[SPOILERS] Dazed and scooter play Stalin of Vikings and make a big mess

[scooter]

I'm pretty sure we can only pop a small list of early techs from a hut in RB mod.

Oh you're right - changelog in first post shows it's pretty much only ancient techs that can be popped. 50 turns ago we could've popped Agriculture though, hah. Gold would still be a nice result.

[scooter]

Few random meta-y comments I wanted to make. Very miscellaneous.

1) We have had a ton of fighting in this game, and it really goes to show that double-move and rule controversies are more about the people than the rules. In a 10 player game we've had 6 wars (of varying lengths and not counting Ceilakor's execution of Plako) that I am aware of, possibly a couple I'm not aware of. We have also had 0 double-move controversies. Or if there have been any, they've been quietly handled in private rather than a big public event with the sides arguing. We also have no double-move rule other than "do not double move your opponent unless you humanly have no choice whatsoever due to your RL schedule" - and that's been good enough. We started with 10 players, and 9 of those players have been involved in a war at one point or another, and yet no controversies. Nicely done everyone in PB5.

2) I'm surprised the PB5 lurker thread has been mostly silent up until recently when Krill started lifting cities left and right, but for the most part it's been pretty low-key by Pitboss standards, which is surprising since this game has it all (more than a half-dozen wars, couple big names, early death, etc). I guess it's picked up since the closing of PB7, but I still hadn't seen much lurker thread activity at all until very recently. I wonder if the mod has caused a few people to not bother watching, or perhaps because only half the players/teams are consistently updating. Things probably died out a lot when Krill quit updating for awhile. Most likely everyone has just accepted that Krill has got this thing, even if I think we can make things interesting before it's all over.

(wars/conflicts I'm aware of: us vs Mist, Krill vs Nakorazul, Azza, and Regopin, Regopin vs Commodore, Commodore vs Cyneheard. And those are just because I've seen cities change hands on Civstats, quite likely a skirmish ended in a draw with no evidence)

3) I said 9 out of 10 players. That means Yuris is the only player in this game that has not yet fought! Considering nobody even has Paper yet, this is kinda crazy. RB Mod slowing everything down + normal speed does make war less terrible IMO. The Yuris thing is interesting though - I'm really looking forward to getting his graphs. He has a great, great position. He's got nice land around him, a crazy killy-kill-kill neighbor to the NE and that neighbor is maiming his other neighbor. He also has quite a few islands to colonize to his south and a tiny bit to his west, and his overseas neighbor (us) is deathly afraid of teching Astronomy so will not be bothering him anytime soon. I'd really like to see if maybe he's doing better than I'm thinking. His score is fairly pedestrian though - between us and Nakor,and considering how badly ours is inflated by wonders - he isn't setting the world on fire I don't think. More interesting will be to see what techs he has once we get Paper. It does make me wonder why he doesn't seem to be doing better than he is, though perhaps he was short on forests which would make some sense with his land. Forests are crucial in RB Mod IMO.

4) Yuris has Marble. That means something absolutely remarkable happened in this game. Really, it's probably the biggest upset thus far. See if you can guess what it is.

[NobleHelium]

It happened in PBEM26 too.

[scooter]

It happened in PBEM26 too.

Not sure which part you are referring to?

[scooter]

Ok, T159 was pretty uneventful on the domestic front. I started a Missionary in Redhead which means we've hit our limit of 3 - though this missionary is earmarked for our deep south tundra city while the other 2 can go north. Anyways, the foreign front was more exciting:



Met Cyneheard! Funny thing was I could see it from 2 tiles away (Optics) but we didn't establish contact because he couldn't see me. Funny. Well wait, why do I see Zulu borders west of Byz borders up there?



Well then. Commodore is continuing to lay the smackdown on Cyneheard. This is just a blowout. Anyways, I offered this deal to Cyneheard:



Note his lack of cities. Also check out Commodore's cities:



Pretty decent, though we're behind on cities overall and he's one behind us so it's not THAT much.

Anyways, deals I offered:
Cyneheard: Map Swap, Open Borders, horse/silver trade
Commodore: Open Borders

I offered all these separately of course so a cancellation doesn't tie them together. I didn't offer the map swap just yet with Commodore as I see most of his land, but I see almost none of Cyneheard's. Also, the map trade with Nakor is still pending (hasn't logged in), so if he waits long enough Cyneheard may accept and he may get plenty of info to make it worth his while. Funny how that works.

Spot the governor weed:



Answer:

It chose a 2/1/2 ocean over a 2/1/3 coast. I fixed it. It keeps doing this which is REALLY obnoxious and I keep having to fix it every time we grow. Really strange, don't know why it can't figure this out.

[NobleHelium]

yuris didn't build the Oracle in 26. That's what I meant.

[scooter]

yuris didn't build the Oracle in 26. That's what I meant.

Ah ok, didn't lurk that game when it happened so I'm really hazy on details for that one. Anyways this was what my comment was referring to. We beat Yuris to Oracle despite his ownership of Marble. Just shocking stuff.

[scooter]

Alright, turn has not yet rolled but I saw that Nakor, Cyneheard, and Commodore have all played, so I popped in to see what deals were accepted. The answer is all of them apparently.



We actually don't entirely need that silver currently and have a happiness surplus if you can believe that. It's nice that we can grow our cities though finally. Also, he accepted the map trade, and we now have OB with both Commodore and Cyneheard. This didn't raise our tech rate that much because we were pretty much maxed out on trade routes, however it did provide a slight boost (Commodore's cap is certainly worth more than Azza's tiniest cities for instance), and it also ensured that we can continue settling cities that get an instant 9 commerce from trade routes alone which is REALLY big. Number of cities maintenance does go up, but cities continue to pretty much be profitable right away when you combine that with Colossus. REX time - we're behind on cities. Cyneheard's land:



We did not swap maps with Commodore. I figure we can see all his land so let's wait a bit. Also, we got maps with Nakor. And wow did Krill ever do a number on him.



Geez. That's worse than I thought. This also means Nakor is more likely to push onto the islands. Here's the thing though:



His only claim to Holmes would have to go through Watson. That's good news in that we can settle that site on Watson and Holmes is ours - and we really need Holmes. So we definitely have to settle our next city on Watson IMO. The bad news is we have a new competitor for Holmes:



(No idea why I put the sign as Sherlock instead of Holmes, but you get the idea)

Krill now has an east coast. If we're going to get Marble, it'll be a race with Krill and not Nakor. Thankfully, Krill has his hands tied with one of his many wars so I think we'll be OK, but we definitely need to get a move on with Holmes. We should be okay, but this settling race should be interesting for sure. Probably should slip in a Caravel to use as defense up here.

Also, we can revise and better plan our Holmes dotmap now that we can see more of it thanks to Nakor's map trade. Maybe I can do some of that tonight.

[dazedroyalty]

Ugh... we can NOT let Krill get island holdings!!! I might even send a trireme up there to keep him from doing it!

[scooter]

Ugh... we can NOT let Krill get island holdings!!! I might even send a trireme up there to keep him from doing it!

Yeah I agree. I'd actually lean towards building and sending a Caravel over there as it can travel across the bay and get there very quickly with 5 moves. Have it choke his borders so that he can't colonize the island.