***IglooDude's CDZ GroupHug spoiler***

[IglooDude]

Screenshots tomorrow, but here's the rundown:

Pangea, I'm on the northeast tip, only having direct borders with Matrix, Darkness above him and BCLG below him. He attacked me just as I (and Darkness and Tubby) were going to attack him. I picked up Goon but he (with BCLG's help) stalemated us outside his capital and we made peace. 10 turns later, he confronted Goon with a stack that I couldn't defend against, so I let him take the city. Darkness couldn't get his shit together quick enough, so while he declared immediately, Matrix got his stack over to Darkness' border and forced peace there, so I peaced with him too.

I just finished Heroic epic, will have a settler out for a fourth city (between Darkness and I) shortly, and Darkness and I will hammer Matrix who is apparently more tech-deprived than I used to be (but an alliance with Tubby, Darkness, and Daveshack fixed that).

[IglooDude]

So much for those screenshots tomorrow. [blush]

Anyway, I've declared on Matrix and razed Goon (it had Christianity - BCLG's religion - in it), and am now anticipating counterattacks as I heal up before heading for Matrix's capital.

Darkness unfortunately doesn't have forces available to join in, so he's gifted me a couple horses and will 'look threatening' in the hopes that it pins Matrix down a little bit (I've got little faith that it will).

[IglooDude]

Update.

I razed Goon, and just got a settler over there to repopulate. Meanwhile, Matrix's stack essentially suicided itself against mine (that was sitting on a forested hill, and suffered no losses), pretty much ending the game for Matrix.

My stack then went and took his capital (his axe and sword easily falling to my maces) - meantime, he gifted his SE city to BCLG apparently as part of a defense agreement. BCLG then declared on him and is moving on his remaining (SW) city. I've got some cats and a covering force racing BCLG's stack to the city, which is 50% defense but only a single archer.

[IglooDude]

Wow, it's been a while.

Matrix is out - I squeeked in with a keshik and took his last city (now Mongolia Beach) just before BCLG took it. He did take Matrixland, apparently as part of a deal helping Matrix, which Matrix took as a bit of a [backstab]. Dunno.

Then Tubby, Darkness, Daveshack and I consolidated. I figured BCLG was my next target, and was ramping up to go at him when suddenly a stack of elephants and cats appears on a treed hill on his side of the border south of Greater Mongolia (formerly Matrix's capital). Figuring the best defense is a good offense (and why stick a stack that doesn't get defensive bonuses on a treed hill?) I catted it then mashed the elephants. Unfortunately my main stack was sitting on a non-roaded tile (arrrrghhhh!!!) so I couldn't kill the cats. I followed them back, heading for Matrixland, which looked like a 50-50 odd of taking, and also took BCLG's east coast city amphibiously and had 50-50 odds of holding it in the near term. I also razed BC's city he'd just settled northeast of Matrixland.

Then everything went pear-shaped. Grahamian and Whomp declared on Darkness, Krys/Ynnek and Regent and someone else declared on Dave, and Tubby kinda turtled up being threatened by Robboo. I accepted BC's offer of peace in return for the eastern city I took (sort of accidentally - I accepted it citing 25 turns of peace, which is incorrectly trying to negotiate after the fact and BC rightly didn't agree), and sent half my stack to Darkness and headed half toward Dave.

Then Robboo declared on Tubby, and so the half-stack going to Dave went to Tubby instead. Then BC declared on Tubby and took Mongolia Beach (which I'd gifted to Tubby back when I had declared on BC originally, since I couldn't defend it well anyway).

Robboo then declared on me and sent a stack toward Greater Mongolia, which I catted and wiped out, in successive turns. BCLG then sent a stack toward Turfan (coastal city I planted northeast of Matrixland, on a hill protected by a river), and I catted and wiped out in successive turns. BCLG just sent another stack toward Greater Mongolia, and I scraped up enough to cat it last turn leaving only his cats alive this turn (and I have more defenders in the city than he has cats now) so with any luck I'll be making it three for three next turn.

Last turn Robboo apparently failed in an attack against Tubby, so he offered 25-turn peace to both of us, gunpowder, a future tech, and minor unit gifting to Tubby. So, 2v1 against BCLG now, Dave is down to one city, and Darkness appears to be acquitting himself well against a 2v1 but I don't know how long he'll hold up.

If Tubby and I can put a stake in BCLG before the peace with Robboo ends, and before Darkness's opponents gain momentum, and most of all before Dave's killers come after Tubby, we might make a game of this yet.

[IglooDude]

BCLG must be getting units gifted either from Robboo, or the folks that killed DaveShack.

I just took Matrixland (losing 2 cats, but killing 6 of his units) and bad RNG rolls kept me from taking the northeast coastal city, but I might get that next turn anyway.

Here's the stack that sent Tubby's attack backward:

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/1681/partytowndi2.jpg

[IglooDude]

It gets worse... he just got Chemistry from someone, and five grenadiers. On the plus side, I was able to take (and raze) Supermassive. So now Tubby and I go on the defensive, each with a single frontline city to defend against him, until Darkness falls and we get hit from behind.

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/2687/partytown2aa0.jpg

[IglooDude]

BCLG wants Matrixland, which has Chichen Itza. I see no reason to give it back (though it looks like he's building up enough to simply take it). He may not realize it (apparently he doesn't), but he could do a combat-roading and hammer it without my cats being able to take a shot first, given the current borders (which hopefully my theater and culture building will fix ASAP).

I've got a loaded galley within a move's range of Whomp's capital (and Jewish holy city), at last view 10 turns ago protected by a single warrior (and he had a caravel there too). But, Darkness reports Whomp's forces have pulled back, and I haven't heard from Darkness since. Is Whomp (and Grahamian) going after ynnek instead, who has double the power of anyone else at this point (per the graph)? I'll get home probably 4 hrs after the turn changeover, so if Whomp hasn't logged in at that point and hasn't upgraded the city defenses, I could raze it. Film at 11.

[IglooDude]

Oh - you've probably read this elsewhere already, but Whomp had a knight in his capital and my sneaky amphib attack failed. [sad]

And though I delayed him via attacking rather than turtling up (and managed to get three of his workers), BCLG ended up attacking and taking Matrixland. But he wanted to raze it (to my surprise) and couldn't - presumably because of his remaining culture there. Then I retook it (as I'd planned) but I couldn't raze it either. Then he retook it, then I retook it - all in the space of two turns.

Meanwhile I took and razed SupermassiveII as well. Now Robboo is attacking Greater Mongolia (4xCR2 grens, 8xbombard2 cats, and 8xcamels), and I've got enough left/healed from BCLG's attack to probably handle Robboo barring further surprises. If those two had coordinated their attacks they'd probably have both Matrixland and GreaterMongolia in hand right now.

Oh and Tubby is getting overwhelmed by ynnek & friends. Darkness appears to be holding up against Grahamian and Whomp, but once Tubby is gone he'll be flanked and will have to fall back. We've agreed that I'll gift him the cities (Tibet and Taiwan) along my northern shore to keep him alive as long as possible (thus irritating the crap out of his opponents). My capital and my military city are my final citadel as well - I was expecting to lose both Matrixland and (since it'd be indefensible at that point) GreaterMongolia to BCLG and Robboo, but who knows I may hang on to that line until Tubby's conquerors arrive.

[IglooDude]

Tubby is gone. [cry]

I've held off Robboo's attack on GreaterMongolia, eliminatign roughly half his stack of 8 camels, 8 cats, and 4 raider grens before he retreated. I lost the majority of my cats in the process, along with a couple cavs. Now he's building up again (having apparently been gifted Tubby's BecaPardon by BCLG) with a pop-rush in every city last turn and healing up his retreated stack (though I was able to kill two full-strength grens with cavalry and retreat again last turn).

BCLG attacked Matrixland with cav, and failed to take it, then retreated off. My recon cav shows he has two injured cav and two grens a couple squares away, but other than that I've seen no movement. Presumably he's waiting for rifling from Grahamian, who popped it this turn, or he's gone thin in the area to either lure me into attacking, or he really is thin because his units are headed north to break an alliance.

I'll have astronomy in 6 turns, and I'll be building a fast galleon (6 or 7 squares/turn) to take some city raiders where they'll do the most good.

Darkness and I will continue to defend as we can and see how things go, we don't have much choice in the matter. [drunks1]

[Tubby Rower]

that's an appropriate smilie [lol]

here's one for me [doomsol]

[IglooDude]

And this is gonna hurt...

I have everything healing up and three or four cats converging from afar, but I don't think I'm going to be able to save GreaterMongolia this time...

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/4323/vsbarbuqz3.jpg

[Tubby Rower]

yeah your going to be MAtrixed [lol]

[IglooDude]

Robboo finally got clever, splashing cav all over the place during a DM last night.

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/8126/vsrobboobarbuvm2.jpg

[IglooDude]

Fortunately I had a 10XP cav just come out of my military city, and it took care of the first Robboo cav threatening Beshbalik (with no injury), and with a little luck Darkness' cav can take the second one, alleviating the pressure there.

If I was Barbu, I'd just try and overwhelm GreaterMongolia this turn (although, if he's looking at 20% and under RNG attack percentages, maybe not) because it would hammer my ability to react to Robboo's cav. I don't know if they're working in concert, or whether Robboo is just taking advantage of Barbu's stack arrival to do his own damage. I hope it's the latter, but it probably isn't. Certainly Robboo and BCLG are (finally?) working in concert, Robboo covering BCLG's near-dead gren and 2 workers with a cav south of Matrixland. Now that Matrixland has a garrison-3 gren, I'm just going to leave it be and (obviously) commit everything to the west.

[IglooDude]

Nothing like a solid ally to help you out when things look bleak. Darkness came in with a couple more cav and pretty much saved Beshbalik (Robboo's two cav might have been able to get it from my anti-mounted-promoted cav). [charge] And to everyone that said "you were stupid to gift Darkness half your army when BCLG and Robboo were due to attack", THAT'S why it wasn't stupid. He came through in the clutch, big time.

My cats did some more damage, and though I lost a couple ~75% battles at the end, things are still not as bleak as they were early this morning. I might see if I can't (effectively) DM Robboo a little bit if Whomp takes his turn this evening. I'm having to be very careful that I don't accidentally DM Barbu in the process, who I have a no-DM agreement with.

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/5136/vsrobboobarbu2zh8.jpg

[IglooDude]

The defense of Greater Mongolia holds against the Barbu attack!!! [beer1]

Barbu's stack has moved a square away, presumably retreating to Robboo's friendlier lands to heal. My defenders are largely too injured to press him, though two cavs did take the opportunity to kill two Robboo cats. Maybe next turn.

And BCLG has (once again) offered ten turns peace in exchange for Matrixland. Now the city means less than nothing to him, as with rifling Chichen Itza is obsoleted to him (but not me, heh) but I see no upside - any attack elsewhere will just weaken me prior to another BCLG assault, and if I've held Matrixland this long then there's no reason to give it up for nothing.

Though I figure that here's where the game gets ugly for Darkness and I, if the global alliance doesn't fracture soon. Whomp/Graham among others I think have rifling and steel now. I just popped astronomy, too, but it's probably too late to do much good. Other than perhaps a fast-galleon dagger strike somewhere, everything's committed to defense of the homeland(s) now. Darkness can retreat tactically, I'll gift him another city to keep him alive even while I'm down to my capital and my military city, if just to gack up global-alliance plans.

[IglooDude]

Whomp and EmpireOfTheDeadBoy (and why the fuck can't people call their civs something that readily indicates who they are?) are now attacking Darkness' Beijing. Unfortunately they're able to take advantage of his not chopping the forests next to his city, and I don't think he has any cats to blunt the attack. I'm sending three slightly-injured cav up there, with a couple more cav and a couple cats to follow, but I'm pretty sure his city is screwed - he's outnumbered two to one, they have 6 cats, and otherwise they're all grens and cav. :(

[IglooDude]

An interesting week - Whomp sent a stack of 5 infantry, 5 cannon, and a few cav at Darkness' northern city (Tibet?), but I had built up quite a few cannon in the meantime and cannoned it down and used whatever units I had in the area to eliminate it - while Darkness' units didn't move. Then Grahamofthedead just came at the city with something like 8 infantry and a couple cannon, and I used the surviving cannon and other units to pound him last turn, hoping Darkness would use his half-dozen cav to destroy most of the survivors. Darkness logged in early this turn, and (aside from accepting gifted techs) apparently did nothing. I've chewed on the stack again more, let's hope a PM to Darkness actually gets him to log in again this turn and chew on the stack some more.

On the upside, I'll finish factories in my capital and my military production cities this turn, so I'll be churning out replacement artillery very soon. :D And perhaps I will ask Darkness if he wants to surrender everything to me, in light of his current failure to assist in his own defense.

Edit: all is well, Darkness PMed me to say that he just eliminated the rest of Graham's stack.

It does make me wonder - if Regent, Barbu, and Robboo are hammering on Ynnek/Graham/Whomp farther west, how can YGW spare two significant stacks to attack Darkness?

Here we go again...

[IglooDude]

Well shit. Game is over, Ynnek won a diplo victory (he, Whomp, and Grahamiam having enough votes). Robboo was a turn away from launching a spaceship.

Let's see... Whomp and Grahamiam eventually overran Darkness, who declined my back-city offer as he didn't feel like being a one-city wonder the remainder of the game. I was able to make it somewhat painful for those two, and eventually razed the two final Darkness cities, which made for a wide cultural border for both of us that pretty much became a no-man's land.

BCLG and Robboo helped me against W/G quite a bit, so when Robboo got close to launching I sent everything that wasn't nailed down his way to help stop G/Socralynnek's invasions.

And that, as they say, is that.

[BCLG100]

Seems our war fucked both our chances, ahwell!

next spoiler= needs more pictures!

[Whomp]

Very nice ID!! Undoubtedly our 2 to 3 century war was the death of all of us. Warring against you and Darkness was a gas and some of the destruction you massed on my attacks was mind blowing. Great fun and thanks for hosting. In hindsight, I'm pretty bummed I didn't make a spoiler. :(