Many leaders Game 6 Emperor Spaceman

Last time I was struggling still against the inevitable. Or as the Elves put it: "We're fighting the long defeat." I still had some hope left as I sensed a window of opportunity ahead. Qin still lacked Gunpowder and Replaceable Parts, whereas I had Rifling in 8 turns and my Cataphracts ready. The turn Rifling came in I traded:



It was done for obvious reason as I revolted to Nationalism and Theocracy and began drafting immediately. Qin got a message also:



At first the war went well:



But after some turns the window of opportunity was over as Qin got Rifling exceedingly fast:



Still I hoped to win the war by numbers, and I had made some progress in land.



1740 AD then was the end of my toil:





Cathy captured Adrianople on turn 1 of the war...



Qin had now piled a large force at his city gates and was about to counterattack.



The tech situation:



The screen doesn't resemble the truth as Asoka had built Pentagon and Broadway already. Being dogpiled by much stronger AIs I then decided it was time to end this one in honour:



A final look on the power screen after the submit showed I was right: Bismarck alone would have easily destroyed me...



All in all it was a fun game, but Emperor is still a little away from my skills. Thanks nonetheless to Ralph for setting it up !

Imhotep

Time to pick this up again. My goals are to get laboratories running in my cities by the end of 40 turns. If I can do this, I think I will be all right. Diplo wise everyone is pleased except for Vicky so will try and work my charms on her. Last turn I went from last to 2nd last in points. I'm aiming for 3rd last this time.

We work towards Fibre Optics. Asoka reaches Physics first. I manage to grab Rifling in a trade with Asoka, Democracy in a trade with Cathy and Steel in a trade with Vicky.

I think Asoka is headed for a cultural victory but he seems a ways away so I won't worry too much. His 3rd city seems to be on about 250/turn and is over 30,000 away.

We reach Superconductors in 1775AD and labs are started all over the place. I then head for Industrialism to check on the availability of Aluminium. I have a Great Scientist on hand if I don't have any.

At 1800AD, we are in not so bad a position. No one has Electricity yet and I'm 2 techs beyond that. On the other hand I don't know how far beyond Railroad Asoka, Joao and Vicky are.





If I can avoid war (only Vicky isn't pleased) we should see this one home.

My main worry is the happiness crash that will occur when I lose fur and jumbos (that's -4 happy). I seem a lock at Broadway so just need 3 more happies

For next turn, I'm headed for Industrailism then Rocketry. I'm hoping to be able to trade down the Railroad/Combustion/Plastics line as well.

The Roosy machine just keeps rolling on. Well done . A really impressive game going on there. You should see this done pretty soon.

Bad luck! You started so well....

The plan as always was to keep Bizzy and Qin happy, hopefully improve my relations with the other AI's and slowly just edge myself to Space.

My only other goal this time was to improve my Military

Well the forty turns could bee summed up in a few sentances, i pushed enter alot, moved the workers around and traded where ever possible.

Teching and trading meant that in forty turns i learnt seventeen techs as a result i'm in the tech lead and in a postion that can only get better



i'm still running in sixth in soldiers, but Assembly Line, will dramatically improve the troops hopefully to a position of invulnarability



Resulting from this is i now feel that barring a very unforseen event the game is in the bag.

- Stayin' alive
- Fill the land with the final city
- Eco improvement
- Start the race

Well, the first X (with X being quite big - around 20) turns went on checking for WHEOOH warning with my neighbors. I was afraid of Bismy especially, Qin still being in the Medieval age of warring.

I did even encourage Qin - he was already annoyed with Bismy when I traded Guilds away for his Engineering

Anyway, I met Asoka, the score leader. He seems to be driving the other continent.

On turn 212, after getting Gunpowder, Banking, Rep Parts, Nationalism (trade-wise) I finally got to Rifles.
Time to cool down and improve the border line.

I met Vicky, Asoka's vassal, and traded some backward techs (well she is backward so for Philo & Optics I got Music and Theo).
Few turns later I met Catherine, who seems to be the world's public enemy #1.

Finally, on turn 215 I got Bismy to pleased. It wouldn't last. Next turn Qin DoWed Bismy (HUZZAH! - Imhotep(TM)) and when the latter came by to ask me to join him in this war I refused...

Atico saw the day - a fine prod city to come :



I also settled the Academy in Huamanga to further enhance the research.

When, on the next turn, Bismy came back and asked for help (Rep Parts), I choose to help him:



OK, feel finally protected

I sold Lib to Bismy for big € - 1540. Used it to upgrade some muskets (oops), axes blush and even a warrior eek to rifles.

Wars were raging all over, though the China-German war was a stallmate. Qin somehow was managing to face Bismy's grens and knights with his maces.

Asoka was winning a second city vs Cathy.

On our side, when Democracy came in I did a major (and probably final) revolution:



By the end of the turnset, the Germans got a first Chinese city - border Tianjin. I also traded away Rifles to Joao and Asoka (the latter was probably a mistake ) - still the eco boost was significant with especially Astro and Chemistry in (plus DR).

Not bad, though not excellent neither.

First of all, overview:



Big empire (bigger than Asoka), with many healthy and growing cities.
Need more infra though.

Tech-wise:



Joao and Asoka are ahead of the pack. I match Bismy and Vicky rather well, while Qin and Cathy are lagging behind. Joao is no match as he only has 6 cities, I sense Asoka as the major contender. Luckily he is @war.

UP-side:
- I'm still alive
- My eco is booming, and will get even better now with emancipation/US/FS
- The border starts to feel secured
- Bismy and Asoka are both warring, slowing themselves a little bit

DOWN-side:
- universities are very slow to come, as well as eco infra - still no Oxford
- Asoka is a little bit too big and too powerful IMHO

Plans:
Stay alive as usual.
Get all the necessary infrastructure.
Race to space

Must admit I cant puzzle out your choice of civics as at the very least Bureaucracy and Free Market would seem much superior. Particularly as Bureaucracy will get you favorite civic bonus with Qin helping to get him out of WFYABTA..

So what went wrong?

I was three techs from completion (Fibre Optics, Fusion and Ecology) had built most of my parts I could but stupidly forgot to check what Asoka was doing even though I noticed he was going cultural. At the start of the turns his third city was in the 20,000s. 20 turns later it was over 40,000. It was major weed on my behalf and by the time I noticed it was too late. I'm sure if I paid mroe attention I could have had an attempt at razing one of the big three but...

In reality, the game went wrong in two ways, one random and one my fault. The random problem was Asoka. He went completely unchecked by anyone on his continent and was a monster before we met. Some games here had a similar problem and some didn't. My problem was not assessing the start position properly. It was apparent very early that we had a large area to expand into. All I could think about was the multitude of cities I was going to build whereas I should have been thinking, that's a lot of space for the barbarians to get into and built the Great Wall, not doing so was a big mistake in my expansion plans which meant I was behind the 8-ball until late in the game.

In any case, an excellent game and a nice reality check

Thanks Ralph for all your work

Annihilate Germany then rebuild and try to catch up.

The War ground on. And on. And on. A groundswell of misery filled Albion, only partly countered by state supported music halls (theatres) and the finest soccer league in the world (colliseums). At one stage Elizabeth even had to order the construction of jails to intern the worst of the malcontents (WW -15 to -17 by 1740). But German cities fell on regular basis: Hanover in 1615, Stuttgart and Duisberg in 1640, Bantu in 1655, Frankfurt in 1660 which was razed, Dortmund in 1680 which was also razed and the new city of Electrum established in 1685.
Qin had proved an effective ally. Perhaps too effective. In 1690 the armies of Albion were poised to assualt the German heartlands with a Chinese army close beside them. "Get them out of the War", snarled Elizabeth, " I don't care what it takes. This is personal". There was rejoicing in Tienemann Square: Peace and Democracy! The war ground on. Essen fell in 1715 followed by Munich in 1720, Hamburg in 1725 and finally Berlin in 1745. The war was over. Elizabeth attended the victory parade in 1750:

"Who's the handsome fellow at the front of the parade?" asked Elizabeth somewhat rhetorically, "The pole really suits him".

However Elizabeth did not forget that victory had come at the price of her soldiers's lives: 7 regiments of redocats had fallen as well as 8 batteries of cannon and one of her Great Generals.

In recognition of their mutual struggle Elizabeth and Qin agreed a Defensive Pact in 1750. Asoka was also keen on forming a defensive alliance but Elizabeth decided that despite the mutuality of governments, the history of fair trading and his general air of Culture that she did not ultimately trust him, suspecting him of seeking alliance for his own ends.

The military preparations had impacted sorely on the academic achievements of Albion and at times Elizabeth had been unable to provide any funding at all to the sciences. With the war over it was time to make amends, it was also time for Albion to grow and flourish and achieve pre-eminence in peace. There was even time to spare for an extravagent flourish, the Kremlin being completed in 1770.

Due to general misery the cities of Albion have not exactly flourished during this period:


Albion has lost its technological cutting edge:

(Techs learned: miltrad, democracy, scimeth, communism, DR, steam, physics, biology, artillery, railroad, medicine in 2).

However the war has not badly affected Elizabeth's relations with the rest of the world:


Asoka is obviously going for Culture:


This is how it looks overall:

Hopefully there won't be too many more wars though I might need to do something about Asoka's culture vultures before they become Legendary. Need to grow cities and build a lot of infrastructre, probably do quite a bit of cash rushing next round to exploit Kremlin and stock exchanges. While the game's not in the bag and I've fallen behind I'm fairly hopeful that I can catch up again fairly soon. Techwise I'll probably aim for refrigeration and superconducters to get some labs and supermarkets built. Hopefuly pick up some stuff in trades.

Just to remind, the plan was to build up the eco and start the space race.

Not bad, not bad at all.

At first, I had a quick tour over my landscape and spotted several health and happy problems.
As I was already at -4 for traded with worst enemy, I did two deals with Cathy (Asoka & Vicky enemy #1) for Wheat and Sugar.
Did pretty well to my cities.

Discovered Corporations and started Steel on turn 232.
On the warring front to my north, Qin was badly shaken. Already lost Tianjin, and was almost losing Macao to the north when he passed the AP resolution to stop the war. As Bismy did not defy, the war ended.

On my side, once Steel was in I went for Steam Power.
Lost the SoL race to Asoka - tough luck, I had only a few turn remaining on it. Anyway, going on.
Eco was progressively going up.
Coal popped in my lands, so I went for the Railroads to get full benefit of it.

In the mean time, Cuzco finished Oxford, pushing my beakers beyond the 1000 per turn line

Qin desperately seeked to get back the city, but Bismy defied the resolution twice suring the set. On my side, I got Sci Method.
Unfortunately, the only land oil popped under a town around Huamanga. At least I have two coastal oil ressources - will have to wait for Plastics (I beeline it anyway for 3GD).

Biology was discovered and did even better to my cities. I started Assembly Line for factories and infantry.

A very nice event boosted Cuzco:



Asoka completed Broadway, hinting me his real intentions - cultural. Still, his current status and rate aren't concerning yet. I think I may send the SS faster than he will get the legends.
On the other hand, I will work out an expeditionary force just in case.

Bismy has DoWed Cathy, while we got to AL.
I started Combustion.

An even nicer event cut off all my diplo homeland troubles:



Got also a GSci, whom I merged asap in Cuzco.

Few more techs followed quickly :
Combustion - Physics (1 turn then deal for Biology with Joao) - Electricity (1 turn then deal for AL with Asoka) - Radio.

Bismy incorporated Mining Inc - would be bad if it was Asoka. Bismy is pretty backwards to matter in this game.

Just before ending the set, I discovered the Radio and started Industrialism.
Also, I opened the race for Eiffel, which is due in 7. Will see if I can cut Asoka from this wonder.

Joao incorporated Creative Cons on the last turn.

Well, I think I'll remove the stay alive point from my plans.
All in all, it went pretty well, giving me this nice empire:



I'm happy to finally have got Oxford. Now banks, universities, factories are popping everywhere. Ironworks is almost finished, and I have two prod monsters : Cuzco and Machu Pichu.

On the next turn, I'll get Pentagon in Cuzco for denial purposes. I'll try to get R&R to deny it too to some Indian guy.

After Industrialism, I'll chase Plastics for the 3GD.

Demographics aren't bad, but could have been better:



The good part is the land. I'm still the best on this topic.
I'm happy with my MfG and GNP, though these are also concerning parts because I'm certain who's the first on these.

What's concerning also is the soldiers number. However, given the tech (almost) lead, the only civ I fear is India, and I'm at comfortable pleased with them.

Techs, as we talk about them:



Asoka is really of great concern.
One of my points will be to try slowing his culture and space races - maybe I'll get Cathy DoW him back ?

Plans:
- WIN this race
- Get 3GD, Internet and the Space Elevator
- Prepare an expeditionary force (or anything) to stop Asoka getting three legends

Plan:

Finish tech, use a GA to speed Space part production, launch.

Report:

Bismarck capitulated to China in 1810. I completed the UN in 1818 and used it to ban the bomb and for commerce resolutions. Cashed in a GM for 2500 and used the money to tech through to Fusion at top speed. Launched a GA with the GE from Fusion: I thought I’d had my one Gman GA, but actually not Got another GMan and made a two person GA too. Thus in 1850:













Summary: Well this couldn’t have gone much better, really. Roosy is really very good for the Thief Economy: IND allows cheaper Great Wall (and Mids and GLib) and ORG lets you expand like crazy (and we had a lot of land available). It being a predetermined Space Race brought Malls into play, too. I even trained a token Navy Seal! It also helped that Huang and I were sharing the most important early wonders, preventing Asoka from getting too strong. Finally, getting China into my German wars seemed to make him turn away from the CV completely (and not just temporarily as I’d hoped).

Great game!
The early TE followed by the mid and late game steam-rolling :