[PB65] Pinch-Hitting Pindicator

[pindicator]

So I opened this turn to 6 different diplo messages, 2 apiece from Mjmd, Cornflakes, and Superdeath.  Help me parse their meaning, as I've used up the time I had for playing trying to figure this out.  (Also reinstallind Dropbox, which I forgot to do yetserday.)

Mjmd

First was a Fish for Fish, which the screen capture didn't really get right (I'm having a weird situation where when I try to scale up the text of Windows it's now affecting the resolution of Civ4), and obviously we've talked about why I don't want to take that.  But honestly, Cornflakes may be pushing me towards accepting fish for fish!  Here is the second offer Mjmd then gave:




Tooltip is covering up War with Cornflakes and 20g, which I assume means that he will be ready to attack Cornflakes in 20 turns.  I wouldn't mind 20 turns of peace, but Cornflakes isn't going to let that happen.

Cornflakes




This one didn't make sense to me until I started writing this up, but now I think I know what it means.  It goes with a situation I found in Superdeath's lands:




So the 6 Horse means he's threatning to attack me if I don't do something.  His next offer was Open Borders; I had accepted that anyway before seeing this but now it makes me want to attack those chariots.

In any case, I think I have to spend 95g to upgrade that longbow in Gloomhaven and then probably dry whip either another longbow or a spear there as well.  To remove temptation.  There aren't any units that can reach.  Really an oversight by me to just have a single archer here.

Superdeath

I think this was a warning?




The fact that he includes Clank means that although Cornflakes has moved his stack away from my sight he has not moved them out of threatening Clank.

And then this was a proposition





So yeah, I used up all my time available doing this instead of playing.  Will come back in a few hours and finish up

[pindicator]

141

Giving Cornflakes the benefit of the doubt, perhaps the fact he had a fish on his side and his next diplo offer was open borders means that he wants to tell me that he is trying to pass these chariots through my lands to sneak attack Mjmd from the other side?  Even if that is the case, I can't risk Gloomhaven and so I've spent 95g to upgrade the archer there and dry-whipped another.  Still, I'm more hopeful now that Cornflakes is at least being consistent in his anti-Mjmd messaging.

I didn't send him a message back, per se, but I did make sure he knew where my army was and that it was heading towards the Mjmd border:




Pic taken after turn was ended.

Doesn't matter:  Superdeath is one tech away from Cataphracts.  He's the one I want to buddy up with, and he also is the one who will pounce on weakness the fastest.  I see Longbows in his territory and I knew he had Machinery already.  Also:  SaC has Longbows too.




Hitru has been telling me not to whip Codenames here, because we want to get 3c trade routes.  But you can see we already have one due to Eldritch Horror being size 14.  Size 14 is the breakpoint for reaching 3c trade routes, so we need to get a second city there.  And while Ollan has a fantastic growth rate, it still is slower than Libertalia (size 11 and +7fpt). Assuming we don't have to whip Libertalia due to a war in the near future.  Plus I really couldn't justify the 20g maintenance; whipping for 3p brought this down to 8g.

Also, WTF Cornflakes?  You don't try to win someone over by pillaging the cottages right outside my conquest!!  There were cottages there a few turns ago.  He also pillaged the rice at Scythe this turn, so even though the borders popped at Scythe now I need to divert workers back to improve here.  If Cornflakes is trying to get me to help him kill Mjmd he's doing it the worst way possible.

So far this game is a competition between my opponents as to who wants to become my blood enemy the most.  Superdeath is the most reasonable neighbor I have, and that's saying something.

[Zed-F]

Are you expecting Wingspan and/or Sushi Go to also get to 14?

[Krill]

Observations: Codenames is so far away from the Palace it might cost you more to grow it to size 14 than you get back in trade routes. I agree that the court house whip makes sense and also if you were to lose this city it would have been more productive with a court house and unit whips, plus maybe walls.

Have you had the second GA yet?

Cornflakes deserves a bitchslap and backstab. And welcome to the unpillageable cottage argument.

[pindicator]

I'm strongly considering walls in Codenames next and then another Longbow. I just don't want to give SaC any ideas, and Cornflakes' global chariot rampage has me feeling cautious.

Are you expecting Wingspan and/or Sushi Go to also get to 14?

Wingspan is actually 4 turns away from size 14, but we want to have 3 cities because we're going to (hopefully) be at Engineering before we know it.

[Charriu]

I'm looking closer at the American UB right now in preparation for the next release of CtH. I would like to know your opinion about it in the context of this game. Also how well it combined with the market bonus generating Great Merchants for you I presume. Or what are you generating next with your single specialist?

[Zed-F]

Didn't Pin say he was making a prophet for a shrine?

[pindicator]

Charriu, I don't think it's been a huge factor here. I've only generated two great people; the first one it was the equivalent of a poor man's PHI, getting me a great person a few turns earlier to run a quick golden age. My second one was where it shined the most: I think over half of the great people points accumulated were from the library.
So it saved me some 13 - 15 turns on generating the second great person in the manner I did. Now I'm sure you can see how many free great people points it's given me, but you also know that those points are all useless until they turn into a great person.

I know there is the potential for getting early versions of more exotic great people, like engineers and artists, but I've been using it more for the free source of great people points so I can work more tiles.

That said, I really should run some merchants and get another Great Merc out. I've been thinking it for the last 10 turns, but the prospect of the next war keeps distracting me.

[pindicator]

142

An exciting turn! And we might have things going our way, if we can walk this diplomatic fine line well enough.

Cornflakes declared war on Mjmd and moved in:







A little light on catapults there, Cornflakes, but 6 could do the trick. In total Cornflakes has the tech edge and a slight numbers edge: 20 hitters and 6 cats for Cornflakes, while Mjmd has 17 hitters and 6 cats spread about 3 stacks. Edge to Cornflakes here, but it might not be enough to do more than hit GreyFunnelLine.

Meanwhile, Cornflakes' chariots in the west came peacefully into my territory and are still hidden from Mjmd, but he did use a chariot to snipe a worker building a cottage.




Outside Track has only a single Axe defending, so if Mjmd doesn't reinforce it further it is possible this city falls. In addition, I built a road to help speed along Cornflakes' chariots, but I'm only slow-rolling my own stack to the west, and intentionally not moving to threaten Mjmd ... yet. I'm not sure if I want to get involved or just poach territory as Cornflakes burns cities in the west. So with that in mind, I started a pair of settlers.

[Charriu]

Thanks for the feedback. No I'm not tracking the GPP it produces. I am tracking though how many specialist are working in your empire and how many great people are born.