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Originally Posted by Matrix
it's a lot to read!  |
One thing I wish I had last game was a turn progress reference, to see how I was doing. So I went a bit overboard this time around.
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Thanks, though indeed I was a bit of a wonder addict.
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And it's a shame to see you go, but like I said on whatsapp, for anyone else to have a shot, we couldn't just let you carry on. It took everything Ynnek and I had, 5 different invasions on 2 fronts, major hits to our combined armies and some preposterous lucky bullshit to claw you out inch by inch. I never write myself off, but this was played from a mindset of probably being a lost game, and throwing guile at its face.
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Although stealing techs also helps.
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2 GE to help rush steel also.
Quite! I'd have been dead last economically otherwise (well maybe 2nd last to Killer). Without any rivers and few $ resources, my options early on were to go full Genghis Khan and raise hell with all of you 1 by 1, which I am (still) loathe to do, or try for a weak attempt at cottage economy from the get go, which wouldn't hold a candle to your lands even without wonders, or over-expand and crash my economy while it was held together by 1 silver resource. I didn't feel confident in pulling either of those options, so off we went into experimental strategies.
Without predictable AI timetables for wonder hoarding, it has meant a bunch of lulls where I couldn't research anything. To say nothing about how slow it is to dig yourself out of that hole of no good dedicated cottage lands and no pyramids for a widespread specialist economy. It's 235 turns in and I'm still working on the transition to cottages. Don't be fooled by the #1-2 GNP of late: free speech gives 2x culture, which counts towards the GNP numbers in F9. Ynnek converted to free speech too, which can become scary real fast. I know I'm still middle-of-the-pack $-wise as PP and Brunch have big techs on me (soon steam in Greece and rifling in Wales).
I mean, look at that beauty. That's how it's done!
I managed to get a good cottage city early on, now with +3$ for towns (free speech + press), but it's my only one and it's yet unfinished:
Then the next cottage cities aren't quite up and running, with some cottages not even built in the 2nd best one:
So I'm rushing to Democracy for faster cottage growth, then assembly line for factories, before heading out to tanks:
By then, I may have pivoted into a sustainable town economy. We'll see. Stapel's capital will make a solid GP farm. Drydocks were built during the last turns of slavery, too, so naval combat will be favorable.
I still don't have a clue how any of the other 3 want to play it out, diplomatically, in a post-Matrix game. Picking on Brunch would be just soulless. I'll try and expand at sea, build up defensive numbers and see how it goes for a few dozen turns.