(July 29th, 2017, 19:11)RefSteel Wrote: I favor the map swap. Also, yikes, you weren't kidding about the busy day; you're keeping the kinds of hours I've been trying (and mostly failing) to stop keeping myself!
I`ll offer the swap to both Gavagai and Couerva the next time I play. It got kind of late when playing turn 85, won`t do that again any time soon. I`ve been playing a chess weekend tournament that took a lot of time. The ivory is indeed likely on someone`s mainland. It could be difficult to get that western gold island as it`s closer to Gavagai`s (?) core.
Most of the guesswork on the neighbor situation of all players is probably right. I think Krill and Gavagai border each other, though, as they kept a turn split for several turns. You could still be right, of course. We can`t possibly be the winners in the neighbor lottery if the two weakest players are the only ones we don`t border! Well, we`re still doing at least okay.
(July 31st, 2017, 04:18)RefSteel Wrote: Okay, a chess tournament is definitely a good kind of busy if you had a good time there! How did you do in the tournament?
My score was 2.5 out of 5 and I gained a whopping 0.2 rating points with that effort! (It`s actually rounded down). If I had won my last game it`d have been a very good tournament for me, but I made a huge blunder in a winning position.
Let`s hope a replacement for China can be found soon. Qgq and Adrien both said that the turn is more complicated than other players (with less information) believe. That`s surprising. I`m pretty confident that China has only one city left and defending that city can`t be that hard, right?
Ouch - it's tough when one mistake can make the difference between a very good tournament and a merely-okay one. Did any of the games really stand out for you?
On the China question - yeah, I hope we can find a replacement player. It's probably because of being GermanJoey's neighbor and knowing he is China's that his suggestion of kicking to AI seems out of place to me. In reality, he probably just wants to move the game along and/or emphasize to possibile replacement players that it's okay to take over without a major time commitment, even if the situation could support one. (And Krill seems of the same opinion, apparently, although my feeling is that we haven't given other possible replacements enough time since Q bowed out.) I hope we do get to continue the game; even if GJ and/or China's southern neighbor get a bunch of free land out of the deal, I think it'll be a lot of fun to see it play out! (Easy for me to say as a lurker who doesn't have to play the turns of course!)
Well, I got to play against a GM (Grand master) with a rating above 2600. He`s actually among the 300 best chess players in the world! I was gradually pushed off the board, not exactly a big surprise. Playing such a strong player sure was fun.
Hmmm, it`s decidedly not ideal to revert China to AI control. I agree that we should give a replacement player a little bit more time before doing that. If it`s the only way of keeping the game alive we`ll just have to accept it. As for Joey`s motives: I probably wouldn`t have suggested it in his place, but he`s probably just eager to get on with the game.
And all of a sudden the tech thread brought very good news: Cheater Hater to the rescue! That`s awesome for game balance.
EDIT: Per Couerva`s post in the tech thread there seems to have been some drama between team CML and himself. Let`s hope we avoid bad blood between the players in the future.
This was a very interesting turn. First of all: Couerva and Gavagai both accepted a map swap. China`s other neighbor is actually Krill! That`s really interesting as Joey will get a hard fight for China`s capital. Let`s see how that situation develops.
Our 9th city was built this turn, leaving us on par with the leader (dtay). The dot map in the area is quite awkward as we have to build on a forest pig in order to avoid orphaning some seafood.
Toregene and Borte are swapping tiles quite often to let both cities grow.
Here are some screenshots of the other player`s lands. I have to go to sleep now so more comments and demos coming up tomorrow. Btw: I somehow managed to post the turn report in the tech thread. Stupid me didn`t double check which thread I posted in. I deleted it within 10 seconds, so hopefully it won`t matter.
Yup, I'm pretty sure GJ is delighted to have a real substitute, and I suspect he suggested an AI in part just to encourage possible substitutes to take over. ("I may not think I'm the best fit, but I gotta admit I'm better than an AI!") Agreed that CH taking over is very good news. He's not going to dig China out of the hole Ventessel dug for it - the hole's a little too deep for that - but keeping the game rolling and making reasonably sane decisions (the AI can't be relied on for the latter, sadly) is the main thing.
(July 31st, 2017, 14:38)JR4 Wrote: EDIT: Per Couerva`s post in the tech thread there seems to have been some drama between team CML and himself. Let`s hope we avoid bad blood between the players in the future.
I obviously don't have any inside information, but based on the tech thread, I don't think this has to do with drama between him and team CML, but rather about something he heard (I guess from Tectomoc?) about CML's relationship with the game altogether. As best I can tell, the situation went something like this: CML signs up to play the game, indicating he'll have no trouble playing every day and that he'll produce fun and detailed reports in his thread. I'm sure he intended to do so, but found out belatedly that he ... couldn't actually log into the game at all. So he asked his friend Tectomoc to play the turns temporarily - though Tectomoc himself had no particular interest or investment in the game - and finally, months later, still with no solution to CML's tech issues on the horizon, Tectomoc must have given up on continuing the "temporary" substitution, especially as the complexity of the game situation increased. I think CML meant well, and I'd like him to be able to participate in other games around here (maybe a PBeM in base BtS if getting Pitboss or the mod to work is a problem for him) but the situation he unintentionally created here wasn't good for anybody.
On the turn itself: COOL! It's great to see the shape of the world finally. Some notes:
- Krill's opening looks pretty much like we inferred, planting his super-aggressive northeast super-city before anyone else by planting it as his capital, then putting his second city down where everyone else placed their capital, and founded Hinduism there en route to Priesthood and the Oracle. The rest of our information about his lands is - unsurprisingly - rather out of date: We only know about it from scouting and/or early map trades and skirmishing that Gav did and/or Coeurva did.
- I haven't the faintest idea of how (or why) Coeurva razed a Chinese city. Maybe I read civstats wrong somehow? Either way, I ... don't know what Ventessel was thinking in this game. He had very competent dedlurkers, but it seems like every move he made from his civ pick on forward has gone wrong for him in ways that he should have been predictable in advance. On the plus side for China, it looks like CH managed to double his city count within ten minutes of taking over! Hey, it's something!
- Lots and lots of other stuff in there; I may comment further later....
Unrelated to RBP37: Wow ... playing against a top-300 Grandmaster must have been thrilling! (I follow just enough baseball to make the analogy that - just in terms of the number of people at that level - it's like playing baseball not only with a major leaguer, but with an every-day starter or starting pitcher. Except that instea of being just two of the players on the field, it's a one-on-one game!)
On the game: Krill moving his settler away from Gav had a pretty big impact independent of everything else:
Gavagai managed to get enough information to plant aggressively southward with Ankara, knowing that maintenance costs and supply lines would create a natural border between him and Krill in the Southern Mirror Jungles and Foodless Wastes. After that, he was able to expand northward and claim about as much that way as we got from dtay. This resulted in a huge amount of land for Gav on the mainland, and forced Dark Savant to push south pretty hard himself. This kind of boxed Coeurva in since CML (like everyone else) was naturally driven northeast by the shape of the land, but Dark Savant has been around the top in military since the game began, and CML was probably running a huge farmer's gambit (and building 'henge) so Coeurva knew where to take an active hand and create more space for himself.
Or I'm trying to build a narrative around a couple traded maps and I've got everthing all wrong.
