[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[NobleHelium]

You should have demanded his world map again after that...

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

wonder if dtay will figure out you are incensed!

Very nice, scooter.

[scooter]

Can you post a shot of the demo screen and victory screen at your convenience?

Forgot to post this yesterday, these are last turns screenshots.





I'll be #1 in land area once this war is over, so that's cool. Totally worth trading a few minimally useful island cities to Mack in exchange for being able to add this highly developed land.


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Dtay sent me his world map, and sent another trade type thing that seemed to suggest "uh sorry about that" so perhaps he didn't realize I would be so unhappy. I sent him back something that was my attempt at saying "you need to capture that Azza city within 4 turns" - not sure if he'll get the picture. If he does that, fine. Although I'll still be unhappy that he'll steal my +1 in my collection of messages saying I destroyed a civilization .

War Weariness is not really an issue with Azza. With Lewwyn it was significant, but that's because I captured/burned something like 18 cities from him, so that really adds up. Azza just had a few left, so that's not such a big deal. His capital falls next turn - I was able to beat Mackoti to it, so he packed up and left. I took pictures, I'll just have to post them later. I'm also playing extremely loose with my units and workers because Azza shows no interest in moving units - he just whips a couple units every turn and then ends turn. Can't blame him I guess, he's outlasted half of the civs in this game (9/18) AND outlasted his rivals Bigger/Lewwyn, so I'm guessing he probably feels satisfied to be eliminated now. He's probably got about 5 turns left. I'll march on his last mainland city, and I'm scraping together some units to hunt down his antarctica city now. As for his north pole city... I'm debating whether to trust dtay to kill him or not.

That's about it in my world. Prepping for a golden age soon. Still debating a bit over a civic or two. Seriously considering Police State.

[Ceiliazul]

police state leads to happy lurkers!

you were pretty down a couple weeks ago... are you getting your groove back? at least a little?

still just tending the flock until a sub appears?

[scooter]

police state leads to happy lurkers!

you were pretty down a couple weeks ago... are you getting your groove back? at least a little?

still just tending the flock until a sub appears?

The main thing is just that this is my last golden age and civic revolts are insanely expensive in the late game, so this is my last chance. We'll see.

It's better in that I don't hate playings turns and I'm having some fun and it's rewarding to finally finish off the southern conquests, but I'm still putting in like 1/2 the effort I was 2 months ago. Just lack of time. If someone stepped up who was committed to maximizing this position I'd hand it over in a heartbeat, but I seriously doubt that person exists.

[Dhalphir]

There is no way such a person exists unfortunately - anyone like that would already be playing a game and investing 100% into that.

This game is in uncharted territory anyway. There's never been a game on RB without a clear game leader that's gone this far into the game.

[MindyMcCready]

I'm having some fun and it's rewarding to finally finish off the southern conquests,

Good to hear it.

This game is one of the most interesting that I've read. Your playing and thread are major contributions to that.

[scooter]

Catchup time. Here's where Azza's city was:



I gave him a message meant to say he had 4T to kill it, and he replied like he understood. If he does that, whatever, I won't complain. Captured Clara for the second time.



Mack moving his fleet of death in the direction of Commodore:



So that was a couple turns ago. Since then Mack has just backed into a defensive position. I guess I don't follow what he's doing. He gave me 40T of peace for a few island cities (that I may very well recapture later). Then he walks his massive navy over to Plako, declared war, then took peace for no discernable return. Then he sailed this whole fleet up towards Commodore, now he's backing off and playing defensively. I've got airships over by Old Harry, 0 sign of him threatening those guys even though they are quite vulnerable with Mackoti on the verge of tanks. I dunno. He keeps plunging up the tech tree towards military techs and then not really using them. Who knows.

One city that was seriously helped out by capturing Lewwyn cities and Biology was Pistons.



Grew a ton immediately. Pretty soon I'll probably pave all those farms over into workshops when I flip into State Property, and this city will be a monster. It sucked like 8 turns ago. I could plant cottages I suppose since this city really begs to be a commerce monster, but given how long that will take, doesn't really seem worth it. Just as soon run wealth or something with it. Next turn, and Azza attacked with all his siege.



There were more, but yeah. I ended up with a 17xp artillery when it was all said and done. I had done a few attacks with 2-movers on T238 in the interest of speeding this up, so this was the pre-turn for T239.



He emptied out Donna into Rose. Anyway, this was a complete slaughter.



3rd starting capital captured by the Vikings in this game.



Not quite the prize the other two caps were. Azza built 0 acadamies this game, which is kinda hard to believe.



Next was just to walk into this city next turn, as well as this one:



I actually expected to have to advance on Donna 1 tile at a time, so I am behind on getting to this last one. Azza emptying it out wasn't really expected. Anyway, so on the current turn (240) I captured Donna.



The one musket from the previous turn produced, and he promoted it. I hit it with a few airships and had a nice reaonably high-odds shot at it with Cavs. Of course, I lost, and that ONE loss meant Azza GOT A GREAT GENERAL IN DOES NOT EXIST. Unbelievable . The worst part is, I wasn't counting on having to kill a super unit. I THINK I am bringing enough if he does build a super unit with that GG, but there's honestly a chance it could hold. That'll be extraodinarily funny if that happens.

But Donna did fall.



And just like that, we've now expelled all three of our original southern neighbors from this continent, and I am #1 in land area. I captured all these Azza cities before Lewwyn's capital even came out of revolt (which wasn't even the last Lewwyn city if you remember), so that should give you an idea of how fast this Azza campaign has gone - as expected really. It probably could have gone even faster, but I had to prioritize the coastal locations to prevent Mackoti from sniping them. Speaking of Mackoti, he's pulling stunts like this.





Seriously considering NAP-stabbing him if/when I get into a position to do so. He's earned it. Especially for spending half the game trying to bait me into full war with him when it wasn't the right time to do so. Plus, NAP-fests in a game mode that was meant to kill NAP-fests is really dumb. And finally...



Got it. Given that I easily have the most cities on a single land mass, totally worth it. I think I hinted at this, but yeah I moved the palace here to get the bureau bonus to shave a turn off the completion date. Commodore could have finished it ages ago if he pushed so I'm guessing he just didn't care - he's got a fraction of the cities on this continent that I have, so it's just not nearly as valuable to him anyway.

So that's the scoop on where I'm at. I'm a few turns away from a golden age. I may delay it just a little bit so that more of the Lewwyn core will be up to bigger sizes while the GA is active. I'm really torn on a few civics. I've pretty much decided to take State Property over Free Market. It's slightly weaker in terms of commerce, but I'm not sure commerce is really king now given how much these known tech bonuses are shifting things. Also, I have tons of workshops and will be adding more, so SP will be quite a boost.

Environmentalism is a no-brainer for me, I counted tiles not too long ago, and it was a large boost. Caste is absolutely staying. So the real decisions are in the Government and Religion categories. Govt is the worst - Rep (SoL!) is still really useful for me. Police State because I feel like another war is inevitable, and that 25T is a huge difference maker. UniSuffrage though - can I really afford to avoid that? I don't have TONS of towns, but I have enough that it's a lot of hammers. And even with no Kremlin, cash-rushing in a pinch can be great.

With Religion, I'm probably done with OR. The building bonus isn't such a big deal anymore with all the other multipliers. Free Religion would be ideal. The 10% science bonus sure isn't nothing. However, I have this feeling that I will want the XP boost from Theocracy. But then, if I do that it would be nice to combine it with Police State. But THEN, if I go PS/Theo and I don't do some big invasion (and eh I really don't know if I have the energy for that), shouldn't I just go with the more economic setup (UniSuffrage + Free Religion) and focus on shoring up defenses? Probably. So I'm leaning towards that route.

That about catches me up on the things I'm doing and noodling over. Any burning questions?

[scooter]

Also, I think this game could seriously be the first game to be decided via space race. Wouldn't that be something.

[Krill]

As much as I don't believe it counts...PB1.