[spoilers] Commodore is strategic in Pitboss 74

[Commodore]

Bing sprinkled a lot of XP all over his longbows with the great general, so we ain't rushing it this time. Optics confirms his final unseen city is indeed on the island, so just a wave of galleys needed to net the end of his empire. Ready for it, war weariness is starting to crop up.


Five caravels in queues throughout the empire now, huge scouting wave needed. I have retained a decent power rating, but Pindicator, who also has Guilds, is above me right now so still having to delay the forge infra push.

Man I hope we didn't get screwed for Astro islands.

[Commodore]

Always have to watch timings; Bing was about to whip this turn, so rather than bombarding more I just sent in the cats. Dropped the odds down enough to only lose one knight, I'll take that. 

...so this is now a Bing-free continent. I'm first to 20 cities, whipped and hurting as they are. With two cores it'd be really to just relax and bumble my way to second or third place, but Pindicator just threw his golden age including a Mercantilism swap, Plemo seems to be quite comfortably beating Superdeath and Tarkeel at once, and out in the other continent(s) Gavagai and Miguelito are eating easy food effortlessly. So the only answer is accelerate. Looking for peaceful Astro land with this wave of caravels, who will also need to picket against Viking crippling strikes. And perhaps make one of my own. 

Amicalola asked for a spices gift, but that's a small injury I'd rather not do until I'm ready to tackle Pindicator directly. Which might be in a dozen turns (only Astro to go after this turn), or it might be in forty, really depends on how his war is going. Hold on a little longer buddy.

[Commodore]

Well, just a few more to go. Pair of axes to the west, and archer/axe to the east. There's a 33% shot that I lose that galley, but hopefully his trireme temps Bing to hold on for a bit. I'm really just ready to have done with Bing here.


You always have a chance to learn something new. Did you know, for instance, that farms in neutral land don't spread irrigation? Bit of an annoyance.

[RefSteel]

You always have a chance to learn something new. Did you know, for instance, that farms in neutral land don't spread irrigation? Bit of an annoyance.

I was taken by surprise by something like this in a single-player game too sometime vaguely recently, so I just tested it quickly, and it looks like the rule is actually that - unlike construction bridges and engineering roads, which boost movement based on the techs of each unit's owner - a farm spreads irrigation only when it's inside someone's borders and that civ has civil service! In fact, even if you didn't have CS yourself, if BING did and still controlled that neutral farm, you could build a farm on the tile where your workers are in that picture, taking advantage of his irrigation chaining, even while still at war. I believe you can even chain off of barb farms in the borders of their cities if (and only if) the barbarians have CS - though I didn't test that specifically - but barb tech doesn't affect neutral tiles outside of their cities' borders; those never spread irrigation, apparently.

[Commodore]

Fascinating, that's really good info Ref.

Bad info:


But at least there's a small chance we can end the Bingian threat for good next turn...

[Commodore]

I broke open the turn to see that Bing spent his last pennies on a longbow upgrade in his Moai city. Nobody can complain that he's not giving me an expensive fight here at the end.  

Dodging the trireme with my GG galley, I had loaded amphibious knights...only having to burn one of those hill knights was a big help, and so...

...bingo. Didn't capture those Moai Stones but that's a pretty decent infrastructure haul. Makes Mercantilism viable now, at least.


The easier target is Landers Bay, just a spear and a pair of axes. My biggest worry was this spear, but shock knight had good odds...

...and then after it won I immediately lost TWO 88% fights against those axes.  So now it's possible I might even have a wiff on capturing next turn:


Knights are low, need a doomstack rebuilt but I'd also really like a wave of forges and some castles first. Caravel explorers, find me peaceful avenues.


Pindicator traded maps with me, so this highly artificial "Big & Small" is much more revealed. The mythical "other continent" stands revealed now, and it's interesting. Gavagai is actually on our continent, surprisingly, just on the other side of a long arc. I'll be doing a more in-depth geostrategic analysis once Bing is wrapped up, including future planning, but quick thoughts:
-Top score in the game currently is Ginger/Miguelito, and they're going to sweep the Monk Wonders I think...but unless he is allowed to snap up Metal without interference, he's going to have difficulties growing up to full contender status, unless there's a New World to his southeast.
-I've been sleeping a bit on Magic Science, he's only got 11 cities visible here but they're high-quality.
-Donovan and GKC are both out of contention but can play spoiler very easily here. 
Interesting continent. Not relevant to my game until Combustion, but interesting.


Oh, moved my caravel after trading the map with Pin and I found AMERICA:

Be still my heart. Maybe it's bigger upon exploration.

Anyone have any big or little picture questions? Once Bing dies I'm going to make a lot of evaluation posting.

[Thoth]

Any plans for a PYFT war or two?

[Commodore]

Any plans for a PYFT war or two?

Oh man, I really, really want to. At least one more player...

...is no longer in a turnsplit with me:

GG Bing, I would have preferred to split Pin with you and Amica, but here we are. Appreciate that you were never one of the PYFT culprits.

[Commodore]

TURN 138: An Avalon Hill State of the Game
Alright, so with a deeply frustrating last stand, Bing has breathed his last. It's now a good time to to stop and evaluate the game state, preferably with some wild speculation sprinkled in here and there. Way I see it, there are five, maybe six, contenders, and we are all going to have to play this one carefully going forward. Assuming that pacing doesn't cripple us, there's a ton of game left, very possibly up to the modern era. I'm going to list us not in order of current power, but in order of ease of victory path.


Plemo, without a doubt, is still top of the contender pile. He's got a crippled competent neighbor in Tarkac, who he's currently ravaging with what I imagine to be nine million fast galleys, and he's been effortlessly murdering the usual inept Superdeath invasions. Two victims makes it pretty easy to expand, and unless Tarkac stablizes fast then Plemo's going to take the whole kit and caboodle. MoM, Financial, Viking broken ships…Plemo's got an easy path.


Commodore, now, has current occupancy of the coveted catbird seat. I've got a reasonable amount of cities at 22, and my land quality with these two cores is very very high. I've also built up the best cottage economy in the game, which, coupled with Darius, means I can front run tech within reason. My army needs rebuilding and my current MFG is abysmal, so that's an issue for wonder races. Still, tech is very good. In the ultra-longterm Organized is quite strong for Assembly Line, those half-price factories are incredible.


Pindicator, my Forever Neighbor, just broke the spine of Amicalola so now he’s barreling forward to a fast conquest of the rest. It’ll take a little more time but once he takes the remaining six cities he’ll have three more fillers to settle; that’s going to get him up to two dozen. While he’s feeling the lack of Financial compared to Plemo and I, he does have a top-quality shrine for Hinduism that just about makes up the economic deficit by itself. Land quality in the Jungle of Contention is insanely good once he has the chance to develop it, those jungles can be either carpeted with cottages for the best economic core in the game in 70 years, or else workshopped now for a nutty hammer-base in Caste immediately. The biggest issue for Pindicator is going to be how quickly he can get his vast conquests productive. Note, as another ORG he’ll be delighted to make it to factories.


Gingelito of the Monks has apparent major issues with strong neighbors, but unless a dogpile gets organized they are going to be able to outscale every other player on that continent. In a 100-turn timeline, they have half the little continent, while another 50 turns later grants them the whole thing. This path has very little chance of being disrupted, but the question is if that’s fast enough an achievement of dominance to lead to a space or culture victory, and even then there’s going to be an issue with their eastern overseas neighbor…


Who is Gavagai, currently poised to be the top expander. The whole southern portion of the continent beneath him is made up of weakness and war-torn exhaustion. It is inevitable that he’ll take everything down there, the question is how long it takes. Gav’s a slow, bite-by-bite conqueror typically, so his path to victory involves some wasted time on the part of the current leader crop. Still, Financial means if he does conquer that much coastline he’s got some real potential.


Picadilly is the questionable sixth contender. Civstats hasn’t shown him making any major moves, but he’s got a lot of territory right now, if known to be competent, and sandwiches Superdeath with Plemo. If SD’s switch flips to Spite Mode there’s a chance that Picadilly gets the lion’s share when Plemo cracks the back of SD’s empire after his Tarkac victory. I’m fuzzy on this one, but worth noticing. He’s my primary Astronomy Land rival if the land(s) turn out to be generally worthwhile.

So what, then, is my general strategy? I have a great base here and there’s a possibility of winning, but there’s also a lot of problems, both long-term and short-term. Nobody among the Realms Beyond-descended crowd (me, Pindicator, Miguelito) wants to get stuck in to a grinding war, while the European clades (Plemo, Picadilly, Gavagai) are perfectly fine with warring while growing. A massive network of prisoners, all in various dilemmas…it’s great. But also a lot.

If it were a duel with Pindicator, I’d be turning around RIGHT NOW to ready a slam into his under-defended core. In nine turns, I could have a 5-move galleon; two turns after that, said galleon loaded with three amphibious knights can strike at his capital, burning that massive Hindu shrine and completely crippling his chances of winning. Unfortunately then I have a Pindicator with nothing to lose on my border and the next fifty turns are a huge war that absolutely ends with his loss, but while I’m involved with that, Miguelito still vacuums up every first-to bonus, I build zero infrastructure, and the reward is now Plemo is 100% my problem. It’s worth making an argument for, but I’m dispositionally opposed. 

My tech rate isn’t top this moment, but as Bing cities come online and my own recover from the brutal whipping spree, I’m going to a good 25% over the other contenders…which is nice, but not enough to just casually grasp at every first-to bonus. I’ve already invested a little bit into Astronomy, and galleons have a long shelf life, plus it’s worth a little colony scratch. What else though? Liberalism is there, as is Nationalism, although given Gingelito has the Divine Right path plus industrious. Rifling isn’t all THAT long of a road, if I want to try the “galleons full of rifles plus cavalry” path to expand. In addition to the Taj Mahal, the other main wonders in my current target list are the Kremlin and Statue of Liberty. Those are troublesome, though…

…because a major issue I have is a complete lack of any super-production cities. The current max I’m looking at is something like 26hpt base easily. If I could manage going whole hog in caste in a golden age post-levee, even then a maxed-out Afrika Korps will only manage 68hpt base, which is the BARE MINIMUM acceptable rate for slowbuilding lategame wonders in a x2 situation. In general whatever the plan is going forward, it needs to include improving my desperate MFG status. Mass ball courts would enable a decent draft, but even then, it’s going to be difficult. ICBMs will be a nightmare.

I really would have loved this over-ocean gamble to have paid dividends, but unfortunately:

…don’t look promising, folks.

[Krill]

Talk to us about Darius, both getting to this position with the slow leader, and what he means going forward.