[SPOILER] Dark Savant's thread: Competition for limited resources remains a constant

[Miguelito]

You may want to talk to the game host Ramkhamhaeng. I know that he can create/delete units in the Civforum games. No idea if that is enabled by their mod or of he could do it as well here, but I think he's not lurking so won't take action unless you tell him directly.

[Cornflakes]

Indeed Ramk can add units. Screenshot of the actual damages would be the starting point. I don’t think you will gain too much unnecessary into by logging in. Best not to change anything though yet

[Dark Savant]

Okay, so:

• log in, pause game
  
• look around, figure out what needs to be undone, taking needed screenshots; don't move anything or make other committal moves
  
• log out and post what should to be done here (including figuring out what half of the timer I'm even on -- no, superdeath isn't actually sure either, via PM)
  
• wait until it is (others can play their turn, just repause when done)
  
• actually play turn
  

I'll do that as soon as I can -- still doing work, hadn't planned on a surprise double-move war declaration.

Man, that's going to delay the game significantly when I moved twice just to PYFT.

[Dark Savant]

Logged in, not doing anything other than looking around.

Fortunately, this isn't that complicated -- superdeath really does seem to have just screwed up, but only attacked just one caravel with a privateer.  He could easily have attacked other units while forgetting he might not be able to actually do that, but he didn't.

Also, superdeath declared war this turn, not last turn (which was both possible and could have been much more of a mess).

superdeath could have killed one of two caravels, but the one killed is the more important one that I had recently moved out to pursue circumnavigation, so I do want it back:



The caravel was on the tile northeast of the attacking privateer.  So here's my suggestion:

• Restore the now-damaged privateer of superdeath's to full health (as if it hadn't attacked).
  
• Ask him to retreat it next turn back to his territory.
  
• Re-create the dead caravel of mine (it had 3 XP)
  
• superdeath is himself apparently unclear about the turn split, but I think I'll just take the time split that actually happened this turn (i.e. second half).
  

I don't believe anything else is needed.

(You can also see the trail of the other boat way off the northwest in the screenshot.)

For the record, this is the private communication with superdeath:

Hey, i uh.. accidentally double moved you and killed a caravel with a privateer. I also did some things after that that would kinda "halt" a reload. I do apologize, and ive asked lurkers for a solution.

Okay, but without a reload, I expect even an accidental mistake to be treated in-game as if it were deliberate.

Basically, i had intended to declare war but i didnt expect you to have played before me last turn, so when i checked PBSPY i confirmed that i had accidentily double moved. Outside of rolling back a TON of combat ( which i dont think is ever done ) Could delete the offending privateer, restore the caravel, and you could choose to take the 2nd half of the turn OR take this 2nd half and double move me back at the start of the next turn? Idk tbh, im quite sorry to have caused this scenario. 

Happy Civving.    

I finally had a chance to log in ... good thing that killed caravel is the only problem, apparently, so this shouldn't be so bad (aside from the game delay).

Deleting your privateer isn't needed; I'll come up with a proposal for the lurkers, but I think just both giving it full health (as if it hadn't attacked) and force-retreating it for one turn would be fine (in addition to re-creating that caravel).

Not going to actually move any units for now while I write this up.

I'm satisfied superdeath is behaving in good faith out-of-game.  (In-game, not so much, but that's entirely separate -- superdeath does have an excellent track record about being scrupulously well-behaved out-of-game.)

I'll send a PM to Ramkhamhaeng and post in the lurker thread.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 170 (AD 1100)

I did not realize that Paper was all that you needed to unlock privateers now.    If I'd realized, I would have made that a higher priority.  Well, that's now in, and now the only other technology a significant number of people have is Philosophy, which can wait.

Rusten was first to Replaceable Parts, and as he's one of the few people with Gunpowder he can research Rifling now.    Well, not much I can do about that other than build up the best I can.  OH is the only one with Astronomy; that's still incredibly expensive and I'd rather play catch-up on research unless I've got a very good reason to do otherwise.  A few people have Education, but Liberalism has yet to be taken, for some reason.

At least it'll be quite a while before Rusten can smack me around with rifles on galleons.

And now I think Commodore is on the same landmass, on the other side of superdeath.  Commodore is continuing to beat on superdeath hard, and I've got to get moving to get some spoils out of this war.  Going into full war mode with superdeath was not a good idea, as that's really only a good move when you share a landmass with exactly one other person, but it's not been long since I've had any serious realization of this -- I've only even had contact with Commodore for several turns.

I did Commodore the enormous favor of drawing away all of superdeath's troops, before we even had contact.

Ah well, it amounts to this:

• superdeath fakes me out into thinking that the right thing to do is to go into full war mode
  
• ???
  
• superdeath profits by ... uh ... dying fast so he can focus on other games?
  

Paper was the last technology he had that I didn't, so now the only reason at all to keep superdeath around is to reduce him to one city so I can score my first Realms Beyond kill.

It was only this turn that I had enough knights in position to make a move.  superdeath now had only a light garrison in Wally Wexler (which recently became his capital), of 2 archers and 1 spear (he's nowhere near longbows and will now never get there).  Some knights clean that up and capture Wally Wexler; I lose one knight, fair enough.

Current troop disposition is this:



Yeah, that's not a lot of knights (and that's with whipping a bunch of them, and with just recently getting Engineering to move them faster), but it's what I have.  I barely had enough to maybe capture Wally Wexler just last turn; this turn was the soonest I could advance in force.  We'll see what I can take from superdeath.  I also have to play second to Commodore now since our combat is already drawing near to each other -- superdeath's territory is now pretty much what you see here, plus maybe a few scattered island cities.

Speaking of knights, the scouting work boat sees this OH stack invading Elkad, far far away:



And he's got much more than that, I'm sure.  The raised-from-the-dead caravel is now moving east, finding some more islands occupied by AT, who is definitely not attacking me imminently.

Anyway.  I'll get a second Great Person next turn, and Porto-Novo will complete the National Epic soon, so the four wonders it has can get out a third Great Person for the next Golden Age in decent time.  And hey, I might as well make bids for any neglected wonders there too.

It might even be possible to fire a Mausoleum-fueled 4-man GA, but I'd definitely need Pacifism (Philosophy or Shwedagon Paya) for that.

[JR4]

This is turning into a race for land and getting a few more build queues could be the difference between surviving until the end of the game and being knocked out in the industrial era by one of the top dogs. I think that going for Rufus is the right thing to do as gaining control of that city would nicely seal off the eastern peninsula and also perhaps the city to the west.

On tech path, are you going for Rifling asap? Going for a big military tech might just convince Commodore and Rusten to look elsewhere for conquest.

[Dark Savant]

Well, Rusten says he just declared war, taking 2nd half of the timer.

He hasn't taken any cities.  In fact he's recently withdrawn quite a few of his troops, though I didn't withdraw any of mine, and I have a few catapults in range of the most sensitive area.

[JR4]

That could be curtains. At least Rusten should pay a steep prize for any gains. I guess it`s Knights and Catapults for you from here on..

[Dark Savant]

That could be curtains. At least Rusten should pay a steep prize for any gains. I guess it`s Knights and Catapults for you from here on..

Yeah, the troops I have in the area aren't going to stop dozens of knights.  Borsche just got eliminated so Rusten needs another target.

We'll see once I can log in.  I might end up having to concede more land to Commodore just to put up a fight -- if this attack is a big one, it's not worth leaving even token garrisons bordering Commodore.

[Dark Savant]

Turn 171 (AD 1110)

The invading stack isn't really a monster ...



... yet, that is.  I'm sure Rusten will reinforce it as much as he can.  I should have known it wouldn't have been overwhelming to begin with, otherwise the force would have directly assaulted a city.

Also, I hadn't realized this, but those UU pikemen are going to be annoying for knights, my troop composition should have more catapults.  Well, need to finish the current knights first.

Let the whipping frenzy begin!

Commodore is going to beat me to superdeath's cities anyway.  Pity, I could use the plunder cash.  I actually pull back all the attacking forces, they won't do much good now.  I'm only going to leave enough troops so that Commodore goes after superdeath first.

If it comes to it, I'm going to concede cities to Commodore and AT to fight off Rusten, since he's a contender and I can still play spoiler.

OH also offered a pile of trades and goodies; he's now getting Open Borders and Silks.  Need all the help I can get, and it's time to start playing kingmaker as much as I can.