(February 24th, 2016, 09:07)scooter Wrote: Wait, are you writing game reports on your phone? Yikes. I will say I have a habit of skipping threads that have all the screenshots in spoiler boxes because apparently I'm too lazy to click the button.
I'd like to hear what you think about your path to victory. How much more land do you need and how do you plan to win? You seemed to have pegged your primary rival as taotao and secondary as Serdoa - why do you think taotao's chances are better than yours and Serdoa's is weaker?
Not implying anything or disagreeing, just interested in hearing your thoughts.
No I don't do big reporting on the phone, but in work due to stupid filters on the work PCs if I want to read things I do it on my phone. I do a lot of the browsing of the forum on my phone and I assumed others did quite similarly. I get annoyed if I can't see images whilst reading others threads so I thought other people would too. (Ps you would have to click a SS to make it bigger and readable anyway?)
I generally play for a military win, whereas these things are usually won by a space/outside culture shot. To be honest, I will keep trying to pick up land where it doesn't expose me. Probably not the smartest answer but the most fun! This was why I didn't go for Nyles. I would have picked up mediocre cities loosing a nice obvious border and making an enemy of Plako. I don't want to have to shift too much military there. Keeping that war burning is useful for me, and I wouldn't have much to gain. However, Borsche is a more appropriate target - it increases my overall exposure little - just across the inland sea to the loosing relevance Plako and would give me a border of my choosing vs Sedora who is currently tied up elsewhere, and Yuri who if he wins I would have to border anyway.
I also think that this mod has increased the value of land somewhat - the mid describes itself as 'higher powered' than base, and this is certainly true as my water mills make 2 hammers more base, my windmills 1, mines/cottages more commerce etc than at this stage in base. With the ren techs and civics coming in soon this will be more pronounced like 2 specialists for free per city without cutting routes! Or free market also giving bonuses to routes. Therefore each city is noticeably more productive in this mod without increasing in support cost, just in more subjective costs like need to defend/dog pile risk etc. (I don't think even Krill would have been able to defend his dominant other continent position against the at least three combatants that are currently eating his replacement boak) also on this is that my org trait lends to having a bigger empire for a smaller cost. My civic costs are halved, and currently are costing me in the region of 140-150 gpt. As org, and also as this mod allows me to make cities productive much quicker I want as many as possible!
There are a few reasons why I think taotao is the main rival here. Globally - I will know more next turn but he currently has an estimated 10k beaker tech lead on me. He has the MoM and just got taj with it. He has circa 30 cities, and was until recently above me in most factors. He is and has been clearly in the lead for a large while. Contrast this with sedora who has 12-15 cities, admittedly a big military and good production base but still a small empire and little room to grow without conquest whilst taotao has been getting a colonial empire going. Sedora has no key wonders to my knowledge either. Even if he takes all of CH land, he will be behind taotao in city count.
Locally, he is also the Dutch with a good naval empire. I won't be able to compete for naval supremacy for a good 20 turns, probably more. This means I am at the mercy of possible landing forces constantly looming. We also share a land border that is more appropriate to attack over. So I think that he will be my short term problem but also if I falter and he takes me apart in a war then I don't think others will be able to compete with the land advantage. If sedora gets the upper hand then he kind of need to go through taotao to get to me any time soon. Essentially a war between any of us will open it up for a backstab from the third to someone, but it is hard for sedora to backstab me.
I believe my position will get better with time whereas taotaos gets worse. I need to hang on and not get attacked to win here, and the most likely candidate for that is taotao. So even though sedora has a decent chance of winning, I feel he is very unlikely to do anything that will directly affect my chances, whereas taotao might - and also I feel taotao is best placed of everyone long term. But this all rests on me nicking lib too - if he gets lib he will get a 3-4K tech on me, and likely a free GP to start a second 12t golden age. If I loose lib to him I think he will have an unassailable snowball.
This analysis does ignore the other island. Gavagi is looking like he will emerge strong up there and Adrien is coming through the pack too. However if most of these first to bonuses fall here they will be on the back foot. All the major players have been in a big hot war for a long time also.
As for my path, I haven't thought too much beyond 25-30 turns but it is something like : don't get hit in the next 15-20 turns pre rifles where I am weak. Make hitting me seem like MAD to both powers on this island. Take a decent slice of Borsche, and perhaps isolate off Plako and Yuri from the others. Be able to use Cossacks to take out one/both of them. Perhaps runs light naval empire but I think I have missed all the close islands looking at the fog culture. Things I would like to get this route would be SoL (soo many cities on one landmass) and lib as said above.
Main plan now is race to lib for civic switch to free religion/rep/merc, take econ, tech to rifles order dependant on need of muskets, and get some knights to defend and take out Borsche.
Final civics are still undecided as to whether SP/environ/caste or emancipation/FS/US. Erring towards the latter.
Me too!