[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

[Fintourist]

- BGN seems to have forgotten that sending Messages with trade screen is not ok.
- let's keep the tanks, BGN attack does not seem likely due to gift but hey who knows, they are good units and that sabotage mission does not make me Feel like giving him units..
- hmm i'm a bit worried that BGN will sabotage zucchini forge so put something useful as the factory back-up build?
- using great engineer for a build that surely completes and allows a major overflow on the turn ecology completes could be a move?
- why do we have to be so nice and give 2nd half to our competitors, like always..
- reg TBS sabotage i'm thinking something like 2 cathedrals + 2 temples so that we can keep the multipliers down by sabotaging freshly built temples. That's more efficient EP-wise, but if we have a surplus of EPs but no spies we can also destroy cathedrals every turn..
- if elen has older temples that have doubled culture those religions are the preferred targets
- do we have spies on the way? I think theoretically we can push elen's 50k date beyond our space date but then TBS uses 1 artist there and gets 22k in basilisk. --> i still think that the right way to go is sabotage hard in elen first, and once we go to full EP mode we start sabotaging basilisk as well.. Suicide spy transport move already planned?

That's all for now. Tomorrow back in Finland.

[Old Harry]

Turn 260 part II

- let's keep the tanks, BGN attack does not seem likely due to gift but hey who knows, they are good units and that sabotage mission does not make me Feel like giving him units..

Closing borders and moving Transports like so seems pretty aggressive - perhaps that's just if we don't pay? The Tanks could be useful for defending against dtay. I think we can probably afford 330 beakers on our Ecology push, so I'm going to offer him 162 GPT instead. That way if he does declare on us he cuts the trade! In fact he finished turn already so he might not accept until next turn and then that's only 160 beakers lost.

- hmm i'm a bit worried that BGN will sabotage zucchini forge so put something useful as the factory back-up build?
- using great engineer for a build that surely completes and allows a major overflow on the turn ecology completes could be a move?

Losing the Forge would suck. I've added a wealth build just in case. We have a Security Bureau, a spy and closed borders, so it should be costly to sabotage any more. (fake edit - by the time I got around to finishing off the turn he'd ended turn without sabotaging the Forge - let's hope he isn't logging back in...)

I'd switched Zucchini to do Life Support, but with the sabotage I'm not sure its still best that way around, as Watercress might have more overflow next turn and then Zucchini gets another turn to build its Engineering Lab. I'll compare the two next turn.

- why do we have to be so nice and give 2nd half to our competitors, like always..

Yeah, I shouldn't have let that happen . I wonder if we'll look back at that as the mistake that screwed the game, or is it the 2-turn revolt, or not thinking of spies in time, or something else, or will we win after all ?

- reg TBS sabotage i'm thinking something like 2 cathedrals + 2 temples so that we can keep the multipliers down by sabotaging freshly built temples. That's more efficient EP-wise, but if we have a surplus of EPs but no spies we can also destroy cathedrals every turn..

I think we're at the point where we need to cut as many % as possible as early as possible. His cash reserve is down to 1000, so he can only rush one cathedral now.

- if elen has older temples that have doubled culture those religions are the preferred targets

Confucianism is the state religion, so I'll target that first. Hinduism is next up.

- do we have spies on the way? I think theoretically we can push elen's 50k date beyond our space date but then TBS uses 1 artist there and gets 22k in basilisk. --> i still think that the right way to go is sabotage hard in elen first, and once we go to full EP mode we start sabotaging basilisk as well.. Suicide spy transport move already planned?

Its a bit difficult as TBS has 8 Battleships and 35 Destroyers in the way from one direction and dtay has 25 Destroyers in the way from the other direction. I think our best shot is to send our fleet back towards our coast to shepherd transports. We'll land another three spies next turn from airlifts, after that it's one spy a turn until we get more control of the sea.

Anyway I wanted to do some killing, WW=66 so:

C2 CR3 Tank vs CG2 Inf 75%... WIN (3 hits)
CR3 Tank cs CG1 Inf 76%... LOSS (4 hits)
C1 CR3 Tank vs CG1 Inf 88%... WIN (4 hits)
D1 () CR3 Tank vs CG1 Inf 78%... LOSS (2 hits)
C4 Tank vs 56HP CG1 Inf 90%... WIN (3 hits)
C4 Tank vs 12HP CG1 Inf 99%...

Only got 147 capture gold :/ (WW is 84 now).

Next up is Hightower - three Guided Missiles do plenty of damage to the defenders, then:


C4 Commando Tank vs 73HP CG1 Inf 89%... WIN (1 hit)
C4 Commando Tank vs 58HP CG1 Inf 97%... WIN (3 hits)
BLITZ!
82HP C4 Commando Tank vs 38HP C1 CG3 Inf 97%... WIN (1 hit)
49HP C4 Commando Tank vs 70HP C1 Cav 85%... WIN!

170 capture gold this time. Given that this city contained the Oracle (until I burnt it) I doubt other cities are going to provide larger amounts of cash :/.

All the same Amendola is a very low cost capture, so lets try it...

C4 Commando Tank vs CG2 Inf 76%... LOSS (2 hits)
C4 Commando Cav vs 56HP CG2 Inf 86%... WIN (3 hits)
C4 Commando Cav vs CR3 Cannon 99%... WIN

141 gold. I think that's the limit of our extravagance here. All the victorious units are deleted to save getting any more war weariness. I'm going to pull our airforce back to defend Aztecca and retreat all our remaining boats to Plakonic cities for safety. I did airlift another spy into the city we captured though . And part of retreating involved moving two commando cav into Krill's lands where they found a sentry chariot of dtay's to kill .

Next up we have some of dtay's boats threatening four of our coastal cities, next turn we'd be able to kill all these boats, but presumably dtay will withdraw them to one of his cities. If he does then our fleet will just accompany a couple of Transports full of spies up north.
C3 Battleship vs Destroyer 96%... WIN (1 hit)
Unfortunately a mis-click means I can't take Blitz and kill the other boat (>90% odds), so he'll just head back into port .


I didn't switch to Uni Suffrage - I'm planning to starve every city on Scientists next turn to make sure we get Ecology (with plenty to spare) next turn. BGN is 2 turns from Composites, so that's at least t265 before he has Ecology - then will Life Support & Stasis be multi-turn builds?

Demos, victory and power.

[Old Harry]

Dtay took two cities off us, one was - as expected - Ridley, the one we took from him. The other was... Terry?!?! Anyway it looks like Ecology should be easy to get this turn, so we can start building stuff again...

I'll play the turn this evening or tomorrow morning. Thoughts on building the last two SS parts in Zucchini and Watercress would be appreciated.

[Old Harry]

Turn 261

Elensfar is 9 turns from legendary.


One of our spies got captured, but we have four that have a turn's stationary bonus, so lets start with that Confucian Academy:


Spy 1 fails
Spy 2 succeeds!
Next is the Hindu Mandir:
Spy 3 succeeds!

Next we could sabotage the two temples and something else or we could take out one more Cathedral. We're not going to have the EPs to sabotage another next turn, but we will the turn after. I think we need to do as much as possible to delay things right now, so I went for the Christian Cathedral:
Spy 4 succeeds! (but is captured)
We're down to 89 EPs against TBS now, so no "after" picture of the city , if we can knock out the remaining two cathedrals in two turns my estimate of his new end date is t273, so we're going to need to knock out some other buildings too. We have six spies left in the city with another three arriving next turn.

dtay's conquest of Terry came after he failed to make an impression on Domino. That makes me think that a couple of infantry in Rocky should see the city safe... If he takes Bimble out that will only cost us six beakers, so I won't reinforce that city. He did grab Military Science this turn though, so I've reinforced our more commando-accessible cities.


We need to make 10555 base beakers this turn to get Ecology. I want to make sure we have breathing room, in case of city razes and sky pillaging. I've adjusted every city to be max science with Rep scientists replacing every tile except towns, precious metals and factory+power workshops and mines, which means that Butterscotch, Englbert, Kirby, Lucky, Marmalade, Ophelia, Pickle, Rocky, Snowdrop, Twinkle, Upland Cress, Veggies, Domino, Endive, Fennel, Grass, Herbs, Juniper, Kipple, Orinoco, Quincy, Ursula, Bimble, Chives, Dock Leaves, Flowers, Jelly, Mustard, Quince, Radish, Samphire, Turnip and Yarrow will all starve down a size. THH says that's okay - we're the Aztecs! Anyway the upshot is there are ~2000 beakers extra for this turn and we can complete Ecology at 70% with something to spare. I went for 80% just to be sure though.


That leaves our last two builds in Watercress and Zucchini. The sabotage in Zucchini turns the 3 turn build into a five turn build. If BGN sabotages again then it could be even slower . He'll get Composites this turn, then I'd guess that he'll get Medicine eot262, Genetics eot264 and Ecology eot265 or 6. Even if he can swing a one turn build we should beat that.






Finally, anyone notice anything odd here?


Victory screen.

[flugauto]

KRILL! ARTIST! TRANSPORT!

[Fintourist]

Really? Krill, WTF?

Have you OH made a map for him as well?

Well, I guess this is a way to decide the winner as well. But why did we we ban the diplo victory in the first place if we want games to end like this? Sigh.

Do you OH feel like protesting? I guess there is no rule against artist gifting or helping someone to win by some other means. It's just a grey area and covered by the "don't be a jerk rule", which everyone can interpret as they please. Personally I feel that the pure way to play civ after losing chances is to 1) always aim at improving your own position, and 2) allow others to have a good game. The 2nd point includes obvious king-making moves. Sometimes 1 and 2 contradict and those situations are again covered by the don't be a jerk role.

If we quickly assume that Krill has brought the artist there for selfish non king-making purpouses: Could we just plainly offer him something like 1000 gpt and hope that he gets the message and does not gift the artist?



****


Anyways, fun stuff reg cathedral sabotages. If we just get enough spies to TBS land and there are no artist gifts this might still be a close game..


Am I reading the table correctly that we need to settle the engineer in Zucchini to get stasis out eot264?

[Old Harry]

I'm fairly sure TBS will want to win this himself, I'll be disappointed if he uses the artist. What can you do about krill though? It's clear he doesn't care what anyone (except mjw) thinks about him, but to have put so much effort into building a balance mod and then do this is just weird. Especially as the only cause I can think of was when I tried to get him to stop giving TBS rice...

Perhaps if he can't win he just wants to have an impact on the game?

Anyway, we can't protest without diplomacy, but if any lurker would like to discuss with TBS (as there's never any point discussing with krill) I'd be grateful...

Offering money is an interesting idea. Is there a smaller amount you think he'd accept?

[Commodore]

Eh, I'd call Dtay's DoW pretty fair despite not being strictly 1 or 2. Nobody can know the mind of Krill, though...it seems kingmakey (and cheesy), but if we're going to ban Krill from moody kingmaking we need to go back in time and stop him from spiking BGN's wheels months ago...

[Old Harry]

Oh, we definitely had it coming from dtay, no complaints there. I guess 3) payback is a bitch should be a thing too.

Agree with all you say about krill, I just hope that - having held off a front-runner successfully for 50 turns, and dragged us back into the pack - TBS wants his own victory. I still think he's hot favorite right now even without krill's help (although if BGN is gonna be sabotaging him and us rather than just us, then he's got a shot too).

On the engineer, I was saving him to rebuild our factory if BGN sabotaged it again. Which is more likely -TBS beats us by a turn or BGN sabotages again?

[Fintourist]

Eh, I'd call Dtay's DoW pretty fair despite not being strictly 1 or 2.

Yeah, revenge is grey area. On very theoretical level I think that it's not an acceptable reason, but it's extremely understandable to prefer blood to struggle over 7th place. And revenge plays also could not really be banned, because nobody can say where's the line between preventive attack against an enemy who has proven himself hostile and revenge simply for the sake of revenge..

I've not yet been in a situation where someone has screwed me bad and later has chances for winning that I could harm/destroy. So I don't know yet how I would react. Surely temptation for revenge would be real..

On subjective level I still feel that suttree's revenge plays in PB13 should not happen while dtay's revenge here feels more OK. Dtay's revenge does not make me angry, I think it's just more of a pity because dtay revenge --> No spies to TBS land --> We don't get to see the real race to the finish line..