[PB76] Strange women lurking in ponds and distributing swords

[T-hawk]

Well, that's what you do when #2 and #3 happen to be your neighbors on a ring map. Thoth wasn't going to bypass the easy available attacks to go all the way over to Pindicator first.

[greenline]

Given the surprisingly lax defences both yuris and scooter were running against a known AGG/CHA vikings civ, perhaps just going for a full on conquest of one would have been the better play?

[Krill]

This is the better play. He captured workers and cities at Yuris so he turns that production towards bogging down Yuris whom still holds good production centres, Scooter got kneecapped already so the 10 turn peace let's Thoth slot in HE and get the barb cities captured before returning to the battlefield. The next war will be the war for conquest of either scooter or Yuri depending on the games stae at the time.

[Mjmd]

Given the surprisingly lax defences both yuris and scooter were running against a known AGG/CHA vikings civ, perhaps just going for a full on conquest of one would have been the better play?

This. Choose a direction.

But key point is conquest. You actually need to keep the land, which he didn't do against Scooter and I'm still uncertain how he will vs Yuris with those supply chains.

[greenline]

This is the better play. He captured workers and cities at Yuris so he turns that production towards bogging down Yuris whom still holds good production centres, Scooter got kneecapped already so the 10 turn peace let's Thoth slot in HE and get the barb cities captured before returning to the battlefield. The next war will be the war for conquest of either scooter or Yuri depending on the games stae at the time.

This calculus only seems correct to me if you're already competitive in land / tech when launching raiding attacks. Thoth went for Feudalism as his first tech or so, I believe - so yuris picking up maces means that now thoth cannot proceed any further on that front until he gets maces of his own, at a minimum (and the ratios for trading maces are not so good either). Giving scooter a reprieve now means he can probably get LBs or something else online before thoth can return in force. This plan really gambles a lot on Commdore doing the heavy lifting to take pindicator out of the running just so thoth can dilly dally getting to Guilds or something else to make these half baked conquests economically viable.

[Krill]

To be blunt, every player here is calibrated to understand as if the game were played from an ancient era start.

Thoth went Feud>Machinery>Guilds so will likely have knights before Yuri. Maces will get eaten alive.

[Mjmd]

Just on the subject of the medieval start I think this is the most swords I've seen since PB60. Pin taking on longbows with them isn't surprising, but Thoth using as Viking raiders is nice to see.

[Mousey]

scooter is going to be shouting "I told you so" from the rooftops when he reads Commodore's latest post

Not sure it counts as an "I told you so" moment, doesn't seem like Commodore was ever unaware of the risk and he started making moves against Pindicator barely a few turns later.

[El Grillo]

You're right, it's certainly looking that way now. I still think it's kind of funny that the majority of the barb cities have ended up going not to the player who had plans for them initially, but the one who attacked them second.

[T-hawk]

Heh, I was just thinking the same thing. Nobody accounted for their neighbor being right on the other side and able to snipe the city right after they did.

The one between Thoth and Scooter is still there, I think? And it's pretty far down either's priority list.