[spoilers] Let's Play Civilization 4.5: Realms Beyond the Sword

[Commodore]

Gavagai is trying to consume himself some carrion, declaring war on Baii (Pindicator victim) and Superdeath (my food). It's...probably a little frustrating for the guy:


...yeah, tough stuff. With persistence he actually should be able to eat all of Baii's northwestern islands, but he's going to have to invest more than a couple galleys' worth of swords.

There's not a lot to recommend for how the Civ4 AI plays its games, but there's one rule that I've come around on whole-heartedly...NEVER STOP MAKING UNITS WHEN AT WAR.


Because war ain't cheap. All I really want out of Superdeath is the Great Lighthouse, secure. Sadly, the only way to be secure here is to completely destroy Superdeath and salt the earth around his corpse. 10 knights and 3 crossbows won't do it, yet, but I think I can favorably suck up all that collateral without losing the stack (if nothing else, he just doesn't have enough hitters). If he exposes Fillmore to the waiting shipborne units I'll gladly take the chance to snipe the city, sadly I don't think this is going to be the one for taking and holding.

[Commodore]

Go away Gav, nobody wants this war.


My eastern neighbor is posting a ton. Gavagai never posts unless he's hopeful or enraged. Ergo, much as I hate it, need to hurry things up. Catapults made this pricy, but ought to be able to break in...

[ipecac]

Any sign of Dark Savant joining in?

[Commodore]

Any sign of Dark Savant joining in?

If by "sign" you mean "Superdeath double-moved Dark Savant in declaring war" then...yeah. Gotta love that guy's charming foreign policy.

[Commodore]

I’m going to second-guess this bloody fight for a long time. I basically traded 10 extra knights to speed up to conquest of Superdeath by about 4 turns. The fight for Filmore was horrific, lots of losses on both sides, but thanks to gers…

…welcome, Filmore. I considered burning the city, I don’t want to fight Dark Savant down south, but this infrastructure haul and two settled great generals mean that I can’t afford to not retain this. I’ll try to find a decent chokepoint in the cities to the south, but this is a great pump and might even rival the capital for heroic epic potential. Take too long to get going, of course, but…

Mr. Conductor gotta burn, but Narrator is probably in a perfect spot for a good border. Superdeath is depopulating his south border at this point, so Dark Savant will be able to waltz in but as bad as war weariness is starting to get I’m mostly hoping for a speedy resolution here.


Sharp-eyed lurkers may note that I’ve fired a golden age. There’s very little reason to delay the extremely simple civic setup I’m aiming for; Nationalism for Nationhood and the draft, and then Constitution for Representation, adding a simple ~100bpt before modifiers. My 33 city empire can’t sustain a Constant Draft (that would take 40 cities plus globe), but I’ll be hitting the Pro Musket well pretty hard. The only cities to be spared are the food-locked furvilles, the capital, and dear dear Gis Borne:

Yum. That’s my missionary pump, y’all. Theocracy is my default lategame civic so even though each spread helps Gavagai’s shrine, where units are coming from there we also need Hindus.

[Commodore]

Guys, I'm so sorry. I've been in a golden age for a whooping 2 turns already without posting this.

You can ban me from RB if you must, I understand.

[Commodore]

Quick update on the south:

-I really wanted to burn the city for security, but this is the only reasonable place for the dye fields down here. Superdeath's continued habit of trying to use workers as "defenders" (to suck up an attack) has once again given me a nice new worker to help repair the benighted land.


-Gavagai is expanding south and really looks like he wants to screw up my game...unless he gets properly enraged at someone else. AT sure is doing himself no favors.


-Rusten, who might in fact be winning over Old Harry, is my new neighbor to the southwest. I have no idea how mature this territory is, but his nearness to Rifling has me just a touch nervous.

[Commodore]

There's something interesting about pushing forward into a tapped-out rival with your own very mauled and scattered army. Stack of doom this ain't, but when there's not been a garrison or "attack" larger than two units in return, it's hard to not just push.

[Commodore]

Dark Savant is moving on the southern border, which, given Rusten is about to eat Dark Savant, means I'm about to have that horror on my south border. Ergo, for the first time, gotta burn, not keep. I have a plan for a the border, and flatland cities ain't part of it. I think Rusten wants me to split Dark Savant, but I'm not sure that Gavagai is going to keep that long.

[Commodore]

Final mainland battle was about as spite-filled but penny-packet as expected. Superdeath suicided a pair of triremes into my privateers and then killed one with a caravel. I then proceeded to lose the C3 knight at 61% to win. So it goes.

Still in the end, there’s only so much he could do. Here’s New South Commodoria. It’s not a large chunk of land, but it’s decently fertile; every city noted can quickly make it to size 7 for steady draft cycles and there can be plenty enough 5XP privateers coming from these ports. Thanks for the empire, Superdeath, I’ll try and clear out your survivalist isle quickly so you don’t have to suffer long.

Also, because screw war weariness. Carrying a ton of it all over the place.

Why, if Superdeath almost is dead, are you talking about mass-drafing and pumping privateers, Commodore? Are you perhaps planning on making a bold strike on Dark Savant, splitting him with Rusten? 

Yeah no. Gavagai is burning his golden age in POLICE STATE. That’s not…at all a great sign. Oh my lads, that’s a bad bad bad sign. I could have contended myself with all kinds of southern adventures while he ate the rear of Baii (being killed by Pindicator), but after sniping a single city he contented himself with peace and now this crap. Police State Golden Age.

POLICE STATE GOLDEN AGE.