[PB59] Charriu welcomes all the townfolk

[Charriu]

T222:

---

Miguelito accepted my stone, marble for copper deal and I send more towards him and piccadilly also settled cre-con. Great. Piccadilly also offered me aluminium and 5gpt for my last sugar. I did accept that fearing that I get happiness issues. Both of them, piccadilly and Miguelito send me more expansive diplo deal afterwards, which I decline (piccadilly: Can't give you my last corn for health reasons, Miguelito: Feared I get more happiness issues by giving away my gold.)





I declared war on Mjmd this turn and took Lisabon which was only defended by a longbow. I sacrificed a worthless knight for it. Better maintenance. I also killed a ship and I now I only need one more 1xp for that great general that was tempting me all the time.
I will have a look at Mjmd's other astro cities and will take them if it is easy. I don't really need them although having silver is nice, but maybe if Mjmd only has the island in the middle of the continent left somebody will free him from this PB.

[Charriu]

T224:

---

I signed peace with Mjmd as I need to bring in more troops and I do expect to need those 10 turns for that. At least I have a beachhead on the astro island now.




I also discovered Scientific Method this turn and with that oil. Unfortunately it is underneath one of my towns, but...





...there is another one on the islands, so I don't have to bulldoze the town yet.

Now more importantly with Scientific Method a lot of other things happened namely monasteries and Temple of Artemis went obsolete. Now I know what you all want to know. How much commerce did I loose with the Temple aside from the priest specialist. Well it's 10 commerce. Less then I feared.
The much bigger issue of course are all those monasteries with their 10% science and 2 gold from Spiral Minaret. To that extend I switched into Free Religion and Bureaucracy. Bureaucracy mainly to get some buildings done in the capitol in the next 5 turns. After that I will most likely switch back to Nationhood or Free Speech. This of course also increased my science so that I finish Physics in 2 turns instead of 3 turns. I plan to go for Electricity after that to get some commerce back. Of course this also meant that I also lost the 2 gold for all the temples, but I calculated that that is less of an issue as the additional science output outweighs the extra gold. And after all I do start expanding Creative Construction, which will bring in additional income. By the way thank you to Mr. Cairo who spread Creative Construction to one of his border cities towards Amicalola. Looking forward to more free income from spreads.




Hey I have the best city in the world. Yeah

[Charriu]

T225:

---

Oh boy. Piccadilly picked up Internet. As you can see he also leads in GNP. I think it's clear that he's going for the space race and I have to say I'm rooting for him. Nonetheless I made more deals with Miguelito. Basically we are both pumping up our corps. Main reason is safety, but with Piccadilly maybe leading the space race I think Miguelito will have other targets.

Checking back with the PBEM list the only PB won by space victory is PB1 and the only PBEM22. I really hope that people won't start conceding e mass and if they do I urge the lurkers not to end this prematurily. It would be a shame to deny a proper victory, which may be achieved in the near future. I for one do not concede, but then again I'm irrelevant.

[RefSteel]

Checking back with the PBEM list the only PB won by space victory is PB1

This may technically be true, but The Black Sword's culture victory in PB18 came while FinHarry's spaceship - and Boldly's, just four years behind theirs - was already en route to Centauri.  There was some controversy about the sale of a Great Artist, they replayed the last few turns without it, and TBS's cultural victory hit on the same turn as FinHarry's space victory on the replay.  On the spreadsheet, it was called a tie.

(The point that we rarely get as far as a victory condition stands, of course.  Whether concessions are premature is a different question.  What I find most problematic is the expectation of concession:  When everyone in the game tips their king, I don't see any problem with it; when a player, having conceded, gets upset at other players for not conceding because - with their limited information and motivated reasoning, having given up and wanting to move on from the game - they think the game is a foregone conclusion, that's more of a problem.  I don't want to force anybody to play a game that's stopped being fun for them, but my dream gaming culture is one in which everyone enjoys playing out a loss, either setting small goals and observing the progress of the leader(s) or trying increasingly-wild high-variance plays to somehow get back in the game.)

[Charriu]

Ah thanks I didn't find PB18 because I only did a string search for "space victory"

but my dream gaming culture is one in which everyone enjoys playing out a loss, either setting small goals and observing the progress of the leader(s) or trying increasingly-wild high-variance plays to somehow get back in the game.)

That's what I usually try to do in lost games. No better time to try crazy stunts then in a lost game.

[Charriu]

T226:

---

Interesting times are apon us. I got a lot of diplo. Looks like Amicalola and Miguelito want to unite the world against Piccadilly as both asked me for war against Piccadilly. You see one of Miguelito's deals above. Only thing I don't understand is why the incense is in there. I returned with fish for fish.





Amicalola initialled proposed a oil, copper, marble for me war against piccadilly deal. I didn't like that deal because I do want to cancel my oil deals next turn to get some turns without oil and improve my health situation. I will connect oil myself in the upcoming turns and meanwhile I can produce stuff without oil. At the same time I remembered that deals can't be cancelled via diplomacy during the first 10 turns. So this is my evil trick to cheat Amicalola for some resources although I will keep the closed borders, but the other deals I have with Piccadilly are to good to get back on or I want to renegotiate in the next turn.

In other foreign news. Frozen and Ichabod made a defensive pact most likely against Piccadilly. Now I do belive that this won't matter as Piccadilly will want to fight a defensive war if he goes for space. Will be interesting to see what civac will do against Piccadilly as he is the closest major power together with Mr. Cairo.




I also finished Physics and discovered Uranium.

[Charriu]

T228:

---

Interesting developments. Lazteuq moved his main army away from our border. I wonder what triggered that. Maybe he needs those troops in his war effort against Super Donovan Sword. Then again I moved my 2-mover stack away from the border and he may have interepreted that as a peaceful gesture. In actuality it's not peaceful. Rather railroads allow me to station the stack in a more central position and still being able to counter Lazteuq in any offensive of his. 
But I appreciate that development as there are more problems on the horizon in the east. Amicalola is steamrolling Tarkeel, which canceled my silk for incense deal with Tarkeel. If Amicalola continues his conquest against Super Donovan Sword I will most likely cancel my deals with him which should cause a small hickup in his food supply. My new goal is to survive this PB with an intact civilization and the best way to achieve this is by a space race victory from Piccadilly. Now I do believe that I won't be eliminated by Amicalola before Piccadilly wins as he still has to go through two other players to get to me and I also think that Miguelito won't attack me as long as Piccadilly is on his road to victory. Problems arise though if Piccadilly fails as then I could face elimination from either Miguelito or Amicalola. Therefore if Amicalola continues warring against Super Donovan Sword I will take that incident to stop trade with him and start trading with Piccadilly as much as possible. I may even have to attack Miguelito to secure Piccadilly's victory and therefore my survival. Hopefully it won't be necessary.
Now with this all in mind it's clear that Lazteuq is no longer an enemy therefore I proposed him the silk for incense deal I previously held with Tarkeel as he's now the ideal player for that deal.

[Charriu]

T229:

---

We've entered the critical last stage of the game as Piccadilly finished the Apollo Program. Miguelito offered me a Defensive Pact which I gladly took. I suspect that he offered Lazteuq the same, but hope he did not. Mainly because as you can see Amicalola wants to continue his conquest westward. He also declared war on the Black Super Donovan. This is very bad news for multiple reasons:

- With a defensive pact between Lazteuq and Miguelito I now might be dragged into a war with Amicalola
- This means Amicalola has given up on stopping Piccadilly
- This in turn might lead Miguelito to give up to and maybe start attacking me.

For me the biggest goal of this game is to survive this PB and I do everything to achieve that. Because of Amicalola's continued conquest I cancelled my resource deals with him (4 food resources in total). I specifically wanted to do this before he plays as I did not want to be a total ass and screw up his micro with the reduced food output after he played. I also informed Lazteuq about the upcoming war in 10 turns.




I also switched from Bureaucracy to Nationhood again, which dropped my maintenance by almost 75 gold. Great. I also drafted the full amount of units just to be sure.
Lastly Creative Construction is spread to almost all cities on the main continent and I continue to spread it to the islands. It's a bit unfortunate that this puts more culture pressure on my Miguelito border. I only spread the corp for the hammer and gold income. That's also another reason why I chose Nationhood over Free Spreech as that would have increased the culture pressure even more. On a little side note I will get the stone on our border in a few turns.

[Charriu]

T232:

---

Miguelito is growing stronger with every turn and he is fielding Mechanized Infantry. I am not match to those and I think the only thing that keeps me alive is Piccadilly's winning chances. He must win for me to survive. Unfortunately he hasn't built any parts yet and his military power is way lower then Miguelito. I am very much afraid.  

On the other side Amicalola is almost finished with Superdeath (down to 1 city). Will he go for Lazteuq next? I see that Lazteuq moved troops around and I also send him fish for fish to ensure a peaceful border for him. But I still keep my troops at the border mainly to deter any fast conquest by Amicalola. As you can see I also finish Artillery this turn and plan to build some Anti-Tank units just to be sure. Next I will go for Flight to built some airplanes for defense against Amicalola. I don't know what he is running, but looking at the speed of his conquest and because of techs he must use Tanks and/or planes. He's only developing plastics now, so he's behind Miguelito.

Amicalola also asked for war vs Piccadilly which I rejected. Please Piccadilly win this. Next turn I can cancel trades with Miguelito which I will probabily do just to slow him down. I think if he tries to attack me Piccadilly will surely win, so I expect Miguelito not to attack me while Piccadilly is still able to win.

[Tarkeel]

My third city was founded this turn and how fitting that I called it Amn, considering that it has the gold resource. For those who don't know. Amn is the main city in Baldur's Gate 2 (PC) and it is also called "City of Coin". Some may wonder why I chose Amn over the original games Baldur's Gate. This is for two reasons. First and simple I started playing Baldur's Gate 2 before 1 and therefore have more love for that part. Second is because I think it is the better city. There's a lot more visual variance between the different districts. It's a big and lively city and it definitely feels that way. Of course it also helps that there is already established lore about that city in the world of Faerun and in the previous game. I think nobody can deny that Amn is a memorable city.

Shouldn't that city be named Athkatla instead? I love the city, and your naming theme!