[PB59 Amicalola] The Vespertine Hour(s)

[Cornflakes]

So when you offered the deal, his gpt was 1500, and it dropped to 850 by the time he played?

[Amicalola]

So when you offered the deal, his gpt was 1500...?

That's correct, yeah. I think it was about 1650, when I played my turn. I actually was kicking myself for not demanding the full amount, since even that would have been a good deal for him (imo).

[Cornflakes]

After further deliberation, the decision is reversed. The trade may be accepted as originally offered. Details in the lurker thread after the game.

[Amicalola]

Thanks Cornflakes.

[Amicalola]

T240
Piccadilly accepted the peace treaty, so we're 15000 gold up (assuming Miguelito can stop him).

I took Charriu's Astro island city with no losses, killing about 15-20 units. Good riddance. 


I suppose Mjmd's Astro city has to go at some point, but I don't really want to capture it. He's pretty much the only person in the game that seems to prefer working with me than Miguelito or Piccadilly, which means a lot. So I'm not sure what to do about that.

I also accepted a ceasefire from Miguelito, since I don't see any reason not to now. I sent him 'war with Charriu and Miguelito,' hoping that he'll Go Away and deal with Piccadilly, or at least partition them with me. I'm rooting for you, Mig! I also sent Charriu another peace treaty, since maybe he'll think I'm done with the continent now.

[Amicalola]

T241
Miguelito thinks I'm fully on his side again, apparently. There were offers for my entire metal collection, for both gpt (a pittance) and food (unnecessary, as my food boxes in corp cities are already maxed out). Giving him either deal would be a favour, not a mutually beneficial deal. In addition, his ships have continued moving towards Lazteuq/Charriu, and he has not retreated his land stack. So I'm not super convinced. 


I accepted the first few gold trades, as a show that co-operation is possible. Then I sent him this:


There's no way he doesn't get the message. Go Away!!  

Mig also built the Manhattan Project, so cities get started on their Tactical Nukes straight away. We'll need a serious arsenal to have any chance of competing with Mig long-term, and for any chance of successfully invading more players. I'm building a few ICBM's, but they're so expensive that it's mostly hard to justify. At least Miguelito will have the same problem, I suppose. Also note that Piccadilly has started a few nukes to presumably rush with gold:


I think these will be really important, but I also assume Miguelito is building nukes as well. I wonder who the nukes will be better for; obviously Miguelito has more troops (and more cities to build nukes with), but Piccadilly only needs the short-term boost. Interesting times...

Charriu killed a few destroyers, and I killed a few of his in return. I'm completely stalemated here, I think for now the best course of action is to act as though there's a peace treaty in place, and focus entirely on Cairo for the time being. It's a big shame, because I've airlifted so many units here that would be SO much more useful on the home continent now, but continuing to try is sunk-cost fallacy. I think I have to just eat the loss, and vow revenge later; at least the bombers can rebase quickly. There were always going to be setbacks, even if this one is really bad. I suppose the land and sea units will sit around looking scary for the time being, since they can't return in anything resembling a timely manner. The one exception to that paragraph is if Miguelito finally decides to split/leave Lazteuq, in which case we're golden. 


As far as winning, let's assume that Miguelito is eternally stubborn about the Laz/Charriu continent for a minute. It occurred to me while typing this up that there is another option:


Assuming that Mig stops Piccadilly, in 10 turns these cities will be thoroughly vulnerable to a land-based invasion. The biggest problem with that is that there's no way I can beat Cairo in that time (to be honest, I'm not convinced I can even kill Cairo at all  ), but let's optimistically assume 15 turns for that. That's still enough time to possibly hit Mig while he's vulnerable in Picc's territory, and with my metal blockade, I am pretty sure my MFG is considerably higher (my tech is another story). So we could afford pretty severe losses, as long as Miguelito took them too. The other issue with this is that the 'freed up' troops from Lazteuq's end would be pretty useless, because there's no way to efficiently send them to Piccadilly's or even Cairo's area. So I don't love that option either. I guess I'll need to see how everything looks with Cairo before fully committing to either direction as the endgame move, and whether Mig decides metal is more valuable than friendship next turn.  

Edit: By the way, I've decided that the best course of action 10 turns ago would have been to commit everything towards Cairo+Piccadilly, and leave Laz/Charriu alone. I think I could have held the land on Piccadilly's continent in retrospect, with my entire army in that direction, and it would have given me more troops to deal with Cairo as well. I'll try not to let it stress me out, but yeah, I think that would have been the best course of action. Sorry Laz/Charriu, I probably shouldn't even be fighting you in the first place!

The funny thing is that it's perfectly in character for a dystopian dictator to backstab his allies and let them do the hard work while he makes gains and prepares to fight them later.

In the usual good-guys-always-win storyline that would be the downfall of the dictator but fortunately for you the games of civ and thrones favour the selfish 

I suppose Mjmd's Astro city has to go at some point, but I don't really want to capture it. He's pretty much the only person in the game that seems to prefer working with me than Miguelito or Piccadilly, which means a lot. So I'm not sure what to do about that.

It's also funny that even a dictator needs a friend 

Ha, it's lonely out here as a dictator! The diplomatic isolation has been quite frustrating recently, even if I can sort of understand it. It may be my downfall too, but I'm pretty sure I made my odds better by being a selfish jerk, at least. And hey, nukes will finally start flying soon, so that's fun - who needs friends anyway!

[Amicalola]

Question: Is there a number of nukes that it takes to definitively wipe a stack? I have in my head 2, but that seems like too few. I've done some googling, but haven't been able to find a consistent answer.

[klops]

I think it depends on the defender but would do a wb-test.
In some singleplayer game, it was two nukes vs outdated garbage, iirc

[Amicalola]

T242 Part One - Pre-Turn Should Haves

I've been thinking about what I could have done differently. I generally try not to dwell on it too much, but I'm just naturally melancholy. Sometimes I just can't help myself.

Anyway, the big thing that stands out is the Lazteuq/Charriu war. At the time, I thought I might as well keep going Westwards, because the troops weren't going to arrive back East in time to be useful. Ironically, this is actually true now, but at the time I was completely wrong. I was expecting to invade Piccadilly more forcefully, and to have invaded Cairo already by now, in which case the Western army would have been too slow. But with the real time frame (especially for Cairo), it would have been perfectly on time, and been an extra 50 tanks. I could really use an extra 50 tanks right now.

I think it largely came down to a huge overestimation of my own strength, probably caused by the success of the Western Invasion. In retrospect, there's no way I could mount an invasion of Cairo by now (still need more ground forces). It was also a miscalculation of when Miguelito would build Manhattan - I was expecting that as soon as we invaded Piccadilly (and of course he finished it as soon as I also invested the production ).

There is the question of whether continuing Westwards was a mistake at the time with the knowledge I had, or whether it's only one with hindsight. Should I have known that the Cairo invasion wouldn't happen so quickly? Should I have expected Charriu to join in? I think probably yes to those. Knowing that Miguelito would join in is more debateable, and I'm still a bit surprised he did (and holding out slim hope that the metal-bribe works). Regardless, with that knowledge, I'd have left Lazteuq alone as a (neutral?) buffer state against Miguelito, and had the Western army arrive in time for the Cairo invasion. Then I would have kept going Eastwards, towards Piccadilly/Frozen/Miguelito for Domination, and crucially with my army united. That probably would have been a better way to play this out.

Regardless, I worry I have been a bit too depressed in my recent posts. I still think victory is possible, and I won't stop trying until it's not. I don't think Miguelito is likely to stop Piccadilly, but if he does, we're right back in it. So having put this out there, I'm going to try and keep it out of my mind until the game actually ends. Then maybe we can reassess.

[Amicalola]

T241 Part Two - The Turn
Trying to decipher Mig's diplo feels a bit like this sometimes:



Today's confusing diplo offer: 


I have no idea what this means. He offered OB, which is a good sign. But his Missile Cruisers continue to sail towards Lazteuq/Charriu.  So what exactly is Mig trying to do here? My best guess is that he's relying on my generally indecisive nature to get the best of both worlds, which is... quite a good strategy, actually.  Next turn I might war/peace him again, so that the trade aren't going through if he isn't planning to actually co-operate. 

I put 10% EP into Miguelito last turn, which revealed that he is building a pretty serious nuclear arsenal.


You can also see bomb shelters being built. Why Mig, I have no idea why you'd want those! No ICBMs, so he must be relying on submarines in the Piccadilly theatre. I am going for a mix of ICBMs and Tactical Nukes, mostly because I don't think it's realistic to always have subs in the right place at the right time.

I bulbed Plastics finally this turn, with the Great Engineer (~3000 beakers). So those upcoming riots I've kept mentioning will finally arrive in earnest next turn. The main solution I've settled on is just to keep whipping the excess population away. 


"Oh, you don't like your furs anymore? Better hop in the tanks then, you lousy ingrates!"  

At Barbar Central, I begin probing against Lazteuq's ground forces. It seems like peace probably isn't an option, so I might as well keep hitting Laz where he's weak, when I get the chance. Phase Two of the Western Invasion, I suppose.


In this case, we sent in about 10 bombers and then a series of tanks at 80-90% odds. We lost 1 tank to kill 15 dug-in infantry, which is a pretty good result.   

Meanwhile, on the Astro island, we backstab Mjmd. I feel pretty bad about this, but I suppose I'm not exactly scuppering Mjmd's grand plans for a victory. Still, it hurt a little inside. 


Mjmd's troops fought bravely, but as we learned against DZ/SD earlier, there's only so much muskets and knights can do against tanks and bombers. They were slaughtered. I sent him 40gpt reparations, which maybe softens the blow. 

Oh, and I've been testing out nukes in the worldbuilder. Nukes are, um, Strong. 


Sorry citizens, Big Cereal demands Big Sacrifices.