[PB74] Tarkeel and civacs Game of the Year

[Tarkeel]

To follow up on what Civac said, this went much better than we'd hoped for. We heavily considered sacrificing Catan and making a stand with more forces further south, and even started pre-building a fort S-SW of the city to cover the evacuation. The main reason we stood to defend was we thought this was our best option of inflicting noticeable damage on his forces. Plemo's forces still probably outnumber us, and he as the mobility advantage, so we're unlikely to be able to do anything other than defend.

I think Commodore at least is likely to leave us alone for as long as we present a barrier towards Plemo, but I expect him to jump in and take the south the moment our northern front collapses. Pindicator on the other hand might want to carve out the middle part as an extension of his Amicalolan occupation.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 140 (600 AD)
It looks like what we thought was a timer from SD was in fact begging for money to avoid striking; he asked for 10 gpt this turn which we re-offered. It's in our best interest that he can build more units instead of wealth; he even has three triremes on the north coast that is threatening to clean out plemo's fleet in the area. We're more worried about the south-east fleet right now, which is staging south of Ribe and is now protected by caravels.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 141 (620 AD)
We did manage to re-establish graphs on Plemo, and the situation looks better than we feared:


That's a bigger dip than the stack we wiped, so looks like he has trouble on both fronts. Otherwise this was something of a quiet turn, with not even the whip singing out.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 143 (660 AD)
It's been pretty quiet since we expelled the invaders but there's been some movement on the high seas north of Agricola; first Superdeath had three triremes that killed or chased away some of plemo's galleys, but then a caravel cleaned out the last one. Plemo now has a fresh galley coming from Lund (which could be loaded) and a wounded caravel that's hovering nearby. Agricola whipped out a trireme last turn so we have a chance to kill one:

Trireme vs Galley, 88.1%: flawless win

That was very nice; we have a second trireme coming up from Dominion to cover, so now we have about equal footing.

[civac2]

We may need to make workshops without Guilds at some point.

[Tarkeel]

Last round I apparently made a huge mistake during the last login and turned off the research when I wanted to check something. This mistake has massive consequences and I would prefer a reload. However, this is problematic as a few players have already made their turn.

Some background; Quotes from our discord discussion last night as we both notice the same thing:

7:50 PM civac: notice Plemo is researching engineering?
7:51 PM Tarkeel: in bigger news: EP spending has now flipped, and we can see his research: he did not have engineering before, but will next turn

Bonus screenshot from the boring south to back it up:


A score increase of 12 on PBSpy is consistent with not researching Engineering which I assume is how he noticed the error.


Also, civac chided me for working cottages (for good reason!) but it feels very weird to be in a part where cottages are whipable tiles. I guess it's only food and hammers that will matter until the bitter end here.

[Tarkeel]

That's actually my big nightmare - that one day I'll forget to turn back research. I am not against the reload but I am pretty sure I'll be overruled on that. Also, Scooter is at war, we need to check with him if he did any combat.

Let me start off by saying I completely agree with Gavagai here. Luckily Civac has caught a few times I'd have made similar level errors, such as dumping slider-boosted EP on Gavagai instead of plemo.

Not sure what the lurker consensus will be, but I think there should be a broad, open conversation about when reloads should and shouldn't be occurring (not just in relation to this game) as it seems players have quite varied opinions. I don't think lurker contributions are necessarily reflecting what the players themselves might think - as opposed to e.g. turnsplits and settler races, where there is a general consensus that lurkers from their global knowledge can apply to a particular situation.

I think there has been a gradual slide towards granting more reloads, in part because they are so much easier to do on Ramk&Zulan's server infrastructure. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, even if there is the slippery slope risk. Sometimes you need the consequences in order to learn to avoid it in the future, but that can also be a hindrance on the play.

Also, I don't really think this is one for the lurkers to decide. I think the players can make this call. You know the issue, and can guess at what the consequences might be.

My guess is that plemo has pre-positioned units to take advantage of the sudden increased move. I doubt it is against us, as we've been under the mistaken assumption he had the tech for the last few turns, and don't have anything he could reach with the extra move (I believe). It would still be an advantage in our favor to deny this request, which I'm trying to not let cloud my judgement.

Personally, I think I'd only ask for this myself if it was necessary for defensive purposes, but I wouldn't feel comfortable asking to reload for an offensive advantage.

[Tarkeel]

I’m pro reload bc failing a queue upgrade of this magnitude is a loss of >900 gold according to my math, that’s like clicking a great merchant into enemy territory, which sucks

Edit: I see Mjmd’s called it nvm

I believe Ginger assumes the tech in question is Guilds, and the plan was to whip HAs into knights, since PBspy shows 12 whips done (two 3-whips that could be combined). There could be some spear->pike upgrades there, but this most likely is far from 900 gold lost in HAs that were produced. Still stand by my "reload if it's for defense, play on if it was for offense" stance.

[Tarkeel]

Turn 144 (680 AD)
A pair of carvels showed up at our island, intending to protect the trireme that came north to pillage our trade:


We sailed our triremes south, and will have another galley for possible revenge on a caravel.

[coldrain]

Which civics are you staying with after the golden age ends?