[SPOILERS] Donovan Zoi and AdrienIer: Slümhund Millionaires!

[AdrienIer]

I've noticed that Commodore has taken a city from HAK two turns in a row. Do you have a plan to counter him or is he just rolling towards victory now ? If HAK wants to concede and you don't have a plan it may be time to concede this game.

[Donovan Zoi]

I've noticed that Commodore has taken a city from HAK two turns in a row. Do you have a plan to counter him or is he just rolling towards victory now ? If HAK wants to concede and you don't have a plan it may be time to concede this game.

Sorry it's been awhile since I have posted, as the new job is taking up alot of my time as I learn the ropes. However, just because I haven't posted for awhile doesn't mean I don't have a plan.

OK, well it's a pretty weak plan, but I am going to play out this hand until I get called on it. In a nutshell, the play is to stay at peace for as long as possible once I finally finish off the Zulu.

Sparta!

So, let's start here. Ruff's last (and aptly-named) stronghold has been the first sign of resistance we have seen in awhile, mainly because he has been retreating to consolidate his units in one place. He also gets a draft every turn, which means the the original 22 units that were defending when we first reached there is still at 16. We used up all our Cats on the second turn of the siege after reducing defenses to 0% here, so at least we have that. We are also down to 19 Cuirassiers from 28, and have lost them to mostly Longbows.

Right now I am letting units heal before we go at it again. I am also sending a new wave of 4-8 Cats to finish the job, and think it may be worth the wait to have all 8 of them at Sparta's door. In the meantime, I have sent 4 units by boat to take out the island city of Rhodes (cheekily renamed Can't Get Me), which is defended by a Longbow, Archer, 2 Cats and 2 Warriors. I think I have a good plan to take that city in 2 turns, which should finally allow our Cats and 2-3 more Cuirs to embark onto the 4 Galleons I have on the southern coast for an easy drop next to Sparta.

Switching Gears

After much thought, I decided 5-6 turns ago that it was safe enough to go into a 'Mids fueled switch to Representation and paired it up with Caste System to increase the impact of Scientist specialists as well as our long-unsynergized Merc civic. It was 2 turns of anarchy whether I went with one or two civics, so I decided to forgo Slavery for awhile to give our people a break.

After that, I was able to optimize and get Education in 3 turns total, which included the one turn at 0%. Having 6-beaker specialists now mean that we can have enough research during 0% turns to shave off a turn when we go back to 100% (or 90% if I want to save about 100g, which I have done once or twice recently).

I am hoping to have the same luck with Replaceable Parts, which is currently targeted for 8 turns at 0%. I am going to do whatever possible to get that one in two turns when I bump it back to 80-100% next turn.

It should be noted that we do not have Steel yet, but we have Military Science. So I will be going for Steel after RP is complete. The reason I went with RP first is to get the production boost from our Mines, which will also bump up Wealth and/or Research as needed to get Steel faster.

Preparing for Golden Age #3

I scrolled through the event log in it's entirety because I wanted to know how many GA's Commodore and HAK have had. The answer for each was 3, with HAK getting one more from the Taj Mahal. It appears that Commodore has 3 GP's since his last GA while HAK has none since his.

We have only had two, so going into Caste was also necessary to complete our 3 GP's and put our new MoM into service. As it stands now, we will have:

- A Great Artist in 3 turns from Ste. Foy.
- A Great Scientist in 7-10 tuns from Yorktown
- Hopefully a Great Merchant from Chespeake two turns after Yorktown

This is because Chespaeake is our National Epic city so I am trying my best to save it for last since it will be the easiest to ramp up. Also, the more turns we wait the better because Chesapeake is currently 39-32% in favor of a Scientist, so having more turns devoted to only GM will only help in the final push. If not, we have Oswego to try as a back up.

That said, I am kind of locked in to staying the course with our current civics until we land the GA. Once there, I am thinking of the following changes:

- Staying in Rep and Merc
- Moving from Nationhood to Vassalage
- Moving from Caste back to Slavery
- Moving from Theocracy to OR.

These changes will help to target domestic builds quickly while still being able to produce Level 3 units. It also allows us to continue taking advantage of 6-beaker Scientists, though to a much lesser extent. In fact I am not against trying a move to Universal Suffrage instead to give us two ways to complete buildings and cheap units.

And so...

...that's why I am really not ready to concede yet. I am going to stay neutral for as long as possible while Commodore and HAK beat each other up. And since concession is already on the table, it makes sense for me to go for broke in securing the techs I mentioned above as quickly as possible under our current civics setup, even at the expense of military buildup in the short term.

Because I do intend to concede if I am attacked by either one of them, but only if it looks completely hopeless.

In the meantime:

- HAK still has 36 cities.
- HAK is spiking on the Powergraph again.
- If we hold out long enough, we may still get second place!

I'll try to post pictures soon, but I thought you at least deserved an update of where we are right now.

[AdrienIer]

Thanks for the update !

[AdrienIer]

Wow let's just hope for no war dec from either of them.




Did you note that Commodore has assembly line due in 6t ? He has a lot of cash in the bank so it's quite possibly accurate. How do you intend to defeat his infantry ? Even with rifling and steel (for cavalry rifles and cannons, none of which are available currently) it would be tough. The only known way to defeat infantry with lesser units is through the power of numbers, which we don't have, quite the opposite.

[Donovan Zoi]

Wow let's just hope for no war dec from either of them.

Well, so much for that.

OK, so it looks like HAK has attacked us, likely taking the Fortress. If there is anything resembling a big dumb stack in that vicinity (which is likely), then I will tip our king to Commodore as well. If HAK no longer wishes to concede, then I am thinking we walk away from Sparta and direct everything we have toward him.

It's about time that one of them challenged us though. I didn't think we'd get away with my above plan, but it was worth a shot.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Since you used a conditional statement in your semi-concession post, I guess we should wait for you to log in and play/evaluate the current turn before we evaluate your concession?

[Donovan Zoi]

Since you used a conditional statement in your semi-concession post, I guess we should wait for you to log in and play/evaluate the current turn before we evaluate your concession?

Hey Xenu. Yeah, the current situation meets my conditions, so I concede the game to Commodore if that is still on the table.




Let me know the verdict.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Looks like it was accepted. GG!

[Donovan Zoi]

Hey thanks, Xenu! And thanks for hanging out with us here and there. Oh, and for that historic last stand on Aztec Island.

I spent the entire day with one eye on the spoiler threads and the other on my WebEx training for work, only because I didn't want to wait until later to learn the basics of my new job.

I truly had a blast this game, and was glad to have had Adrien along for the ride on this one. Adrien, you definitely tempered some of my tendencies, and I hope to carry some of those civilizational learnings to my next games. I think our civ styles complemented each other nicely.

I may or may not do an extensive post mortem here, but will say that part of me still wanted to play on. It appeared that our Indians were just about to hit our technological stride when we were DOWed, but in getting there we also projected military weakness by flatlining our Powergraph and opting out of military civics and research. Our troops were spread pretty thin as well, barely able to cover all of our new gains as we hit a road block at Sparta. Looking at HAK's PG spike, I had a feeling an attack was imminent in order to get me to stop the madness of keeping this game alive. It was definitely the right move for him and Mindy to make, and it looks like it came at the right time for all of us to tend to IRL issues.

So GG all! I guess I have no excuse for ignoring my PB27 thread now....

[AdrienIer]

It was nice playing with you Donovan. Sorry for messing up that turn in the early game. My greatest regret is not converting you to binary research