[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[SevenSpirits]

Did Azza's city just get a border pop? Tiles can switch hands midturn if borders pop, under normal rules.

Unless by "midturn" you only mean "with a great artist or event that gives culture", I don't think that's true.

[scooter]

that's a pretty sucky way to lose a turn on a valuable tech, scooter - bro hug

Thanks!

If I'm right about this, then you could have seen last turn that the tile had majority foreign culture on it. (For future reference of course, not criticizing you for not knowing that. )

Yeah, well another factor is that city I showed in the screenshot was originally an Azza city Bigger captured and then handed me for peace, which meant every single tile in it was 99% Azza culture. So I'm not super positive how the game decides when to flip tiles in an odd case like this. (Like, why not flip to him last turn?) On that note, I should probably sell the city over to Azza since it's pretty worthless to me now. Would have done it already, but wanted to squeeze out a couple turns of working Rep scientists there.

[SevenSpirits]

Yeah, well another factor is that city I showed in the screenshot was originally an Azza city Bigger captured and then handed me for peace, which meant every single tile in it was 99% Azza culture. So I'm not super positive how the game decides when to flip tiles in an odd case like this. (Like, why not flip to him last turn?) On that note, I should probably sell the city over to Azza since it's pretty worthless to me now. Would have done it already, but wanted to squeeze out a couple turns of working Rep scientists there.

Hm, in the original screenshot it's not in range of being controlled by any azza cities. So I guess he did get a border pop. My best guess is he got the border pop after the end of t196, so he gained control of the tiles end of t197. But we don't have a t197 screenshot to confirm that his city is at 60%. I could be wrong about the mechanics.

[scooter]

Yeah, well another factor is that city I showed in the screenshot was originally an Azza city Bigger captured and then handed me for peace, which meant every single tile in it was 99% Azza culture. So I'm not super positive how the game decides when to flip tiles in an odd case like this. (Like, why not flip to him last turn?) On that note, I should probably sell the city over to Azza since it's pretty worthless to me now. Would have done it already, but wanted to squeeze out a couple turns of working Rep scientists there.

Hm, in the original screenshot it's not in range of being controlled by any azza cities. So I guess he did get a border pop. My best guess is he got the border pop after the end of t196, so he gained control of the tiles end of t197. But we don't have a t197 screenshot to confirm that his city is at 60%. I could be wrong about the mechanics.

I actually was the one who got a border pop with that city, which gained me -2 tiles, and so I'm wondering if that was enough for the game to reconsider those tiles and realize Azza owned them 99% anyway since it's a former Azza city.

[SevenSpirits]

I actually was the one who got a border pop with that city, which gained me -2 tiles, and so I'm wondering if that was enough for the game to reconsider those tiles and realize Azza owned them 99% anyway since it's a former Azza city.

Your border pop wouldn't have changed whether there are any Azza cities in range of it. If there was an Azza city already in range when you got the city, I don't think you ever would have controlled those tiles. I think an Azza city must have had a border pop.

[scooter]

I actually was the one who got a border pop with that city, which gained me -2 tiles, and so I'm wondering if that was enough for the game to reconsider those tiles and realize Azza owned them 99% anyway since it's a former Azza city.

Your border pop wouldn't have changed whether there are any Azza cities in range of it. If there was an Azza city already in range when you got the city, I don't think you ever would have controlled those tiles. I think an Azza city must have had a border pop.

Gotcha. To me, cultural mechanics are indistinguishable from witchcraft.

[pindicator]

Ah, that's why you kept telling me that if we could only get some bat wings and eye of newt then we wouldn't need music

[NobleHelium]

Looks like you're correct Seven, for the purposes of Pitboss anyway, regarding being able to see before the turn ended that the tiles would flip to Azza that turn.

[scooter]

So I hope this doesn't sadden the lurkers too much, but mackoti and I talked a little today about potentially calling it a draw. If we did that, we'd need to run it by Plako since he surely still has a shot at this too, but it's a possibility.

I think our positions are both very winnable and this has a lot of game left, but the real issue here is the fun factor. The turns are getting longer and longer and more stressful, and it's just getting beyond the scope of the amount of time I really want to put into a game. Turns are now bare minimum 1 hour, and when war turns happen (like are likely to happen again soon), they're more like 2 hours minimum, and a few have stretched out to 3. Would be kind of a shame to end this since this game is I'm sure very exciting to lurk, and at times it's still extremely fun to play, but life for me is getting way busier (in a good way, but still), and it's getting too far outside the scope of how much time/day I'm willing and/or able to spend gaming.

So we'll see, just don't be shocked if this gets called a draw in the next week or so. I'll try to give a nice update on what's upcoming tomorrow when I play. Generally, here's what's upcoming:

1) Likely continued peace with mackoti. He hasn't been building military for the entirety of this peace treaty - totally flatlined - and he's made no efforts to shuttle in units to my front with him. When peace treaty expires in a turn or two, I'll declare and then offer 10T peace. I believe he'll accept. I'm now #1 in soldiers, fyi. I suspect this has more to do with RL war weariness more than a strategic move. (FWIW I was completely exhausted of war turns with mackoti too - big part of the reason I wanted out of that war.)

2) Likely a counter-attack from Lewwyn when that treaty expires. I'm not super concerned about it, and if I get 10T peace from Mackoti it'll probably fail spectacularly as I shuttle in around 20 more units that are just on standby on or near Galleons (this is where the staggered peace treaties are nice). He's currently teching Rifles, and I have already have built over 30 of the one unit that counters it directly. I'd be more nervous if he was teching Military Tradition or something.

Since he's super obviously prepping to counter-attack me (remember, I have city visibility on every one of his cities still so I see stuff is moving/staying north and he's carefully whipping things), this time I won't hold back on his coast. Last time I elected not to burn anything, hoping it would keep him from counter-attacking like this (I also knew Bigger was playing at the time, which is no longer true. Ah well.), but now that he's doing this, I'll burn anything I can get to since he still can't do anything about my CR2 Amphib Grens sailing down his coast. He has like 5 inland cities, everything else is coastal. I'll just keep burning until he gives up or I run out of Amphib Grens. In the middle, cannons, Knights, and Grens will handle anything he can send at me. Not too concerned. He can probably take back the two cities he gave to me on the mainland, but I'm pretty confident I can prevent him from doing serious damage without any significant cost to me. It'll just take a lot of effort.

So that's a brief update on the state of PB13 as it relates to the Vikings. I'm not sure if this will be done in a few days or if it has a long ways to go, but we'll find out soon enough I guess as I think about it a bit more.

[Dhalphir]

This game will still go down in history as a game that didn't even have so much as a single leading player by turn 200, let alone the fact that we not only have you and Mackoti but several others who do have an outside chance to win in a played-out game.