[SPOILERS]Prep, Coin, Concede

[Gawdzak]

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

Hard to say, because I've met Ichabod relatively late and don't know too much about how his game went. But here's a few things I think he could have done better.

First is he really should have gotten CoL, he still doesn't have the tech. Looking at the maintenance cost of some of my cities, I have a hard time seeing courthouses not being good builds.

Second is he really should have started his two man golden age by now. He could have really snowballed out of control and gotten all the first to bonuses if he started a GA right after he finished off Jowy.

I'm slightly biases about the final point, but he really shouldn't have started a war against me over a size one island city. He's managed to irritate me while not gaining anything significant. I will remember this and will look for payback before the game is over.

Again, I don't have the full picture about his civ and the situation surrounding it, so this is only what I see from my perspective.

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.

Fair enough, I know my wars probably set my tech pace back 20-30 turns. Although I would argue that the general lack of early game luxuries probably played a small part in it as well. The capitals aren't particularly strong since there's only 2 riverside grasslands and the food resources are all 4 food. However, I agree with you the players are definitely more responsible for the tech pace rather than the map.

[GermanJoey]

Those are both good points too. The lower luxuries (which makes the fact that we had random picks a little fairer to Cha) and the weak capitals both hurt the tech pace a bit too. Well, sometimes the pace is quick, sometimes it's not!

[Gawdzak]

I knew BGN would try something like this:




You may recall in an earlier post that BGN had a stack of horse archer that I never got to finish off, and here they are. He manage to go around the inland sea through Nyle's and Brick's territory to try and hit me. I was getting suspicious a few turns ago when I lost sight of his HA stack and pulled a few units back to defend the other side. Managed to kill off everything with the loss of one HA and one mace. Now it's just down to logistics to get to his island cities.

Domestically, I'm building a lot of wealth to get to Nationalism in 2 turns, Taj in 3 with my GE. I figured every turn that I'm not in Merc is a turn I'm missing out on 50+ rep specialists. Also Cairo got to Guilds, quite scary. I really need to dodge an attack from him in order have a chance here.

[Gawdzak]

Good turn.







Mercantilism nets me something like 300 beakers per turn. Got into Nationhood as well, because the civic cost alone saves me like 60 gold per turn compared to Bureaucracy and a few cities could use the happiness from all the war wariness from fighting BGN. Drafting is not too relevant but hopefully it would discourage Cairo from attacking me considering I'm out of slavery.

Tech path should be Paper -> Monarchy -> Feudalism -> Guilds -> Banking.

I'm going to go Paper first to build the Sankore, and get to Emancipation unlocked by Banking at the end of the golden age. If Ichabod dallies too long I might even take a shot at Lib.

[GermanJoey]

Damn, now that is one helluva huge increase in income... looks like your land should do really well in Emancipation too.

[Gawdzak]

Rolled an artist from this city, which would cause me to give up on Lib.




If I had gotten the scientist, I had it set it up so I could double bulb Education and 1 turn Lib just 1 turn before Ichabod could get Lib, and I would be able to get to Banking and swap to Emancipation on the last turn of my golden age.

However, since I missed the roll on my second scientist shown above, I would have to go for a coin flip on Lib and I wouldn't be able to get to Banking and make the Emancipation swap unless I win the coin flip and Libs Feudalism......

I think the swap to Emancipation is just too important not to miss, so I decided to give up on Lib in the end.

For those that don't follow the mod changes, this version of Emancipation gives 1 food to cottages, 1 commerce to cottages, hamlets and villages, 1 hammer to farms and 2 commerce to mines.

Here's a tech screen, I'm going to be the sixth person to get to Guilds. Brick still doesn't have Math for some reason.




Domestically, I recently built the Sankore and the Hagia Sophia, I want to pick up Spiral Minaret at some point. Dreylin declared on Brick with a small stack of knights, I'm going to declare on Brick next turn to hopefully take our border city.

[GermanJoey]

Lookin' pretty good... how many religious buildings do you have so far?

[Gawdzak]

Lookin' pretty good... how many religious buildings do you have so far?

Shows 12 monasteries and 10 temples so far.




Declared on Brick.




Making the swap to Emancipation next turn, looking forward to seeing the benefits.

[Gawdzak]

Changed civics to Emancipation and Org. Rel from Caste and Pacifism. Turns out Emancipation is preeeetty good:



Ichabod didn't take Lib this turn, he instead teched Compass and his research is now showing Optics, obviously looking to Lib Astro. Holy shit, he's got to be the greediest player I've ever played against.

Education is bulbed, let's see who wins the coin flip.

Btw, can someone confirm that a first to bonus on the same turn is coded as a random outcome instead of having anything to do with turn order in pitboss?

[Gawdzak]

OMFG




Won the coin flip! I feel bad for Ichabod for getting screwed by the RNG but he knew the risks that he was taking.