[Spoiler] Fintourist loses his multiplayer virginity

[Fintourist]

Fortification bonus increases at start of your turn if the unit did not move the previous turn. Same for healing. You're able to promote units immediately that gained enough experience for promotion during someone else's turn.

Thanks Noble! That's very important piece of information. This means that my top defenders will only get a 5 % fortification bonus, but that's enough for skewing the odds on my side. The promotion mechanic is very good news, otherwise Azza would have gotten an unfair chance to heal-promote and attack again, before I get a chance to react. Barring very bad luck I should be safe for the next few turns. Now if Azza attacks and has average luck I might get a chance to heal-promote myself and kill his wounded units.

[Fintourist]

Turn 127

I should go to bed, but this game has reached an extremely exciting point (at least for me) so I have to report.. I wish Azza and Viqsi would not need 24h each to play their turns. Anyways there were three major things that took place this turn:

1. Azza did not attack!

His aggression caused me to whip some units, but apparently that was enough to convince him to stop the attack. Maybe he saw the galley that kind of threated one of his border cities. Anyways, if he had attacked the odds would have been on my side, but I'm still happy that I don't have to take the risk of going down because of an unlucky roll with ancient units.. Azza seems to be heading south with his stack and I expect him to secure and settle the other 2-fish site, which should probably belong to Hydra or Viqsi. But since they are not expanding...

2. Liberalism race will be decided next turn! (not this turn)
Sareln researched education this turn and has Liberalism selected with 2 turns left showing, which means that with current pace he will get Liberalism EOT129. I could have finished Liberalism this turn if I had set 100 % research and built wealth in several cities. So why not? Why take the risk?

• I do trust my math. Sareln has currently an enormous GNP of 915, but it's simply not enough! He is really pushing towards Liberalism, but I don't think he can accelerate further. Sareln's MFG is only average despite the golden age and his crop yield has plummeted, which tells me that there are lots and lots of representation scientists at work. Liberalism costs over 1800 beakers in this game and that's quite an amount to get in one turn without bulbs and collecting overflow. Sareln has his overflow from education, but even though he would have been 1 beaker away from finishing the education this turn I still don't think his research power would be enough for 1-turning Lib. Remember that GNP of 915 still includes a bunch of culture (over 100 surely) and Sareln is building a lot of wealth meaning that the cost side of GNP is almost neglectable.
  
• If I would have finished Lib this turn, Sareln could use his research and overflow next turn for Nationalism and then finish the tech couple turns later with continued research push. Now I'm hoping that he puts over 1000 beakers into Liberalism in T128 and in the beginning of T129 he finds himself with 0 gold in the pocket and 0 beaker teched towards Nationalism. I guess that he can still beat me to Taj (my capital has lower production than his and yeah, IND bonus still counts), but at least I'm forcing him to neglect military techs such as Astronomy & Gunpowder if he wants the wonder. I want Sareln to sacrifice long-term growth and waste beakers on currently-almost-useless Liberalism as much as possible.
  

3. I settled my 15th city this turn!
Current city counts:
Me 15
Azza 14
Sareln 13
Viqsi 10
Hydra 8
Last turn I settled "Tennis is a.." and this turn ".. boring theme" was founded. Those sites put me again below 50 % break-even rate, but luckily I finally finished market in the capital (and also my 3rd courthouse), which improve the situation. Now I really need Janissaries, because if I want to settle any further quality sites they are so far away that I need forever to bring reinforcements even with my circumnavigation boats.

And let's conclude with the pic that illustrates the last two points:



I can't wait to see the next save.............

Will it be or

[Old Harry]

Suggested names:
Not serious
Itchy bum
Cliff Richard
Sore neck
Child labour

[Fintourist]

Turn 128

I got it!



You can see that Sareln did put his overflow into Liberalism and came exactly that one turn short. That is of course perfect for me, but I feel a bit sorry for him. Losing the race by a single turn must be unbelievably frustrating. Doing a detailed C&D for the first part of the game and then having full research visibility did really help me to control the race to Liberalism and also allowed me to divert to steal that Music artist. Although I did not think that the Lib race would be so close. The reason for that was of course Sareln's GA and focused tech push. Here are the current EOT128 demos:



Look at that crazy GNP That is Sareln with 1,26 tech modifier (known-tech bonus from me) in Golden Age, with Represenation, GLH, Shrine, a whole lot of Wealth builds and of course in full tech mode. Btw, I'm quite happy with my food lead.

Sareln's research push is so nicely visible in the graphs that I have to show it:



Yeah, that's a spike.
However I guess nobody has ever had such a low production with 13 cities in golden age:



Here is the food graph also showing Sareln's push, which dropped him temporary to the same level with Hydra:



So what's next. Let's get Gunpowder so that I can protect my cities and then Astronomy so that I can see if there is anything worth settling to my NW. If there isn't (and maybe even if there is) someone will get boated.

Btw, thanks Harry for those name suggestions! I will use them!

EDIT: Somehow the screenshots don't seem to be working. We'll see if that get fixed by itself..

[Old Harry]

Those graphs are crazy! Must be gutting that he's managed to do that and still missed out on Liberalism Nice work!

He'll be getting stacks of great people out though - can he bulb Nationalism or do you think you've got Taj in the bag?

[Fintourist]

Yeah, they are crazy! I haven't checked the bulb lists yet, but I do not believe that Sareln can easily get a nationalism bulb organized. However, if he is willing to keep going with pure tech focus I expect him to finish nationalism at the end of his GA, meaning eot133. That should be probably enough for beating me to Taj, since I don't really have any nice production sites or marble or IND bonus...

More to this later, now work...

[Fintourist]

Couple of comments as a continuation from the last post (before opening the new save and seeing what really is happening).

1. Sareln has already produced three great persons in this game (Shrine, Mids, GA) and therefore getting new GP is becoming expensive. I'm sure that he will get couple completed soonish, but I do not await to see them in masses. I do believe that a significant amount of GPP will go into cities, which will never produce great people.

2. Unfortunately I haven't prepared any great overflow tricks for my Taj build apart from a small amount saved after finishing market. They simply weren't too practical in this situation and I also kind of want to take most out of my size 17 bureaucracy capital, which is also the only place that has enough production for even trying to build the wonder.

3. Actually I'm not even 100 % sure I should try building Taj (it is of course worth the hammers if I get it), I will do small calculations when I open the save and see how Sareln has reacted.

4. Hydra told in the banted thread that he has research visibility on me, which I suspected. I had noticed that he was close to the limit. I wonder if I should try to take it away or just concentrate on others.

Now I'll go jogging and then it's time for T129!

[Old Harry]

You should take it away with galleons and maces.

[Fintourist]

Turn 129

You should take it away with galleons and maces.

That could work!

Just a mini-update this time:

• It seems that Sareln finished Liberalism anyways (or some cheap tech, because he does not have tech selected: I did not bother with GNP Analysis)
  
• Sareln's GNP dropped to half while food and MFG stats are back to "normal" GA levels
  
• Sareln birthed a Great Prophet.
  
• I started with Taj, but building the wonder with 13 base hammer per turn will take forever.. (Read over 20 turns)
  
• If Sareln gets a GE or seems to make some kind of quick Nationalism and 2-person GA boosted Taj production I might still stop building, accept the fail gold and start an university. We'll see what happens..
  
• Azza produced his first maceman last turn (I can't remember if I reported that already)
  
• Azza and me are having a mexican standoff in the west. I have 3 triremes and a galley. He has 2+2. We are just staring each other
  
• My major worry is that I'm out of sensible expansion room while Sareln has only two cities less and still seems to have room for several new cities (I see already three quality sites and assume that there are more to his east).
  
• Gunpowder comes in EOT132 I believe. I might get a quick 1-turn Compass if I feel safe and want to start a harbor somewhere. I have time to check tomorrow, because at least in Finland it will be a holiday
  

Feel free to request screenshots or something else if interested.

[Fintourist]

Turn 130 & State of the world

Again we have reached a nice round turn number. Unfortunately I have stopped doing C&D so I won't be able to provide nice graphs. Here are the EOT130 demos though:



GNP: Sareln is now back to normal rhytmus and is now running his research with a light deficit. Of course the effect of GA is still very visible in his GNP. My own GNP represents the break-even rate. Azza, Viqsi and Hydra all have GNPs close to 300.

MFG: Sareln and Azza are leading this stat while Hydra is at the bottom. I'm still utilizing quite a lot of whipping and it shows in my tile selections

Food: Thanks to two new cities my lead is comfortable, although it is likely to decrease during the next 20 turns as I have ran out of room. Azza is rival best, Sareln and Viqsi both have crop yields of somewhat over 200 and Hydra's situation is quite weak.

Power: Azza is the rival best and has forced me to build also some units. Other three are still kind of gambling that they won't get attacked..

Overall rankings: Me and Sareln are clearly in the tech lead and have strongest positions. I feel comfortable that even though Sareln would launch a 2-person GA, win Taj and thus enjoy 24 turns of further Golden Age, he can't run away too far. I will be able to draft Janissaries and build Galleons soon enough that I can fight with tech parity and cause him trouble if his economy becomes superior. Currently I still have significantly more pop to compensate for his wonder collection. It is difficult to forecast how the situation will look in 20 or 30 turns. Completely different for sure.

Azza is clearly in the third place. He has expanded the most after me, but his problem is the weaker economy. However, if me and Sareln cripple each other Azza might be able to gain territory either by attacking me or consuming Hydra's land. As I have seen Azza doing in some past games, he expanded in a kind of risky way and settled cities with low defenses. He has got called on that in some previous games, but this time the map has been big enough for that tactic to actually work. I don't how his other neigbor, Hydra, has assessed the situation, but at least I have been too busy just settling my own land.

Viqsi is in the 4th place. I feel she could do better if she would just keep expanding a bit. It's already forever since she settled her 10th and last city. The worst part of this is that she gives Sareln a complete freedom to settle the islands that should be contested. This is really a major factor that will compromise my position in this game..

Hydra is in the last place and still has only 8 cities. I just don't know whe he does not expand. I have stolen one city site that clearly should be his, but unfortunately the area between us does not really have any other quality sites available. His only island city was also settled into my direction...

Ok, if anybody has read this far, great! Here is the northern part of my area:

I could go ahead and settle the western part of that island close to Sareln, but it does not have a single resource. The eastern part of the island would be completely undefendable (~15 tiles from my core and 5 from Sareln's). I guess I could settle that 1 tile island and get that Crabs resouce, but I doubt it will be worth it..

So here's my core:

Current Taj ETA is 155 Yeah...
I can shave a turn maybe even two of if I doublewhip a temple, or 4-whip a university. We'll see if I do something like that. Of course I can also whip Taj to completion and thus I can get it done EOT14X. But we'll see what happens.. Still 20 turns is such a long time that Sareln should have plenty of time to race me.
However, as you can see, he has Gunpowder currently selected and has actually put some beakers into it, which can mean:

• He thinks that I can build Taj fast and does not even try it
  
• He knows that my build will be super slow and he knows he can afford some side steps (maybe counting on GE)
  
• At this point he surely knows that I have research visibility on him and that is just some kind of a decoy before an actual Nationalism push
  

My western lands:

No room for settling here. My next expansion step will be taking that stupid city NW of Tipsy Time from Azza. I don't know when it will happen, but surely before he can build redcoats.

And finally the contested center of the map:


I think Azza will settle a new city next to the western fish resource. That site should belong to Hydra, but I guess he has nothing to say about it. Azza has those 5 Axes, Chariot and a Spear, which were heading towards me to protect the site. That stack can pretty much match Hydra's whole military currently..

About war, I will surely build a small invasion stack in the next part of the game, but which one of the following options should be my first target:

• Weakening Sareln by razing a city or two
  
• Capturing that annoying city of Azza that should be mine
  
• Capturing one or two cities from Hydra, who is the weakest opponent
  
• Something else
  

I guess that's enough