LURKER THREAD- No Players

[civac2]

The predecessor game was won by the Byzantines (without a religion of their own I believe).

You want at least 2 GAs in the industrial era. They are incredibly powerful then. Flunky with MoM or wp with PHI could surely have 2 before that too for 4 GAs total. It's not easy but the games are long enough for 4 or even 5 GAs.

Aspi still plans for a culture victory. His conquests are mainly to create a buffer zone and aquire more build queues for defensive military and ships.

[Miguelito]

The predecessor game was won by the Byzantines (without a religion of their own I believe).

He did have the christian AP shrine, which did certainly help. But it was a shared victory actually, with KSL/Justinian completing the culture VC the same turn that Jesper/Cathertine's spaceship arrived. And Jesper did play without a shrine and with 2 early traits. The late game was a lot about corporations, KSL with Sushi/CreCon/Jewellers and Jesper with Mining. I'm not sure if anybody has noticed, but Charriu has not deactivated corporations in CtH  .

Btw PB18 here not only was also played till the win condition, it even had the same exciting finish of a shared culture (TBS) and space (OH) victory.

[civac2]

CTH corporations are weakened I think, in a similar way to the PB 88 mod.

Full power corporations are only really strong on large maps with enormous amounts of resources. But under those circumstances they almost end the game. The leading player has won the game the moment he founds Mining Inc.

[civac2]

Random event log

[civac2]

Follow-up 4: Ocenania




(Couldn't get a better map.) 

Flunky had achieved a contender position with his extremely food-rich Indonesian islands after conquering Japan and thus the Great Lighthouse. (Since this is BTS it is indeed the Great Lighthouse, not merely the Good Lighthouse as in the rb mods.) It is a truism that a water-based Empire falls off heavily in late game. So Flunky teched Chemistry and Military Science and made an attempt to conquer Australia (shade, Genghis Khan). He failed, painfully. shade managed to reach Chemistry himself with large loans and whipped enormous amounts of Frigates in recently aquired New Zealand (taken from Donovan Zoi). Flunky lost the fleet engagements decisely due to some bad combat luck but also his mistake of promoting many ships with Flanking trying to get Navigation. Soon shade had total control over Australian waters. On land, Flunky took several cities with his initial strike but was stymied by highly-promoted Mongolian knights. Ultimately, they made peace with Flunky ceding control of almost all cities shade had not yet reconquered (and down two core cities shade had burned down in a preemptive attack.)

After, the end of the peace treaty shade declared war again and burned a 3rd core city trying to delay Flunkies research towards destroyers.

Flunky is out of the running now despite being still among the leaders in technology.

[Amicalola]

Thanks civac, another great update as usual.

Is there historically a time/era in these big PBs when it is no longer useful to claim more land, even if it comes at minimal cost? Obviously we are not there quite yet, with Superdeath's demise, but I am more thinking about the future turns.

[Mjmd]

Did Flunky try invading Australia main or go around east and island hop?

I imagine Amica that it is something to the effect of "what does it cost you" SD is being invaded by rifles vs elephants sooooooo not a lot of cost. Would be interested to hear an actual answer though instead of my theory crafting.

[civac2]

Amicalola is right that at some point the cost of building troops and ships is not worth it any more even if you can use them to roll over a hopelessly backwards foe.

I can't really tell myself when this point comes. From what others in the German threads are saying I infer that conquests with Infantry are still worth it if they are easy and fast. I would assume that Modern Armor and co. is too late. Not sure about tanks.

There was an early PB of this type with Spaceship victory and nuclear weapons banned which ended in battles with Modern Armor, Mech Infs, Mobile Artillery, Stealth Bombers and gigantic doom fleets. That was an amazing game.

Edit: Flunky went for the Australian continent and the islands west and north of it. New Zealand did not see any fighting.

[Mjmd]

I know these take a lot of time, but I would be extremely curious about Africa specifically as I know that is where two? of the contenders are.

[civac2]

Follow-up 5: Africa




(Picture is a bit out of date. The islands off the west coast have since been captured by the Inca Dullland.)

Africa has slowly been losing its preeminence on the world stage. Ironically, this is due to the fact that it is full of powerful empires. The effect, of course, is that the top dogs have a hard time expanding. Dullland conquered the Persians (Cyrus, I believe) sitting in Nigeria and at the ivory coast. He is at 25 cities now. Frozen likewise took out the USA (FDR) inhabitating Morocco and Algeria. He only has about 20 cities but is gaining 600 gpt at 100% research. His research power, however, is not as impressive as it once was and he has no way to convert his income into more beakers. He captured and extorted a few cities from the Zulu when he reached cavalry. However, the Zulu came back with cavalry of their own and the two have been embroiled in a fruitless war, border cities changing hands several times. Both Dullland and Frozen are about to reach Assembly Line.

Further south the South Romans (Augustus in South Africa) won the Roman civil war and conquered most of North Rome with Washington (Madagascar) vulturing a few cities thus gaining a solid foot hold on the continent. Both of these nations are out of the running but spiky enough to make them uninviting targets for the more advanced northern African empires. At least for the time being. Factories and infantry may change that.