[SPOILERS] AlaePB1 - the ol' Nile blues

[Bacchus]

This is what I've been witnessing the past few turns:




Under the left arrow are 6 galleys. I guess it's as good an investment of hammers as any, but I'm not sure what he is planning to accomplish. As you can see, I'll have gunpowder next turn, and my capital, already stocked up with 3 knights, a mace, 3 longbows, 2 archers and a war chariot will get a bunch of muskets. The weak point is not having cats to soak up collateral, but as things stand, I should be able to weaken the knights with flak, and then attack with my own knights, flanking the hell out of his own siege. My power is greater than his, albeit a large part of it is now prancing about a next-door continent. Still, it won't be that hard to bring them over.

[Bacchus]

Gavagai changed his mind about attacking me, a bunch of his Galleys disappeared westwards, and so has an impressive stack of knights and cats. He must have seen that I have Gunpowder (in fact, I just completed my first Musket) and figured Zanth is easier pickings. Happy about that. Zanth, in turn, just built the Temple of Artemis. No, I don't know why.

Got a GM from Economics, will pop another GP from the capital in ~6 turns for my second GA, over which I should be able to get within the grabbing reach of rifles, I'm currently missing PP and RP. Breakeven is at 50% -- +260 science, +18 gold. Soon to change as a Bank is completing in the capital which will bring around ~25 coins at this tax rate.

Overall, I'm inevitably falling back due to the scarcity of land and it's poor quality. Even with Free Market (hurray spiritual) I am 3rd GNP. As an attempt to overcome this, I have settled my first colony on the Myki/Zanth continent, right under MYKI's nose, even using his improvements, in a space recently cleared by Zanth. Due to free market, the city payed for itself on founding and brings science as profit, even before the very fast creative library completes.

[Bacchus]

Looks like Gavagai is actually attacking MIKY, I hope no-one trades him the map in the next few turns and lets him see where I planted my new city.

Bank completed in capital, moved up to 60% tax, which is exactly breakeven with a tech rate of 300. Going to 1-turn Construction, as a start of working towards Chemistry. I need a fleet with my far-flung island empire. Messed up couple a turns back with adopting Free Market without Caste, so now will have to wait before I can actually run it, without Caste next GP is only in 9 turns. Will be able to build some infra in the meantime, like a Uni.

[Bacchus]

Let's have an update at t169, because why not. Some things have happened and the field has changed considerably, actually. Zanth is now about drawn first for land, having an empty continent for himself and Furungy did something very strange, resulting in an amphibious East India Man landing against Gavagai's irrelevant island city perched upon a hill and with a castle in it. Let's start with that, here is the relevant theatre:




Don't even ask me how this makes sense, he could have forked 4 cities, most of which have only 40-60% cultural defense, but went for the castle. Also note, that the centrally placed knights north of Kitezh are there now, but weren't back when Furungy was carrying out his attack -- clearly Gavagai saw the huge vulnerability to the core this bay creates. Furungy unloaded some maces and pikes, all of which are helpless against chu-ko-nus, and eventually retreated after losing some int he field. China got a Great General out of the whole thing. In addition, to carry out this farce of an attack, Furungy researched Astro before, say, Banking. I am still the only empire in the world to be in Free Market.

I am half expecting Holland's catastrophy of a military strategy to result in random capture of my backline cities, some which are protected very meagerly, as you will see. I need Nationalism asap.

Before we drop the Gavagai topic though, here is a new awkward border after the carve-up of MYKI. Gav's workers are busy rebuilding the towns I've pillaged:



Cre + quick library in that city to cash in on the trade routes means I will soon get that isthmus tile to prevent double-mover threat to the city. I plan to build a fort there, and hopefully we can agree to keep the peace. I have no interest in expanding north, nor can I threaten Gav's newly acquired city with two-movers.

Overview of the entire Empire of No Hope:




It's like the Genoese merchant republic made it into the early modern era. Soon, alas it will face the inevitable consequence of industrial, distinctly land-based, developments. And dykes (more like yikes).

Yeah, I should have expanded a bit quicker. One failure was not of my doing -- a lovely spot to the south-west with cows, fish and iron was already settled by MYKI and then Zanth sent a Galley with an axe to raze it. I don't know why, especially as I had a much larger fleet and army in the area, but he reckoned he can be a bit ballsy. So instead of capturing the city at size 2, I had to build a settler -- it's incoming, but the spot is going to waste in the meantime. Othewise, though, as you can see I have mostly the arctic to expand into. Again, something that I should have been doing, but it's not really a game-changer, would have only slightly boosted by GNP.

Demos:


Leaders have nearly twice my land, one of those leaders is also Financial, so there is very little I can do. My best hope is reliance on better technology to stage an attack against Zanth's southern lands. I imagine Gavagai will be going for his same northern lands. This could actually work quite well. Next turn I get PP, and I already have Gunpowder. In the next 7 turns I will pop a Great Scientist and start a GA expending him and the Economics Merchant (would have already been in GA, but popped a low-odds Merchant, the one that went into PP bulb). This will let me power through to Rifling, and should make taking Zanth fairly easy. Thankfully, I can rely on Galleys to get to him, and the fort will allow me to do so quite quickly.

Tech plan, based on the above is: PP -> Nationalism -> RP -> Rifling -> Chemistry and then perhaps SM -> Lib -> Communism

Also, Indians built the apostolic palace and sent me some buddhist missionaries, so I am going to get a production boost off my cheap temple construction, hurray for SPI. Thinking about Sankore (not yet built), but no-one has stone, and I'm not sure I'm ready to spend 16 turns of capital production on it. Religion-wise, currently in Hindu, but have Hindu, Tao and Buddha in main cities, as well as Confu in some largish island sattellites. Free Religion off Lib would be welcome.

Breakeven at 60%, rates: +320/+20

[Bacchus]

So I'm the first to Nationhood+Rifles, but to what end? An expedition of 4 Trebs + 4 rifles + 2 Knights is sailing to take an island from Zanth, whom I dominate at sea — there is a Christian shrine there, which should be nice.

My techs together with the Spi trait at least preclude any opportunist attack against me, but my overall economic situation is crap due to lack of land. I have even ceased to be competitive on GNP, as others have finally completed Economics and adopted Free Market. The only plus is that Zanth is hopelessly behind, his GNP is ~350, whilst the leader's is ~1230 and the pack is around ~1000. He is overextended and overmilitarized.

My only hope, really, is to grab Kremlin+Universal Suffrage. No-one has SciMeth yet, and I have a scientist to throw into a bulb. I think I might well switch into wealth builds and run 100% slider, given that I can draft the military for now. Everyone, but especially Furungy, screwed themselves over getting Astronomy. This does mean there is a scary amount of Frigates, so much so that I might forgo the wooden fleets entirely. Not that I am so close to Combustion -- I need Steel, Steam Power, Railroad and SciMeth (for Oil), but no-one has these techs in any case. In the meantime to boost my economy I'm about to complete the Forbidden Palace and will soon start the work on Oxford in the capital. Yeah, Oxford+Moai, not the best combo.

[Commodore]

This:

It's like the Genoese merchant republic made it into the early modern era.

...is an awesome comment. Good luck buying your way to victory!

When in doubt, pillage 'em.

[Bacchus]

This game continues to maintain an unlikely level of unpredictability, mostly as Furungy's greenness made itself felt in converting his natural advantages in traits and land into victory. Despite being Willem of Dutch and having double the land due to conquest of his completely incompetent neighbour, Furungy still hasn't managed to secure a decisive advantage by T200. Instead, he is bottom on production, behind my sea-based empire, losing his land advantage to Zanth, and only at par tech level with Gavagai and me. The latter he managed by getting Astronomy before Guilds, and only adopting Free Market round about now, that is T190 — even later than my pathetic Carthage in PB13. Most importantly, this lack of energy on Furungy's part meant that the other two land-based empires managed to catch-up, outdo him on MFG and obtain a decent-ish tech rate, so that Furungy has no easy ways into conquest/domination victory anymore.

More charity on Furungy's part — to the extent that he did use his mid-game advantage, he used it to put pressure on Gavagai, that is the second person in the running for victory. Gavagai built an impressive wonders/specialists engine off his small-ish island, largely driven by the insane city of Kitezh, which works something like 6 lighthoused and Moaied fresh water lake tiles. Together with Pyramids-enabled Representation and the full commitment to the specialist strategy with a National Epic in that city, Gav really managed to mitigate the disadvantages of his starting position. For a while at least, as the gift of specialists eventually stops giving, round about entry into the Industrial era, which we now reached. Gavagai probably counted on converting his Renaissance strength into a territorial advantage via conquest, to give himself a longer-term economic base, but that didn't really work out, primarily because Furungy's rush to Astronomy and evident desire to raid, pillage and raze Gavagai's cities distracted China from its key goal.

Not all was the work of Furungy, though — despite best Dutch efforts, Gav ammassed a sizeable force of Cuirassiers to bring to bear against Zanth, who barely had a musket in his empire at the time. Indeed, conquering the overextended, underteched Zanth was the key to victory for both me and Gavagai — whilst he obtained Curs, I went for the Rifling+Nationhood combo, which gives me the only hope of producing any army at all on my islands. About 5 turns ago, I sent Gav a cryptic trade offering to hit Zanth together in 13 turns — the time I needed to get my Galleys (yes, I know) full of Rifles and Trebs to Zanth's lands. Gavagai answered with an identical offer, including 1 gold piece rather than the 13. Curs charged in, and:



re-appeared in Gav's land in this state after taking just one city. I really feel as if Gavagai fully committed to role-playing Shakesperian characters in Civ, so clearly his prominent strength, that is confidence in himself and energetic commitment to a chosen strategy, is also his fatal weakness. In any case, a full-on conquest of Zanth is now off, and I will have to satisfy myself with this:



The enshrined cradle of Christianity only has a Musket guarding it, together with a ceremonial guard of an Archer and a Spearman, neither of which can even upgrade into anything worthwhile. He has no Galley on the theatre to supply this island, and I will bring a fleet that will deny naval supply in any case. My initial landing force of 4 Trebs, 4 Rifles and 2 Knights will be enough to take down the expected garrison of 3 Muskets, Longbow and Mace, and to get the other city, I will bring some more units over, upgrading/drafting at Lisht.

For all the discussion of people's mistakes above, I failed at my play too, mostly through failing to expand despite having Free Market and GLH. I was mostly put off by the barenness of the expansion land:



A clear case of human irrationality, sure, it looks bad, but who cares about the view, it's the numbers one should pay attention too. I didn't. The original plan was to settle the Silver sites after the fish is done feeding that little town, but all of this should have been done much earlier. Otherwise, there isn't much land to expand into.

All of this brings me here:



That's on T188. No hope, as was noted above, unless I can get the UnSufferable Kremlin combo. Also, demos here worse than could have been due to switch from Bureau into Nationhood — as does Gav, I have Moai in my capital, albeit it will be complemented by Oxford rather than the NE. Nationhood will be switched on intermittently, when I need to increase my power, it's fun to be spiritual. I have a Great Scientist in store, and another one comes out in 8 turns, getting Communism shouldn't be hard, as no-one yet has Scientific Method.

A close view at the crop yield:



The ostensible draw between me and India is an illusion of course, probably more that 50% of my food is obtained from the sea.

That's it and thanks for reading. You can probably understand the lack of updates — I'm sitting on my crap islands, building infra and irrelevant tundra cities for trade route income with no hope of winning unless others provide me with an opportunity, so not much to write about. I will now probably update once the attack on Isle of Christ resolves.

[Commodore]

That's it and thanks for reading. You can probably understand the lack of updates — I'm sitting on my crap islands, building infra and irrelevant tundra cities for trade route income with no hope of winning unless others provide me with an opportunity, so not much to write about. I will now probably update once the attack on Isle of Christ resolves.

Well yeah, but that's been my favorite position for "story of the game" updates. Appreciate them!

[Bacchus]

Gavagai is also researching Scientific Method, given the economy damage for him, I can only assume he is going for the Communism as well. It makes sense, really, but is also very annoying. At current rates, espionage screen shows he 4 turns away from SciMeth, I am too. Unfortunately, I have to finish a turn of Liberalism first, but I do have a Great Scientist to spare, which will cut 3 turns off SciMeth. The bigger question is whether I would be able to build the Kremlin ahead of the Industrious Gav. Frankly, I don't think so. Not unless I get stone from somewhere and he doesn't. But the map is distinctly lacking in stone.

[Bacchus]

Christ, I've really pissed Gavagai off. He must have boiled inside for ages before finally coming to GChat to vent his frustration about the Communism race in the most non-diplo way possible. "You really have fulfilled your primary purpose in all the games we played together in", he said. What else can I do here, though? We are both trying to play economic catch-up on minimal land and the options are fairly limited.

Let's see how much more pissed he will become once he sees that he has no on-shore oil and I have two.