[spoilers] Commodore's RNG Report

[Mjmd]

Nicely done. Love the morale elephant.


Did you end up getting optics?

[Qgqqqqq]

Nice one Commodore.

Also, I realise you've had your signature for 5+ years, but what is it a reference to?

[Krill]

Hexadecimal. D+2=F

[Krill]

Great update as usual Com, thank you.

[Commodore]

Okay, peace (2-city rule, I think valid?) He shouldn't have attacked me, I was signaling my willingness to be bought off instead and let him go play with the dying Gavagai, but he had to be convinced via titanic struggle.


Ginger also offered a Fish-for-Fish for what it's worth, something he violated in his initial attack so let's see how it goes. He's extremely close to galleons so I'm still beelining Optics, caravel swarms are still going to be needed to deter him when this lesson fades in ten more turns.

This. Is. My. Land.

[Commodore]

If you notice I actually took the peace with Ginger, it certainly wasn't an automatic thing. Had to be crippling war weariness he was suffering at this point, and given how tilted he was I'm pretty sure I could have slaughtered several other stacks. His heroic epic city of Dune is too close to his main supply lines for me to be able to comfortably take it without building up my own trebuchet stack. It's not all that I would have stayed on fighting if I was not so confident in both Gavagai's ability to hold off for a long time and SD/NF being cautious. There might be a future world where I can split Ginger with Superdeath but that is going to be a far future.

Hell of a shark fin.

[Charriu]

I will have a look at WW and write it in the lurker thread

[Commodore]

Open Borders are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Ginger is going to be able to scout me out well, and he’s going to have good vision on my defenses. On the other hand, I can scout his borders and given that he’s proven his fish-for-fish ain’t worth a bucket of warm spit, my sentry chariot can also go over to Superdeath for vital intelligence if we ever have cause to coordinate against Ginger.

Third GA incoming from him, else Astro bulb.

Gavagai isn’t long for the world. The shark fins tell us that he’s lost a lot to Superdeath:

…and he’s being nibbled at by the hangers-on. Amicalola casually grabbed two cities, now Nhaofrowger ate himself a couple, and even hyper-passive Ginger discovered that if he’s not willing to actually attack the dying, he can at least settle in razed land. I’m very jealous of how many events and quests he’s been offered, by the way, feels like 80% of all events this game are Greek.

[Commodore]

Still not gonna research Agriculture by the way.

[Commodore]

Danged if I can tell where this game is going to end up, but this has to be one of the most dynamic game states we’ve seen at such an advanced year. There are three potential winners still, with two others strong enough to still be extremely relevant. Even dying Gavagai is still prickly enough to have one last bloody showdown. We’re also all really struggling with tech rate, which biases everyone towards action and expansion. Ginger’s about to bumble into a buzzsaw if he tries for Superdeath though:


So I guess it’s worth looking at what we have here in Pitboss 64. I’ve zoomed out and took a SWAG at populations, civics, and power levels, although these keep fluctuating wildly from turn to turn.

I’ll rank below each player by “likelihood of winning” and give the basic stats as well as what Celtic mythological beast they most remind me of:

1st Place Nowfrogger
Spirit Animal: Bane Sidhe
Tech Rate: Excellent
Size: Good
Expansion Prospects: Tundra
Growth Potential: Good
Military Tier: Knights
Economy Tier: Markets and Libraries
Nuwowfrugor is my top pick right now because he’s got the best odds of scaling up his economy to a true “RB standard” with effort, plus his geopolitical situation is fair-to-middling. He played a very active diplomacy game first teaming with Gav to slow down Amicalola’s juggernaut and then backstabbing Gavagai for gains, first at a nibble and apparently now at a gulp. He’s been settling cities steadily, but given his resources from those settles are “deer”, “whales”, and “more deer” it’s probably a long tundra coast. Which, hey, Fin/Org with 40h ziggurats? Definitely helping the economy, just not much of a production base. At some point he’s going to finish camping deers and mining tundra hills and come north to cut jungle, in the ultra-long term (which baring morale collapse this game is heading for) that jungle is going to house cottages that are the best economic base in the world. Eventually. Slowly.


2nd Place Amicalola
Spirit Animal: Dúlachán
Tech Rate: Decent
Size: Great
Expansion Prospects: Green
Growth Potential: Decent
Military Tier: Knights
Economy Tier: Bazars and Harbors
This is a really interesting economy game being played by Amicalola right now; he’s eschewed strategies like “working commerce tiles” for his economy to instead focus on passive trade income. His three island cities ought to be supplying his whole empire with routes now (+51gpt) but when he lands Optics he’s going to be relying on outer trade or else Shawn Island is going to be looking pretty tasty. He keeps doing these massive whip cycles that are for infrastructure, not troops, but he’s top power so he’s gotta be doing something right. He nibbled a couple green cities off of Gavagai but is mostly in a defensive stance militarily. That’s how I’d generally characterize his game…defensive. He seems more aware of short-term threats than long-term gambles, and that shows. Despite his size his economy is more anemic that I’d have thought, but he’s doing okay drafting Ginger/Noffer


3rd Place Ginger
Spirit Animal: Nuckalavee
Tech Rate: Good
Size: Cramped
Expansion Prospects: Hilly
Growth Potential: Low
Military Tier: Knights and Caravels
Economy Tier: BANKS
These Ginger cities, man. It’s like someone put a Deity AI in the middle of us; won’t whip, just slow-builds stuff, but somehow produces an insane amount of infrastructure, wonders, and population. Before I did this zoom-out I don’t think I properly appreciated just how huge these Greek cities are, all enjoying 1/3/1 windmills and the occasional lumbermill(!) too. His only limiter is his land area, because while his land is the best tile-for-tile in the whole world, don’t got a lot of it. He’s also just landed Banking, which is going to be an enormous boon to his gold-saving rate. Unfortunately for Ginger, that also means he’s going to be building a bunch of 150h buildings instead of knights while the feeding frenzy on the Ottomans finishes. He’s also going to have a problem scaling up, nice as those Serfdom improvements are they don’t grow much. His next golden age is gonna be LIT (windmills rock in a GA) but after that he’s officially out of sudden growth bursts. He’s nearing Astronomy so my Colossus is no longer useful, and I’m not investing in the Isthmus at all, so his Serfdom-friendly expansion bias really is going to be eastward. But that east is full of dangers and players who whip armies, plus lack good targets for a galleon force.


4th Place Commodore
Spirit Animal: Cù-sìth
Tech Rate: Poor
Size: Middling
Expansion Prospects: Filler
Growth Potential: Stratospheric
Military Tier: War Elephants and Pikes
Economy Tier: Castles
Alas poor me; I’m a magnificent ruin, brought down before my time. I thwarted the largest power in the world and regained every single city by hook or by crook, but at what cost? I’m making half of what I was post-golden age and my forces are scarred, my power vying closely with the rump state on only 4 cities in the middle of a dogpile. There are three cottages being worked in the whole empire, while I depend on the seven plantations and Colossus coast for a shocking amount of my meagre income. I’m going to have to pull the trigger on an Optics bulb ASAP just to continue enough teching to get to knights and then muskets for defensive potential (although G3 muskets, yum). The only economically beneficial buildings I can justify are castles, the only tech, caravels. Obviously, I can grow tons of population from this point, but that requires withholding the whip. I’m going to make the bet that my nemesis Ginger is war-weary enough in real life that I have some time, but I need to put in real thought to what things look like in 10 turns, 25 turns, and 50 turns and get a real plan together on this.


5th Place Superdeath
Spirit Animal: Cat-sí
Tech Rate: Poor
Size: Decent
Expansion Prospects: Violent
Growth Potential: High
Military Tier: War Elephants
Economy Tier: Lighthouses
Superdeath, yeah boy. He was a passive lump for such a huge section of this game but at the 11th hour suddenly he decided to get actually involved with things and such a splash did he make, slamming down to take the Pyramids and then breaking the spine of Gavagai’s revenge force. Feel a little bad for taking the bribe to cut off Gav’s money and happy but I needed Engineering, man. I have precisely no idea how VICTORIA of CARTHAGE has done so poorly on this map, given how much commerce Noquerfrugter and I glean from the coasts and Amicalola makes from trade, but he’s an anemic researcher at best. Still, he’s got more build queues than Ginger and understands what the whip button means, plus this is Superdeath…windmills are for sissies, hills are for MINES. Unfortunately, Superdeath’s got a real problem when it comes to growth potential. I think he’ll be able to thwart a Ginger Deity stack or two, but unless he can play Ami vs. Nhao extremely carefully he’s going to start looking ripe. Bravo for waking up though, SD, I suppose we have sucksatciv holding up 65’s pace to thank for that.


6th Place Gavagai
Spirit Animal: Bánánach
Tech Rate: Nill
Size: Pitiful
Expansion Prospects: None
Growth Potential: Nadda
Military Tier: Axe/Catapult
Economy Tier: Bones and Skulls
Poor Gavagai. Not much to say about this, just look at his position; once Now decided to swap into an alliance with Amica he was doomed, and Superdeath capping his border Pyramids city was the last nail in the coffin. Mad props for how faithfully and steadily he been playing his turns and fighting, I hope for his sake he’s free soon (although for my sake he needs to last forever).