i'm into mid-game in 8-16-2... marathon game so things are a little skewed from "standard", but its by far one of the most interesting in recent memory
started on a peninsula of a continent covered by forest, and things were looking good... next to zulus and byzantines, so i played nice with latter, expecting trouble from the former... but byzantines thought our friendship was an invitation to forward settle and lock me in to the peninsula... combined with an overly optimistic progress policy choice, from there things have been rather chaotic.
the AI, both in diplo and war (really these two should mix seemlessly, as they now seem to), has been both clever and even somewhat human in its reactions and proposals.. i had to do some forward settling of my own to gain a proper foothold in this game, though disconnected from my capital by a large bay, and fell to the back of the 43-civ field in tech by start of classical... of course both byzantines and zulus are #1 and 3 respectively.
Tbh, I think the game is a lost cause, but I have 8 founded cities whereas most of the AI have 3-4 (zulus 6 via conquest), and managed to snag just enough wonders to stay relevant. 4 of my cities are protected entirely from the zulus by a single bottleneck... in past versions, and maybe against other civs, this bottleneck would hold indefinitely. The city there has faced 4 serious, combined arms attacks from the zulus, each able to reasonably capture this city: the first ended when several of my friends joined the fight, and drew away the zulu army... the second attack a half millenia later went all the way down to one turn from capture, but then the byzantines entered medeival and i voluntarily vassaled (for the first time in my VP career) to end the war and effectively save half the empire, at least temporarily. The 3rd attack was saved by theodora's erratic diplomacy and preference for many short wars. the 4th is in progress, a race between my castle builders, the zulu siegers, and theodora's unpredictability.
I thought it would be trivial to exit this vassal arrangement, but that is not the case... as the larger but tech lagged civ, with 2 distinct land areas in my control, any war we get into affects me far more than theodora, who really only shares borders with me and zulu... she has us constantly fighting 25% of the world, cycling in a new crew of enemies every 20 turns or so, pulling in allies and then later turning on them, making my territory into a battle royale hunger games affair and keeping my army fully committed and well-pruned at all times. As tech leader, she keeps an army of next-gen units parked on my borders, even though she long-ago proposed we become "friends", reduced the tax rate to 0%, and gifted me 50gpt. On her part, she is only 3 cities and unremarkable in the world other than her tech lead -- with me she controls 11 cities aka the largest force on the map. Neither of us could stand alone against a determined zulu attack. Whether by intent or accident, this is a masterful "plato o plomo" strategy by the AI here
On the bright side, under byzantine "protection" (they block zulu access to my 4 core cities) I have managed to beeline education (i discovered military theory around the same turn i built my first university, to give you an idea of how bad i played the tech game here) and since then have gradually clawed my way back into the top tier of tech leaders, fighting defensive-only wars with my antiquated troops... the tide may turn soon with my 8 progress cities finally fully online, especially if we can ever coordinate successfully on these zulu cities -- theodora seems interested in skirmishing-only with the zulus, making no efforts to move the bulk of her army off my borders and pose a serious threat to them anywhere (probably the right play for now, as weakening the zulus would mean i could bring troops home to the byzantine border).
The AI diplomacy highlight here came between the 3rd and 4th zulu attack: they withdrew their troops beyond my sight for several dozen turns, proposed we start a new relationship as friends, gifted me some gold, attempted unsuccessfully to get open borders half a dozen times, then renewed their attack via friendly backstab war declaration. Had they kept the ruse up a little longer, I might've fallen for it -- enjoyable to see this in any case.
the only diplomacy issue i have caught so far is that sometimes they'll propose deals with negative text? like they'll tell me that they think a deal is really bad that they themselves are proposing? Just seems like a text mix up cuz the deals seem reasonable, and i can still accept them as normal
also there are a large number of civs that are openly "afraid" when they talk to me.. i have a very average army though, and assume they are faking? i am just not used to seeing this so often, not really a problem...
Anyway thanks for all the great updates!!
