[SPOILERS] scooter's PB53

[scooter]

Turn 114


My rant may have been premature?





Not because of this of course. This is a joke of an offer - that's my Moai city right under the interface. Quickly closed out of that, only to find there was another offer underneath it.





Now this made me pause. 10 turns is a long time. That should be long enough for me to get Astronomy, for example. My objective here was successful: Cornflakes is not only no longer my top competition for victory, he kinda self-destructed himself. While he had the chance to give up nothing but Nijmegen for peace (preserving GLH, MoM, and his TBS gains), instead he's lost all of that, and now he has the world's largest army and nobody to use it on.


I debated closing this hoping there might be a white peace underneath it. I really need that 100g. I decided not to gamble, because the peace is too big of a win, plus if there is no offer, I have to pass the possible point of no return and capture/raze Nijmegen. So I accepted.





This popped up after, and it made me very sad because I'm 99% sure this was white peace . Congrats on the 100g. So I swapped back to Economics and switched virtually every city over to wealth, and that's enough to finish it and get me the Great Merchant in 2 turns. Gonna have to run a quick trade mission somewhere even if it's suboptimal, and then probably Astro.





Aha. Now I see why Cornflakes was keen to save this city. So, it was 100g + a great scientist. I wondered why he didn't just give it to me for peace and continue his conquest. I mean, he still absolutely should have. Let that be a lesson to future neighbors - my first offer is my best offer.





He definitely was coming after me. This would have been pretty uncomfortable for me when combined with his 1-mover stack that I showed last turn. I could have handled it, but I would have had to whip pretty hard this turn. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, then.





Sorry, "WW1" as I dubbed it was kind of a bust. I should get visibility on the Commodore/Cairo front next turn, but I suspect Commodore has run into a speed bump because his progress has halted. That's good news for me. I do have 10T of my military stack being freed up. I'm moving it towards Bigfoot. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it... I could make Commodore's life very uncomfortable (and/or extort him), I could pile onto Cairo, or I could take that orphaned TBS city. Whatever I do can't be a long-term commitment though what with Cornflakes looming in 10 turns. I absolutely need to have Astro or Gunpowder completed by then and be on my way to the next one. Interesting times.

[scooter]

Turn 115-117

Super short as I've been low on time and mildly sick this weekend. So just one picture and no fancy stitch.





Declared, moved in, and demanded some cities from Commodore that he definitely did not accept, and I'll be shocked if he re-offered them. I'm kinda bluffing. I mean, I would like to remove Sunnyside and still might because the culture bomb has been a thorn in my side, but the reality is I can't go too hard after Commodore because TBS also declared on Cairo and captured an island, which means I need to be careful to not let him back into the game. If Cairo crumbles and Commodore is busy with me, TBS is suddenly back in this in a big way. Plus Cornflakes may decide he wants a piece of me in about 8 turns. The upside here is like 90% of Commodore's army is stranded in Cairo's culture, so I can definitely do some damage here, the question is how much.


Things are sort of on a knife's edge yet again. I need to damage him a little bit because he may pick up some more cities soon and already has more than me, but not enough to completely kill his chances because I'm not in a strong enough position to really end the game.

[scooter]

Turn 118-119


ALRIGHT. A lot has been happening, and it's been at a bad time for reporting because over the weekend I got mildly sick (not covid) and was otherwise busy, so there wasn't really any time to write it up. In addition, these turns were fairly stressful, so it was hard to summon the energy to write anything up. Thankfully, it looks like things are being well reported given that all the relevant threads are blowing up, particularly the lurker thread. This time I know you guys aren't talking about chili either. Or at least if you are, what is wrong with you? There's more interesting things happening! Also, I had a chili dog over the weekend and thought of you all. It was a good life choice.


I'm going to do this in two parts. First part will be a blow-by-blow of what actually happened. Second part will be a rundown of the geopolitical situation and will get into the whys and hows of what comes next.





TBS saw my Merchant coming, and he didn't close borders or extort me. I consider that a pretty good payback for me saving his bacon in the last dozen turns by gifting him 3 luxuries + stone, giving him a favorable loan, and getting his cities back by tilting Cornflakes into oblivion. That actually sounds lopsided in his favor upon writing it out, but of course I had something to gain from all those "favors," so admittedly it's not THAT generous on my part. So I'll call it even. I only expected 1500g, so the extra 200g was a welcome surprise.


So with Commodore pushing the invasion of Cairo, I basically had two options. Door #1 was pile onto Cairo and gain a couple border cities while Commodore takes the core cities. He tried to offer me as such via diplomacy. Door #2 was attack Commodore while his army was miles away from his core, and force him to make some really uncomfortable decisions. I went with Door #2, and I can expound on that a bit later in the game state update that I'll write up later. In the meantime, let's get to the action.





Ever since Commodore flipped me off by culture bombing this city while attempting to raze Bielefeld, I've been waiting for an opportunity for revenge. Today (uhhh, yesterday) was that day.

drill2 CKN vs Jan .1%: flawless loss
drill3 CKN vs Jan .1%: lose (7h)
c1 Knight vs Jan 10%: lose (4.3h)
c2 Knight vs Jan 84%: win
shock Knight vs 3.4h spear 85%: win
c2 shock Knight vs 3.4h spear 88%: win
c2 shock knight vs 3.4h spear 90%: win
GG Knight vs cover axe 96%: win

Burned to the ground. Last thing I needed was him having the ability to retake this city and restore all the cultural pressure. Now, I know he can still re-settle this city and the old culture will be there, but thanks to the way cultural pressure on city rings work (the more rings, the more inner rings get culture), he cannot restore the raw culture/turn. So that's the good news. I also killed that mini hill stack:

CKN vs G Longbow 2%: lose
axe suicide: lose
Cover CKN vs G Longbow 55%: win
Drill4 CKN vs Longbow 95%: win
CKN vs Spear 99%: win

I moved stuff forward (including some units on boats) with the intention of hitting Yakima next if he didn't give me something good for peace. However, I didn't have enough time to play all in one turn. What happened went like this:


T118 half 1: I declare war and move in. Cairo plays.
T118 half 2: Commodore plays, whips hard. Offers peace deal to Cairo that I'm not aware of
T119 part 1: I raze Sunnyside, but lack the time to complete the turn. Log out and intend to return later.
T119 part 2: Cairo logs in and takes peace deal.
T119 part 3: I log in to see the following.





Well then. My mission of hurting him has completed, but now the question is whether I can get out of this war in the next 5 turns before Cornflakes gets an opportunity to pile on. Yakima goes from definitely dead to a near-thing, because the 2-movers in Commodore's stack would get there just in time before the rest of my army arrived. Out east things are uncomfortable but ultimately safe. Complicating things for both of us is the TBS factor.





He was primed to vulture some Cairo cities, which is something neither of us really want. That's one boogeyman you do NOT want sneaking back into this game. He did peace out too after he saw Commodore do the same. So this morning I log in for the next turn, and this is Commodore's counter-offer.





That's... actually about what I was guessing. I stared at the screen for a few minutes, but I accepted. I gained 120g from razing Sunnyside, so let's round down for unit expenses. I essentially paid 900g or 52% of my Economics Merchant to cause Commodore to lose 3 cities and spend a minimum of 10 more turns with much less land than me and ensure I won't get 2v1'd in 5 turns time, which of course could have happened anyway had Commodore worked out a different peace deal with Cairo given that TBS was dogpiling. I generally think that's worth it given the game state, but it's close and certainly debatable. I'll leave that to the lurker thread's very capable hands . More on the "why" I'm ok with all this in the next post. Here's the total unit cost to me:





So, 3 CKNs, 1 Knight, and 1 0xp Axe. Also pick up some cultural relief in both the short and long term. This is definitely going to slow down Astronomy by a few turns, but the ensured peace also meant I could swap a ton of cities over to wealth for a few turns, so I can make a little bit of it back that way.


Alright. State of the game post coming sometime in the next 10 hours PROBABLY.

[NobleHelium]

Great Merchants can travel through closed borders.

[scooter]

Great Merchants can travel through closed borders.

So what you're saying is he still owes me.

I'm joking, Noble.

[NobleHelium]

You're welcome to try to extort TBS.

[scooter]

State of the Game


So, I think the way I have to start this is to wall-of-text things a bit and talk about win conditions and motivations. I'm going to go player-by-player.


Mr Cairo

Win Condition: None. Odds 0%.

Motivations: Survival. Possible begrudging of Commodore, though not guaranteed at all.

Relations to me: Friendly. I gifted him several luxuries to help him vs Commodore, and I got him his cities back and TBS out of the war by piling onto Commodore. Those things also helped me though, so there's a chance he may not feel like he owes me much even if I think he does.

Notes: n/a


The Black Sword

Win Condition: Gain some land by piling onto one of his neighbors in a 2v1 and hope Commodore and myself get bogged down into a messy unproductive war. Drag the game out as long as possible so he can get back into it. Odds: 5%.

Motivations: TBS doesn't strike me as the revenge-seeking kind of guy. If he desires some, Cornflakes is the obvious target as he's the guy who's really ruined his game over and over again. That said, I read him as being pragmatic as just hoping to better his position by any avenue that presents itself.

Relations to me: Friendly. Some of this is our recent dealings, but we're also naturally friendly because we don't really share borders other than Ligurian, and that's not a city I've really wanted to capture anyway because it opens up another border that must be defended from Cornflakes.

Notes: While most of my attention is focused on Commodore, TBS is a bit of a counter weight in the south.


Cornflakes

Win Condition: Use your tech edge and army to get more land ASAP, probably by re-invading TBS. Odds: 5%.

Motivations: Revenge. He likely thinks I ended his chances of winning this game. I'd argue he ended them, but I can't make that case to him right now. There's also the chance that this extended peace and his upcoming vacation has sapped his enthusiasm and he checks out of the game. This would be ideal for me.

Relations to me: Worst enemy.

Notes: Peace ends in 5 turns. He's in Serfdom right now, so he's not exactly ramping up militarily like he's going to attack me. Suspect he might be amenable for a warpeace, but I'm shifting military now as if round 2 is upcoming.


Commodore

Win Condition: Use the 1000g to get a military power spike (probably Cannons), and try again on Cairo. Possibly try to attack me first instead, but that risks allowing TBS back into the game, so he may like his chances against me longterm better. If he does conquer Cairo, he'll have easily the most land in the game and would become the favorite. His edge this game has always been that he was the only player who bordered 0 of the 4 contenders on turn 0, and that edge still exists given that he hoovered up two middle cities + two AT cities all the while being next to the weakest remaining player. If that's not enough, he's also got so much religion that he's got a possible avenue to a cultural win. The point is he has multiple routes to a win, even if none of them are easy. Odds: 40%

Motivations: Just win, with a bias towards doing the most exciting thing for the ratings, which is the thing he honestly cares about more.

Relations to me: Chief rival

Notes: Um, a lot, So let's end this section here because this is kind of the whole rest of the post.





If you're doing the math, this means I consider myself a narrow favorite at 50% odds, followed by Commodore at 40% odds, but I think there's a lot of volatility still due to the tight borders and swingy wardecs everywhere. I consider this game to almost be zero-sum, but not quite. The issue is that while my land quantity and traits are superior, Commodore's geopolitics are superior, so I need to do everything I can to maintain the land edge in order to maintain my grasp of the lead in this game. This is why I was ultimately OK giving up 900g for peace. My lead is narrow right now, but might I be able to widen it given enough time for AT's land to come online?





It's starting to. You can see a bunch of cottages that are ready but aren't being worked quite yet. In 10-15T I expect all those grassland tiles to be 2/0/4 tiles, some of them much sooner than that. Give it another 10-15T, and suddenly they're villages, and I have Printing Press, and that's about how long I anticipate it'll take for Commodore to return to Cairo and get it done right this time. So I see a route to victory as long as I can keep the juggling balls that are my two unhappy neighbors doing other things for a couple more rounds of warpeace.





These are the demos right now. I'm on some wealth and Commodore is saving gold, so the GNP gap isn't quite that big, but it is big nonetheless. Main concern is Cornflakes in 5T with his superior army, but helpfully TBS is now locked into peace with Cairo, so in 5T he'll hopefully be there to keep Cornflakes honest. I'm going Optics-Gunpowder these next two turns, and then I'll get some Protective Muskets out in time for that front.





Burning that city was crucial tactically. There's now a huge expanse of land between Fan Death and Cornflakes, so I'm going to know in advance if he's coming or not. He could come by sea of course, but all he has are Galleys, and I'll have Caravels in the short-term and Galleons right after that, so he's limited on that front as well. In addition, I'm about to pick up Optics which will improve my vision. I'll have 5 Galleys in position (along with 4-5 Triremes) and that crucial fort to be able to easily ferry a bunch of defenders between Chemtrails and Fan Death, so that makes defending this front a lot more doable. I'm hoping Cornflakes agrees.





If so, this may be the hot spot. If Cornflakes is willing to warpeace me, he could take a second swing at TBS without needing to hold back at all. Genuinely don't know what he'll do. Main reason I'm unsure is I'm wondering if he's checking out, especially as he's perfectly happy to let next week be played by a sub apparently, which I would not be OK with myself at this stage unless it was someone I really trusted.




So I think that wraps it up. The TL;DR is myself vs Commodore is almost zero-sum from where I sit, so my gameplan is to maintain my land edge as long as possible in order to snowball economically a bit more and continue to be opportunistic. Borders are tight enough here that I don't imagine this game actually makes it to a space or culture race. This will be an extract-a-concession kind of game, and I'm pretty close to the point where a decisive blow on Commodore would end the game. The problem is I lack the tech pieces or the geopolitics to do it right now. I know I can out-tech him and ultimately do that later in the game if the land status quo remains, so I'm inclined to force him to make the next move - whether that means gaining the land edge by conquering Cairo or coming directly after me. If he can successfully conquer Cairo, he becomes the favorite. If not, he's going to have to come at me instead.





Any questions?

[scooter]

My thread and Commodore's thread updated, and like clockwork no lurkers responded here, but the lurker thread briefly lit up again. This might seem like I'm complaining, but I actually always take that as a sign that you're doing something interesting. So I'll pose a question that I think can safely be discussed in here: what do you guys think about the merits of allowing or disallowing city trading in these games? There's no question it makes the game a lot more dynamic. It opens up a huge amount of options in the game. Wars become more frequent because there's more options for getting out of them. Dogpiles become hard to maintain because it's yet another way to buy somebody out of a war.


But mostly, in this game it's made the diplomacy absolutely bonkers and probably a touch hard to follow. We're on just T120 with only 6 players, and the following has already happened:


* Cornflakes and Cairo razed a TBS city earlier on the exact same turn at a point where I'm not even sure they had met each other yet.

* I razed a random AT city I found empty

* Cornflakes extracted a city from TBS for peace.

* I conquered AT the traditional way, taking 2/3 while Commodore vultured 1/3.

* Cornflakes attacked TBS, captured 3 cities, and was on the verge of capturing more when I declared on him from behind and offered peace for a non-essential city (that would have let him keep GLH/MoM), an offer that he probably regrets not taking.

* On the same exact turn, Commodore invades Cairo. Captures 2 cities.

* Cornflakes hands back all 3 cities to TBS for peace and then offers me peace on the same turn.

* I declare on Commodore in an attempt to extract a couple cities for peace (former AT cities) to allow him to keep conquering while threatening his border city for leverage.

* Commodore hands back his 2 conquered cities in return for peace with Cairo on the same turn as I burn one of his cities, prompting TBS to also get out of the war, and I honestly can't remember if he handed back his captured city or not.


Did I miss anything? I probably did! So the upside of city trading is that I estimate about 30% of those wars go away or get dramatically simpler without it, which makes games with the mechanic more exciting to lurk. It does feel like the incentives get really wild with city trading if everyone is playing optimally. I wonder if the game gets less swingy if we disallow it, and would that be a good thing? The negotiations over warpeaces has been genuinely stressful at times, and I'm not sure I want it in future games. I'm souring slightly. Any strong feelings? It's taking me back to PBEM14. That was the last full diplo game I played, and the diplomacy in that was so completely insane that, while it benefitted me tremendously, I really soured on it as a PBEM/PB mechanic. It felt like if it was available, it was so powerful that you HAD to game it super hard, at which point it overshadowed the rest of the game. This hasn't gone nearly that far, but it gives me that vibe of the game revolving around the mechanic a bit too much. I think that's what's giving me pause.


----------------

As for the game itself... One fun development on the Cornflakes front. I remarked that I was starting to suspect he was checked out. Well, here are two of the last three turn rolls with the end of turn score increases stripped out.

10/06/2020 21:55:41 120 Cornflakes logged out
10/06/2020 21:54:41 120 Cornflakes finished turn
10/06/2020 21:51:18 120 Cornflakes score increased to 1345 (+7)
10/06/2020 21:50:47 120 - a new turn has begun. It is now 125 AD
10/06/2020 21:46:03 119 Cornflakes logged in

10/05/2020 06:13:42 118 Cornflakes logged out
10/05/2020 06:13:22 118 Cornflakes finished turn
10/05/2020 06:08:47 118 - a new turn has begun. It is now 75 AD
10/05/2020 06:03:01 117 Cornflakes logged in

Twice in a row now he has played 2 turns in 10 minutes. This is the guy who would regularly spend 2-3 hours logged in per turn, even though I strongly suspect he would, like, login and go eat dinner or something. Turns take me around 30 minutes apiece, and the only reason it's not longer is I've made a conscious effort to cap myself at 30 minutes in-game for sanity reasons. He's 100% checked out. Also, it's now late on the 6th, and he intends to go on vacation for a week starting on the 12th and hand his Civ to someone significantly less experienced with instructions. Our peace is on track to expire on roughly the 11th. It seems incredibly obvious he has no intention to invade me. I'll continue to monitor him. Maybe it's the most elaborate bluff ever. But I'm starting to feel better about my western border.

[superdeath]

Personally? id rather not play with them on, even if they would benefit me... alot

[Mjmd]

It has certainly added another aspect to this game. As long as it isn't abused it's probably fine.... Obviously has some risks.