Quote:FYI, I've thought about the aluminum situation and decided to trade my resource to the lurker civ. I'll propose the trade when I log in on my half of the turn. I can see most of the map and see only TWO aluminum resources, and one is underneath one of my cities. Rather than try to cheese the space race, I'd prefer to do things straight up without an unearned advantage. If/when joey mines his resource and it is otherwise available for fair competitive use, I'll cancel the trade with the lurker civ. I just ask that you let me know if you pop a resource so I can counter. I don't think mapmaker's mistake should tilt the outcome this severely. Feel free to share this in your thread, I don't think this is out of bounds.
There, now that I've said I'll do it I have to do it and won't try to weasel out of doing what is really the only fair thing to do. Thanks for the suggestion, Commodore. Simply trading it away hadn't occurred to me.
Now if someone would kindly inform me if someone pops an aluminum so I don't have to check every single turn...
Quote:FYI, I've thought about the aluminum situation and decided to trade my resource to the lurker civ. I'll propose the trade when I log in on my half of the turn. I can see most of the map and see only TWO aluminum resources, and one is underneath one of my cities. Rather than try to cheese the space race, I'd prefer to do things straight up without an unearned advantage. If/when joey mines his resource and it is otherwise available for fair competitive use, I'll cancel the trade with the lurker civ. I just ask that you let me know if you pop a resource so I can counter. I don't think mapmaker's mistake should tilt the outcome this severely. Feel free to share this in your thread, I don't think this is out of bounds.
Fintourist • 4:22 AM
Quote:Hey BGN, I haven't talked with OH about this. Overall I'm always hoping for a reasonably balanced map, but when the game has started I'm also a sort of play the hand you're dealt kind of a guy. As my first reaction I think I would prefer you to make the most out of your aluminium or at least we are completely fine you doing it while we bitch Commodore. What you offer is an act of gentleman that I appreciate highly and if you prefer to play without aluminium that's of course your decision. In that case it's clear that if we would through some miracle get a chance to get our own aluminium we would return the favor and also gift it away / inform you / whatever seems appropriate. I haven't thought this through, so feel free OH to contradict me.
Old Harry
Quote:Hi Boldy, I think Fintourist is right - neighbours, resources and traits are all set at the start of the game, so while it would be gentlemanly of you I think its unnecessary. Of course when you win I'll change my mind...
I still think giving the resource away is the right thing to do but I haven't done it yet with the game being paused. No need to diplolock the lurkers. I can still send the trade later on when I play the turn. So then I logged in to pause for TBS/yuris and was greeted with this:
I sat in game and did as much digging around through the interface as I could without declining the offer (as I'm not convinced I'll get him to offer it again, and further, I'm not totally convinced that Commodore didn't make good on his threat to log into Krill's civ and offer on his behalf...) and learned the following: Krill declared war on Ruff but has not (apparently) taken any cities, Krill has pulled his destroyer stack back closer to his territory, and Krill has resumed tech on Rocketry for cruise missiles. Ruff has not closed borders with me, which is helpful for my rail network but not relevant to me accepting the peace offer.
After waffling back and forth, weighing my emotional desire for beating on Krill against a better opportunity to wage a clean war and reposition myself for a more competitive space race with all the last minute warring that is certain to be required, I gave in and swallowed the lingering hatred, accepting the peace deal. I'm sure this is some Master class in misdirection and subterfuge that I'm going to regret because I don't see the goal yet, but Ruff will be dead in 10t. If Krill has units and cities on my continent at that time then I'm in a much stronger position to drive him into the sea than when our conflict first began. So, short version, I don't see that this costs me much of anything, except that Krill can build up cruise missiles in 10t. Which is fine. I don't need to invade him and I never expected he'd give me peace so this is helpful. It is worth remembering that he declared this war on me. I don't know who came ahead on the hammer count and it doesn't really matter. Even if I won massively on the hammer exchange I've lost tremendously on opportunities to expand through HAK and AT at a time when both would have been trivially easy to carve out large chunks of territory. But that's all done now, so I'll see if I get time to put together a plan to wipe out Ruff and reposition my forces to contain both Krill and OH/Fin for the inevitable space race showdown.
Keeping the aluminum is more tempting than ever, but I still think giving it away is the only fair thing to do. Commodore, you owe me some Mylanta (or better) for your shitty mapmaking leading me down the heartburn path of temptation and poor ethical decision-making.
(May 15th, 2015, 00:12)fluffyflyingpig Wrote: Confirmation that Commodore was joking about logging in as Krill to offer peace. Although he may have had some spoiler thread information...
I knew he was, I just like to stir the pot sometimes. But this spoiler information...Do tell!
(May 15th, 2015, 00:12)fluffyflyingpig Wrote: Also the lurkers have convened and have the following guidance regarding your aluminum situation: do whatever will lead to the most bloodshed.
hammerhammerhammerhammer
Are you sure you didn't just pull out a mirror and converse with yourself, mistaking this as a lurker meeting? You are the most bloodthirsty person I know! I mean, isn't all of this war getting to be a bit much for you? The carnage. The loss. The displaced, destitute, and dying masses! The humanity! I think I've seen about as much of war as I can stomach, and I already have much to atone for. I can't do this anymore. I won't be a part of your game, killing for the amusement of the lurkers. Who do you lurkers think you are? Gods? You ask too much. Yet you do not ask at all. You demand. You expect. You exploit! Players just like to play the game. We love the game. We do not love the conflict. Lurkers? You set up the game as a means to coerce us into conflict, where otherwise we would remain at play, happy and content. Play keeps us young and carefree. But you lurkers would have us war, endlessly, constantly, desperately, until the sharp points of our minds and souls have been numbed and rounded, hollowed, until the point is gone. How many angels can dance upon the head of a pin? We would have been happy just dancing, but lurkers forced an answer (Disappointingly, the answer is not 42). So too you have destroyed our play. When was play in and of itself not enough? When did play become a means to an end, to war, death, and destruction? Now there is only chaos. Where once there was the love of play, now there is nihilism. The joyful act of play has been obliterated in the pursuit of war and death, and for what? I do not even know. A concept I, as a player in the once-joyful game, can never understand: Lurker Lulz. You lurkers would have us players seek dominion over all the others, except of course for you, always pulling us, ever so lightly at the first touch but so irresistibly and irrevocably at the last, away from our purest, most joyful instincts of enjoyment, the unimpeachable love of the game. But that is gone now. The game is not dead, but the joy is. We are numb. We are dulled. We are diminished. Where there was play there is now only war. My heart quails at the loss. What was pure and good has been corrupted and is now rot. Lurkers, you have done your job well.
For myself, I will have no more part of war. I will seek the heavens and start again, clean and renewed. Nothing you can do will change my mind. I've had enough of bloodshed and will use my power for good, looking out for the most vulnerable players and protecting them from others who have been corrupted by your vulturing, blood-thirsting lurker ways. I put away the black hat now, never to wear it again. Flying Pig Person, you nearly had me. You almost corrupted me to your lurker ways. You had me convinced that it was I who was enjoying the wars, but it was never me. It was always you. But your dominion over me has ended, your spell is broken! I cast off your chains and will lead my civilization to the stars and leave these wars behind. Nice try, lurker guy, but we aspire upward and onward and will transcend your vicious lurker ways. We will be an example to you and your kind about what is possible without malice, violence, and subjugation. With peace and harmony, we will spread our civilization to the stars. Save your tears, you've wrung your last drop of blood out of us. The peace will last, and it will spread.
To the heavens!
Well fuck. So much for that. It's the Cold War. Russia vs. America. Rocky Balboa Vs Apollo Creed. We should have been friends but instead, it's all over. The dream has died. All I wanted was to play. I protected America from the lurkers and your wars but now I've failed. You did this. You've hung us out to dry. The dream of a better way is gone. It's a fate worse than death. Ruff will be the lucky one.
Fluffy Flying Pig person: Are you happy now? Are you satisfied? Break out your hammer smileys and your dancing elephants. Break out the dancing band and the popcorn. Don't forget your banana and neener guys too. This war is on you, man. It's on you and your friends.
Ruff'merica, you're the lucky one. For you, the game will end. Always remember.
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” --Abraham Lincoln
FFP, I was having some fun yesterday. I didn't mean to shame you into silence.
The war with Ruff began last turn, as indicated by the screenshot of the tracker which showed that I took six cities. Ruff had very, very lightly defended his coastal cities in the polar south, withdrawing to his interior cities, so those were mostly one or two attacks for the capture. Appetite whetted, lurkers? Here we go.
T238
The previously shown peace offer with Krill, which I accepted. As rapidly as Ruff has fallen, it would have been much more dangerous having to risk firepower against Krill's destroyer stack, which would have injured my fighters. The fighters have been tremendously helpful in minimizing the risk to my hitters. I don't regret taking peace but I am going to have a lot of troops standing nearby with a cooldown timer on the peace deal... Onward and upward though. Maybe Joey will want to go for round 2 and I can use them (defensively! I'm a pacifist now! Honest!!! ) against him...
WLP has punched Dreylin's (and gavagai, Ichabod, and whoever else it was) ticket to the afterlife. GG, and thanks for hanging in there so long. Also, in the tracker, Krill giving his paternal blessing for me to go ahead and finish off Ruff. I guess Ruff back-channeled to Krill how sick he was of being between us and asked for help getting to the exit? Ruff's been on my list forever but I just hadn't gotten around to it until I could finish off easier fights which didn't involve Krill's forces, especially his naval stack. Once I had what I felt was enough troops to deal even with Krill's fleet, now I have a peace deal.
I don't particularly need Drama, but it's there for the taking and doesn't cost me much of anything. I don't intend to have a pile of EP against Joey. Maybe this reduces his freak out about me having so many EP against him? Or pisses him off. Either way. This is just a proof of concept for me. The cost goes up dramatically as soon as an opponent invests real EP.
Unfortunately, the only person I'm really trailing consistently in tech is OH, who has had a ton of EP all game long due to spamming sacrificial alters, so this is not a viable strategy at this point, not without significant investment in EP buildings on my part, which is not worth it at all. That's no way to win a space race.
Just keeping an eye on garrisons, loosely. Air power covers a lot of mistakes in counting units.
These cities are less well guarded than the southern island, from my glance around the map. And, aluminum, powered by windmills.
(May 17th, 2015, 20:16)Ceiliazul Wrote: I think that last one is because Zoo is just so PRETTY! Also you were casing the place, admit it.
Maybe I was casing the place. And that capital? Yeah. Pretty fucking awesome. Eighteen of 21 BFC tiles are riverside. That would have been nice. But for all that, you never see it on the Top 5 Cities list. Yellowstone, however....
Count 'em up. Eight! Eight riverside tiles, and fully half of them not cottages. I make a really good lemonade if we're using Zoo as the gold standard. But this capital has served me incredibly well so I'm not going to complain, even if someone else got a whopping 18!!! riverside tiles.
Anyway, somehow I went ahead and posted the T238 report as though that was the whole turn. I think I was in a hurry to leave home or something, but there is plenty more from T238.
T238: Round 2 -- Fight!
Before declaring, I built some rail lines. The southeastern section has been around for a long time. The rest are newly laid this turn. While this allowed me some commando flexibility, mostly the rails just gave Ruff/Fenn opportunities to counter with their ample cannon stack, so I had to spend most of my time in game thinking about how to position my troops so that the cannons would not be able to counter. With the exception of one mistake which ends up costing me three commandos, I did a good job of avoiding the cannons, at least on the first two turns of the war. I'm not sure about the third turn yet because I haven't logged in yet.
I wanted a record of how much gold he has, but mostly all of his units are Minutemen so unit upgrades aren't really a worry.
Look at all the free stuff propping up his country! I'm so benevolent! Malevolent?
Fifty-two cannons could really hurt me if I'm not careful, so I've got to make them the priority. Laying rail lines for the defender to use makes this a bit harder to pull off.
Air strikes into an archer is just unfair.
Fundraising at its finest!
Ok, whatever. This was a walkover, Ruff had abandoned the city.
Same thing here. Not much in the way of defenders. This was prudent because there is zero chance of collateral hitting my units attacking amphibiously and getting collateral followed by hitters is Ruff's only way to kill units.
Lots of cottages nearby.
Less gold collection here. I guess that's because Krill had captured the city previously.
Meh.
Real gold. Good!
Real infrastructure. Even better!
This is like raiding the couch cushions for change. I like that jingle in my pocket.
Could be worse, I suppose.
An embarrassment of riches.
Or not. As with previous conquests this turn, very little in the way of protection. This city, in fact, I think was entirely defenseless.
This was a mistake. I called off the commando attack once I realized it. I put three commandos at risk of an easy counterattack by the cannon stack and Ruff would clean up on his side of the turn. I'm glad I realized the error before sending in more units. I should have waited on attacking Upsham's Corner until after I captured Waltham and was able to flip the culture on the tile 2S of Grand Teton. This was my biggest mistake of the turn, so not too bad.
UC's defenders.
Commando action in the south. The goal here is to kill the small stack of Minutemen 2S/1W of Wompatuck St Pk who appeared to be vacated from Bedham.
Coins!
Bah. Anyway, I don't love the dotmap here but we're far too deep into the game to throw away free population.
OH/Fin are gearing up for one last GA push for the space race. I haven't kept a count on how many GAs they've fired, and anyway it is unlikely that I'd be able to do anything to them to eliminate these guys before they could be relocated somewhere safe. I'm guessing they just need a fourth GP to fire the GA.
Now for the tally. As always, read bottom to top. A lot of this is air strikes but it's still a lot of carnage.
A lot of this is air strikes but it's still a lot of carnage.
A turn on Rocketry while saving gold and waiting for OH/Fin to finish Computers. I'm finally over 10 million troops. I collected just under 1000g from city captures this turn. That's a nice boost by itself.
And this is done too. If Molach accepted. He hadn't played yet when I played the following turn so I haven't confirmed yet.
The signposts should be mostly accurate this turn. I had to punch through 4-5 units here.
I just love free forges.
I wish I had a shot before the fight here. Capturing this city extended Grand Teton's culture to the second ring as anticipated, allowing the cossacks 1E of Grand Teton to attack UC. The cossacks entered into a series of very favorable matchups against cannon.
I'll take the bank. That's a lot of nice towns.
Getting the culture flip was a pretty near thing.
Stonehenge! And Ruff's original capital. Fenn didn't whip anything so I get the full population. Awesome!
This is a nice haul of buildings too.
Back to UC, the cannons are gone.
Forge!
Ruff'merkia is running out of gas. And is it me, or is that just an incredible amount of GG points to generate in one game?
This will be the next nut to crack, supported by strong air cover.
And very likely the last stand for Ruff. I'm slow waddling a stack that is tough to collateral.
DS falls next turn, as well as Arlington unless Ruff reinforces from Cambridge. And the city hidden beneath the interface below my cossacks should fall too, unless it is also reinforced, but those would come from DS which probably wouldn't be helpful to Ruff.
The body count:
The plundering here was to eliminate roads that would have allowed the cannon stack in Cambridge to counter against my stack that chewed through UC. Those cannon are now out of range.
As soon as Krill logged in I lost my first combat at 96%. I swear, that guy is kryptonite for me.
You can see here where I lost the three commandos at UC, and another somewhere else, but that wasn't a mistake. That commando did its job and let me capture a city before the population could be whipped away.
I really like this set of demos. But man, oh man, how many trade routes I'm giving away.
I chose to sit out the popularity contest. My vote wouldn't have mattered anyway. Welcome to politics!
Well whaddya know? I don't know if this was here previously or not. Looking back it appears that the aluminum was already there. I nixed the trade offer with Molach for now and will just give an aluminum to OH/Fin as soon as my culture extends at Kings Canyon.
Ruff abandoned the city, retreating into DS.
Ack. Died at ~98%. It was bound to happen.
Punched through in the end without further incident.
I tried to use the valuable commandos against this city just in case Ruff attacks out with his cannons and is able to get some kills. His cannons won't reach thsi far, but they can reach the stack NE of Arlington.
Ruff's army is dwindling. Everything is in his capital. I'm still generating GG points. I'm not sure I'll get to the next GG anytime soon. This war will be done before I can fill up the bar.
Ruff's stack is as badly mauled as I could get it this turn. They'll heal up some at the beginning of the new turn but I have plenty of capacity to knock them down again. I do not know if I'll have enough hitters next turn, we'll see.
These guys, along with my commandos, will do the heavy lifting. But I think I'll come up just short. Not highlighted, two tanks 2N of this stack. I promoted them up the drill line (enjoy, Commodore!) to Drill III. This to reduce collateral damage as well as to hopefully limit damage on the attack given the vast strength advantage over the weakened defenders.
Just keeping tabs on the last two shots. I think TBS/Yuris is running some EP back on me, making my mission more expensive.
Elsewhere, a GA spawns in TBS-land. GP don't come easy for him now at 2600 GPP and counting. But he's PHI too, so there's that. Just keep OH/Fin busy.
Demos always look better after a conquest.
The turn took a while, as usual, so I took a few minutes to count up cities for the top 4 teams. My count is good for the current turn, others accurate ending last turn.
me - 104
OH - 85
TBS - 48
GJ - 45
I'm building 4-5 more fillers in the next few turns. Some are just for trade routes, but a couple north of Ruff's capital will get some grassland workshops too. All will build wealth so I don't have to do anything with them. No one should ever play a game with this many cities and actually try to manage them all. It's pretty brutal.
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
hammer![[Image: T238%20tracker.JPG]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59892754/PB18/T238%20tracker.JPG){kind=tracking}
I'm a pacifist now! 
Honest!!! 
) against him... 
![[Image: kombat-scorpion.gif]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59892754/kombat-scorpion.gif)
It was bound to happen.
