[SPOILERS] A new Thread [SPOILERS]

[flugauto]

Is Gawdzak number 1 in power?

[Mardoc]

Yes, he is, for the moment. Furungy's been building harder, though - recently surpassed us and is still rocketing upward. I've got screenies at home of his power and Gawdzak's. I'll post them if I find time.

But...dick's stacking up an awful lot of redcoats, which ought to shred Gawdzak's stack in friendly culture. Gawdzak's stack is mostly cannons and grens, which are murder on offense, but dick's not letting him have the offense. He's evacuating and whipping hard and putting together a pretty impressive stack himself. If I go in here, I think the main trick would be to wait until right after dick's counterattack.

Of course, 2metra's started making me question this again. He's begun streaming his cuirs to the east, poised to possibly hit Furungy. Furungy's made it to galleons and rifle/cav/gren/cannon, but Airship/infantry ought to still have a decent advantage if he's distracted. Cuirs, not so much, but 2metra's still got impressive numbers, which might be enough to make a difference if I'm going in myself.

In any event, we finished Assembly Line and have revolted into Theo/Slavery again to start stacking up infantry. Saving cash, not going to spend much of it until we're ready to upgrade everything at once. And we've nearly got a military railnet in place; got rails from Zanth to Gawdzak to halfway to Furungy. One or two more turns should see that finish, at which point the workers will disperse to railroad all the mines and put in branches and redunancy. So we're in good shape at the moment to pivot to whichever foe looks weaker.

Meanwhile, Zanth's gotten to Combustion. So he won't have to obsolete his Colossus, and we're going to have to follow him there to prevent him from rampaging on our coasts. I'm starting to consider at what point we've got to concede; I'm just not seeing much in the way of room to catch up to him anymore. We're pretty much going to be gambling everything on a successful war.

[flugauto]

Do you think Baii will interfere with the Gawdzak war?

[Mardoc]

Do you think Baii will interfere with the Gawdzak war?

No chance. He's almost always last to play the turn, and he makes the turns short.

On the other hand, Civstats sure makes it look like it's not my own choice anymore. Lots of score changes that have 'Furungy' and 'Mardoc' listed back to back. Not sure what the exact situation is, but I'm pretty sure we're fighting Rome whether or not I wanted to. And that it's not going to be particularly profitable.

Odds are that we'll win eventually, but it'll take long enough and be bloody enough to eliminate any chance of victory. Looks like he may have razed four+ cities of ours.

Ah, assumptions. In this case, that his army was intended as a defensive force against my aggression...

[flugauto]

Bloody hell.

[Mardoc]

Hey, there's other things than winning.

It was probably hopeless before this anyway, just can't compete with a good player who's also already taken two extra empires worth of land.

It'll be fun! No holds barred war to the death with a tech advantage. No need to constantly stress about whether we're spending too much like if we were warring for profit.

And...a lesson learned about MP civ in general and Furungy in particular.

[flugauto]

Yes, the game could have gone better, I messed it from the beginning. There is still the 2nd place to protect.

There is a UN diplo win. Maybe we could try it.

[spacetyrantxenu]

There is a UN diplo win. Maybe we could try it.

I double checked the bans, we didn't specifically say you couldn't do that, but...no. I'll file that under the same category as the AP cheese win, which we did ban. It's totally a fair victory condition in single player, but in multiplayer under the spirit of the rules we've been playing this game under, I couldn't credibly call that a valid victory condition for this game. As for protecting your position in the game, the way I see it the score is currently 6-0 Furungy. How are you going to even the score?

Exhibit 1. Illustration of fighting a war to the death with a tech advantage:

[Mardoc]

Yeah, I'm not going to try for diplo victory. Even if you win, it doesn't really feel like winning. And it's not like we keep score around here, so there's no point in winning for its own sake.

Bear in mind, eleven players entered this one, only one can win. Sometimes it's not what you did, it's what was going on halfway across the world. What's really important is playing as best you can and learning. And having fun.

As for that - well, that's my biggest frustration at the moment. I think everything up to the last 5-10 turns was really good, but I'm quite embarassed to be successfully sneak attacked when I had both an EP lead and Airships going full blast. Need to learn to be more paranoid!

[Mardoc]

And...civstats shows another war kicking off. Zanth's taken four cities off 2metraninja this turn. Presumably ex-Dutch...but I see no reason he should stop with just that. I'm guessing this is partially related to me being busy, partially payback that's been due. It means 2metra can't interfere in Rome-Ottoman, which means this is going to be a slog. It also means Zanth is going to keep pushing that snowball.

I haven't logged in to see the situation, but I still think it's clear. I expect to keep having fun and keep the turns moving, but...

I'm willing to concede to Zanth whenever we have a consensus on that

I kinda think I need to push some hurting on Furungy before he'll be willing to concede, so I doubt we end the game just yet. But at this point, Zanth's not going to be catchable.