[spoilers] Mr. Cairo Steels himself for another Pitboss

[Mr. Cairo]

Well, with all this activity in my thread I'm sure everyone else thinks I'm about to attack someone, so thanks everyone.

I heard the smell of blood... Yes? Yes?

none over here, but plenty in this game so far.

Here's my war report from the frontlines of the DZ vs BGN war:

BGN is basically fine here, PRO Longbows and Walls make this city impenetrable without Catapults.
But it appears BGN has bigger things to worry about, as Rusten just razed a city of his worth 49 points. Which is a lot.
So, I think I can now assume that BGN will not be a threat to me for the foreseeable future. Either he's going to be fighting a full-scale war with Rusten, or this was an opportunistic alpha strike that will cause BGN/Xenu to go all in on ruining Rusten's chances of winning. Either way, good for me.
I still want to attack Gavagai, but he's going to have East Indiamen, so I want to get to Frigates before attacking. That's pretty far away. I don't really see any easy opportunities for conquest right now, so I might instead focus on expanding to the Western Isles and getting further ahead in tech.

Actually, looking at it, Frigatts aren't that far off. If I beeline it after Lib it's just Gunpowder->Chemistry. I can also look to some more bulbs: Guilds from a Great Merchant, although at this point I think the trade mission is worth more beakers than a bulb. A Scientist can get Chemistry, but prefers Printing Press right now (which is still good). I don't think my latest plan re: the GA and all that will change, but going for a couple more Great Scientists and heading straight for Chemistry seems like a good plan for after I Lib Astro.

[Lewwyn]

Do you still have land to peacefully expand into?

[Mr. Cairo]

Do you still have land to peacefully expand into?

I do, quite a lot actually.


There's just one problem, I don't have Slavery, and I'm not going to swap to it any time soon. So a these city sites, which will be quite good for drafting purposes with a Lighthouse and Granary, will take a long time to get there. I am starting to work on more settlers, I'll probably keep one city on settlers while I rush for Lib (and most of my cities are working Wealth/Research). At the same time, until I get Galleons of my own (Gav is only 1 turn from Astro, I'm assuming he bulbed most of it this turn since he only finished Optics at the end of last turn), these cities will be pretty easy to pick off, and I want to be garrisoning them with Longbows at least.

[Mr. Cairo]

DZ declared war on Gav, for some reason. Judging by their relative power I'm going to assume this is a kind of pre-emptive declaration of war to try and secure a peace treaty or a favourable turn split. If Gav is going after DZ, then DZ is probably dead. I upgraded a Trireme to a Caravel to go and have a look.

[Mr. Cairo]

DZ declared war on Gav, for some reason. Judging by their relative power I'm going to assume this is a kind of pre-emptive declaration of war to try and secure a peace treaty or a favourable turn split. If Gav is going after DZ, then DZ is probably dead. I upgraded a Trireme to a Caravel to go and have a look.

wrong, DZ took a Gavagai city. What a guy.

BGN asked for my stone, which I gave. I'll want it back in 10 turns. Rusten met me with a Galleon, offered OB, which I rejected then re-offered. He's getting OB from everyone but BGN (who he's at war with) and Naufragar (who he was at war with). So it's not like there's an embargo against him. Besides, I've got OB with everyone else, and he has Galleons. I saw BGN's offer before seeing I had met Rusten. If it had been the other way round I might have not accepted BGN's request, for fear of angering Rusten. Oh well.

I bulbed Education and started Liberalism. My GNP at 100% science and most of my cities on Wealth builds gives me a health 2x the average. But only half of the monster that is Commodore/Pindicator in a GA. I think that they're the front-runner now, especially with DZ and Rusten seemingly acting as spoiler for Nau, Gav, and BGN. My own isolation is both a blessing and a curse: I'm not threatened, but I'm also not able to effect events.

[Mr. Cairo]

Well, Gav just took DZ's cap (judging by civstats and the change in ownership of a lot of DZ's wonders). So that propels him into the ranks of the contenders with Rusten (who sniped another far-flung BGN city, this one one I actually knew about) and Commodore.

Meanwhile I'm just sitting around with all my cities on Wealth builds four turns from Liberalism.

I'll also have the Great people needed for a Golden Age in 4 turns, and I'm debating what to do with them. I think at the moment I'm going to get to get Monotheism and save cash for a turn or two, then fire the Golden Age and use the extra hammers to get out a bunch of settlers to grab all those islands to the West.
I'm also going to try and get Nationalism and Guilds during the GA, so I can swap to Nationhood, Mercantilism and OR at the end of the GA and start on some infrastructure builds (Libraries and universities mainly). Hopefully I can get Taj as well. Meanwhile I'll get grabbing Great Scientists as much as possible for Bulbs, especially Chemistry (but I need to bulb Printing Press beforehand).

[Mr. Cairo]

At what point do we start looking for a replacement for Donovan. Personally I'd be ok even with a spoiled lurker taking over at this point

[Mr. Cairo]

Report.

Finished Liberalism a couple turns ago for Astronomy. Continued to save cash for a couple turns before this turn when I fired of a Golden Age.

Here are my demos during the GA:



My plan is to get build some settlers, Galleons, and other units (Maces, Xbows, Longbows). I want to finish Banking by the end of the GA for a Mercantilism swap (as well as OR). I thought about going for Nationalism for Nationhood, but realised I'm still too far away from drafting for it to be worthwhile, while Mercantilism will have an immediate effect on my economy. I'm swapping into OR at the end of the GA in part to build some buildings (Libraries and Universities), and in part to reduce the cost of my growing army.

For more great people right now I want Scientists for bulbs, and afterwards I'll want three different ones for another GA.

Here are my GP farms right now:







I'm starving quite a number of my cities during this GA to get stuff out faster:



BGN sent me another fish-fish deal, which I sent back to him. I'm in no position for a war, and he's had Guilds for a while, and there's potential for conflict in the western isles:


But the fish-fish deal and the positioning of this fleet makes me think he's got another target in mind.


Perhaps a return to fighting DZ to claim the cities on the landmass they fought over earlier, now that DZ has been so weakened by Gav?

Right now my main plan is to get to Chemistry ahead of Gav and attack him while I have Frigates and he doesn't. But I'm not above attacking BGN if he appears vulnerable. Right now he's anything but with PRO Longbows in all his cities (many of which I have visibility on, but not all, anyone know how that mechanic works?) so I'm happy to remain at peace with BGN.

[Elkad]

Visibility on cities (along with the price of every other mission) is based on distance from your capital, having your state religion in a target city, having a shrine for that religion, active trade route to the city (not just open borders), amount of your culture in a city, (plus relative EP spending of course).
So you may see a farther city because you have a trade route, or because your state religion has spread to his city.
This leads to some oddities, like GLH actually making Espionage more effective.  And a double benefit from Castles (more EP plus more trade routes)

Note that when you go to merc, you'll lose the 20% discount for active trade routes, so expect to lose some visibility.

Massive guide (and links to earlier guides) here.

Espionage is fun.  (Yes, the civic revolt missions are overpowered - and need to be banned in multiplayer play).
Edit: One example from a pitboss game of mine (long ago at CFC). I wanted to attack an enemy, he had a massive army in a city adjacent to my territory (close enough I had a bit of culture in it). I built some spies and started running culture missions slowly. When I got to the tipping point I stacked a bunch of spies in his city, pulled the slider to 100% EP for a turn. Next turn I logged in, ran a stack of spread culture missions until I flipped the border tile, and my 1-movers (including all my siege) smashed his army the same turn.
In effect I set off an Artist bomb in an enemy city as the opening move of my war.

[Mr. Cairo]

Merc in RtR doesn't close foreign trade routes, it's just a straight +1 Free Specialist. Also, espionage is severly curtailed, but thanks for the insight into how City Visibility works, Castles really do seem quite worthwhil for PRO civs.

As it happens I revolted to Enviromentalism as well as Merc, but stayed in Pacifism. I'm building Libraries and Universities everywhere, which saving cash that I'm spending on upgrades. I have a decent Galleon Fleet, but BGN is too well defended, and Gav has EIs. I'm getting Great Scientists for an eventual bulb towards Chemistry (1 for most of Printing Press and 2 for Chemistry itself). I needed to stay in Pacifism if I wanted any chance of getting those GScientists in time. I'm going to be upgrading some of my units to Maces in the next few turns while all ym Scientist specialists do some back-fill, I already got HBR from overflow, and I'm now going towards Literature. Once I have it I'll cancel my gift of Stone to BGN and ask to trade it for his Marble instead, so I can build a National Epic. I'll need the Great People for at least one more Golden Age for a final civic switch to Nationhood and Representation (I know Rep+Enviro+Merc is good, but I need drafting to make up for low hammers).

In other news DZ managed to retake his capital, but Rusten has pounced and is grabbing cities, also BGN sailed a massive fleet of Galleys and Triremes through my terriroty (I guess to avoid being seen by DZ ships) that will I think soon launch another invasion on poor DZ.

I'm still in third place, and probably the techincal tech leader, but I think Comm/Pin are catching up fast. They'll probably win this game but I do want to try and make something of my current tech lead and at the very least fight in one war. That still is likely to be against Gav once I have Frigates.