 Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, so as I promised on an episode of Geek Nights and for the Patrons, a lot of people are really interested in this game and said five were playing, and I thought I'd livestream when I take my turns, or do some sort of like update of the game, but I realized that one, you'd only see the game from my perspective, so I couldn't show you any of the other stuff that's going on, and two, probably much more importantly, motherfuckers would spy on me. So I'm going to record these long in advance of actually showing them to any of you, and I plan to record one of these pretty much every time I take a turn that has something interesting going on. So give you a little background on this game. We're using Giant Multiplayer Robot because the built-in stuff is garbage, and we're just coming up on the end of the first hundred turns, so the game's about to get real interesting. The main reason that I chose Portugal was that I did not want to get attacked by all of my very astute friends who are well aware of the kinds of games that I play and the way that I like to win them, so if I picked an empire that had even close to a fraction of a military bent, they would have assumed I was a threat, ganged up on me and destroyed me immediately, so I picked a civilization that appears to be primarily commerce-based Portugal, but I'm going for a domination victory because I am convinced that I will be able to sneak my way into it, or in the very least build such a gigantic military-industrial empire that everyone will can see it and I'll win the game. So this is the state of the game, about a hundred turns in, so let's take a tour of the empire. So first off, I've got this coast here. I basically expanded as fast as I could with liberty. I'm very much a fan of the liberty opening, especially because I do plan to settle many more cities down the road, but I'm going to focus heavily on culture and really push this until I at least fill out liberty, and I'm either going to take page from your aesthetics next. I haven't actually decided. So I expanded immediately here because this is actually a great spot for a city after a lot of debate because while I actually wanted to make the city a little bit further north and not overlap here, I decided that in the early game, having two cities overlapping meant that I could get more bang for my buck in terms of development because I could focus these cities on production or food or whatever on an ad hoc basis as I need it. More importantly, by doing this, I can put ships out here. I tend to, I'm going to play a very ship Navy heavy game once I get a little bit into it because my commerce is very important to me. So in that aspect, I can actually leverage my Navy to defend against the expected betrayal and war from Germany by actually sliding a couple of Galleons or even Galleuses into here and having basically free range units that I can just pop in at a moment's notice. So I think I can defend Porto very well. And by being close proximity to my capital, I can defend my capital very well. So Germany, this game is all very close friends of mine in the FRC, the front row crew. Germany, Alex, Alex plays Sif5 about as much as I do. He is about as dangerous at this game as I am. And we've played Sif4 games together. So very early on, before I discovered the rest of this area, I thought that the land didn't go that far. And we negotiated and came to an agreement that north of this coastline here, I would not settle past the line where you can see that Hamburg is. And in return, he would not settle east, like us West, over into any of this territory. So we basically set up a line of no settling. And we agreed to not go to war. I pretty much told him that the only thing that will cause me to betray him is if I get artillery. And he is significantly far from having artillery because I fucking betray everyone as soon as I have artillery, artillery can attack cities that cannot shoot back. And if you have that before someone else does, and they don't have a significant air force or something to counter it, you can just take cities as your leisure. But we pretty much agreed that he'll fill in settling here, even though I really want this spot. I want that citrus real bad. But I feel like I don't want to antagonize my only near land enemy. So I only settled this one little outpost to hold the coast. I want the coast 100%. And because this is actually a great city in the long run, I'm gonna have to do some caravans to get some production here and build some wonders. Because the land around is not great, but two luxury resources within spitting distance, some other stuff like iron things hanging out. But I needed those two luxury resources. I want to have this bastion on the coast here. And if I ever did go to war, this is a nice base to expand from. I also will probably build a city in here at some point, but it's not super necessary. So anyway, let's see. So I rushed this city as my third city real quick because I was afraid, look London, in retrospect after I explored, doesn't have a lot of land. And the fact that he let me come up here is not great for him. He's really only got one more spot he can build a city, maybe two. But London, my friend James was also dangerous at this game. He rushed at great expense and danger to get the great library. He got the great library earlier than anyone could possibly have anticipated. And I'm going to take him down. I'm going to go to war with him as soon as I am capable. I think I could take him down now actually with a little investment. I mean, all I got is this guy could be a composite bowman pretty quick and a catapult. And I got a couple of military units here. I've actually been shuffling along the coast over the course of the game, the few military units I have to make it look like I have a much bigger military than I do. At least long enough for Alex and I, Germany and I to have a nice detente. And I've been keeping this out of sight of him. And I kind of have been friendly and I kind of just want London to leave me alone long enough for me to quietly build an army down here and then suddenly move it all up and just take London. I'm not going to skip York. I'm just going to come straight into London, probably around both sides. But that's neither here nor there. I need to get a little bit further in scientific advancement. I need to have a little more happiness and I'd like to at least have workshops before I get on that road. I also wish someone else would declare war on someone first because I don't want to be the first person to declare war because as you can see victory point was I'm actually in the lead. Even though Lisa Zibbelkut is the most fucking dangerous person in this game and the Zibbelkut Empire is on a different continent, she's probably equal or greater than me in terms of actual chance of victory. My points come with the fact that I built two wonders. I rushed the pyramids because I find that they actually are a great way for my playstyle to build the things I need quickly because it just makes my workers work faster and it gave me a bunch of free workers and I wanted that early culture. And I rushed the Great Lighthouse immediately after because one, I assume no one gave a shit about it. No one really thinks it's that powerful, at least among the kinds of people I play with. Two, it's power giving my military units out here an extra movement on the sea. That's going to be real important about 40 or 50 turns from now. That's going to be a power that I'm going to use extensively for the entire rest of the game. So let's talk about the state of the rest of the world. So Germany and I, I'm going to make a declaration of friendship if he'll accept it and we're going to do research agreements as soon as we can and we're just going to be close buddies at least for most of the game. We have a tacit agreement that Germany, when the time is right, is going to see Cologne hanging out here, move north and wreck our friend Chris and destroy Egypt and take all his land. In return, I am going to 100% ignore when that happens and actually probably simultaneously declare war on London. So we'll see how that goes. Now I am friendly with Egypt for the time being. I have not decided if I will do a soft power play and betray Germany by gifting units, gold resources to Egypt. But in the short term, I will take no overt military action to support Egypt if they get invaded and I will, like I said, likely just invade over here almost immediately. So there is China, Kremlin here, which is apparently out of continent by itself. Now no one's really pushed triremes enough to explore all these archipelagos and everything. We're not really sure where everyone lies. So while China is likely on its own, it is very likely that China can get to the other subcontinent via shallows alone without needing actual navigation. So on the other subcontinent are Scott, who is just doing terribly and it's really sad, and AI, which was Russia, which was super beefed up, but got rolled by Lisa. That's a good source of her points there. And I think Scott, the AI, Russia and Lisa are together on a continent by themselves. Pretty sure that continent is accessible to either our continent or their continent to China, but we're going to find that out in the next 10 or 15 turns, I assume. So I don't have to worry about China until I can actually get a ship over there to trade. And I have tentative trade agreements with both China and Scott. We will trade luxury resources until the cows come home, even though cows are not actually a luxury resource. My long term strategy, now I'm doing something kind of unorthodox. So you can see I'm almost done with engineering. In retrospect, I wish I was going after something different, but I'm so close I can't stop. So here's the state of my science. I have ignored horses because I don't have any significant land enemies that are likely to attack me. And I'm actually in a very defensible position. Also, most of my friends are pretty military averse because they're desperately afraid of my profound advanced wars skills. And I'm actually confident with even a very weak military I could defend myself and do crushing damage to anyone who actually attacked me. So I have two options here. I could either let engineering finish, get aqueducts and kind of maybe rush the Great Wall. I'm trying to get people to agree to not build the Great Wall. And if I build the Great Wall, I'm confident I can defend my land cities till the end of time. So because dynamite, which obsolete the Great Wall, is also the thing that gives you artillery. So what I could do, and I probably won't do this, is after I finish engineering and get these boons here is go back over here and rush straight across to compass because that is where I will be able to get all the powers of my people. I really need these nows. Once I get the nows, I can do some damage. But you can see there's a lot of business here. I also need to get education because education is what will allow me to do research agreements, meaning I have an excuse to do a friendship agreement with Germany, thus cementing us as allies for most of the game. Because once we do a research agreement, that is a significant monetary outlay that would be ruined if either one of us declares war. And I do want to work with him because even though I don't win this game, I want to make it to the end of the game or I at least want to be a kingmaker. I want my civilization to make it. So what I'm probably going to do, which is what I do with all their civilizations usually, is I'm going to finish engineering, I'm going to then do iron working because I have a lot of iron, meaning that these swordsmen, I can actually build with this the army I will need to take out England. So after this, I'll go here and then I'll immediately go here. I like to rush metal casting because while this other stuff is actually more useful to my civilization, metal casting gives me workshops. Getting workshops early is a fast path to getting industrialization early later in the game. So vaguely finish this, get this, start building my army to attack him. As soon as I get this, build workshops in every one of my cities and probably while this is going on, I'm going to have a war going on with England. And once I finish this, I'm probably going to back up and work this path here. And I'm probably going to work this path all the way up until I get astronomy. And then I'm going to backfill all these things because I don't really need them that much. Now, if someone betrays me and someone has a horse army, which doesn't seem likely to the games mapped out, I'm going to redirect and rush here just to get pikemen and mercenaries. So in terms of my immediate turn, let's see what's going on. So I've been moving this guy around just sort of scouting friendly. He definitely does not trust me. Look at this shit. He has got guys covering everyone of his workers all the time. And I've been vaguely menacing them, but in social media and in trade deals, I've been very friendly. This is Henry the boatless navigator because I am being very friendly with Egypt right now. And I want to see what's over here and actually don't know yet. I moved this guy around a lot and I moved this guy around a lot. And I've been rotating them around. So Germany nearly gave me thought that I had more military than I actually have. I got this spearman from a hut and I built this guy because I was desperate for some defense. And this is the extent of my military down here. So I keep this guy here mostly as an early warning system. And just to kind of see what's going on, you can see that he has got sentries. There's another warrior hanging out around here somewhere. He doesn't trust me, but he's playing the same game I am. That's why I know I'm safe. He's posted these sentries here and somewhere around here to keep an eye on me. I like this in this hill and see. Yep, there is. So I'm doing the same thing. And I'm pretty sure him doing that means that he's afraid of me coming in and betraying us. And he's not going to betray me. So I don't have to betray him, but I need to do the same thing in case he's thinking the same thing. And frankly, there's no threat to me from the sea anytime soon. These guys are building roads because I actually want to connect my cities because I'm very soon going to get this bonus. And I'd like to get less unhappiness. Also trade routes are going to be a big deal in the long run for my game. I'm going to rush this because while this city is growing slowly and I really do need some farmland, in the short term, I can really use the gold that's generated instead. And I don't want to build farmland until this unlocks. And I don't want to spend money on that yet because 80 bucks could buy me a composite archer upgrade, which I'll need if anyone declares war. So I'm going to make the city connection now while I've got idle workers and they'll be done just in time to come over here and turn that into a farm. And now the city's cooking. Here, I'm almost done with the cargo ship, which again, I need more money. I only have one trade route. And that first cargo ship is either going to come around over here or going to come around over here. Or I might actually use it early on just to send production over here to build the city out faster. That's something that people don't often do. I might need it there. I think there's an advance I actually need before I can do that. I forget which one it is because I usually don't do such a thing so early in the game. Oh, which one is it? It's one of these things. Compass. No, it's not that one. It's not education. Past Remove the Road. Additional trade route. Maybe it's one of the ones I already got. Oh, whatever. I'll see. Worst case, I will connect to one of these city states. And here I'm building a trireme which against the AI would ignore if there's no point to build any units over the sea anytime soon. But I would like to have some of these units built early so I can later upgrade them. And I do actually want to explore all this biz because you can see some land peaking here. If I can reach China, then I can start trading and me and China are going to have one fucking alliance because we are no threat to each other, at least until we can build Galleuses. So let's see what else can do in my turn. These guys, he has not seen this catapult. I want to keep it that way. So if I see any of his guys poking around, this guy is actually going to flee in this way. And I'm keeping this archer here to keep people away. This guy is still just sort of wandering around keeping an eye on what's going on here. So if a war starts, like if a war started suddenly, this guy, I'd sacrifice him and I'd come in and just start pillaging the shit out of all this stuff. This guy is almost done. This city is doing real well. It's going to finish the library soon. Pretty good citizen management. I've got plenty of expansion here. Unfortunately, I don't have any more luxury resources I'm going to get. But these bananas will be useful. So what I'm going to build here next after the library is probably, well it depends, there's a lot of things I could do. I don't know if anyone's going to bother with this. Usually a lot of humans don't build it so I might just start building it. But more likely I'm going to build either a granary or a coliseum for happiness. I'm going to afford the religion for now. But I might sneak a military unit in. Actually most likely I'm going to build an aqueduct so we'll see. This guy, I got some time to decide. I kind of want to build the great wall in one of these two places. And time will tell if that's feasible. My scout already explored that. So let's start wandering back over this way. Show good faith, get out of his territory. And I don't think there's anything else I can do on my turn. You can see I haven't seen that much of the world yet. And I do have a debate coming up. See, that's what I'm looking at right there. There's some business. Also there's some more crabs. Because some motherfucker wouldn't trade these crabs to me. He traded to someone else. So yeah, nothing else I can really share right now. And let's see how this game progresses. Especially once we get past turn 100. And what's the first war starts?