One of the new players in PB 37 is having trouble finding time to play their turns and has asked for help finding a replacement. An unspoiled person would be best, but given the situation I think the players would be ok with a spoiled lurker joining in.
Civ is CML's Bismarck of Russia. Score is near the bottom, although not last. It's currently Turn 77 (950 BC).
More detailed status:
I don't know exactly what's going on in game; reporting stopped a while ago so I'm judging based on posts from his neighbor.
I know that CML himself hasn't been playing the turns due to technical difficulties, but instead got a friend to help out; the friend has a working copy of Civ but not a lot of experience. So in addition to lack of experience, there were communication problems and no one feeling like they were 'in charge'.
It's very unlikely that you win this game, or even survive past knights. Mostly I'm just hoping to find someone who's better than the next alternative of retiring to the AI, someone who can log in for a month or two and whip defenders.
That said, it's possible that I'm underestimating the position and the right player could do something interesting with the civ.
I know that Russia has gotten Stonehenge and is losing an ancient war against one of his neighbors. Further information would have to wait on being able to log in, I'm afraid.
I've asked for the password and will edit it in here once I have it.
Ok no probs, hope it hasn't changed too much since 2.0.7.4
Note that as I said in PBEM77 forum, my availability will be unpredictable from this Saturday until the end of next week. But I should be able to play a turn a day
We will probably also need a substitute for Ventessel, who didn't play the last turn within 96 hours and has required a lot of pauses before then for 5-minute turns, so he's probably out of time or motivation. His ded-lurker (Adrien) can't sub, except sporadically.
I'm a player in this game, so the outlook I can offer on your situation is naturally limited (maybe Mardoc can add something if necessary):
Demographics reveal that someone is making about 25 food / 15 hammers per turn on T85. That's you.
Ventessel borders me, and he attempted a late invasion with a 10 unit stack of charity the with covering axe pair and spear on T62. The stack was whipped out of 2 cities stacking lots of unhappiness, which is still limiting city size. It is now t85 and Ventessel has not expanded. You will not have to play many turns before someone kills you, so all we are looking for is someone who will log in and play a 5 minute turn for the next month and then you will likely be free.
Okay, I can do this. What mods will I need from base BTS, are turnsplits enforced, what's the timer?
I'm doing a production in 2 weeks that will be very intense, but I should be able to hit a turn a day, but that will be in a very short 2hr window in which I can play.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
By assuming that some other player(s) in PB37 hate me for being fucking stupid, I've managed to go and do something to vindicate that assessment: publicly explaining my diplomatic strategy (i.e. explaining a declaration of war that I'd thought had caused someone to hate me out-of-game) to another player.
I don't want to fuck up this game any further. I'd like for a sub to take over; new players mean new foreign policies. I'll play on and stay unspoiled for as long as there's nobody to be found, or for as long as anyone in the game enjoys having a chance to whoop my ass at Civ to make good for said stupidity. Serious about that; it's only fair.
Nor do I want to quit over losing any number of cities. The game itself is enjoyable, if stressful, but in light of what I've done, I don't trust myself anymore to have character enough to play here. That's my decision. The game suffers when the players can't all trust each other on that.
Your civ is Carthage, your leader is Cyrus, #5 of 8 on the scoreboard (~1050 points, highest 1300, for what the scoreboard is worth), RtR 2.0.8.3, T152 (Medieval/Renaissance).
In-game situation:
You're taking over for someone who initially didn't know how long a pasture takes to build. It's bordering on a miracle that you're still alive, or can more likely be ascribed to Bacchus being a better Civ player than he thinks.
Strategy: IMP/CHM; push aggressively in one direction; perform haphazard worker steal that ends up working and leaving your neighbour down two cities, somehow; use obtained Great General on NavII galley; discover that you need to settle the northwestern isles aggressively as well, or you'll lack gold; discover that bad scouting, partially due to early war, left two tiles that would have uncovered a half-dozen food resources between them in the fog; settle more cities while your neighbours seal you off in all other seas; try island conquests against the eastern neighbours, succeed at first, then mostly fail. (Krill lost a city but we've lost two in turn, both from the earlier war.)
Your GNP is the worst in the game, except for one dying civ, and your MFG/food were ranked #4 (food close to #3) but you've just lost an important city to Krill, who outproduces and outperforms you on 4XP galleons loaded with CR3 swords, which he uses to create flanking threats while defending his center against your own CR3 sword 2XP galleon fleet. If you can get peace, by all means do. He can threaten all cities on your eastern coast otherwise.
You have the Great Library and National Epic, if unfortunately in your capital, which has an Academy (mistake). There's also a 40hpt (before modifiers) Heroic Epic city and a few food-rich sites around. Infrastructure is rather poor; granaries, libraries, cothons, barracks, lighthouses are everywhere, forges in most good cities, but very few courthouses, markets, or banks; you also lack Engineering and Banking, thus no castles or banks. You do have Guilds and Astronomy, as well as OrgRel to get buildings up with accelerated whips. It could well be argued that instead of attacking Krill, the better plan was to develop in peace, although that probably also loses to dtay come cuirassiers. You're about a dozen turns from Gunpowder if you selected the tech now.
Your southern land neighbour, dtay, is a strong candidate to win, at 33 cities (you: 20, more or less, depends on Krill; 1-2 cities can be settled on dangerously-exposed islands and 3 more as mainland fillers) fuelled by an AGG/PRO + Colossus economy that puts you on the clock. The plan in attacking Krill was to gain island bases from him (which he settled quite aggressively towards us) to force dtay into an unfavourable research path (Chemistry or Astro) to counter galleons, but Krill is too good a player for that. The northern neighbour, Dark Savant, is a defensive player but seems a skilled manager (to me) who has fired dual MoM Golden Ages on few, but tall cities, has Engineering, and all conquests from him have been or will be lost to Krill. He must be assumed hostile. You can probably work with GermanJoey (the other candidate to win, GLH on very tall cities; conquering a crippled civ for seven cities) and particularly JR4 to your north-west.
