i honestly don't know what happened to their tech rate. bis and cyrus pillaged each other, sure, but how we caught up to roosevelt i sure don't know. and somehow we got over wang in score, i'm so used to being next to last in this game! and he was first to democracy by a mile and a half! oh maybe he was only first to demo in my game. anyway, it really seems bizarre.
the only techs anybody knows that we don't are DR and rocketry. DR i don't give a flip about. rocketry comes in for us in 3 turns. roos and wang are the only ones that know rocketry, we know 3 techs that roos doesn't, 4 that wang doesn't, and at least 3 more than each other person (individually, not all monopolies). yes admittedly one of my monopoly techs is fascism which isn't
necessarily a crucial tech you have to have to fly to alpha centauri. but hear me out guys. i get extra bonus style points for AVOIDING a war and getting a great general ANYWAY. you wish you'd thought of it huh? oh wait i haven't explained about avoiding the war yet. :gigglefest:
plenty of trash here for sure tho. i have no more land than i started with. i used jedi mind tricks to avoid war completely. keep in mind i've been playing cultural victory games for like a week and a half, where i have NO power (i have archers, they have SAMs, that sort of deal), so there is a lot of diplomacy if you don't want fight a war in that kind of game
. i spend the whole game watching diplo screen and making sure they like me and tracking who's friend with who, and uhoh i can't trade with soandso or else suchandsuch will throw a fit, etc. so i wasn't about to get dragged into anything here. and i don't sign DPs in almost any of my games anyway, not unless i think somebody's gunning for me. just by signing one you get a -1 with the folks you don't sign it with, so you're increasing the chance you'll need one in the first place! and if i'm going to attack someone, they'll break automatically. so i just never see the point really, unless it's for my own defense. so, obviously, i'm gonna try to find a way out of this one, where i anticipate it will lead to me having to be the defendER of somebody being picked on
and so, on turn zero i took cyrus out for walk and had "the talk" with him. "cyrus, you're a great guy, i still care for you, but i think it's time we started seeing other defensive pacts." cuz i was like, you know, scared i'd have to defend him or something! i was just sure bis was gonna go for him not me, and if he went for me, welllll, we had your saves to use
. he was friendly with us and pleased with cyrus. i mean, i didn't play giaur's game, so i dont' actually know how long he'd been at friendly, but in my game he'd been friendly with us for ages so i just went by that theory. cyrus was at +14 friendly with us so breaking the DP wasn't gonna drop him down to pleased, i was sure of that, and it didn't. we actually still had a +2, then later dropped to +1 but still there, "our defense pact shows we care" or whatever modifer with him after i broke it, for years, who knows. i just really really really did not want to get dragged into a mess. if bismarck's mess was aimed directly at me, well, i wasn't gonna survive that whether cyrus was by my side or not! so that was my plan, and it worked. how's that for a bizarre approach? the free great general was for style and giggles. and get this ... his name is Cao Cao. that is the coolest name ever.
i had way too much fun taking turn notes. like this: "1675 cyrus opens the turn by offering a DP. sweetheart, i would but i'm in panic mode see? i think you're gonna NEED one soon, and i'm like realllllllly not the person to be there for ya. i suck on defense. and on offense. i'm like the builder type. good luck tho, i'm rooting for you, truly i am. except for that i'm gonna be in combat vulture settler mode, so if you do lose cities, or raze bis's, i wanna grab some land, don't be all upset. but good luck in a "let me have some land" sort of way i mean, ya know?"
and this is the first turn of the war:
"1710 LMAO. ok, so the turn started, i get the 'deal cancelled: defensive pact for defensive pact: bismarck' message. then cyrus comes up on my screen and i go OH CRAP, but he offers me wine for dye, so apparently he lost his dye source somehow. i of course sign up right away. i'd tried to get his wine before but he wanted my coal AND 29 gpt for it, and he couldn't even do anything with the coal yet mind you, he didn't know steam at the time! i'm assuming that bis DoWd him? or maybe bis cancelled our pact i dunno? it just sent me right into my cities, it didn't have bis talk to me and i didn't hear any trumpets yet, really bizarre. tabbed out to type that right away, now i'll go thru my cities and see what happens. if you never hear back from me, i guess we got killed. oh wait, then i wouldn't be able to post these typed up notes huh?
yup he did, bis declared on cyrus, and therefore brennus, i see red lines on the diplo screen. but i guess cyrus coming to offer me a trade blocked me seeing the message. ok, this is gonna get interesting. time to make me some vulture settlers and hope for the best!
OMG there's the trumpets, waaaaaaay after my cities were done. i actually jumped in my chair, it scared me so bad."
that same turn, cyrus finally had ponies to trade. i don't get it, that seems as tho he was trading them to bis, but bis had a source up north didn't he? anyway, i borrowed them for copper and 20 gpt and made several cavs during my round. but now here i am 3 turns from rocketry, it seemed so far away at the time. so now we have even MORE out of date troops to upgrade, and no money to do it with. i mean i still have catapults/axemen/swordsmen laying around! someone who knows what they're doing needs to sort this army out.
i upgraded ollie while we had ponies, even tho i like medics to be weak, so that he can keep up with our tanks and mech infantry if we live that long. i upgraded a couple of the combat 2 war elephants but none of the melee bonus ones, figured their days in the sun were over. but i didn't disband them since i neglect our military enough without actually killing them off on purpose!
various highlights of the action:
1735 bis informs me that the celts are a threat to us all, and i should join him in wiping them out. #1 i think that that the persians are FAR more of a threat than the piddly little celts, and #2 i hardly think that i'd be much help. now go out there and get 'em, big guy. have fun. cyrus owns arbela again. shucks. cyrus gets another GG. imperialistic is fun. roos has a monopoly on railroad. cyrus donates 180g to the 'kmad needs popcorn money for watching the war' fund, but bis says i press him too hard. gus still does not know democracy, but doesn't have enough money to be worth selling it to, since we're at +4 f/f with him already.
1755 frankfurt's down to 3 defenders.
1760 frankfurt is suddenly up to 7 defenders and no cyrus or brennus units nearby any more /sigh. i think bis had a lot of units up his sleeve before he made that civics switch to theocracy, sneaky.
1785 cyrus adopts vassalage, theocracy, and state property, and signs peace with bismarck. dude, why go into wartime civics the same turn you sign peace? the dorks didn't even raze any cities!!!!!!!!! bother. oh well. surprisingly, cyrus never asked me to join in, and neither asked me to quit trading, so that's cool. only got one negative ever, from not joining bis, and he's still friendly.
arbela changed hands back and forth, but that was the only city that ever did, and no razing, just pillaging
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1790 brennus wants me to cancel my deals with the vile americans. let me think. i'd lose fish, honey, that's health. and you're a vassal, you are not allowed to declare war on me. i vote "no". we're at +18 -8 = 10 now, we drop to +9 total but he stays pleased. i just can't afford to take the health hit, not for somebody who can't attack me without permission, come on.
then wang calls up to demand that i cancel trades with the vile persians. definite no.
cyrus is kinda dumb. he tells me wang kon is his worst enemy. has he forgotten who he was just at war with, one freaking turn ago? brennus still hasn't taught him physics, even tho he's known it for ages, so i do, for communism and his 1110g. and i don't trade him ALine *giggle*. now i'm rich!!
oh yeah, and cabert's present is done.
check out what i made for cabert. cabert can you guess what it is?
one hint: it should earn me your trash vote!
ps don't panic cabert, i only had to spend 4 turns on it, a GE did the rest
but i held ALine as a monopoly those 4 turns while i put in enough hammers until he'd finish it, and then i spent him on it and traded it before i hit end turn *giggle*. i simply could not resist the idea of my game being picked as trash, when i played it on purpose to not fight any wars, and it having a wonder that might give a little advantage in any future wars in the next round. when the GE popped the same turn that ALine came in it was a sign, i'm superstitious after all! i couldn't see anything in the near future worth using him on. wall street? couldn't justify letting the AI have a world wonder just to get wall street in a city that doesn't have our main shrine. west point's pricy, but it's not going where HE is so i don't even know where to put it. 3GD was way far away, they had physics and i didn't, superstitious people do NOT save their GEs that long, it would surely jinx us
. so, we got us a shiny!
1800: gus is so weird. i have 5 techs he doesn't, but he has combustion. he goes in odd patterns. i guess he doesn't need democracy, he has pyramids for the representation he loves and emancipation just doesn't bother him? oh cool, nobody on that continent can make spies, lemme try to keep it that way for a while. yeah of course after i think that, he asks for democracy and communism. no thanks. demo and 1180g of my precious gold, no. physics and demo, sure, everybody knows both already, toss in your world map and teach me combustion, you got a deal bro.
at that point, folks, wang kon took our traditional spot at second to last on the scoreboard. we moved up a notch. yes, i'm flabbergasted too.
1812 wang kon came by saying "give us what we want or be destroyed". well, what he wants is 190g, not a tech. i only have 680g, but considering that it's only gold, and it's a way to get a + with him, i decide to celebrate it as an opportunity and give it to him, and also i'm not in the mood to be destroyed, especially after jedi mind-tricking my way out of a war! and i've gotten way more gold than that from my pals in this game. of course i asked far more sweetly than he did, and we were actually pals, but whatever. ok, +1 f/f, +1 gave us tribute, still annoyed of course but it's progress.
i did deny roos a tech, lemme see, "1685 roosevelt wants the gift of steam power. roos, you live way across the ocean, and i have a DP with an untrustworthy german dude, so kiss my candyyouknowwhat. not that i can afford to lose the fish and clams he's trading me, but chances are cyrus will ask me to quit trading with him anyway, so what the hell." so i guess it was 1685.
only national i built was IW in calcutta. i totally wish i'd started running engineers there to try to pop one, but i didn't even think of it at the time, all i could think was OMG this city is sooooo unhealthy!!!!!!!! we need 3GD like nobody's business, a total of 2 of our cities are on fresh water. i didn't even bother teching straight to plastics, we're not gonna get it, i might have tried if i'd been bright enough to aim for an engineer, but i wasn't.
i didn't start globe since i didn't see anybody say why vienne? i guess you're not thinking whipping post, you're thinking run artists without under caste system, for the culture borders? i'm permanoob of course, and i didn't want to do the wrong thing (not to point any fingers at people who put wonders where i really wish they weren't *giggle*). scotland yard is in progress at madras, cuz spies are cool.
our health is still really bad, but now that we have bio i am letting cities grow, since they can gorge themselves and overfeed so that they don't starve. i just have to adjust to that ugly green face /sigh. i've had assembly line about forever, but most cities still don't have factories since back then, i didn't have bio so i couldn't afford the pollution, and i still haven't caught up in making those factories yet oopsies.
i have broadway in the queue at vienne. i'd not mind the wonder, i'd also not mind the cash. but if we do get the wonder, i figured there's the best place, since it's a big culture booster (if you're running culture slider that is). i built a taoist cathedral there too. [edit: you know, i might not even have a factory there, and i start a wonder? do you see this lack of sleep?] of the 3 religions we have, the taoist are the cheapest caths, since we have the resource doubler for only that one. i'm so still stuck in culture mode
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i think i didn't actually stop the horse trade with cyrus, we should first thing if we pick mine, since it's costing gpt, and we won't need 'em once we have rocketry.
i'm sure there were other things i meant to mention. now i'll go make some breakfast and read spoilers before i go to bed. yeah that's kind of reverse most people's order but i'm not most people..
remembered one: my two new cities.
one's the standard jungle spot. but my oil city, i put exactly on the oil. i hardly ever work oil tiles anyway due to lack of food, i have watermills here they're better, CBA to build a well, and this way the bad guys can't sabotage my only source unless they take my city. feel free to vote me trash points for that one if it's not your style. i didn't settle there until the war was well underway, and it became clear that munich and frankfurt weren't going to suffer, alas. so i just didn't want to fight munich culture too much by getting ultraclose, and camped out on the oil itself. spare combat vulture settler up in our north territory that we'll likely not get a chance to use ever ever *cry* so we may want to delete him or stick him on our coast somewhere. and i'm clearing that jungle hill on the west finally since it is just too too ugly.
i realized that in this world, not even all of our own cities are hindu. so i sent a couple of hindu missionaries around, and one to roos. shame that we don't get LoS since we have to follow cyrus's religion, but gold is gold and delhi has market/bank now and we need gold. i find it interesting that nobody is in FR yet. i of course didn't consider it, that +brothers of faith is lovely. i didn't change to state property but maybe should, even with our tiny empire and only two watermills, no workshops
edit: cabert said earlier "Even if he doesn't target us, he will ask for help and since we need land, it sure is a good idea to be ready to follow." i forgot to say in my report that i did consider that, but i read it with the caveat of "it sure is a good idea to be ready to follow, if you're competent at that sort of thing"
. sometimes i pull it off, but here, i was darn sure i'd get my candybutt kicked, i'd give giaur's arm in fact. so it's not that i ignored you, it's that i applied it to my own situation is all. so i did the "make vulture settlers and pray" thing. too bad it failed waaaah.
![[pissed]](/images/smilies/pissed.gif "Pissed [pissed]")
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