[SPOILERS] JR4 and RefSteel have a plan

[superdeath]

After stabbing Superdeath, we could never truly trust him but then we needed at least one ally.

Ooof.

I mean it sucked having to reset the culture on that border... but i was hopeful that given our indefensible border between us we might as well go for others... Plus you showed that war doesnt need to be TOTAL war... ( tell Dark Savant that )

[Fintourist]

GG JR4 and Ref. I was not an active lurker in this game apart from ending moments, but I wanted to write that I appreciate all the players for making it to the very end and making it a great game for all the participants as well as lurkers. Fatigue is more than understandable, but hopefully in a bit you'll look back at this and consider it an epic experience. 

[Charriu]

And as the mapmaker for this game, thank you for your honest opinion about the map. That's really helpful.

[superdeath]

And as the mapmaker for this game, thank you for your honest opinion about the map. That's really helpful.

I loved the map. Dont follow JR4's advice and make another pb39.... /shudder. Island hopping naval warfare is vomit inducing.

[shallow_thought]

POST MORTEM

I am left somewhat disappointed with a fourth place finish.

A special thanks to RefSteel and BaII for all feedback and comments. I hope you had as much fun as I did. At least we got quite a few Great Generals so that`s some well-documented blood for the lurkers.

Ah, you can't control everything that happens in the game. But take a look at the things you could control - that post count! And something that you couldn't control, but should make you feel good - the view count.

No-one else was close! And it's not like your thread was full of random chatter or memes (not that anything is wrong with either) - just great, solid, honest reporting.

As for the game, there were some good players who didn't survive. You were definitely still relevant all the way to the wire. On to the next?

[Charriu]

And something that you couldn't control, but should make you feel good - the view count.

That's not entirely true. You can visit your own thread often during the day and it will increase view count.

[superdeath]

And it's not like your thread was full of random chatter or memes (not that anything is wrong with either) -

And something that you couldn't control, but should make you feel good - the view count.

That's not entirely true. You can visit your own thread often during the day and it will increase view count.

Thats how i get 90% of my views.

[wetbandit]

I think it's funny that we never actually had real combat in this game even though I envisioned your team as Enemy #1 for all of the early game until I got dogpiled.  Then we should have had better relations sooner than we actually did.

I found it hard to credibly communicate intentions and commitments.  (Do I sound like a lapsed poli sci major?) To that end, I'm curious how long you guys thought your interest aligned with Cairo.  I saw a bloc of superdeath/wetbandit vs cairo/aztec lasting far too long than was necessary, but I don't think that's because anyone acted irrationally, it was just difficult to communicate intentions to support a war versus cairo or the two militarily weaker powers in DZ and cornflakes.

We did kill a random Viking Chariot that forked Lords and Escanes in the semi-early game but yes, we probably should have started to cooperate a bit earlier. I think it`s fair to say that I underestimated Mr. Cairo`s culture attempt for a long time. After stabbing Superdeath, we could never truly trust him but then we needed at least one ally. Due to our terrible mess of a border with Napcakes making a huge amount of culture and our cities desperately trying to respond to that we both spent a lot of resources on waging a culture war for a long time. There wasn`t really any way of showing that we`d wanted a demiiltarized border, though. You obviously couldn`t leave the Great Lighthouse city without a proper garrison.

If you`d signaled friendship with more mutually beneficial trade deals I would likely have been happy about ditching Mr. Cairo as main ally earlier.

One of the reasons I actually went for the Great Lighthouse was for culture.  The trade routes were nice, but I think I only got 4 extra routes at the time.  I really wanted the 6 culture for Napcakes to hold onto its tiles, including the cow.  If that had not been a barb city, I would have placed it differently and that would have huge long term effects.  I only rushed to take it because I feared your team was trying to get there first.  It's location convinced me not to try and settle any cities to its west since I calculated that you would view that as an unforgivable pink dot and would put a big target on my back.  Napcakes and any city to its west could be easily forked as well.

I was very irritated when you settled helicanus such that it's 2nd ring would overlap with Napcakes.  I had a sign that last for the whole game that expressed some displeasure.  I thought a city on the coast on the tundra hill would have led to fairly stable borders and good relations.  Instead, I needed to build the hermitage in Napcakes to protect tiles and stuff a ton of units there.

Funny how the location of 1 barb city influenced our entire relations.

[JR4]

@Hitru and Fintourist: Thanks for the kind words. I do think it`s good to see a game go all the way to a victory condition too as games on RB are generally called a bit early. The late game was fun to play out.

I`ve (half-jokingly) talked a bit about Fintourist`s 1-10 scale of civ competitiveness and consider myself roughly 8 on that one. 


@Charriu: Who told you that I had to get a new F5 button after updating again and again to increase the view count?

@Shallow_thought: I`ll need a break until the fall at least as this last game took a lot of effort and time. It`s certainly not impossible that I sign up for another game in the not-so-distant future, though. As always, feel free to join in.

@Superdeath: Heh, why am I not surprised that you liked the map? It was kind of similar to PB 40, I think.

Also, it`s just so hard to read the reaction of other players in AI diplo. I was fully convinced that you`d get back at us at some point..

@Wetbandit: The Napcakes - Helicanus border was quite bad for both of us as we had to spend a lot of resources on defending that area. In principle, I agree that we could have stepped back a tile for a better and more relaxed border but we lost land grab races against both Cornflakes and Mr. Cairo so I felt that we had to make a play for the border region out east.

You`re right about us going to war if you`d gone any further west from Napcakes. If that barb city had not appeared - where would you have built your border city with us?

[wetbandit]

@Wetbandit: The Napcakes - Helicanus border was quite bad for both of us as we had to spend a lot of resources on defending that area. In principle, I agree that we could have stepped back a tile for a better and more relaxed border but we lost land grab races against both Cornflakes and Mr. Cairo so I felt that we had to make a play for the border region out east.

You`re right about us going to war if you`d gone any further west from Napcakes. If that barb city had not appeared - where would you have built your border city with us?

Strangely enough, I would have settled 1W of the rice on the hill, off the coast.  While more of an inroad into your land, it was way more defensible in my opinion than the napcakes location was.  Funny to say that since we had no real hot war all game.  The location of napcakes functionally forced me to settle on a tundra hill deer, so I would have tried to make city locations work such that I wouldn't have had to do that on this relatively food scarce map.

I don't know if that placement would have ultimately led to war, but it would have been another Yeehawdists-type city on your border.  A salient that was defensible, but also obnoxious.