[54 Spoilers] Nothing to see here! Miguelito and Rusten's max score game

[Miguelito]

Thank you very miuch Rusten, it was a fun ride, and also thanks to everybody congratulating.

I'll write up some thoughts later.

t164 report (can't let it go ):

• Mr. Cairo attacked Mayapan with 4 galleys (1 morale, 1 with nav1 from the GG). Razed it with the 8th unit. Entirely preventable, good thing I don't have to beat up myself over it anymore
  

• I confirmed that we would have taken Uxmal this turn (but left the last pike standing)
  

[Elkad]

You had the iron cut off to Calkumal the whole time, and Uxmal until I switched suppliers a few turns ago.

For once I didn't die to knights/cataphracts in a game!
(was sure close this last turn though)

[Miguelito]

You had the iron cut off to Calkumal the whole time, and Uxmal until I switched suppliers a few turns ago.

I still don't understand how it works. I mean, all coastal tiles around the island were blockaded, or did I miss any?
Which were your suppliers? So would I need to declare on them ?

[Elkad]

Tile SW of Uxmal was free I think.

[civac2]

@Miguelito: see this page for resource trades and blockades: https://www.civforum.de/showthread.php?1...ten/page51
It's in the logged area of civforum MP strories so you need to log in to view it. You may need to scroll down and read the posts by shade.

[Charriu]

I'm updating my tracking tool and I can say that Elkad had no trade routes during these turns:

T150-T152
T155
T157-End

[Elkad]

I built a pike with imported iron EOT 163. And a xbow 2 turns before that.

So I guess it has to be a one-way route from my benefactor(s).

[Mjmd]

I'm not going to claim I'll ever read this full monster.... SO quick question on Byzantium as I know there has been a lot of talk about them in the mod thread.

Do you think they would have been playable this map without 1 or both of A) Myst +1 commerce and/or B) the calendar resource for SIP +1 commerce

[vanrober]

I am reading this monster and i really want to apreciate the detailed and cared thread, im learning a lot reading you, and not just about civ, also to make a better reporting for my next games.

GG Mig & rusten!

[Miguelito]

So, while there might still be someone reading I'll try a wrap up:

I've thanked Rusten already, but will reflect a bit more on how this team worked. While I did nearly all the turnplaying, the effect of Rusten's input can't be overstated. Off the top of my head, I'll list major macro decisions that he gave the idea to and that I think I would not have come up / gone through with otherwise:

• Picking Byzantium. I had them in my initial longlist, but I would have felt like letting the worker idle for 2 turns would not be justifiable.
  
• The whole foodhammer emphasis of the economy. I would have cottaged a lot more. I am tainted by lurking a lot of the civforum PB88 lately, where they have to battle deity costs, and although I of course know that this is not the case here it shapes the perspective. Instead we farmed 4 of 6 floodplains and several riverside grasslands, which made us dominant in CY and Mfg pretty early in the game. In return, with cataphract whips and the first conquests the economy rapidly collapsed and was sustained on conquest gold for some 20 turns, but we had few research needs anyways after guilds (banking, theology, aesthetics+literature), which could be covered with the rest of the GM yield, conquest gold, and Rep beakers. Rusten also identified the long term perspective of the windmill/watermill serfdom economy, although that kicked in only after the game had mostly been decided. Had we gone on further it would have been awesome on this rather low food map.
  
• Second city location, which needed a monument and workboat but contributed a ton during the 20 turns after that, and remained a vital part of the empire until the conquest phase, yielding the GM which got us to guilds and banking. I would likely have gone with the tundra deer/copper spot
  
• Related, early horse over copper. Although that would almost have ended in catastrophe when we founded the 4th city by a spear (which thankfully could not enter borders yet because most players were at 2 cities still). Until then it was very good 
  

There were of course a lot more of medium and minor suggestions and corrections, but the ones above, in particular the first 2, shaped the game. I think I almost always went with Rusten's suggestions, which you can attribute to my weak character, or just to them being really good in general, or at least convincing. Have I been a puppet? Of course Rusten was always nice and respectful and left the decisions to me ultimately, but the major macro strokes came from him. Probably that is natural and healthy in a vet / stillrathergreen teamup, and of course it worked out great.
So again thanks, for great suggestions, and getting to view the game from perspectives I had not before.

Just to make it not too self-deprecating, some stuff I am pretty happy with myself for:

• The micro up to the first two settlers, with the constraint of Byz's techs, and the subsequent push to 4 cities, carving up the best slice of the heart of the continent.
  
• Diplo. I courted Mr. Cairo, who remained friendly well into the gira conquest phase. Of course the big stick also helped, but I like to think I gave him reasons to not turn onto us too early. When everybody else started to turn on the big grey threat, I managed to get some useful trades from Ruff. Finally, managing the 4-way situation in Spain successully (ok, that was at least as much military as diplomacy, but still).
  
• Speedy spread of Judaism. The shrine would have been nice, but fast guilds (see below) was nicer.
  
• The GP play turn 90-120, where we bulbed currency (arguably a misplay vs. a trade mission), ran a GA and did a trade mission, which all together catapulted us from one of the last civs to maths (in part of course due to the monotheism detour, but we were in fact pretty far behind) to first to guilds by far (ie before any of our neighbours was even very close to feudalism or engineering) and banking which I don't know if anybody else got before the end of the game. Of course a more experienced player could probably done even better here, but I'm still content.
  
• Military tactics in general. Admittedly, there are more complex tasks than pushing ahead with a cataphract stack. But I am rather fond of the opening of the war against gira with a 2 side attack, and in general advancing aggressively without running into traps. The exception was, as I have stated several times, when I think I really exposed our stack to getting wiped by Mr. Cairo, had he had all of his units defending instead of trying to take over naufragar. It was not a lethal danger at this point, but we would have needed at least one big round of 2pop whips, which means slavery and probably PS, of course causing a tremendous economic setback. Mr. Cairo has said that he would have caused some damage, but would not have been able ot defeat the stack, and I haven't simmed combat all game, so . Also the botched attempt to take Elkad's island capital, failed due to a dumb error of mine.
  

Major misplays:

• ignoring the (now modded away) early circumnavigation TRs for far too long, a big factor in us falling behind commercially. Reading El Grillo's thread, it is impressive how he guessed the map layout correctly around turn 15, and then pushed for very early circumnav. I have not finished Ruff's thread yet but I imagine he did similar, as he completed circumnav even earlier. I for too long pushed it back assuming that we had not as many coastal cities (wrong) and were busy with other stuff.
  
• the whole effort of flipping naufragar's culture on our stone tile where I put a lot of effort and planning into based on a false assumption. I can't beat myself up too much over missing the 1000 years culture doubling, but it shows inexperience.
  
• The first mercantilism revolt, where I more or less knew that it would do a pretty hard hit on our economy (otoh it gave some extra hammers, which were the most relevant thing at the time, so )
  

I have enthusiastically reported many minor moments, I hope it's fun to read.

It is also true that we had very beneficial boundary conditions here, to the point where I'd call it a near perfect storm

• Byzantium supported with the Myst commerce that was abolished quickly after this game started, and additional capital commerce.
  
• I certainly can't complain about the start position. A landlocked start is good if the plan is to overrun the continent with cataphracts. We had a rather high amount of mainland backfill, which was of rather subpar quality, but not as icy as gira's at least. Other players had very little backfill, but awesome islands, while we only had one 3 tile one that also was in peril of getting snatched by naufragar had the game developed differently. When everybody canceled OBs (and we subsequently switched to mercantilism) that hurt greatly. Overall I think it was a very interesting and nice natural looking map. I'd guess most players had reasonably good opportunities (not sure about Elkad/SD/scooter). 11 players probably is not at all easy to balance outside a flat donut. I'm not an authority on valuing starts, but I like not making them uniform and giving the players different challenges (double AH certainly gave me some headache, no idea if this is canonically considered better or worse than eg seafood/lesser AH which some players had). So good job and thanks Commodore! Of course game winners usually will find the map well balanced .
  
• Neighbours! None of the early aggressors (vanrober, notorious SD, and as it turned out scooter, although that was a surprise). Instead of the two direct neighbours, gira had a plan to not go on the offensive before cossacks, and Mr. Cairo was also likely to wait for an advantage from Fin/England (although him being Agg caused some concern), and then got into an early, preventable conflict with Elkad (still don't understand the 2nd city location). Elkad really couldn't do anything due to the layout of the continent and him moving away from the center on t0. Holkans could have been terror. But he also had another, more peaceful, game in mind. Also none of them were Imp, enabling our land grab at Akritai and Frumentarii. We then managed to remain peaceful until we could drop the cataphract hammer, by a combination of high foodhammers/power and friendly signals and trades (with Cairo). Meanwhile, naufragar getting rushed by scooter meant we never had to worry on the seas, and could afford to place the island Moai city (Septem) quite exposed, grabbing an additional clam.
  
• So, taking land and neighbours into account, I tried to see which start I would have wanted to swap with. I think vanrober's would have been an improvement. Wet corn would have meant no idling with the worker, there's a lot of land, and the warring would have been easier with scooter and naufragar bogged down (well assuming that would have played out the same way). Mjmd's start also seems awesome, with corn+sheep+stone, but superdeath would have axe rushed us if he had not warrior rushed.
  
• The naufragar - scooter war had the further, probably bigger, benefit of removing the two most relevant pyramids competitors. In a normal game I think it's a near safe bet that Phi/Spi scooter with stone would have built them before turn 87, if not Imp/Ind naufragar were faster. Isntead scooter even sold us the stone for the last few chops. We were planning for a much earlier date, but losing the stone got in the way. Masterful play by naufragar btw to block it with his t31 Stonehenge , a shame that other stuff got in the way. Without mids we would still have got to guilds in a reasonable time I think by virtue of caste, GPs, and probably wealth builds, but likely 5-10 turns later, and without PS which made 2 pop equal a cataphract. Elkad might have been unassailable by then. So yeah this was huge.
  
• Holy city in Frumentarii, claiming lots of green land in the middle of the continent, which was great for the economy, held back gira's Cre culture pressure, and was so valuable for the attacks.
  
• The Mjmd-El Grillo war, which ensured no dangerous competition rose up on that continent. El Grillo was starting to really leap ahead, and from what I've understood from the threads (have not read Mjmd's yet), Mjmd had the chance to end the war after eliminating the offending island city and then conquer superdeath. That scenario would have resulted in two strong opponents here, both with the potential to make our life uncomfortable
  

So, I went into this game certianly not with the expectation to win, but to improve upon PB49. Very pleasant surprise that it all worked out so well. During the past few months it was a source of a lot of fun, and occasionally slight obsession which most readers will be familiar with. Thanks everybody who participated, and the readers who gave us victory in the only metric that really matters: