[spoilers] Mr. Cairo Steels himself for another Pitboss

[Mr. Cairo]

More than one player has either conceded or stated they have no chance of winning.  It is unfortunate that we've found no more delicate way to do this, but the alternative is games go on until they end.

Darrell

Fair enough, but it does appear as though the only concession that matters is Commodore's

[darrelljs]

That was the calculus. Although I do know you had a plan to win upthread, it was predicated on Commodore being engaged. Once that was no longer true it seemed polling the remaining players was the least bad option. I completely understand your frustration, and do apologise we didn't find as better way to check. In hindsight maybe just asking you first would have been better.

Darrell

[Mr. Cairo]

Well, I don't know about that, since it seems to me this is more to do with Gavagai than me. It's just a guess but I'd bet that gavagai entering the war kept Commodore's hopes alive. ANd Gav making peace resulted in this concession. What I can't guess is whether gavagai has given up, or still wants to fight it out and made peace to prepare for continuing the fight later...

[Mr. Cairo]

So the game appears to be continuing. But just to be clear (I did say this further upthread), if I'm the only one who wants to continue, then I don't want to force the game to continue. It isn't fair on the other players, and if no-one else is trying then I have no chance anyway so its pointless.

[Mr. Cairo]

Retrospective:

I was stuck on a little rock squished up against the top of the map (why do we not use Toroidal maps anymore?). I tried to use my traits to keep up, but I made one key error: I went for Astro via Lib, instead of bulbing like everyone else. being PHI doesn't' necessarily mean I can bulb Astro faster than everyone else, since it seems more dependent on how fast you can get the pre-req techs, but if I had bulbed Astro I almost certainly could have still got to Lib before anyone else and used that to get a more useful tech before anyone else (Chemistry for example). I also should have expanded to the west a lot earlier and grabbed all those islands.

All that to say: Cairo should have moved earlier, he missed his window of opportunity where he could attack without interference, and now Rusten can reply to whatever move he makes and still continue to fight against Commodore to take his stuff.

I never had the mfg to build up enough of an army to make any attack. BGN had PRO longbows Castles in every city, and Gav beat me to Galleons and Frigates. I suppose I could have attacked Gav after he attacked Rusten, but that definitely would have ended the game. Throughout most of that game my limited hammers were going into Libraries and Universities and Wealth/Research builds to try and keep up in teching rate. I needed the draft and mass-upgrades before I could get a decent army. I had city vision of my target, BGN, and knew what he had waiting for any attack, and I've defeated invading Rifles with Catapults and Muskets myself, so I knew that Rifles alone wouldn't be enough, I needed a lot of them, and landing in multiple places so that one or two of them would soak up the Catapult stack.