That was probably the largest most fateful event of the game. If you had gotten a scientist instead, maybe someone else (PP, Brunch or myself) could have managed to get GLib first, so that others would have been serious contenders to the development leaderboard. That would have changed everything.

Assuming I had gotten it, I'd still be 2nd to you (if that), but maybe close enough not to feel threatened into attacking. Stapel would've been in my sights.

If PP had gotten it, we'd have had a common target and I would've pushed for cooperation with you.

If Brunch had gotten it, he would have had the best economy, fastest astro, and maybe a chance at keeping up with extra islands. His production was pretty dismal, so idk.

That does look bad from your perspective, but the offer was genuine at the time. I never regret good will but ... y'know ... offense beats development so it had to turn sour ASAP or I was out ;)

Seeing as Pyramids+GLib was problematic, around 400BC I offered Stapel and ynnek to triple-team Groningen, split the territory favorably for them, one of them gets wonder-city. Stapel kindof agreed in principle but also wanted to wait forever, keep his 500AD peace with you and meanwhile move his troops North in case he could take some of ynnek's lands while he was away. I pressed him to join us, and the rest is history.

100% agreed that it's a waste to spend on espionage, but my mass-slavery strategy revolved around sacrificial altars, so I had a TON of spy points. Many spies tried to flip you out of representation only to get captured right out. Eventually, I got one to stick and it took so long, I had so much espionage stacked up, that he grabbed engineering.

Demographics GNP lies to us. It counts culture as well. So with more wonders and creative +2 in every city, the count was falsified.

It took a while to get started with dry cottages and, eventually, Stapel's lands. That might also have skewed your perception of my economy: it was laughable early on with pure cottages, and then it went up very suddenly with towns, universities and printing press. Also, I enjoyed a lot more turns of 100% science thanks to wonder fail gold, another way to compensate for a dismal start.

So my GNP was a lot closer to my science output: less % to taxes, less points counted from culture.

I guess I felt too insecure with my chances, starting with the worst economy after Killer's, at least before the university boom. I didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, or a time where my economy could rival yours. Come to think of it, I should have just gone swinging for Stapel's lands right away at axe+cata and built myself up like that, then met your development with my own in annexed territories. That would also have been a much different game.

I didn't realise you'd have sacrificial altars so much earlier than we had courthouses, but that explains. :) And I understand that I was an obvious target for those espionage points.

"University boom"? Are universities really that important? A city going from 125% science output to 150% science output surely cannot make that much difference, can it?

For sure, I didn't think it through though, because I should've gone for education a lot earlier and build Oxford University in Groningen ASAP. That was perhaps one of my biggest mistakes, along with not staying friends with socralynnek.

Universities isn't that big indeed, but Oxford is if you have a highly specialized city. So are the bonuses for printing press, free religion and free speech. All of that together makes it a big boom.

True, it adds up. :)