[LURKERS] PB 42

[RefSteel]

Just doing a silent concession check:

- Gavagai is the one to whom the game would be conceded, but he seems to regard superjm's potential Cav upgrades as a legitimate threat. It would be great if we could call the game now, just so it would be safe to make this, from his latest post, the QotM:

Instead they are fighting over this lush island which is perfectly positioned right between them and also exists only in their imagination.

- Krill, in second place, is willing - nay, eager - to concede
- OH, in probably the third-best momentary position, though tenuously so, appeared to take it for granted in a recent post that Krill's was the only concession (still) needed. (That's not the same thing as an official concession - it was an off-hand, half-jesting remark, and e.g. Fintourist might be very active behind the scenes, and might disagree - but it's enough to leave open the possibility that we should ask players about concession.)
- superjm, as Commodore noted above, still looked until quite recently like he was hoping for and expecting at least a chance to win. After a low-odds double scientist roll though, he might be changing his mind. Is he aware yet that they actually can't bulb Astronomy?
- I don't think Mr. Cairo would be happy about having the game called just as he's about to invade superdeath - to make his big push to do something in the game. No chance to win the game of course, least of all with this ill-advised attack, and I don't know about war gains either way. At this point, superdeath's impenetrable mass of rifles is pure vaporware, but he is mustering some actually-completed defenders, and Cairo's not exactly showing up with overwhelming force.
- From recent posts, I'd say superdeath has de-facto conceded.
- Lewwyn conceded ages ago. I still feel kind of bad about not really having time to look at the map more closely when the game started. If I'd even just looked at the civs right to left instead of left to right, I might have observed and mentioned in stronger terms the extreme disparity between the Donovan/Lewwyn starts and some of the legitimately good ones further east.
- If the game wass called right now, OT4E would techically have survived to the end.

So my question would be: Do we call the game when the identity of the winner is obvious, or not until all players are actually ready to concede? In the former case, we should probably poke superjm at least to ask how his plans are going. Unless he hits Gavagai with a lot of cavs and a number of other things go right for Krill or (mayyyyyyybe) OH, both of whom already seem ready to concede, Gav has clearly won this thing. If we wait for full concessions though, we probably at least have to let Mr. Cairo's attack on superdeath go through until it stalls out (or until someone else joins in and takes over superdeath's core, which imaginably could still change the dynamics of the game) ... and then check in with superjm to see if it's safe to call the game for Gav.