Snivelization: todb's recap

Snivelization ran for three rounds, totalling 12 hours, and had five human players:

Humans:
Formica: Charlie / Holy Romans
Milo MOARai: Peter / Russians
todb : Julie / Romans (renamed as Carealot Kingdom)
Mike : Louis / French
James : Sitting Bull / Native Americans

(Jmbh couldn't make it this time).

AI:

Pacal / Mayans
Giggles / Sumerians
Lincoln / Americans
Sally / Arabians

(Note, here's a handy reference for leaders and traits).

This was the first game we played with Permanent Alliances enabled.

My entire game was pretty much fixed at around turn 10. As it happened, my first wandering warrior came across a very close French border. Naturally, I declare war immediately, walk in, and notice an undefended Paris. "Nice huts," I say. Being on a hill, I can see the closest defender is three turns away. Next turn, I'm standing next to a naked Paris.

I did not wipe out France. Instead, we struck a deal -- I would concentrate on military might (having a nice early unit, everyone's favorite Praetorian), and he would feed me tech, in exchange for me not killing him. I kept a close eye on France to ensure they weren't trying to build a military behind my back, and they didn't. Later on, the deal morphed some into France serving as a buffer state between Rome and America.

Of course, not all was sunshine and roses for the Carealot Kingdom. France had the only convienent source of iron, so the deal morphed into, an iron-and-tech in exchange for peace. Carealot was still ahead in Axemen (Axebears?), so war was still a meaningful threat.

This comfortable early dominance over another human civilization proved massively useful -- I was able to build a navy that utterly dominated the eastern ocean between us and the Native Americans. I also noticed that the top two AIs (Maya and Sumeria) also shared a continent with Native America. Feeling that the N.Americans weren't doing enough to corral them, I felt that Carealot had to intervene on that dangerous continent, in the form of forcing Native America into capitulation.

However, the Axis of Caring's eventual undoing was precisely the same source of its strength; by completely outsourcing my tech research to France, when it came time to face off against the remaining humans (who presumably did not have a similar arrangement), we were quickly and woefully out-teched. I had no real science infrastructure to speak of by the 1400s, and only then did I start building even libraries.

The disparity became apparent immediately after the first Zionist-Crusader invasion; while we were able to leverage naval power quite effectively, and did beat off the land units after only a few turns, the next wave of attacks were stymied by our total lack of air power and submarines After the Manhattan Project was completed by ForMilo, and their massive Uranium richness (four sources to our one), and our complete lack of Rocketry, it was obvious we were doomed.

Thus, a pair of civs which each had their own science infrastructure trounced the other pair. I figure the beaker gap between us two superpowers to have been about 60%, total. They were just researching things so much faster than we were.

So, final thoughts:

Even if you are able to enslave another human civ, don't rely on that fact for a huge component of your combined output for too long. It's a nice, almost unbeatable early boost, but it will evaporate eventually.

Don't be overly belligerent with the AI unless you plan to completely crush/vassal them. We spent far too much divided effort on battling the Americans and Sumerians seperately. I also feel we should have been closer buddies with the Arabians, who were an early tech leader and sworn foes of the ForMilo collective.

Small-area city clustering still seems very effective use of available land, but given the early alliance, it's hard to calculate the true effects.

Too many revolutions without the Spiritual Trait will murder output.

Too many wonders will not only make your cities attractive targets, but can easily lead you down a defenseless path (my spot diagnosis of Native America's problems)

The undefended capital problem goes without saying. :) I had my own capital undefended for maybe 5 turns, but I was nervous about it the entire time, and was building a warrior as my first project to fix that.