Japper was investing in expansion instead of internal development. Did he even have any districts? So, Germany finds that the rich prize isn't so rich, he knows Japan has a tech lead (and doesn't know about the difficulties in pacifying the Outer Islands, the military demands constantly intruding on the production of settlers or economic districts, the Spanish ulcer slowly gathering to the south, the need to keep a sharp eye on Brazil to the west). Nor does he seem to realize how secure his position is with a powerful GG-led land army, which makes most of Scandinavia immune to invasion. The German homeland can likewise churn out an army on the fly with those Hansas, certainly more than enough to stop anything the Archduke can muster. So, Singaboy underrates himself and overrates everyone else, then feels like everyone is unjustly ganging up on him. 

That said, let's look at the map. 

I think I'm in entire agreement with you on almost all points. The Archduke I trust to bring off an aggressive and well-led campaign, but he's going to be hampered by his weak science. I'm really impressed, though, with how much he improves each game. In PBEM1 he got run over by Sulla without putting up much of a fight (though I must note that he put up more of one than Japper did!). In PBEM2, he was a force in the game for much longer, but ultimately his weak (in comparison to his competition, I'm sure he'd kick my ass) empire management skills did him in, as he fell behind both you and Singaboy and was already crumbling when Alhambram administered the coup de grace. Now, though, he's smoothly maneuvered himself into one of the top three powers in the game. At this rate he'll be steamrolling the next PBEM. 

Woden will likely do his usual thing - build just a little bit more before he's ready to go nuts. He's a great builder, but seems to lack aggression. Although, maybe after getting overrun with Alhambram's unique unit in PBEM2, he'll try to do unto others and use HIS unique naval unit to overrun everyone else. Either way, he'll probably lurk quietly until his battleships come online (I want to complain about the Minais Gerais being so powerful. Historically they were kind of mediocre and didn't accomplish much. Boo ahistorical units! :P).

Jester will probably hate your guts, but I'm hoping your post will persuade him to adopt friendship for a while and try later at a better time. 

So, going forward, I like the gameplan. I suspect I know the basics, but I won't steal your thunder. Look forward to the next post!

[oledavy]

Turn 115

Going to be a very quick turn 115 update tonight. My strategy post and responding to Chevalier's excellent thoughts will have to wait until tomorrow. 

First up: 



DoF with Archduke signed. Hopefully we can sign an alliance for the Inspiration. In related news: 



I think this all but signals his intent. We shall see. I saw a horse in the water poking around Jerusalem a couple turns ago, my newest Quadrieme is going over to investigate. 

His power did just go up a bit, but as I stated, unless he suddenly has caravels and frigates, I can't see him doing anything effective. 

In the northwest, I get blocked from settling Enceladus for a turn. 



This city spot just isn't as good as either of the ones on Uranus. However, it will grow like a weed, getting me some science and culture is nothing else. I briefly considered throwing down the pyramids after settling it and chopping them out, they're only 220 hammers, less than the price of a caravel at this point. Also note the barb caravel. My caravels are en route to intercept. Both are one fight away from 15 XP and the +7 versus naval unit promotion. That one will be big for wresting control of the seas from Singaboy. 

The issue? His science now that he's freed from occupation penalties and war weariness. 



I have a 1, most likely 2 tech lead at the moment (Square Rigging is all but finished and I doubt he's about to finish one). That lead is going to steadily evaporate as his science grows linearally faster than mine. He's also likely not running Natural Philosophy at the moment. If his campuses are in good spots, and he slots in that, he's going to start pulling away even faster. 

Archduke is doing better in SPT than I thought, but is behind in tech. 



For reference, here's what the three leaders have (I didn't double check the city counts, so they might be off). 

OleDavey: 7 cities, 25 non-capital population
Singaboy: 14 cities, 53 non-capital population
Archduke: 8 cities, 39 non-capital population. 

Archduke is doing better than I thought. The defining difference here between myself and them is the city-states they both conquered, and in Singaboy's case the additional seven cities he took from Jpper007. I need to prioritize conquering Toronto, La Venta, or Jerusalem as soon as possible. I probably should have made plans on Jerusalem a long time ago. I just didn't have the production to spare amidst everything I've been doing, but forgoing it now seems to have been a mistake. At any rate, not worth spending too much time agonizing over now.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

One question I forgot to ask earlier - do you have any clue how the continental boundaries might line up? I'm wondering if any cities that Archduke manages to take in Germany would spawn free Redcoats (if he techs that far), which would go a long way to putting together a decent land army to stand up to Singaboy (of course, THEN you have the problem of a potentially snowballing English civ spawning extremely tough soldiers everywhere, but one issue at a time I say).

[oledavy]

One question I forgot to ask earlier - do you have any clue how the continental boundaries might line up? I'm wondering if any cities that Archduke manages to take in Germany would spawn free Redcoats (if he techs that far), which would go a long way to putting together a decent land army to stand up to Singaboy (of course, THEN you have the problem of a potentially snowballing English civ spawning extremely tough soldiers everywhere, but one issue at a time I say).

Sorry for being so irregular with posts recently Chevalier, real life has gotten away from me a bit as the semester has been picking up. I am going to try my best to get back in my routine of reporting on every turn, but I cannot make any promises (especially between now and Thursday). It really saddens me actually, because this game continues to be really interesting. I would like to have more time to devote to it, and I feel I keep making subtle mistakes that more thought might have caught had I the time. At any rate, I really appreciate your continued ded-lurking, I just wanted to be up front with my lack of posting of late. 

At any rate, you raise an excellent point I had completely forgotten about. I also forgot England even had a UUs in the form of the Seadog and Redcoat. I don't know, in short. I suspect London is on a separate continent that Berlin (I know Singaboy is on Arctica, and I suspect Archduke is on Siberia). However, I cannot say for sure. 

So, a lot has happened of late. I'm now being invaded, and me and Woden teamed together to destroy CFCJesterfool's pitiful invasion force. The Venentian Arsenal nears completion as well. But, this was a huge turn for one reason above all others. 

Turn 121





Now we're in business. I am still a ways off from actually going on the offensive, but I made it through the most dangerous part of my grand strategic plan (the turns without Press Gangs). I swap governments. 





My focus right now is on generating as much money as I can and upgrading my four quadriemes I have running around, my stop gap force. With Mercenaries, it's only a 125 gold upgrade, very affordable, but I'm running low on gold due to loans to Archduke, and buying a stone tile to harvest for the Venetian Arsenal. 

This turn I upgraded my last warrior to a sword on Saturn to help in the defense. The rest of my money from here on out is going to Frigate upgrades. I think most of the rest of my policies are pretty self-explanatory. Merchant Confederation is worth a cool 12 GPT to me. Natural Philosophy is worth 13 SPT. Meritocracy is worth 10 CPT. 

I'm going to use my existing armies and navies (2 Caravels, 4 Swords, 4 Quadriemes) to defend my holdings over the next 10 turns, upgrading into frigates as I go. The landlocked city of Callisto is building traders to take advantage of the new 2 trade routes, the new cities of Eros and Enceladus are building monuments. Ganymede, Io, Ceres, and Titan are all pre-building caravels and frigates (some of the frigates auto-upgraded from pre-built quadriemes). I sank chops into Titan and Ceres this turn to help them get set up. They won't complete them until after Venetian Arsenal completes though. 



I should be able to shave one more turn off. We're looking at a t131 completion right now. 

I think any city that was founded after Europa will complete its build queue after VA finishes, so I could in theory turn out a bunch of boats the same turn. But, realistically, I don't want to run that risk. 

So, here's the timeline for navy coming out: 

t132: 6 Frigates
t133: 4 Caravels

2 More Frigates to follow soon after, along with more units to come. Actually, a major decision I'm going to have to make after VA is if I want to dedicate Europa to cramming out boats, or detour to build a workshop and electronics factory (worth 16 hammers per turn). 

Regardless if I build the factory, the extra hammer on every mine is going to be big. I've been trying to get out as many mines as I can of late. I will eventually have to make a worker push to really improve Saturn and The Belt, but at the moment, the order of the day is military. 

So, what do I need to hold off between now and then?



CFCJesterfool didn't listen to my advice, and exactly what I said would happen transpired. Woden sped the process along dramatically with the arrival of his caravel, which tore through the embarked Spanish units like a hot knife through butter. 

I never even got counter-attacked, as I could just sit on ocean tiles and bombard him with impunity (still getting +5 strength for firing onto a coastal tile). 

His initial strike force was at least: 

1 Horse
1 Heavy Chariot
1 Catapult (Still alive above)
1 Galley
1 Battering Ram

I suspect he had an additional Horse and Galley that Woden also sank, but he has not said anything to that effect. This force couldn't have even taken Jerusalem, much less invaded the Belt - even without Woden's help. His army was stopped by 3 Quadriemes and 1 Caravel 

He has a wounded galley near Jerusalem I couldn't chase down. I'm waiting for him to bring it into range of one of my quadriemes. I killed a scout he had poking around Europa. His GM is still embarked and wandering the seas. I think his entire force is otherwise dead though. That which we didn't sink was forced to go ashore on that island southwest of Spain and got killed by the abundant barbs on the island. 

I'll just say I haven't been impressed at all with CFCJesterfool's play this game, his attack was madness even without the the possibility of Woden intervening. He apparently didn't think anyone else had a stake in Jerusalem. He's still at 4 cities 120 turns in for crying out loud. He did found a religion: 



He didn't take the +2 gold for every city following your religion belief, which could have really screwed me up (I'm planning on taking it in a bit to help rectify gold generation issues). Both he and Japper007 made some very strange and sub-optimal choices for their religious beliefs.

Anyway, I'm going to keep at least one quadrieme in the area as a picket, in case he tries something else. Otherwise, this joke of a sideshow theater is basically over. 

The one question is if Woden tries to take Jerusalem (an objective that would be at odds with him helping attack Singaboy). The city will require significant resources to take. And...I kinda really want to take it. Although Woden is making it sound like he would consider that as good as a DoW. This situation will be delicate to say the least. Hopefully the city's strong garrison will dissuade him for now. If not, I'll try to dissuade him in the diplo thread from taking it, or at least try to extract some concessions from him if he does. 

I trust Woden about as far as I can throw him. The only person I completely trust is Archduke, who is going hell to leather to win this thing now. If Singaboy just collapses, it seems likely he will. However, I doubt that will be the case, this turn's events not withstanding. 



Singaboy lost the former city of Valetta and Kiel in one turn 

Still, this is about in line with what I imagined would transpire. Thanks to taking Toronto, Singaboy is only net -1 cities at the moment. I guess he had more cities close to Archduke that were vulnerable to being boated (2+ adjacent coastal tiles) than I thought. I also think Singaboy is very tilted right now and is not marshaling his forces really well.

At any rate, we'll see if this is all Archduke takes or he goes on. However, given Singaboy's production with Hansas and Craftsman, the length of time he's already had to pump out caravels and frigates, and the fact that at the end of the day, a city with one adjacent coastal tile, a crossbow, frigate, and walls is basically invulnerable to attack from frigates, I think he'll suffer but still be very dangerous, Great Admirals be damned. 

It's also worth noting that despite all of Singaboy's posts in the diplo thread, Woden is still at peace with him, and he's on the offensive versus me when he could have just sat in Norway and transferred knights and crossbows back to Germany. Archduke's double-GA led attack on him was inevitable, regardless of a dogpile, because Archduke wants to win, and no amount of convincing Woden to sit out (if indeed he does even get involved) would have prevented that. 

I will need to keep a close eye on Archduke though, should this continue. 

So, Singaboy's offensive versus me. 



This is the closest to a real conflict I've had since the start of the game. 

Raising Pizzaro, the proxy wars and skirmishes with the Germans in Norway, sinking the Spanish invasion fleet, all pale in seriousness compared to this. 

So, I don't know why Singaboy is doing this, other than for revenge. This does little to help him out of his current situation. The sad thing though, is it's likely to work because I forgot something very critical. I didn't send a missionary with my settler 

You can see him on his way now, and he'll arrive and convert the city on t133. That may be too late, and Singaboy has better odds here of taking the city that I would like to admit, especially if he pushes hard these next two turns. He may defer though, and he didn't move up his caravels this last turn when doing so probably would have guranteed him the city.  He may continue to prevaricate, and keep his caravels defending his transports, since he doesn't know where my second caravel is. 

So, defending I have three promoted swords, one quadrieme, and one caravels. An additional sword, caravel, and quadrieme are on the way. The million dollar question is if the city can survive two turns. Next turn, provided Woden accepts the deal I offered him, that Quadrieme becomes a frigate, and the next turn I convert the city and the frigate attacks with 65 str. The swords will all become 46 strength, and the second caravel arrives. However, if he goes all out and attacks with his ground and naval contigents, it will be very close. 

I give him about 40% odds to take the city. I'm just kicking myself that I wasn't more prepared to defend the city, but I forgot the missionary, and thought Toronto would take a little longer for him to chew through.

If he fails in this attack though, he will be left without much of an army, and I will be able to launch a very strong counter-attack to take Jotunheim and Toronto 

We'll see what happens, Turn 122 will probably be the most critical to the city staying alive or falling. 

Here's the deal I offered Woden btw:



I desperately need that gold to upgrade the quadrieme. The salt would be huge too, as all of my cities are at +2 amenities, and this would push my top cities to +10% of all yields. Hopefully its enough to entice Woden. 

Finally, losing those two cities did do a massive hit to Singaboy's SPT. 



It gives me hope for a more contested outcome. 

So, my grand strategic plan? I need more land. 

The plan is to partake in this dogpile on Singaboy, and take Toronto and Jotunheim. I may try for more, but realistically, I will be hard pressed without a large land contingent that just doesn't seem like it would be efficient for me to build. We shall see.  In the interim, I shall keep building ships with VA and send forces to take La Venta, Hong Kong, and begin the conquest of Spain. My best chance of winning is probably taking down the flagging Spanish. I may also look at Jerusalem. 

So, it will still be a little bit before I have the forces, but between turns 130-140, I will be mobilizing a massive fleet, and in the subsequent turns, I'll try to leverage it into a bigger empire. 

Long term, I'm pushing hard for subs. They're beelinable (Industrialization -> Steam Power -> Electricity). I probably can't get the Steam Power Eureka (2 Seaports), but I can definitely build 3 Privateers for Electricity's. At any rate, I hope to be able to build subs in about 35 turns. With a hopefully bigger empire and VA at my back, I can spam these bad boys out and sweep the seas of the competition (especially if Woden is building Minas Geraeses by then.)


I still rank myself about third most likely to win, but things are looking better than they were just a short time ago. Now, if I can just hold Enceladus....

[oledavy]

Turn 122

Quick update. Not only did Woden accept my deal, but I opened the turn to this deal from Archduke. 



I'm guessing he saw Singaboy's post in the diplo thread, trying to peel me off, and decided to see me some of the extra luxuries he had lying around. It costs him nought at all, and has the benefit of getting all of my cities up to +3 amenities. Thanks bro 

Perhaps to show good faith (in light of his post), or perhaps because of my reinforcements and his low odds of success, Singaboy withdrew from Saturn. 



There are a lot of interesting ways I could play the geopolitical situation right now. But, with Enceladus no longer under any threat, I'm sitting pretty. I think for right now I won't respond to Singaboy, but won't make any offensive moves at him. He can take that however he wants to. I'm not strong enough to go on the offensive right now anyway. But, accepting his peace deal would be the quickest way for me to lose all my hard won allies - for a partner who is still a major threat to win and who will backstab me at the first opportunity. No, for right now, my course of action is to play it cool and continue biding my time for the Venetian Arsenal to complete. 

Nine turns out. It will finish on t130. I mined another grassland hill, combined with the extra amenities, to get it down to that this turn. I also upgraded the Quadrieme into a Frigate in Enceladus. 

Woden got a GG. 



Singaboy didn't lose any additional cities this turn. His power has taken a hit, but he is still quite strong. I'm watching the continued development of the war with great interest.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Logging in at work, a rare thing for me, but the game is moving so fast I worry about how far events will have left me behind if I wait to get home! 

Anyway, really glad to hear you didn't fall into the obvious diplomatic trap Singaboy offered. It would have pissed off the other two powers in the game, gained you not much goodwill from Singaboy (he really doesn't seem happy with you - residual resentment from PBEM2? Your constant machinations against him in diplo? The aid offered to the Vikings?), all in return for saving a marginal city that he only had a modest chance at capturing anyway.

Grand strategy moving forward I think I'm in broad agreement with you: Use the VA to secure naval superiority and ward off Singaboy (or Woden) from interfering with conquering Spain. If you can drive his army back into Scandinavia, and keep it there with a few naval patrols while he fights the Archduke, that would be ideal. I'm a little worried about Woden - how will he react to a Japanese invasion of Spain? I feel like they can't be counted on to let a player passively be swallowed up twice! Did he learn the lesson of Japper? You've also got the problem Singaboy ran into - you could galvanize everyone else against you if you become too scary. I recommend strenuous diplomatic efforts, plenty of generosity on your part, and sandbagging tech/buildings whenever possible to mitigate these dangers. 

tonight I want to write up my impressions of your opponents and the possible shape of things to come, but first I wanted to plant an idea in your head.

There are 3 religions in the game, right? You have one, the Vikings another, and I assume the religiously-inclined Spanish will found theirs at some point. EDIT: I see they did a few turns ago, in one of your reports upthread a bit. Awesome!

Now, the Vikings are dead and the Spanish hopefully soon will be. That means that you don't need to conquer everyone to win. You don't have to conquer inland at all! Your navy can escort missionaries! You'll have the strongest navy! You'll have the only religion in the world! You just need enough military to get missionaries to half+1 of all your opponent's cities, and you have this game in the bag. Most opponents have a handful of cities on the coast - consider those done. Then, even if the others are one or two tiles inland, you can plant your boosted units right on the coast and covert anyway. Hell, if you can sneak another DoF at some point, they can't even kill the missionaries. You could repeat Alhambram's brilliant success in PBEM2. This leverages your Divine Wind, your Venetian Arsenal, your cheap holy sites, and your boosted adjacancy bonuses (boni? Bah.).

Maybe you prefer to go for domination or science, but I think the religious victory plays into all your civ's strengths. Besides, you gotta do something with all that faith now that your science is up, right? This is really worth considering.

[oledavy]

Also at work, so I'll have to be short.  I'll say I've been mulling over the possibility of a religious win. In particular, I know I can build the Mahabouti without any competition. So that's some free apostles right there. 

It's not something I'm willing to commit wholesale to at this point, but it is definitely worth considering. The moment people realize I'm doing it though, everyone will declare war on me for the rest of the game, so I will have to be very careful. 

Yeah, you get at the heart of the issue I kept trying to solve in PBEM2. You want to become hegemonic, but you need to wait until you can do it and survive the resultant dogpile. It took me longer than I would have liked to get out of the constant threat of a 2v1 the moment I tried to conquer Archduke/Singaboy in PBEM2. Eventually I did through use of DoFs, but it was too late because Woden collapsed. Here it will be harder since people are being reluctant to sign DoFs for that very reason. Archduke and Woden are being very friendly for now, but the moment they perceive me as a major threat that goodwill is going to end. 

I'm also not entirely confident that spammed Venetian Arsenal subs is that much better than what Archduke and Woden may be planning. So we shall see how things pan out. But yeah, I'm finally in a pretty solid geopolitical position, time to leverage it with great care.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Do missionaries show up in the score? Would it be possible to stockpile a religious horde, until you're ready to carpetbomb Singa, Archduke, and Woden?

Let's run the numbers.

Figure each opponent needs 6 cities converted (average of 12 after conquests). 18 cities. Each city requires, what, 1 missionary? Plus an escort to ensure he's not murdered before he gets the job done.

~18 missionaries. It seems feasible on first glance. I'd have to look more in depth, and research how missionary costs work. Then perhaps we could work backward to the level of force needed to push those through, so we know when you'll be strong enough to come out into the open and go for it.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Home from work, so I want to look at your opponents a bit more.

Singaboy: Still the long-term threat to win the game, but has revealed a tendency to get badly tilted by setbacks. He's let the English take a hefty chunk out of him, and he's hurling his army across the narrow straits into Saturn to burn down a few marginal cities rather than defend his core. However, despite those tactical miscues, he's an excellent micromanager and one of the best Civ 6 players I've seen at managing both the military and the economy side of the game - his performance in PBEM2 against the most unlucky barbarian spawn ever and 2 hostile neighbors is firm evidence of that, plus his equal path to a dominant position in this game even before he almost effortlessly eliminated another civ singlehanded. 

His weaknesses seem to be the diplomatic game - he's poor at reading when other players will attack him (Archduke in both PBEMs) and responds badly when attacked. His Civ skills compensate quite a bit, and he has a strong civ in Germany. Long-term, he can weather this storm if he keeps calm and focuses on inland defense. Can he get a navy back afloat? Well, he'd need to use ranged units to defend a harbor long enough to build a unit, and then he'd only get one unit out. Thus, if the Allies are willing to put in the effort, he COULD be contained to his present holdings. However, I fully expect him to break out his box diplomatically at some point, as one of the Allies decides there's more gain in stabbing his friends. So, my evaluation is that for now Singaboy's offensive power has been neutered, but he still has vastly more empire than anyone else and powerful production. All he needs now is a navy and he's once again in the driver's seat. 

Strengths: Land, production, science, military acumen. 
Weaknesses: No navy, diplomatically isolated, no religion. 
Possible victory types: Science (leveraging two of his advantages) or domination (if he can get someone to help him to sea again). 

Archduke: Holy cow, this guy. This is his third PBEM and every game he improves by leaps and bounds. He has the largest score of anyone in the game, as his double GA-led fleet has been upgraded and used against Germany in devastating fashion. He's taken two cities, including one of the German core cities if I understand Singaboy's naming scheme correctly. He's got a powerful civ designed for this type of map - his land army can become a self-sustaining snowball when backed by his powerful unique unit. His science and culture don't seem to be tops, but he's rapidly catching up there, too. Overall, though, he's definitely stronger as a tactician than as a builder. You've got to overwhelm England strategically, therefore, and not depend on winning on the field of battle if you're at all evenly matched. Archduke's biggest long-term threat as I see it is building up too successful a military and using his unstoppable GA-fleet and Redcoat-army to sweep the board. 

Strengths: Powerful navy boosted by cheap RN Dockyards, free Redcoats/Melee units on city conquest, very able tactician.
Weaknesses: Empire management? Weak science and culture. No religion. 
Probable victory type: Domination or bust I think. 

Woden: I'm worried I'm growing complacent towards Brazil. Woden showed off the power of China as a builder's paradise, and his collapse at the end obscures the fact that he spent msot of PBEM2 as the dominant power on the board. Woden is a brilliant builder, capable of microing to squeeze every possible advantage out of his civ. Brazil is in a secure, isolated position, able to take a backseat on the German war, with his choice of city state or weak civ targets. Brazil has the great person fuel, and a formidable Minais Gerais naval unit. My worry is that Woden may take a page out of Alhambram's playbook, turtle quietly until he reaches his UU, then unleash hell on the rest of the world. However, unless he can win with MG's singlehanded he won't have the production to match you, or Singaboy, or Archduke's RN Dockyards. So as a threat to win the game on his won, I rate him lower than either of your other two rivals. However, he is unpredictable and very much playing his own game - he could be a spoiler at the worst possible moment. 

Strengths: Empire management. Great science and culture. the Minais Gerais is scary. 
Weaknesses: Tactics? I haven't seen him fight any wars besides the final war of PBEM2 and some city-states, but he did struggle. Likes to play both sides against the middle, can lead to everyone hating him. No religion. Weak production and no real equalizer like the VA or RN Dockyards to make up for it. 
Probable victory types: I would assume Culture is the best fit, but a Minais-Gerais led domination is possible. I don't think he has the production for a spaceship. 

Jesterfool: Definitely an also-ran at this point, and probably would be even without the Sack of Pizarro. He's a full era behind everyone else, with a handful fo cities and no military to speak of. He seems confident in his abilities to handle the AI, but I just don't think he has what it takes to compete against humans yet. He does bear you a grudge and will work with anyone to bring you down, but right now has no practical ability to do so. He COULD use his religion to boost himself and his units up, but he's taken odd beliefs to do that. If left alone, could play spoiler down the road, but he needs to find a way to expand and catch up to do that. Removing him soonest seems like the most logical play.

Strengths: Uh, a religion and a hearty grudge, I think. 
Weaknesses: No land, no production, no science, no military, no navy. 
Probable victory types: I guess he could sneak a religious? At this point it seems far more likely taht he'll be a speed bump more than anything else. 

Grand strategy going forward: Looks pretty clear. Use the VA to maintain at least naval parity with your rivals. Ensure that no 2 combine against you. Eat Jester to boost your own empire, and try to keep Singaboy locked in his box. Woden and Archduke bear monitoring, but if you can keep them pointed at Germany, you may be able to quietly build an advantage on them using your superior empire (if Spain is taken). Watch out for Archduke snowballing, Woden backstabbing, or Singaboy breaking out (most probably with Brazilian assistance - you must never put yourself in a position where you are dependent on Brazil to survive). 

Victories: Possibly sneak religion in, or you can use your science and powerful production to try for a spaceship (Singaboy would be hard to beat here though). Could also go for domination with the VA, but you have to get past England's navy, Brazil's UU, and Germany's inland core to do that.

EDIT: Bummer on the religion - I just noticed that there are *four* possible religions. That's extremely disappointing - I thought with six players there were only 3 possible! Since Singaboy is the hardest opponent to conquer, I hope he never gets around to founding the last one. Anyway, it DOES make the religious victory a lot less feasible to go for - not really all that much more appealing than outright conquest at this point.

[oledavy]

I will type up my reply to your thoughts tomorrow and report on the last turn (nothing earth-shattering happened).

I just wanted to share really fast, that while a religion can be founded, there is no GP left. We skipped over the renaissance one I believe.  

Unless building Stonehenge still gets you one without one in the queue. I don't honestly know how it would work at this point.