[PB64] naufragar's bingo parlor for assassins

[naufragar]

DEMANDS REPORT!!!

But...but...I did report! With words and pictures and even an embedded video??? 

Sees PBSPY.

Ooooh. You saw that I took a city off Amica. Ah. I honestly hadn't even considered that significant. Amica had emptied it, so all it had was his whipped Musket. (I've never seen a musket whip from a 16 pop city reduce it all the way to 4 pop. Must've been some intractable population, deSPITE evidence to the contrary. ) You can see the ruins in the north east of my previous screenshot. I also founded a weird little city. It's not on a hill because I thought I valued the extra 5hp of healing on the Allied stack. Eh.

We've played another turn, but I think I'm going to hold off reporting this one until tomorrow. If I report now, I'll say something I'll regret.


Amica offered peace to Superdeath, and Superdeath accepted. SD saw my cannons in Amica's territory. He saw that he had just gotten two cities for free since Amica's garrisons were frantically retreating to defend against my attack. SD saw that Amica was willing to pay a (large for SD) sum of money for peace. (I say "large for SD" because even after giving SD as much gold as SD was making naturally, Amica is still the gpt leader by 50%...) Superdeath saw all these signs and decided that now was a good time to make peace with Amica.

I too have offered peace to Amica. We're back at equivalent power. My stack is split in two. He has cannons and defender's advantage. I can't push any further. It feels like every time Amica's feet are held to the fire, he's offered a way back in.

When Amicalola gives his victory speech, I hope he remembers to thank SD and Gav for making it all possible.

[Charriu]

The strategic genius of first Gavagai and then Superdeath to save their buddy from the jaws of defeat is indescribable.

It's always that guy in the west.

[naufragar]

The strategic genius of first Gavagai and then Superdeath to save their buddy from the jaws of defeat is indescribable.

It's always that guy in the west.

Well, the guy in the east is practically perfect in every possible way and would never make any mistakes. 

I have lightly edited the previous post in keeping with our standards of kindness and decorum.  Now I'm ready to report.

Superdeath took peace with Amica and marched his troops away when Amica is at his weakest.


Superdeath's army in this theater is stronger than mine. He has 23 knights, 19 catapults, and an assortment of elephants and pikes. I have 22 knights, 4 cannons, and 4 muskets next to Get to Heaven. I'll repeat: Superdeath's army in this area is stronger than mine.

He could have done all sorts of things with this. He could have marched around the edges of Get to Heaven. He and I could have thrown ourselves at Get to Heaven and burned it. He could have gone on a pillaging spree. Nope. He marches it backwards. I know, I know. I've said the following a million times, but it's my thread; I'll cry if I want to: Get to Heaven's borders extends out 4 tiles. It's also the Heroic Epic city. It locks down the main of this entire continent. So long as Amicalola holds it, his northern cities are very, very secure. End runs are tough because of defender's movement advantage, and Amica isn't really outclassed on the sea.

When I took Fever Dream, that Amican city on my side of the jungle choke, the majority of my stack was axes and spears. Imagine what Superdeath could do with knights and catapults!

Ginger declared war on both of us. He declared on SD after SD took peace, so I don't believe that SD suddenly got scared of a Ginger attack preemptively. Besides, Ginger could burn my entire eastern seaboard, and I still recognize that Amica is the greater threat.

"What's that, naufragar? How can a guy on the ropes be scarier to you than a spree of amphibious razes from the eastern fog?" Well, you see, hypothetical lurker, Amica has the unique advantages of the Great Lighthouse, Protective, and Intercontinental Trade Routes. I forget if I've mentioned this before. But perhaps it's better to show rather than tell:






NobleHelium suggested that the graphs default to the 50 turn view. I've come around to this suggestion, but every once in a while, the narrative calls for the long view. Pardon my langauge, but look at how goddamn, fucking dominant that son of a bitch has been. Without Commodore's sacrifice to scare Amica into his whipping spree, without Superdeath's surprise 2-city naval raze (see. I give credit where due.), Amica would be hilariously ahead. (Moreso, I mean.)

He has lost 3 cities that I don't think he can get back immediately. (He as already refounded the cities razed by Superdeath's marines.) His advantages (GLH, ICTR, PRO, WTF) remain. His whipped pop will grow back. And then where will we be? Will we have a way to attack into his territory or will he remain the tech leader and continue to go from strength to strength? For what it's worth, Superdeath doesn't have Calendar, Optics, or Gunpowder, meaning he's probably 10000 turns away from Chemistry for Frigates and Steel for Cannons. He will never be stronger relative to Amica than this very moment. Shame about the peace deal.

I probably shouldn't have offered Amica peace myself. I had to pull back my troops regardless. I can't advance through 4 rings of culture after Amica has whipped 16 cannons and is almost done healing his wounded. My new plan is to hold off Amica and try to finish what Comm started with Ginger. If Ginger can be killed, I think the game can turn into a 3v1, although who knows, Superdeath might think that with his city lead he doesn't have to pull together with Comm and me.

Last thought in a rambling report: I'm sad to offer peace. I hope this doesn't put Commodore in a bad spot. I'll try to make it up to him on the Ginger front.

[Gavagai]

How many towns do you have? What share of your land are towns? What is your average multiplier for commerce?
Also, of all the wars you fought in this game, how many were not started by you?

[naufragar]

How many towns do you have? What share of your land are towns? What is your average multiplier for commerce?

A great question and a reminder to me that I haven't been reporting anything domestic.

I don't have a screenshot prepared, so I've got to use this:


I have very few towns. I made the decision at the start of the game to only cottage riverside tiles. The payback period on a non-river cottage compared to Financial coast is 60 turns. (Thanks, Cornflakes, for the math.) I hadn't thought I'd need to think in a longer time frame than that.

In this screenshot, you can see that I've sort of started to cottage. The cottage I've circled, I'm not in fact working. Its city is too small to work all of its 2f/3c tiles. (My cities are very, very small.)

In the city of Kish, you can see an Observatory. (The Library is hidden behind the musket.) The trouble is, with such a small food surplus, it is difficult to justify whipping infrastructure. In that southernmost city that's building an observatory, for example, I would need to whip away 4 pop to finish the build. That's something like -12gpt for a 25% multiplier, which after the whip would only be making 17gpt total, so the Observatory would contribute 4.25gpt. Losing 12gpt for 4.5gpt is ok if I can regrow, but that city only has a tundra deer (+4f). You can imagine the pain of whipping Kish' infrastructure, which only has a whale (+3f). My sign is obscured, but I've made a note that the southern city "Needs Jewish" so I can use the Org Rel boost to make the whip easier. The bottom line is my food surplus is so bad and my regrowth potential so poor, that whipping off tiles for modifiers is a bad deal in the short to medium term. (And I'm dead in the long term.)

For what it's worth, this map is very unkind to cottages, and my land is probably the most cottage-able.


This is Amica's land from last turn. He got the most rivers of any player. But his land is plains-heavy, so he made the smart decision to farm it and go for Serfdom. (Which is why forcing him into Slavery and heavy whipping is great.) Amica's economy is completely propelled by trade routes, which scale amazingly. (And even better in CtH than BtS: +1 routes from Circumnavigation.) And Amica has been incentivized to build Persia's unique Markets for the +25% trade route yield, so his calculus for gold multiplier buildings is different from mine. And don't get me started on the +1 ICTR from Protective Castles. Lastly, Amica can run Mercantilism because foreign routes aren't so important compared to Protective ICTRs, so he can use the free specialists, often Merchants, for even more money. My domestic routes are +1gpt. Mercantilism is useless to me.

I don't mean for this to turn into bitching in the map. I'm just describing how, given the weakness of cottaging, Amica and I developed our different economies.

My economy has weaknesses of my own making, certainly. I haven't refounded the city Amica burned, and I have room for another city with a tundra deer that I need to build on SD's border (next to where our borders used to touch). I just haven't had the time. It's why some of my backline cities don't have religion yet. I can't spare the production during the war.

Last note about production:


Because of my land's lack of food, I can't regrow after the whip and I can't work hammer tiles. This means that what hammers I do have need to keep churning out units to keep up with Amica. (And yes, two front wars are not great for powers with a lack of industry.  ) Naufragar's Sumeria is just a very poor nation by every metric.

This isn't specific to me. Every nation is pretty poor. Amica seems to be in better shape but that's just because Trade Routes generate value untethered to tiles. Look at the GNP graph again:


In how many games does GNP of the entire field of players trend downward? Yes, yes, partly this is because of the world war....

Also, of all the wars you fought in this game, how many were not started by you?

That's not fair!  Um...2? Amica attacked me when Superdeath and I were fighting you, and now Ginger has declared war on me. But I'm notoriously aggressive! I solve problems with violence!

SPOILERS FROM GAV'S PB66 THREAD. Don't click if you're a non-Gavagai PB66 player.

What happened with RB players during my absence? In my previous game, Nauf got bloodlusted because of a deer, now mjmd is going berserk because of a fish. Guys, can't you chill out?

You just happened to encounter the two most belligerent of the new RB crowd. Mjmd is infamous for... disagreeing with neighbors about borders. And I'm a lunatic in general. Some of it I play up for the thread, e.g. I don't report on choosing which commerce modifiers to pursue and I loudly complain about all the pain and suffering of poor naufragar. But part of it really is just a natural inclination, perhaps rational, perhaps not.

P.S. Congrats on the diss!

Because I'm having a lazy Sunday, let's see if I can run through all my wars this game:

First Amicalolan War: Turn 51. I trespass with a scout to get vision of his capital. Naufragar bad.


Second Amicalolan War: Turn 86. I declared war in a fit of rage because Amica was beating me to settle our jungle pass. His city was clearly in his zone of influence. I was just angry that I didn't have an equally good spot on my end. Naufragar bad. Outcome: Inconclusive.


Third Amicalolan War: Turn 102. I declared war on Amica after he founded a min distance city, nabbing a 6f corn I had counted on feeding 2 cities of mine. Amica's plant was 13 tiles from his cap and 9 tiles from mine as the crow flies. Likely, by this point Amica already knows that he and I are in a duel for local hegemony, so this isn't dickish. Just smart. Still! Amicalola bad. Outcome: I immediately give up a city for peace.


Fourth Amicalolan War: Turn 125. Gavagai and I attack Amica. Gav and I had coordinated for a while, and this war started off pretty successfully. Aggressive war by two players against a third who looks to be a runaway? Eh, we can still say Naufragar bad. Outcome: Two Amican cities burn, but I have to give up the strategically vital jungle pass in a peace deal. This is the start of all the Bad Times. (Which will reach their climax when Amica uses this city as a canal into the Cursed Inner Sea to raze a core city and pin me back under threat of amphibious assault.


First Gavagain War: Turn 135 I moved a settler up to a deer 8 tiles from my cap and 14 tiles away from Gav's. Gav sent an ultimatum. I responded by trying to war-peace him. Gav rejected the peace. This then turned into a hot war as I marched troops ineffectually into his borders. The ultimatum war unreasonable, but I did escalate with an invasion. I stand by it, but in the interests of being perhaps too open-minded: Gavagai and Naufragar bad? Outcome: I settled my tundra deer city and got a fish for fish from Amica.


Second Gavagain War: Turn 150: I tried to organize a dogpile on Gav with Amica and Superdeath. My motives are well-documented, but I was still being the aggressor, so by the simple aggressor=bad metric we've been using...Naufragar bad. Outcome: Grabbed 1 Gavagi city. Mauled Gav's cavalry, which enable Superdeath to make large gains, including the Pyramids. Starts the Bad Times for Gav.


Third Gavagain War: Turn 164. Amicalola and Superdeath were at war with Gav and making gains, so I used the opportunity to push in myself. Grabbed a gold city in the south tundra. Pretty blatant imperialistic war, so an easy Naufragar bad. Outcome: Actually captured 3 cities but had to retreat from 1, when our war was stopped by the...


Fifth Amicalolan War: Turn 169. Amicalola, perhaps unnerved by my progress in the South, burns a city I captured from Gav with a cheeky scouting Horse Archer and sues for peace. This is a gigantic pain in the ass because I have to give Amica peace or risk losing what I gain in the Third Gavagain war. Again, Amica and I have been in pretty permanent cold war since t102, but still. Cowardly city snipe. Amicalola bad. Outcome: Amica and I drop our masks of cooperation that we had been wearing while fighting Gav. We now enter the current political era.


Sixth Amicalolan War: Turn 179. Thrown into a blind rage by Amica's interference in the Third Gavagain War, I attack. (Or did I attack because of a tactical blunder by Amica's collateral? Or both?) I have a brief tech advantage because I've had courthouses for a long time and Amica is just building his, so I beat Amica to knights by a couple turns. I use their superior mobility to burn three cities. Naufragar bad. Outcome: Despite the loss of 3 cities, this war isn't actually that bad for Amica. His empire is stronger than mine, and I've probably whipped and bled more in it. I do burn the city on my side of the jungle choke but I can't resettle it. Lurkers will remember the turn split... disagreements.

Fourth Gavagain War: Turn 189. I'm trying to found a city to lock down part of the contintent Amica and I share. Gav founds a city that would invalidate my plant. I invade to burn it, and I use the opportunity to burn a second. Strategically, this was necessary, but going by our simple aggression=evil metric, Naufragar bad. Outcome: We get our city founded and some capture gold. [Insert more turn timer drama here.]


Seventh Amicalolan War: Turn 197? I actually didn't post a screenshot of this, and I'm not going to go looking. This was a fake war meant to distract Ginger and give me an enforced peace with Amica. Naufragar bad. Outcome: Enforced peace with Amicalola.


First Gingerian War: Turn 203. Comm, Superdeath, and I attacked Ginger simultaneously. (Superdeath on t202.) Superdeath did yeoman's work wrecking Ginger's military, while Comm and I burned cities. Ginger impressively fought back, but his standing as world power was shattered. Naufragar bad. Outcome: Ginger reduced from potential winner to permanent thorn in my side. Civ historians can debate whether this attack benefited me by securing Comm's eventual assistance against Amica or harmed me by giving Ginger nothing to do but screw me back. Won't know til the end, I guess.


Eighth Amicalolan War: Turn 210. Amica declares war to raze my city in the main of the continent and secure his Heroic Epic city's dominance of the area. Complete security for Amica. This continues with the destruction of my fleet, the eventual Amican attack through the inner sea, my counterattack and razing of Amica's city on my side of the jungle choke (again), Commodore's destruction of Amica's army, Amica's decision to finally get serious and whip some 80 pop. (Will report this when it's my turn again.) This war is still ongoing. Amicalola bad. Outcome: Uncertain.

Second Gingerian War: Turn 233. Ginger declares war, sinks a couple of my boats, and demands my treasury for peace. My entire eastern seaboard is vulnerable, but he hasn't attacked yet. It could be he felt I was going to attack? No idea, but we have to treat it like a real war. Did I mention I'm completely defenseless in the east? Ginger bad. Outcome: Uncertain.

14 wars in 233 turns. A new war every 16 turns. The longest lasting 23 turns so far, I believe. Of the vast majority, I was the aggressor. I stand by most of them.

[thestick]

I'm just laughing at that list of wars. Eighth Amicalolan War. It's just like the history of Roman expansion/conquest, where it's nothing but a list of wars.

[JR4]

Lurkers approve of the carnage. 

[Gavagai]

I'm just laughing at that list of wars. Eighth Amicalolan War. It's just like the history of Roman expansion/conquest, where it's nothing but a list of wars.

The difference with Romans is that his borders are mostly unchanged from the start of the game. 

[Gavagai]

Nauf, I have a different perspective, I think Amica's decision not to build cottages was simply dumb and the only reason his economy looks so good is that no one else bothered to build a real economy - people preferred to fight endless wars with no decisive outcomes. It was my mistake also, I did my share of stupid wars in the early game. I had a massive plan for economic transformation of my civ but the moment I tried doing anything but building ancient age units non-stop, I got dogpiled.

[naufragar]

Gav, that's a good post that deserves a reply. I'll try to write something after the turn report proper.

I hate many things, but I hate nothing so much as I hate a traitor.


Superdeath thinks he can win this with his current city count lead. He reckons that I and Commodore will do the work of dragging Amica, so he's free to plant cities and grow cottages off our work. Those who read PB59 may remember how Amica put Miguelito in a vicious bind: Amica left Mig to bear the cost of stopping Plemo+Picadilly's victory, but by doing so, Mig would leave the victory wide open to Amica. Mig agonized because he didn't want to let Plemo win, but stopping Plemo let Amica win. I am not as kind as Miguelito. I'll hand the win to Amicalola before I let Superdeath manipulate me like this. Those of you with any memory whatsoever might recall how I reacted to Gav's attempt to leave me holding the bag.

I know a few of you think ol' naufragar's a hothead. The truth is I play loooong turns without much movement. I play these turns slowly to cool off. I seriously considered sending a couple of knights to raze this obnoxious liberty. Two competing impulses: don't let people get away with screwing you. Give the game to Amica before letting Superdeath play you. VS. Play your best game. I opted to cancel my two luxury gifts to SD. I sent him a message offering them back for Sheep, Deer, and his two cities by this plant. Hopefully he reads this as "remember how I've been giving you free stuff? Don't be an asshole." The problem with Superdeath's diplo is that it is completely focused on short-term, one-sided gains. I can almost guarantee me cancelling the gift will have generated more bad will than any good will of giving him 2 free luxuries for literally over a hundred and fifty turns.

Superdeath's delusional about the game state, unfortunately. Even after Amica gave him 80gpt, Superdeath isn't generating an impressive amount of commerce. And he's behind Amica to the tune of 14,126 beakers. (Not an exaggeration. He's lacking Calendar, Optics, Astro, Gunpowder, Steel, Chemistry.)


When I turn tech on, I'm #1 GNP and I make 370 beakers per turn. To make up a tech difference of 14,126 beakers, I would have to research at full burn for 37 turns. (And would need to have already built up the bank to fund those 37 turns.) Let that sink in. Amica would have to turn off tech for at minimum 37 turns. But that is apparently Superdeath's plan. Instead of fighting Amica, he offered peace. (I got this wrong before. SD offered. Amica accepted.) Instead of using peace in his east to fight Ginger in the west, he gets peace with Ginger, too. So his plan is clearly to regrow and rebuild. But there is no realistic world in which he can ever catch Amica. Wait, I mispoke. There was a realistic world. The dogpile that Superdeath ruined.

The macro is so important, that tiny micro details like me almost losing my Holy Heroic 3-settled-Great-General city barely warrant a mention.


Ginger was 1 victory short.


I had a choice to make this turn: move the knight to protect Kish or reinforce Caesar's for extra security. I'm gambling that Ginger doesn't have any more transports within strike range. It's a gamble that makes me sweat profusely, but I think it's correct to make it. (Btw, lost a Frigate to a Galley at 97% odds. Just wanted everyone to know.  ) Ginger can be a massive pain. Sure hope I don't collapse under the combined pressure and make Superdeath's cute little play backfire horrifically...