[SPOILERS] Marco Outfoxes Everyone Else

[marcopolothefraud]

Notice how Amani would give me suzerainty of all three, and therefore hand me 6 era score. This is unfortunately too late for a Classical Golden Age, but it'll easily hand me a Medieval Golden Age. I still don't know whether to pick Monumentality (+1 era score for every district) or Free Inquiry (+1 era score for every Eureka or science-boosting infrastructure). I'm 80% leaning towards Free Inquiry.



I'm going to create a road from Xipe to Buenos Aires. It's a 10 tile distance, which will allow me to transport 3 Eagle Warriors from the south relatively quickly. Sadly, that means I can't pillage any Argentinian tile improvements just yet - they already have a mine east of Buenos Aires.

(Also, Kaiser, these city-states would be really good for Thrawn, but for some reason they're in my corner. 1: is this intentional? 2: does this mean Thrawn is close to me, or very very far away?)

[civac2]

Balancing of maps is usually done without regard for the picks the players make.

[Kaiser]

Player positions were randomized after the map was done, I am not sure if I knew the player picks by then, that was one of the last edits I did.

[marcopolothefraud]

Interesting. Well, I'm glad that Thrawn didn't spawn in my corner. (Of course, even if he was, he might've killed them nevertheless.)

[marcopolothefraud]

With a bit of luck, I will found my 3rd and 4th cities on the same turn, t61. One city will be Tezcatlipoca - shown in the image - and the other will be founded halfway between Xipe Totec and Buenos Aires. I'm still thinking about which sea it should be located on: should I have a port into the eastern ocean, or should I concentrate all my seapower in the western ocean?

Meanwhile, my 3 Eagle Warriors are slowly moving on Buenos Aires. If I get a bit of luck, I may be able to catch the Argentinian archer out in the open and get a first strike on it. This invasion is not ideal - I barely have superiority of strength over my enemies - but the problem is that Eagle Warriors are so expensive that I don't think I have the hammers to spare to make another one.

Also, I chose Magnus in Xipe Totec. I should research State Workforce (unboosted, sadly) just in time for Magnus' Provision promotion to kick in.

[marcopolothefraud]

Well. 50 turns into the game, I'd like to make an analysis of my performance.



Empire Score and Technology Score are the lowest out of the 5 of us. Did I do anything wrong? Well, a lot of production was spent on making Eagle Warriors - monster units that cost 65 production each (compared to 70 production for the first settler and 90 production for the next) that have provided little benefit for me in exchange for their cost.

Well, little benefit so far, at least. I don't think anyone else in poised to seize a city-state right now. Thrawn in PBEM19, with all his cheap archers that had +3 movement, still only declared war on his first city-state by t50...and I don't expect to be too far behind him.

Could I have optimized my technologies and civics better? Absolutely. I'm researching Sailing and State Workforce without either boost, largely because I have no choice in the matter. But it's somewhat ok to fall behind in techs and civics in the Ancient Era, because the -20% research discount next era will likely help me catch up. Hopefully, at least.

The most important thing right now is to have financial, industrial, and military capacity that can sustain my civ as it adopts a more aggressive and expansionist position. And, err, I think I have that. My Ancestral Hall won't kick in until about t68 - and even then, it's going to require quite a bit of builder labor to boost production - but I think that'll be an early enough date to enforce a dominant position as I start meeting other players. Speaking of which, I looked at everyone's Era Score and I don't think anyone's met more than 1 or 2 other players so far. Especially not Alhambram, who only has 5 era score. So what gives? Are the city-states and land bridges blocking everyone's way?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

You're asking the right questions to analyze your performance. That's, like, 98% of learning right there.

[marcopolothefraud]

Are you enjoying my (sporadic and often image-less) writeups, CMF?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I am! You have a big audience but we can't comment too much due to spoilers. But I know from my own writeups that it gets lonely after a while. So I'm here!

Just remember to keep your eyes on the prize. What's your goal, and how can you get there? From this, all else follows.

[Kaiser]