Gaspar, Lewwyn, et al go full Sartre

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

What does TBS' corresponding force look like? Must be more than a handful of trash to make you keep that level of force on hand.

[Gaspar]

He's got a dozen units in the closest border city and like 8 in our old city in the north, plus a mini-Knight stack that can hit either city.

Partly this is me wanting to show him strength so he considers other options to attacking us so we can hit someone else.

[Gaspar]

Catching up on a few things I missed...

I want n insult of my mapmaking abilities too! I could have sworn I had made a map you had played on before, I guess not though.

Nope, you haven't. I might have played a sub turn or two for someone you made a map for but I don't have any distinct recollection.

Don't think I've ever made a map for you, but I've done a few. You paying enough attention to FFH games to give me a tile?

Well, you definitely haven't made a map for me since I've played two FFH games and you were my teammate in both. I really don't lurk any games anymore but other than maybe the last week or so where I paid attention to yours and HKs thread in whichever game it is that you're the clowns, the last FFH game I so much as looked at was the game with you/HK, plako, Ilios and Selrahc. I don't find FFH interesting as a multiplayer game, basically. Mainly because I don't think war should favor the attacker so heavily. So this is a very longwinded way of saying I don't have any specific recollection of your maps, sorry.

How about: "Gaspar is his own worst opponent"?

Although your suggestion works, too.

This is certainly true. Things work best when you're blissfully unaware when you're behind, but unfortunately this is also how you end up losing cities like we lost in the north. Civ is such a bastard sometimes.

[Mardoc]

Mainly because I don't think war should favor the attacker so heavily.

I'm transitioning out of FFH because of this - but I do have to devil's advocate and point out that this ends games quickly once a leader appears. None of this '200 turns of last place but too expensive to finish off' stuff.

[Gaspar]

Mainly because I don't think war should favor the attacker so heavily.

I'm transitioning out of FFH because of this - but I do have to devil's advocate and point out that this ends games quickly once a leader appears. None of this '200 turns of last place but too expensive to finish off' stuff.

Yeah, but it also means far fewer comebacks (and hence truly interesting midgames) save for the true leader emerging beyond the early game leader.

[Lewwyn]

FWIW, I think I really should just rename this thread thusly:

Gaspar, Lewwyn, et al: Hell is Other People.

Because the amount of fun I have this game is inversely correlated to the amount of time I spend thinking about my opponents.

I support this.

Just survive (and hopefully make gains) through August and I'll have time again.

[Gaspar]

Played t144 today. Not a lot going on, really...

In world news, TBS got a GMerchant and Thoth revolted OR and Bureaucracy. Nothing happened in the various dtay wars. Finishing Engineering by the skin of my teeth and so I've got a handful of Spear builds around the Empire to grow up as pikes. In lieu of anything especially interesting to talk about, here's a few overview shots:

Core:




South:




East:




I've got some company coming in from out of town this week, so probably the reports will be a bit sparse next couple days. I'll do a biggish overview of the game later in the week.

[Gaspar]

Just a quick note - my brother has gone back to Buffalo and normal reporting service should return later today. I haven't done an overview-ish post in a bit so I'll try and do that rather than a mundane this is what's going on right now report. I also have a "How did we get here?" post in the offing in an effort to stay positive and learn from a game I'm probably not going to win. Its easy to say that TBS is the best player in this game (and he is) and just chalk it up to his skill-level and map factors out of your control but that doesn't help you get better as a player. I recently re-read PBEM38 after referencing it here and I had sort of forgotten that we were pretty far behind in that game at one point and there was a pretty interesting thread of posts towards the end talking about how we went from behind to way ahead via metagame decisions of us vs metagame decisions of the other players. Looking at how the various players shook out from the t75 position to now, almost t150 should be pretty instructive.

Anyway, so that's what's in the hopper, thanks for your patience and understanding.

[Gaspar]

Alright, so I'll do a quick report on this turn and then follow that up with a larger "Here is the world post." I'll also try and do a big t150 report where I actually go through the whole empire.

There seems to be a bit of stalemate in Mali - I'll just give you a generic overview shot there. I don't have eyes on Thoth's forces but it looks like both Commodore and Thoth are waiting for reinforcements after Commodore picking all the low-hanging fruit and Thoth getting bloody noses in response to his last couple captures.




This is basically what I'd like to avoid in my next attack. The dtay attack went perfectly - I had an objective of two cities, I captured them in 1 turn, I signed peace. If I attack Oxy, the objective would be a bit bigger - basically taking the 5-6 cities on the side of that dividing line I posted a few posts back. Its entirely plausible he wouldn't sign peace after that though so whatever plans I might have, I'd need to continue to behave aggressively. If I were to attack Commodore, the goal would similarly be to snatch a handful of his former dtay captures. Either way, I don't want to get bogged down halfway through anyone's territory accumulating War Weariness and little else.

Anyway, in domestic matters, I completed the Trade Mission to Commodore's border city for 1300 gold which let's me burn through Gunpowder and half of Chemistry. Chemistry isn't a fantastic tech but its low-hanging fruit. I'm already working a half-dozen workshops or so and will be expanding that to include another half-dozen or so in the near term. I'm going to do a round of whips over the next couple turns to get a few more Knights out before the attack but after that I don't think Slavery is going to provide a ton of value for me so I expect to swap to Caste System full-time with the next Golden Age.




Here's the current state of the Mythological military. I expect to treble the Knight number in short order.




That current military is the second largest in the world at the moment behind only TBS.

[Gaspar]

Alright, so let's run down the other players and where they are at right now. Since I've been on a playing old Final Fantasy's kick, we'll rank everyone's chances by flavor of FF endbosses.


The Black Sword (Joao of Mongolia)
Current Game Position (by score): 1st
Chances of Winning: 85%
Best Comparison: Neo Exdeath (I think he was the biggest bastard of all the bosses the first time I faced them)

TBS has played a magnificent game. He took Joao on a map with a lot of land, spammed a billion early cities, got through the GNP crash with an early Golden Age, spammed Courthouses everywhere, has kept a massive military on hand all game long to ensure nobody takes a shot at him, claimed more land without war than anyone else, etc. He just spit out an absurd 6 Great People during his Golden Age which makes me think he might be headed towards trying to abuse Corps. I still don't really think they're that good, but with a Courthouse in every city and the FP built earlier than I think I've ever seen it built he probably has less need for SP than most. He never needs to attack anyone - he has all the land he needs to win - but he could probably eat Oxy at his leisure or Me at something less than leisure.

Path to winning: Stay the course, pick a victory condition, execute it.
Way it goes wrong: Basically, the only way he loses is I either Commodore or I are able to eat a neighbor and catch up in strength and pass with amount of land. Or if Thoth somehow manages to end the endless dtay wars and can find a way to put a hurting on him. Neither of those are particularly likely.


Commodore (Ramesses of Rome)
Current Game Position (by score) : 4th
Chances of Winning: 6%
Best Comparison: Orphan (FFXIII which I know like nobody here has played. It is one of the tougher endbosses from recent games, though.)

Commodore has played the Commodore game. Execute his strategies well, miss the forest for the trees a bit. He's leveraged his IND trait well (though the failure of dtay and Commodore to keep Stonehenge from TBS is as much why this game is the romp it is as anything else - you cannot give Joao free culture on a map this big) by managing to get the Oracle-Colossus combo. Colossus is just disgustingly good on this map. He planted a superb Moai city and got it done. And he's done a decent job picking off the bones of dtay. His start was just too slow and he didn't get far enough in front on tech with his GNP-focused start.

Path to winning: Someone suicides into TBS giving him time to integrate dtay's land and stop TBS from snapping up all the remaining first-to bonuses. There really isn't another path.
Way it goes wrong: He spends the rest of the game writing stories about the Roman Legion while nobody does anything to slow TBS down OR he decides to attack me.



Gaspar/Lewwyn (Zara of Ottomans)
Current Game Position (by score) : 3rd
Chances of Winning: 5%
Best Comparison: Ultimecia (VIII; Tough if you play the game normally, super easy if you know how to game it.)

I'll give a more thorough examination of our game coming up.

Path to winning: Successful conquest of a neighbor followed by someone suiciding into TBS.
Way it goes wrong: I spend the rest of the game bemoaning my bad luck rather than trying to fix it.



Thoth (Hatty of Zulu)
Current Game Position (by score) : 2nd
Chances of Winning: 3%
Best Comparison: Kefka (VI - good game, not much of a boss)

Thoth played a very aggressive start and smoked Pindicator and used that to get lots of land. Unfortunately, TBS mostly matched him peacefully. Thoth, being the swing for the fences kinda guy he is, figured he could double up on his chances by blitzing dtay but after a quick start stalled out and hasn't gotten much out of dozens of turns of war. This not only hurt his chances it gave Commodore a route back into the game by taking advantage of his now soft border. Thoth still has a ton of land, so he's not out of it, but he really needs a miracle at this point.

Path to winning: TBS attacks him and really screws up, leaving him the opening he needs to catch up.
Way it goes wrong: He spends the next 20t in a bloody stalemate with dtay while Commodore grabs the rest of his land; Either Commodore or TBS picks up the pieces later.


Oxyphenbutazone (Pericles of Maya)
Current Game Position (by score) : 5th
Chances of Winning: 1%
Best Comparison: Safer Sephiroth (Possibly the most disappointing boss in the whole series)

Oxy played better than us through the first 100t. What he's done since then is what happens when you're playing against competent opposition and you don't have time to devote to the game. He's been meandering aimlessly through the tech tree basically just waiting for me, Commodore or TBS to put him out of his misery. He has a lot of land relatively speaking but no real chance of being relevant at games end.

Path to winning: TBS joins the Peace Corps and Kuro takes over for him, Oxy takes all his land while I get bogged down fighting Commodore.
Way it goes wrong: Any other scenario.

So that's the current state of the game. Later today, I'll throw up a post about the metagame decisions each player made and how they resulted in the current game state.