[no players] Novel beginnings, standard outcomes: Map and Lurker thread.

[Gaspar]

This game is pretty much exactly what Commodore called the lurker thread and exactly what you'd expect - lot of cute and fun stuff but SevenSpirits is going to win going away. He is leagues better than 95% of the players on this site and no offense to the other players here, but none of that 5% is playing in this game. Pindicator is closest but he hasn't given it his full attention and it shows.

I think as much as anything Seven's reticence to do the deed probably came from the fact that he'd like the game to keep going because he likes to play and he knows razing Dazed's capital just brings the concession closer to bear. Can't blame him for that, of course.

[timski]

To be honest, this says more about Dazed than it does about SevenSpirits. I agree that Seven is the strongest player in the game by a margin. But it is turn 70 of a game with an accelerated opening, it's always war, on a tight map, with exposed territory, and Rome is on the field. Knowing all that, Dazed has a lone Warrior for capital defense, with apparently either nothing in reserve or insufficient time or interest to check the map before pressing end turn.

Sure, Dazed gets the dis-benefit of one-sided lurker opinion because they never update their thread, so nobody knows what, if anything, they were simultaneously dealing with. But any player could have arrived at Dazed's capital with a Chariot and the result would have been the same.

As we saw against Commodore in PBEM31, always war makes it uniquely difficult for other players to respond to early run-away moves. At least here everyone knows Dazed is in trouble and seems to be planning to grab whatever spoils of war they can. So there should be balance, of sorts, after Dazed departs. Seven will probably win, but I don't think razing Dazed's capital will have been a deciding factor in that victory, although it certainly won't hurt.

[Commodore]

I have some sympathy for Dazed. I have the world's easiest baby, and I'm still missing stuff more than I used to. So he gets a father-of-newborn pass in my book. Seven was dominant before razing anything, anyway.

[timski]

So, will SevenSpirits notice this?




I suspect yes, but they likely needed to have anticipated a canal there in order to reinforce Outpost this turn.

[NobleHelium]

Longbow dry whip is only three pop, so he can definitely do that.

[NobleHelium]

I have to say, the reports are actually getting pretty funny now with the pervasive "we're trying our best" atmosphere.