[Spoiler] Kaiser has a plan

[roland of gilead]

yeah it's just too much and will accelerate. already is.

Shame but that's what happens to most players each time.

[Kaiser]

We lost Ed Mercer and the Egyptian empire continues its free fall at the hands of Woden



and Ichabod



I wont be able to stop them but figured a plan to keep the egyptian empire alive as long as possible. I switched GM to build a 3 turn Settler and will get it to a spot inside Suboptimals territory.
He should have an interest in keeping me alive so Woden and Ichabod will not be able to benefit from my cities so I hope he will be willing to switch over to a cultural alliance and to keep his borders closed so the egyptian Enclave can prosper there.

Suboptimal offered to join the war against Ichabod for the two GW I had, I accepted to be able to slow Ichabod as much as possible.

[roland of gilead]

Like those tactics.

[Kaiser]

A city per turn seems to be the rythm, If we can keep GM one turn then we can get the Settler out



This is only about survival, so Ichabackstab can not profit from the few gains he got while empowering his main enemy Woden.

Woden will likely mop up CMF afterwards and then turn on Ichabod as Suboptimal is a huge hassle to attack with his big military and remote position.

I did not even bother to check the cultury victory status, this game will be won by Suboptimal if he can pull his culture victory off or with a concession to Woden. I am still disappointed by the backstab, but apperantly my trust into Ichabod was wrong.

It was mainly based on:
- enimity to Woden, as he razed half Ichabods empire (playing his home country!)
- the realization that it would be a bad idea to team up with the guy who just upgraded into a top notch military, with the better access to my lands and most importantly the more powerful cities (the deal will likely end up with Ichabod getting Steven Newton, Cassius and John LaMarr, Woden the rest, which went already good for Ichabod but is a really bad long term trade off for him, as they are exposed to Woden and he gets the juicy bits.)
- a so far good Military Alliance (admittedly I razed his Hattusa conquer early game) with natural borders and interests

I assume:
- he was not willing to fight a defensive war inside his territory anymore, especially against such advanced troops/numbers
- he was not trusting our MA
- he wanted the game to end, as this play did not improve his position enough, at least he gets 3rd place

If you read this Ichabod, I felt we could have held together (at least until Suboptimal joins in, but he should not have had an incentive to make Woden strong either) that was why I had units in your territory which were about to be upgraded to AT Crews, the best unit I could field at that point in time

@mapmaker
I really enjoyed the game until Oil came in, even despite the fact that the strategical positions were hilariously unbalanced this game. I was able to overcome the Iron shortage I had, but Oil is the most important ressource if you reach its time and the fact that I had to find a different unit than Tanks made the game gow downhill from there and sucked a lot of my enjoyment out of it. 
The only better unit than a Modern Armor is a GDR and that basically would have been the point for me to get to in order to be able to continue competing. AT Crews are modern units and the 50% multiplier card comes 3 techs after the one for Tanks, so the slightly lower  cost is effectively not compensating the big fighting disadvantages it comes with (lower movement, no ignorance of ZoC, lower fighting power against everything else)

All that said, I believe I lost the game for me when I was not able to make any gains against CMF. He was supported heavily by the other players, but I should probably have went all out war in the late Classical time to conquer him anyway to be the active and not the reactive player.
Also I am bad at tactics and unexperienced in warfare, especially late game which showed heavily here.

[roland of gilead]

A good summary.

It is a tragedy Ichabod didn't stick with us and we could have worked on woden.

that would have been a war worth seeing.

I expect he will rightly say we supported woden initially.

still a shame.

[Kaiser]

Talla Keyali is gone as well



I planned to settle there, but it seems like you cannot change alliance type (which I thought was possible) and also CMF and Suboptimal have signed a cultural alliance recently



I am maybe 5 - 10 turns still in this game

[roland of gilead]

yeah it's a turkey shoot now.

186 power. what can you do.

[roland of gilead]

they must by now be helping Sub win by culture by eliminating you.

[Kaiser]

I do not think that helps as Woden is the threshold with his culture by now.

Another turn, another city enjoy it Woden it is a great city once you can claim the remaining tiles from Issac and TK.



I am also desperately trying to keep the egyptian civilization alive, I offered Suboptimal this deal



As Glenda seems to be aimed at bringing him tourism with the beach resort and I was assuming that he might be willing to let me live for another source of tourism. Glenda will outperform GWM when it has all tiles resorted up though, so I am willing to gove suboptimal the other work as well.

I also asked if CMF would be willing to exchange Wild for Bortus, he likely is not but delaying GM coming out of occupation could be worth it. TK needs to repair its walls before I can offer it for trade, maybe I try that next turn.

I am actually not sure if we had a rule for/against city trading but at least Woden offered me a peace treaty demanding some of my cities, so I assume it is ok, right?

[roland of gilead]

yeah PBEM 19 had city trading as well.

GM really was an epic city.