[spoilers] Pax Commodorica: Pharaoh of Rome

[retep]

Ha, I told you that attacking Oxy is a good idea, others might been thinking this too so another blitz could be in order

I'm asumming TBS is getting Taj, right? Or does anybody else can build him before him?
Actually a beaker comparison would be in order

[Commodore]

Turn 145:
The turn today was almost obscenely eventful; TBS is rocking the Pacifism/Golden Age GPP rate and snags Liberalism, Thoth is now an Organized Bureaucrat, and I missed my attempt at gaining a Great Engineer. By next turn I'd like to figure out if an Academy or Chemistry bulb are better uses for Newton. I'm going to aim for a hard beeline to State Property, so the question is if [bulb]-Alphabet is more beakers than the academy.


Legio, three sad blank tiles aside, is absolutely a good academy city. Just look at what the bank did to her gold saving rate. I would almost consider a Steam Power beeline just looking at the river set here, man. This is an odd capital, plenty of commerce but also with a levee it will clearly be the best manufacturing city in the empire with that aforementioned levee. I've got some health room; I might consider the odd Ironworks/Oxford combination here. Which, if I do, means Bureaucracy stays as something worthwhile for a long, long time.


I'm actually fairly pleased with my GNP at the moment; this is just saving gold with all wealth builds taken off. The 4th place everything else is going to move up to a comfy third once the Mali captures start growing...I've decidedly improved my position here, although nothing compares still to TBS' utter domination.


Wall Street is as of yet a long ways off, but Augusta is going to get a bank here in just a couple more turns. I hate to whip such a tiny city, but the ROI is just phenomenal. Slavery dip is coming up in 2-3 more turns, which is going to hurt a bit on the cultural edges but I'm not otherwise really using Caste at the moment. Would rather grow, y'know?


Rounding out the Cities of National Wonder, I'm going to actually pull something kind of weird and I think stuff my National Epic in Flavia Felix. I'm going to have to stuff an obscene amount of health crap in here, but pigs/crabs/fish is easily far and away the best food I've got around here. Moai mean the city can afford to build it, too. Optimization? Pfft, what's that?


My wonder plans for the next little while are Notre Dame and then the monk set; I'm building them mostly out west I believe. Not many places remain for the “settlers and workers” wonder, but I'm picking up my tundra and enjoying the Colossus for a good long time yet. This is BtS; I might be able to finagle the Combustion-before-Astronomy thing. If I can, I'll just keep fishing until the cows come home. Even in cruddy clam/iron ice islands (whipping and drafting station, hai).


The one thing I didn't mention in the eventful comment above was Dtay; man played a five-minute wonder of a turn. If Ivysaur's garrison is weak, I'll rush it next turn; otherwise, land and reinforce. I'm still poised to withdraw from the ex-Marth culturally swamped city, but everything else is getting Caste artist love; not being 1-turnable is huge.


So far, so good. Now I just need to assemble another galley fleet laden with CRII praetorians and C1 muskets to go romping up Maya ways.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Rounding out the Cities of National Wonder, I'm going to actually pull something kind of weird and I think stuff my National Epic in Flavia Felix. I'm going to have to stuff an obscene amount of health crap in here, but pigs/crabs/fish is easily far and away the best food I've got around here. Moai mean the city can afford to build it, too. Optimization? Pfft, what's that?

Inb4:

...Red Fish is my National Epic / Moai city. What??? Isn't that the dumbest combination ever? OK, let me defend myself. This city was always going to get the short end of the stick with land tiles once I planned to put the HE in Blue Fish. But there is still a large food surplus and decent enough production to build Moai in a relatively short window while I expected to have access to stone. So it went here. I didn't have another good location with enough base production to build Moai quickly and with enough population to really make good use of it. So Red Fish is by default the Moai city. But why build the National Epic here? Again, it's about the food surplus. When fully grown out this city will have enough food to run four specialists in addition to the Moai coastal tiles. I don't have another city that will have that kind of food on a permanent basis for running specialists. So I don't have a better NE city option. So I made the odd pairing here, Moai and National Epic. To go along with a very questionable academy build from a long while ago. I'm don't remember if I explained the rationale for the academy at the time, but it was my best option to speed up military tech since a bulb would have gone for Philosophy, which I still don't have (or need?). The GS earned more science by building an academy here than by settling in One Fish, so it built the academy. Still maybe but I think I could have done worse.

And PB17 spoiler (no players):

I think Mardoc is kicking around the same idea there, IIRC. It's a trend!

[Commodore]

Well, I'm maybe reconsidering, Xenu...but yeah, you did it first!

Turn 146: Whereupon Commodore Peaks
My swift galley got vision into Ivysaur and saw a mere single longbow on the defense; I could have landed but the size three city is disconnected from Dtay's trade network, so a skirmisher, spear, or axe would probably get whipped in. I opted to just try it. My CR1 praetorian got 2% odds, so a very real possibility of doing nothing...best to try with the knight.
   
It failed, unsurprisingly, but I got over 70% odds with the praetorian then, so in we go...and now Dtay is down to a sad five cities. Thoth is poking around annoyingly there, but I don't think he'll piss me off by trashing the nets. The impi is a mild threat, but the hill gives me pretty good odds, so again, doubt Thoth will risk it. Don't trust the guy, of course.
   
Here's snowy Flavia Virtutis née Ivysaur, captured without infrastructure but with a handy citizen to whip and snowy trees to chop. It's at least as good a city as the iron/clam spot I'm settling in my own west. Ironically now I could profit from the Great Lighthouse even in mercantilism, four lovely IC-TR cities make me immune to the allure of any foreign routes. I like this city a lot; it secures my eastern antarctic sea flank very well. Good capture!
   
Mali is pretty much a well-armed rump state at this point. I'm trickling in more units to the front, but I really want Thoth to move first. Dtay's got a single good punch remaining; he should use it on Zulu. If I do move on the capital I'll walk my praetorian/catapult stack up from Master Hand's lower left; forest->hill defensive terrain to trot up on the bad guys. I think Dtay is extremely aware of his one-punch limit, too...he's able to take Undevigesima, but that will be immediately followed by Thoth taking the Pyramids and GLH for good. I'm patient here.
   
Here's a nice wide shot of the Eastern Roman Empire (formerly known as “Mali's landgrab). I need a couple more missionaries here, but over all I'm quite pleased with how this place is shaping up.
   
If any of us non-TBS players have hope, I have hope. I dunno if I have hope. But there is a lot of game left still.

[Commodore]

I'm asumming TBS is getting Taj, right? Or does anybody else can build him before him?
Actually a beaker comparison would be in order

I lack Alphabet, so it's hard to do a complete beaker comparison post.

I actually figured out the sequence of events seen last turn; it looks like TBS actually Liberalized Economics, then self-researched Nationalism (Free Market/Nationhood revolt was this turn). Given the extremely competent competence TBS has shown thus far, I can only assume this means he's confident the Taj Mahal is a lock.

...which makes it grimmer still, yeesh. At least Dtay wasn't a TBS neighbor; if we start piling onto Ox then there is no reason TBS can't gallop a swarm of cuirs into gaining the lion's share of Maya.

[Commodore]

If any of us non-TBS players have hope, I have hope. I dunno if I have hope.

On this. I consulted my bookie about odds:

What's going to happen?

Mr. 80%, TBS:
TBS has the people, the tech, and the borders to win with here. He's about to swing the Taj Mahal, and I'm sure he will bang out a fourth golden age, maybe a fifth, all in a row. The caviler dismissal of golden age advantages I see around here goes “he's ahead, but burned a golden age to get there, once I get my golden age...” That's a trifle short-sighted. Snowball is the name of the game, so while sure, Gaspar with his MoM and Thoth and I with our Spiritual should be able to eventually match his total number of golden age turns, by that point there is a very real chance TBS will have completely romped to victory. The is base BtS, scaling is all kinds of whack. Having the most citizens, the most beakers, and near the most land at the cusp of the Renaissance means that's game 9 times out of 10.

Now, TBS is facing much stiffer competition than he ever has before, but nothing I've seen thus far about this game makes me think he's going to falter. You can dismiss his Joao traits as being worthless in the last game all you want, but he's done 100% the right things with Joao...and his snowball is going in “win more” directions far in front. Mining Inc and Sid's Sushi are coming down the pipe, and it's not like Ox is going to stop him when he pushes Ger-trained cavalry into muskets...

Frankly, I'm getting that futile feeling again. Playing against tier 1 players is depressing.


Mr. 9% Gaspar:
Whut? He's 4th in land, right? Well, he will be shortly once I finishing consolidating the smashed brother. But not by much, and Zara's Organized is coming to the fore in a good way. Plus, well, MoM. Gaspar's got eerily perfect instincts for “what to do” stuff, so if he executes well and keeps his courage up good and hard, there is a very real chance he can translate his advantages into something that can win if TBS stumbles (or gets tripped). Maybe. Certainly if he snags a few of the key first-to bonuses and takes a hefty chunk out of a neighbor, he might very well get himself a ton of cheap factories and roll out a beastly empire that can actually edge out Mongolia. But that's going to be hard, and take near-perfect execution.

Basically, Gaspar's chances are based on the twin factors of his own morale/engagement, never a surefire bet, and someone else screwing up TBS. But I can definitely see the scenario existing somewhere in the multiverse.


Mr. 6% Thoth:
Land is power, and Thoth has land aplenty. Unfortunately for Thoth, knowledge is also power and the Zulu are a touch behind on this whole “technology” thing. Not all that much behind, but enough to be problematic. Thoth also lacks easy neighbors once Dtay finally dies. He does have some key advantages; spiritual is more and more powerful as we get into the meat of the tech tree here, and if he isn't going to gain the lion's share of Dtay, he should at least manage to get the GLH and the Pyramids to go with his lion's share of Pindicator. That's one hell of a lot of economic boost there. It's a long dry spell until they hit, but Zulu are with the HRE in corporation cheapness. Thoth is a smart guy and is not ever one to fumble around too-passively.

That being said, Thoth needs to not be the one putting a spanner in TBS' works. He needs someone else, I. E. Gaspar, to stumble up the hegemony while he recovers. The only thing Thoth has going for him is “enough” land once Dtay bites it; he's not going to have to “expand or die” like Gaspar and I. But it's a hell of an uphill slog before him.


Mr. 4% Commodore:
I've enjoyed my blitz, and Rome has definitely improved her world standings. But basically, see what Gaspar needs? I need that too. See what Thoth needs? I need that too. I'm going to go into more detail soon about my own plans and path, but sufficient unto this day is just summing the needs of my other two silver-medal rivals.


Mr. 1% Ox:
Ox is actually not doing badly at all here. In a game less absurdly cutthroat than PB19, he's in it to win it. He still can make impacts, do interesting things, etc, etc. But his only win scenario is if all his competition above suddenly turn their empires over to total newbies.

[Commodore]

Ox, blast his hide, messed up the very nice turn slot rotation we had going, so now I'm playing in a hurry before leaving for work. I was doing so well with my leisurely 3am burping turns! I clearly must destroy Ox for his insolence! Okay, maybe not for that. But I am taking a look at jackal-attacking Maya along this front. The trouble is that unlike Dtay, Ox is Creative, so culture is going to be a huge huge slog the whole way in. I'd like to blitz Die Harderer and Gurton Buster, but to do that I'd also need to clear Homeskillet and Magic Head; it's a lot to do for a naval campaign. Let's see if Gaspar even gives me time to get ready.
   
I've begun to explore my new island holding a bit more. It's huge! And pretty, I love the snowy-trees-in-snow look. I might even have found a decent National Park location, wouldn't that be something? Or I guess it could just be a useful wonder chopped, like one of the monk economy wonders. Sadly, whenever I do chop this stuff it's going to look pretty bleak afterwards.
   
War news? Nah, still nothing. I need ten catapults and a handful of muskets before I go in, unless Thoth wants in first.

[mackoti]

Frankly, I'm getting that futile feeling again. Playing against tier 1 players is depressing.

There is a new tier of players and i didnt see it?

Took me a while to be in first tier, and now tbs bang 2-3 games and is top tier .I said first when i seen his game he is very good. must organize a new duel league.

[novice]

Frankly, I'm getting that futile feeling again. Playing against tier 1 players is depressing.

There is a new tier of players and i didnt see it?

Took me a while to be in first tier, and now tbs bang 2-3 games and is top tier .I said first when i seen his game he is very good. must organize a new duel league.

I agree, it was apparent pretty immediately that he is very good.

[Commodore]

Frankly, I'm getting that futile feeling again. Playing against tier 1 players is depressing.

There is a new tier of players and i didnt see it?

Took me a while to be in first tier, and now tbs bang 2-3 games and is top tier .I said first when i seen his game he is very good. must organize a new duel league.

I agree, it was apparent pretty immediately that he is very good.

Actually, Mack, looking back at your first few games, unless you play with your nemesis (Luddite), you're pretty obviously very good from the beginning. TBS' reporting has been very comprehensive from the start, which is why he has been pegged as such a good player faster than you were. He might be more what Gaspar called Tier 2, but he's certainly not lower.

There definitely would be an updated tier list if it was done now; a lot of the newbies are quite good these days.

I agree about a duel league again needing to happen, but I wouldn't say the outcome of such games would translate to the more normal FFAs we play. For example, I'd probably rank a lot higher in a duel list than would be appropriate for this kind of game!