[PB66] Tarkeel and civac explore the untamed wilds

[Tarkeel]

Wow, it's a lurker! This must be rewarded. I have to ask though, what did you mean by the latest diplo message? I think it was pigs+iron+horse or something similar.

Here's power (last 50t):


Demographics as of T216


Forces:

[Magic Science]

Wow, it's a lurker! This must be rewarded. I have to ask though, what did you mean by the latest diplo message? I think it was pigs+iron+horse or something similar.

Thank you. And I've practically been a lurker instead of a player for the last 50 turns, just a special lurker who could not read or comment in any spoiler threads. This was a natural progression for me, the next stage of the life cycle...

Re: "Diplo message". That was not a message at all. . I was simply begging for metal so I could keep training Phalanxes instead of Archers. Superdeath cancelled his long-standing free gift of Iron and Copper a few turns before the end, and demanded most of my money in exchange for the metal again. 
As a proud choosing beggar, that was unacceptable, so I asked you for free metal. I guess I offered the Pig in exchange too for some reason?

[Tarkeel]

My interpretation was actually "Please send your forces (iron/horse) to put me out of my misery (pig island)". After your previous wanton destruction we weren't even going to give you open borders, much less free resources.

Superdeath probably cancelled the deal because he was running out of resources himself.

[civac2]

Have been wondering. Did you intend to replace the city you burned down on your side of the strait?

[Magic Science]

Have been wondering. Did you intend to replace the city you burned down on your side of the strait?

Yes. Eventually.
I razed Crushbone because, combined with my own city of Poseidon, it blocked me from settling for the Crabs on my side of the strait. However, I did not have a Settler near ready, and I did not even want to settle there soon. Your side, with Wheat and Corn, made settling for the Crabs as well much more appealing. I had better spots elsewhere.

The context that you did not know (I think?) was that my Galley had already been trained before you settled Crushbone. I actually trained it to settle Pig Island because I misunderstood trade route mechanics and thought doing so would increase trade route commerce in all my cities, which was of course dead wrong as soon as other players got Writing. Not sure how I made that mistake. . So, the attack on Crushbone was barely planned; it was pure opportunism with units I already had nearby for other reasons, which fits with why I had no Settler near ready.

After I razed the city, my units kept wandering around on your side because I was delusionally optimistic about my ability to use military force to stop you from resettling for an extended time.


Also, about Steamfount Mtns., I swear I'm not really that vicious! It's just that you left me an opportunity, and exile gets boring after a while, and at that point it was obvious no one would try to finish me off soon, so there were no consequences for the attack, so I did it. 
Clinging to relevance through senseless violence.

[Tarkeel]

If you'll allow some egocentrism (it is our thread after all), I don't think there are any other singular actions that had as much consequence as razing Crushbone.

The loss and resettling of Crushbone set us back perhaps 10 turns in the grand scheme of things. This made us late to claiming ground against first Alhazard (Akhetaten/Paineel) and then Mjmd (Solitude/GreatLakes), hampering our natural expansion. Not the biggest loss by itself, but we then might not have been a few turns late in attacking Alahzard (just as he himself got knights) and Superdeath (with rifles). It also turned us from natural allies against our big neighbors P&P and Mjmd to hated foes.

There's two reasons why we didn't burn your (criminally underdefended) core to the ground: First we had the border skirmish against Alhazard, and by the time that border was safe, your core had already (mostly) fallen to the Roman legions. Speaking of which, from our perspective it seems that onle thing that war gave you was focus in the wrong direction, leaving the back door open against Praetorians.

As for Steamfount, the consequence will be your reputation in future games. In a large FFA game, one of the keys to success is being able to leave certain borders mutually underdefended to focus in other directions. Superdeaths collapse is a good example of this; nobody dares have safe borders against him, so when he shifted forces to meet our attack everyone had an invasion force ready to go.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 218 (1540 AD)
With Democracy coming in this turn, it was time for a final round of drafts and triggering the third (and most likely final) golden age to industrialize. Demographics in spoilers:

Before:


After triggering:


After civics and citizen allocation:

Our new civics, focused on production:


A very orderly empire:


Poor Unrest needs to run culture to safekeep it's tiles from P&P, and some of the freshest cities need different infrastructure before factories.

[Qgqqqqq]

I should say, as dead as this game appears to be, I am reading and enjoying updates! Just very little to add.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 219 (1545 AD)
I don't think this game is dead at all, but it might appear that way due to the lack of general reporting. We believe that Gavagai is a credible threat to stop P&P, even if he lost a large part of his army against Superdeath. We're less sure what Mjmd can wrangle out, he seems to have gone for a copy of Amicalola's PB59 dystopia with Kremlin-powered cereal-fueled whipping. For our part, we're going for something similar to PB58, running super specialists but this time we don't have MinInc to break stuff badly. Civac found a neat trick where we speed up the statue by a turn by cash-rushing the coalplant last turn and converting the ivory forest into a workshop. Unless someone births a great engineer next turn, I think we have this one wrapped up. It probably won't be enough to win, but it should give us enough oomph to stay with the pack.

Unless something unforeseen happens, this is going to some quiet turns coming up.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 224 (1570 AD)
Kaladim finishes the Statue of Liberty, and we get another 35 free specialists, each producing two bonus hammers.


We had planned to swap out of the production civics this turn, and even slotted in Liberalism before Railroad, but decided to keep it for another turn; both OrgRel and UniversalSuffrage hammers are a great boon during another golden age turn. Our 36 cities have built 31 factories and 23 coal plants, and several cities have added grocers and cheap aqueducts to deal with the unhealthiness. Another 2 factories and 5 coal plants are due next turn, but there are some struggling new acqusitions that had more pressing matters to attend.

In other news, P&P declared war on Mjmd two turns ago, and while the war seems hot, the only city to fall so far is P&P's island formely held by Superdeath. Here's a small comparison between Rome and our empire:




Our main issue lies in science. We're behind on both tech and commerce, but swapping into Representation and FreeSpeech next turn should help out some. Wall Street and Oxford in Kaladim will also be a nice difference.