[SPOILERS] Bismark of Sumeria (luddite + Atlas1998)

[luddite]

Elkad I think I'll be able to play all my turns now, at least for the next two months. Do you want to continue as my partner/dedicated lurker?

[luddite]

Oh and of course the game goes down now that I can finally play again .

[Ellimist]

You broke it.

[Elkad]

Elkad I think I'll be able to play all my turns now, at least for the next two months. Do you want to continue as my partner/dedicated lurker?

Sure.

Oh, forgot to mention - talked to Nakor ingame. He agreed to stop spending EPs on us, in exchange for the same consideration (leaves him with a small lead, maybe enough to see our research).

Switched our entire EP output (20pts) to plako this turn, which should give us research visibility on him. There are some signs on the map (in the water) with EP ratios from T150. Looks like LP is spending 9EPs per turn or so against us, so we should probably dedicate 50% of our EP output to him in the future.

[luddite]

Sure.

Oh, forgot to mention - talked to Nakor ingame. He agreed to stop spending EPs on us, in exchange for the same consideration (leaves him with a small lead, maybe enough to see our research).

Switched our entire EP output (20pts) to plako this turn, which should give us research visibility on him. There are some signs on the map (in the water) with EP ratios from T150. Looks like LP is spending 9EPs per turn or so against us, so we should probably dedicate 50% of our EP output to him in the future.

Ok thanks a lot. I know I tend to forget about the EP points, so I really appreciate having you keep tabs on that.

I'm hoping we can make some sort of alliance with Nakor, for the long term.

[luddite]

anyway, time for a big update. I guess the lurkers are curious about how things have developed up here in Sumeria.

First, the bad news. Mackoti snuck a settler up in the north. I was really hoping to claim this land, too. But that's ok- let him develop it, and then we'll just take it from him .


LP has built... something... near our border, which is threatening to flip the city there (he's up to 48% culture there). I think he built the statue of zeus there, but I'm not sure, it's hard to see with that chariot blocking the view. maybe the parthenon, too.


Anyway this is the overhead map. In particular, I noticed that mackoti is lacking iron. I still might be able to take him out with cuirassiers.


Parkin managed to beat us to the parthenon, so I switched Out of Bounds to the Forbidden Palace. That will help a lot with upkeep costs from the southern cities. I'm not overly concerned about losing the parthenon though... it's sort of a weak wonder, and it gives us more fail gold. Scrapb metal economy!


Demographics. meh. I'm still quite far behind, in economy.


And I thought the power graph was kind of interesting. I'm still #2, but, mackoti and regoarrar have both increased a bit. Not sure if that means anything.


I'm running some merchants here, hoping to get a GM to boost the food in the capital.


This is the south, on the border with locke. I need to figure out an arrangement with him. I might just let him settle all that land, since I don't feel like sending settlers far away into the jungle. I'll ask him for dye, though.


and the capital. Now growing, trying to get more cottages to take advantage of bureaucracy. After I get machinery, I'll switch those mines into windmills to fill it up, and then switch them into cottages once it reaches 20 pop.


And since we got alphabet (I still think that was a bad idea, but whatever) we can now see what everyone else has. Looks like Locke (Isabella) is the tech leader, since he's the only one who has education right now.



I have an NAP with mackoti until turn 190, with parkin until 210, trying to work something out with nakor and locke, and an informial "information sharing" pact with plako. I just set mackoti my extra silver, like I promised a long time ago. Talking to rego a lot, about the overall game situation. And I think parkin is still mad at me for that stupid border city.

Overall, all I can say is that I don't know what to do. plako and parkin both want me to support them against the other one, and I don't know who to side with. I'll try and sort out the diplomatic situation tomorrow.

My best guess is that this game will be decided with a naval war. The map really encourages that- the chokepoints will smash any land invasion with collateral damage, and the long coastline means we're all really vulnerable to amphibious attacks. This makes the colossus sort of a double-edged sword- it helps my economy a lot, but also encourages me to not tech astronomy, which leaves me more vulnerable. I might try to just beeline ironclads, although that still leaves me a bit vulnerable. And plako's circumnav bonus is going to be huge. On the plus side, I control a lot of good canal spots with my cities.

[Elkad]

Alpha. I usually tech it early even in no-trading games. Tech visibility and spy production are important. I would have cancelled it at your request though, but I didn't get home till after the turn flip. (was a 1t build)

re: the silver trade. I offered it to Makoti as a package with Open Borders (same turn I switched civics). He declined. Which made me rather suspicious.

So I moved a chariot and a galley around on his border. Makoti has a 2nd smaller stack near the stack of axes we can see. It was visible from the neutral tile SW of Smithwick. IIRC, it had several more catapults and a couple stack defenders. Now he is building macemen. 38t left on your NAP, but those were made to be broken?

I built a Sentry chariot in the HE city. Intended to sniff around LPs border for a couple turns, and then head down to watch Mackoti. After the courthouse is done I think catapults are called for. Lots of them. Catapults, plus vultures for cleanup, will do fine on defense. Better to build them now than whip them later.

If you don't make a solid deal (ally, not just a NAP extension) with LP soon, best start putting up visible defenses in the chokepoint city as well. Walls are cheap and make it look like you are only defending. Stick a few catapults and some old vultures in there as well. He's obviously not planning any wars short-term, as he doesn't have any military techs. (machinery, construction, HBR). But he'll plan one eventually. If it looks like you are thinking about defense, hopefully he'll pick a different target. And if you have a medium stack there, hopefully he'll divert some hammers from building wealth to building troops.

When it looked like Nakor and LP might start getting EP visibility I moved some troops out to non-visible locations. Sitting on roads 3t from cities.

LP is the easy leader. Might sniff around for a grand alliance vs him. Knock him back, and then pick on whoever emerges on top (or panic if it's you).

[luddite]

Ok thanks for all those thoughts, Elkad. It's nice having someone else's perspective on things.

Bear in mind that spies are banned from this game- that sort of devalues alphabet! It's not a big deal though.

It's weird that mackoti declined the deal. I guess he just really doesn't want open borders with us right now. Making the sentry chariot was a good idea, I should have done that a long time ago. But man... I really would be shocked if he suddenly broke the NAP and attacked. It's possible of course. But I'm guessing that he's either doing that for defense, building up to declare on turn 190, or planning to attack sleeping moogle.

It would be easy to put together an alliance against either LP or plako. Well, maybe not "easy" but at least feasible. I'm just not sure which one is the bigger long-term threat.

One idea I thought of- I noticed that you started building the sistine chapel. I cancelled that for now, but it might be possible for us to build that and then win a surprise culture victory. Something to think about.

[DMOC]

One idea I thought of- I noticed that you started building the sistine chapel. I cancelled that for now, but it might be possible for us to build that and then win a surprise culture victory. Something to think about.

That would be very interesting.

[luddite]

So, I'm currently talking to plako/antisocial monkey and Locke about plans to make a joint attack on Parkin. Regoarrar doesn't want to be involved. Nakor might participate too, but I haven't talked to him directly yet. I'll post more about it as things develop.