[Spoilers] Autonomous Bureaucratic Barons Alliance

[Mr. Cairo]

Finally got graphs on mackoti:

That's a very big spike...


Pretty even in that, good...


Kinda expected, being IMP and all...





Well that changes some of my plans. Here's an overview of the Alliance:

mack is to the North.

Originally I was going to build a Barracks after the Axe and a Worker after the Spear, but I've decided to get one more of each beforehand. I'd say I'm unlikely to be a target of mack's, since I'm PRO, but I still need to respond appropriately to mack's power.
I'll have a settler over on spot "2" in a few turns, and with two Workers helping, it'll be up and running pretty quickly, although it'll be pretty slow growing, since I'll want its second pop to work the Gems. Meanwhile I'm going to build a few more cottages, especially around the cap, to build an economy that can support another round of settlers.

I also noticed I've got a trade connection to mack now, so I can see what he has:

Kinda annoyed to see the Silver, since I only have those Gems by "2" as Mining happy, and it's not exactly a nice spot to settle early.

Diplo screen also has some info for me:

naufragar is at war with TBS, which tells me roughly where TBS probably is, and that he may not be too focused in my direction, so I'd like to get a couple more cities out there to establish a favourable border.

Here's the demos:

[Mr. Cairo]

Well, I've moved up to 2nd in power, so that's good. Got Maths as well, so better chops, and there's a lot of forest around.

Internationally, Civstats tells me OT4E attacked GermanJoey, for whatever that's worth to me right now.

Also figured I'd do my belated player/civ report on Rusten, who I met earlier.
Rusten - Cyrus (Cha/Imp) of Arabia
Cyrus, CHA/IMP
Big rex-er combo, and he does have 8 cities (2 more than me), I've already spoken of these traits in other reports, so I won't repeat myself here.

Arabia (Camel Archer, Madrassa)
These are just upgrades to a building and unit everyone builds. They're not flashy or game-breaking, but still better than Knights and Libraries at no extra cost. In fact, the Madrassa is 20 hammers cheaper than the Library, and the Camel Archer doesn't require Iron. I'd have kept Arabia if I got it instead of Russia.

Rusten 
First time pitboss, but registered since 2009. Complete unknown for me, but his play has impressed so far, getting a good number of cities while also jumping to an early score lead with the Oracle and Statue of Zeus. Hopefully he didn't build those only to be quickly conquered by someone else.

[Mr. Cairo]

More wars:
Commodore attacked Rusten the turn after i mentioned I hoped that wouldn't happen, perhaps the RB tradition of novices building wonders next to aggressive veterans continues....
Also, WilliamLP auto-razed one of Elkad's cities.

[Mr. Cairo]

OK, what the hell is up with mackoti screwing around with the turn timer. For weeks now he's consistently waited to be the last one to hit end turn. He logs in before then, whips cities and conquers cities, but still waits until everyone else has hit end turn to log in and end his own turn.

I was under the impression that these kind of bullshitty clock games were against the spirit of Realms Beyond. I don't have any immediate plans to attack mackoti, but I probably will in the future, and asking him to end his turn before I play mine or even just waiting to try and force him to end his turn will give away my intentions.

This is really starting to piss me off....

[Mr. Cairo]

Update:
Here's the Empire:

Just got a GS and built an Academy in the cap. My plans currently are to build mainly workers and settlers, and only a few military units.

Here's the border with mack:

his empire seems to be quite spread out. Naufragar is to the East. 

My direction of expansion:


The South is pretty damn marginal, but the land beyond it is lusher, and I'd want the dry area between them to springboard expansion/conquest. The West is better, and filled with barbs that are mainly getting in 2mn's way.

Here's a closer look at the West:



Demos:

My GNP is the only "good" thing right now. I need more cities are more cottages.

I decided to get Currency before Alphabet since I can only OB with mack (he has Sailing) and that seems unlikely rn.

Rusten and mack made peace, I think mack took/burned a few cities but Rusten continues to get wonders (Hindu shrine this turn) and found cities, so it's hard to say just how much the war set back Rusten. TBS got the Hanging Gardens.

[Mr. Cairo]

Long time no report, but languishing near the bottom while bordering two of the top civs does that...

Anyway, here's my current empire, pretty much expanded to the limit without conquest:


sorry for all the messages to myself cluttering up the map.

The main things to note are how dry my land is, much less lush than previous RB maps, although idk if that's true for the entire map. (How I wish I was FIN, look at all those non-riverside cottages). I also only had a far-away plains gem (next to Fernando in the SE) as an early commerce boost, while most of my neighbors had both silver and gems from what I could tell 
That combined with panic of finding myself neighboring a mackoti far far ahead in power, ended up really crashing my economy. Now that I've got currency and alphabet for OB, I'm doing a lot better. Still small fry.

Neighboring "small fry" Adrien looks to be promoting himself to contender status with a HA attack on other neighbor 2mn:


I don't know if I'll be able to grab a piece of the 2mn pie, but I would like a city or two. If not, I might have to risk it and attack Adrien while he's busy fighting a desperate 2mn. I don't have HA's (and I probably wont for a while), so I'm not sure how much I can actually do. Maybe if I limit myself to just taking a few ex-2mn cities near my border, Adrien won't take it too badly    

Demos, I guess:



Power graph:

[Mr. Cairo]

mack just revolted to mercantilism. So I expect to die to Knights really any time now.

[Magic Science]

Thanks for the report, I am reading along. I would be your teammate like you are for me in Pitboss 40, but I have been spoiled on this game for a while now, so I can't. Sorry .

[Mr. Cairo]

no worries , and thanks for dropping by, although I'm not sure how interesting the rest of my game here is going to be.

[Mr. Cairo]

Time for another update.

I've been attacking 2metraninja the last little while, taking advantage of more determined attacks by Adrien (and others I think) to snipe a few cities. Here is the result:


I just took Tlacopan, and founded So Long on the spot of an Aztec city Adrien burned early on. So far this war has cost me 2 axes, so pretty good returns all told. I've offered a straight peace deal to 2mn this turn, I don't want to expand further into his territory as I'll end up too stretched thing to defend against an attack by Adrien, who is probably ok with my current conquests, but not so much going any further.

I also have other things to worry about:


mack to my north has Knights and Cats and Longbows. Scary stuff, the most I can currently do to defend against an attack is whip down to the ground and make a conquest as painful as possible. However, I'm not sure if one is coming soon, since Mack seems to be sending units to the east, to his border with Rusten. Makes sense to me, he'll pretty much always be able to conquer me, so better to use his current advantages to deal with a more threatening rival.
My own plan to defend is to make myself obviously prickly, which is why I'm going for Feudalism now. Then it'll be construction for many Cats. Then probably IW, Machinery, and Civil Service

Demos while at full science aren't that bad, at least when it comes to GNP:



Here's the main thrust of Adrien's invasion of 2mn:


That's a lot of Spears from 2mn, so I think that Adrien is somewhat stymied here. Naufrager also declared war on Adrien a few turns ago, but I'm not sure if it's a hot one. I have a chariot heading over there to check it out.

Finally, another shot of my newly expanded empire:


All those signs are where I'm going to be workshopping/farming over what are now cottages. I built them while my economy was dead and I needed as much cash as possible, and some a fairly grown, but those cities are too marginal to ever really be good commerce cities, so they're going to end up production cities for the most part, and all those cottages will be paved over. My commerce centres are going to be Chiquitita, Fernando, Waterloo, Super Trooper, and Mamma Mia, and all of those but Waterloo have Markets, and all but Chiquitita have Libraries.

edit: after looking at my empire for a bit, may I just say how cruddy my land is. So few rivers, so many plains.