Gavagai manages his personal GULAG

[Cheater Hater]

its a hell of a thing to see a civ this big, isn't it?

Honestly, whatever Gav posted above your post is as much as we lurkers know too. Both dtay and gav seem to be very busy in the last few months and so haven't reported very mcuh. As far as I understand, Gav was invading dtay to try to take dtay's vast New World holdings because he thought that dtay wouldn't commit to defend them? But then dtay did, and they got stuck in a quagmire. I don't really know what the current status/scoreboard of the war is.

At any rate, both of you have vast and mighty empires, but are behind in tech compared to both REM and taotao, who are neck-and-neck. However, REM and taotao are currently embroiled in a hot core vs core war, so there is still a legit (although smaller) chance for you to win it all (via space, which is the only feasible real victory condition for anyone at this point) if you wanted to try for that.

IMHO, I'd say just do whatever you think will be enjoyable for yourself. If you're at war, this would be a good chance for you to have fun with that side of the game without being too stressed about it, as you probably don't have a big attachment to a civ you only first logged into today. (think of it like one of those tactical scenarios that come pre-packaged with BTS). Also, fighting a real modern-era war on this scale is quite a crazy trip, and something 99% of all MP Civ4 players have never experienced. Alternatively, you could just try to sue for peace... I can't imagine that dtay would have lingering bitterness against a civ that a sub now controls. If you like buildering, well, this is like Christmas - with the old world getting their factories up and a whole New World that's got stuff coming up all over.

Whatever else, don't get too stressed and just have fun! The other players (and us lurkers!) are very grateful for you just taking the turns!

Oh right, the new world--the thing I had no clue about until well after I died initially

We're actually not at war with dtay right this second--we have a peace treaty the expires in three turns. I'm just wondering why we have three cities on dtay's continent that are probably costing more in maintenance than they're producing when we I can see Pikes and Longbows defending border cities. I guess Barteq is a buffer zone between me and dtay's core I guess, though I wouldn't be trying to kill Barteq anyway (we're way too close in power for that). The annoying thing is that when dtay re-declares to get his cities back, I'm not going to be able to just give those cities to him for peace

Yeah, my production quantity is going to be huge--I saw a ton of Factories and Coal Plants going up everywhere (as well as Ironworks--apparently Gavagai just completed Steel ), and I could put that into a ton of units or just autopilot into Research/Wealth. I don't know how likely Space is though--we're a decent amount away from the end of the tech tree (though I don't know how many turns; we're saving gold right now and I couldn't get the break-even rate without unpausing), and the leaders appear to be saying we're only 15-20 turns away from a clear winner being decided (probably from the winner of the REM/taotao war).

I guess I should unpause now, and hopefully be able to finish my turn while saving at least some for BGN.

Edit: Turn played (with only ~2 minutes taken off the clock), new batch of photos here--apparently Gavagai had another couple of cities next to taotao as well? I have no clue what I should have been doing with all my ships, and I prioritized Railroading mines with my workers rather than making a path to Barteq, and I did a bit of scouting of some of the border cities I didn't have visibility on. Hopefully next turn I'll be able to take a better look at the territory, without having to pause every five seconds.

[Cheater Hater]

T205 is done, and mostly it's a lot of cash-rushing--in fact, the original plan was to research Biology in two turns, but I'm prioritizing getting Factories and Coal Plants done. It's also weird that instead of doing an empire overview every turn, I have to just use the domestic advisor to get an idea of the whole picture, and even that takes three screenshots

[Gavagai]

Well, I logged in for the first time--what did I get myself into? I haven't gotten around to reading Gavagai's recent reports yet (and I didn't want to unpause quite yet), so the main thing I did was try to get a handle on the empire. I took a bunch of pictures here, and I'm still trying to get back into the civ mood--can someone explain the dtay war, and why we were attacking him when Barteq has cities guarded by Longbows and Pikes on our northern border? (the answer is he probably attacked us, though that doesn't explain why we have colonies on his shore)

dtay had no defenses on the island when I attacked him. He was also skipping military techs, no Rifling, no AL, no ML.
I was just a little but too late. Forgot that Corps now can be researched without Economics, assumed that dtay didn' have them and was far from AL. Was freaked out when saw him researching AL, had to rush my offensive, it went badly.
Barteq, on the other hand, always had a very solid army, irrespective of what he has in his border cities.
I would advise to industrialize ASAP and then evaluate your options. Also observe that we are getting free Oil deom taotao, we don't need Combustion for destroyers.

[Gavagai]

Re: cities on dtay's island. I actually don't know, why he allowed me to keep them. He could take them back easily but offered peace instead. They are actually profitable, so I'm not protesting. Still, not worth defending when dtay redeclares.
Also, observe that you have three GPs sitting in the capital, waiting to be golden aged. I advise to do it after industrialization.

[Cheater Hater]

Wow, this game has slowed so much I either didn't realize you had posted Gavagai or did and just didn't respond for some reason.

I saw that we had Oil, though I didn't know how useful it was--I suppose we'll probably need a navy for something?

Barteq's power is around ours, and that's relatively low--once I get Factories I can probably expand at least a little (if I have the stomach for a modern war with a million cities).

Good to know about the impending golden age; that's something I could have easily missed (though hopefully I would have caught it from the military panel--heck, I might have a picture of it)--by "after industrialization", do you mean after I finish buying Factories (and power plants) in the major cities, or the tech Industrialization (which gives me Tanks, right? What else?)?

[Cheater Hater]

Another turn done and another round of pictures--I know this isn't great reporting, but it's better than you were getting before

Other than the results of a lot of cash rushing, the main thing was a strategic resources for strategic resources trade offer from taotao--I had to reoffer since taotao (accidentally?) tried to take my only crab, but otherwise I accepted--does this mean he wants me to attack REM? I mean, I already can't really attack him since he's my source of oil, so I don't know if the reaffirmation of an "alliance" was necessary.

BTW, the golden age isn't actually ready quite yet--the third great person is coming out of Segeshlag this turn, and I'm assuming it'll work out. Otherwise, I'm assuming I'll fire it off sometime in December (aka next turn ) anyway, so that isn't the biggest deal. I'm not sure what I'll do with it though--I guess I turn back on research and try to catch up that way, but I don't know what I want--I have it parked on Biology, but I don't know what the obvious next move is--the plan seems to be attacking Barteq (though I don't really want to do so while he's AFK), so I'm supposed to head up to Industrialism for Tanks? Maybe Physics for Airships and continued economic growth, hoping taotao and REM beat each other to a pulp while I go for Space or Culture?

[Cheater Hater]

T206 done, the most important part being I launched my golden age.  Otherwise, I'm not sure what the plan is--the peace treaty with dtay ended this turn, so I'm left waiting on that.  I also need a solid tech path--Tanks or Naval domination feels like the most important part, so that would mean heading to Physics after I finish Biology, then either going straight to Artillery or navigating the path to Industrialism.  I also could start that now (and possibly should), but I think the point is that it gets done soon now that I've turned back on tech.  I'm also not sure if I should stay in Serfdom or switch to Emancipation during the GA, though I'm assuming there isn't much else to switch (possibly Pacifism, but I don't know what I'd use the Great People for.  I wish there was an easy way to say "you are working X mines, Y windmills, and Z watermills" to help figure it out.

[Cheater Hater]

I'm a little late on this, but I finished T207 a couple days ago.  dtay declared and took back the island cities right when the treaty expired (though I did kill an attacking Rifle ), but otherwise there isn't much to cover on the surface.  The problem is that if I want to squeak out that couple-percent chance I have of winning (and with REM burning a taotao city as we speak, it's possible), I need to start figuring a plan for expansion, and that plan probably goes through TBS (Barteq).  Looking through my pictures, one I don't normally take is the food graph, and that shows some interesting stuff:


Yes, that is me passing REM in food, and that's before Biology comes in next turn. I'm not sure if that's a sign I might be coming back or that I should be ready to concede to taotao, but it does mean I should probably get ready to attack TBS, probably right around the end of the golden age. The problem is managing my army--I have a lot of military units in production now that most of my Factories/Coal Plants are done (I've been focusing on the units I can one-turn, giving me a decent mixture of Infantry, Cavs and Cannons), but I need to figure out how to arrange them--I have two fronts against TBS, and while the western front has much-weaker forces (I need to do a comprehensive overview of what I can see of TBS's military soon), I could get run over in the east, since our powers are mostly equal despite me having the advantage with Infantry:


Does anyone have a "quick-and-dirty" guide to modern warfare I can use to try to figure out what I'm supposed to do, other than build a lot of units and hope TBS just rolls over?

[Cheater Hater]

I just realized I never posted a T208 report, so now that REM appears to be back in the game, here it is. Is anyone still here reading this? The most interesting news is that I founded a new city!


How big will Walata get before this game ends? Who knows? Does anyone have a better name for it (probably one that fits Gavagai's naming scheme)? I'm not sure where REM is razing cities, but hopefully it'll be in that "no man's land" area so I can steal some ground--yes, this will probably piss both of them off, but if either one dedicates significant resources to me it'll probably throw the game to the other.

REM's trying to court me a bit though--he offered a Hit Singles for Sugar trade, but I figured that since I didn't need any happiness at the moment, I'd rather not help a leader (especially since REM appears to be coming back a bit--we'll see how things look when the turn rolls). Another strange REM-related diplo thing is that DZ declared on REM for some reason--that's probably why REM said the gamestate changed

Of course, the biggest war-related thing has to be my upcoming war with TBS--I've taken pictures of all of the main military buildups I can see from him, and my builds are slowly more-biased towards military (mostly because I don't have much else to build in a lot of cities). The request for a "quick-and-dirty" modern warfare guide still stands by the way.

[Old Harry]

My guide would be not to have a modern war against tbs.