[SPOILERS] A new Thread [SPOILERS]

[flugauto]

BaII has been friendly with us this game, his land is culturally squeezed, he has a standoff with Zanth/Gavagai and he has a Defensive Pact with Gawdzak who can intervene and cause a dogpile. Furungy has more and better land, he has a conflict on the other side and no allies. Why not Furungy?

[Mardoc]

Oh, perhaps I expressed myself badly. What I meant was, at this point I'm willing to consider attacking each of the neighbors, plus Zanth (because he's winning). BaII's target status has changed from 'no chance' to 'probably not'. Meanwhile, Furungy's gone from 'yep' to 'probably'.

If we attacked today, Furungy would be the only choice. Because I'm thinking our attack is more likely to be 20 turns from now...I think Furungy's 'more and better land' may let him keep up close enough to be non-profitable. Right now he's got Knights, longbows, muskets, Nationalism, and is researching Chemistry - basically even on miltech. By the time we're ready, he ought to have at least one of Rifles, Cannons, or Grenadiers, possibly all three. I also expect him to finish his conflict with TBS - probably by winning. That's a tough nut to crack. It still might be doable, particularly if we keep the Astro advantage, but it's not going to be easy.

Now, we do still have a significant tech lead on Furungy, it's just mostly non-military techs. Probably that plus us building infrastructure while he builds a medieval army for TBS, will let us still be able to take him, even if we have to wait for Infantry. But...at this point we need to wait and see what happens in the next 20 turns.

[flugauto]

NOBODY IS SAFE. 20 turns till then.

[Mardoc]

Good news! We have oil!

Better news! Furungy's pushed himself back up a bit on our target list! If he's still going to have an unfriendly neighbor, he'll be easier to handle.




Here's, presumably, why he made peace. Although I note he's still got more Power than we do .



I figure I should show off other parts of our lands. Here's the workshop of the empire. We're working most of those, too, on top of most of the coastline




Four turns to Communism, should pair nicely with four turns to an unknown Great Person. We ought to be able to hit the Golden Age and the revolt all in one turn, which will hopefully lead to being underestimated when we come back out of the GA. Oxford is due in five - not quite as perfect, but the best we can do.



In other news, we've finally achieved full saturation on our religion . Not going to be leaving OrgRel just yet, but now we've the option of making full use of religious civics. Full saturation...until our next opportunity to expand, of course . That said, I note that most of our neighbors are Confucian - probably similar reasoning to why we grabbed it.


All that leads to still dominant demos - albeit not enough of a lead to feel comfortable. Still, #1 GNP on breakeven science is definitely a warm fuzzy feeling.

[Mardoc]

Oh, and Furungy's finished Chemistry and begun on MilScience. I'm still going for Communism, but I think I'm going to have to delay Physics after all. Hopefully Zanth doesn't race for it.

Still not sure which military tech is most urgent, but we definitely need something that can stand up to Grenadiers. Just in case Furungy's had enough of TBS. It'll probably be Nationalism-Rifling, followed up with Military Tradition - that'll give us fast Rifles and fast Cavalry, if we should need it. Hopefully we can keep enough of an eye on Zanth to still beat him to the Physics Great Scientist, but aside from that, all Physics offers us is Airships. Doesn't do us much good to have perfect info if we don't also have a military that can take advantage of it.

[flugauto]

The east looks beautiful.

[Mardoc]

Just imagine how beautiful it'll be when all those workshops are food-neutral!

2metra's whipped 13 times so far this turn. He's got to have something big in his queue. First guess: he's coming back for round 2 against TBS. Second guess: he sees that slowcheetah's crumbling and is trying to get something that could stop Zanth if Zanth chooses to keep going.

But...I bounce off him and he's still in game, so I probably won't get to actually play the turn until tonight.

[flugauto]

Wow, 13. What techs has he?

[Mardoc]

I'm not certain, I haven't been keeping track of 2metra since he's all the way around the world from us. I took a brief glance this morning, he's got Guilds and doesn't have Engineering, so my guess is those are all Knights. He had a lot of HA sitting around, too, which he could have upgraded - I suspect we're going to see a really steep spike from him in Power.

Will try to do a world tech survey sometime in the next few turns. Pretty sure it's going to find that Zanth is still way way ahead, then there's a group in 2nd, then there's some real bad stragglers. But details would be useful, especially of our neighbors who might be invasion targets.

[Mardoc]

Played this morning. Furungy's got about 15 Knights that showed up a bit west of his border cities with us. Not sure what to think of that - it's enough to take a couple Ottoman cities before I mobilize, but it's not a serious threat compared to our production potential. Maybe they're just there to attempt to deter me from thinking of going Rome-ward: he only showed up with them after I put an axe into his lands to watch for something just like them. I'm building a handful of Jannissaries, though, to stick in the border cities and at least be a speedbump if he decides to come for me now. Got ~five cities on military production now, instead of just leaning on the Heroic Epic. Probably going to add Pacifism to the State Property switcheroo, now that we're not on as many buildings.

It also means that I've decided on Rifling next. Rifles will stop Knights - and even Cuirs, should he research MilTrad - cold. And those horses are what I really worry about, at least on the Rome front. After Rifles - options open. Nationalism for MOAR RIFLES, or MilTrad to turn my own Knight stack into Cavalry, or maybe back to dual-use items like Physics. Alternately - the only thing that'll make me feel comfortable with the Zanth front is cannon. Really, I want All Of The Above, but still have to come up with a priority list somehow.

Hopefully I've got time for a full-up report tomorrow and Sunday. Assuming we're not at war, I'm really looking forward to seeing the effect of Communism on our empire.