Astronaut without sin confounds press, invites trio to control civilization

[Commodore]

Thoughts, anyone?

Not privy to Luddite's exact thoughts, but if I was playing, from a metagame perspective, I'd do my best to win...I'm not sure how my winning game plan in their shoes would be anything other than hopping aboard the dogpile. Mack is strong, but the civ that Libs Communism is stronger, in general. I could see the argument for standing back and "let the big dogs fight it out" but Mack, while formidable, hasn't shown any indication that he's up to your level.

So worst case, they hop on, lose, get slaughtered. How is that any different from their perspective from sitting around, teching up to Mack's current level while Egypt eats Mack, and then be the next lunch? That would be dumb. Best case for Luddite, however, they actually do enough damage to have Mack win...and the disparity is far less. They do already have two blobs' worth of land.

I have not seen hate expressed anywhere by either Luddite or Pindicator. This isn't spite, it's a Hail Mary. Certainly the more entertaining sort of football.

[SevenSpirits]

Well I posted this in the tech thread:

Playing this game is making me extremely unhappy. I hate to be that guy but I either need to find myself a replacement, or we need to call it. Very sorry. (This is related to the city-gifting incident.)

What do you guys think?

I realize that I suck. A lot. But, it's just too annoying to keep playing. I've been trying to focus on the enjoyable parts, make the best of it and treat it just as a game where people are trying to win (which is how I dealt with the city-gifting stuff) but now my suspension of disbelief has been removed and I feel it's only carrying on due to spite. Well, that's not a good reason to play a game. I'd much rather concede, even knowing that I'm ending the game for everyone else (and believe me I don't take that lightly).

Here is the situation if someone else wants to play on. Our naval stack is easily able to reinforce our core. Of course we can whip some units and draft twice. All told we will have about 50 mop-up (non-siege) units, 10 cannons and 15 catapults. Were it only one stack of knights we would just crush it and probably earn a couple great generals, but with mackoti's added in there will be about 80 invaders so I imagine we'd have to play it more defensive and/or take very serious damage.

In the east there is at least one Mackoti galleon that has completely disappeared, so either he deleted it, or he has a coastal fort just to mess with us, or he gifted it to Luddicator who then moved it into their canal via Red Sonja. The latter seems the most likely explanation and it could also partly explain why Luddicator trusts him this time.

Note that Mackoti can move all his knights in Pharsalos in too, that's how I get to 80 invading units. He can reinforce with knights currently guarding his Mausoleum city, which we of course couldn't afford to attack while being invaded ourselves.

[Ceiliazul]

Are you speaking of the cities Luddicator gave Mack for peace? I didnt see a more recent city gift...

I guess an obvious question is, will Novice or Spaceman continue on?

[novice]

Sorry to hear you're not enjoying this anymore, Seven. I assume you moved some scouting units this turn? Can you send me a save with the turn as it stands?

I can play on, if that's desirable. Spaceman, want to jump in with some tactical advice?

[Rowain]

@Seven: You are the topnation leading in tech and other things. It is (IMO) quite smart to try and stop the runaway civ. A similar thing happened in PB 2.

How do you think Sian felt when he recieved your invasion? Did he play on? yes he did. So from me as your ded-lurker here I ask you to play on.

How they managed to come to an agreement (to let 50 units pass) in a No-diplo-game is a different story.

[spacemanmf]

I can play on, if that's desirable. Spaceman, want to jump in with some tactical advice?

Ooh the Bat Phone is ringing. =)

I can help this game continue with novice if that helps. We've had worse acts against us...

[SevenSpirits]

OK, I sent you guys the save. I recommend getting as many units as possible to Ganymede; this is a complete emergency. Upgrade a catapult to cannon probably, with the gold we have. Obviously whip in all nearby cities. (The university builds are just in the queue because they have hammers in them from long ago.) Try to ferry as many units in as we can. Note that units from Rhea can board a galleon in a lake, to reach the important area sooner.

Use Janus' garrison too. Janus could be garrisoned with units on a galleon, or that galleon could plan to land in Europa next turn. Obviously we can't hold Janus if they want to capture it.

There's a fort 1t from completion between Callisto and the lake, which will allow galleons to chain units directly into Gany (albeit with no movement left if they had to swap boats).

It's likely that both opponents have EP visibility of our cities, though I have not verified this (just been assuming it for the last dozen turns).

In the balance between show of force and hiding our units, I see no reason to hide units right now. Obviously the best case is for one of them to blink. And there's not much they can do with better information; their forces are what they are.

Sorry to abandon you guys.

[spacemanmf]

Sorry to abandon you guys.

Hey no worries. You have enough games on at the moment anyway.

For some reason I have a reputation for relishing laborious war turns!

[spacemanmf]

Ok, some piccies to see what we're up against. I've just been having a look at the save. I'm far from being in a position to be actually ready to move anything yet. But give it time (and some inevitable detailed discussions with novice).



It's hard to really get across what's going on here without me doing some Paint wizardry, which I'm not going to bother with at this point. In any case, Seven did a pretty good summary. They have A LOT of mounted units.

2S1E of Pharsalos, luddicator has, I think, 36 knights, 6 impi, 1 chariot, 11 HAs, plus mackoti has 12 knights there. Crucially, they cannot yet reach the tile 2W of Ganymede, which would fork Callisto (which has Stonehenge) and Ganymede (which has the Heroic Epic and the Pyramids, and the Taj).

Mackoti also has 14 knights in Pharsalos, 3 in Rhodes and 9 in Thebes.

He also has 6 galleons in range of Ariel but that's not our major concern just now.

[spacemanmf]

So they could can advance towards Ganymede with 80 two-move units next turn. Or they can consolidate in Pharsalos and send 92 two-move units 2W of Ganymede, forking two cities as mentioned.

Here is the latest power graph.



Based on the demographics...



...I reckon the power ratings are roughly this:

Us: 1,336k
Mackoti: 1,123k
Luddicator: 1,054k
Yuri: 500k
Sian: 207k

Here is our army.



That's before drafting.

This is going to be bloody...

Incidentally, EPs with mackoti are 566 against, 242 for; and with luddicator are 355 against, 103 for. No idea if that means they have city visibility or not... =)