[SPOILERS] Laconic plakonic

[plako]

Darn Mackoti is extracting every little advantage he can get. He declared war just to cancel OB with me. Makes me see red and revenge, but trying to calm down and be wise. He seems to have got his routes filled up with Ichabod. I guess I'm again willing to pay a little to Old Tourists to get OB with them.

[plako]

Couple of things concerning Mackoti's war declaration. Short term I'll be losing some commerce that slows me down, but I'm sure after getting a bit more contacts I can fill up my foreign trade routes so we're probably talking at max 300 commerce over the next 20T. It doesn't benefit him directly, but has couple of negatives though:
* He is #1. It will be lonely position to be eventually. You should want to play it nice towards those you don't want to fight against short term or can't hurt properly for a bit longer term advantage you can collect later. The island between us has bad land so attacking it now would not give him much and this will be just a minor slow down for me. I've now no incentive to play nice and will be oppotunistic in ways of hurting him. Of course long term we couldn't be friends and eventually will probably end up fighting a proper war, but I surely would have played it nicer towards him up to that point without this incident.
* I'll be willing to pay gold to Old Tourists to fill up my trade routes. That benefits his biggest rival in his continent. Actually I'm now willing to pay more from the routes, because it will also directly affect their chances to compete with Mackoti so the gold given to them is not totally out of helping me.

This is not a big mistake, just something I wouldn't have done in his shoes. I would have waited until the 10T had passed and then canceled OB. It would have hurt me less, but I wouldn't have used my time to think how to hurt him.

[plako]

OB now with Old Tourists. Cost me 5gpt, but gives ~13-15 commerce/turn at the moment so I'm decently happy with this. I've my research turned off. I'll probably just pick Civil Service, Monotheism and possibly Monarchy for the start of my Golden Age that should be easily done within next 8-9T. Then after 5T convert to Pacificm+Caste and evaluate, if I've a shot at Taj Mahal.

[plako]

Couple of screenshots.

[plako]

Still not sure what I'm going to do. Switching techs every time I log in. I took HBR+CoL. Monotheism+Monarchy next and then Civil Service or Feudalism depending on whether I want to start golden age with Bureacarcy or Vassalage.

[plako]

[plako]

Staring the map and thinking...staring and thinking...staring and thinking... There is no way to win this without big moves and luck. I need to confront Dhalphir sooner rather than later. If luck is in my side, he isn't paying attention, lacks tactical skills or something else comes to assist me and I can win the war with reasonable price. I need to give up Taj efforts. I really need to consider, if I need Civil Service as decoy ("he isn't running Vassalage he surely isn't planning on invasion") or to get maces. Golden Age is coming in 3T unless I postpone it a bit to time it with military build up. I'll keep thinking and staring. It seems that I'm finally getting a goal to pursue and not wandering mindlessly here and there indesicively.

[plako]

I don't have much to report so let's see the value of economic traits once more. Currently it is T140 (Effect of Inflation roughly estimated):
Organized ~34 gpt
Agressive ~29 gpt
Financial ~37 commerce/turn (Finally it is starting to get some advantage over Org/Agr)

Mackoti started GA and converted e.g. to Bureacracy and Free Religion (Mostly_harmless ). I'll fire golden age next turn.

[plako]

Sigh - based on civstats - seems like Bacchus wanted the island city badly. I had only Archer there. Bad play from me not bringing in more defenders.

[plako]

And this is not that big of a loss and reasonable timeframe I should be able to take it back. However my fighting spirit in this game is collapsing. I didn't need this distraction and my already slim chances of winning are getting close to 0 now. Nevertheless I decided to keep my head calm and offered peace treaty. I don't want to be building galleys and triremes now.

Took a look in the game at least I got lucky and killed a unit with 88% odds. Couple of turns ago I did see that Bacchus had a stack in retep territory and he is at war against retep so it seems his main stack is there. He is pretty much trolling all his neighbors, but he is naturally entitled to do so.