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As a French person I feel like it's my duty to explain strikes to you. - AdrienIer |
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[SPOILERS] This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land. But Mostly Mine.
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(July 3rd, 2015, 22:47)Boldly Going Nowhere Wrote: If you think you cannot win the logical move is to DoW ether OT or TBS depending who you like more. A real attack would take too long to play to justify but you can still do some damage. I think your not really at that point and are just being melodramatic. I am right? (July 3rd, 2015, 09:33)Boldly Going Nowhere Wrote: I've never seen so many 1s on the demos screen feel so hopeless.  I know it's no consolation to you, but that is one if the things that makes thus game epic. Also, while I'm kicking you in the balls, you made the sensible choice to focus on irl instead if this game for fifty ish turns there in the middle. Sensible, yes, but if yup could walk to a win after that setback, I'd honestly be disappointed in the rest of the field. As it is, the only guys ahead of you are Team Badass and Mr. Inexorable... don't feel to bad!
T255
I sat in game until my eyes basically bled trying to figure out exactly how long it's going to take to finish up the tech tree and to sort out more or less the best way to finish the spaceship. In doing this I also decided on the best place to move my capital. I have a city that is a fairly recent addition that can 1t the Palace with overflow while continuing its mission of perpetual wealth building, so I'll make that move whenever it seems necessary. Which is typically exactly one turn after it should have been done because you've been surprised by a Team Badass commando paradrop. So, here's what three hours of agony gets you, Dear Lurker: 
The only thing that really matters above is that TBS has closed borders with me. This, combined with his recent explosion in EP production means that it's going to get more and more expensive to sabotage his culture buildings. If I had it to do things over again differently, I would have delayed spending EP on OH/Fin until I had built up enough EPs on TBS to sabotage several buildings on the same turn for, hopefully, a meaningful delay on his CV. I destroyed one building though, so it isn't nothing. Probably, it is nothing. Maybe a one turn delay if anything? So the question now is whether it is better to refocus EP spending on OH/Fin. Cost is going to be prohibitively expensive vs. TBS very soon so I won't get much for my investment. However, OH/Fin still have open borders with me so that gives a few options there, but it's a two-way street and they can just as easily sabotage me in my most critical city, Whiskeytown (Iron Works city, above building Observatory--> Laboratory), and I've already seen them unload spies on that island for that purpose. Well, I didn't SEE it, but they did dump a galley into a city and what else is it doing at this point? The same thing I'm doing, which is unloading spies to create havoc. My instinct tells me that I'm going to come up short beating OH/Fin straight up in a space race, but I think I have a larger number of cities capable of building the space ship parts than he does. But this is irrelevant. It's about tech, and he's got a 4t lead on me that I can't narrow without somehow slowing down his tech rate. Which means war? But I don't see how that meaningfully changes anything, and anyway that opens me up to attack by Joey which in turn hurts my tech rate. What I don't know is whether TBS is ahead of OH/Fin. Instinct again tells me that they are ahead. Assuming that TBS didn't turn on the culture spigot too soon, he's just inside of 20 turns from hitting legendary in his capital and Elensfar (or whatever it's called). Is there any way to make him burn through his cash reserves to increase this time? Probably, but I'd have to go to war and leave myself unprotected. Also, the transit time is such that even if I moved that direction now it would be at least ten turns until I could do anything. Not encouraging, not helpful, and probably Joey goes ape shit on me just for giggles. I've thought about the possibility of donating my commando army to OH/Fin. They can probably get this army across their territory fast enough to put it to work and delay TBS' culture victory (maybe, this is not certain). This would be approximately 25-30 commando units, which isn't nothing. This most likely would throw the game to them, but if I'm losing to both OH/Fin AND to TBS I'd rather they win because there is little I can do from my current position to impact TBS' victory chances. I could always build up some sort of resistance army to try to reel in OH/Fin once they've taken out one of TBS' culture cities (my money would be on eliminating Elensfar). The downside to this attack is obviously Joey, again, because I'm depleting my defensive strength near him. If he sees those units move he could be encouraged to attack. To defend against this I could reposition some naval units near OH/Fin, but if I do that then I have very little ability to then stab them in the back once they've taken TBS out of the CV race. I need more units to prepare for all possibilities, but this decreases my tech rate and is inefficient. If I leave a vulnerable front against an irrationally angry opponent who cannot win, it is all but certain that he will attack just to spite me. This decreases my tech rate, is inefficient, and would make me mad as hell. I've thought about using the espionage slider to steal the required techs from OH/Fin but this requires me to be constantly behind (which I've achieved), but my empirewide espionage bonus is lower than my research bonus since I've built so many libraries, research institutes, observatories, and recently, laboratories. And, as ever, OH/Fin can simply close borders to eliminate this opportunity. Perhaps closing borders will provide some improvement in closing the gap on OH/Fin? But with TBS just closing borders this is going to end up costing me too, which really won't help me. I think my best bet is to donate the commandos to OH/Fin and risk Joey attacking. If this happens I'll lose, but I'm already behind OH/Fin and I'm pretty sure they're behind TBS too, else they wouldn't have sent the destroyer fleet around the world. That, by the way, did not work out well for them. I saw a damaged TBS stack up north but have seen no sign of the Aztec fleet. How can I get plako to sell me either of his GA/GE pair? This would really help me catch up. But he is unmoved by diplo requests. I have no idea what he would be interested in other than having this game end.  Anyway. This screen is sorted by hammers, meek to manly. I'm still trying to devise some overflow chains in the heaviest hammer cities to see if I can reduce the production time of the last couple of parts. But, again, it's all about tech rate right now. I have a gap that I must make up before production even becomes relevant. 
July 9th, 2015, 09:52
(This post was last modified: July 9th, 2015, 09:52 by Boldly Going Nowhere.)
T256
Not many pictures this time. I'm hopeful that Joey's meltdown in PB26 means that he'll give up here and let someone else finish this out so I can have a clean slate with his civ and use those two large naval groups to some purpose to actually help me try to win the game. But Joey played this turn already so I'm guessing he's going to stay on here, but his turn was only 16 minutes, so whatever that means. I'm more optimistic than previously that I could maybe get away with moving my stacks but I'm not quite convinced. Waffling: It's What I Do. 
T257
I've started digging in the couch cushions to find more economy. I'm finding mostly dirt and sticky food. But first, more work for TBS:   I've been playing generally after him. He logged in while I was playing so he saw what I had done, but whether he saw it this turn or the next makes no functional difference because he's going to let the Jewish Synagogue finish before changing builds no matter what had happened. I try to play after him where possible but I'm not treating this exactly the same as being at war because this game sucks enough as it is. Anyway, I only have 4-5 more spies in his territory. I think it takes about 2.5 turns to get enough passive espionage built up to sabotage one of these culture multiplying buildings so I'll probably only do this 2-3 more times total until all my spies are used up or caught. Then it's up to whatever OH/Fin can do to seal TBS' fate.  Demos before I started rooting around for spare change. I want to be able to finish Fusion next turn so I can get started on the engines a turn sooner. Bottom line: It can be done, but I have to set back several SS builds to do it. Worth it.  This pic is so I'll remember which bleeding sign is relevant. I have so many signs saying "ws 3/4" or "mine 2/3" that it is hard to see anything on the map at times. In absence of actual planning, I've just given myself as much production flexibility in key cities as I can. I don't have the mental capacity to set up overflow chains at this point. I'm just going to point, shoot, and hope that my builds are good. Not the best, not even good, just what I can manage now. Anyway, I've delayed 4 SS builds for one turn, and probably for two, in an effort to get Fusion done next EoT. These are the ones listed above in the order of the urgency to get back to the builds-- Katmai, Norris, and lastly Denali and Great Basin. Then Whiskeytown (I think) and Numberwang will work on engines. Numberwang will have 2 buildings ready for modest overflow, including the Lab. Not a lot, not great, but it's what I have. I could have used a Fintourist to help optimize this because I really just can't spend the time on it. I probably switched around 20 or 25 cities to build Research. Between these cities and those completing builds EoT I ought to have enough beakers for Fusion without delaying any other SS parts. But none of these parts really matter just yet, there are still several turns of research to go.  Actual EoT demos. If this civ was a car, and who doesn't like car analogies, right?, up until now I've been a high performance muscle car easily performing at high speed. Now I'm that same muscle car that is starting to show some strain. RPMs are a little high and it isn't going to be good for the health of the engine for long at all. Won't matter when Joey pours sugar in the tank in 5-8 turns anyway. Plako. Man. Please just make a trade. I know you don't owe me. But I've tried to diplo. I've made offers. Maybe even a counter offer that says go to hell? Just something is better than the never-ending nothing. I give up with him. I don't blame him. But it is frustrating with him leaving the EXACT two GP that I could use sitting where I can just see them, every turn, sitting, waiting, wasting. I swear a'fore gawd that I'll murder those two great bastards with a commando tank before the game ends if I can't catch OH/Fin or TBS. I want my sixth GA because who has ever had 6 GAs??? 
And before Noble pops back into this thread 500 posts after he quit reading just to correct me, I know you don't capture great people when you hit them with a military unit. They die. Which is what plako's great bastards deserve for just sitting there all great and useless for so long.
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![[Image: fetal%20bender.gif]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59892754/PB18/fetal%20bender.gif)
I finished something big too (4th building down). Yes, it was massively inefficient to build it but meh. 
I don't see the point otherwise.
