[PB62] naufragar and Rusten earn their wage in rostygold

[Rusten]

Pyramids are good, just not on a cramped map like this. And if you go back I think all of my suggested wonder builds on page 1 had mathematics chops included.
That was my main draw of PHI.

[Miguelito]

This lived up to the promise of a naufragar thread in every way
Much respect for keeping up the fighting spirit despite everything.

I agree that Mjmd's city was extortion by threatening a suicide bomb (both your way and ours). However I suspect that giving in would have been preferable for you. Did you think there was a chance for peace when you founded Wolfstad (the first time)? Were there no other worthwhile city spots left? Wolfstad doesn't seem like it gains a huge lot for you. Also couldn't you have founded Wolfstad just 15-20 turns later, stabilizing your position with the recent acquisition? The corn farm (that Mjmd would have built for you ) would still have flipped after just a few turns.

[naufragar]

I agree that Mjmd's city was extortion by threatening a suicide bomb (both your way and ours). However I suspect that giving in would have been preferable for you. Did you think there was a chance for peace when you founded Wolfstad (the first time)?

This is what Civac was alluding to earlier. When I founded Wolfstad, Mjmd's entire army across his whole empire can be seen here. It looks like he's got 2 chariots, 2 skirmishers, and 3 warriors across his entire empire. Wolfstad alone was defended by 1 axe + 1 warrior with 1 spear a half a turn too late. If that spear gets there in time, Mjmd basically can never take the city. He won't even get copper connected for another 6 turns and will need roughly double my numbers to capture, as I mentioned before. So I guess in short, yeah, I did expect a begrudging peace. In my view, conquering Wolfstad would be so incredibly expensive and gain him so little that he'd never go to war over it until catapults, and I intended to beat him to catapults. (And likewise, OakAshThorn was perfectly safe from me until catapults, since nothing of the era beats skirmishers on a hill, so I figured that if he wanted to fight over it, it would be an offensive rather than defensive war, and he could just improve his position in easier ways and elsewhere.)

In hindsight, Civac is correct that I didn't need to press every advantage and I should've played to conserve what I had. Here's a map of the area:


I've deleted my screenshots and this is the only good one I could find in the thread. I should have resettled Bing's old city, which is also a very strong plant. (That was next after Wolfstad, and consequently why I had a settler done in time to resettle Wolfstad almost immediately after the raze.) For what it's worth, my north and west were terrible, so I had to focus on the area between me and Bing.

In the above screenshot, you can also see just how awesome a city Wolfstad was. My bronze city of Veilgarden had too much food (grass cow, fish, grass corn), and it couldn't use all of it. Wolfstad takes Veilgarden's corn plus its own and has 3 flat grassland cottages to work, same as Veilgarden. This wasn't some filler city; this was a prize. A prize that would have to be jealously guarded, sure, but I was pretty sure I could deter any ancient invasions with culture/walls and fortification.

[Tarkeel]

Some random replies first:

Tarkac, by the way, are now up to 9 cities. Good thing they were able to propitiate the correct arcane powers to have Superdeath suicide against me rather than them. Good job!

I think we did the correct incantation in this game.

Let's be honest. I don't ever want to play a game with terrorists again. In Superdeath's case, that's difficult because he's in everything. Are my choices really between never playing RB Civ4 and hoping that the freaking suicide bombers blow up someone else's game? Christ.

You could roll your chances and play on a SD-designed map?

You know what's sad? I'm not even particularly excited about this:


Yes, people, this entire time I've been fighting Superdeath and Mjmd with one hand tied behind my back. This city can and will three-turn metal units probably for the rest of its life. With stone, the Pyramids are 334 hammers or roughly 10 axes. Could you imagine if I had 10 axes? And the 'mids don't even do anything yet because I can't afford the turn of anarchy to revolt to Representation. Worse, I'm almost certain Tarkac were building it and now got failgold from it. (They didn't research Writing or Sailing which I would've expected if they didn't go Masonry.)

You actually built it the turn we were set on starting it, for failgold mainly.

Well, we're now at peace with Mjmd, so nothing interesting to report there. Instead, I have a request for future mapmakers:
Please be very careful with 1 tile islands, and only put them down when there's a reason. A couple people now have Sailing and it's making me think about why. There's probably a similarly sized lake near Superdeath, too.

Yeah, I learned that lesson in PB60, but it's well worth pointing out.

Regarding your play, I think the main flaw was actually settling Wolfstad at that time. You would probably have been better off consolidating the territory between you and Bing, and then come back for that corn a bit later (like, 10-15 turns?). As you said, Mjmd would have needed Stonehenge to keep it. You point out that your spear cover was half a turn late; we played paranoid enough that we'd have waited for it.

Our scout caught some of the Oak/Wolf fighting, and was one confused cat.

[naufragar]

Let's be honest. I don't ever want to play a game with terrorists again. In Superdeath's case, that's difficult because he's in everything. Are my choices really between never playing RB Civ4 and hoping that the freaking suicide bombers blow up someone else's game? Christ.

You could roll your chances and play on a SD-designed map?

That was said at an especially cranky bit of the game, when I was on a mean-streak. If I end up in another game with Superdeath/Mjmd, I'll now have a better idea of how they act. For Mjmd, we now know that if his cities don't get their entire BFCs, he feels his opponents are "stealing" (he's used the word a few times). For Superdeath, it's less clear. He attacked me on t67. His first reference to the plan was a week earlier, so I'd guess around t60:

Im basically making decisions right now on whether i want to punish Tarkeel for his declaration of war, or let him win and attack Naufragar. Im leaning heavily towards Tarkeel. Also, whether it will be with axes/chariots or if i save up and get praets.

His next post is a week later, and he had decided to attack me. I don't think he explained the change.

Barbs + awful land to expand into that isnt directly into neighbors (that both got ate BTW).... Naufragar hasnt officially met me yet, but i bring much presents for him.

Basic plan is to capture ex-Bing's capital with chariots. If he has alot of defenders for some reason, ill have to either peace out or shove axes in his face as well. Then i finish teching IW and build a doom stack of praets and go say hello to captain Tarkeel/Civac to my west. Not much else to do this game then give the other players a fighting fucking chance on this god-awful map.

I believe we can infer two things about Superdeath's M.O. here: 1) he feels a duty to king-make. ("Not much else to do this game then give the other players a fighting fucking chance on this god-awful map.") 2) He doesn't like fighting wars against people that frightened him earlier (you & Civac). In spoilers, here's a power graph from the end of the game. You'll have to look for t67 (a little before 1480 B.C.) to see where everyone's power is. He had no idea what my power was and yours wasn't much higher than his, but he didn't want to fight you again and would rather take the unknown danger. He doesn't mention why he changed targets from you to me in that week, but I would assume this is it: he preferred to take an un-measurable risk than fight against someone he knew was stronger.

I guess we can infer a third thing: 3) There's a ticking clock until SD attacks someone even if he has land to settle. Here's the pic from when he announced his plan to attack me in the quote above.


You see he's ignoring something like 5 uncontested food resources (one of which is already within his borders but without a city nearby!) in order to attack me, while he has fewer than half the cities of the leader.

So when I said I didn't want to play with Mjmd or Superdeath, I was speaking in anger. We just need to remember in our opponent analysis to play around:

Mjmd:
1) No matter how impossible a tile would be for him to hold, he considers it theft if he is challenged for it.

Superdeath:
1) Be careful of being in the front of the pack. Explicit king-making motive.
2) If another neighbor has won (or at least not lost) a war against Superdeath, they are taken off the target list, and I am higher on it.
3) No matter how good his peaceful expansion prospects are, at a certain time, he will declare war. Don't assume he'll settle uncontested land first.

So, these traits do not make for good neighbors. And in my opinion, they tend towards self-destruction. The challenge is that they are terroristic: "If you settle for a first ring food resource that I had my eye on, I will blow our games up." "If you are in the lead, no matter my position or prospects, I'll attack." So the challenge is going to be finding a way to play around these traits so there's no mutually assured destruction, without bending over every time there's an aggressive demand.

I obviously failed in this game:

Regarding your play, I think the main flaw was actually settling Wolfstad at that time. You would probably have been better off consolidating the territory between you and Bing, and then come back for that corn a bit later (like, 10-15 turns?).

Yes. This is what Civac meant. I was playing as if I were in a duel with Mjmd, when really I was second-place or tied for first in a field of five. This was an area in which I could've swallowed my pride, let Mjmd have the corn that should have been Wolfstad's, and be content (with the freaking Pyramids!).