[SPOILERS] Serdoa as DeGaulle of Maya

[Gavagai]

NP I just want the update

...and he isn't alone. I bet, update is much anticipated by a lot of people.

[Sareln]

Relevant: http://allinablur.tumblr.com/post/484952...ahoohoo-in

Is that what needs to be done to get an update?

[Serdoa]

Ok, update-time. Don't expect anything extensive though, it is late here and I don't think presenting every single city in a screenshot is worth much. At least not at this stage of the game. That's certainly different in the first 50-100 turns, but later on it just all blurs together. So, lets start with an overview-shot of my lands: (sorry to those with small screens.)



I have 20 cities right now, and I intend to add another 10 in the next 10-15 turns. That includes 3 cities I intend to take from BRick. Fireball and Nidaros unfortunately have to wait and I assume plako will have taken those before I arrive. No boats in that sea make it nearly impossible to take the fight over there. I assume he has built enough troops already at those cities that I can simply waltz into them. Anyhow, we'll get back to that war in a minute, for now back to my empire as it is now.

I have for those 20 cities 12 workers. No, that's not a typo, I have 12 workers. I actually was surprised when I saw that myself but having only 2 real cities for a big portion of the game made me underbuild them. I tried to counter that a little bit by building Hagia Sophia but I doubt already my judgement on that one. With so few workers, it probably would have helped my improvement-rate more to invest those hammers into more workers than in Hagia. Well, not to be changed now. I do build a few now though, just to help along the new cities. The old ones are improved by now.

As for the cities itself, the big two (Mutal, Lakamha) are doing good and are carrying me for most of this game. Recently a few other cities have started to contribute for real, those being Xukpi, Uxmal and Oxhu... I should have renamed them, shouldn't I? Oh well, the cities to the north of my land basically. I think BRicks old cities will also be contributors, but only like 30 turns down the line as he whipped them all down pretty hard. Also his dotmap is not that great, but I had to keep most of them, because a not so good city with 3 pop and some infra now is better than a slightly better one but only settled in 6 turns and like 15-20 turns away from catching up to what the already settled city is right now.

And when I am at BRick already again, lets talk shortly about the war: I attacked with Knights, he defended with Spears, he loses. There is not really much he could do imo. Not at this stage at any rate. I think both BRick and Xenu just missed the opportunity to expand in the mid-game and when they finally wanted to start it was too late. For example New Fish, which I took from Xenu, was settled when I had already placed several cities on that part of the continent. At that point, it was too late. The same goes for BRick who tried to settle a city and I just placed a settler half a turn in front of him to prevent that. But again, I had already several cities on that part of the map, those cities they tried to place never had a chance to exist for long - at least not in their possession. Those cities had to be settled much earlier. In our PBEMs much depends on good micro because everyone has normally the same start, the land is often mirrored as well, so it basically comes down to who plays it best or who gets most lucky to not get attacked from another player. In these big PBs though this is just one part that does make a difference, but alone is not enough. As important - if not even more - is how to set up your position. I also only am learning that right now, so I probably am doing quite a bit wrong on my end as well.

However, with the position being now as it is, the question just is, do I attack xenu next? Or do I attack Bigger? I'd rather have Bigger as a companion in the struggle against the real powers (plako, slowcheetah, Commodore) but I fear he will instead try to be opportunistic when the possibility presents itself. And I'd rather not have him in my back after he swallowed Azza while Commodore attacks my front. On the other hand, I will have to defend on my east as well against plako. And all those fronts are really unfun to defend as well as they are just to open, too much water, too much space. I will have to get several ships in the water, but even then I won't have much of an advanced warning.

Conclusion: I am not sure where to - if at all - I should point my Knights. I am not sure how to play on from here and I am not sure if I can even compete with the other 3 big players. I can in score, but that's hardly important. So lets look at Demos:



Commodore is in a GA. GNP is still not very good, especially considering I will have to get Astronomy soon and therefore lose the Colossus-bonus. That will hurt.. badly. But at least I can smile at my MfG. That's 3rd place right now, but 1st is Commodore. Not sure who is 2nd tbh, I guess slowcheetah? It is not plako nor Bigger, so it has to be him. I don't think he is in a GA though.. hm, lets hope he starts a war with plako or scooter or Commodore, that would be really helpful

Crop I am actually happy with my place. Yes, I am still nearly 100 behind the leader. But that's plako and his land holdings are just insane, he has 26 cities. slowcheetah has 20 cities like me and could settle everything peacefully. And the same goes for Commodore, just less peaceful. But he has them for longer and could get them up to speed. I think if I can get just 20 turns of peace I might be able to catch up a little bit. Though there is still land to settle and they haven't stopped growing so probably not. But I am keeping pace at least. For now anyway.

Looking at the overall picture I think the ranking of the Demos actually reflect quite well my 3rd or 4th place right now. Probably 4th tbh as plako is bigger, slowcheetah is probably better developed and Commodore is just rocketing ahead with his GA.

Last for now, a screenie of my shrine-city. It still needs Wall Street:

[Serdoa]

A few words on foreign relations:

They suck.

No, seriously. They do. Suck, I mean. No one is caring the least bit if he could anger me by trading strategic resources to my enemies. For example xenu is getting trades from all over the world for those. Ivory from Azza, Iron from plako, copper from Commodore. And xenu trades Iron to BRick, his former sworn enemy... Of course I understand why one would do that, there are no consequences to it except for hopefully making my life harder. And I can't even negotiate with them to stop those trades. I would be willing to give them even a few gold in exchange for not gifting strategic resources, though I guess some would still do it.

Anyhow, BRick lost his capital this turn. I lost 6 Knights. Kinda hurts but I knew that either I wait for Catapults or I push through now. And I actually prefer pushing through now, otherwise he would probably have not 11 but 20 spears in his capital. With 2 promos and behind 60% defences. And if I bombard them down he would get even more Spears. What would lead to me needing more Knights and / or time. I would estimate at least 10 turns for building and moving the cats in place. 12 till I have the capital taken. That's just too long, in that time I can have moved my Knights in another direction already instead and refilled the ranks.

Speaking of refilling, up there I still have around 25 Knights. I'll will move them south now and heal and decide then if I move west (Bigger) or further south (xenu). Probably will have 30 Knights at that point. And maybe some Cuirs. But I'm still debating with myself if I better push through tech or through an enemy

[novice]

That shrine is juicy.

[Qgqqqqq]

+1.
Where'd the engineer come from?

[Serdoa]

What Engineer do you mean Q?

And I realized something: I can't push through to Cuirs, as they are Mil.Trad., not Nationalism. I somehow had them at the wrong tech, oops. Well, that sucks. Have I mentioned that I think that Eles are to strong now? They really are. I understand that they are meant as kind of a counter-unit to Knights but even if that makes historically sense, it does not make sense looking at the techs necessary for each. Ballista Ele is just plain dumb, sorry. Comm had one nearby. Attacking odds with a 2 Promo Knight? 11.xx to 15.6. Really? I invest 50% more hammers in every unit and need twice as much tech and still lose horribly? Spears are btw not much better, as getting 3 promos (or even 2) on them is much harder than 2 promos on Mounted Units. So you'll normally be up against C1,S1 Eles and your Spears will be C1, at best C2. Against Ballista Eles that means Str 4.4 (4.8) against ~5.5 - 6. Therefore you need Pikes to counter those Eles. Again much more tech necessary and as expensive.

Honestly, I think Eles would have been fine without an additional 25% bonus against Knights. They would still counter them due to their +50% against Mounted, but it would at least be not such a extreme disparity. And hey, they are cheaper and come earlier. If someone is fielding Knights when you are fielding Spears and Eles, you should lose. I don't see why you'd have to be able to counter them - at least with that unit. Take the Machinery pre-req away from Engineering if you feel it is too hard to get Pikes (or move those Pikes to another tech). But basically having Eles as the counter unit to Knights means that someone having teched to Guilds also need to tech to Engineering if he wants to counter an enemy that has teched to ... Construction. That's weird. Even more for Ballista Eles. It seems the logic basically is "There has to be a unit to counter Knights before Pikes are available, something that comes earlier - lets use Eles for it. And let the UU-Ballista Ele be uncounterable till Pikes." And that makes no sense at all imo. If it is fine that a Construction-unit can't be countered before Pikes it should be no question that there is no issue if Knights can't be countered before Pikes.

Ok, enough rant. I do have some Holkans and Pikes in the area with Commodore already and I will have a few at the area of xenu. Apart from that his few catapults + WEs won't be enough to counter 20 Knights right now.

[Qgqqqqq]

Lakahma.
It has a non-assigned engineer.

[Rowain]

@Qg Mercantilism

[Qgqqqqq]

Non-assigned...
Unless RB does something I'v forgotten to mercantalism, you should be able to swap that specialist with another (+/- signs).
Besides, given all 17 pop are working tiles, why are there two specialists rather then just the free one?
And if it was from mercantalism, why wouldn't he work a merchant (4gpt x 150% modifier = 6gpt) rather then a engineer on wealth (2hpt x 125% + 1gpt x 150% = 4gpt)?