[Spoiler] Fintourist loses his multiplayer virginity

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Post post never stop poasting.

It's also an excellent records of all the terrible decisions you have made in the past.

[Old Harry]

Not too long, just too infrequent... but that's not your fault!

[Fintourist]

It's also an excellent records of all the terrible decisions you have made in the past.

That it definitely is.

Personally as a lurker I always like to have some kind of overview feeling so that I can evaluate the actions of different players. One basic stat/indicator is of course the city count, so here's the current situation:

Fintourist 20
Azza 19
Viqsi 13
BaII(Hydra) 11
Sareln 7

I will be settling new cities on T156 & T157, interesting to see how others will progress.

Techwise Sareln still has the most beakers researched from my opponents. Azza has used a more hammer-focused economy throughout the game. Currently my rough estimation is that Azza's tech speed is ~25-30 % slower than mine, when neither of us is in the Golden Age. Viqsi is researching faster than Azza with her tall cities, but does lack Optics+Astronomy, which is a big thing on this kind of a map. Well, I won't be punishing her for it and somehow I doubt that nobody else will either..

[Molach]

Good grief.

Good thing this is no-diplo, or there would be war-drums heard all over your rival empires....probably still is in most countries, perhaps not everyone realizes that the window for stopping you is rapidly closing...

And I agree, you posts are a bit long.
Which is good.
If not I would have started generally lurking, to see what it looks like from the 'far side'.

[Fintourist]

Yeah, every peaceful turn (or turns where I'm allowed to be the one initiating the aggression) helps me to runaway further. I don't know when this feeling of control evaporates as my opponents surely have at least some kind of plans on how to win this. Who knows what's still coming...

Having 4 opponents and a map with lots of room makes early winning difficult (By that I mean a state where the game is truly decided. I think many RB games end in a situation where a dogpile would still stand a chance). E.g. Sareln has only 7 cities, but that is quite enough for creating a significant stack that can cause me trouble if my attention is elsewhere and he decides to go for revenge. Or give Viqsi enough time and she will have a 15-city empire and ability to whip/draft rifles everywhere.

My tech&pop advantage is simply not big enough that I could yet fight an offensive 4-front war successfully. I need to bring my opponents down one by one while still improving my research rate and settling unclaimed islands. The next 30+ turns will provide an interesting challenge where I'm required to balance warfare, expansion and economy. I sure hope turns keep rolling

[Fintourist]

Turn 155

New turn, new adventures. Here's an overview shot, which covers all my core cities:



I think there are two things worth highlighting:

1. I started collecting money. I will run 0 % research for 4 turns. Teching continues again when I will be able to exploit fully my Bureaucracy-academy-capital. Next 4 turns it would be just an academy-capital
   
2. I have more or less last round of infra-builds going on. After couple of turns it will just be units, units & units (incl. settlers & missionaries)
   

And yeah, 3 new Janissaries were drafted again.
Still, this graph causes me stress:



Sareln is producing quite a lot of military and this turn he finished Astronomy, which means that those units are becoming mobile very soon. Sareln has whipped his cities down to pretty low sizes and my drafting efforts are now in full speed, which means that I won't have problem to match his military, but still, I don't want to commit all my forces for guarding Eastern border cities...

Sareln's lonely island city next to my core also provides kind of a tricky puzzle:



Sareln has 4 Muskets & 3 Preats/Axes in Lemongrass, which means that capturing the city now would be costly or at least I would need a significant stack. (The reason why this city is still standing is that it was better defended than the cities I razed with my cripple-attack). If Sareln remains passive I probably wait until I get rifles so that I can take the city with minimal losses. However, if Sareln becomes aggressive and galleons start appearing in the city things will get interesting.

An attack from Lemongrass could threaten several of my core cities in the area, which are not terribly strong defended. Hell, you can see that "TTAC" does not currently have a single unit in it. I will get a fair warning and I should be on top of the situation, but Sareln is in position to pressure me and force emergency drafts and whips. Sareln's aggression would tie up forces that I would like to see fighting completely elsewhere.

I did not offer peace yet, but will do so when I get the save again. First I will offer white peace, if that does not work I will offer some gpt. Getting rid of war weariness and getting a safe border for 10 turns would be awesome. If Sareln refuses, well, at least I know that I must be prepared. Btw, I haven't been offering white peace before since I would like BaII/Hydra believe that I'm busy warring with Sareln..

From Sareln's perspective there are couple of options how to play this game forward:

1) Slow me down with aggression -> hope that others join -> hope that this games becomes some kind of world war -> try to improve position while everybody is killing each other
2) Try to build back the economy while hoping that e.g. me and Azza destroy each other
3) Don't care about winning anymore, just get revenge on me because I was the asshole who ruined his game
4) Just do something fun and press enter

I would not be a great fan of options 1 or 3, but it's not in my hands. I don't know Sareln good enough for really being able to guess his mindset.

Ugh, I have so many balls in the air currently that playing a turn is quite an effort. It's fun though

[Fintourist]

And btw, you can see 5 university builds in the overview screenshot as I'm hoping to build Oxford in my capital soonish. Unfortunately the placement of stone resources is screwing me really badly. Damn you, Commodore!

[Fintourist]

Turn 156

is getting closer... But first let's show my latest settlement:



"Big Fore" is my 21st city and I spread Hinduism immediately into it. I hope that I will manage to squeeze still couple of settlers from my core and transport them to this area. There seems to be quite a bit of land available and it still does take a while before these cities start drafting and pumping settlers out themselves. The goal is that this region can take care of its own defenses and expansion as soon as possible.

Btw, I would be happy to receive any somehow Tennis related suggestions for new city names. I've used couple of those suggested by Harry and already forgot the rest..

Ok, enough with domestic stuff. The reason why you're reading is of course Here is the border area between me and BaII/Hydra:



You can see that I have a scout wandering towards the cities in "Southern Spain". This practice might also seem familiar if one has managed to read my previous war reports..

My current military consists practically of 22 Janissaries:



You can see that a large junk of them has moved towards my border area with BaII/Hydra. 12 more will be drafted during the next 4 turns, but most of those units will be assigned to defensive purposes in my Southern areas.

Stay tuned, I promise action

[Old Harry]

And btw, you can see 5 university builds in the overview screenshot as I'm hoping to build Oxford in my capital soonish. Unfortunately the placement of stone resources is screwing me really badly. Damn you, Commodore!

What? How much would you be winning by with stone?

[Fintourist]

Yeah, IIRC Azza has two stone resources and both Sareln & Viqsi have one each. Unfortunately there simply is not a single stone resource anywhere near my borders (and I'm quite stretched in every direction already). I haven't even built Moai due to lack of stone, which is extremely painful. When I finish my universities I'm trying to get stone resource for 10 turns with some kind of expensive trade (for Oxford + Moai), but there is no certainty that anyone is willing to trade it to me even if I offer an significant amount of gold..