[Spoilers] Haram hopefully reports

[Haram]

hey , Haram i was falowing this game closely and I am realy sorry you have to retreat and i liked your plans the most because were near like mine in pb20.I realy belive TOW is a hammer mod especialy if you are pro.

Nice game, perhaps you could team up togheder?

Thank you, Mackoti

Unfortunatelly, I think, I am not a good material for a teammate. I am too obsessive about my vision of developing my civ, and it would be hard for me to accept other concepts. And compromises are not really helpfull in this kind of games So, I need to step out as a player to let flugauto enjoy this game. Of course, I will be around to offer any help/advice, if flugauto asks for one.

[Haram]

The most important thing right now is to plan how you want to play this incomming GA (assuming we get Taj). What civics you want to use, how many GP to generate and in which cities. I was considering to adapt Nationhood for 5 turns (while saving gold) and draft 10-15 maces for defensive reasons (not neceserily right away, depending how comfortable you feel with your defences). On this map you have so many coastal border cities and its hard to foresee all players behavious. Especially those, who don't compete for the win already. Putting even a single mace in border cities would be pretty discouraging, IMO. Also, if you start consecutive drafting, you force your neighbours to compensate and that will probably be suboptimal for them.

I was also considering pretty unusual civic combo - Nationhood/pacifism, cause 1-2 exp isn't really important for city defenders and GP generation is very important to prepare further GAs.

As you probably noticed, I started to grow cities. Those water tiles doesn't look impressive atm, but I wanted to have enough pop, once they can be switched to workshops or specialists.

Edit: my expected tech path after Nationalism would probably be: paper - guilds - education or paper - edu - guilds, but feel free to decide whatever you think is appropriate.

[Haram]

Referring to the post in the tech thread - I didn't manage to change build in Druaa before my daughter put her hand on the keybord to actually end turn.
Unfortunatelly it affects Taj timing, so it is pretty important

[Haram]

Taj in 3, no competition in sight. I decided to research Education after Paper, Oxford will give me additional ~100 bpt and I want to use the last turns of OrgRel to build universities. Then pacifism it will be to generate GP for further GAs.

I am very tempted to follow with Liberalism, but I have a feeling, that skipping bottom path for so long could be going overboard. I'm still at vultures/catas, while my comtetition researches guilds. Ok, this map is very much about scouting and sea control, but still I could tempt someone and defensive wars aren't leading anywhere.

[Haram]

This game is fun. There is not much warring at this point, but it's still entertaining from my point of view. For the last 20-30 turns I'm thinking about who's got the biggest fhances to win this game and I cannot make up my mind.

Of course, there are 3 solid contenders and I would be very surprised if the game was won by someone from lower places. No disrespect for you guys - wetbandit, Dreylin. You are playing a good game, but TBS, Joey are just great players and fully focused on this game, while you're also heavily engaged in PB28.

So, how to assign percentage chances for the win at this point? I truly don't know.

Joey
He's got the strongest base civ at this point and still a lot of potential to grow. With fin in ToW you can have billions of coins from the water is you are carefull with dotmapping. Some cities are working land tiles, while other utilize water.

IMO, the recent change of Fin was completly redundant and against the spirit of this mod. It was supposed to be "minimal changes" mod, but the Fin was nerfed, then boosted back to the 1st tier. The indirect buff from wharves shoudn't be underesimated.

Joey has picked IMP/Fin, so at the cost of 250 hammers he may have +100% of gold in any city and it has a nice synergy with all these commece he may have from water. This Eco just demands Kremlin. That is why he was fighting for Liberalism, he needs it for communism. Now, he is taking Astro from Lib, I wonder how he will use it. There are some clouds gathering around Tsargon, so he might plan to take his share, but also he can choose to harass me. I'm sure, my Moai/Cooossus city (now also Sancore) right next to his border just hurts his eyes. If he comes to harass me, the chances of TBS rise significantly, cause I will have to get Astro and probably follow with Chemistry.

TBS
He's got another "home system" basicly at this point, but it was not an easy and cheap conquest. Kudos for Scipio for a well played defence. He coudn't win this war, considering his expansion, but he did all he could to make it slow and less profitable. The forests are gone, pop is whipped, probably not too much infra in the cities. TBS still needs some time to consolidate, so I need to use that time to build advantage and capture some tall, well developed cities.

Obviously, he's got sime other assets like repr and bunch of wonders for GP. And it is TBS, after all

Me
I like how my civ is developed, even thou it has lower overall potential than Joey's one. Ofc, MoM+Taj are huge assets and I'm planning to abuse that GA spree as much as I can. I still have some unused potential - workshops are comming online soon, I dont think anyone will consider Minaret soon and it is worth 60 hammers per turn for me.

As you probably know I decided to give up on Lib. I was already exposed, Joey had at least 4 galleys close to my border and if he loaded them with a few maces + random junk, I would be in trouble and I could lose my Moai/Colossus/Sancore city and probably some more. Vultures are jus not good enough against maces I already took some risks in this game and it was time to play safe and get machnery asap. So, I research guilds and then evaluate chances for Economics merchant.

[Haram]

Sometimes civ is a nasty game. I thought I made a safe decision to give up on Lib and get maces asap, but it may turn out to be completly opposite. Without my pressure, he took Astro and is clearly preparing for something. Galleys disappeared from my view, gold reserves depleted. He also doesn't update for a few days. All this together look very suspicious, so I build units in most of my cities.

It looks like I should have researched Lib, even thou I couldn't win it and I don't need it as a tech

Edit: I was talking about Joey, ofc.

[Haram]

It looks like, I'm in a deathmatch with GermanJoey once again. It seems to be my faith here on RB

He decided to use his naval advantage to drag me down, cause he probably realized he is starting to lose the tech race. It would definately be a good play, if it was a duel scenario or he was playing for the 2nd place, but it doesn't bring him any closer to winning this game. If he attacks just to hurt me (cause he has no way of conquering any land), he should understand I will make him lose as well. I'm dumping over 500 hammers per turn into military and he won't be able to reduce that number significantly. Ofc, defending against galleons on this map is a nightmare I probably lose 1-3 cities, maybe one of the most important, but he will not be able to hurt me enough to be safe anymore.

So far I see 5 galleons and 1 galley. I play first, so he still has a move, before new units appear.


Current build:


Demo at 0% science.


Graphs:

Edit: correction of language mistakes.

[Haram]

I would like to hear lurkers opinion or ruling. Dreylin is comming at me with his knights. He didn't declare yet, but he double moved me on the turn before his attack. I had 2 units scouting in his territory and this helped him to avoid my scouts. Is this acceptable play here on RB?

[mackoti]

I would like to hear lurkers opinion or ruling. Dreylin is comming at me with his knights. He didn't declare yet, but he double moved me on the turn before his attack. I had 2 units scouting in his territory and this helped him to avoid my scouts. Is this acceptable play here on RB?

Nope, if he done that to avoid your scouts for sure not.

[Haram]

The issue is solved. I agreed with Dreylin, that I will double move him now (without attacking any units) and we will go back to the previous order. This also allows to avoid 3-way turn split Dreylin-me-Joey.

Dreylin attacks with ~10 knigs and some HA. It is a very bad moment for me, cause I was pretty much empty in the east and was just about to mass build caravels to contest the sea. Anyways, I had to go into nationhood/theocracy. Interesting turns ahead.