[SPOILER] Lincoln of Ethiopia -- Sareln

[Sareln]

Ioan declares on GingerEagle
Nicolae declares on Ioan

Clearly I should declare on Nicolae, and GingerEagle should declare on me!

I landed the trifecta of wonders that I wanted, Great Wall, Hanging Garden, Pyramids. Swapping to Representation next turn while pushing towards Code of Laws and Courthouses. Caste System is nice, but the whip is too good to give up.

[Sareln]

With the Trio of wonders, my GNP is getting aggressively high. My scout on the Ioan/Nicolae Border shows an Impasse. When I whip for units, I whip catapults.

Also, I have horses hooked up now! This is exciting. So much so in fact that I order up a series of chariots from my production center (base 23 hammers / turn). Tech wise I'm going to backfill the religious techs (having landed Confucianism at Code of Laws) so that I can run Organized Religion and build monasteries in my commerce locations. Confucianism landed in my production center, and I got a free spread to my capital.

Production Center Builds for the next few turns looks like:

Chariot (+3), Chariot(+3), Chariot(+3), Catapult (-10)

Since there is some overflow still floating around from the previous catapult build.

[Sareln]

It looks like Nicolae is doing *too* well against Ioan on their border. I will have to intervene in all likelihood. Whipping Catapults, growing cities to work scientists, and picking up back-fill techs in 1 turn for the most part. Picked up Iron working on the last turn, have it at Lalibela (the site of the culture war between me and Nicolae), Excellent!

If I go to war with Nicolae, my goal will be to pick up the cities on "my" side of the mountains between us, secure the choke, and then go back to peaceful expansion and development. I wonder if this kind of limited war is even possible in CIV? I guess we're going to find out neh?

[Sareln]

After staring at each other for a while we sign peace. 10 turn truce. I'm in the process of throwing down ~4 more cities. Espionage is focused on Nicolae since knowing what he's up to is most important (I have courthouses now so my espionage production is greater than others for the time being.)

Nicolae razed an Aztec city. I have a scout on that border. Since I'm in forced truce with Nicolae right now, I decided to take a look at what he's got.

Stack 1:

• C1/Cover Axeman
  
• F1/F2 Chariot
  
• C1/C2 Spearman
  

Stack 2:

• C1 Chariot with presumably enough experience to promote
  

Stack 3: (All of these are wounded and presumably enough experience to promote after winning battles against the city

• C1/Charge Axeman
  
• C1/Charge/Shock Axeman
  
• C1/CityRaider1 Axeman
  
• C1/CityRaider1 Axeman
  
• C1/CityRaider1 Axeman
  

[Sareln]

I'm sort of at sea about what to do about Nicolae. In a normal game where we could talk I could open Channels with Ioan about a dogpile or get an NAP with Nicolae to wheel around and smash into GingerEagle. As it is though, I'm 2/3 and can't improve that position b/c I need to keep building units to keep Nicolae out.

I've been filling out cities (lost one to a mistake that Nicolae managed to capitalize on) and running the specialist econ. Got a random great engineer instead of a sage I used to rush the Golden Age Doubler for both culture, denial, and use purposes.

I'm losing my cultural battle but need those tiles back or else my entire flank is exposed. I've just fast teched to drama and may need to spend some turns building culture in that border city after finishing a theater and running an artist.

Longer term I need knights, mass production, and a horde of 2 movers. I've got 2 cities set up on constant production and should probably be double-whipping more often than I am.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I was more than happy keeping the status quo, it's easier defending across 1.5 fronts against you than the 3 fronts against Ioan. You're too cautious, you really should have found some weakness and attacked. I kept a loose-zone defense against you, but would occasionally thin out my defenses to strike on another front.

I also can't believe you teched Civil Service but never switched to Bureaucracy! Your capital was way better than mine. Plus, you should have spent your education GScientist on a MoM-boosted golden age, it would have netted you a couple more GPeople and slingshotted you ahead.

[Sareln]

I was more than happy keeping the status quo, it's easier defending across 1.5 fronts against you than the 3 fronts against Ioan. You're too cautious, you really should have found some weakness and attacked. I kept a loose-zone defense against you, but would occasionally thin out my defenses to strike on another front.

I also can't believe you teched Civil Service but never switched to Bureaucracy! Your capital was way better than mine. Plus, you should have spent your education GScientist on a MoM-boosted golden age, it would have netted you a couple more GPeople and slingshotted you ahead.

Yeah, not swapping to Bureaucracy ever was pure weed. I kept forgetting to switch in when I was playing the turns and just never got it fixed...

[Nicolae Carpathia]

You know, I just realised something a few days ago, there was actually a way for me to take down that horse city you resettled by my border. All I had to do was run a woodsman II axe into your forest, pillage the road, and your big stack would never be able to reach me in time. I get what you were doing by leaving the forests there, they stopped me from forking your cities, but they were always a liability.

And I didn't gun for you because I felt my position was secure and your lands weren't that great (I think you had the weakest start in the game )

[Ioan76]

I'm sort of at sea about what to do about Nicolae. In a normal game where we could talk I could open Channels with Ioan about a dogpile {...}

Well - I'd say that you should do this anyway despite this being a CTON game.

IMHO you just had a too prudent approach this game and this helped both Nicolae and GingerEagle in the end.

What's also surprising for me is that you had a Charismatic leader but you didn't either build Stonhenge or use faster-promotion bonus for your army !!

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I think Stonehenge was because I set back Sareln's growth curve, and the discounted promotions only help if you have war civics and win battles you instigate.