[SPOILERS] Little Boy Cries In The Basement

[Jowy]

T109 - IT BEGINS



First war just broke out. Pickle is already down a city. Sian's force is 22 Knights. No siege visible.



Here's Pickle's main stack. Not much to it. The terror stack will run wild for a bit.
Then Pickle will deal with it because we're about 30 turns past the knight rush window. Remains to be seen whether that's that or if they'll continue to go at it and draw out the war.

[Jowy]

Three days without a turn

[Jowy]

T112 - Steel!



It's time to build us an anti-stack stack. We also almost caught up in soldiers, only 40k behind the top dog.





The war went as expected. After losing two cities (Wheel of Fortune was briefly captured), Pickle had scrambled up enough units to deal with the Knight-stack. Forgot to check if they made official peace yet.

[El Grillo]

How are things looking? Are you still headed for Rifling?

[Jowy]

How are things looking? Are you still headed for Rifling?

Yeah. Game pace died when the wars started. Nothing much has happened.

Sian's self-destruction is bad news to me, being the only one not to border him. Greenline and Pickle are both in war against him, so I can't even attack one of them cause then the other would still get Sian's lands.

On another note, RIP imgur. It's too bloated with shitty community features these days. Owners got greedy and they want to be the new reddit instead of a simple image host.

[Jowy]

Some very interesting developments!

Greenline is on the war path for real. He is drafting rifles. He sent me a NAP offer via resources, so he should be using em against Sian and not me. Nevertheless we'll continue our own build-up to keep up with the others.

Pickle and Sian are continuing with their war, with Pickle now on the offensive. It looks like Sian managed to defend one of his border cities, but Pickle is sniping the other.

I'll update domestic stuffs when I've got some time. Still have all the screenshots saved.

[Jowy]

T124 - Curse of Darkness is no more!



We finished Communism! And uh, a bunch of other techs during these unreported turns. Tech tree pick later in the post.

First though, there is a war going on. Sian (now Dreylin) is losing against Pickle + Greenline, which is no wonder. Against one front he could defend, two is tricky.
I've been contemplating going to war to help him, but the time is not right yet for me. Instead I've gifted him some gold for upgrades and will probably continue to do so as the gold will benefit me more in his hands.

Here are some latest stack movements:





Pickle also has a small cavalry stack next to Thomas Hobbes, the city will probably fall.









Sian (now Dreylin) has lost two cities to Greenline and one of his original cities to Pickle.
He has also had big losses and can't build units as fast as the other two. Not looking good, but at the same time the attacking forces are not impossible to hold back. Good luck Dreylin.



I've been holding onto Great People for this moment. Now that I have Communism, I launched the third Golden Age.



Revolted to Free Speech, State Property and Free Religion. Moving on from Bureaucracy was a hard decision, but I think Free Speech is slightly better. We lose some hammers, but the capital is only working two production tiles anyway and focusing on science. On that front we "spread around the wealth" with less income from capital but more from every other city.

Now knowing how revolt timings work in Quick, I revolted on the first turn of the Golden Age, so I can revolt again on the last turn of it.
This is fairly important because in 5 more turns I might feel forced to go down the military route.



Golden Age demos are as expected Graphs will be interesting in a few turns. They might freak out my neighbors.
I turned down science by a few notches on second thought. Gold is more useful right now than getting the tech 1 turn earlier.



Mom's Knife is a production beast. The Sistine Chapel coupled with Free Speech will help with our border issues. The city next to Greenline has lost a few tiles and is currently running 4 artists to not lose more.
Back to military after this wonder. Well, maybe I'll squeeze in a Levee when Steam Power is out



Steam Power first for Levee's and coal. Next the civic techs I've missed like Nationalism and maybe Theology.
Military Tradition would be nice to upgrade our knight stack. Astronomy is needed for science and to start our navy.
TBH I have no idea how good airships from Physics are. We are so far into the game that I'm running out of experience. In SP I'd have the game locked down by now and in MP I never get to this point in proper shape.



There are all my cities and what they're up to. I don't have much faith in getting a fourth Golden Age. If I had gotten the Great Spy from Communism then I'd be set, but now.. Well, if it comes it'll come very late. Might be worth just burning the GP's for techs.

[Der_Zorn_Gottes]

You could check out a few threads from PB 33 on the performance of airships in multiplayer (spoiler: They seem to be pretty good).

[Jowy]

You could check out a few threads from PB 33 on the performance of airships in multiplayer (spoiler: They seem to be pretty good).

Thx, will do! I will have to wade through the astro line before Physics anyway so I have some time to research (heh).

Longer update after next turn, but for now I'll say, Dreylin has turned it around. Sub into a 1v2? No problem, crush both!

[Jowy]

T129 - I Chose Defense

We got Steam Power, Nationalism, and Railroad techs.
Going for the Astro line next. Probably Physics after that. Push for that tech lead.



We built the Kremlin. Mom's Knife can pretty much 1-turn wonders by this point. Sadly there aren't many left that are good.
Kremlin will be nice if we go to war mode. I think rushing units with discounted gold and the +1 hammer bonus to towns is stronger than the +25% unit production and -50% WW reduction, at least until WW becomes an issue.



Here is Pickle's stack. Dreylin and him signed peace last turn. Pickle did get one more city from Dreylin, the one in the middle.





Here are Greenline's stacks. Dreylin and him are still in war. He razed a Dreylin city last turn.
Greenline has infantry now. That is one thing that influenced me towards teching Railroads for machine guns and well, the railroads.
Neither of those are particularly great at warfare outside of my borders, but with Dreylin turning things around in the 1v2 dogpile, I think it's best for me to sit back.
I also chose to not switch to military civics on this last turn of Golden Age. Will keep an eye on my neighbors tho.





Finally here are Dreylin's stacks, at least those on the Greeline front.
Funnily enough, I'm the only one without Cavalry. I could 1-turn tech it, but I probably wouldn't be upgrading my knights right now anyway.



Cities. I can build Ironclads now so I will have a few cities build those after Drydocks.
Mom's Knife is currently building the Sistine Chapel, but it's not really needed anymore. I figured out that I could just build culture in my border cities and it generates much more culture than the artist specialists. We also don't have a state religion anymore to benefit from.
Idk what to do with the build. I might just leave it incomplete next turn and start churning out machine guns.









Golden age spikes Greenline is also in a Golden Age as of this turn.



Golden Age demos.



Non-GA demos after ending the turn. Holding up well against Greenline's GA boosted numbers.

Right now I'm hoping for the war between Greeline and Dreylin to continue on. If Greenline gets slowed down, I think I have this.
If they settle for peace, then Greeline will still be a threat. Pickle seems to be down to 3rd but can still be a nuisance if he goes on the offensive. He should probably attack Dreylin again and aim for 2nd place to advance to the next round.