[PB25 Spoiler] General Flauros leads the Creole Calabim

[spacetyrantxenu]

Borsche would be less spoiled because he hasn't had the chance to read the other threads. Not doing he should take over or he would want to, but that's the reason why he could. If I was gavagai I wouldn't love the prospect though.

[GermanJoey]

Yeah, maybe, but he'd have been paying 10X more attention to the game by simple virtue of having played every turn of it so far.

[spacetyrantxenu]

True, but there's a big difference between paying attention and definitely having inside knowledge from having read spoiler threads. That said, if Krill says he isn't spoiled to the point of being an unsuitable sub I believe him.

[Krill]

I never read HAKs thread in detail because I can't read Mindy without wanting to commit sepuku. Commodore I can read like a book anyway without reading his posts and dtay isn't there regardless, and I haven't read the other threads. Borsche would arguably be more spoiled than me because he would have knowledge of what his invaders have just done and I don't even know that.

[GermanJoey]

T134.

Ok Krill, next turn is yours, although feel free to login this turn especially if you think the tech decision is bad. Both Guilds and Engineering are exactly 3T techs, and I'm not sure which is better here. We can make 10XP Knights from the ToZ city, but Engineering seems better for a tower defense situation. I went with Engineering in the end.

Overview:



Elkad's main land stack has waddled home with its Elephant tail between its Elephant legs, but his huge navy remains. Thank god these weren't land units, but for whatever reason they're a big economic threat if they manage to blockade the capital. However, that shouldn't be an issue. First of all, he's been inchworming them along 1 tile at a time. Next, we should have the ships available to wipe it. Two triremes are ready in The Fi-Yi-Yi, with another whippable for 1pop in 2T, 1 Trireme is ready in the capital, with another due to be slow-built in 3T, while a 5XP trireme is rounding the corner from Black Eagles, with another out next turn. Several galleys are also available for cleanup duty as soon as next turnish.




In the island zone, things aren't going as well. Commodore will take Nijmegan with a bunch of wounded units, as well as the city I got from HAK, which I never even had the chance to get defenders into. Big egg on my face I guess. Hiliarously, HAK shipped out his units but then gifted me the galley, lmfao, thanks dude, maybe I can give the Knights some splinters with this. If this was from any other player I'd interpret it as some kind of taunting, but I'm sure HAK thinks he's genuinely trying to help. I don't know what he expects me to do with it (he can see the 3 galleys I already have shipping stuff out) but I guess we can use it against Elkad. The other two cities on the island will hold, at least for now. Some full health swords are capable of upgrading to maces now, which seems useful, but that would delay Engineering by a turn. I didn't go with it in the end.

I'm also laughing about Commodore complains about "spite whipping" in the tech thread (referring to me whipping down Black Seminoles to size 2), except this wasn't a spite whip. A spite whip is only something that happens to spite a conquering opponent when you're already broken. In this case, my civ perhaps defeated but not broken, and he would have been able to quad-whip a Knight the turn after that city came out of revolt had I not whipped down. That's not a spite whip, that's called just not being brain dead. I'm sure he's made me out to be all kinds of a villain in his thread though.







Demos:




GNP is decent, as Commodore was at full or near-full slider this past turn to finish Calendar. MFG is still surprisingly competitive; we'd be tops here by a decent margin if we hadn't lost Burning Spears or Black Seminoles. CY is a fucking disaster of course and a big reason of why this game is so hopeless. The main reason though is the neighbor situation. You can see from the overview shot that we're completely surrounded by hostile civs. Borsche was a sort-of ally but now he's dead, and Gavagai I'd rate as having favorable relations with. However, Gavagai is very opportunistic and probably covets the MoM as a real chance for him to catch up. Elkad seems to have declared a blood feud on me. Donovan napped Elkad, so I'm sure he's building up a force in the fog to hit Creole Osceola. My non-neighbor Commodore is likely bringing another 5 galleys full of Knights in another turn or two. You have research visibility on him, btw. Finally, HAK is completely out of his league and apparently still hostile even after gift-wrapping him a city that has twice as much infrastucture than any other in his empire. You might think I'm exaggerating here, but he just has a few barracks, almost no libraries, no forges... a bunch of org rathaus, and sure, that's good, but how do you have a city with a BFC like this with just a Monument, Granary, and Rathaus 134 turns into the game? That was probably his 2nd city too!




Anyways, good luck Krill. I'm going to start reading the other threads now.

[Qgqqqqq]

Joey, that's a spite whip. A spite whip is any time you whip something knowing you aren't going to finish it to deny population - and especially when you whip more than once in a turn.

[GermanJoey]

Call it what you want, that doesn't make it an actual spite whip. There's nothing wrong with it either via convention or in the game rules for this kind of move. I've had to endure far worse from opponents than that, and I'd only be pissed about it if someone was truly conquered and just doing it for no other tactical purpose other than... spite. That's what makes a spite whip a spite whip. Here, there's an actual purpose, as the whips were intended to improve the chances of survival of the last foothold on the island by denying Commodore from using my own city against me in the near-term.

[GermanJoey]

If you want to see what spite really looks like, read the section of my PB18 thread where I conquered Bacchus or my PB22 thread where I conquered Furungy. When you whip down and evacuate units rather than defend in order to raze towns and villages, now THAT is spite.

[Tasunke]

Eh, on the Spite scale ... like, spite whippping seems like maybe a 1 or a 2 .... while pointless warfare seems like a 4 or a 5 ... (just going for the sake of preventing X from winning), and .... well .... the obviously outlawed "city gifting" to some random joe schmoe is about like an 11 or a 12 out of ten. I'd say pointless city gifting is the worst possible offense, unless there is some crazy RP justification or something .... in which case, in such a game you should expect to see WINNING players gifting cities to LOSING players, to keep them alive (maybe for the WW to their enemies idk), as well as losing players gifting cities to winning players .... more like a city-trade sort of deal (such as getting new front cities from losing player, while giving them some weak frontier cities on a different front). But hey, most ga5mes don't play that way ... so yea, I'd say just giving like, EVERY city to 2nd place, and immediately quitting, is the worst form of rage quitting. But again, that stuff is probably outlawed anyways ... (and similar stuff with techs, in games where TT is available). But yea, whipping or spite whipping seems about a 1 or a 2 b/c it can grow back, generally, (imho), while pointless Spite Warfare is a 3-5 .... Tech Dumping would be perhaps an 8 or a 9 .... (in games where its available), and (spite) city gifting is like an 11 or a 12.

Honestly if someone spite-gifted me say, 4 cities, I'd probably just hand 2 of them back to whomever is the invader (assuming they agreed to something, idk if a NAP, or just Open Borders + resource deal, etc). Well, depends on the situation, but I would be highly inclined to just give back at least half of the cities to the person that 'earned' the invasion .... unless I was next on his chopping block I suppose.

[Tasunke]

If you want to see what spite really looks like, read the section of my PB18 thread where I conquered Bacchus or my PB22 thread where I conquered Furungy. When you whip down and evacuate units rather than defend in order to raze towns and villages, now THAT is spite.

Eh ... its Scorched Earth .... to be honest ANY form of scorched earth gets nothing more than a 2 on my personal spite scale, because it makes sense, and it is a historical tactic (such as Russians, in many wars they have fought, etc)

Its doing things that wouldn't make sense from a historical perspective (just giving away Tech/ Military secrets, just giving away all land) that doesn't make much sense. However, as far as Capitulating goes ... I *could* see it working out if it was maybe 1 or 2 cities gifted, in exchange for military protection and gold/favors from the Master civ. -> Like an unofficial vassalization. Ofc in a non-diplo game, pretty much the only thing allowable is SCORCHED EARTH