[SPOILERS] Dazed and scooter play Stalin of Vikings and make a big mess

[BRickAstley]

Dude, you can make a theme of it. "BRICK Y NO FOOD", "BRICK TOO MUCH ICE", "BRICK TOO CLOSE", "BRICK HATES RIVERS", "BRICK KILLS PUPPIES", the whole nine yards.

[scooter]

Dude, you can make a theme of it. "BRICK Y NO FOOD", "BRICK TOO MUCH ICE", "BRICK TOO CLOSE", "BRICK HATES RIVERS", "BRICK KILLS PUPPIES", the whole nine yards.

Done and done. I'm looking forward to this.

[spacetyrantxenu]

So I think I'm going to go ahead and ensure that's not the case for next time I play an AI diplo game.

Lurker opinions?

[Qgqqqqq]

Ohhh finally a PB8? (Wish I had time to sign up )
I do get your point, but RBMod-lite seems best way to do it...
What do you think about the rest of the changes (Byzantines, drafting, castles/walls etc.)?
Personally its the many small changes that make me play it in SP, and from my vantage point, slavery nerf might've been bad, but it was the TT/luxuries that really ruined it for you.

[dazedroyalty]

Why stay out of the Communism race? Seems like the Kremlin is a game winner with the current set up. sorry if you've covered this... just got back from two weeks of travel and am a bit out of it.

(By the Tigers are up 2-0 on the Yankees!)

[scooter]

I'll try to move those turn reports over from the temp forum this afternoon. On this:

Why stay out of the Communism race? Seems like the Kremlin is a game winner with the current set up. sorry if you've covered this... just got back from two weeks of travel and am a bit out of it.

Mainly because Krill and Regopin were racing for it and had a slight head start by getting SciMethod sooner. Basically, when Krill was willing to trade me SciMethod that confirmed to me that I had no real shot at beating him to Communism for the Spy. He never would've given me the chance if he felt I was a risk to beat him. Krill and Regopin have the ability to build research with a MFG that is 5-10X mine, so I had no chance to beat them to Communism. I'd be burning thousands of gold for a race I couldn't win when I could just get the tech at mass discount prices later.

The other problem is Kremlin itself - there's no way for me to build it fast enough. Even if by some miracle I tied them to Communism and won the Spy coin flip... Krill and Regopin both have cities capable of working maximum workshops, and I don't. Krill built the thing extremely quickly, much faster than I could have managed... So I'm actually glad I didn't waste resources trying, because it was very likely a race I could not have won. Krill teched Communism twice as fast as I could have (his GNP hit 4k one turn when I think he was building research in practically every city), and did the same with Kremlin. Sucks, but nothing that can be done about it really.

(By the Tigers are up 2-0 on the Yankees!)

Yep! And it's Verlander vs Hughes tonight at Comerica, so I'm feeling pretty good about this series.

[scooter]

I'm going to paste in the reports from the temporary forum just so I have them here. There was also some metagame discussion with lurkers, click here for that: http://realmsbeyond.org/forumstemp/showt...php?tid=52


Okay, when we last left off there were just 3 more Nakor island cities to go in my blitz. T230 is the next turn up. The plan was to assault Iron Hills and North Iron on T230, then finish up Point Break on T231, then get peace and re-evaluate. I thought I was good after my 95% loss on East-West a few turns back, but this was up there:



Nakor ventured out with a Galleon, and I promptly lost at 90.8%. I've actaully been wondering if he was ever going to try to boat me from Point Break - he could've easily done it, but he seemed uninterested so I didn't worry about it. This Galleon is empty by the way, so it's not a huge deal. Anyways, I of course was just barely unable to clean up:



I did think to myself that I was glad I got a 91% loss out of the way, as that gets rid of the crappy dice roll the RNG had waiting for me. So let's assault Iron Hills. It has two rifles where I'm getting ~30% odds, and two mildly damaging losses would be more than enough to get good odds. Ummm...



Y'okay, that's two losses, one for no damage, the other just barely scratches the defender. I lost the next attack too before I started winning, and I finished it off a few attacks later:



I kept it. Wait, WHAT. Why did I keep this garbage city? It has no seafood and is totally suffocated by Nakor's culture. I didn't realize the culture was that bad. However, I have a plan for getting this thing to go away. More on that in upcoming turns. North Iron fell easily:



Settler/worker/missionary trio are on their way to replace East-West in a slightly less terrible spot than it was originally placed in. Finally, the setup for the last turn of fighting:



That'll be an easy capture as well, though I may take on a casualty or two. I've got 7 rifles capable of hitting Point Break (may actually be 10, I don't remember if there was another boat full one tile below the screenshot), and I only really need 4. Nice to finally start wrapping up this war and try to pick through what's left of the islands.

[scooter]

Here's T231-232. Krill won the Communism race, which I'm pretty sure Regopin was angling for too.



Not too surprising, it's why I didn't bother trying. Should be able to get this tech from one of them really cheaply. Regopin would be smart to just flat gift it to me or sell it really cheaply so I don't trade with Krill again. I took Point Break as planned:



Offered a cease fire to Nakor:



Nakor actually offered me a peace treaty with Point Break, but I rejected. I wanted the cease fire instead so I could enact my evil plan to rid myself of Iron Hills. So he accepted the cease fire, so on T232 I attempted to liberate Iron Hills:



Awfully sweet and thoughtful of me right? That's because this city SUCKS.



Yep, keeping this was . Yes I need my weed smiley, and I need it NOW .

[scooter]

Alright, so Nakor then accepted the city gift. Perfect! People were probably awfully confused on Civstats to see:

10/11/12 9:56 pm Nakor Finished turn
10/11/12 9:52 pm scooter Score decreased to 1695
10/11/12 9:52 pm Nakor Score increased to 1327
10/11/12 9:50 pm Nakor Logged in

Especially since we were at peace. Anyways, I logged in, promptly declared war on Nakor, and did what I meant to do the first time:







Burned. NOW I'll take proper peace.



I want the locked peace because I'm really hoping he'll sign OB again. The trade with his cities is still pretty lucrative. Anyways, for those clamoring for me to attack Krill or something, here's one of the many examples of why it just won't happen:



Basically, he's actually defending his islands. I don't know how else to say it. His underneath cities here don't have anything in them really, but he's shadowing my Galleons so he'll know if I try to feint at his cities. What I don't need is to launch him into a naval arms race. He'll crush me at that - he has something like 8X my production right now. Maybe a little more than that... and half my production is being funneled towards getting just the basic buildings into my new island cities, so yeah, I can't do much, sorry. It's not like my Rifles are cutting edge anymore - it's just that Nakor didn't have many of them and didn't seem to be trying too hard to get more. So it's just not a battle I'd have a prayer at. Anyways, the turn event log is just funny to me:



That's a new one, hah.

Anyways, the possibly controversial thing is this. Am I being ridiculous for thinking about things like this?



I set up more signs north of here for his northern cities. Anyways, I'm trying to gauge something here. Attacking Krill is not an option IMO. The peaceful options is to continue planting the spots I've unlocked with my war and keep spamming workers/settlers and workshop all the islands to death and see where that takes me. One other option I have though is the Regopin front. The main thing is now that both the Brick and Nakor fronts are done, I've got a bunch of veteran amphibious rifles with CR + pinch promotions and nothing to do. Keep in mind I was doing the Brick + Nakor wars simultaneously, so I was using half my army on each. Well now they're merged, more or less. I suspect these islands are defended similarly to Nakor's, so it would be easy to breeze through this stuff. I would expect Regopin to defend MUCH better, but this is a war that's winnable for me. Also, there's a high chance Krill would pile on Regopin and kick him off his starting east continent, which would be disastrous for Regopin. I also might be able to find a way to buy Commodore into the conflict, although that would be easier said than done.

The aim here would be to play for 2nd place. I'm in a comfortable 3rd, and I can't really do anything to unseat Krill. I don't have much interest in invading Nakor's main land, because then Krill WOULD have motivation to come after me. Nakor is a nice target for him right now anyways.

So here's my question. Is this valid? Is playing for 2nd place valid, especially when it greatly enhances the chances of victory for the guy in 1st place? Make no mistake, I think Krill has this thing sealed. However, this would clinch it for him unless Krill did something bizarre like attack me. Would Regopin have the right to feel cheated a little bit if I ruined their chance of victory by playing for 2nd?

Another thing to account for. I believe if I had been tallying grievances AI-style, my disposition toward Regopin would be a little worse than Krill's. Regopin have antagonized me quite a few times. Krill has done the same in fairness, but Regopin's actions were more annoying and less understandable. Also, there's some logic to wanting all islands in the Pacific, and believing that I have a claim on them. So I don't think this would be totally ridiculous... But I figured I'd throw this out to lurkers, because this is a weird hypothetical I'm bumping into. I may just use the peace to be totally peaceful and stash these rifles somewhere safe to eventually be *poof*'d into infantry, but it's tempting to use them while these islands are still probably lightly defended.

[scooter]

Alright, that makes me caught up. General lurker consensus is there's nothing wrong or gamey with an invasion of Regopin. Whether or not it's actually a worthwhile idea is something I've been mulling over. Leaning towards not doing it.