[SPOILERS]Prep, Coin, Concede

[Gawdzak]

Ichabod got MoM from Jowy. Did Jowy even start a golden age this game? What a troll, then again it's Jowy...

Ichabod also bulbed something, thank god it's not Philosophy.

With all the units in enemy territory, I'm now going into the red. Decisive battle coming up in 2 or 3 turns. No matter how the battle goes, it should improve the economy just by reducing unit costs at least...

[Gawdzak]

BGN attacked out last turn all his collateral. I spent the turn bombing the city defenses and heal.

This turn:




Killed everything after sending in the cats.




Demos after losing about 120k power over the last two turns.




Will post a power graph after it updates.

BGN's still got 8 cities and a stack of 10 horse archer left that I can see. Hopefully he's got no more iron, so I don't have to deal with Chokonus or pikes if he ever gets there.

[Gawdzak]

I'm pretty sure he could have held actually if he didn't throw away all his chokunus and horse archers attacking out. I wouldn't have had enough collateral for all his units then and my horse archers would never get decent odds if his spears took less collateral damage.

[Gawdzak]

Got a Great Merchant, so started a golden age to swap to Rep, Caste and OR.

Managed to found Christianity, and going to start the AP next turn.

Still working on finishing off BGN, who's been harassing me non-stop at sea. I had to dry whip a scout in one of my cities in order to not lose it.

I should be able to get CS and Machinery in the next 3 turns, which gets me maces that should keep me safe enough for now considering my whole continent is relatively backwards.

After that I have a plan for the Taj...

[Gawdzak]

Turn 150




I count 16 monsters.

[DMOC]

Looks like things are going well! I'm impressed, especially after the two early wars you had to face.

If you get the time, an update would be great, along with your assessment of who is most likely to win this game.

[GermanJoey]

how's your tech rate holdin' up after the GA?

[Gawdzak]

Since you guys asked, here's a update:

The war with BGN continues, he's abandoned his mainland cities and 4 island cities left, seen below:




Pretty bloody war so far, expected since I had a tech disadvantage when the war started (he had Machinery for Cho-ko-nu way before me) and we were at a similar city count number (I had 14 when the war started and he had 13).




I manage to get to Theocracy and completed the AP at the capital, I'm now spreading Christianity and building AP monasteries and temples. I'm now in Rep, Slavery, Bureau, and Org.Rel.

Here's the capital:




Lots of debatable tile improvement choices for sure. I could have farm the riverside grassland to irrigate the corn but didn't want to bulldoze the village. I also cottaged some of the hills. Now I'm windmilling a few of the mine to help growth.

Demo:




The tech rate is a perpetual headache, right now I do about +100 gold per turn on 0% science without any wealth building and about 700 beakers per turn on 100% science at -450 gold per turn. Hopefully Merc will improve that dramatically once I get to Nationalism. Part of the reason is that I still have a couple of BGN's cities coming out of revolt, all being size 1 and without any captured buildings, so they are taking sometime to get going.

Off the top of my head here's a city count, doing this by memory so might be slightly inaccurate:

Ichabod: 33
Gawdzak: 27
Dreylin: 21
Cairo: 20
AT: 17
Nyles: 17
Molach: 15
Yuri: 11
Brick: 7
BGN: 4
Jowy: 0
Adrien: unknown

Ichabod is of course the big favourite to win, he's also got FIN/ Colossus/ MoM going forward and he's got more cities and more techs. I think he's got at least 50% chance to win.

That is not to say I don't have good things going for me at the moment, I have the Pyramids and the AP and the rest of my continent is looking rather weak outside of Cairo. I would put my chances to win at 30%.

The others I put at a combined 20% chance to win, with Dreylin the leading the pack.

I'm not sure whether it's the map or just everyone playing poorly, but the tech rate is SLOW. Still no one have a Renaissance tech on T158, and only two or three people have Guilds so far.

Right now the plan is just to get to Nationalism, build the Taj and take someone else out with Cuirassier/Knights/drafted units.

Even though he's the game leader, Ichabod isn't playing particularly well, so anything can still happen. Feel free to ask any questions.

[Alhazard]

What do you think are some of Ichabod's mistakes? Thanks.

[GermanJoey]

I'm not sure whether it's the map or just everyone playing poorly, but the tech rate is SLOW. Still no one have a Renaissance tech on T158, and only two or three people have Guilds so far.

Hmmm, I'm not sure there's anything with the map that would slow down the pace, as it's pretty lush, lotta rivers... it's probably because all y'all seem to be more into crackin' skulls than crackin' into a good book, so to speak.