[SPOILERS] Cheater Hater hates bad advice. BGN gives only bad advice.

[Cheater Hater]

Wow, I fell behind more than I expected--T213, T214, and T215 are all here. I started my next offensive on johns last turn, moving up on three separate fronts (though only the NW front is the main front) and there isn't much johns can do about it--his only attempted counter-attack was on the NE stack, where I traded 1 Cav for 4 Knights and 8 Cats. That stack probably could have taken The Big Gundown, but I would have had to burn it, I would have lost come Cavs, and the stack is performing just fine as a distraction. The south front is pretty boring since I only have 2 Cavs, but they took out 2 defenders and will probably force johns to divert some defenders to avoid losing The Bad. The most important front is the NW, where I'm moving from hill to hill, and I'm forking both A Few USD More and Commanche Blanco (and almost certainly will take both, since the big stack in Duck You Sucker is isolated, and the only mobile defenders left are the big knight stack and a couple assorted other units).

Other than that, not much is happening--still no movement from Whosit, and Elum continues to ravage ipecac. Elum also decided to turn his EP on me, so I lost research visibility--I've turned it on him, and I think I have more EP than he does (especially since a couple of my new acquisitions are running Spies), so I should get it back soon.

[Cheater Hater]

I'm sure the lurkers want some context on why I'm suddenly not conceding yet--I shot a PM off to BGN, and here's the result of that chain:

Hello CH,

In your PB23 thread a few weeks ago, you wanted to concede the game to Elum. To confirm, do you still feel this way?

Joey

This came out of nowhere--what are your thoughts? I've been enjoying demolishing johns so far, but I'm still obviously not going to be able to take out Elum without outside help (read: Whosit striking right now against him while his main army is conquering ipecac, or a massive mistake on Elum's part). Do you think there's any chance of a win from this position?

(Granted, part of it's that I won't have any meaningful games left after this one ends)

There is always a chance but realistically it seems unlikely. Whosit would have needed to make a meaningful contribution against Elum long before now after his attack on you failed to precipitate a collapse on your part that would have led to a big enough gain for him to benefit more than simply trying to instigate a dogpile against the runaway. For you to win, you need to conquer johns more profitably than Elum can conquer ipecac (not likely to happen for a variety of reasons, including Whosit's non-compliance with good sense) AND for something bad to happen to Elum...like Whosit invading, which I just don't see happening. Who else can hurt Elum? How long would you need to consolidate your position to pull into a position of parity with Elum? Is this likely to happen?

In all, I think you've played well but your opponents have not played well enough against Elum. Elum has played (seemingly) well enough to win against sorry opponents. I wish you could have a final showdown but it seems that the odds are against you here.

How about this: Tell Joey that you are inclined to concede if it appears that the international situation is unchanged within the next week. This gives you time to attempt one last ditch round of diplo to try to stir the world up against Elum. You could even start by declaring war against Elum yourself and then making diplo offers to others (Iron for fish, or cash payouts, etc). If this fails, you'll have done absolutely everything possible and can rest easy knowing that you tried your best.

Good luck.

BGN

I don't know how much I'm going to do (especially with all the trade window communication--I still have no idea if Whosit would even understand any of it), and I certainly don't think there's any reason to declare on Elum until he starts to devour Adrien (after which I can try to snipe the stack and defend him). In addition, Whosit is still the big wildcard--if he declares on me with a decent-sized force before I've finished devouring johns I'm certainly conceding on the spot, but since I'm going to have to keep all my troops in that area anyway, is there any universe where declaring on him is the right move? (instead of the obvious move of finishing off Adrien) I'm probably going to have to take a long look at the game whenever it goes up (and so should BGN) and figure out what my next move is.

Also, I did log in while xenu was testing stuff--obviously I couldn't do anything since it was the start of the new turn (aka johns's side of the turn split), but one thing worth mentioning is that I got an AP leader vote--obviously I chose ipecac over Elum

[Commodore]

Wait a week? Game will still be down.

[Cheater Hater]

Well, as much as my brain liked not having to deal with this game, it's back, and I foolishly think I still have a shot. To help evaluate my options, I have a ton of pictures. Obviously I have the domestic pictures and all the carnage on the johns front, but I have two more folders: what little military Whosit is showing me, as well as all that I can decipher from the burning husk of ipecac.

Let's start with the ipecac wars, as Adrien has joined in to try to snipe a city or two as ipecac is decimated by Elum. This feels like it could be the best possible case, as if Adrien takes even just Zero Insertion that will mean one more city between Elum and me, and it could even anger Elum and prompt a premature war (either causing Elum to lose more military than expected or hastening the game's end). Adrien could also end up burning a lot of troops to (try to) take a city, which is a double-edge sword: it would be less military to defend against my follow-up, but also against Elum.

Next, we have the johns front, where he killed my small stack by The Bad (a trade of 2 Cavs for 3 Cats and 2 Knights, not horrible) but otherwise left my stacks untouched and the western cities virtually undefended. As such, I took both A Few USD More and Comanche Blanco, then moved a bunch of those Cavs (and one of the GG Rifles) to fork both The Good and The Bad. There are three stacks of varying sizes within range of The Good, so that capture appears imminent (though I'm still trying to avoid screwing up--he still has 8 Cats). Right now I'm looking at my endgame: best case is I take three more cities (The Good, the Bad, and The Big Gundown), make peace for Arizona Colt, and leave johns with Duck You Sucker and his western islands. Unfortunately, I'm a realist, and don't expect to get peace with johns for any price, which means I'll be stuck with this WW until either I build a navy or Elum decides to clean up the western colonies.

Finally, there's domestic stuff--I refounded Magdeburg, but not much else happened.

Again, any questions, just ask.

[Krill]

Why (and I suppose, how) do you think you can win?

[Cheater Hater]

Why (and I suppose, how) do you think you can win?

Basically, I can win in one of two scenarios: Elum makes a mistake (over-extending mainly) or he gets attacked by both Whosit and Adrien in the next couple turns. Of course, now we have a new wrench thrown into the game with Elum needing a sub on late notice. To be honest, I want to play at least one more turn (so I can finish taking johns's core), and then it might be the right time to end this--is it really a win if I'm taking advantage of a sub's mistakes? (look at PB18)

Any thoughts BGN? I have the T217 pictures if that helps, though nothing ground-breaking happened there--I took johns's capital finally, and set up my troops to finish off the last two cities hopefully, but not much else.

Edit: Even though I'm leaning a lot on the "Elum makes a mistake" plan, this is a greens game, and that certainly isn't out of the range, especially since I'm not that far behind (only 1-2 techs behind (and Liberalism isn't that relevant), the GNP advantage isn't that much, and I think the johns cities are coming out of revolt faster(/bigger?) than the ipecac cities). In addition, if I do decide to expand more, conquering Adrien would be less of an impact on me than Elum (since it's closer, and I have Rathuses).

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

This picture tells you all you need to know about your prospects of winning:




Elum has open borders with everyone he isn't murdering except for you. Your only trading partner is about to die. Why is this the case? Either Elum has somehow convinced everyone that you are going to win the game and they have to do whatever they can to prevent you from winning OR...they just aren't paying attention. Either way, you can't win without some help from other civs and that help just isn't going to come. It's time to concede.

[Cheater Hater]

T218 Report:
Let's start with a look at what's left of johns:




This is the main military on each side remaining--I have a bunch of units scattered around johns's territory as well, but if the johns war continues, I would probably only need those at most, and would move the remaining troops either to guard against Whosit or attack Adrien (/Elum). Let's take stock of the remains of johns's territory now that I've mostly exiled him to the islands:




Those are almost all of johns's remaining cities, with the only exception being Arizona Colt. I offered peace for Arizona Colt, but I'm still assuming johns won't give me peace (since he has no reason to).

Next, let's do a domestic overview--it needs three parts, and I don't even think it covers every city (though it's only missing a city in revolt or two):






As you can see, I'm still getting hurt by a lot of WW--I lost two Cavs taking The Good last turn, so that certainly didn't help. At the very least, my first wave of johns conquests is finally starting to come out of revolt, which should help. Unfortunately, I'm not going to cut a turn off Steel like I hoped I would, but I'm still going to get it at least before going bankrupt. I'm not sure what my next tech is though--it's probably either Military Science (I have three GG's waiting for something to do, maybe they should be Military Academies?) or Astronomy (if I do ever take on Elum I need a navy, and it would still help with the johns cleanup).

Next, we have the ipecac front--I'm just going to leave the folder here (since I don't want to do a Paint composite), but the major development is that ipecac attacked out of both of his cities. Importantly, he seems to be favoring Adrien, both feeding him all the XP at Zero Insertion, as well as letting him walk into the city since he is first in the turn split with Elum. It will be interesting to see what Elum does this turn--will he immediately declare on Adrien to take Zero Insertion?

Since BGN brought it up above, here's the foreign situation:




It's not quite as bad as BGN made it to be--I gave Adrien three luxuries to get a Silver to try to relieve my unhappiness right after the war ended, and I re-established OB with him last turn--but it still isn't good. Should I try to open borders with Whosit?

Finally, let's take a look at the graphs and demos:








As you can see, I'm behind in all the major categories, especially production. Even though my stats will get better once the johns cities come out of revolt, the same will happen for Elum for his ipecac conquests. It is for this reason that I am officially conceding to Elum. As I've said before, I still can win, but it requires either a massive dogpile (which isn't happening) or Elum to make a big mistake (on the magnitude of attacking all of us at the same time). In addition, since Elum needs a sub soon, I don't feel that it's fair to be hoping for a mistake from a sub who is just coming into the game. Overall, I'm very happy with this game--sure, I inherited the game ~50 turns in with a very good position, but I've been playing very well though this war, and it's certainly better than my previous three games (PBEM58, PB18 Zulu, PB18 Greece). Reading the spoiler threads will be interesting--hopefully I don't get beaten up too much in the lurker thread

[Cheater Hater]

Well, now that the game is officially over, I've read through the lurker thread, and it wasn't that bad--then again, I don't think I tilted as badly in this game as in others. Anyone have more input? Then again, now that I'm mostly out of my games (even PB26, and that was nothing more than a test game where I'm not much more than a warm body waiting to be conquered), I'm at the crossroads where I don't know if I want to join another. Of course, I'll probably get roped into PB27 somehow (again, mainly as a warm body), so we'll see what happens there.

[Whosit]

Having read the last few pages of your thread, I feel like I'm compelled to defend my good name.

I'd like to start off by saying that I was never unaware of Elum's dominating position. You might have been unaware that when I was battling Grimace, Elum ended my participation in that war by completely destroying my army. The other main consideration was geography, which I don't recall seeing brought up. Basically, with Elum taking all of the Korean gains away from me, I had only two ways to attack: By land, first having to traverse a narrow, windy bit of land through enemy culture, or by sea which Elum dominated with advanced naval tech. Even when Elum was off making war elsewhere, geography allowed him to leave garrisons behind that would have crushed any army I could field, simply because it would take 6+ turns for me to even get to one of his cities. I might have been able to launch a naval invasion that could have captured or razed 1-2 minor island cities, but that would have had no real impact.

So, from my perspective, I was in a losing position and had only two bad options to pick from: 1) Attack Elum and die, 2) Attack you and have a 0.1% chance of gaining enough territory to maybe find a way to hold my own. Obviously, since you were the one I was attacking, you didn't take too favorably to that, but I really wasn't as irrational as you painted me. I was just desperate.

Anyway, good game, and if we both end up in PB27... maybe we won't start as neighbors again?