[SPOILERS] naufragar and Rusten get nickel-and-dimed

[Rusten]

BTW, I see in your most recent screenshot that SD has settled a city on one of his iron tiles. You can tell whether he has IW or not by seeing the tile output. If it shows 2 hammers he doesn't have it.

edit: Nevermind, this won't work I think because we've never visibly seen a settled city there. Just from gauging culture sadly.

[Commodore]

Wait, MSCC are on nine cities?

[naufragar]

Wait, MSCC are on nine cities?

Eight currently. I suspect that road they put in the forest is to settle the nearby deer with their ninth. In the process it'll get our horses second ring, and since they get there first with creative culture...



Their GNP has suffered for their expansions. (Not shown is boak/GKC with Colossus.)


But stagnated tech only matters if you're missing out on something. They have the deepest library discount in RtR. They can get to Writing, save gold while running a pair of scientists, bulb Math, use their treasury to get the Currency. No sweat.

Crop Yield:



No one has ever faulted Superdeath's bravery:


I'll admit I've been an idiot. For some reason, I thought City Raider needed combat, so SD gets better odds than I thought. I thought he has 9%. I want to point out that in our two fights (this axe and the early warrior ambush) Superdeath has gotten lucky. Our axe had a 28% chance of taking this many hits. On average, he's at 52hp rather than 20hp. Does Superdeath know he's been getting lucky? This is what I said I was afraid of earlier. If you're willing to throw units away at 10% odds, you'll get some lucky 20-30% outcomes. Maybe we could get lucky one of these days?




The two enemy stacks have a chariot in them, each. Just to warn everyone, Scylla's dead if SD wants, now that he has a third chariot. He can throw all three chariots at the city to kill the spear. If he keeps having the luck he's been having, he might only need two. Would you sac those units?

Lastly, Superdeath can try to be a pain by bypassing the front cities and trying to make a run on the capital. There are some versions of this plan that are not scary. Some that are. I'll deal with whichever arises.

(I peeked at demos after the turn rolled. We teched archery, so we are now top global power.   Admittedly we have 10k from Iron Working we're not using, while SD is presumably pumping out horse archers, although I've yet to see any whips. Welp, just another day in paradise.)

[Rusten]

There's a fine line between bravery and ignorance. Scylla is a size 1 recently settled city and it will autoraze making this whole thing even more ridiculous. It wasn't going to contribute much to the war other than happiness anyway so if he loses a bunch of units taking it -- let him. Feels good to be MS right now.

How long for the engineer?

I also want to point out that MSCC was on the hit list and mentioned multiple times if he continued to expand wide while staying light on military, so it's not like this conflict with SD was inevitable. He just looked slightly more appetizing at the time. In fact, if it was not for Superdeath's reputation (which stems from things like this exact game) he [MSCC] might've been the favourite to get hit. But let's not kid ourselves, this is a 3-player game now.

The more interesting question: Is Superdeath's PB image beyond repair?
By that I mean, isn't everyone going to make him a natural enemy the moment they meet him at this point?

[naufragar]

There's a fine line between bravery and ignorance. Scylla is a size 1 recently settled city and it will autoraze making this whole thing even more ridiculous. It wasn't going to contribute much to the war other than happiness anyway so if he loses a bunch of units taking it -- let him.

How long for the engineer?

Thirteen turns. I can't remember if it spawns on turn 90 or EoT 90.

I also want to point out that MSCC was on the hit list and mentioned multiple times if he continued to expand wide while staying light on military, so it's not like this conflict with SD was inevitable. He just looked slightly more appetizing at the time. In fact, if it was not for Superdeath's reputuation (which stems from things like this exact game) he might've been the favourite to get hit.

And I'm pretty sure MSCC's power only increased because he worried about being Superdeath's target. I leaned Superdeath for a few reasons: our cities and therefore our roads stretched in his direction, it'd be nice for Japan to prevent Korea from acquiring Hwachas. But you're right, if Superdeath and Mr. Cairo were  pointing their knives at each other still, we could gobble up the lush, lush land to our east.

The more interesting question: Is Superdeath's PB image beyond repair?
By that I mean, isn't everyone going to make him a natural enemy the moment they meet him at this point?

I jokingly parodied the Macchiavelli quote about never doing anyone a small injury. He advised either playing nice or completely destroying. The warrior strike was a staggering misread by me. I wonder if Superdeath views this as "I'm teaching future opponents not to screw with me" (but of course, this doesn't teach that. It teaches to screw only when ready, which I should've already had in mind). We've talked about how our opinions differ in degrees about this: in my view, Superdeath's goals ( 1.Delay samurai. 2. Punish pushy neighbor) are faultless. It's the mismatch between goals and means that's so jarring. I take it your position is that this focus on goal-oriented, rather than process-oriented, thinking is itself a danger sign. In brief, if he did this without the warrior provocation, I'd think he's wild. My own guilty conscience is muddying the issue for me.

We need to think of what we do if his big stack moves NW to the cottage. I can't risk attacking out from Pajarocu to gank an axe on flatland. If we lose the 20% battle, we lose the city. This in turn means, I think, that I have to whip the capital's axe next turn. I'm worried about a chariot snipe. It's rough to feel so reactive. Our chariots still 6+ turns away, even if MSCC doesn't nab the horse. (For lurkers wondering why I'm whining so much if this war isn't an existential threat: as of now, all cities should be safe if whipped heavily. Even this whipping isn't the end of the world because defensive units can become offensive chaff for samurai. Still, one too many bad dice rolls and...)

Feels good to be MS right now.

Yeah. Good on him. He's doing what he should in this situation.

[Rusten]

I think you're being too understanding and can clear your guilty conscience. If you put a scouting warrior next to an opponent's border this late in the game you can't get angry if it's killed. Especially not when it's killed by a 1-move unit (not sniped from fog by a chariot). It's still a military unit and it interferes with worker and settler movement every turn it's standing there -- you made this point multiple times before killing it. He had a choice to keep moving away, it was pretty clear what you were doing moving that axe all the way out in neutral territory.

And as you say, even if this is somehow all warranted, the move is to consider us terrible people and plan your revenge in a realistic way. Not to throw your own game under the bus just to get a little payback. It's reactions like this that will make someone a natural enemy of everyone, because they're willing to light the game on fire over very minor things.

[naufragar]

Do cities autoraze if their empty when the enemy walks in? Don't want to make a silly mistake.

[Rusten]

Yes. To my knowledge any city that's never reached size 2 will autoraze.

[naufragar]

Superdeath used three chariots to kill our spear, as expected. He then attacked with an axe, which died, but not before doing the expected amount of damage to ours. At this point, I had the option to promote and fortify and have ~25% chance for the top defender to win and save the city or attack out at 53% and kill and invader to save the city. Obviously, I attacked out. I lost and only hit SD's axe once (22% chance). At this, I was reminded that Superdeath has not lost a battle with odds better than 20%. I was reminded that of the six battles we've fought, our side has achieved the expected (average) result or been worse off. I was going to be a bit heated but decided to adopt this here neutral tone. Having lost that 53% (don't call it a coinflip. I've been engineering odds to be in our favor and acting on them. Coinflip makes it seem like this is something besides the torments of the RNG.), having lost that 53% I surrendered the city. (Thanks for the info Rusten. I had logged out to sim. You're right.)


He has odds to kill the scout and axe on the gems. I retreated them that way to draw his troops away from our cities and it gave the best odds. There's a 44% chance we kill a unit, I think. Obviously, this is not to be hoped for. The thought occurred that there could be a chariot in the fog 2SW. He has roaded the jungle there, you know. There's a 4% chance his axe by Pajarocu can take the city. If he's rolling on 4%s with lone axes, he's not playing a civ game. Of course I'm worried we lose the city and its engineer progress, but I won't be held hostage to the RNG.

We discovered more land overseas.


Good stuff.

Magic Science turned on tech.


Perhaps by burning Scylla's Window, Superdeath will feel the insult is avenged. He won the unfavorable coinflip. He should feel happy. We're down a settler and a handful of hammers in the exchange. Our power is now top globally. He and I will be tied for cities after he burns this one. I'm going to kill and eat him, though the meal may be tough and unappetizing.

Thinking back on my disaster of a first strike, I was reminded of a scene in Henry V (because I'm that kind of person). The Dauphin has insulted King Henry. This gives Lawrence Olivier (Henry) to do a lot of shouting. Superdeath gets to be Henry, the good guy, to my impudent Dauphin. (Volume warning. Seriously, it's shouty.)

[Commodore]

All my best games I've lost a city in a gnarly early brawl. Keep it up, and use the Sam Urai sockpuppet to impugn the honor of your enemies.