[SPOILERS] Who's a Good Boy? Bob Plays the Great Dain

[Bobchillingworth]

City #5 is down. My pace of expansion has been much slower than the last game; partially that's due to the map having fewer and more widely spread resources, particularly luxuries, but it's also due to some dubious decisions on my part. I was slow to get mines up at the capital and get full use out of Godking (in fact, I could still be working a couple more grassland hill mines), and I should have sucked up the maintenance and claimed the Sugar / Wines spot with city #4. Mack has a religion, significant score lead (even accounting for land tiles claimed via Creative), and managed to find time to build the Stooges (not sure why, but whatever).






Another issue- Settler scouting revealed that someone has claimed the land to the south and east of the pictured mana node. Small chance it's another barb city spawn, much more likely an opponent rushed for it.





Demographics; my population is simply too low to be competitive right now. +2 happy cap coming soon from Autumn's Fall's resources, but after that I'll need Hunting for my ivory and to claim some mana for an Enchantment node. Maybe religion too... I don't want to invest the hammers and beakers if I can avoid it, but I may not have an option.


I'll be converting to an aristofarms econ once CoL is in.

[Bobchillingworth]

It looks like Mack's win won't be long now.  



     

He declared on Auro a couple turns ago (also pictured:  my most recent city & terrible economy).  I had thought it might be a phony war to get enforced peace before going after someone else, but he took a city this turn:





Which means that Mack has a significant city lead, and Auro likely isn't long for this world.  My Floating Eye hasn't caught his stack yet, but I'm guessing he's using a small but elite force consisting of the mounted FoL hero, some Fawns, at least one Satyr, and a couple of the Stooges.  Plus miscellaneous Warriors, of course. Auro has Divided Souls, but probably not many of them, given that his power has been lagging all game (also pictured:  my slightly improved economy, post-Aristocracy).  





Oh, and Cairo took a city off Dave.  I had noticed the Sheaim's mass PZ upgrade a few turns ago, but didn't see the war dec.  I suspect he'll get bogged down and find it too difficult to supply enough 40-hammer, slow-moving zombies to completely overrun Dave, but who knows.  His economy must be desperately poor.  





Or, at least someone's economy is in the pits (I guess that's Auro switching civics, or something?... I suppose I could just check the graphs next turn, not that it really matters).  My civ remains firmly in the middle of the pack in almost all regards.  



I've obviously gotten very lucky with how the wars have shaken out; I might have been able to deal with Cairo, as I have a number of Shock+ Warriors as a result of killing barbs, but Mack's units would have been almost impossible to handle.  I'm teching BW now, and will settle my copper soon plus have Enchantment mana, so I'll at least have some pretty hardcore Warriors and eventually Swordsmen, but nothing will be able to compete with Mack once he has 2X everyone's land.

[Bobchillingworth]

Alright, DaveV declared on Mack, despite still being at war with Cairo. It's fairly obvious what he's trying to communicate:

* Mackoti is going to win absent coordinated action by the other players
* As second in score and power, my civ has a duty to declare on Mack before his victory is certain
* Cairo should stop wasting resources in a war that's only dragging both him and Dave down, and focus on the real threat
* Auro shouldn't take peace, at any cost


And that's all true enough, but it is very difficult for me to justify ceasing civ development in order to produce a pile of Adepts, Warriors, and Swords to slam into Mack, whom I don't even border currently. I understand that the game will be over if Mack can devour Auro unchecked, but at the same time most of the map is still vacant and burning a city or two of Mack's does nothing to advance my own prospects beyond potentially temporarily slowing his roll.

Right now I do have a decent pile of Warriors, who will soon have bronze weapons to go with their enchanted blades. I would very much like to spend some of these units taking the barb city right next to my capital, instead of hasting them into the wilderness to sack Mack's closest city and then probably die. After that though, I think I will have to rebuild some units and fight Mackoti, even though I'd much rather just build Settlers and actually claim land.

[Bobchillingworth]

Cairo may have gotten the message too; he made peace with Dave and offered me OB, which I accepted. I'll post an Adept so I can check for anything sneaky with a Floating Eye, but I'm fairly certain he's not of a mind to give up on Dave just so he can march his army in the opposite direction to fight someone with like twice as much power.

[Bobchillingworth]

Of course, the day after I made that post two weeks ago Auro made peace with Mack. Looks like he's planning a sneak attack though:





As best I can tell, Mack doesn't have Hawks or Floating Eyes, so he presumably has no idea it's coming.


Meanwhile DaveV re-declared on Cairo. That's very slightly unfortunate; Cairo is probably spread too thin, and Dave wants his city back, but Mack will just eat both of them if they trade soldiers.


Speaking of trading soldiers, I spent most of my mobile defense units taking a barb city. The capture gold let me tech Festivals though, which I badly need to keep limping to Writing. Don't really need much more tech past writing, as I'll bulb Sorcery, although Hunting and Sailing would be nice.


This is def. a slower-paced game than the past few have been; maintenance costs are very harsh, and, while by no means terrible, the land isn't going to supercharge anyone's City States + cottages economy. That's all fine by me.

[Bobchillingworth]

Hah, Auro killed the mounted FoL hero; good on him, Mack's dangerous enough without a Combat V, Commando, March reusable cruise missile.


Mack offered a world map trade; declined. Assuming I ever actually get to the point of declaring on anyone, Mackoti is the only real option.

[Bobchillingworth]

I have a request/proposition if is doable ,in next version  to be able to build the shrine of champion if you loose any hero unit.belive me loosing a hero is so bad you feel it near phisicaly.
 And more this make the early religion a litle bit stronger and loosing is not  a very sad day. 

And again I realy belive good civ should get a boost , becasue that +20% WW is too much and they got worst manas then the other. For example i think none has haste for example...At least get rid of that 20% WW and gave something like + 20% culture they are GOOD civ. OR for exemple get 10% production.. when are declared .

Come on, Mack. Hero units aren't supposed to be invulnerable war gods, especially when you're fighting someone with access to a piece of gear specifically intended to murder them, and there's no reason from a balance perspective why EitB should reward players for routinely losing them. While losing Kithra (sp?) was doubtlessly deeply regrettable, I'm sure you'll do fine without him. The early religious heroes are quite strong as well; it's the latter ones that rarely get built, due to requiring expensive end-game techs to unlock.

Also the Elohim Palace is supposed to be lousy. The whole point is to induce you to go conquer someone and build their palace instead. The Sidar palace is excellent, and I'm sure you'll swap to it once you wipe out Auro's final few cities.

[Bobchillingworth]

Also, my military is apparently alarmingly weak. Found DaveV's facing off vs. Cairo with a Floating Eye; he was around 30 Warriors, an Adept, and a few Hunters. Not sure what Cairo has, but it's probably commensurate. It's good for me that they're fighting in that I'm free to keep playing in my sandbox, but unfortunate because it'd be much better for those Warriors to be spent hitting Mackoti.


Writing in next turn, unlocking my bulb path to Sorcery plus the ability to build research. Also will be building three Settlers, because I guess my economy wasn't crashed enough.

[Bobchillingworth]

I guess Cairo really wants a trade route with me... I've been watching a pair of his Workers spend the past dozen turns or so roading up to my nearest city. I thought he was putting down track for one of his Settlers, but then they just kept going into my culture. That's fine by me, but I'm curious if this is just for routes to each other's cities, or what- with mirrored resources there won't be much else to trade.

[Bobchillingworth]

I'm basically on autopilot now, so if anyone wants to concede to Mack, that's fine by me. I also don't mind continuing to play, whatever.


I have Wizards, but my economy has been terrible for a while, possibly because I have insisted on continuing to found cities even though the map settings punish any attempt to expand. I've been building cities because not doing so when everybody else was at war with each other seemed like a terrible waste of an opportunity. Mack is running away with the game, but seems content to leave me to my sandbox at the moment, Auro is the only person contesting him (although they're currently at peace), and Cairo and Dave have been locked into a standoff between giant armies of T1 & 2 units for the past 40 turns or so.


I have presumably been left alone because any successful invasion of my territory will trigger some combination of Mack swooping in to take the spoils and/or the attacker getting counter-invaded by one of their mortal foes. Also I guess I'm theoretically a counter-balance to the Elohim, being second in score. Not really, though.