TheArchduke and the Gentleman Bastards lead the Mongol Horde

[TheArchduke]

I am not overly worried about an AI CS, as much units they have they are the AI. Question is if I can push another trader down Alhambrams throat before the attack and if he will let me and where do I find another trader.:D

[TheArchduke]

Our main target.

   

Forces preparing for upgrades.

   

[TheArchduke]

Busy couple of days, lousy reporting.

A kesqik costs friggin 720! gold. I bought one anyway, as even my capital needs 6 turns to build him and get him to the front 4 more turns. But man. Expensive.

Turn 94

We suzerain Valetta.

   

The horse rides west.

   

We assemble assorted troops for a new Horse. A CS conquest should be possible though.

   

[Shimomo]

Awesome! Looking forward to your next update.

[TheArchduke]

It seems Japper is really insistent of learning nothing about CIV VI despite playing PBEM after PBEM.

I am close to 1000 milpower, Al and Chev close to 300 and he has:

   

Apologies, Japper, but are you kidding me? You do recognize if you weren´t near Korea, I would have conquered you with my freaking turn 50 force??

Maybe I should have just rode on with my chariots and done Rowain with horseman only.

   

2 more plantations and thus 4 more gold and 2 more culture. Getting somewhere now.

[suboptimal]

I am very curious to read Japper's reporting in PBEM 10 for the same thing we're seeing here - complete lack of military build out. He did the same thing in PBEM 4 but at least there he was building settlers. I don't know what's going on in our game nor can fathom what he's doing here, unless he's come up with some ideas on how to do something "neat" with the civs' abilities and is adhering to that line of thought regardless of game situation.

I guess one thing that skews this is that 1000 milpower is ridiculous for this point in the game. Alhambram and CMF have ratings typical to peaceful approaches based on what I have seen in PBEMs to date.

[TheArchduke]

I fear that a lot of the players have a very buildertitis mindset, loosing themselves in efficiency spirals and such. Whilst nice and beautiful, check out Woden PBEM # 4 for the "just building this and I am ready for war", one never is.

I try not to be too harsh to Japper, but he seems very insistent of not analyzing his past mistakes and ignoring what is obious, and his performance in this game is absolutely atrocious. His science/culture/gold income is so subpar, it is a non-factor.

He is practically imbalancing the game where he is a power vacuum and city grab to happen and his settler spams makes things only worse.

[TheArchduke]

Speaking of which.

Turns to death 10-15 if we are lucky. I might ignore the Cultural CS if I did not have a DoF.

I am not sure how I could have goaded Japper into building more military apart from frigging DOWing him..  

Japper is no Emperor K who will put up a valiant defense I fear, more like a sack of potatoes falling over.

   

The horse is riding as fast as it can.

   

My northern rump horde, still in need of a ram.

   

[TheArchduke]

Forgot to mention.

That kesqik cost 720 gold! That is the whole emergency gold for one freaking unit.

Yeah, those UUs that you can not prebuild and upgrade into?

Useless.

The only worth of the kesqik is as a ram transporteur.

[suboptimal]

I understand the need for speed with respect to the keshig, but I think a six turn build time would have been better than spending gold worth 8 knight upgrades to get it earlier, no?

The problem with UU's that cannot be upgraded into is reflective of the inability to develop city production at the same rate as the production cost increases in units and the strategies that have resulted from that (chop-powered production, income-building) The Industrial Zone appears meant to help but it fails miserably in that objective - even if the factory stacking wasn't nerfed I don't know that the benefits outweighed the build costs.