Nobody expects the Chinese Inquisition: Isabella of China

[Gaspar]

There's got to be some sort of silver lining...ooh, I know! At least the turn pace is fast, so you'll be able to retire from this game with your silver medal in not too much more time.

Meh, I don't consider place. You either won or you lost.

If you're going to be out-teched but safe, maybe you could try planning for a culture victory. Seems like the most popular "losing" game plan, but it's got to work sometime, right?

Yeah, this is a thought. Despite all my Cassandra'ing I'm not quite ready to throw the towel in yet. But perhaps it does lend favor to running the Monk economy. I could conceivably build the three priest wonders and then I've got my temples and such built in case I decide to go culture for a fall back. I'll have to go look up one of T-hawk's treatises to remember when the best time to turn research off is. In some ways, Cultural makes a lot of sense here - all I have to do is win before mackoti eliminates TT. And I certainly can prop up TT. Of course, I'd have to meet him first.

The demos are actually fairly kind, though Mackoti is in Anarchy from revolting to Bureaucracy.



mackoti respects them as well (Mild PBEM23 spoiler: )

Hi Gaspar,
Did you tryed for oracle? I whiped 4 population becase i got paranoid losing the oracle.
Well man i made some mistakes in that pbem 23 and with novice and seven i dont know if I can recover,but i will try my best,and the midle game is comming and i am very strong there so i may have a small chanse. I made alot of micro mistakes in this game but RNG just loved me.I curently research on calendar what are you reseaching if its not a secret(if it is you dont have to tell me), because your GNP its so high mine even at 100% was way smaller( i am just courious)
I realy enjoy diplomacy with you i cant wait to met others.

Have a nice day,
Mackoti

I like the guy. Just wish he'd stop beating me to everything.

[SevenSpirits]

I'd call that a pbem23 spoiler. (It's meaningless, but diplo/communication is supposed to be completely off.) No big deal, just be careful.

[Gaspar]

I'd call that a pbem23 spoiler. (It's meaningless, but diplo/communication is supposed to be completely off.) No big deal, just be careful.

My bad, totally forgot that was in there.

[Gaspar]

Sent this short reply off to mackoti (Spoiler free!) :

Hey Mackoti,

Nah I didn't try for Oracle, I figured one of the guys out east would be going for Oracle since Hindu/Buddhism both fell over there. I have no idea what they're doing honestly, seems like we're both doing a lot better over here.

I was researching Monarchy, no big secret since you'll see me switch to HR shortly. You'll be blowing me away in tech pretty soon, I'm sure, but I'll do my best to keep things interesting in the meantime.

Regards,
Gaspar

As far as the game goes, I figure I have to do something to keep up the pace. Right now my Academy is balancing out his Representation. Well that and early settled cities = more developed cities. Switching to HR, hooking wines and Ivory will let me get a bit more vertical in the strong cities while I continue to whip in the weaker ones. I can't afford to be too aggressive over the mirror line with Commodore having too many Keshiks - while I don't doubt my ability to defend against them, I also don't have a desire to embroil myself in a war when mackoti hasn't even met TT yet.

So in my mind, I feel like I have to either attack the top of the tree, try and grab the Music Artist, maybe make a run at Great Library (unlikely, since I assume mackoti will use his GE to rush it) or go whole hog on the religious wonders and see if I can get something accomplished with a Monk economy. I suppose the Colossus/GLH option is still out there but I'm not super interested. I probably should build Hanging Gardens just to deny mackoti but I don't really have a great place to whip an Aqueduct and chop the wonder. I could slow build both somewhere but I don't know if I think that's wise either - I've really had enough stone powered fail gold.

Any thoughts from the team? I'm at a bit of a loss as to how best leverage this long peace.

[Mardoc]

Well, I think the the lesson from the last week is 'don't do anything halfway'. Once you pick a goal, go for it 100%. And if you can't convince yourself it's worth going for 100%, it's probably not worth going for at all.

Personally, I like the idea of the monk economy in action. Either that, or start plotting, now, how we're going to crush Commodore and use the territory and army that results to keep mackoti from outgrowing us.

[SIZE="1"]Well, ok, I still like the GLH + colossus plan, but we're probably already past the point where we'd need to have started if doing it 100%. And I think it's clear that you're not interested in giving it 100% anyway[/SIZE]

[Gaspar]

Well, for the short term I decided to work on getting cities productive and raising the happy caps, so we're going Iron Working -> Calendar. Had to save gold this turn and my research/gold saving power is not as strong outside of caste.



It does raise the happy cap by one most everywhere and also lets me whip a Granary at max overflow into Moai. Will do the same with a Library next to get it done.



Settled Cangrejo Rangon over on the entry point to the big sea. Settler completed this turn plus one getting whipped shortly will start the long slow trek there. Hopefully it doesn't work out to be heartbreak. Need another galley or two.



City Maintenance is starting to get expensive. Need to get a few Markets up in key spots plus work some more cottages full time. Still too early in most cases for Courthouses, IMO.



Honestly, by conventional metrics I'm still probably either in the lead or in a dead heat with mackoti. Its the part where he's going to beat me like a redheaded stepchild (fun band from my hometown by the way - here, have a listen: Run Billy Run. In fairness, plays better with a Labatt Blue in hand and not recorded by someone drunk holding a camcorder.) in the next 40 turns that's depressing.

[Gaspar]

So, I wonder if there's smoke to TT's fire in the tech thread. I certainly expected some map hijinks from Bob, so that's not surprising. But Commodore tells me the south is a mirror of the north in the same way east mirrors the west. So the only part of the map I really haven't seen is Floodplainsbonanzaland® and any islands that might be in the middle sea. I wouldn't be surprised to see Bob have put a barb city in one or both of those places (though I've seen enough tile bleed from FPBL that there probably isn't a barb city there.) If TT dropped a settler on an island and got smoked by a pre-placed Barb Axe or something, I don't have a lot of sympathy for him - you have to expect that sort of thing on a Bob-map and do due diligence in scouting. If there's something more nefarious - though I struggle to come up with what it might be - then maybe there's a logic to it. I know Bob had scooter look at the map but there wasn't a map thread before the game started - I believe the lurker thread popped right around when we got the saves so if its something really ridiculous I'd assume scooter would have talked him out of it, but this is why every game should have a map thread. If there's a big issue and it gets past the lurkers, then I don't think you can crucify the map maker, but if they don't feel its worth running it by the community then its their own fault.

It would be really disappointing to have the game end here. While mackoti is certainly the favorite I think I'm in a pretty good position. I lead on city count, have a roughly equivalent tech rate to mackoti and NAPs with both neighbors. If I can continue to expand at a rate at least equivalent to mackoti than I can still win the game - being slightly ahead on tech doesn't make a game a foregone conclusion by any means. I doubt we're going to find an unspoiled lurker interested even if there's an interest in replacing TT, however.

I suppose on the plus side it'll be fun to read mackoti's thread which is basically the only thread here he's ever updated regularly.

[Gaspar]

I have a general lurker question that I'd like an opinion on before I take any steps towards it:

What degree of conspiring against mackoti is beyond the realm of appropriate considering our essentially game-long NAP?

I ask because while nothing has actually been mooted there's certainly an obvious recognition that he's ahead. Now, since I haven't done anything flashy I don't think Commodore and TT realize that I'm kicking their ass about as badly as mackoti is, and that mackoti and I are still close. As such, the time to do something about him is now, before he zooms out ahead (which will be happening in the next 20 turns or so, given Representation, the GE which will no doubt produce Great Library, the PHI Academy sure to be in the short-term offing, etc. But I'm mildly wary of being a scumbag here. So I'd like some input.

I will say there's a bit of a "can you top this?" nature to our NAP, as evidenced by the taunting emails and the fact that the very length of the NAP is attached to who eliminates their rival first would seem to me that instigating a dogpile I didn't contribute to would be totally fair game. The part where it gets to feel iffy is if I contribute to it: Allowing RoP, supporting via gold, etc.

I don't know - that's why I'm asking here before I actually initiate any contact on the subject.

[zakalwe]

Encouraging the others to attack him seems OK in my book. After all, if they don't attack him, there's a fair chance they'll be going after you instead. Allowing ROP or gifting units would be crossing the line IMO, even though the terms of your NAP are vague.

An analogy: if you've promised player A you won't go after a wonder, you could still encourage player B to build it. That might be seen as devious, but certainly not deal-breaking. Player A is of course free to penalize you with a -1 diplo modifier for it.

In summary; feel free to stir the pot. Expect Mackoti to be annoyed if he finds out.

[SevenSpirits]

You, sir, are on the right. :neenernee