It's still way too early to be pessimistic about chances of winning, for any team.
MS Saturn and Kaz all have no chance at winning this game, unless there is a new random event called SANCTA and Cav can't log in.

It's still way too early to be pessimistic about chances of winning, for any team.
I might start a thread and critique the map, just to annoy Sullla. He seems to hate it when I comment on his map design. Really this map is fairly screwed, Saturn got really crap land (worse than Cavs by far) and us and Kaz were destined to fight an early war through no fault of our own because we both only had 1 land route out of our starting areas. Really Cav have been handed a fair amount of metagame luck on a platter, but so have we to some extent.
EDIT: but as Sullla has said before, balancing the map for a 5 player game isn't easy.
There are these things called boats... it's possible to put settlers on them and sail around peak tiles, ya know.In all seriousness, if I had to do things over, I would rework Saturn's starting position to make it a little stronger, but that's it. Most of Saturn's wounds are self-inflicted (their opening moves weren't very good... and I don't think I'm giving anything away by revealing that, based on their current position.)
Kaz has zero room to complain. There are balancing factors in play that offset their enclosed start (which I will reveal at the end of the game, if everyone doesn't discover them in normal play). Kaz has no one but themselves to blame for getting boxed in. The mouth of the pass out of their territory is ~10 tiles from their start, ~20 tiles from SANCTA's start, with massive jungle terrain in the intervening space. If they couldn't get there first, it's their own darned fault, not mine.
Also, Cav's expansion has more to do with Mad Scientists sucking it bigtime than my map design. (If MS were playing competently, Cavs would not be in their current position... And I've probably said way too much already, so I'll stop here!)
Be careful gents....this will be public territory someday!
DMOC from gmail said:SANCTA,
Congratulations on winning Liberalism! The race seemed tight at first but once we were able to coordinate our research to the fullest, it became no contest.
Team Saturn is curious to know about your future plans. Are you going to build up your military and strike either Kazakhstan or Cavalieros? Or will you continue to focus on research until a certain point? Please let us know so that we can do whatever we can to help you. We will continue to send you our gold reserves.
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Sincerely,
DMOC and Team Saturn
Alright, I had a response all written out, but when I tried to post it the forum ate it, never to reappear again. I'll have more time tonight and I'll write it again.
Greetings DMOC and Team Saturn,
Team SANCTA is grateful for your unwavering support. Together we have managed to repeatedly pull the rug out from under Cav and Kaz's plans. We watched with glee as Kaz and Cav considered themselves far too ahead of the game to be beat only for our alliance to totally obliterate their machinations.
Currently our research plan is Machinery, optics, then gunpowder, ultimately heading for rifles, where we should be able to use the payout from liberalism to draft and hopefully crush an under-prepared Kaz. As always, we look forward to sharing these techs with you as they are researched.
Do you have an ETA on drama? Hopefully when you are able to get it we will be able to start building theaters, with the goal of building a GT in TKY, where we will be able to use it for maximum effect when we start drafting.
We look forward to continued operations together,
Iamjohn for Team SANCTA
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Enemies Crushed
Together we triumph again
To the cause we salute
Greetings DMOC and Team Saturn,
Team SANCTA is grateful for your unwavering support. Together we have managed to repeatedly pull the rug out from under Cav and Kaz's plans. We watched with glee as Kaz and Cav considered themselves far too ahead of the game to be beat only for our alliance to totally obliterate their machinations.
Currently our research plan is Machinery, optics, then gunpowder, ultimately heading for rifles, where we should be able to use the payout from liberalism to draft and hopefully crush an under-prepared Kaz. As always, we look forward to sharing these techs with you as they are researched.
Do you have an ETA on drama? Hopefully when you are able to get it we will be able to start building theaters, with the goal of building a GT in TKY, where we will be able to use it for maximum effect when we start drafting.
We look forward to continued operations together,
Iamjohn for Team SANCTA
To face a common threat
Our armies march together
And we will succeed