T130. I spawned a great Merchant in HT and fired my golden age, switching into caste, and instantly regretted it.
I really shoulda waited a couple turns, queued up some HA and whipped them in before I switched civics. Alas, that's what you get for playing at 2:30am. But, when its a little before 10pm, and you see Old Harry logging in to play, you think, ah, won't be too long now... then, three and a half fucking hours later, they're still in there playing...
Anyways, I'm in a golden age now, as are probably 6-10 other people in the game. Great people are being born left and right in the event log. My plan is to build a bunch of military and then go to war, simple as that. Right now, I feel like I'm the leader of the non-contenders. BGN, dtay, and Finharry have clearly separated themselves from the rest of the pack on the scoreboard, although BGN's situation is probably closer to mine, inflated a bit by wonders and some cheap auxillary techs like Aesthetics and Literature, than either of dtay and Finharry, who it seems have been earning large war successes against Whosit and Azza, respectively. That said, BGN has a religion (don't think he has a shrine yet though), Philo, and the Great Library with a Phi leader. Pretty powerful. He's probably a sho-in for lib if he wants to chase it; maybe skip guilds and go straight for cuirs? He could make it happen with some bulbs into Education and libbing Nationalism.
Map and Demos:
Cities of Note:
Foreign Affairs:
Right now, I'm gearing up to attack, but actually still haven't picked my target. Here's my thoughts:
1.) Bacchus
Pros: Most backwards and weakest of my direct neighbors. Cons: Actually has Civil Service and Feudalism both already (despite my GNP graph dwarfing his for the last several dozen turns, thank you KTB), so he's not really all that backwards nor is he all that weak. He's also protective, and protective longbows will be just terrible to slog through. I'd need to bring some trebs and maces to chew them up a bit. I would also have to hit him by boat, which makes logistics awkward. His coastal cities are pretty well garrisoned now, so I'd have to land first, THEN attack, meaning I need a shitload of boats for such an attack to work. Killing Bacchus would be extremely profitable though; he's currently taking out his southern neighbor, HAK, one of the weakest civs in the game, and his presumable eastern neighbor, Yuri, is also getting slammed - by AT, another very weak civ. So, I could presumably keep warring in that direction for a very long time.
2.) Oxy/BaII
Pros: Completely checked out, misses turns regularly, has left all of his coastal cities guarded by a single archer or phalanx. I could probably raze half of his cities on the first turn of a war. Cons: still has a much bigger military than me, likely consisting of lots of cats and war elephants, has shitloads of Cre culture, and his western neighbor Xenu would probably be able to take most of the spoils. There's also the fear that someone competent and engaged takes over for him... the hairs on the back of my neck went stiff when mackoti played a couple turns for him some weeks ago.
3.) TBS
Pros: His eastern border completely unguarded, currently in a hot war with Furungy. Cons: is a very good and alert player, and has been.... nicer to me lately. I think I'm stealing back my wheat and deer tiles at HT first of all, and he left me two forests in Sledding. Not that I'm still bitter about this city; I mean, look at this:
He founded Basilisk Caves a couple turns after Sledding and now it is 6 pop larger than it. That's because he immediately used a missionary + caste artist to push my worker off the forest before my chop for the barracks finished, and thus I had to build it the slow way via fucking tundra mine, ugh. So, I still have some bad feels there, but his position is still enough of a deterrent to let it go.
I guess I don't have to commit to a target just yet, and see how things play out with my neighbor's wars first...
Hmmm, Azza has been losing cities to Old Harry left and right, and yet it seems he just declared war on Mardoc and razed some city worth 11 score points - something big. In response, Mardoc whipped away 19 score worth of pop!
Ahaha, CH just took a city back from dtay! You go, man!! I was afraid he'd go on tilt when dtay and krovice interrupted his war with Whosit, but it looks like he's got some fighting spirit still.
Is anyone out there interested in my thoughts on anything? Not much going on right now in-game; last turn of my GA is next turn, so I've been waiting on that for domestic shots. Posting micro every turn at this point is boring, I think.
Sure, I'm going to attack Bacchus with 6 boats worth of troops next turn. Got a full set to reload from after that, and then I'll be able to galley-chain 6 units max per turn across the 2-tile gap directly into the city across the shore. I bet I have the biggest navy in the world right now - 10 ships total, counting my exploring galley!
Been planning this for a long time, starting with when I razed his city of Tarsus 20 turns ago so that I could hit him from the fog now. I have been debating abandoning the plan in favor of hitting Oxy (while he's still checked out, in case someone like Mackoti takes over for him again, except this time permanently), or TBS (while he's still beating up Furungy in the far-east), but unfortunately Oxy's still got an extremely powerful neighbor in Xenu in a much stronger position to steal the majority of the spoils, while TBS has apparently lost zero troops in his war against Furungy. (dazedroyalty also joined in and took 4 cities, so maybe he did most of the heavy-lifting; I don't know because I don't have graphs on dazed) TBS is also extremely competent, so I'm not sure I could do better than taking a few border cities (that would be crippled by heavy culture) before stalling out permanently. Long-term, that wouldn't do me much good. I'd rather keep a good relationship with him for now, maybe even open borders soonish once I replenish my border garrisons.
How will it go? I have no idea. I'll probably only be somewhere between 60k-100k higher soldier count than Bacchus at that point (with 30k of that being irrelevant boats and techs) as its not like he's just been buildering about lately, but I'm counting on him having some troops tied up in Yuri's territory (he declared war 2 turns ago, but hasn't take any cities yet) combined with the surprise factor, and simply out-producing him. At any rate, I feel like hitting him now might be my last real shot to be a major player in this game as Finharry and dtay have been going apeshit. I need to, at the very least, severely cripple Bacchus here or else I'll be stuck with the Oxy/BaII strategy until the game ends.
As for Zoo, I'll post some screenshots of it next turn, along with my 5 other "core" cities. Last turn of the GA and all that, gotta show off!
So, I'm at war with Bacchus. Should I have waited a turn, to hope he made some further advance against Yuri? I don't know.
The situation:
Unfortunately, I won't be able to sack his capital next turn it seems, because the C2 promotion and river bend make the longbow just way too hardy even against 3 knights. (assuming I take Erigili this turn). Its likely he'll dry-whip another longbow anyways. Anyways, the plan is to use Erigili as a naval base, flood a ton of units onto the continent in a big megastack, and take his capital. Hopefully I'm able to just strong-arm him and win.