[SPOILERS] scooter's PB53

[Gaspar]

I'm somewhere in between scooter and the chili-lovers. Chili is definitely a meal but its generally overrated in my humble opinion. Piling it with HEAT is just the midwestern version of wings (I'm from Buffalo, which is really more a midwestern city than a northeastern one anyway, regardless of geography) where somewhere the meal gets lost and toxic masculinity gets found.

If someone hands me a well-crafted bowl with some cheddar melted atop and some saltines/oyster crackers/cornbread, I'll eat it happily. I rarely feel compelled to seek it out, though.

[scooter]

Cornflakes must be real spooked right now, huh. 

Maybe not. There's some clues on when a thread explosion matters. There are three common scenarios.


Scenario 1: If a thread absolutely blows up, but there are NO lurker thread posts to go along with it, it's probably off-topic stuff, because everyone feels comfortable talking about it. It's not interesting enough for the lurkers to feel the need to talk unfiltered, so all the discussion is probably over minor stuff. That's what's been happening in this thread right now. Sometimes this is over something serious, but it's not too common.


Scenario 2: If a thread blows up, and the lurker thread blows up simultaneously. Most likely something is up, but there's still a chance it's about something minor like a rules debate. This is what happened with the Cornflakes posting avalanche, and it's part of why I was sort of nervous. Cornflakes isn't a super frequent updater (although it's picked up recently), so to see him AND the lurkers bump his thread a bunch while the lurker thread goes into a tizzy almost simultaneously also is a habit break.


Scenario 3: A player posts multiple times in his thread (especially more frequently than normal), and the in-thread lurker reaction is fairly quiet to muted, but the lurker thread absolutely blows up. This means something big is 100% happening. This is not what happened here. Usually this means something is happening, and everyone is terrified to say anything other than "good luck."


You can pick up on minor things like this if you pay attention. It's admittedly a lot easier in smaller games or games that are further along because there are only a few people updating regularly. In a bigger game, this stuff is harder to parse. Speaking of Scenario 2, this happened today:




That's Cornflakes whipping *checks notes* ALL of his cities. Cool. But what was he whipping? This came a few turns earlier than I expected. More on this later.

[scooter]

Of course, now that I gave the game away, you dicks are going to spam the lurker thread with trash at random moments to throw off my reads.

[AutomatedTeller]

Don't worry. We'll spam all the threads, too

[Gaspar]

Of course, now that I gave the game away, you dicks are going to spam the lurker thread with trash at random moments to throw off my reads.

That's harsh scooter, I'd never do something like that!

[scooter]

Turn 105


Cornflakes offered me back fish for fish, and then sent me an OB offer which I declined. I'm hopeful that he views that as an economic decision from me. It's not, but it could be! I was getting like 3 commerce/turn from routes with him, while he was likely getting much more than that from me because I have so many islands. Honestly, Mercantilism would probably be a good civic for me if I could afford the revolt or get another Golden Age. Weird, but it's true.





Great Person dice roll this turn. I'm not sure how much a Buddhism shrine is worth. I'm skeptical it's worth it, but maybe. In general, I was hoping to save this great person and try to pair them with the Econommics Merchant for my second Golden Age, and try to use that to generate the GP for a third one. The catch is that it's going to take me awhile to get to Economics, and I'm not sure if I can afford to wait that long. It's going to be awfully hard not to bulb Education or something if I get the scientist, for example.





AT's former capital is finally online, and this city's gonna be a good one before too long. I've got a Buddhist Missionary on the way right now to get some culture in here and get the OR bonus going because this city is going to want some infrastructure. The faster I can pop borders, the quicker I can pick up cows, horses, spices, and a floodplains hamlet. I do need to get as much culture as possible because I'll be competing with Commodore for the Horses. The tricky thing here is balancing the whip vs the excellent and already improved tiles I have to grow onto. Thankfully I can share that cow tile with Freemason, which frankly needs it more right now. Also, I'm jealous of the food surplus edge this city has compared to Flat Earth. Where's my floodplains? Flat Earth has a 6F, 5F, and 3F tile. That's fantastic on a normal map, and still very good here. Stevie Wonder though has a 6F, 4F, and four 3F tile, including that absolutely bonkers Floodplains Incense tile. That's one of the best tiles I've ever seen in an RB game. Can anyone remember a tile in an RB PB/PBEM that was better?





Demos at break-even now that all my cities are out of revolt and Cornflakes' Golden Age has ended. GNP is starting to recover again at a fast pace, and I've retaken the food lead for the first time in what feels like forever. I'm dead last in population, which just reinforces that I'm not particularly close to my civ's ceiling right now. Let's revisit the Cornflakes stuff.




This sort of surprised me. It shouldn't have because his Golden Age just ended, but I thought it would be a few more turns. The reason is he still lacks any of the big 3 military techs upcoming: Gunpowder, Military Tradition, and Astro. So ... what did he whip? Maces? I guess, but that's a weird choice when he's thisclose to way better units. He's got 1k gold in the bank, so he's teching full blast right now. Is his 100% science that bad? I guess it's possible, he's mostly doing this on the back of bulbs, but his GNP is still pretty strong even outside of a Golden Age. Though, I should note that copious amounts of wonder culture is inflating that a bit.


It's odd. I can't get eyes on it due to the OB closure, but it sure looks like he's lining up TBS for a fight. Let's see how TBS reacts. I do have a unit in that area, so maybe I can get a glimpse of what's going on next turn. I don't think he's coming at me because he seems very concerned about being friendly with me, but I did add a couple longbows to front cities just to be safe while shuffling more units towards him. I wonder if it might be easier for me to prop TBS up somehow. Perhaps I can offer him a loan that he can use to upgrade units. I'll think about it. It's going to be challenging to actually do damage to Cornflakes myself with the military make-up I have, but I'm exploring it at least.

[superdeath]

Dont worry, next time ill give everyone a grass floodplains gold.

[Zed-F]

And nothing else! Gold as far as the eye can see!

[scooter]

Turn 106


We have... lots of news.





Cornflakes declared on TBS. I realized today some of those "whips" may have actually been drafts, but the point still remains. Cornflakes is seemingly spamming Maces. Time to see how valiant of a defense TBS can cobble together. If he can bog Cornflakes down, I've got a nice open path here. If he starts to crumble quickly, I may be forced to intervene.


Speaking of news, you can also see I popped a scientist. Here's my tentative plan.





Alpha-Paper, two quick techs, then bulb like 80% of Education, and then go claim the Economics Merchant and keep Cornflakes from claiming every first-to bonus. I'm the only one with Banking, so it's one of the few bonuses I have an edge for. Pop a trade mission, and use that to fuel tech to Astro. I think that makes sense. I have like 2 more turns to decide, because I need to save gold a bit longer.


The problem of course is this passes up an opportunity for a 2-man GA. I'd like to be greedy and just straight tech my way there so that I can have that, but that's a lot of time that I'm not sure I have what with my two top rivals seemingly about to attempt a conquest.





Always a pleasant surprise to find out the cottage is already 3/4 done.





Flat Earth is back into growth mode now that I popped the great person out. Also note that 6c route to Whidbey - that's with our trade routes trashed thanks to the recent war. Side note: For Fin/Pro purposes, trade routes are such a pain to figure out right now that for quite awhile I've just been marking every city as 2c/turn for Protective, even though I'm not sure it's true right now.

[NobleHelium]

I decided a while ago not to sweat it with whether / how much my opponent's threads are updated. Gets too close to WIFOM territory even though it's not, and it's just not worth stressing over because any attempts to glean useful info are basically useless.