Nothing like the Prodigal Sons: The Odd Couple actually play as themselves.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I crashed a DC-10 into a volcano and killed billions of people. What does a tyrant have to do to get a Chaotic Evil around here?

Remember that WarlordDr guy?

Who, this guy?

[Gaspar]

BIG T100 REPORT

We built a lot of units.

Gavagai also built a lot of units.

Alea iacta est.

[NobleHelium]

Good report, man.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Well that was most unsatisfying.

[spacetyrantxenu]

So what was that all about?

[Gaspar]

So what was that all about?

We threw a stack of the flotsam we had defending Plame Affair at Nitrogen, his city NW of Plame Affair. I logged in briefly to see he wiped out the stack and offered a peace treaty. I didn't stay logged in long enough to see the details. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really change anything, but I'm sure he's feeling good about himself.

[spacetyrantxenu]

And how does that make you feel? You're not reaching for the hemlock, are you?

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

So what was that all about?

Almost assuredly this:

[Gaspar]

And how does that make you feel? You're not reaching for the hemlock, are you?

YES OH MY GOD GAVAGAI KILLED MY STACK OF:

Horse Archer
Chariot
3 Axemen
2 Spearmen
1 Skirmisher

WHAT SHALL I DO?????

I haven't checked what happened specifically yet - I'm very surprised he was able to take the whole stack out - he had 1 cat visible in the area and hadn't had Construction long enough for him to have many more. He had a lot of low base strength units in the area as well - even if he managed to get a Horse Archer or 2 there, I really expected at least another turn or two before he would really be able to make a difference. Hopefully he lost a few units in the exchange, but if he didn't, well that's par for the course for us this game.

Ultimately, as I said earlier - the die has been cast. He was crushing us and no matter how well we played it was only going to get worse as Darius vs Bismarck - if Bismarck isn't ahead early, that's death. We swapped to Police State and sent a stack of ancient trash at a low priority city. Since then, this has happened:



He was whipping about once every 5 turns before that. Pretty sure there's more value in all those unworked cottages than in all the units that he just killed. Am I annoyed we lost all our units there that fast? Of course I'd rather have the units than not have them. But this isn't us being pissed off that he sniped our workers on t50 or whatever it was. This was a simple situation - either we sit around and wait for him to roll us over with Knights or something while we build wonders for him to conquer later OR we try to do something to pull him back to the pack. Maybe it fails. But if we didn't do something, it was going to fail much harder. If you wonder about the wisdom of that, I invite anyone to go read his thread and see how many references he makes to eventually owning our territory. I'd virtually guarantee its double-digit.

Sorry Serdoa - but I have to say this: This game was over on t0 when we got placed on this fucking terrible map. When I sign up for a 12 player FFA and my first opponent meets me on t3 and then even the exploring players don't meet their second opponent until t40+ the map is a failure. You can put 3 sets of 4 players in close contention and have it be fair but you can't put 6 sets of 2 players in close contention and have the game be anything other than a farce. You're swinging whole games on luck and randomness. I mean Seven is a great player and would probably have won anyway, but when you let him win a duel to gain huge advantages that none of the other players can do anything about well, you've failed as a mapmaker. So the map was a structural failure and this game is a waste of everyone's time.

On top of that, how the fuck do you not pay attention to everyone's capital? Its crystal-fucking-clear that lots of attention was paid to our capital, because we got these bullshit lakes and peaks to make sure we couldn't move anywhere so we get our 1 food + 2 flood plains capital while Gavagai manages to settle a 3-food capital ... on t0! He didn't even have to waste a turn moving to it. Like literally, no attention whatsoever was paid to that. So there's our fucking duel with Gavagai - he picks ahead of us in the pick order and gets Darius. There's no good FIN leaders left when we pick, so we pick a guy who should in theory be able to get out to a fast start... which is totally negated because we're put in a duel with a guy with a 3 food capital on a map that is otherwise mirrored-ish - mirrored-ish meaning we don't all have the exact same land, but there are no other distinct advantages in the neighborhood that we could conceivably take advantage of to make up for that cap. So while I'm sure Lewwyn is jerking off into a sock thinking about how this proves FUCK THOSE GUYS AND THAT LIST, NOT ONLY AM I BETTER THAN THEM, GAVAGAI IS TOO, this game proves nothing other than no matter how good a player you are you need to have someone smart look over your map in detail before you put it out to the world.

Did we play brilliantly? Maybe not. But we didn't play badly beyond covering those workers with an axe instead of a spear. But it didn't matter, because the game was over before then. I'd like this game to last about 10 more turns and then have everyone realize what a tremendous waste of their time it is.

[Gaspar]

P.S. Today is a really bad day to goad me for RL reasons.