[SPOILERS] Small Wunders and Izzy of Inca: The fat lady sings

[MindyMcCready]

First, Wetbandit is a team member or dedlurker with Ichabod. Fintourist / Old Harry are the team we have open borders with, on the island with Ichabod. Dtay is the guy on the northern island with Cheetah who just lost a city. So I'm not sure who you mean above.

Fintourist / Old Harry of course. Sorry for the confusion.

Some of this might be different if we didn't have a guy who we just backstabbed, short on expansion room except through us, building military as fast as possible on the other side. I don't think we can afford to be without copper for any significant amount of time, or to have 4 workers on permanent stand-by duty in case we do.

These are definately considerations and not small ones.

A less extreme option might be to try and trade an excess metal off of Scooter (they have copper + iron). We will have some surplus happy soon with HR, 2 wines, and an additional fur in a few turns. (Of course Scooter may actually be the leader in the entire game!)

I'm kindof on the all-or-nothing mindset. Either take the balance of power approach and actively undermine Ichabod or play it the full cooperation model. A horse/copper trade can just as easily be a causus belli and one that's not sufficiently effective in this case to drastically effect the outcome of the war. And as you said, let someone else who's a little higher up on the board worry about Ichabod.

So I'm ok with your full-cooperation foreign policy toward Ichabod. Not necessarily for the same reasons. Certainly for the Bacchus factor. But at the same time, I don't believe that these friendly actions will be reciprocated. I also think that that full-cooperation diplomacy needs to be tied to miltiary objectives on the other border. Otherwise, the aggressive partner stands to gain more from the one secure border.

I want to play the trustworthy iterated prisoner's dilemma metagame, actually, though it's less optimal for this game standing alone. But I want people to assume that I won't ever be the aggressor first during a cow for cow deal, etc, or something that clearly symbolizes peace. I had no problem stabbing Bacchus, because he made the first two aggressive acts.

IIRC the Nash equilibrium (iterated or otherwise) is to violate on the first turn. I'd play that way, but I don't think that's what you're getting at. :LOL:

Anyway, I'm good with full-cooperation with Ichabod. If I can't kill you I want to be your best friend.

Besides, I'm not convinced that we can't compete in the long game with Ichabod anyway. If he wipes out Cheetah, it's going to set back his econ a lot... for a while. He's going to lose units, and he's going to pay supply costs. Our tech is a lot better than I expected! I was worried before that we'd have a tough time getting longbows before he got crossbows and maces, but this now seems easy. We have future expansion the other way, both peaceful and not so peaceful. Our 2 city border with him is really not that bad, without serious culture overlap. (There's only really 1 contended tile, which I'm happy to let him have.)

Yes, the game is really looking up - we're solidly middling. But really, the most important thing is that we're making relative progress against Ichabod and Bacchus and that's encouraging.

We might want to start planning a military campaign involving settling in Bacchus' face once we get or anticipate longbows.

The worst outcome is that Bacchus takes Suit up. I'm not a fan of forced peace with Retep for that reason.

I actually think taking what's left of Bacchus' after taking Suit Up would be much, much easier than taking it from Retep while having enough left to defend against Bacchus doing the same to us. This is if Bacchus can actually take out the 20+ unit stack in a protective city on a hill. Good luck to him!

I see this as taking a very big gamble and I don't understand why you see it playing out this way. Retep has consistently left all of his army in the field with almost nothing at home. So it's probably inaccurate to talk about 20+ units protecting Suit up, but more likely a handful of units protecting Suit up. Second, Bacchus' power is dwarfing Retep's now. His gap is bigger than any gap that we had with Retep, so it's looking very likely that Bacchus' is going to be in the position to 2:1 whatever army Retep has in his lands anytime now. Add to that Retep's ups and downs in the power graph,...those units are out of position, making the 2:1 battle much easier. If Retep's still splitting his stack it's going to get shredded by spears. Once that happens, his slow movers with his 3 spears are not going to stand up to those HA for long.

If Bacchus takes the shot, he'll almost certainly birth a great general, take Medic III and then he's 3T wasy from Suit up with those C1 out-the-gate HAs. Certainly, if we're not willing to take a shot at 20-Retep units, we're not going to take a shot at 20-Bacchus units inside of Suit up. Bacchus' ability to attack out is much greater than Retep's and, with shock HA, he could shred our cats if we're not careful.

I get that if we DOW, bacchus could make peace and have Retep's units teleport back so it's not a simple decision to attack; but that's why we need flexibility. If we see a power drop, we don't want to be unable to enter Retep's lands pre-emptively. That MedicIII GG could have those units from red-lined to fully healed in 3T or from around 30HP to full in 2T.

[WilliamLP]

IIRC the Nash equilibrium (iterated or otherwise) is to violate on the first turn. I'd play that way, but I don't think that's what you're getting at. :LOL:

Anyway, I'm good with full-cooperation with Ichabod. If I can't kill you I want to be your best friend.

I think we were close to said equilibrium with Retep for most of this game already. And through a combination of better land, defender's advantage, mistakes, and yes die rolls we were able to get extra settlers out when he wasn't.

We might want to start planning a military campaign involving settling in Bacchus' face once we get or anticipate longbows.

We've already got the best stuff in his face, I think! (If we can hold Hoffmann, that is... I'm expecting a rather large stack to show up - 20+ units is possible - and we'll see how it turns out.)

Yeah, a fortified (+25) CG1 (+20) longbow on a city (+25) on a hill (+50) is a really serious problem to take on efficiently, even for knights. (That's an inherent +120% bonus already, before city culture.)

Where would you put cities in the northwest?




Note Tosca is not shown but it is 3N of Turandot.

The optimal defense city, especially with longbows, is probably the PH 3 west of Traviata. It may not be the best city there in absolute terms but it would still be quite useful immediately with wet wheat and then deer and silver, and it leaves room for an eventual fishing city on the west coast. And it can be defended by units that can also get to Barbiere really easily.

1W of the marble works too - but it's more spread out.

I'd consider settling on the copper too - there's a seafood resource 2N1W of it, and it would allow working the lake with a lighthouse for food.

I see this as taking a very big gamble and I don't understand why you see it playing out this way. Retep has consistently left all of his army in the field with almost nothing at home.

First, how does peace with Retep make it easier for Bacchus to take Suit Up? It seems if he's at war with us Retep has to devote more units to the north and maybe also possible attempted attacks, and they're more likely to be out of position vis. Bacchus, no?

Also, Retep's empire is so small, how could he be out of position enough to not be able to get all his units into Suit Up against any attack? At least an attack involving 1-movers.

[WilliamLP]

I logged in just to unpause for Pindicator:

- Ichabod offered gems for our silver. I figured, hey, we have another silver coming online eventually, and no gems, why not.
- But I screwed up, and forgot we were already getting gems from Pindicooter for gold.
- I cancelled the trade with Pindicooter. But the extra gold gives us nothing.
- They counter-offered gems + wheat for gold, so I took it.
- But... we don't really need wheat either. We don't have it, but we have one that can be hooked up easily.

Ugh, I should have thought more carefully. The fallout is Barbiere is unhappy now (lost silver). But we have HR coming, plus wines, plus an extra furs coming very soon, which will solve that problem. But still I'm angry at myself for not thinking it through more carefully.

We have peace with Retep for another 10 turns. I think this is fantastic and lets us move more units to defend Bacchus. We'll see what happens.

[WilliamLP]

Retep has enforced peace with Bacchus. Our peace with Bacchus expires in 2 more turns, so we have one sure move after this one before he can declare.

I screwed up and accepted a deal from Ichabod that took away a source of happiness for nothing because of a redundant deal from Scooter. I have no excuses. This takes 1 tile away from Barbiere and Manon each for this turn.




Total defense available next turn in Hoffmann is 1 archer, 8 axe, 6 spear, 6 cats.

Ichabod got HBR this turn, so has elephants available.

The east is a little lightly defended, but right now I weigh more highly the possibility that Bacchus attacks with literally everything than that we see an attack right now from Ichabod. (Attacking right as he researched elephants, but before he could build any?) Both eastern cities finally get a border pop next turn, and we'll get more spears over there.

On the other hand, Bacchus could be in a mindset where he has nothing to lose and switches goals to revenge. We'll see, but with what we have right now behind walls we're fine against anything.

Monarchy comes in next turn. Feudalism is an 1120 beaker tech at these settings, and I think it will currently take 14 turns at break-even, but should be faster in practice if we need it next.

[MindyMcCready]

Where would you put cities in the northwest?

The optimal defense city, especially with longbows, is probably the PH 3 west of Traviata. It may not be the best city there in absolute terms but it would still be quite useful immediately with wet wheat and then deer and silver, and it leaves room for an eventual fishing city on the west coast. And it can be defended by units that can also get to Barbiere really easily.

1. PH 3W of Traviata
2. 1N6W of Traviata. Just noticed that there are 2 fish there.
3. 1N of marble. It's not a terrible city actually. Clams with Lighthouse to +5Food, 2 innter lakes to +7 food then work copper + marble and then whip it to the end of time. Also perfect for hiding or keeping our navy safe.
4. 4N Traviata - up to speed by shared cows-sheep then just work coast + few meager tiles and whip until the ne

1W of the marble works too - but it's more spread out.

I'd consider settling on the copper too - there's a seafood resource 2N1W of it, and it would allow working the lake with a lighthouse for food.

1W of the marble is invalidated by my 2 fish city currently (but that could be moved). I prefer the strategic naval advantage of 1N of marble.

Settling on the copper probably extracts the most out of the land for the minimal cost,.....well I was going to say that we lose the island springboard,....but a fort 1N of the marble gives us the same advantage doesn't it. On otherwise useless land too.

I think that I want to change my answer!

Planting on the copper gives us +5F with clams + 7F with the 2 lake tiles + gets up to speed quicker with the copper and the cows and doesn't abandon the silver, gets the marble. Pretty good deal actually.

First, how does peace with Retep make it easier for Bacchus to take Suit Up? It seems if he's at war with us Retep has to devote more units to the north and maybe also possible attempted attacks, and they're more likely to be out of position vis. Bacchus, no?

Also, Retep's empire is so small, how could he be out of position enough to not be able to get all his units into Suit Up against any attack? At least an attack involving 1-movers.

Since Retep wants to die he doesn't need to devote any units to protecting his cities.

His units won't so much be out of position, but completely annihilated. If he pulls the same tactics on Bacchus as he did on us, leave 5 or so units at home to protect 3 cities with 20 units in the field,.....if Bacchus hits that stack then there's going to be nothing left. Bacchus certainly has enough total power + secure enough southern border to make all of Retep's units disappear.

The most likely scenario in my mind is that Retep takes a massive power dive - probably from being deep inside of Bacchus' territory. Next, Bacchus heals up and rushes for Suit up brining the majority of his army there probably with a great general healer. We can't respond to that. Even if our units were sitting in Barbiere we'd take 3T before we could hit Suit Up and by then Bacchus' units would be fully healed.

Less likely but also possible is that Retep's units could be out of position. Other than wanting to die Retep also wants to raze a city. Retep's best chance of doing that is to fork the cities which means getting deep inside of Bacchus' territory. Bacchus' lowest cost way of killing off Retep could be striking at Suit up with a bunch of HA and then watching Retep's units strike into non-existenance.

So to answer your question, peace with Retep doesn't make it easier for Bacchus to take Suit up. He's strong enough, and Retep's suicidal enough to make that happen already. Peace with Retep makes it more difficult for us to respond to Bacchus taking Suit Up.

And I can't overemphasize how strategically important I view Suit up. If we take Suit up then we can expand out to a 25 city empire while having 2 borders where we can concentrate the majority of our army and make it extremely difficult for anyone to dislodge us. Icing on the cake would include Retep's copper city + a couple of hill cities inbetween us and Bacchus. Toss in those islands and we'd very much be in contention for the game.

If we lose Suit up, we're going to fight tooth and nail with Bacchus for the rest of the game. He's going to push W of Suit Up and we're going to have to respond. 4 cities which would naturally be ours to develop in peace and relative safety will now be fiercely contested. Our NE city plants could also be more easily threatened. Ichabod will have a dozen opportunities to kill us easily while we're wrapped up with Bacchus. We'll also likely be hard pressed to have the resources to dominate those islands due to our military pressure. Not having those 4 ocean cities West of Suit up means we'd lose the islands to a determined attack.

Last, small point. If we take Suit Up, Bacchus is going to get nothing out of Retep. He shouldn't keep the copper city since we can take all the food with an awesome Sushi city. So he'd raze and plant on the copper if he thinks about it.

Like I said before, I'd definately trade our new city for Suit up if I had to. If we can get both, great!

[MindyMcCready]

Damn it! Wasted my post!

Sure looks like you made the right call! I'm very curious why Bacchus made peace. Probably to kill our city like you've been saying, but maybe he's also worried about us taking Suit up instead of him.

Well looks like we have 2T of peace left before we're back to Always War.

So who played first? My question is really, who would have offered/accepted peace first? I guess that both Bacchus and us offerered peace to Retep and he accepted both on the same turn? Can we determine who would have done the peace offering?

[WilliamLP]

1. PH 3W of Traviata
2. 1N6W of Traviata. Just noticed that there are 2 fish there.
3. 1N of marble. It's not a terrible city actually. Clams with Lighthouse to +5Food, 2 innter lakes to +7 food then work copper + marble and then whip it to the end of time. Also perfect for hiding or keeping our navy safe.
4. 4N Traviata - up to speed by shared cows-sheep then just work coast + few meager tiles and whip until the ne

Yeah, that's not bad, but in practice if we settled 1 + 2 + 3, I can't see 4 ever being worth settling until maybe the late game when filler land is all that's left in the world. So it's a question of #3 vs settling on copper, and I think we both came to the conclusion that the copper city is a little better. Though, the copper tile is a bit of a shame to waste, it would be 1/4/0 and it doesn't give the 2 hammer city tile to a settlement there.

I'm thinking about if we can build a settler right now and afford to take #1. It may be possible to defend with a road network that connects it directly to Barbiere.

So who played first? My question is really, who would have offered/accepted peace first? I guess that both Bacchus and us offerered peace to Retep and he accepted both on the same turn? Can we determine who would have done the peace offering?

It's a good question, I don't know. I also don't know why Retep would accept peace with both of us. He wants to go into builder mode, and start actually playing Civ on turn 122? Presumably he sees progress on either front to be hopeless.

What we've seen is still consistent with Bacchus wanting to be free to throw the kitchen sink our way.

Oh, forgot to post:




Retep had another little dip so they may have skirmished a little more.

I think our differences of opinion can still often be simply explained because I think Suit Up will be a couple of orders of magnitude harder and more costly to take than you do! Retep has mailed in his strategic game but there's no evidence he will make a blatantly suicidal tactical mistake. There's no sneak attack possible, and I can't even see where Retep's units could ever be where they couldn't all make it back in the 4 turns of warning he'd have.

I'm quite interested, actually, in what a force would look like that could realistically take it. E.g. how many turns (if any) spent bombarding, how many suicide cats needed, how many hitters, how many spears needed to stop flank attacks. My feeling is that our anti-Bacchus stack of 8 axe, 6 spear, 6 cats isn't anywhere close. It could sit in his land but and even bombard down to 0 over a couple of turns, but after that it would just be a stalemate. Would twice that force do it (i.e. a 40-unit ancient stack with 12 cats)? It seems like it but I'm not even sure and we'd have to lose most of the cats to suicide.

I also wonder, if we researched HBR, if Ichabod would let us keep his second ivory.

[MindyMcCready]

There's an idea!

We Give: Horse + Copper
Ichabod Gives: Horse + Copper + Ivory

As for the required force to take out Retep it's somewhat pointless to guess at. Certainly if there's 20 units, then I think that we both agree that that's not worth it. If instead, its the 5 units while his stack is deep inside OUR territory, then I hope that we both agree that it's worth it. :LOL: If it's 20 units deep inside Bacchus' territory, then its not worth it since they can teleport back.

Layer onto that the Bacchus' direct involvement. Too many variables.

I think that we probably see the combat mechanics of taking Suit up in a similar manner; just a difference in the perception of the likelihood that Retep's going to have his 20 units annihilated. Certainly Bacchus had the capability to destroy whatever was in his territory. I'd guess that he avoided doing so because he also wants to prevent us from getting Suit Up.

We're pretty much playing out the end of WWII where the battles shifted towards who-gets-what rather than defeat Germany. Can't put up a Berlin Wall in Suit Up.

Certainly I'm happy to help with some figuring when we think that really gearing up for war is in our interest. But right now we're in an expand, hold and develop mode.

[MindyMcCready]

What we've seen is still consistent with Bacchus wanting to be free to throw the kitchen sink our way.

Yep,....which makes your enforced peace with Retep to be a very good move.

[WilliamLP]

There's an idea!

We Give: Horse + Copper
Ichabod Gives: Horse + Copper + Ivory

We're already getting ivory (for fur), is the thing.

As for the required force to take out Retep it's somewhat pointless to guess at. Certainly if there's 20 units, then I think that we both agree that that's not worth it. If instead, its the 5 units while his stack is deep inside OUR territory, then I hope that we both agree that it's worth it. :LOL: If it's 20 units deep inside Bacchus' territory, then its not worth it since they can teleport back.

Is it pointless to guess at?

If we think that major strategic decisions hinge on Bacchus being able to take Suit Up, and preventing it if so, I'd like to know how close he is to being able to do it, and how close we are, to make it a rational decision.

I think Bacchus is nowhere even close to realistically taking the city, which is why we seem to differ on some of the strategic issues so much. (And we aren't close either.)

Certainly if there's 20 units

I think it's certainly more than 20 units, for either us or Bacchus. It's everything he has now, plus what else he could whip before the attacking force could get there and actually attack. I think the chances of catching Retep out of position (for either of us) are so close to zero as to be ignored. He does have roads, and he can't get that deeply out of his territory and still be safe.

Certainly Bacchus had the capability to destroy whatever was in his territory. I'd guess that he avoided doing so because he also wants to prevent us from getting Suit Up.

I think Retep isn't playing as suicidally as you suspect him to be. He's not going to let a full-on attack occur on his 1-mover stack that would annihilate it, which further limits how far from his borders those units could be. At least, he was playing that way against us. He was extremely careful that, the only time we had a possibility to engage his slow stack directly, we would have taken close to even losses in doing so. The only units he can afford to play around with are the the two-movers, and the evidence is that this is all he is doing.