Gavagai's revenge

[Gavagai]

(I am that pissed off because in that particular case timing was important for me: I counted on capture gold from the city to one-turn paper. Now I am forced to run a shitton of wealth builds).

[Gavagai]

4) Current situation: foreign policy.
Commodore made a misstep. He decided to invade Superdeath, who is across the channel from him, presumably tempted by his Great Lighthouse. I wanted to put a relevant picture here but I keep forgetting to take it. I only hope that lurkers already no relevant geographic facts from other threads. The point is, Great Lighthouse is poisoned. At a minimum, Dark Savant will want to contest it and, more generally, will want to throw Commodore back to the sea, getting the whole continent for himself. Also, there is Rusten nearby who also could have some interest. Commodore will have to keep considerable force overseas to protect his new holdings.
But he is going to be weak in the sea. This is because he will have to build land units for two fronts and because he opted for Pacifism as his religious civic which means his naval units will have one promotion while mine will have two. And this gives me an opening. I can take control of the seas and cut off his land units in Superdeathia. I am under no illusion that it will allow me to kill him outright - he has enough strategic depth to stabilize. But this will not be necessary. I should be able to establish a stable border after I take his easternmost cities and after he loses his overseas assets to DS or Rusten, he will become very weak. I will be able to eventually eclipse him and kill at my leisure.
But those plans are for the future - I would prefer to get Frigates, Galleons, and my UU before I do that. For now, I am picking pieces off the weak civs nearby.

Got BaII's city. Lost 3 Swords where I could lose 1 or 2. Was worth 230 gold for him, I think (not).

Forgot to take a fresher picture but in that area I was out of luck. Commodore took SD's city while I was waiting for BaII to play his turn - one more reason to hate this guy (I actually suspect Commodore has unwittingly double-moved me but whatever). Still, I was able to take for myself the island city to the south which secured a path for further expansion. There is actually a barb city on the southernmost island, I sent my units to investigate.

There is a path towards AT to the south of Holy Rome which is tempting. AT chose an odd techpath. He did not have Feudalism and Guilds until very recently, still has no Construction. Instead, he has lots of wonders, including Colossus which should have been mine. I can bet he has a landmass for himself, and a pretty rich one, given that, by the looks of it, he still has more food than me. So, I was considering conquering him outright instead of going to war with Commodore. Revenge is my theme in this game and I would avenge him for stealing my Colossus. Also, he has Sistine which would open for me the possibility of culture victory. The problem is, I don't think I would be able to defend this land later, while having Commodore at my back. The fundamental truth of this game that I cannot commit to anything serious while Commodore lives. The war with very weak HRE was risky enough and, frankly, I should not have been able to get away with it.
Another option is to seize some islands between us but this is also problematic. I am so cavalier with pissing of Superdeath and BaII because they are dying anyway. AT is not going anywhere anytime soon, until I kill him myself and having two hostile borders is bad. On the other hand, I only really need fleet to defend islands and I will need to have a fleet here anyway, to defend my shrine from Pindicator. So, there might be a way to make it work but I need to scout AT more.
To be continued...

[Hollybombay]

[Gavagai]

I am once again reconsidering, whether I should go after BaII's second island. It looks like he is putting up a fight and the longer he survives, the better as it keeps Pindicator's attention off myself.

[thestick]

In retrospect, where would you have planted your second city?

[Gavagai]

In retrospect, where would you have planted your second city?

Where Essen now is (Horse/Corn spot in the north) or 1W from Munich, on Spices. But this land is extremely hard to dotmap. Any ideas from lurkers about the best second city, btw? The question is purely academic now but this is a highly non-trivial decision that is interesting to discuss. As I have mentioned at the start of the thread, I really played the opening on auto-pilot and with this kind of start you need to think.

[Gavagai]

5) Current situation: economy.
Both my traits give discounts on city maintenance and my UB gives an additional discount on top of that. You might be wondering, how is it working. The answer is: pretty well.

I do not have forges in cities with more than 6 maintenance and I have only one Courthouse which I built mostly for EPs. So, at least in one respect, my leader choice was successful - I was able to keep maintenance down.

Hindu shrine is another pillar of my economy and Representation is the third one. Taken together, these three pillars allow me to mostly overcome the fact that I have almost no cottages.

GNP is hard to assess but I and Commodore are about equal - and in a few turns I will boost my massively by revolting to Mercantilism. Commodore does not have this kind of reserve - he is already in merc. Of course, I am still way behind leaders but they have way more pop - something I can do little about. Here are some other graphs:

Food. I am behind but not FAR behind.

Mfg. About equal.
So, overall, I think, I have reasons to be pleased with my performance, given how badly I have screwed up the start.
To be continued...

[Gavagai]

Some other pictures:

Commodore and the trap he is stepping in.

Islands to the south. Note the barb city. Sadly, it is only size one, most likely I'll wait until it grows, unless I spot someone else making a play for it.

An island which could have been mine.

[Miguelito]

Commodore and the trap he is stepping in.

Trap in which sense? Just generally attacking Superdeath or is there something in the picture that I'm missing?

[Gavagai]

Commodore and the trap he is stepping in.

Trap in which sense? Just generally attacking Superdeath or is there something in the picture that I'm missing?

Generally, per considerations I laid out before. His new land will be contested by DS and Rusten.