[Spoilers] AT Ponders the number 52

[AutomatedTeller]

from PBSpy, it was pretty clear that MrCairo took Weeks and his stack of elephants, cats, axes and impis made it pretty clear that he was going to take other cities.

It was a MASSIVE surprise to find him offering peace. I took it, of course. How could I not? Particularly as it was obvious that Jowy and Charriu were at peace, and Jowy was likely to come after me next.

This seems like a major mistake by MrCairo. Not that it matters in the long run for me. Weeks was one of my better commerce cities and Jowy is still running away with tech. Of course, now he can't stop me from pillaging my former cottages.

that said, I now have crosssbows and will have pikes and castles in a few.

[AutomatedTeller]

So, now what?



Well, gotta chop all the forests (red circle).   MrCairo can't attack me, so this is a good time.

I am going to be a dick and pillage my old village/towns.     No reason for MrCairo to get anything good out of it.  I can't pillage the fish, so I won't do that.

I'm debating putting down a city near the horse, at the place marked 5.  I don't think I will - that's 2 cats.

I will add in some walls to prepare for castles, which are a nice boost. 

I think spies are allowed, so I'll make one or two of those, as well.

Plan is to get a stack of 5 or 6 cats to defend against MrCairo and another stack against jowy.    I'd like to get up to 8 and enough HA to flank away his cats.  Nothing more demoralizing than lsoing your stack to cats and HA...

[AutomatedTeller]

I found a bug.

I cannot pillage tiles near Weeks. Fortunately, MrCairo is pillaging them for me, so he gets the gold.

My guess is that I can't because my culture is dominant on them, but I absolutely should be able to do so.

In other news - Jowy finished the Great Library. Also, I finished Alphabet and went to bulb Engineering... and it was compass. I forgot about that. So I created an academy and went to research CoL instead. *sigh*

[AutomatedTeller]

Well, I suspect I know who will kill me, or at least who should:

Mjmd has knights. With alphabet, I can see that he can research banking - now he can see that I don't have engineering and I certainly don't have elephants.

I honestly am not sure why MrCairo didn't push in, but he didn't.

I did switch to engineering. It will take a little while - i might build some wealth. WIthout pikes, I'm dead meat. I mean, I'm probably dead meat anyway.

[AutomatedTeller]

I picked up engineering. I'm not really sure why I've been left alone to do so - it makes me think that people don't see me as a threat.

Engineering means that I should be safe from elephants and relatively safe from knights - pikes are tough and castles are tough and you need a lot of seige to take them and seige counters seige.

My plan is to beeline rifles. But I'm behind and everyone else has economic advantages - protective gets more from trade routes and financial gets more from commerce and everyone is either financial and/or protective. Vs Jowy, I get a 10% boost to my units, where Jowy has a 30% better unit in maces - and that gap will just grow.

I may make an effort to take back Weeks and maybe burn another of mrcairo's cities.

[AutomatedTeller]

I took Weeks back.

That may not last long... Mr Cairo has an... impressive... stack of 1 movers.

I still don't know why I'm still in this game, but MrCairo should take me out in the next 20 turns or so. He's got maces and a lot more power. I might be able to smack his attack stack, but I dunno that I will. We'll see.

I do have LB now, so that helps a little. 6 turns to CS.

[AutomatedTeller]

Not only did MrCairo have a large stack of 1 movers, he had a pretty good sized stack of knights. He's up CS and Guilds, in other words.

I mean, I knew he was coming for me anyway, so I just popped off his war of conquest a few turns early and snagged 2nd half, i guess.

[AutomatedTeller]

So, where is this game going? I figure I'm out in 20-30 turns - once MrCairo takes a few cities, I expect Mjmd & Jowy to jump in.

Charriu is putting up a spirited, but ultimately doomed fight.

SD is basically conquered.

So, that leaves pindicator, MrCairo, Mjmd and Jowy.

I think there was a point where this game was Jowy's to lose, but I think he's missed that chance by not being able to take out Charriu, even with a significant portion of Charriu's army spanking me. Some of that, I'm sure, is on me, since my "invasion" collapsed so completely, but a lot of that was Jowy screwing with me. Had he not threatened WhiteKeys and not put that city where it snagged the corn, I would have left him alone and gone after Mjmd, allowing him to go fullthrottle after Charriu.

Personally, I think this game is Pindicator's to lose now. He's got the starting land of 2 2/3 players now, soon to be three and he's got 2 good economic traits and a useful defensive one. I expect once he finished off SD, he undergoes 30 turns of infrastructure and then kills MrCairo or Mjmd. Long term, he can outproduce Mjmd and out tech MrCairo.

[AutomatedTeller]

oops

[vanrober]

Maybe this should go to PB53 thread? Here even scooter can read xD