[SPOILERS] PB9 Lurker Thread

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Gaspar did fine, he just didn't have enough Stuff because his meatshield decided to start the fireworks early. And the hilarious fact that Beasts of Agares make your cities revolt and lose cultural borders on the interturn.

[NobleHelium]

No, more like he played the turn while asleep and didn't pull back like he meant to.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Oh, that. I was like "dude, he can reach that tile from there" and he was like "buh? whatever".

[NobleHelium]

The fuck is Commodore doing?

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

The fuck is Commodore doing?

Ehhh?? Spending a lot of hammers on economy without receiving modifiers beyond the forge?? I got nothin else...

[MindyMcCready]

Wow, miss a week, miss a lot. What a spectular collapse by AT! From the sounds of it he's lost SWAT, MASH, his capital burnt to the ground and 3 cities to Bigger out of his 18 cities.

Looks like Jowy's got a good chance of outlasting AT at this point.

We did all the hard work to break Azza, and then Bigger stole Azzaland from us. Now we take a couple cities from AT. AT draws every single unit out of his western/northern cities to defend against us and Bigger AGAIN sweeps in with his 2-move musketeers to clean up the easy pickings

I find it pretty ironic to watch both AT and CF both take actions that predictably benefit Bigger/TT and then get surprised with the outcome. Taking the city immediately next to the capital has this effect. Taking the very best city in the empire and destroying AT's chance of winning has this effect. Razing a capital really, really has this effect.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Yeah, after looking around in game, I think AT is pretty thoroughly toast. The best result I could come up with for him was staving off elimination by getting peace with Cornflakes at whatever that cost is (anyone know what Cornflakes was demanding for peace? It can't have been much -- I haven't read any threads in a few weeks so I don't know), and then trying to hold the line against Bigger in the area around where his capital used to be. He's so out of position with his forces that there's nothing he can do to hold the west now, I think. If he does hold the center area around his razed capital he can at least save the eastern nub of land and his south. If he hadn't sent all his troops east he may have been able to save his globe city (which is currently undefended, but it can draft this turn and for a few more turns until it is captured too).

The shame of it is that this is probably going to hand Bigger the game. I think up until now the players were all close enough together that no one was going to run out to a big enough advantage for anyone to despair about it, but if Bigger gets to consolidate the entire west of AT's land in addition to what he has already grabbed, that might be enough to cinch it. Then again, this game has been crazy from the beginning so just as soon as I think there is any certainty here, something will happen out of the blue and shake things up again.

[MindyMcCready]

Yeah, after looking around in game, I think AT is pretty thoroughly toast.

Yeah, that's looking pretty certain even without this additional info. Ok, just took a quick re-read that is about as hopeless as anything I've ever seen. Bigger is just going to take him apart.

I'm not sure that the objective of survival is relevant here anymore. Suicide squad vengence attack is probably all that he's got left. Personally, I'd vengefully throw my stack into Cornflakes as the initiator of my demise and not feel bad about it at all. Let Bigger gobble up the cities; at least he didn't raze 'my' capital and steal my shrine and Colossus.

The shame of it is that this is probably going to hand Bigger the game. .

Well it might be a shame for Commodore and 2metra (and Jowy?) I suppose. Cornflakes has massively upset the balance of power with this move predictably to the benefit of TT. Only a coordinated dogpile could possibly upset TT/Bigger's chance of victory and that seems really remote in my mind given how 2metra seems to want to rumble with CF and Commodore would probably be better off taking a serious stab at Jowy than Bigger/TT. TT's already got a decent economy and will be able to just tech in peace while keeping Jowy as a tech-fueling vassal.

[Old Harry]

Aren't you tempted to take over mindy? You may be spoiled, but I don't think that can save ATs position... also the war turns are the most fun, even when you're losing...

Surely a doomed heroic death appeals to you?

[MindyMcCready]

Aren't you tempted to take over mindy? You may be spoiled, but I don't think that can save ATs position... also the war turns are the most fun, even when you're losing...

Surely a doomed heroic death appeals to you?

Glad I was on vacation to not have to consider this.

If Master Krill couldn't hold back the hordes, I certainly would have died a doomed death, heroic or otherwise. However, with much trepidation I'm going to say that I would have played it much differently than Master Krill and I believe that it would have given me better survival chances and achieved more of my personal objectives. Bold words to be sure given Master Krill's track record but here it is regardless.

My personal objectives would be to hurt Cornflakes or to allow him to profit as little as possible from his aggression. Whereas, Master Krill offered Cornflakes a 3 cities peace deal (FBI, CSI, OC) I would have been very uninclined to do the same. Instead I would have retreated and tried to hold those cities at the expense of all else. I could have probably held Chips as well which would mean that BJ & the Bear would be relatively safe for awhile. So I would have had a 5 city 'empire' to whip, draft and build units until the end of time. With the culture from OC + cannons I could have held up many of Cornflakes troops in Walleey/MASH or possibly even made an attack on that city if the opportunity presented itself.

Essentially, that would have given Bigger the entire area West of Lake Blue unless Cornflakes makes some bold moves. Bigger and CF would have 3 disputed fronts to manage at that point; North of Lake Blue, West of Lake Blue and the Azza strip. Those 5 cities would have a border with only Cornflakes and, to a lesser degree, Jowy and Bigger. I would anticipate that the attacks on me would stop as CF and Bigger started slugging it out over the 2 areas around Lake Blue.

Other Pros/Cons
-CSI is on a hill.
-Area has iron.
-Tile 1N or iron would have provided 3-way protection to my last stand area.
-At some point most of AT's troops and cannons were already in that area.
Cons:
-All cities are boatable. Frigates/destroyers would mean my doom.
-Abandon the Heroic Epic city. I think this is the reason that Krill tried to hold this area. Having said that CHIPS has marble so it could possibly have been reconstructed.

Because of this peace deal, CF looks to have gained more from the war than Bigger has. Probably more than anything else avoiding that is what would drive my actions. Opportunism I can forgive; getting greedy over MASH and razing the capital are pretty unforgivable in my opinion (within the scope of this game that is).

Curious what the veterans, especially Master Krill, think of this (potential) play. Not that it would really matter. At best, this play would just drag out an inevitable doom and maybe allow me to play kingmaker.