Let's do my own Archduke-style review in his own thread! Ha! Who saw that coming?
Glad someone agrees with me on the Audience Chamber. In the early going, the Ancestral Hall is better, but you need something like 8 settlers before you come out ahead on the production you sank into the district + building. By the time you've done that, the Audience Chamber has come into its own as you can hit some really large cities - I think the devs intended this to be a "tall vs wide" question that the subreddit in particular is obsessed with.
It's telling how severe my gold woes were this game that I'm super jealous of that copper tile. I mean, yes, I had diamonds, but I'm greedy.
Man, I wish Rowain had flung his war carts right at you! He could only eat ONE neighbor with those, not 2, and I'm confident I could have outbuilt him following that. Ah, well.
I also really like all those sugar plantations. This game really gave me an appreciation for how useful a yield gold is. I should ahve prioritized my own chocolate and coffee plantations more than I did.
You hit Emperor K with 9 units, same as I hit Japper with. But your attack went a lot better. You have cavalry instead of infantry, so you can move much more quickly (I got bogged down in rough terrain). You have a bunch of combat boosts, so you outstrengthed most of Emperor's units - I did not. Especially important is your huge over his cities - I hit Japper with one weak city early, but he quickly upgraded city strength. And Emperor only had 2 cities, while Japper had a strong core that could crank out roughly 1 horse/turn from his multiple cities. I think if you have an infantry army, you need a great general.
Jealous of your stone -> settler push. I had only one stone in my starting area, which I spent on Stonehenge. It explains how you were able to crank out as many settlers as I did, while also building military.
Emperor built some really great cities for you! Really nice conquest, much better than a city-state conquest would have been. Too bad he couldn't play with those gorgeous city-sites, it would have been an interesting game.
OH, before I forget, I love the Locke Lamora naming scheme. I really need to read Republic of Thieves...but it's also been 8 years since I read Red Seas Under Red Skies, so I probably need to just reread the whole damned series.
I was definitely thrown off by the DoW on Japper. I was hoping you had just blundered and overextended yourself, since you were reaching the end of the era when Heavy Chariots were useful.
Too bad Rowain allowed you to send a trader - what was he thinking? The big edge your horsemen have over his carts is that +6 strength (41 v 33 in the screenshot you posted).
Also, really impressive settler push. You probably COULD have been a builder this game and still had a great chance to win.
It's easy to see how Rowain fell so quickly now. He had a lot of units that just can't match your horseman's strength.
Ah, yes, the free 800 gold. I was absent for this one but c'mon, Firaxis.
Multiplayer is so clearly an afterthought to them.
One reason I attacked Japper when I did was to consciously keep myself out of the builderitis mindset. "Let me just nail this, this, and this, and I'm ready for war..." Of course, attacking when I wasn't ready was hardly better. It's neat to see your horde sweep from point to point, but I don't have much to comment on.
And yeah, one advantage I didn't carefully consider enough was your vast empire with lots of improvements giving tons of gold. That really helped you continually upgrade your units, and it's not something to be neglected in future games. Especially in R&F, with Commercial Districts nerfed, more gold has to come from the terrain.
We were both at 3x our neighbors in milpower, but every horseman Japper finished added 33% to his milpower, while Alhambram doing the same would only add about 10% - meaning Japper quickly equalized things with me thanks to his monster production, while Alhambram couldn't match you at all. Plus you ahd the GGs, a more modern army, and cavalry, while I was slogging ahead with outdated infantry. You had a much bigger edge here, in retrospect.
I really admire the way you kept pushing out settlers. I seemed to get overwhelmed by other priorities after turn 70 - it was always "the next thing" after other stuff was finished.
That last envoy you put in Valetta was decisive. I had to get 2 more to make peace with it, not 1, and I got the last one one turn after it razed my city.
Yeah, the game was over, even without the raze. I didn't have enough time to build a SECOND army in the south to hold you off after you finished Alhambram.
I thought about going into "final war mode" around turn 85-90, and in retrospect I should ahve. It all comes down to how many cities you had: You could push commercial hubs, settlers, campuses, and military units all at once since you could build at 3x the speed I had. The explosive, exponential growth of Mongolia was a wonder to behold.
Well done and good game! Reading this thread, I'm convinced I never really had a chance after Rowain fell.
