[SPOILERS] Charriu and Zalson are fighting the honorable post count war!

[Charriu]

Thanks for the invitation, but I thought about doing a bigger pause of some month until I play a game again. The only thing I want to look into right now is the map making.

[Hitru]

GG Charriu! Thank you for keeping Rome distracted!

[Charriu]

Thanks, but I still feel regret for that, but you will read that in our threads.

[Hitru]

Yeah, don't know yet completely what was going on, but from tech thread I got a feeling that you played fair and did nothing wrong.

[Magic Science]

I just finished your thread, and I must congratulate you on your victory, Charriu, Zalson, and Cornflakes. You started out strong and took an early lead, but you didn't let that make you complacent. You kept up a strong effort, and in the end your lead was so dominating that even the last resort, wiping you off the face of the game, wasn't enough for anyone to catch up. Again, congratulations!

Okay, now for the real commentary.

Thanks for the consistent reporting throughout the game, Charriu. A lot of things happened on your side of the world that I had no clue about when I was playing the game. I had no idea about the three-way race for the gold or the early troubles you had with nature.

Also, I found the contrast between our views on the cow-sugar deal of Turn 151 to be amusing.

The turn started with two offers by Magic. First the above sugar for cow trade and then second an iron for iron trade. I accepted both. The first helps Magic more then me, because thanks to Heredetary Rule Happiness is no problem right now. But I'm glad to help Magic. The two midfield players have to stick together after all.

I also did some international diplomacy this turn. You see, New Hong Kong recently grew to size twelve, and it encountered the unexpected problem of unhealthiness when it did so. New Hong Kong has one more population point to grow before stopping, so I looked around for a way to solve the problem. This deal was my solution. You may point out that it is a very unfair deal, which is true. I get one food, while Charson gets another happy point for the entire Interdimensional Rift.

I went through with this deal anyway for two reasons. One, he has Hereditary Rule, so chances are that the sugar doesn’t make too much of a difference. Two, I have come to see my relationship with Charson in a different light than I do my connections with the other civilizations in the game. Almost every civilization borders almost every civilization, but we don’t border each other. This means that there is very little in the way of hostility or conflict of interests between us. Also, it means that a strong Interdimensional Rift is not my problem. To be clear, I’m not saying that me sending this sugar resource to Charson is very important in the grand scheme of the game. It isn’t going to make the difference between a strong and a weak Interdimensional Rift, or anything like that. I am just trying to explain the rationale behind this small decision and potential future small decisions like it.

We both thought that we were getting the worse end of the deal, but we both went through with it anyway for the same reason.

Lastly, I enjoyed your post-game analysis (I intend to write one of my own), and I have one question for you about it: do you think it is fair to add "Did not take control of RFS-81's whale island" to your list of mistakes? I know your finances weren't doing great at that point, but they were getting better, and my experience with Quebec City was that those intercontinental cities became profitable quickly. It would have required staying at war with RFS-81 and haphazard1, but they didn't have the units left to pose a threat to Liquid Flame anyway. It may have resulted in a scuffle with the Orphans, but probably not, since they took a while to get there and it's hard to capture anything amphibiously. Now that I think about it, you didn't even need to settle it right away. You could have just dropped off two axemen and two spearmen to hold the tile (if the Orphans come, then you declare war and they can't land), then come back when you were ready. What do you think of that?

[Charriu]

Finally somebody acknowledges our clear victory in this game.  

About the cow vs sugar deal. Was there any reason not to take it offer it? I don't think so. I already said that I did not like those iron vs iron deals and to a lesser extend the fish for fish. A real deal is always more appreciated on my side. It's a better peace guarantee then a fish vs fish, because you engage in a mutual depency on those resources, which I find more worthwhile.

About the "Did not take control of RFS-81's whale island" matter. This is a very interesting question. On the long term perspective it would have been the right move to deny the orphans this city, but in the short term there are some disadvantages, to list some:

• Higher maintenance empire wide
  
• No trade routes: I think with RFS blocking access to the cit, it would not have been able to establish trade routes. But I could be wrong about that. 
  
• I already had many foreign trade routes with the Orphans, which are actually better then those intercontinental routes, right?
  
• Defending it would have been difficult.
  
• No new resources added to the empire
  

In the end I think this is a minor mistake. With or without this city the game would not have changed much for me.

[Magic Science]

I don't care much about those X for X deals either. Most of the time when I initiated one myself or reoffered one to another player, I was unconcerned about standing by whatever they thought I meant, I was just trying to get them to bother someone else or to leave me alone. I think that in future games I would vote either to not have them at all or to allow "full resource diplomacy." That is, you can propose whatever weird trades you want with resources. If nothing else, it would be funnier to try to decode.

If you were at war with RFS-81, the island would get no trades, but once you were at peace it would, open borders with him or not. Domestic intercontinental trade routes are equal to foreign same-continent ones, but foreign intercontinental routes are better than both. That said, I think your assessment of rather or not it was a mistake is correct.