[Spoilers] Chevalier Gives You Something to Cry Aboot

[TheArchduke]

I would shadow that settler.

[Jabah]

You might want to chop the forest before placing the campus ?
(or it will take too long to get a worker around)

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I would shadow that settler.

Definitely. I might try and spot a likely spot and get there first, force him to at least bring in a warrior. Slow 'em down, buy time. 

You might want to chop the forest before placing the  campus ?
(or it will take too long to get a worker around)

Regrettably, yes, it would take longer to get a worker in place to chop the forest, since it needs to be built from scratch, and in the meantime the campus will get more expensive. I need to stay in striking distance of Kaiser. Bit of a talk about tech in Civ VI as of GS, I think, is due. Inna minute.

Okay, played the turn. Anyway. 

I think lots of our thinking on tech and concessions is based around the impressions we got from early PBEMs, 1-7: A player would reach a decisive tech edge, like Legions or Cossacks or Frigates or Battleships, upgrade a bunch of units in one go, and then proceed to demolish the opposition. Thus, falling behind even temporarily in tech becomes a death sentence. 

However, I don't think tech is the be-all-and-end-all anymore. Obviously, more is better - you get access to better units and stronger buildings faster. But that advantage ahs to be converted into victory somehow, and to that end I think production and population (which enables production) are far more important. I don't think culture, religion, or diplomatic victories are really possible in multiplayer, so you need good enough production to build the spaceship faster or enough units to muscle through rough terrain to the cap (I think raze and resettle is necessary in GS, and I also think with Renaissance Walls aggressive warfare si really, really tough until Flight. Artillery + Observation balloons in my experiments have been what's necessary to crack cities). Anyway, for aggressive war it's no longer enough to crash upgrade 5 swords -> legions while they're literally on the boats and then hit your enemy's cap from the fog (PBEM1 was also played on the only map where that was possible, although it was still a brilliant, game-winning move). Resources! You need resources to upgrade units, and, crucially, your resources are capped at certain levels. You don't get the discount card for resources until late Renaissance or early Industrial (can't recall wehre), which meant in my games I often outstripped my supply of Nitre or Oil upgrading Infantry/Frigates. It's easy to do the same with Iron/Horses. 

The resource cap means you can only upgrade so many units at once, and a crash Frigate upgrade like I did in PBEM12 is a lot harder - each Frigate took 1/5 of my stockpile of nitre in a test game. I had built Big Ben with a SP treasury so I had more than 20,000 gold to upgrade, but there's no way to easily hoard Nitre or Oil. Furthermore, the upgrade problem is complicated in that many resources are either in high demand (nitre, oil) OR the tech to unlock the resource is different than units that use the resource, and hidden behind complicated chains of eurekas (oil). Bottom line: I'm not worried too much about a timing push in this game. 

More important is to build a fundamentally sound civilization with strong economics and stress about science/culture later (I think culture is stronger in GS than it was - so many more useful policy cards!). The military push I don't think is possible before the early Industrial, and then our main goal wont' be conquest but rather target strikes to raze key enemy cities and force them to throw in the towel that way. I think that's the only realistic path to victory right now. Think Pindicator in PBEM5 for my ideal Final War model. So that's what I'll be building towards. I want to keep my tech close to Kaiser in that I can reach key defensive techs in time, but I'm not worried about a timing push with horsemen or knights or something. I think I can see it coming and defend against it. 

Okay, turns whatever the last two were:




early empire came in, but as our settler is finishing next turn I stay in Urban planning for the +2 production. We'll be starting buildings. Discipline still seems most useful, but Conscription or Agoge might come in handy soon. 

I'm so mad:




If I were ANY OTHER CIV IN THE GAME (thanks, Archduke ) he'd have to either send an escort with that settler or lose it. As it is, he can thumb his nose at me for 4 more turns and there's shit all I can do. On my second turn I try to be the offensive lineman to his defensive tackle:




Forgot to screenshot it but there's an Egpytian warrior in the fog NW of my scout. It'll take him a couple of turns to get here and dislodge me. He COULD cross the river, but I think right now I'm on the ideal city-site in this area. I cannot deny it to him for more than a few turns, but I'm 7 turns from founding Bruins A. Hurricanes is almost certainly a bridge too far unless all my warriors get here on time (I need about 8 turns), then I can run interference 3 spaces out from Hurricanes and stake my claim there. We'll need to build early walls and a strong military to hold it, of course. Kaiser would need swords to take the city, not chariots (although once the chariots clear out our units it'd only be a matter of time), another change in GS - you can't just build an army of horsemen and conquer, you need melee units to take walls, ranged units to shoot in rough terrain, horses to run down the ranged, and a GG watching or it all just bogs down in thick terrain. 

Here's the north:




If he founds along the river, Hurricanes C should be barely viable. Hurricanes B is safe unless he pushes further east with this settler or his next one, but with my scout and incoming warriors I THINK I can hold it. A second settler likely means the loss of Hurricanes. Kaiser spawned practically IN the jungle belt, and we're in the midst of his loyalty, so we really ahve to stretch to reach this far! I wish I could take the CS...maybe we can let Kaiser take it and then take it off him? 

Other news...Kaiser finished PP last turn and took Autocracy:




Increased his capital yields further, but I hate the policy card options this early. Agoge will make sense to get out a military to confront me, but the other card is wasted, mostly. I guess he really liked the yield bonus. Or he's gonna build Stonehenge or Pyramids? Nah, can't have Masonry yet...Stonehenge, though? I actually think Stonehenge is a poor play on its own. The best religious beliefs need Faith to work, and for taht you need Holy Sites. Stonehenge is good if there's competition for religion and you want to lock down Choral Music or Church Property, otherwise, meh. No idea if that's what Kaiser is going for, of course. Just rambling.

Here's the west. More desert and grassland and jungle, nothing that jumps out:




I'm recalling one warrior to help bodyblock, giving me 3 warriors and a scout to block, while the remaining warrior scouts west. I'll return to the eastern scouting once the Egyptian frontier is settled one way or the other.

Two turns of scores, looks like Ichabod founded City #3:










I try to document htem every turn for C/D work. maybe tomorrow during my plan time I'll start to piece together an excel sheet from this data.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I'm at work with nothing better to do,* but I successfully finished a first pass at a cloak and dagger score tracker. If you are curious as to the course of the game and current game state via my eyes, take a gander here.

It's limited in that I am working from my own screenshots, and I didn't record everything all the time. I also turned the civ ribbon to "mouseover" a few turns ago and foolishly lost Kaiser's data for those turns, so I'll have to remember to turn it back to default when I get the save this evening. So, everything represents a snapshot as to our last available information. We have a very incomplete, spotty picture due to my gaps in reporting, but I have done a better job keeping a more granular picture of the score as the game has gone on. Let's talk about each of our opponents for a bit and what I learned:

Suboptimal

Sub I think is off to a somewhat slower start than I expected. If you look, his empire score grew rapidly until he had two cities of 5/4 pop respectively around turn 39. At that time, I detected a new power generating GS points, just as sub's empire score jumped 2. Woden's score grew by one, while Ichabod's stayed stagnant, and Kaiser's GS points are known. Thus, we conclude that suboptimal finished a campus at that time. However, unless the formula has changed, sub's empire score SHOULD have jumped 3 points, not 2 - so he finished a settler at the same time, I believe. Or the formula has changed and all my calculations are off. Possibly I should lump Empire score together instead of trying to split cities/districts/pop, but eh. Anyway, sub grew rapidly, but look: his civics and tech are very slow. I think he slow-walked each to get Craftsmanship and Early Empire, then waited to finish his campus to finish State Workforce. He also has only 3 civics, assume one is SW due to his campus finishing the same turn he got it, so no Foreign Trade - so he probably is far from a continental divide. Thus, he's either in the far east or the far west, and one of Woden/Ichabod is probably Kaiser's other neighbor (did you spot that Kaiser is on the continental divide? I possibly forgot to include that picture, but he's RIGHT smack dab on it). 

Anyway, sub's empire score exploded to those huge cities at turn 39, but he didn't have the civics research to match. But he didn't finish the campus earlier or I would have detected the GS points, no? Furthermore he's only finished 5 techs still, despite finishing an early campus, and one of those is writing. So Mining/AH/Pottery -> Writing, but he should have enough science to easily finish more than 1 Archery/Sailing/Irrigation by now if he wanted. So he's working hard to hit every eureka and should have lots of culture and science banked. Must remember to check domestic tourists next turn. He could be diving through Astrology -> Celestial Navigation to get his RNDs unlocked. We'll see if GA points appear. 

His empire score got wacky a few turns ago. He has 24 points, and I propose three configurations. We know he has 2 cities and a campus. So, he could have 11 from cities, 3 from the campus, and that's fully 10 from pop, which seems insane - two 5 pop cities? No way. He could have built a second campus already, which would make it 11/6/7 pop, a 4 and a 3 city, more reasonable. But that seems unlikely, since in the last few turns he's only grown 2 points, 1 at a time, which suggest population growth. But if he built the campus earlier, I should have seen more than 1 GS point. Or he founded his third city a LONG time ago, but the only candidate jump in score is turn 39, when I saw the campus go down! So it can't be that! 

"Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." It seems absurd, but I think sub has two five-pop cities, or a 6/4 pop city, and he's banking lots of culture or just plain missing inspirations nad power researching through them. I'll double check the GS points and try to untangle this mess. No way he grew so big without getting a third settler out, but there's no point jump from city #3 and THAT means he has a settler wandering the map while he's got these crazy cities...Ugh! What a mess. 

Ichabod

Ichabod is easier to sort out. He was leading at 5 pop on turn 21, had hit 8 pop by turn 30, and hit 9 pop on turn 32. Then he stagnated there for 10 turns. No GS points correspond to his jumps in score, so those are pop increases, not districts. He is on incredibly fertile terrain but also had slow civic research, finishing Craftsmanship/Foreign trade at turn 30, #3 at turn 36, and #4 on turn 42. Conclusion: Difficulty hitting inspirations. Both Craftsmanship and Foreign Trade might come slow if he has thick jungle terrain (need Bronze Working for improvements = Craftsmanship) and is on the edge of the pangaea. Thus, he's ALSO probably not Kaiser's neighbor. (I haven't analyzed Woden yet, if I conclude he also is not Kaiser's other neighbor someone hit me, I've gotten too cute). Anyway, Ichabod grew tall, then spent most of the '30s working on a settler (or 2? impossible to say). He planted city #3 last turn, the first of us. Tech pace was rapid up to turn 30, scooping up 5 techs by then, but he's finished only 1 tech in the intervening 12 turns. Banking science and waiting for eurekas? His high pop should have him leading by more. Could also be working on Astrology with no Natural Wonder to get those sweet Sacred Path busted-ass holy sites rolling.

10 pop in three cities, I think, unless I missed a district. 5/4/1? most likely. 

Woden 

Slow, steady growth has been the name of Woden's game. Civics are 1 on turn 21 but 3 by turn 30. 4 on 37 and 5 on 41. I expect those are the 5 prerequisites to PP. Woden's rapid research up to turn 30 leads me to conclude that he DID inspire Foreign Trade and he IS near a continental divide. Conclusion: Kaiser's other neighbor is Woden. He got his Craftsmanship and EE inspirations in, as well. State Workforce? Not certain. 

Woden's empire score hit a 3 point spike on turn 41. That looks exactly like a district, except I haven't seen any evidence of it on the GP screen. The spike is too late for him to be the person generating GS points apart from Kaiser. That must be sub. Woden was at 19 points on turn 39, then hit 22 on turn 41. It must be a district, I think, but which one? Why don't I see points? Could he have planted a city while finishing 2 settlers? Seems unlikely. Right now I have ??? until I can sort this mess out. 

Woden's tech growth is slow, like suboptimal's, and he has no campus (maybe!). He has only finished 4 techs. Should have more, so I think he is banking techs and waiting on eurekas. Should see him finish a whole bunch of tech at once. He COULD be doing a deep dive into Astrology -> Celestial Navigation (like possibly sub) for his Cothons. Keep an eye out. 

Kaiser 

Kaiser has 8 techs finished, 3 more than anyone, and is the first person to finish PP, 5 turns before I can get there. We can see his snowball captured on my sheet, due to me meeting him. On turn 36, Kaiser finished his 5th civic and his science jumped by 5 points in a single turn. The next turn, his culture jumped by another 7 points, taking him from 12 to 19. He was at 10 on turn 34 and 19 by turn 37. What happened is obvious: Kaiser easily finished Foreign Trade on turn 32, due to starting on the divide. He appointed Pingala to his capital. Sometime before or on turn 30, he finished Writing and started a campus. On turn 36, the Campus finished, Inspiring and completing State Workforce. It's a high adjacency campus, jumping his science by 5 points. He promotes Pingala with the Culture promotion using his second governor title for completing SW, and the next turn that becomes manifest with a 7 point jump in culture. I lose track of his daily rates starting on turn 40, when I turned off the ribbon, but he quickly rattles off a bunch of cheap techs: after sitting at 5 through most of the thirties, he finishes 3 techs on three consecutive turns from turns 41 - 43.

His pop growth isn't as rapid as sub or Ichabod's, but it is more rapid than mine, and he has the fertile jungle belt. Also, if you look at his empire score, I think I also made a mistake, but my best guess is that he finished a settler around the same time as his campus...or campuses are only worth 2 points? AAAAAUGH I need to look up the formula! But, basically, it's totally possible Kaiser has two settlers on the map. But one's been walking for 8 turns, so it should found any moment now. 

...could it be the one I'm blocking? I'm standing on a good spot. Hmm...in which case he just finished a second settler. But on the other hand I'm right outside his borders! No way he's been walking for 8 turns just to reach, well, here.

...on the gripping hand, it is thick hills and jungle everywhere. He could be moving only 1 tile a turn! Maybe there ARE two settlers. 

I think I'm more confused than I was when I started this exercise. But, bottom line, we mustn't lose out on Bruins. Hurricanes will be a lovely bonus but I don't have the force in the theater to really secure that unless I get lucky. Fingers crossed, everyone! 


*That is a lie. I have so, so much I should be doing right now.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 44

Memo to me, memo to myself: turn the banners back on by default so you can see milpower, gold, faith, and research in every screenshot. 

Also complain about Canada, we coulda sniped that settler and torpedoed Kaiser's game while boosting our own. He'd be upset and swear forever war, but, him and what army?

Oh well. C'est la vie.

-clickyclicky-

-clicky-

-click-

Okay, ribbon fixed, so I can update my C&D sheet! 

On to more important things. You lurkers, if you exist, probably care most about the ongoing tension in the north, where Kaiser and I are jostling to establish our border. Here's the tactical situation:




He's brought up a warrior to escort his settler. I can only declare war in 2 turns, because Canada. Now, this is a dilemma.

The spot I'm standing on is a solid city site. 2 2/2s, a 1/3, 3/2 bananas in the second ring, right on the min settling distance (I like to pack cities tight in SP, not sure it matters in MP). I can delay him at least one more turn - it'd take him two turns to kill my scout with his warrior, then the settler can move in and found. I could even take the hit and then run.

However, off to the east, there's ANOTHER good site. Right next to the bananas, with another 2/2 tile, and it allows a city squeezed in south of the river. Worse, it invalidates Hurricanes, while the tile I'm standing on does not. So here's my thinking: I can hold this tile at most, one more turn, likely at the cost of my scout. That will cost Kaiser 2 food, 2 production, half a culture, and 1 beaker. Not really worth the cost of the scout, I don't think. It's more important to delay him and to buy time, and if he opts to settle HERE rather than to the EAST where it invalidates my planned cities, then I want that. So, having been annoying for a turn, here's where I position myself - and look what we have here!




Sneaky bugger DID have a second settler out. Kaiser is being greedy, sending two settlers with one warrior. If I could declare war next turn, he'd be screwed. He can't cover both, so he'd have to pull one back and out of range. I'd win the settler race. Instead, I need 2 turns. But Kaiser also has a dilemma. He can't hit my scout AND protect both settlers. IF he declares war, I can move in and capture my choice of settler and delete it, a heavy blow. Definitely worth sacrificing the scout! So he can't attack me. Unfortunately, he CAN move one tile south and found the turn before I can attack. Move south this turn, next turn I can't hit him, and he founds. Bah. So I need to run interference now to the east. As before, I can win perhaps one additional turn. That might be enough - I ahve 3 warriors who will be in the area in ~10 turns, and if he doesn't bring up more units I can raze a city with three warriors, no sweat. So we'll attempt that plan next.




He does have a Classical tech. HBR seems the most likely candidate, he has 40 horses so he's had it boosted for quite a while. No iron connected so Ironworking isn't boosted. Trade route? Possible. He can't have started horses yet though and he doesn't have maneuver, so I have time. I'll want to unlock HBR soonish myself, though, and perhaps pre-build some horses, holding them 1 turn from completion until needed? Or use them to go take a city-state OH WAIT

He also came up with some favor:




I've no idea where this comes from. My denunciation? Maybe! Must look into sources of favor. Memo to myself.

Overview:





Note that his warrior returned to harass my wines. I'll miss the amenity but I'm not using the tile. If you want to declare war to pillage my plantation, Kaiser, go for it, then your settler's ass is grass. ...Actually, please, yes, do it! 

Scores. I swap out of Archery in case we want to train up some more slingers and to keep other costs down, we can pick it up at any time. Start working on Bronze Working to reveal our Iron instead.






Okay, gotta run. I'll edit the scores into the C&D sheet tomorrow and hear from our C-2 his analysis.

[TheArchduke]

Nice move. I think we will definetly ned up in cold war territory with Kaiser and at the very least ensure that the rest of the field can catch up. Personally I would have stayed in place with the scout as with fortification a scout can hold quite long, but it seems he is really greedy.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I thought about that, but like I said, I'd only buy one turn, and this city is going to be founded one way or the other. I decided it was more important to interfere in any eastern settling plans until I can at least get Bruins up. Hurricanes would be nice and I'd feel very good about our chances, but it'd require a massive commitment from my military until I can get settler #4 out, which isn't coming for a while. Kaiser, of course, did a double settler build after finishing his campus.

C&D also suggests he bought something big - a trader? A slinger? Coincides with a ~10 point jump in domination - back on turn 38. His gold has already jumped above mine since he cleared a barb camp last turn. However, we still have twice his military strength - I revised my estimate (based on the visible warriors and the new numbers) from 2 warriors/2 slingers to 3 warriors/1 slinger, since I doubt he cleared a camp with a slinger and 2 of his warriors are accounted for. Could be mistaken on this point, but I think he has the 2 visible warriors for ~38 points, 1 invisible injured warrior and 1 invisible injured slinger on the other side of his empire clearing barbs. He's in no shape to really contest the jungle apart from already having the units in place and my hands being tied from being Canada. Bah.

Sub finished his 4th civic, probably State Workforce given his Campus. Woden and Ichabod stood pat. Nothing further from C&D today.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Turn 45

I'm mad. Not gonna lie. I'm really mad. 




I - 

I can't even - 

This is such - 

AUGH. 

HOW MANY THINGS MUST GO WRONG FOR THIS GAME!? WAS IT NOT ENOUGH, o Gods of Civ, THAT I AM PLAYING THE WORST CIVILIZATION IN THE ENTIRE GAME? 

Let's just fuckin' recap here for a few minutes. 

Lurkers, this will not be a fun read. This is going to be just straight ten minutes of me bitching. If I were in the United States and had access to my video editting software you bet your ass I'd be making a Downfall version of this rant - it'd be funnier. In fact. pin that thought. I'll be home in 6 weeks. Memo to come back here and make a Downfall parody rant. Anyway, if you don't like players bitching about their civ, their start (Cornflakes, apologies in advance, I don't mean anything of what I'm about to say, I'm just upset), the map, their opponents, and their goddamned luck, then skip this post. I'll do a real update later. 

First, I'm Canada. That means that I get +1 food on Tundra farms. Hooray. Why is Canada so much worse than Russia, which just gets straight +1 production and +1 faith on all tundra tiles, both better currencies than food, with no need at all for spending builder labor? I have no idea! I get +1 Favor (a mostly useless currency until the lategame) for every 100 tourism I earn per turn (that's, what, 20 seaside resorts or something? Doesn't fucking matter). I get to build one (1) ice hockey rink per city, ONLY on tundra (which I get no bonuses from, other than those shitty farms! Yay!), in the fuckin' Renaissance or Industrial era, for which I get a bit of tourism and culture IF I build an Entertainment District and IF I build an Arena, a Zoo, and a Stadium in it. Woooow. I get a Cavalry unit which can't be upgraded into, is expensive, and is straight weaker than Rough Riders and Cossacks, its era-equivalents in America and Russia, unless I'm near a National Park, which must be placed using extremely restrictive rules in 4 unimproved tiles in my own territory with sufficient appeal, then I'm marginally better than a Cossack, except the Cossack can move after attacking and also is stronger than me if it just happens to start its turn within Russian culture. AND Russia gets Lavras, half-cost Holy Sites that also help towards a culture victory. AND they get boosted international trade routes, because fuck it. In exchange, I am "blessed" with the inability to attack city-states or to surprise war dec other civs, but hey, they have to denounce me first! 

There's so much incomprehensible stupidity built into Canada's design that I can't even begin to outline all the problems, but let us charitably assume that Civ VI is not intended to be a multiplayer game. That, of course, seems pretty fuckin' safe to assume since the developers still haven't worked out the Pitboss code they had functional for Civ IV fifteen years ago and only just gave us PBEM capability something like 3 years after the game released. Of course, Civ VI as a SP game is busted as hell since the devs can't code the AI to play it worth half a damn, but I don't begrudge them that, AI is really hard to write. So we have a Civ that only works in a gamemode that doesn't work at all.

Well, fine. It's a handicap. I'll see how much I can compete with several mediocre-to-actually-good civs (how the hell is Brazil in ehre, again? And Phoenicia doesn't seem bad, either) using a worse-than-vanilla civ. I accept that. But I wanted to get the rant in.

Okay, so I'm playing with a handicap. Fine. If I play my start sharp enough, I can still compete, right? I made Arabia work, after all! But no. We get a capital that is - well, it's fine. But then we have desert to the north, tundra to the south, and a narrow river valley in between with shitty tiles with absolutely no production whatsoever. Our situation was so desperate that our city #2 was dry because it was better than all the alternatives, and our city #3 is practically in our opponent's loyalty pressure (while his cities #3 and #4, you'll note, are nowhere near ours). Assuming we get to found it. We've been last or second to last all game, mostly due to our incredibly slow population growth (yes, yes, there's a rice I could farm, but that doesn't solve the city #2 problem). Our land is all barren desert or barren tundra and every city we could possibly found is about half one or half the other, UNLESS we stretch ourselves to the jungle belt.

Okay, fine. We'll just be better. We'll take risks like a dry city plant and we'll stretch for the jungle belt. OH. But we ALSO get a shitton of barbarians to start with, and judging from my scoregazing, we get hit the WORST with barbs early. We led in domination for a LONG time - we no longer do THANKS TO THAT FUCKING TRAVESTY UP THERE - so everyone else got their lush jungle starts (look at Kaiser and Ichabod skyrocketing! Look at Sub's population! Look at - okay, well, admittedly I have no idea what Woden is up to) while we get desert and barbarians. 

FINE. We'll make it work! We'll chase off the barbs! We'll use our military to conquer nearby city-states achieve SOMETHING worthwhile! Of course, our only neighbor is also the snowball civ, who is casually leveraging all his ancient kit to skyrocket ahead of us in every category, who had the time and the location to build a 5(???) adjacency campus [if not 5 it's at least 4), whose second city finished a settler before our capital could finish one, and who is of course settling right in our direction into our only viable expansion area. I don't blame Kaiser for this, of course, what should he do? NOT settle in the incredibly lush jungle? 

FINE! We'll use our military edge to try to slow Kaiser down. I'll clear out the barb camps that KEEP SPAWNING with soem and send the rest his direction. We'll do our best to try and stake SOME claim to this ground so we're not reduced to irrelevancy before the Classical Era even starts! 

And in order to do this, one of my promoted warriors - 1/4 of my military, basically, right as I get into a confrontation with an opponent - has to cross a three-tile long river. It will spend two turns adjacent to the river, oen to approach it, one to cross. It crossed last turn.

On the very next turn, of all the turns we could a roll a disaster, we roll it on this one. 

Of all the disasters in the entire map to roll, we roll a flood.
Of all the rivers that could flood, we rolled that river.
Of all the floods we could get, we rolled a record-setting flood.
Of all the outcomes we could get - damage, fertility, whatever - we rolled a unit death. 

And so, from my very slwo start, the single, sole advantage I have clawed out of the muck of this game, just vanishes in a puff of smoke because fuck you, said RNGesus. You wanted to slow down Kaiser and maybe compete? You wanted to possibly have a chance from this unlucky set of turns i nthis handicapped start playing this handicapped civ? You thought Civilization was supposed to be fun? Fuck your fun!

Hang on while I grab a pillow.

-muffled screaming-
-a disturbingly long, drawn out muffled scream-

Holy shit I'm tilted. This just so insulting. Like, I could handle bad luck. I've been handling bad luck. But to just casually delete one of my units in the most random ass way possible? Right as I needed it? Like, there is a God, and he hates us. It's the only explanation at this point. I've been operating in crisis holy-shit-what-are-we-gonna-do mode for the last 40 turns. Remember when the barb scout showed up on like turn 3!? Remember when TWO MORE camps spawned while we were clearing the first? Remember how I needed to have denounced Kaiser one turn sooner than I did to prevent him founding a city? 

I'm sure there's been worse runs of luck, but this has been two straight months of kicks in the balls this game and right now I am so fucking done with this. I'm not having fun! At all!

Hallelujah! Holy shit! 


where's the tylenol...

[shallow_thought]

I'm sorry, but that wasn't really a rant. A good rant needs to be less well structured, less grammatically correct and much, much less justified.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Okay, I brought my SSD with my screenshots with me to work in an attempt to write a report here during an off-hour, but unfortunately it's not connecting successfully to the work PC. Damn, guess I'll have to actually be productive.

Anyway, the turn itself was boring once my SEETHING RAGE died down. I'm fine now. Let's talk.

On the domestic front, Kaiser's warrior is sniffing around still, and now that I lost my military edge over him if my bean-counting is correct, I basically have to abandon any hope of taking Hurricanes. Before, I was going to confront his single warrior with 2 of mine in about 6 turns, and with all 4 in about 10 turns. Now that's not going to happen - we're evenly matched in unit count exactly, but Kaiser has a 1-city lead that's going to persist for a while, plus an already-completed campus, plus a substantial pop and civics lead. I finished the granary at Kings, so growth resumed there, and started the campus. Finishing the two campuses will secure me in science for the medium term.

So. Let's look ahead. What comes next? 

At this point, I feel that any realistic chance of winning is basically gone. We're trailing Kaiser by a lot and the other players by a little less, but he's much further along on his snowball (as I pointed out above) and there's no realistic chance of closing the gap any time soon. Our best bet is to continue to play the best game we can on our fundamentals, hang in there, and wait for the game situation to break our way with some fortunate meta-wars or something. So, the name of the game is to not commit ourself to any one strategy, but to create flexible, reactive civ that can respond to a variety of circumstances.

Accordingly, I see two main paths forward. Our infrastructure will be more or less established after the districts and trader finish, so we'll be ready for the next round of expansion. How do we proceed?

1)Peacefully. We build the Ancestral Hall (chop-aided?) and crank out at least 3 settlers, likely for Blackhawks, Capitals, and Ducks or another possible location east of Bruins. That will stretch our ability to defend, however, so we may want to lead with...

2)Build a small but potent military. I'm thinking a horseman based military makes the most sense based on current research and our capital. We don't know our Iron situation but we have enough horses. It would also meet our strategic requirements of a flexible force for defense and offense. ~3-5 horsemen with a set of archers would make me feel secure. Our surviving 3 warriors will do for swords in case we need to take offensive action against a city. 

Right now, I'm inclined to go military first, then settlers after the AH is finished, if that doesn't slow expansion too much. My main worries pushing me towards the horsemen are twofold:

1)Kaiser is close, has HBR already (plus some other techs), and is (rightly) pissed at us for faffing about with his settling. He may also feel he has something to prove after PBEM3 and PBEM17 - look at how Archduke/Woden reacted in similar situations. Both set out to show the world they were not to be trifled with, Archduke in PBEM2 (which I am rereading) and Woden in PBEM15 (Builder, am I? I'll show you builder!). If nothing else I think I need to go ahead and finish HBR so if I see his stock of horses start to deplete I can respond with some security builds of my own.

2)Antananarivo's location is a bit intolerable. We need the city-state under our control or at least neutral. It's positioned centrally to all of our viable expansion sites and is pointed directly at the capital with no intervening defensive terrain. An army coming from that direction would be very difficult to stop, so we need it under our control one way or the other. 

The downsides of building a military first are that we'll be on 3 cities to Kaiser's 4 for a while. That's going to put us behind the 8-ball, long-term. The downsides of expanding first are that we'll be very vulnerable, militarily, while we do so. 3 warriors and a slinger just can't effectively protect more than our 3 cities. The downsides of trying to do both are that we'll do neither as effectively, but that compromise MIGHT be viable if we get horsemen out of Bruins and Kings while Blues concentrates on settlers. 

So, short-term plans: finish campuses. Finish HBR for security. Settle Bruins, and resume scouting for more expansion locations.
Medium term? Need to decide: Either a small horseman army which will need to be ready to conquer nearby cities to pay for itself (and we can't declare war on city-states, hahaha) or we try and go for a settler wave. 
Long term: Expansion is our only real path to victory. We need to grab as much land as possible. Then we can try and build some kind of edge, 'coz we're not getting one via our Civ in any way, shape or form.

C&D will come at home since I can't access my score screenshots.