This game feels very impish

[Zed-F]

What do you need to get there?

[The Black Sword]

If he has 0 GP then I'm pretty sure I can beat him to Lib, if he has 1 then I'm not sure what happens, if he has 2+ then it is probably his. Although using the 2nd GS is very inefficent, only getting 1400b from the bulb instead of 2400b. So he might not want to do that. 3 GP would mean he can both bulb and golden age.

[Mardoc]

Thanks for the kind words, it makes me want to update more often.

Oh, well, then I should also mention this is one of the few threads on RB where I read every single post, carefully.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Checking in to say that I am also enjoying your reporting, as well as the detailed analysis. It's not often you get detailed wonder build plans, bury the lede on war declaration, and still manage to convince (at least some of) your readers that you've got your priorities right. GL.

[The Black Sword]

Well, since I promised more updates in return for encouragement.

Mack threw his golden age this turn.

I entertained some wild ideas. If I really put everything on wealth building I could:

1t Paper
Put Edu a bulb away from completion
Get a full turn overflow from Priesthood, birth the GS end of turn
Bulb Edu, put the overflow into Lib, should be enough to 1t it.

That would be 4t Liberalism, and on the final turn it would look like I hadn't even completed Education yet.

I think Mack is doing something similar though. I have 2t research unaccounted for him after finishing Paper(1t was Meditation). I suspect he has Education at 99% completion.(I have to believe that the GLib holder got his Edu bulb). This turn he goes 100% overflow and he could 1t Econ if he saw someone really chase him. But there's no-one, so he can 1t Philo and on the 3rd turn take Lib instead. He might delay one turn to save some wealth building, but with his 1000hpt I think this plan is well within his capabilities if he sees a threat. And despite the subterfuge of my plan, I think a massive GNP on the demos screen and him seeing me research Priesthood, he'd smell a rat.

So I'll just console myself with Constitution and build the Paya to get into Free Religion also. 


Not sure how I make up ground on Mack though. I'm surrounded by a bunch of tough neighbours. The smallest is Dreylin but he has the 3rd biggest army in the world. Looking at the other half of the mainland it goes:

OH - Food - Xenu - Food - Mack

where Food are civs with less than 20 cities.

[The Black Sword]

So far Mack has held to my timetable, finished Edu, 1 turned Philo, we'll see next turn whether he did indeed 1t Liberalism also. I think the demo screen is a fair summary.



He's broken naufrager's resistance and is really picking up some juicy cities right now. I've been saving gold but I've decided it's worth the wealth building to 4t Constitution from here. Meanwhile, Astro lands are quite tense.



I got the Eastern city by turn order, he has a settler and a mace on the silver. I was actually on dumping a settler near the rice south of that next turn, his city must be quite new since I didn't have vision last time I sailed by. They appear to be racing north also. You can see on the signs how I think the border will settle out. They might be able to push their front city 1 tile forward, but for such a city surrounded on 3 sides the hill plant has to be tempting. Hard to see them beating my T163 settle dates for the other locations. I'm slightly unhappy about the whole thing, but then I imagine they are too. I wonder if it was a mistake to settle the original spot on the northern coast, and I might have been able to get this inland wheat city instead. Here's the dotmap for the area behind:



The barb archer might be annoying and also note the rare mapmaking error - Flood plains grassland. All these spots will be settled inside the next 5 turns. I doubt I'll try run any settlers past them for more mainland spots, but there is a small and lush island to the south east of this continent that I'm thinking about.

[DaveV]

Since you're number 2, you try harder?

[The Black Sword]

Mack Libbed Steel. I'm a bit disappointed honestly, taking Mil Science and revolting to Police State sounds a lot cooler. Anyway, it may be that I underestimated the denial value of Liberalism. I could probably have won it if I'd delayed the lucrative Banking line even further. Something to consider when I have a chance.

I'm trying to decide how your analogy fits this scenario Dave, I promise not to kill my victims slowly, I can't afford to?

[The Black Sword]

End of my golden age. I switched into this a few turns back:



Didn't feel like I'd be building enough units for Vassalage to beat Nationhood over the next 30ish turns. I just picked up Gunpowder and will probably do a fair bit of drafting to make up the hammer differential with Mack.

End of GA demos:



Mack's GA finished a turn or two ago. Interestingly he didn't get into Free Market in time. I guess this means he'll go for a quick third GA and hit Representation too. I'm not fully convinced by this strategy, since my population(and probably his too) is going to about double in the next 30t, so there's a fair sized benefit to be able to hold the golden age. Also he's losing out on something like 200bpt every turn he's not in Free Market, so that's cutting in to his Steel profits at least.

I found this continent south of the conflict zone with Commodore:


Mack's borders are just below Gavs and he has privateers and frigates in the area. The land is good and every city here is a 2 city swing with Mack, so I'm racing down here as well. Like the recently settled OH continent I have a galleon chain set up and I imagine it will fill up rather quickly now. It will be interesting to see how aggressive Mack is, since this is the first area we'll really border. He'll have an advantage particularly with the Naval units if he wants to push it. On the other hand, an escalating war between us seems like the only way for the pack to catch up. I'll bulb and get Chemistry pretty quickly, but you can't galleon chain frigates into an area.

Apart from that I'm really floundering on what to do. I've got a fair bit of military sitting around in places where I don't really need that much defenses. I really should just gather it together and hit someone. Who?

-Mack's shrine?
-Mack's Astro lands?
-Comm?
-Dreylin?
-GJ?
-DZ?


None of them seem like a clear choice. I should really pick something soon because it should inform pretty much every other choice I make. The game is just so big now though, it's tempting to happily micro-manage my cities, get tired after that and not bother to figure out the macro game.

Filled up OH continent(these things really need better names):

[The Black Sword]

If everyone else has conceded to Mack then I will too. Not really fair to keep the game running for me if I can't keep up with the turn pace. If not, I might withdraw the concession in a couple of weeks.