[SPOILERS] This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land. But Mostly Mine.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

This is a great example of why players who aren't top tier players (I am certainly in this class) will improve play by spending a little time in the sandbox. What does this picture...



...tell you about my opponents' research path? Here's a hint: on the following turn dtay's golden age ends...

The upshot of this is that I can make a simple micro change that impacts two cities and allows me to get out two knights this first turn rather than just one. Conclusion: Confirmation that dtay can build knights and that this has has very likely powered his recent conquests. Also confirmation that plako can build knights.

[NobleHelium]

Yeah, actually EVERYONE can build knights. Way to be late to the party.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Yeah, actually EVERYONE can build knights. Way to be late to the party.

This isn't totally lost on me, but my neighbors can't build them so it isn't too late to make use of them. I spent a lot of beakers earlier clearing out the top of the tree and I haven't shown much tangible benefit from all of this investment yet.

Great Library-- mostly passive use while growing my NE city tall, no real benefit yet.
Statue of Zeus-- no direct benefit yet (I haven't used any of my units to attack). Direct negative benefit (20% Artist)
Angkor Wat-- no direct benefit yet (sodding Artist...)
National Epic-- no direct benefit yet, built to within 1t of finishing (sodding Artist...)
Moai-- finally something I have benefited from. My Moai island city has grown to size 14 and is using all but one available water tile and will grow onto heavy hammer (ws/mines) tiles soon. Soon to be max potential for now. This city is building what passes for a navy in PB18.
Parthenon-- due EoT. Hammers invested, nothing gained yet.

---

I typed the stuff above while waiting to log in. Here's how my investment into AW, a late stab at a shrine, is paying off:



I mean. I don't even. Sigh. If I hadn't run an engineer for THREE TURNS then I couldn't have pushed out this GP before the GS in Lamar Valley was due from TGL. I wouldn't have run those three turns without the failed Confucian spread at ~19% odds to fail.

What a clusterfuck. Clearly I have no one to blame but myself. I could have skipped the wonder whoring and bee-lined useful military techs and have twice the number of cities I do now. I SHOULD have done this, but I got the Classic Literature quest and decided that the game was large enough that chasing The Great Library and getting the free third GS from TGL was a good investment because large map, PHI, good food surplus NE city, lots of GPPs = large, powerful golden ages. That was my thinking at the time.

Clearly I was wrong about that. Even if things had worked out better with my GPP generation, 29 (!!) cities is better at this point than 16 cities, a handful of wonders, and tall/efficient cities (I have forges, hooray!). I can keep my score high by churning out wonders, but OH/Fin are going to eat me alive eventually with twice my number of cities and easy mode whips. Dtay too, although he's built a couple of wonders (Oracle/Colossus) to go along with his shrine and 28 (!!!) cities.

I have really missed the bus in this game. The GP fail AGAIN is a nice, stinging reminder, but my strategic choices have not been good. Micro? Good enough. Game plan for success? Not so good, greens game at best. I'm pretty sad I've squandered a very good start.

I'll play the turn, then I'll see if I can come up with something approaching a strengths/weakness analysis to determine what my best options are going forward. I still expect a top 5 finish but after leading the scoreboard for so long (score is good for little else, right?), it is hard to aim that low. I've wanted to win (despite my very shaky strategic choices) but it's obviously not going to happen. Time to find a new goal.

[mackoti]

Whhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaat post is that?Me dont like it.Spy your neighbours, seewhos weak( i am not spoiled), build an huge army and get conquering, what kind of lamentations is this?Froma what i remeber you have weak neighbours so get an army and start conquering(again i have no clue are those doing),but you have production land and you are thinking to start turtle...this is not good game.Is true if was instead you i would had atacked with Ha and cats but even now is not to late.Just focus and forget about economy some 20 turns an se just land before your civ4 eyes.

[Ceiliazul]

I agree with your analysis of missed opportunities, but I dont think youcan count yourself out yet. See FinHarry in 13, even tho they couldnt win due to geopolitics, they steadily increased their holdings and maintained strategic awareness.


I look forward to your strategic reboot analysis!

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I don't mean to throw the towel in or reduce effort toward maximizing my position, I just think I've given OH/Fin (and to some degree dtay) too much of a jump on expansion. That's the basis of the "can't win" statement. Both of those civs are piloted by competent players and they both have about twice the number of cities that I do. I can grab up cities, and will very soon, but they have the steamroller started sooner and I'm not sure my longterm investments in wonders will pay back in time for me to catch up to them. I just underestimated how far behind on conquest that I would be by clearing the top of the tree.

Mack, the lamentations are just frustration about the RNG sticking it to me again on a low odds non-prophet. The Statue of Zeus has been a train wreck.

I mean to do this in a bit more depth, but briefly:

Pros:

• very strong manufacturing base compared to most opponents (OH/Fin have SA whips and Guilds workshops without Caste, so they have plenty of MFG either way with so many cities), but especially compared to near neighbors.
  
• good infrastructure to leverage high MFG for promoted units.
  
• currently have military technological advantage over near neighbors.
  
• combination of technological military advantage and infrastructure to promote these units means I should get to reuse these units due to higher than average survivability. Or I succeed with comparatively fewer units.
  
• goody hut neighbors: Caledorn, Dhal, Mardoc (if he is alive when I attack, I'm not in a hurry to neighbor OH/Fin because they'll tie down resources that need to cheaply/efficiently gain land from goody hut neighbors)
  
• available later conquests: Q is a secondary target for aggression. None of his neighbors are particularly frightening. Xenu is the strongest, but he is also across the water and would have to invest significantly to become an existential threat to Q. Ruff is not, in my opinion, going to be an existential threat, although I would love to see them fight it out and weaken each other. Similarly, Dhal's nearest neighbor is Cyneheard, who seems pretty checked out. I'm actively scouting Q and Dhal now, as well as Ruff, wetbandit, and Nakor (the latter two are just for force composition/positioning for my safety). I have no immediate designs on Nakor because his tech rate is better than other neighbors and he has longbows. I also don't see him trying to invade me to snipe coastal cities, so he can stay as he is.
  
• I still have an updated sandbox. This requires a bit of effort to maintain, but it has helped me keep my micro solid. If only I had something similar for grand strategic priorities...
  
• National Epic/Parthenon finish EoT. I'm ready to finally deliver on the promise of the mod's improved PHI. Next turn I'll finish a GS for Paper (dtay has that already), then I can rapidly churn out two more for Education with 300% GPP generation in my NE city. I will have a very good chance to take Liberalism. If I manage this, I'll almost certainly take Nationalism and cash in the 4% GE on Taj. This will do wonders for helping me to churn out needed troops to speed land acquisition, as well as keeping me among leaders in tech.
  
• I'm still sitting on two Great Artists. This provides tactical options, but I'd rather save them for golden ages.
  
• still have not had my UU/UB in play. Unlike some others, I still have a few unique benefits to discover. I have Music researched, so I'm just that little bit closer to my Cavalry replacement, the Cossak. This is probably so far away to be irrelevant, but it's just a little more small change stuffed away in the vault waiting to become useful.

Cons:

• aforementioned doom and gloom about being behind on expansion.
  
• increasing proximity to OH/Fin. They're going to roll up Mardoc and be right on my border within 10-15t, so I need to stab Mardoc in the back to prevent OH/Fin from taking all the land and being just across the ditch from my core.
  
• likely imminent diversion of resources from profitable warring/conquest. I am probably going to fight a guerrilla holding action against OH/Fin to slow their conquest of Mardoc. Knights will give me military parity and fighting in Mardoc's territory will give me tactical superiority through boosted mobility. I will probably only have one chance to wipe an invading stack, so I will need to build up judiciously and ferry over some units and hope that I can keep them hidden. But this does not help me except it prevents an opponent from threatening me for a while.
  
• relative absence of cottages. I have four cites that have really been cottaged to any degree. Everything else is mostly hammers. For now, this is a weakness because my GNP continues to lag on the demos screen. I know part of this is because I've mostly been leading (-ish) the pack on tech research and others may be drafting the known tech bonus and this inflates their numbers, but I generally see a decline from my earlier position when I was so much stronger compared to others in research capacity. Eventually, this absence of cottages will lessen because Caledorn has prioritized building them and I intend to inherit his land. Q has done the same to some extent.
  
• likelihood that I've got it all wrong and inexperience will cause me problems in the upcoming wars. I expect that this will become an issue when I fight OH/Fin.
  

The general gist is that I've built up a strong potential and have not cashed in on much of this potential at all yet. I will start generating value from the wonder investments very, very soon and hope that these investments will pay enough for long enough to be worthwhile in the end. Probably the biggest thing, though, is going to come down to neighbors. Who borders OH/Fin on their other side? Is it Joey, who seems to have a large-ish empire and could fight back? Or do they have other options to steamroll next? They're not far from Cyneheard, apparently, for example. I need to start rolling some folks up ASAP to keep in sight of the leaders.

More thoughts later as I have time. I am glad to see some folks comment here, it's been a while. This is probably the driest, most dense thread in this forum with so many city screenshots and the dearth of geopolitical commentary. Building infrastructure in a quiet neighborhood isn't exactly riveting reading.

If there is anything specific anyone wants to see, let me know.

[Commodore]

If there is anything specific anyone wants to see, let me know.

What are the city totals of your hapless neighbors convenient dining options?

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Here's a better late than never opposition analysis. I've ordered my list in two piles, those who I have met and those I have not. For those that I have met, I have sorted them in descending order based on current score for lack of a better way to do it order of current position and likelihood of winning and/or future success, based on my limited knowledge. For those I haven't met yet, I've just used score.

The Still Way-Too-Early-To-Tell T137 Power Rankings:
(Player - Current City Count - My not too scientific interpretation of the player's position):



Old Harry + Fintourist - Victoria (FIN/IMP) of Aztecs (Mysticism/Hunting) - 29 - Team Badass Devo have eviscerated Azza and are now chewing on Mardoc. I've written reams of frothy, worried stuff on them already. I put them, based on current position and player ability, as the most likely winner of the game. We're all cubs next to these guys. Large maps, lots of happiness resources, high probability of high food cities, and Sacrificial Alters combined with repeated single pop whips apparently is the answer to the RtR whip nerf.



dtay - Mao (EXP/PRO) of Ethiopia (Hunting/Mining) - 28 (Oracle/Colossus, Jewish shrine) - Dtay has pummeled Whosit and is #1 in real population. I'm #1 in population on the demos via a couple of really tall cities, sizes 16 and 18. Dtay's major weakness right now is that shares a land border with Krill/novice to his south and Plako to his east, across the ditch. He has been opportunistic in his war(s), as it appears that Whosit has been beset on all sides by stronger players. Dtay is very unlikely to expand either south or east, so he'll need to keep marching in other directions while maintaining a safe border with those two beasts. I don't envy his geography, but he has played very well to this point. Dtay appears to be lining up his standard MUST GET LIBERALISM run, but I am pretty sure I can get there fast enough to put out that particular fire. If OH/Fin falter for any reason, especially if I'm involved in whatever causes them to falter, Dtay could be in position to take the lead. In the end, though, I think dtay, like me, is still just a little too green to actually win.



Boldly Going Nowhere - Pericles (CRE/PHI) of Russia (Hunting/Mining) - 16 - Has squandered a very strong opening by chasing too many wonders and over investing in the future at the expense of present needs (read: expansion). Beneficiary of probably the softest set of neighbors in the history of RB pitbosses, very good hut luck that, along with some sweet gems, provided lots of free gold to power early research, allowing early access to Currency, Alphabet for open borders, etc. Did a good job of capitalizing on scouting and early expansion, at the expense of the only near neighbor, Caledorn, but later overemphasized infrastructure, particularly forges, rather than continue expanding to fill in the several still available coastal sites. Needs to remember that land is king and not to pigeon hole play to fit a specific set of circumstances, regardless of chance, traits, etc. Needs to build an army and go kill someone to get back into competition for the win!

Options: Save the GE to rush Taj. How to get there: Start second GA ASAP, swap to pacifism and generate several GP in rapid succession from the National Epic city at a cool 500% clip on the way to winning Liberalism; take Nationalism, rush Taj. Meanwhile, stockpile build queues with units to get them within 37h of finishing for whipping in forge cities on consecutive turns. Further refinement is needed, but generally whip cheapest to most expensive unit to overflow last in chain for whatever can be used, at best an extra knight per city but unlikely with whipping nerfed as it is. Combination of units to include: cats, LBs (50h each), xbows, WEs (60h each), maces (70h), knights (90h). The cost/impossibility of this relates to the number of great people I can spawn out of Lamar Valley which will require Caste specialists. This may not be feasible, but it may be preferable to chasing Liberalism. Another option would be to swap to slavery at the end of the GA if securing Liberalism looks likely. A swap back to Caste could occur with the Taj GA. The option to draft units is available too, even if just maces. I still have not hooked up my Calendar resources so I have available happiness capacity, and even the culture slider if needed. I do not think I'll ever draft hard enough to use the slider though.

Spawning multiple GP and sniping Liberalism is not the most direct way to build a ton of units. Surely I would do better to just burn the GE now and start whipping out units but I'll see how close anyone is to Liberalism once I get Paper. I think only dtay is close, and he is perhaps not all that close. While I work on this, I can still fill build queues with units and then whip them out quickly during a GA. I'll need to generate 4 GS (first pop GA, 2nd for Paper, 3-4 for Education) and, ideally, an additional GM for cash upgrades. I don't know how likely this is, I haven't looked at numbers, I've just spit-balled ideas.

Executive summary: All is not lost, but refinement of a general plan is needed. The goal is to kill someone and not let Team Badass become my neighbors across the ditch.



Krill + Novice - Willem (FIN/CRE) of Babylon (Wheel/Agriculture) - 20 - Team Mids, they have pummeled Whosit and are #1 in land area. These guys were the hands down favorites to win at the beginning of the game, until OH/Fin showed their fangs and whipping skills. One issue for this team is neighbors, again, bordering Dtay, who has shown he is no slouch, and plako, everyone's boogeyman. I don't have many specifics about their game. They are running a specialist economy and are currently in Representation. They have a nice stack of spears and WEs on their border city with dtay. I don't know who is to their immediate south or west, but one has to be Whosit. I need more information to really evaluate their chances going forward, but since I know my neighbors are softer than theirs are, I rate my chances of success as being higher. There is no doubt in my mind that they would be leading the game if they had had my good fortune, particularly regarding neighbors.



GermanJoey - Shaka (AGG/EXP) of Ottomen (Wheel/Agriculture) - 17 - Joey built Hanging Gardens and is at war with Nakor at the moment. Probably this is just a scouting maneuver but it could be anything I suppose. I do not know if his expansion has been mostly peaceful but that is my impression. Will need to lay the hammer down on someone to remain high on the scoreboard. I get the feeling that other civs are getting to the investment paying off period, and EXP is going to give up some ground about now. Put AGG to use and go take some land!



Plako - Louis (CRE/IND) of France (Wheel/Agriculture) - 13 (Great Lighthouse) - No wars of conquest yet, neighbors dtay and Novice/krill across the ditch, and seems to be pinned at the end of the continent next to Xenu, who is a tough chunk of gristle because he tends to turtle and just try to survive to the end. Bad geopolitical situation, but plako will ultimately have to break out against Xenu to get ahead. Does he care enough about this game to do it? He has nothing to prove and his current position shows it. I'm guessing that this game is more of a lark than a MUST WIN for plako. This game does not appear to have his full interest or attention.



Xenu - Kublai Khan (CRE/CHM) of Germany (Hunting/Mining) - 13 (founded Christianity, no shrine yet) - Razed a city off Q because he could, stole some land from wetbandit and resettled for keeps. Opportunistic, but probably every decision he makes has to account for the shadowy menace to his west, the indomitable plako. He doesn't have the luxury, given his proximity, of dismissing plako as disinterested. If he leaves an opening, plako will get interested in a hurry. On Xenu's eastern border is Oxy/BaII, who have been largely irrelevant and checked out, but who had the benefit of super fast early game traits. It is very likely that they boxed Xenu in or stole land from him and that Xenu will have to punch his way out of a corner, with one eye always on plako. Not an enviable position. At least he didn't have to play as Mao again.



Oxy/BaII - Catherine (CRE/IMP) of Greeks (Fishing/Hunting) - 10 - Mostly checked out and actively seeking a sub. Xenu should just kill them and let them be done with this game. They appear to have been mailing it in since about T60 and would likely prefer to just float on to other stuff.



Cyneheard - Mehmed (EXP/ORG) of Egypt (Wheel/Agriculture) - 11 - Life is busy, not really engaged. Plays civ because he likes the bright colors, I suppose.



Ruff - Augustus Caesar (IND/IMP) of America (Fishing/Agriculture) - 12 (Stonehenge) - Engaged in three wars right now, probably 2.5 of them are exploration shams. I don't know about the yuris war, but even if that one is hot it only counts as half a war.

[I've run out of Smokey Bear pics and this is taking too long, so I'll skip the rest of the pictures. Sorry!]

Nakor - Darius (FIN/ORG) of Maya (Mysticism/Mining) - 10 - Also engaged in three wars, nothing serious. Nakor is packed into the end of his continent and has placed his cities as closely as possible, for what reason I cannot discern. He got stomped in the land grab phase, but he's Darius, so he'll stay tech relevant longer than he ought to. Eventually someone will kill him in a lull between larger wars, possibly me. Wetbandit is his primary opponent, they're isolated on the same continent together, but I doubt wetbandit has the stones to take the newly-tougher-than-in-pb13 Nakor out.

Q - Zara (CRE/ORG) of Byzantium (Mysticism/Fishing) - 10 - Q really is not impressing anyone with missed turns and shoddy play, aside from whatever poor decisions he may have made in this game that may have forced him to sit out a while, if such a thing were ever to have occurred. He needs to die. Apart from that, I don't want to see him get Phracts but he'll get there before I can get to him. Eventually he's on my list of people to sweep into the sea.

wetbandit - Montezuma (AGG/SPI) of Japan (Fishing/Wheel) - 12 - He recently took a relatively heavily defended two tile hill island from Q. Fine by me, as this took his troops away from my dangling flank on his continent. I razed his easternmost city at one point and took the spot for my own and have grown it into a good hammer city. Wetbandit probably blames his misfortune on me. He let me buy him off for 50g when he really could have made me pay for my opportunism. I'm sure he regrets that now. Someone will eat wetbandit if the game goes long enough, but he's reasonably secure in a very soft neighborhood for now. With Q to his south, Nakor to his east, and the checked out Oxy/BaII to his north, his primary threats are me and Xenu, who each have a toehold on his continent and who have each shown a willingness to clobber if given half a chance. Before too long I expect he'll put together a stack of cats and HAs and do...something...with them, only to find whoever he attacks has knights (or worse). I'll be showing a knight to him soon, just as I have a crossbow, mace, cats, etc whenever I have been able to make them. I have no intent to do more than sabre-rattle for now so he'll stay off my lawn. Maybe he'll take a notion to fight Nakor and I can do some discount rate killing.

Caledorn - Brennus (SPI/CHM) of Sumeria (Wheel/Agriculture) - 10 - Really nice guy and our gracious host. I'd like to offer him a spot on my team after I take his land. I have razed one city and captured and kept another at his expense. My land extends 13 tiles west of my capital to its furthest extent, which is 6 tiles north of his capital. He clearly lost out on the expansion phase with me and that has made all the difference.

AutomatedTeller - Peter (PHI/EXP) of Rome (Fishing/Mining) - 13 - War with Yuri but I have no idea if it is legit. He appears to be in the north of the map. That's all I have on him.

Mardoc - Wang Kon (FIN/PRO) of Spain (Mysticism/Fishing) - 11 - Azza's mortal enemy, my friendly next door neighbor. I'm not sure what happened with their game, but I have a feeling an Azza pink dot special is responsible for most of their misery, both early and of late. Azza, in the process of getting wiped from existence, spared a moment to raze Mardoc's capitol, the Buddhist holy city, with an amphibious assault. Not cool, man. Just because someone is stomping on your sandcastle doesn't make it ok to shit in someone's corn flakes. Not cool.

Dhalphir - Huayna Cupac (FIN/IND) of England (Fishing/Mining) - 9 - There should be an award for missing so many turns and still flying under the radar. If Cyneheard had paid attention or had time to play properly, Dhal would certainly be dead by now but apparently no one can be bothered. I razed Dhal's fifth city way back when. He had a coastal city, I had an archer on a galley, he didn't put a unit in his city the three turns I was in range, so I killed it. He deserved nothing less. I regret not having killed him before now.

HAK - Saladin (SPI/PRO) of Mali (Wheel/Mining) - 9 - Still in the basic civics aside from Slavery. He is north of Nakor and fought with Jowy for a long time. Probably Jowy is responsible for HAK's poor showing in this game. Or, HAK rushed Jowy because he was certain that Jowy would do something crazy later on. Total non-entity, just waiting for a bigger fish to come along and eat him one day.


People I haven't met yet:
(or dead)

WilliamLP - FDR (IND/ORG) of Mongol (Wheel/Hunting)- #cities unknown - I've still never read one of his threads, but he seems to be good enough to compete, just not great. So says the guy that he beat in PB11, but I'll blame the map and Xenu until the end of my days. He's a builder at heart, apparently, and my guess is he's in the frozen north clubbing seals to enhance a new tough guy persona. Without knowing anything else about him, I know he's not going to win. Top 5 finish possible depending on who he is near, but survive to the end as a top 10 is more likely. There are a few stronger players behind him who have not hit peak performance yet.

pindicator - Qin Shi Huang (IND/PRO) of China (Agriculture/Mining) - #cities unknown - My hero for meta reasons, pindicator took out "Barry" and is now the proud owner of the Hindu shrine. At one point he carelessly updated his thread in the tech thread and had a solid empire at that point and is generally a very capable player. Now that he's rooted out the evil of the sock puppet he seems to be doing well, but he's complained in PBEM62 that he's had to fight his way out of a hole for several games now, including this one, so someone on his other side (the west IIRC) settled up close on him. I see him as a regional finalist (Elite 8), unfortunately nothing more in this game.

Zanth - Joao (EXP/IMP) of Holy Roman Empire (Mysticism/Hunting) - #cities unknown - Replaced darrelljs + Ichabod at some point. I can't wait to read a multitude of garbled gchats with Gavagai translated from Russian after the game. Wait, yes I can. He has shown he has grit and is willing to fight. He has not shown himself to me, so he's on the other side of the world. Should finish respectably within his bracket, surviving until he meets a blue blood powerhouse civ. Regional semi-finalist (Sweet 16).

The Black Sword - Gandhi (PHI/SPI) of Native America (Fishing/Agriculture) - #cities unknown - Confucian shrine, possibly ToA. He must be nearish to Xenu because at one point I remember that the lurker civ let slip via the interface that he was at war with Xenu. If that is the case then he must have some other tough guys in the area, plako for one. He's a good player, but there isn't a lot of room for advancement above him on the scoreboard if he has tough neighbors. Regional semi-finalist (Sweet 16).

Dazedroyalty - Elizabeth (FIN/PHI) of Khmer (Hunting/Mining) - #cities unknown - I basically don't know anything about Dazed's game to this point. He has not converted to a religion and sits between Xenu and Cyneheard on the scoreboard. I'm guessing he has 10-13 cities. He should be teching well, absent any neighbor issues. Expect a solid if uninspiring performance. Sweet 16, no further.

Ataturk - Churchill (CHM/PRO) of Persia (Agriculture/Hunting) - #cities unknown - Apparently this is Bacchus, who took scorched earth to new heights in PB13 and is annoying in arguments (to me). I imagine his game play is just as rigid and annoying as his arguments, and he is typically one of the last to play. Sooo, meta-reasoning: Checked out, unlikely to do more than survive for a long time due to annoying tactics. Probably just churning out units to prolong his exposure to this game that he doesn't appear to want to play all that much. Ten minute turns or your pizza is free!

Molach - Genghis Khan (AGG/IMP) of Portugal (Fishing/Mining) - #cities unknown - No game information. No religion conversion, no real sense of where he is on the map, except he's away from me. Nothing to say, really. May die, may survive. Depends on neighbors. Solidly middle of the pack right now. This is the information that you can't live without. Right? Riiight.

MYKI - De Gaulle (IND/CHM) of Korea (Agriculture/Mining)- #cities unknown - Nothing to say except play your turn sooner. It seems to me that MYKI tends to be one of the last to play. I don't know if this is really the case. I don't expect MYKI to do much more than die in the next 75 turns. He's in the lower third of the scoreboard and neither IND or CHM are going to do all that much for him going forward to move him up through the ranks.

Yuri - Tokugawa (AGG/PRO) of Dutch (Fishing/Agriculture)- #cities unknown - I've seen Yuri's name come up here and there in wars but I assume that this is mostly wars of exploration. If any of the wars turn real, Yuri is most likely going to lose, despite having Tokugawa's kick ass war traits. I'm guessing he is on the latitude of the third band of islands north of me.

Dead or Dying (maybe probably almost certainly?)




Cheater Hater - Bismarck (EXP/IND) of Zulu (Agriculture/Hunting) - #cities unknown - I think CH has been getting his ass kicked but I can't remember by whom. Magic 8 Ball says it won't be long for him. Or maybe he fought another one of the guys on the bottom of the scoreboard in a long, costly slog. Who knows? Not me.

Furungy - Stalin (AGG/IND) of Inca (Mysticism/Agriculture)- #cities unknown - Jewish, took over for Hashoosh. That's about all I have for Furungy. Probably a war has dragged him down, he's better than this low position. If he's just 15 points ahead of Whosit, who has been eaten alive recently, he can't be in great shape. Prognosis: Dead by T150.

Whosit - Hammurabi (AGG/ORG) of Vikings (Fishing/Hunting) - #cities unknown - Jewish. That's all I know, except that he is dying to dtay and novice/Krill. I guess you could get killed by worse players so I won't judge harshly here. But dead is dead. Is he next to die? Probably not, I think Azza dies first.

Azza - Washington (EXP/CHM) of Arabia (Mysticism/Agriculture) - 3 - Azza appears to have razed Mardoc's capital out of pure spite as he is on the way out of the game courtesy of Team Badass and their knight invasion. I recently closed borders to transport Azza's galley back toward his land so I could get a quick unit kill to get a HE eligible unit. Azza declared war and moved back into my borders, so his galley will die next turn. GG points! Was there an Azza trademark pink dot debacle? Magic 8 Ball says "Probably".

Jowy - Alexander (PHI/AGG) of Carthage (Fishing/Mining) - 0 - Dead and gone, but not an enemy to me. Either his reputation preceded him and someone took an early whack at him or his reputation is deserved and he took an early whack at someone else, to his eventual ruin.

"Barry Lyndon" - Hatsheput (SPI/CRE) of Celts (Mysticism/Hunting) - Dead - I never met him, and I'm glad I didn't have the option. I was going to declare jihad upon contact for the sock puppet bullshit. Well done, pindicator! Please, no more sock puppets!!!

Unknown Wonders - likely/possible owner

The Great Wall - no idea.
Temple of Artemis - This feels like a TBS move to me.
Mausoleum of Maussollos - Joey? He took Hanging Gardens, which tells me he had earlyish Math.
Chichen Itza - Whoever I haven't accounted for having a shrine. Pindicator I suppose. I thought dtay, but since we've met the top cities screen would tell me so it isn't him.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Questions for lurkers: When starving a city for GPP, if the city ends the turn with a negative amount in the food box (and thus will starve), do you get the benefit of that starving citizen before the population decreases?

So, if my size 18 city starves on the same turn that I'm running all 18 specialists, do I receive GPP for 17 or 18 specialists?




Question #2: The turn that the GA ends still gets the 100% GA bonus EoT, right?

I'll probably be able to answer these in the sandbox without too much head scratching, but if you know and feel generous, let me know.

[Commodore]

Questions for lurkers: When starving a city for GPP, if the city ends the turn with a negative amount in the food box (and thus will starve), do you get the benefit of that starving citizen before the population decreases?

Nope, he's just dead. But you do get the GA bonus!