Amica whipping 11 pop during their double turn. They have HAs, and we're not sure if during their GAthey snuck construction around our research visibility by playing last a few times. It seems unlikely though from gold monitoring.
We have fresh clam/clam (And are again supplying them free happy by selling or only fur for their doubled ivory - it started as a very smart plot gone wrong , and now it's a little tribute that we don't want to cancel to keep them happy), but it's quite scary.
So naturally we embarked into a whipping spree of our own: 9 pop into a library, a rathouse, a granary, a missionary and a settler. We'll probably put another 3 pop into a library this turn yet.
Eh, maybe the smokescreen will holds at least until past bereft turn when our power rating fails to tick up? Also at least the OF goes mostly into units. But it's just spears and axes because we're ever greedy and took calendar before construction.
This is units now, well mostly. Ginger is innovating and introduced the concept of spite whipping before the actual war declaration. I'd have moral qualms, but Amica is invading with 3 turns yet to go on our clam/clam trade, and I'm pissed. So I approve of the resolve.
Which made me remember that in pb59 Amica also lied to me (our manipulated, out was not as clear cut as this time), and apparently I don't learn.
To hark back to Miguelito’s counting, this was an inevitable consequence of >24f/h difference in food resources (that’s just the resources that Amica has hooked up and we could see)
Yes Amica does have the comparative advantage of Washington and 8 turns of GA, but that sort of CY difference would’ve been unrecoverable even if Amica had picked Darius (in which case we wouldn’t have even had the possibility of eclipsing him in the late game)
Obviously going Construction sooner might have made this war more painful for our opponent, but we were put in a hole by the map and felt our best bet to be competitive was to gamble.
So fuck the map, 24 food delta can suck my dick
classic superdeath. No idea what it's supposed to mean, but I was tempted to accept. Maybe that is what he wanted, actually? But I suppose that city gift would be bad sport, and actually Peter should not fall this turn yet, and can build another spear.
Ugly things I do in my righteous indignation:
"Beautiful" sight:
This includes a number of dry whips.
I am asking both vanrober and Mjmd for 50 gold at 100% interest. If one of them bites we should have construction next turn. Lovely Gavagai donated 40 towards the effort.
Sad little secret though:
In my tilt I may have pulled one axe too many towards the capital. If Amica has 1 lucky or 2 regular axes on their galley, and why shouldn't they, we will lose our copper city, and being as stupidly placed as it is, we have no other city controlling the tile. So all of these might turn out as warriors . I guess that would make history at least as one of RB's worst and silliest isolated misplays*, if ultimately inconsequential.
I've asked every player who is due to play yet for a copper gift, but I'm not hopeful. MS could do it, because it wouldn't cost him anything, but he has been weirdly hostile, refusing OB. Mjmd might, depending on whether he wants to eat our east now or in a few turns, after we have thrust ourselves into Amica.
* if you have worse examples, please post for my consolation
Caution, salt ahead.
Since we're already in the wrap-up phase,what could have been done to avoid this, considering that we've been afraid of Amica for at least 40 turns now?
construction before currency -> possibly dissuades Amica. We keep falling behind economically despite mids and rathouses and the earliest cottages that I've seen on the map because our land is shit or we're too stupid to manage it. Delays the inevitable, but maybe the correct play
construction immediately after currency -> cats come probably too late to dissuade, and Amica wouldn't even notice before attacking. We have a rather high possibility of getting a good catapult strike on the invading army. We clearly were too greedy, but I trusted the seafood diplo.
give Amica OB - this is interesting, because they asked for it a couple of times, and of course will not have liked us not giving them. Ginger was in favour of giving it, I was against it because they would not only see our military weakness, but also the terrible layout of our land. It would not even help that they'd see how poor it is, because all the tasty bits - our 6 food ressource, the cottages, our two 5f1h tiles, the big lake, pyramids, Hindu holy city - are all on their doorstep, so we're still worth attacking. But with OB we at least would've seen it coming better, and probably would have taken construction.
settled too much: This cost us some turns on currency that are probably lacking now. We knew that we were behind in tech, but there was a remedy in RH and Rep, and we were even more behind in foodhammers, so I still think it made sense to prioritize that. But it's possible that this could have been fine tuned better.
Not mine a gold or gems or two like everyone else, and connect a capital ivory. Not take copper with an easy first ring city with decent food, and prevent Amica from settling where they could always fork us on flatland easily. Unforgiveable.
edit: For perspective, Amica did manage to eschew our tech vision and got construction what must have been some 8-10 turns ago during the GA. I was even monitoring gold and concluded that there could not have been a one turn, but with massive wealth building it may have been possible, or else with multiple times playing last. So when it showed up on F6 I rated the probability of it being Amica as rather low. OB would have shown us bridges :D
Otherwise and the disastrous tactical mistake this turn aside, I am actually very satisfied with our play here. The discussions with Ginger were fun and very productive, and I'd hold that this was the best buildup that I've played in a game so far. Despite horrendous land compared to the competition and a late leader, we managed to stay competitive (and even somewhat ahead) in city count and land 2 key wonders. The operation to claim copper and furs with the vanrober pinkdot was quite nice. As a function of many whips and lack of food the cities never grew as much as we would've liked, although for the last 20 turns we were operating around the (low) happy cap in many places. As many losing players have said before me, with just 10 turns more we would've been excellent.
We had a good measure of luck as well with the two wonders being available when they could well have fallen already, and of course we have been feeble all the time, and were lucky not to have been invaded earlier (we would not have collapsed to an earlier invasion the way we do now, but we would've been out of the running all the same).
The sad thing is just that what felt like pretty good play and luck was just barely enough to keep the civ mediocre. Still I really liked it, and it's sad to see it go down in flames, but the writing was on the wall since turn 50 really, if not earlier.
Catastrophe at Expeditus (copper city) was averted, the galley likely empty. We even got construction thanks to Mjmd's credit; with PS we can drywhip catapults for 2pop, that's nice - although I had not really considered it nor truly believed it'd work, so we had just two eligible cities (plus Expeditus which rather gets a 5XP axe).
However, I'm not absolutely sure anymore if Amica will (immediately) manage to take our capital and split our empire in half:
Lots of units, Amica sees all or nearly all of them. I'm patting myself on the back that we chopped that deer for Oracle 45 turns ago . The workers could have had a better use than finishing that incense plantation though, as a road on the FP might be useful yet.
If Mjmd lifts a finger as much as a finger we lose our entire east. Against vanrober up north we're maintaining a token force at least, but nothing more than that.
We used to have 3 tiles as good or better as wet rice in terms of foodhammers (accounting for food > hammers with granaries), plus 3 lighthoused shellfish.
Amica offered white peace after taking Nick and burning Peter, which sounded like an invitation:
I will not complain about bad rolls, although of course there were plenty. Our situation is still super duper precarious, Amica has reinforcements incoming, we have a very hard time fighting elephants and HAs, and Expeditus might well fall this turn (getting copper from Plemo though as long as we hold the fur).
Still felt good.
Amica accepted peace, which I just don't really understand. They really didn't gain anything except drag a neighbor into irrelevance. We can't even build the Apostolic Palace for hindu anymore because who would sink 400 hammers under these conditions? It's really quite silly. I mean I thought they were going to bull through us all the way to the capital but I guess not. I mean i've been guilty of underestimating an opponent's defensive capacity before (several times) so maybe someone without sin should be casting these stones
Miguelito is of the opinion to optimize empire survival and peace with Amica in order to possibly defend against Mjmd, I am of the opinion to optimize pain to the primary aggressor. Since he's playing the turns, Mig wins this argument
The real irony is that I think we would have still had a slim chance of salvage if our land gave enough FUCKING FOOD to actually grow back the pop we just whipped, but it doesn't
To clarify, survival first and foremost means not having a Khmer city looming 3 tiles from our capital (we took white peace in the end to save Expeditus). Amica will get the option to hand it over amicably (), else it's blood war until it's ours or we are dead.
I am holding off on whipping for the moment because I believe we'd fight much better with HBR, although it's unclear if we get that far.
Civac is 1 turning theology. I'd love to build AP, just to have some satisfying goal, but it can really not be justified with how things are.
Vanrober has been mildly massing axes on our border, and now has the first cat out . Two front war would be unfun, so I guess we should do war/peace some 5 turns before Amica's treaty runs out.
(plus Expeditus which rather gets a 5XP axe). 
![[Image: V_s.gif]](https://www.civforum.de/images/smilies/V_s.gif)
. The workers could have had a better use than finishing that incense plantation though, as a road on the FP might be useful yet. 
), else it's blood war until it's ours or we are dead.