[SPOILERS] Back to Basic - Mardoc plays Augustus of China

[Krill]

Yeah, I think that is something like lesson #5: Don't do something in an half arsed fashion.

[NobleHelium]

Lesson from this game: don't plant seven size 1 cities at the same time with no workers.

[Mardoc]

Lesson from this game: don't plant seven size 1 cities at the same time with no workers.

That's just a symptom.

The fundamental mistake was taking Krill's advice on actions without thinking it through. The general idea of claiming all the east for myself could have worked, but it needed to be part of a plan, not just 'Krill says it so it'll work'.

Anyway, I've lost Tarquin, lost Julio then took it back and lost it again, and I'm going to lose Nale. So far there's been no fighting in the east - I'm accumuluating a mini stack there to take Tarquin back if Ruff leaves it open.

I'm finally accumulating enough Chos that I ought to be able to wipe out Ruff's forward stack in a couple turns, depending on what he does. The only fighting so far has been Ruff killing whipped longbows, and me killing his victorious war elephant in Julio - maybe 4 total units lost so far for both of us. I'm starting to think I may be able to stop him somewhere in Celtia, at least temporarily - and if my spies have some luck, I may stop him there permanently. A silver lining to losing cities is that I get another 50% off my EP spending due to cultural dominance, so stealing my way up to Rifling is plausible if I can stalemate Ruff, even temporarily. I suspect there's no way I can save or regain the east, though, not even with drafted Rifles. Just going to aim to make it expensive.

[Mardoc]

So, net effect of the war, so far anyway: lost Julio, Tarquin, and everything east, but got a peace treaty out of it. Slaughtered one Rifleman army near Nale, but I couldn't stop him from taking the east, so I traded cities for peace in order to save my army. At this point we have open borders and resource trades again, and I'm still leaning on the espionage econ to try to catch up. Just a couple more techs til Rifling, where I'll be able to be prickly again for a while.

Sian's been buffing his army greatly, I expect him to hit one of us in 10 turns or so. Hoping that turns out to be Ruff.

[Mardoc]

What a topsy-turvy game!

So, to recap, Ruff just finished off a war in which he gobbled up East China.






He then fired off a Golden Age, and revolted out of his war civics:



At which point Sian jumped in, razed three of Ruff's nice backline port cities, that were probably protected by ancient trash.






Gonna be interesting to watch! . I'm still working on catching up via the spy, so unless Ruff disperses his army to try to defend everywhere, I won't be able to intervene even when the peace treaty expires. Plus, well, I'm not sure I really want to - I need Sian and Ruff at war if I'm to have any hope of winning this, which means leaving Ruff time to build a navy. Out of his remaining ports.

Won't deny a little schadenfreude, though

[Mardoc]

And...Sian goes for the capillary!



Looks like he got 2 cities in a peace deal, but they were both my previous far east possessions. Aka - weak undeveloped cities, and in a logistically challenging spot for everyone.

Can't decide what this means for China. On the one hand, they're not currently fighting. On the other - Sian had a great advantage, now Ruff has 10 turns of mostly Golden Age to build a navy. I'm pretty sure he won't forgive the homeland razing and loss of spoils of war. As long as Sian doesn't come for me next, this probably means extended war between my foes, which is a definite plus.

I'd been considering the idea of extorting Tarquin and Thog back for peace (non-ports, but strong cities that I liked), but that requires Ruff to be distracted. So, that won't be happening anytime soon. Really I ought to focus on getting up Banks, Wall Street, Universities, Grocers, etc and so while those two are distracted.

[Mardoc]

Two more things that I thought about en route to work:
1. I really need to get those last three techs stolen (Gunpowder, Replaceable Parts, Rifling) and do a round or two of drafting, to get fortified rifles in all my ports. Can't prevent Sirianing, but I can at least make it require more than one boat. In the long run, I need to build a navy of my own, and probably use it against Sian rather than Ruff - but it's looking like I won't catch up until the Combustion era, so I might keep Colossus intact.

2. This should mean espionage econ is even easier - now I can steal from Sian, the tech leader and non-counterespionage runner, without needing boats. I do still need another dozen spies (eight at the moment) to keep up with my EP generation, but if I do that, keeping up with the foes should be straightforward. Or maybe I should aim for thirty spies, total? Regardless, I'm not going to change course now!

[Mardoc]

Welp, that's that. Sian invaded, razed two cities, kept two cities, offered peace for two more. I turned him down, two reasons:
- Don't want to be an easy mark. I figure I can't stop him, but I can at least retake my cities temporarily and remove some pop and infra, maybe even make him raze them. And kill some of his rifles.
- Don't want to keep playing a long game completely crippled. Rather go out in a blaze of glory.

So...we'll see what a huge stack of ChoKoNus can do, against a solid opponent. See if we can at least give Ruff a shot at this.

[Mardoc]

Sian was sloppy! Lost some rifles attacking amphibiously at Vaarsuvius, and left Lien guarded by 1 Rifle and 4 Airships. A little drafting, some shuffling around, and the city's mine again, for now anyway. He's got a couple 4-Rifle stacks marching inland, I'm sure I can wipe at least one of them unless it backs out of range of my returning stack. There's another opportunity, perhaps, at Hinjo next turn - 1 rifle, 2 Airships and a galleon at the moment.

Asked Ruff for happy resource donations, we'll see if he bites. Would let me draft more.

Also, I'm planning to revolt Sian out of State Property and into Hinduism. Would normally feel bad about this, but he did suggest I try it against Ruff earlier, and we were clear that this is a 'no bans' game.

I still see no way to stay in the game long term, but I can at least make Sian spend to remove me.

[Krill]

...How did you lose all that land?