[Spoilers] Dtay's first PB: When you play a game of CIV, you win or you die

[Dhalphir]

what would you do with the cities if you could successfully attack them?

[dtay]

OH/Fintourist razed Ichabod's original capital.

I don't think anyone besides me, Ichabod, and OH/Fin know the true significance of this. Ichabod was keeping the vast vast majority of his fleet in Musashi. He just lost the naval presence he'd been working for 20 turns to build up. Along with his original capital. Which if I remember correctly was his heroic epic city.

If I had felt in any way unsafe in regards to Ichabod naval retaliation, I would be infinitely reassured now. Coming back from this will take... a long time. Ichabod had a larger fleet than mine just last turn (I've been building Drydocks and Manu plants for the last 10 turns in all my naval production centers, so actual fleet production was delayed) that until now I'd been planning to counteract with quality and my espionage vision (I have ironclads and ships of the line, Ichabod didn't). Now... I have quality and quantity AND production capacity.

Now I mostly need to worry about naval supremacy vis a vi OH. I have the same quality advantage, but OH obviously still has his fleet. But hopefully he's real worried about Ichabod retaliation and won't mess with me (until I want to mess with him).

[dtay]

So something significant happened finally, so I'll write a turn report.


I won the lottery and got a Great Engineer (really just wanted a non-scientist non-artist)



This means I can use East City to throw out a 3rd type of great person to start a golden age in 12t



East City has been rather uselessly gathering GPP the whole game from its wonders, now I can finally put them to good use.

This will let me switch into End-Game civics. I'm thinking vassalage over nationalism. Drafting infantry starts to become hella-expensive population wise, and vassalage will finally give EC 17 xp given.

Other likely endgame civic is police state, which means I have to research... uhh... Fascism? I always forget the name of this tech, I just know where it is/what it does.

I have total vision of OH, so he won't be surprising me



10t to Wall Street and another 100gpt



Sleeper is almost done building up all the Manu Buildings. Finishes the plant, then a harbor for some health, then a coal plant, then an aqueduct for some health, then it can churn out 1t basically anything. Probably at that point infantry, since Commodore/Scooter/Mack, the other nations over on these eastern seas, are all about to get destroyers so building ships won't really help until I can do the same.



I've been foudning useless cities like this wherever I can find gaps. They pay off on pure traderoutes



Ishval Keeps churning out the settlers for this. Each pays off in about 10t after founding compared to wealth



5th place



Jetboy, not my own capital, holding down the fort on the city front



Commodore has this weird spike in EP



But not going to me at least

[dtay]

8t to Wall Street



10t to Golden Age. And it's super painful to have EC be turning out a mere 22 hammers, but such is life.



I think after consideration that the end-game civics probably should be theocracy and nationhood rather than vassalage and free religion. Drafting infantry for 2 pop is a pretty good deal, and I could easily be in a draft/whip it all to the ground scenerio by game end. These are decisions I need not make for 17 turns though

WilliamLP has sent some serious firepower after Ichabod/2metra. Unfortunately for him, he can't see the galleon (loaded with infantry x2 and an amphib cuir, could be upgraded to cav) to the north. Off chance he leaves Shower in Red without a real guard? I'll burn it. If there's one goal I do still have, it's to not fall down the scoreboard. I know my place in the hierarchy, and I want to keep it



Also going to raze this off of Ichabod if he doesn't guard it in 2t



I can still manage a nice GNP... when going full throttle with double prereqs + known tech bonus

[dtay]

Oh also I offered an Iron-Iron trade with Commodore along with each of our respective closest to WilliamLP cities. Just from a sandbox/messing around standpoint I'm kind of curious if I can manage to gain a foothold on the central continent. I have no grand plans for it springing me into a top tier position or anything, it just seems like an interesting goal to try to manage and in broad terms is still an "improve the civ" type action.

[dtay]

Fancy plans are called off. Suspicious moves on the OH/Fintourist front:

He abandoned all his blockades of 2metra (I wonder if he knows I have LoS on all 2metra cities? Because I probably wouldn't have noticed this except that the blockade-abandonment was a large change), and put his fleets in position such that say... all of my island cities are in Galleon range.




His two mover stacks and land army in general aren't overly suspicious. They aren't particularly out of position to attack me, but also not clearly set up. He could take Hamburg in 1t, which always is and always will be true, and I'm not going to bother to really defend it b/c its only purpose is trade routes and being a small bump in the road.



Forgot the shot, but there are cavs set such that they could 1 move... uhh, city I forget the name of. Should be fine by leaving an infantry who was passing through there though.

So conclusion: - I think OH/Fin are attacking me by sea in the next few turns, and maybe by land but they are hiding it better there. I bit the bullet and spent about 1000 gold on upgrades, all in the most visible locations, at least 1 infantry on each island city, which I hope fin/OH see and are deterred. They can't win this. It'll cost me teching, but I can turn my army of muskets into an army of infantry with about 2 turns of gold saving (and cuirs to cavs as well). Coupled with the large Kanone stacks, I don't think he can put a stack in my territory and have it survive.

[dtay]

Razed resettled Ichabod city b/c it was empty and he can't get away with that. Don't really care that much about pressing the advantage, at least not until I see a power decrease from a fight with WilliamLP



Sleeper is trying to avoid hammers lol. I can't build a barracks without wasting overflow, so might as well get some extra culture and commerce?



Besides that just building more infantry, cannons, and coal plants / assembly plants. With spiking powers all around me my primary concern right now is just not getting killed. Amestris will/must survive until the end!

Opportunistic naval attacks v 2metra are still possible, as well as an attack on

Commodore offered a trade with our cities that are near each other (ish, jetboy?) + a lot of resources. And a countdown (11). So in 11 turns something happens, but the only other civs around there are scooter and mack. Attacking them? I mean... I might join in for the glory if it looks possible but I won't join a doomed fight. Commodore has pretty good leverage over scooter though.

[dtay]

Golden Age!

Demos in the golden age:



All that farmland in the golden age (I might try environmentalism for at least the golden age duration to give all these plains farms a boost)



But I can't revolt until I get theology for theocracy.

Briggs in said Golden Age:



Playing a cultural control game with these cities here:



Is this strictly speaking worth it? I don't really know. But I'm in a place in this game where trying out the odd experimental side project is a lot of the fun. (To be clear, I actually still really enjoy this game and want it to continue, just noting that being unable to win gives one a bit of freedom for peripheral endeavors).

On that note, civstats shows one side project worked out. I built a landlocked city in my far north tundra, named it "Not Today" (What do we say to death?), and offered it to Azza for all his gold, maps, and some random resources. This will make killing Azza... a giant pain. Like, this is not a city you can find without a map trade unless you go to one particular little icy nook of my empire (I for some reason forgot a screenshot of this).

I'm not exactly clear on where this falls on the city-gift guidelines, which seem to have become awfully vague. Selling cities for gold seems to have been accepted, but this is a somewhat weird reversal of what's happened before (if one I find hilarious). If people judge this was incorrect or against how we've been doing city trades in this game, I'm fine with going to raze the city down to "correct the problem".

The plan was/is to sell this city to Azza for a profitable gold return, except he spent down his reserves between plan-hatching and hitting settle on the settler. I'll keep demanding gold from him I suppose, and if he refuses just go and burn down/threaten to burn down the city.

But until any of that happens, Azza lives on!

[Ceiliazul]

i like the sode projects.

i think your city gift would have been shady in previous games, but this pitboss seems to be an experiment in city gofting so dont worry about it i guess. what's your plan for the next ten turns?

[spacetyrantxenu]

You may not be able to raze that city. I haven't tried razing a city I gifted before, but up to now I've observed that if you've settled a city you won't be able to raze it later. But when you gift away the city your culture is removed from the 9 tile square, so maybe in conjunction with that you'd then be able to raze it? A test would be in order, but...nah.