[no players] Warsighs of the Newb: An Experiment in Lurking.

[Old Harry]

Does Wetbandit still think he can win?

[WilliamLP]

I'll post power ratings later, but I'm calling right now that WilliamLP will win the game.

You're on crack.

I've decided I'm going to make a run at the site 1E of the banana above! It's just too strategically good to pass up since it would block settlement for him from the rest of the area, unless he tries for a ridiculously pathetic and isolated city. This is if I can defend it. I'm going to move to get my two axes up there, and maybe one or two more as well as a couple of spears and chariots for a decent ancient age defending army, and then try to get walls up if I can get the city. The capital will triple-whip a settler next turn. None of this, plus the Avar's razing, is going to make Oxy very happy.

Oooookay...

In my mind this was my best strategic move in this game, committing to the jungle and sacrificing economy to claim the ring around the lake quickly. It was a vs. AI move to plant poor forward jungle cities first and backfill later, but ultimately I got this:




instead of the land being orange and purple. (Rigatoni is the site described above.)

He doesn't actively look for weaknesses in his opponents and consequently, doesn't realize the extent to which others are actively looking for his own weaknesses.

I'd do it if I were WetBandit. Partly because I'd bet against William going overly vindictative.

I had no idea Bandit was thinking of razing my capital. I think you would have lost your bet about me being vindictive though. I knew for months that if Bandit wanted to force concession to Retep he had more than enough opportunity to start a final war at any time.

I still think this game was an unstable 3-way tie in the end, in that any of three could have chosen the winner. Though with weakened Bandit and airdrops and higher production and whole-world visibility it would have been pretty difficult to launch an effective modern attack.

Also, cottage dry rice for life.

[Jowy]

YESSSS THERES MAH BOY!
This is a moral victory for me

[Oxyphenbutazone]

I am talking about Oxy clearly attacking suttree over the island, and yet the log still says suttree declared war and Molach thinks suttree is the one attacking. The vast majority of times when the declaration comes from the defender it is a preemptive attack, but he didn't attack anything. The other possibility is to declare and ask for peace, but if Oxy is marching an army to your door he's not going to take peace unless he misclicks, so that's just either stupid or disrespectful. Thus I must conclude that suttree just likes being the one declaring war, in the absence of him posting something in his thread. It's not complicated.

IIRC, I had my stack hidden so Suttree was just trying to renew a 10-turn NAP while playing first in the turn-order. Of course, I had other plans:

[NobleHelium]

I don't remember why I posted that "ooooookay..."

[Old Harry]

Were you being encouraging noble?

[spacetyrantxenu]

If William had gifted us fleet of galleons we would have surely put them to good use, or died trying.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Nice mixture of some very good and very bad gameplay in this one. It has certainly been entertaining to follow. Given that there are apparently even more islands out there to settle, retep should win this if he plays it correctly. WilliamLP and wetbandit are the other two with the best chance. Everyone else is playing the spoiler role as far as I can tell, able to wreck someone else's game but not likely to win themselves. (Xenu seems to play that role in every game.)

What were we supposed to do with Byzantium on this start? Our being 20 turns late to Guilds was not a surprise to us, we'd been screwed by a great person spawn and had to waste time generating another one when we needed a golden age to prep for war. By the time we got to it, yes, we were able to maul Russia but Suttree pillaged away our spoils and torpedoed what chances we had to get back into the game, even if at a great loss to himself. What could we have done differently with our strategic goals? Did we fall into a cataphract trap and miss some other better opportunities? Yes, having insufficient naval defenses and losing the north was terrible but against redcoats and a long way from rifles ourselves, that wasn't going to end well anyway.

I know Suttree stopped reporting but I'd like to see some kind of report from him about what his goals were with fighting us, or razing the Russian cities. That whole episode was destructive for both of us, we basically had no chance to catch up after that. (and that war got barely a passing mention in this thread? What happened to "Blood for the Blood God"? We delivered!!!) Maybe there's a report in his thread, I haven't made it in there yet and I don't remember if he stopped reporting before or after our war.

[NobleHelium]

Well I still blame your city #3 which was unhealthy on settlement and had no food forever for most of your troubles.

suttree razed Halvgud's cities because he thought it too unfair to keep them. That coincided with him losing interest in the game.

Were you being encouraging noble?

It doesn't really make sense to post encouragement in a place where it can't be seen, so I doubt it.

[suttree]

I know Suttree stopped reporting but I'd like to see some kind of report from him about what his goals were with fighting us, or razing the Russian cities. That whole episode was destructive for both of us, we basically had no chance to catch up after that. (and that war got barely a passing mention in this thread? What happened to "Blood for the Blood God"? We delivered!!!) Maybe there's a report in his thread, I haven't made it in there yet and I don't remember if he stopped reporting before or after our war.

I stopped reporting after the Halvgud incident because I stopped playing the game - long before your invasion of Russia. I misunderstood your war against Russia. I thought you were just passing time (Retep had rifles and you had no economy), so I was surprised that you didn't just take peace and accept the extra land - I had assumed you would hit my stack after razing the capital. Hence the "Guerilla Musketeers." I didn't think my "mission" was unbalancing because I believed you had no chance to catch up independent of the outcome of your Russian war. Receiving 5 gifted cities, including the shrine city, and all of Sisu's land was an even greater return (over the long term) than you would have received otherwise so I think it was a net positive for you.