[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[NobleHelium]

Name it the Staten Island Ferry.

[antisocialmunky]

Well, if you can't do anything against Mackoti, there's always Commurder.

[pindicator]

Yay, mackoti finally played. We've only got 4 hours left...

[pindicator]

This just pisses me off



I mean, why bother playing when we're just going to give mackoti the win?
We could try to race to those cities and raze as many as possible

Edit: And I'm sure they weren't literally gifted. They were probably "sold" for some pittance, like dhalphir tried to sell us his city. This stuff used to be obviously against house rules - i suppose it needs to be explained why this is such a bad idea to allow since there are a lot of newer people at RB.

[NobleHelium]

You should ask Brick to investigate. Or whoever it is.

[scooter]

First off, I'm steering clear of the tech thread. I don't think that's an argument we're going to win, even if I think it's kinda lame for a variety of reasons.

Anyway, pindicator, I'm thinking about our strategic choices right now. I'm not super crazy about risking boats trying to raze trivial mackoti cities. I'll try to explain why. Numbered list thing is just because it helps me to lay out the process in a logical order.

1) Like we chatted about, status quo kinda favors us here a little bit. We're producing more gold than him at max tax as far as we can tell, and we have more economic upside than him, and he's aware of this.

2) The only advantage he's got is a temporary naval tech advantage (and a MFG advantage on the coast).

3) Because of #1 and #2, the worst thing for mackoti would be if we turn our current strength (6 move Galleons, amphib units) into more cities for us - whether from Black Sword, Commodore, Bigger, anyone. So it's in his best interest to goad us into skirmishing with him over these 1-3 tiles islands that mean very little to him, because it prevents us from capturing more cities. If we were to add more cities in the north, it would put pressure on him to either actually invade us (which he's shown no signs of being capable of - so far it's just generic naval pressure), or actually invade Old Harry, which promises to be bloody and more difficult than any of our neighbors seem likely to be.

Anyway, so the thing is while we seemingly have a slight positional advantage, we're still reacting to mackoti, which is what he wants us to do. I think we need to be forcing him to react to us, which starts by nicking these Black Sword cities. Now I don't think we can do an elaborate setup and grab them all at once like I had theorized about doing, but his best cities are the north side of the island, and those are extremely safe from Mackoti - way too far away for him to challenge them at the moment. If he seriously tries to stretch up that far to stop us, he's going to start having serious problems with our naval mobility. I think we could take those cities in the next 3-4T no problem, and start moving down the coast. Also, two of those cities are heavily workshopped, and adding them would be a large boost to our naval production capabilities on this ocean, which happens to be our one real weakness.

I don't think doing this really jeopardizes our situation with mackoti at all. We just need about 3 Galleons, 9 Zerks, then come back for a few Knights - all of which is up there already (if you count the Galleon about to complete in Bulldogs). That will let us consolidate our power in this ocean, which I think will pressure mackoti into trying to make gains elsewhere.

I can say more on this later (this is kinda rushed, I gotta run now), but I'd really like to hear your thoughts. The short is I don't think we care about mack having those junk island cities - not nearly as much as we care about making some easy gains elsewhere and forcing him to react to us for a change.

[pindicator]

Yeah, I deleted about three or four responses to plako before realizing I needed to just step away. If people really want to open up that pandora's box then i guess it's just up to us to exploit it

As for the cities, we're not skirmishing over minor cities. Those are forward bases, strategic outposts. He gains free sight over the water by having them. If we can cheaply (as in for free) eliminate them then why wouldn't we?

I'm not saying we jump in no matter what. Let's see how he plays and what's available to us. But if 1 zerker and 1 galleon can raze an empty city, why wouldn't you take that?

[scooter]

iPhone post.

It's the loss of a Galleon that actually does concern me. Also, there's a non-zero chance we lose a Galleon and don't even get a raze in exchange.

Also, it's not really 1 zerk + 1 galleon. It's also + opportunity cost of not holding on defense so that we can use a few Galleons to add cities cheaply. Also, is the strategic value of burning cities Mack likely views as disposable (same way we view Utes and Jazz as ultimately disposable) greater than the strategic value of adding naval production cities? Also, the capture gold from TBS cities will be higher, fueling upgrades and/or tech.

[pindicator]

Also, it's not really 1 zerk + 1 galleon. It's also + opportunity cost of not holding on defense so that we can use a few Galleons to add cities cheaply. Also, is the strategic value of burning cities Mack likely views as disposable (same way we view Utes and Jazz as ultimately disposable) greater than the strategic value of adding naval production cities? Also, the capture gold from TBS cities will be higher, fueling upgrades and/or tech.

I honestly don't understand what you're arguing for here

[pindicator]

Anyway, let's wait for mackoti to play his half of the turn and then we can discuss when we see what we're dealing with. Which we are probably going to want to ask for a pause, because I really want to be a part of the playing of this turn, and if mackoti plays at his usual time then we will be in work / getting ready for work when he plays.