[SPOILERS] naufragar is not a number; he is a free man

[naufragar]

I fell off the first page! Have a capsule update as my penance.


Good to know that at least another pentad is accessible before Astro. I'll come back and edit this post once I've played everybody's favorite game "Pick the Purple." (Probably TBS.)

[naufragar]

Turns out that purple was not TBS but Dulland/Frozen.


This pair is very careful. They're always one of the last teams to end turn, but that end turn segment usually takes 2 minutes, meaning they're playing their turns earlier and double checking the game and with each other that everything is as it should be. Unfortunately, they don't have Writing yet, so on my quest for circumnavigation, I'll have to trespass with a galley (unloaded). Oh well. Hopefully this doesn't cause them to freak out too much. He's got a galley under mine, but I assume we can let each other live.

[naufragar]

Yes, yes. I see you lurking there. Yes, you. You want to know about the imminent war, right? Well, this turn I declared:


I sent a PM to Frozen and Dullland over at Civforum to let them know, but I doubt this was any surprise. Shouldn't be a big deal.




What's that? That's not the potential war you're interested in?


Is this why my thread views go up whenever Pindicator posts?  What's he saying over there?

Ok, fine. Yes. Pindicator's going to get a love tap.


Let me be explicit: Pindicator has seen my power rising and is posting about it. I've been slow about reporting, but whenever Pind's made a post for the last few turns, I get a surge in views, despite having written nothing. I didn't want to say anything because he's watching me like a hawk, and I really didn't want the pattern of: naufragar posts->lurker comments in lurker thread->Pind draws a connection and whips his empire to the bone. (I think me playing coy has had the side effect of making Mackoti nervous, if his frequent log-ins are any indication.  ) Btw, I love an audience, so please keep reading. 

Pind actually caused me some consternation this turn because I expected him to move up a scouting chariot to take advantage of our open borders. Below you can have a war plan I drew up on turn 78 in which I planned to bop that chariot to start the war. (Red->Orange->Yellow->Green=79->80->81->82)


The absence of a chariot means one of two things. He's using it as a garrison, or it's going to come out to scout later this turn (Pind has already ended his turn...) or next turn.

Why am I attacking Pind? Well, because I didn't attack when he settled his border city with just a warrior and now I regret it. My inner Montezuma is disappointed. More to the point, Pind has run a ridiculous farmer's gambit that has enabled him to keep up with the Imperialistic civs (like Imperialistic Mackoti...). He's going to be an absolute juggernaut if he doesn't get challenged, and I've already talked about how busted his ships will be. Here's his empire.


By my count, in the west he has 3 warriors, 1 spear, and a chariot among 5 cities. He's got libraries up to his eyeballs, great land, etc. etc. If I can break through Hornblower, I can cause a lot of pain, probably enough pain that he's crippled and I can eat him at my leisure and be a contender to win the game. Therein lies the rub. Both Hornblower and Proudfoot grew this turn. If he could whip Hornblower, Proudfoot, and Baggins this turn for Axes, he could stop my attack at Hornblower. If he doesn't, I believe he's in a spot of bother.

Because of the no-score mod  I don't really know what Pind's teched. I believe he has Masonry and Archery. If I can crack Hornblower, archers don't really matter. All his cities are on flatland, otherwise. Masonry (especially walls in Hornblower) could cause problems.

Now why did Pind tech Masonry? Why has he kept his capital at size 9 forever? Is the answer the Pyramids? For a while, I thought so, and I greedily hoped I'd open up the turn to a notification that he had built them. Now I'm not so sure. Do you really go for Writing before Masonry if you're gunning for 'Mids without Ind? Doubtful. It's more likely he's just grown big so he can use his Academy to its maximum potential.

He did settle directly on stone, which saves time on a quarry, which might point to a 'Mids play, but honestly, it's just an amazing city site regardless.


He settles for +1 hammer at the capital and on a plains hill, while also grabbing two excellent food resources first ring. (The fish is 1SE of his city.) Any city on my side of the jungle, on the other hand, has to settle for 1 food resource 2 tiles away, and it can't be on a hill for defensibility. Just for the imbalance alone, his city has to die.

Everything comes down to if I can crack Hornblower. If I do, I've got a city 4 tiles from his cap. I can care about land engagements over sea raids. I can threaten to fork basically his entire empire. If I can't take Hornblower, or if I take it with such losses as to need to retreat, I've burned a game-leading Crop Yield and crippled my economy for no gain. Big swing of the dice. Let's see what happens.

Lurkers, I love you. Please keep your f-ing mouths shut. 

[Krill]

Lurkers, I love you. Please keep your f-ing mouths shut. 

QotM.

[naufragar]

You caught me before I could edit it to something softer. I was probably being paranoid anyway. (And projecting. Freaking out about lurking activity would be a thing I do.)

Anyway, Pind PM'ed me to say that he made our turn split official this turn, taking the first half. So all that sneaking was for nothing. He's feeling under the weather, so he needs some more time before he can play. This gives me time to obsess about what I could be facing. His PM made it seem like he knew we were gonna come to blows at least as early as last turn. So, I assume he can whip a unit in Hornblower this turn. The last time I saw into the city, it had a warrior and a spear. I saw a chariot moving towards it, which I had assumed was going to scout me. Since I haven't seen the chariot again, I assume it's in the garrison. I'm also going to assume that Pind has enough cash to upgrade his warrior. Let's say he whips an axe. He'll have a spear, a chariot, and two axes. My own chariots are pretty useless attacking into this, so I have to trust my 5 axes to knock out his 2 axes and spear. Can I?  Two of my axes can take out one of his on a hill ~75% of the time. So, speaking roughly, on average we lose two of our axes to kill two of his. Of course, ancient era combat has silly RNG, so this can go wrong in a million ways.

When I simmed it out, I won more than I lost, but there are some potentially very upsetting outcomes. For example, when I attack the top axe, I have a 7% chance to do no damage to it. This would be ridiculously bad. On the other hand, I have a 9% chance to win that first combat. That would be ridiculously good. Man, combat with small armies is nerve wracking. And of course, I'm working blind. I haven't seen inside his city in a while.

[naufragar]

We advance on Hornblower and...


We are met with a profound sense of anticlimax. Ok, Pind didn't like his odds, so he's using some strategic depth to buy time. Will this work for him?

Yeah, probably:


Look at that monster of a capital. That thing can two-turn ancient era units. He can whip without whipping! If he just stuffs some trash in his capital, he can buy enough time to just two turn units and stall me out. I'll have to think about how to handle this. He hasn't whipped any of his smaller cities, but they've got lots of potential for food-to-unit transformation. What are my war goals? I'm pretty guaranteed to capture Hornblower. (Pind whipped a unit no doubt, so I likely lose an axe to an archer but c'est la guerre.) It would be good to cheaply raze Proudfoot. Anything else after that?

"Now, naufragar," I hear you say, "you whipped very heavily and you're going to be satisfied with one capture and one raze?" Well, dear reader, while the whips definitely set me back and damaged my economy and research, in the grand scheme of things, this was just Joao trying to turn his early game advantage into a middle game advantage.


We're still doing ok. In a few minutes our food lead will evaporate as people use their better research to blow their happy caps and maintenance problems away. (See Pind and others getting Iron Working for their gems, e.g.)

Just for kicks, I sent Amicalola a horse-for-horse offer. After all, I think Pind's going to be focused East, so maybe this cute little chariot can cause some mischief.


I don't expect him to take the deal. It's a bit out of the blue, but hey. Doesn't hurt.

Edit: I still don't get how he knew when I was coming for him. Like, he knew down to the turn. Perhaps he did try to scout me with his chariot but deleted it so I couldn't get the free kill with my spear. That might help explain why he abandoned Hornblower.

[naufragar]

Let us begin. First axe goes against the archer. Odds panel on the left tells you it's 21% to win.



...


Easy victory. The axe took one hit. This was a 1.8% chance. Well, ok then. I fess up when I'm lucky, and that was insanely lucky. After taking a promo, it'll be like the axe wasn't even damaged.

The luck continues:


Hornblower's granary survived. By the way, just look at how awesome this city is. It's freaking insane. Back when I wrote about Pind settling on the stone and plains hill, I wasn't actually sure if both +1hammers were applied. Yup. I mean, seriously. Three food resources, two of which are first-ring. A 2/3/1 city center tile. A lighthouse-able lake. 5 grassland hills. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is the best site for a production city on the entire map. Let's try to hold onto dear little Hornblower.

Pind's made some clever moves.



So I try to defend as best I can.


I have an axe and spear blocking the road to Hornblower so he can't assassinate my 4xp axe. This means he could attack the forest hill with his chariot for a 50% shot at killing an axe. (I think an axe would defend first. I didn't test it.) He has whipped Proudfoot, so expect another archer there. The question always pops up after a lucky victory: did I just use up all my luck for the game or am I Aeron's chosen and now will never lose another battle again?

He has whipped his capital and Took for 2 pop each. This means the capital is probably invulnerable.



We are at peace with Frozen and we continue our explorations.


The warrior belongs to Cornflakes. (What a cool custom color scheme for the Natives.) And bleeding through the fog you can see Jowy's borders.

And in case I'm not the last person to find out


We're on a toroid. Galleon shenanigans are going to be silly.

[naufragar]

Amicalola echoed back my horse-for-horse trade after a turn to think about it (and seeing that I took a city off Pind). Nice to know he's open to an alliance.


Wait a minute.




Ok. I did not expect the southern city to be razed by a chariot. If Sackville doesn't get a good unit on the inter-turn, it's dead as well. Holy smokes. I have very many thoughts and feelings about this, but I'll put them at the end.

We are pulling our own weight in this war, burning Proudfoot.


Proudfoot produced an axe, and Pind decided he's going to focus his defense on the capital, so Proudfoot was empty when burned. On the one hand, I can't complain that I've taken two cities off Pind at no cost. On the other hand, it means the capital is almost certainly uncrackable until catapults.

We advance.


Wonder if Pind will kill my chariot. I kind of doubt it, actually.

I had a thought while looking over Pind's land. Where's his second copper?


It's got to be up north in the fogged tile by the cow and gold, right? This means I can't easily cut it, which is a bummer. Now, where is his iron? We know he has Iron Working since he cut the jungle on his gems. Maybe my eyesight's getting worse. I can't see any iron here.


Ok, I promised thoughts about Amica's intervention. I definitely wanted him applying pressure in Pind's West. With two western cities burned (potentially), Pind's basically dead. The bullet might have a long travel time, but he's dead on three mainland cities to his neighbors 10+. So I'm definitely not complaining! But let me complain for a bit.  I have put a lot of resources into this attack. People are catching up to my Crop Yield as they get their own granaries online. (After all, Joao doesn't get more food than other players, he just the same amount of food but sooner.) This was my big move to get some sort of advantage. I don't have much of a problem with Amica pitching in and getting some benefit. I would really prefer he didn't get the lion's share of the benefit, though. When I was talking about Hornblower (the first city I captured), I mentioned that I'd have a city 4 tiles away from Pind's cap. I was envisioning a long, grinding war that I'd win with my numbers advantage. This calculation is exactly reversed if Amica starts settling Pind's west. Then, instead of Pind's capital being a delightful war-goal, it becomes a massive thorn in my side while Amica gets a bunch of free land away from the capital culture.

Amica, I remind everyone, is Ind/Org and already has the Great Lighthouse. (I'm giving him trade routes, but closing borders doesn't damage him while he's still getting Cairo's routes. Speaking of, Cairo denied me open borders. Perhaps he's still mad about my scout trespass.  ) All he needs is to catch up in city count and he'll have a monster empire. And I'm potentially giving him half of Pindicator.  We'll see how this all shakes out, huh?

[naufragar]

We advance on Pindicator's capital, burning a hamlet as we go.


There's a non-zero chance Pind can stack wipe us here, depending on what Baggins produced at the end of turn and depending on if there are units currently in transit from Took. A little scary, actually. I suspect Pind foresaw my chariots moving near Brandybuck, so the unit getting chopped out of there is a spear, which means he might kill one of the chariots on the pig. Well, we were bound to lose some units eventually.

Amica kept Pind's westernmost city, so I closed borders with him. Cairo doesn't give him enough foreign routes. (Speaking of, um, why is Cairo giving the Lighthouse guy trade routes while not accepting my open borders when he has a scout trying to get through? This isn't turn 10. If he trespasses, I just kill his scout. Benefiting the Lighthouse guy at no advantage to yourself to snub the guy who trespassed a scout on turn 10? Well, it's his right.)

[naufragar]

Cairo and I agreed to open borders this turn. I also suggested that he stop trading with Amica. More on that later. Meanwhile, peace has broken out across India!


That's Pindicoria, but you get my point. Notice that Pind is up to 5 cities. I don't know where the 5th is, but I know he hasn't recaptured the one Amica took from him. Possibly a new island city. Possibly he refounded his south western one that Amica burned.

Both Pind and Amica seem to be reporting a lot, so you probably already know about the peace. (By the way, Pind I knew was going to be trouble. It's an unpleasant surprise to see how invested Amica is. He played last night and then logged in again after my morning turn to check on me, so he saw I accepted peace with Pind before the turn rolled. He's on the ball. ) Here is why I was eager to take my winnings and leave the Dutch casino:


Yeah... I ain't taking anything more off Pind until catapults. Neither is Amica, unless there are naval shenanigans. I don't know what happens next, but I'd guess either Amica and Pind peace out, or Pind takes back what Amica sniped. No idea. Glad to get out when I did.

I'll speak more about this in the big turn 100 round-up, but Joao does not like symmetrical maps with natural chokepoints.


Once Joao settles the land assigned to him, he just sits on his hands until the other players catch up and pass him by. You can see it already happening here. Hopefully my foothold into Pind's lands is the late-game trait I need. Right now, we limp to Currency and hope we still have time to plop down a few more cities. You can already see Imperialistic Mackoti putting on a burst of speed. (His economy game is, as always, perfect. He expands at just the correct rate). If I were Cairo, I'd be very worried about that flat Crop Yield. He needs to hook up luxuries, get to Currency, something, and it needs to be soon.

I asked Cairo to stop trading with Amica, since he's making him tons of money, and the only thing Amica needs to catch back up in development after landing the Henge and the Lighthouse are the bits of Pindicator I've opened up for him. My fault. Unfortunately, I had a recent GNP spike which might make Cairo think an immediate Amica boycott is unnecessary.


But notice that while my peaks are very high, my troughs are the lowest. This is a Joao thing. I've got crippling expenses but when I turn on tech, I've got tons of tiles worked. We'll see if we can stabilize.