[SPOILERS] Small Wunders and Izzy of Inca: The fat lady sings

[WilliamLP]

The lurkers know more about this battlefield than I, surely, but bets are on for which of the two hangers-on will be eliminated first. Probably Sutt, but TBS has collapsed so quickly and completely that you never know. He seems very strong for a relative newcomer, so either he isn't good at anticipating a military threat, or he was playing as if he was screwed anyway if someone attacks, so he might as well commit for economy. Even so, for being in a relatively solid position fairly recently, I feel he could have put up more resistance.

Honestly any legacy seems better to me than "easy pickings". Why are you in danger of being out-survived by a guy who checked out of the game half a year ago?

For my empire, well there's a guy who's going to attack with Cuirs on one side, and another about to unload a bunch of rifles on the other. Comm isn't keeping his planned invasion as a big secret either, he has shown a galleon now.

I wish I had the luxury to go for Grens but Nationalism full speed it is. It's the way to being the most annoying to conquer, at least. It's probably MT from there.






The hidden "problem" with RBMod Expansive is that courthouses are seldom the best infrastructure build to build so we have no EP, and now no graphs on people we care about, though I'm trying to get them back from Bacchus.

The most likely empire to be swallowed by a superpower next is either Bacchus or Harry.

[WilliamLP]

From Commodore:




Wow. I'm 95% sure this is a sincere declaration of peaceful intent. (Or maybe he wants us to see his gold total and to tell us to take a "SEET", heh.) I'd find it extremely distasteful to offer this deal and then attack right afterward. And once you do that once you lose the ability forever to make meaningful soft negotiations like this in future games. If it were Bacchus offering this, I'd expect a sneaky attack but from Commodore, no way.

Regardless, peace with Commodore means the Nat and Cuirs path is the correct one, since Ichabod isn't beelining rifles. I'm going through considerable pains to get Nat in 2, e.g. working a bunch of no-lighthouse coast and a few scientists to temporarily boost research. (We still don't have alphabet so we can't build it directly.)

What it also means is we have slight breathing room to settle a few filler cities.




Commodore and Plako are both saving up gold obviously, presumably for Oxford and a tech blitz, and/or procrastinating on a direction. Mack seems to have Corporation now! More snowball, anyone? Corp is also a known-tech booster in RBMod, not that there are many techs around he doesn't know. Comm's Rifling before Aesthetics path is still pretty remarkable. (Is it really a good idea to ignore HE for this long?)

Sutt and TBS went down on the same turn! Scooter finished him off. He has cannons and he also might be using the berserkers to amphibious grens upgrade path! That would be pretty clever and it's kind of a cool alternate history, to retrain huge men who throw axes to throwing gunpowder filled iron spheres instead.

Harry took a city from Mackoti! He seems to have cuirs now.

Our role is sitting around watching the balance of power unfold! There are now four powers (Dtay, Scooter, Mack, Plako) who get to make a next move.

Thinking of it, Scooter with Grens is bound to be a pretty scary proposition for Commodore! He's sacrificed a lot to beeline the unit that is countered. I bet that's part of what the peace declaration is all about.

My guesses for the future:

- Plako declares on Bacchus in the next 10 turns, starts eating him up fairly easily when he gets Cannons.
- Mack steamrolls through Harry using some poorly understood magic, explained by terse posts with spelling errors that you'd think at first glance were written by a newcomer who doesn't understand Civ basics.
- Bigger is still going to grind against Azza for a while.
- Scooter's next play is really interesting, and he has several choices. But he has to fight someone to stay relevant among Mack and Plako. His logical move might be attacking Bigger, which could explain why he hasn't been able to commit to finishing Azza.

What we're doing:




We need a better view of the east! From "2" to "3" is an ocean to ocean move, and so Ichabod can't take out our reporter with galleys or triremes fortunately.

I'm wondering whether to try for a knight invade to raze TheSoulPolisher. We have 4 galleys on their way over here. Ichabod would have ages to see it coming though, and he surely has a basic navy defense.

If our sole purpose is to make things hard on him, Astro after Nat might not be so crazy, actually. Sweep his coasts, rip up his nets, make him invest in defending his coastal cities to take away from what he could attack with.

[Ceiliazul]

Sweep his coasts, rip up his nets, make him invest in defending his coastal cities to take away from what he could attack with.

I've seen a couple mechanics errors in this thread lately... maybe do some naval gazing worldbuilder?

[WilliamLP]

Sweep his coasts, rip up his nets, make him invest in defending his coastal cities to take away from what he could attack with.

I've seen a couple mechanics errors in this thread lately... maybe do some naval gazing worldbuilder?

Aren't lurkers allowed to point out mechanics errors, or is that giving an unfair advantage to the guy in 9th place out of 11.

Are you allowed to tell me if the error is in the quoted statement, that 4 upgraded galleons could conceivably do the above?

I'm not surprised if my foreign tech analyses are out to lunch a lot. I'm not good at quick reading it. E.g. I confuse MSci and MTradition a lot... Why does the one that doesn't require music have a horn on the icon?

[WilliamLP]

Nationalism finished a couple of turns ago, but I haven't actually switched to it. Perhaps just having it available with SPI is a significant disincentive to attack already.

On a whim I offered Ichabod peace last turn, and he actually reoffered! I'm kind of confused what the upside of it is for him, I don't think I posed any threat to anything, unless he's weary from worrying about whatever edge case attacks could be conceivably thought up.

So, Commodore offered cow for cow, and didn't unload rifles on the turn peace ran out. Ichabod doesn't want to fight for at least 10 turns... Bizarrely we actually have peace in a very tense world, in an odd change of pace! Now, what Mindy would want to do here is certainly no mystery. I think I have too much real-life civ war weariness to consider attacking Bacchus very soon. But when Plako starts eating him up from the south it could be different. Also strangely, the peaceful border with Bacchus is actually looking very peaceful! (This could change immediately on any given turn, obviously.)

Since Ichabod gave 10 turns of peace:




Maybe it will annoy him, though that isn't the intent.

I settled Suor Angelica on La Boheme's ruins.

Amazingly we now actually have time for a couple of economic techs! I'm getting banking for the amazing shrine, and then I'm strongly considering Alphabet -> PP, which still allows Cuirs by the time Ichabod can attack again, I think.

The other crazy thing is that I'm actually building a few courthouses now.

[WilliamLP]

Commodore is claiming what could be Retep's Moai site in a parallel universe:




There's not much we can do about that. Contending with Asto and Rifles isn't a real option. It will also take the fish making the site 1N3W of Rigoletto of very questionable value. I don't think I'll settle it to avoid tempting him. I am going to try to hold the southern Clam / Fish / Ivory site though.

Maybe Commodore will still want to attack anyway. But... Scooter switched to Police State a while ago, and that has to be a scary proposition.

My completely pointless fun Marco Polo expedition:




Soul Polisher has only a Phalanx. Peace with Ichabod makes me not have to consider how much it would annoy him by transporting a few knights up here.




It's a shame not to see Ichabod's power level but is it actually worth running the Espionage slider for it? I don't know. He's saving up gold for probable Oxford.

Harry may be fighting Dtay now! Or maybe it's a phony war, I can't tell yet.

I'm getting Alphabet next, eyeing PP. Printing press is obviously a key economic tech and I'm starting to suspect I could actually get it without dying. Music is another choice, eyeing MT and allowing the borders at Suor Angelica to pop. (Caste would work too, but Serfdom is just too good in RBMod with new land needing improvements.)

[WilliamLP]

Wow, stuff is going down in this game! The poopie appears to have gotten real, so to speak.




6 cities and 128 points down in 1 turn?! Are you kidding me? Ichabod, maybe your army is a little out of position? That had to be a pants-down attack.

I haven't logged in yet in the turn when this just happened, and may need to think a while about whether this changes strategy. This, since Ichabod now appears to be much less of a threat to attack when he's getting eviscerated from the other side right now.

Last turn:




I dropped down Pearl Fishers and Nozze di Figaro. They're not good cities, but not completely useless and the investment isn't massive at this point in the game.

As lurkers surely know, Scooter is now attacking Bigger and establishing dominance on the seas west of Bacchus:




The whole geopolitical situation now presents loads of questions. The first one is whether Harry can get away with this decisive move without Mackoti reacting and just eating his home continent alive.

The interesting issue for us is if and when Plako is going to attack Bacchus. And if he does, whether we could afford to dogpile on or not, now that Ichabod has been attacked from the other side.

How ironic is it if this empire is now in one of the safer positions in the world?

[Ceiliazul]

F4 shows who has peace treaties and how long they last. Good to look at when you're pondering politics.

[WilliamLP]

F4 shows who has peace treaties and how long they last. Good to look at when you're pondering politics.

I know you can see the treaties and a lot of the pairwise deals (including relative EP spending) through the F4 screen (either the circular version or the grid version), but how do you show how long they will last?




E.g. I know Harry has been getting peace treaties after phony wars with Dtay, and recently got peace with Mackoti, but I don't see a way to mouse over the Peace Treaty between them to see how long it lasts. (I know this can be done in the "Active" tab for my own deals.)

Anyway, either someone (Commodore?) is going to stab me soon or I'm now running one of the most boring empires in the world, which is fine with me!

Commodore and Mackoti got Scientific Method at the same time, and most likely Mackoti will win the race to Physics.

Both Scooter and Harry have executed coordinated multi-city attacks, which would be fun to read about.

[Dhalphir]

Bad info, edited!