RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[Maniac Marshall]

The more I think about this, the more I think this could be the beginning of the end for us. I have a sneaking suspicion that when the game shifts again, we'll be the ones being ganged up on. I wouldn't be surprised if us, Mali, Babylon, and Byzantium are the ones kicked to the curb.

[RefSteel]

Since it appears to still be T150: It's likely actually best to put the overflow hammers into a forge at Thundara, and whip that before the temple, since both will come in pretty quick succession. After that, a theater probably will be necessary, though if we can get Taoism or Judaism (or I guess Buddhism) into the city first, this is another good place for a monastery (preferably after the forge and temple, but before SciMeth, obviously).

On HV, since I notice I never answered this one: We don't have to delay receiving steel. If you wish, we can replace that last Cat with a Cav. We'd be two sizes smaller, but that would still grow us to size 6 just as the Globe completes. Which way to go depends on whether you consider Cat + 6 pop better or worse than Cav + 8 pop. And whether we want to build cannons anywhere in those 4 or 5 (or whatever it is) turns.

Of course, all this is irrelevant if the game doesn't continue, which would be okay with me. It's been fun though!

[Maniac Marshall]

If the game did not continue, it would actually be fine with me at this point as well, something I would not have said even a week ago, but meh, I've become more accutely aware in the last 10 days of how much this game really IS screwing up my life, and I've realized all the things I've put on hold or completely given up for this game. I've also thought that doing other things with the sometimes 5 hours a day on this game nearly every day would be nice...

You should read the chat I had with Krill today, where he basically declares that we have played the best game to this point, and are the absolute odds on favorite to win the game if it goes to space race, especially if we can capture the bhuddist shrine from Ruff (which honestly had NOT occured to me, though I HAD thought if we got a priest of knocking out DR, throwing down a shrine, and spreading Islam.

I, of course, dissagreed with his assessment for the simple reason that now that everyone says we're the favorite, we're likely to get gang banged, and that all you had to do was look at PB1. Did ANYONE think Munroe was going to win for the first 90% of the game?

He proclaimed absolute disbelief that our #1 goal was not to win the game, which is 100% true in your case, and only not true in my case because I feel like we'd be letting several people, especially Kyan, down if we don't try our best to, and also, that I dislike the idea of ending up an utter failure now that expectations are so universally high for us. Fear of failure has always been a powerful motivator for me.

[Maniac Marshall]

I'll log in and make the change you suggested. I'll also try to provide actual useful comments to go along with the picture dump. If the game is still paused this weekend, I'll try to get some work done on that "other project"

OK, not stuck anymore, but I just realized the hammers are still going into the grainery at present, and thus the overflow hammers you speak of won't exist till turn 151...

[RefSteel]

If the game did not continue, it would actually be fine with me at this point as well, something I would not have said even a week ago, but meh, I've become more accutely aware in the last 10 days of how much this game really IS screwing up my life, and I've realized all the things I've put on hold or completely given up for this game. I've also thought that doing other things with the sometimes 5 hours a day on this game nearly every day would be nice...

Yes: This. Absolutely.

You should read the chat I had with Krill today

I will when I get a chance. Which ... uh ... eventually. Sounds quite interesting though. (If it's short enough to post and you think the lurkers would be interested....)

OK, not stuck anymore, but I just realized the hammers are still going into the grainery at present, and thus the overflow hammers you speak of won't exist till turn 151...

Er ... oops. I lost track of when we were, thanks to the pause.

While the game was paused by the way, according to e-mails I've been seeing, HRE and the Ottomans were wooed by England and Carthage, and decided to join PAT. We now have a NAP to turn 200 with both. The effect of this on the game should be ... interesting. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Good results for Byzantium and especially India seem like they'll be difficult to arrange. (Byz might be able to just say, "Uh, us too" and get into PAT themselves. India ... I just don't know. They've made a lot of enemies.)

Maniac, if you're in fact interested in winning, the key will be to figure out and arrange for a world allignment that keeps us in a viable tech alliance (or a series of them) until the endgame. If we get dogpiled for doing such a good job of building our civ though ... then great! It means we did an incredibly good job of building our civ! Perhaps others could have done as well, and intentionally sandbagged to avoid Tall Poppy Syndrome, but I'm happy just with the empire we built. And with Ball-of-String-Courts to help whip/draft Aggressive units, in combination with our monster research ability, we should be able to hang in there a lot longer than many another Tall Poppy.

[Maniac Marshall]

-nt-

[Maniac Marshall]

-nt-

[RefSteel]

...

However, given how you feel about my "letter of the law" interpretation, I think I'll not do so.

Deal with the diplo however you want as far as our civ is concerned. If you were going to follow my scruples, we would have been doing things very differently (and would probably have been in a much weaker position by now, if not eliminated, but you know how much I care about that) for a very long time.

But.

<Certain comments from each message that I'm not even going to quote or paraphrase>

Please stop talking about me and your interpretations of my motives and feelings. Please. I don't know what else to say. Please stop.

[Maniac Marshall]

I thought it was rather clear that what I assume you're referring to was said in jest, and I have no idea why that would upset you, but whatever.

I REALLY hope the game doesn't continue now. On top of all the myriad other issues, like possibly losing my fucking job because I can't sleep at night worrying about this fucking game, I'm honestly tired of everything I do being wrong.

[strike]Haven't heard from Donovan[/strike], and Carthage is leaving for a week tonite, so it'll be paused for at least a week, then right when he gets back, I'm leaving for 9 days during which it'll likely still be paused. With any luck, that'll kill the game and I can just go do something that is more fun, like watching paint dry, or pissing everyone else on the internet off, which is aparently what I'm best at =/.

Unfortunately, I know it won't. The game will go on till at least the middle of next year, if not till next Christmas, and my own personal hell will continue to drag me down. I'll probably lose my gf and my job over the game before it's over. Not like I haven't lost a job over an internet game before, right? I love this fucking game.

IF by some merciful act of God this game actually DOES end, I WILL finally have time to do other shit for the first time in months. I expect that as of last night/now, you no longer have interest in that other project that I put on hold for this fucking nightmare, but I don't know, so you tell me. I'm not going to try to continue with it if you no longer want to.

[RefSteel]

So, in order from least to most important:

1) I'd be delighted to continue the "relaxed pace" project as long as you don't let IT eat your life.

2) I'm sure you meant it in jest; partly, I'm concerned that others mightn't read it that way, but no doubt they understood that and I'm just oversensitive to that sort of thing. I'm sorry to introduce another stumbling block, but please just accept/respect my oversensitivity on this one.

3) I clearly stink at communicating, because I think most of what you do is right, and I seem to have conveyed the opposite impression.

4) I don't know how much it's going to help for me to write this, or what I can say. Please don't lose your job or anything else that's actually important over this game. It's a game. It has cost both of us an enormous amount already that it shouldn't have, but no amount of in-game success will fix that, and no amount of in-game collapse will make it worse. If the problem is losing sleep, it might be necessary to just take a week or two off from even looking at the game, the sub-forum, the F/K e-mail account, or anything else related to the game. Play some quick games you like, read a short story by your favorite author, go out with your girlfriend - I'm not sure what works for you, but do whatever things will get your brain out of this game. If it actually even starts up again in the next week or two, I can probably handle the turnplaying; I can queue worker actions and arrange build queues when I won't be able to log in for a significant stretch. I can probably keep the civ going until Morgan comes back and hopefully takes over. If it's not perfect ... um ... so what? We built a pretty cool civ. At some point, we'll have to drop it, either because the game ends (in victory, defeat, or collapse-under-its-own-weight) or because real life says we must. Now is as good a time as any. And of course we can just say, "Guys, we tried, but we've reached the point where we can't keep this up any longer. We can pause looking for someone else until they turn up or Morgan comes back, but our team mmebers can't go on with this." I'm definitely okay with that.