[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[antisocialmunky]

It would be interesting to release the save in that case so we can try what ifs.

[scooter]

Turn 199-200

Played last, so I waited until I pressed enter to take a few screenshots. The big bonus upon hitting enter is all the artists I've been working have paid off:



I had lost that first ring of tiles, putting that city in a completely exposed position to Lewwyn's collateral-heavy stack. It was going to force me to pull back and defend somewhere else. Now that I've regained those tiles, that's a big boost. I'm dying to gain that dye tile N-NE of "Bakon" - I've been gaining on it a little each turn... If I can hold it by the time peace runs out, I'll be in good shape.

Even though he is now seemingly updating his thread, I figured I'd go over the garrisons Lewwyn is working with.



First off, that's certainly not nothing. 11 cats and 6 CKNs (with tons more CKNs being built) is no joke. However, in terms of real attacking units, it's awfully light. The heavy emphasis on Pikes does level off my Knights a tad, but that's nothing some cannons can't soften up. As of right now, I'm pretty confident I can hold against that, but it would be a little tight and he could at least regain his old city if he pressed hard enough. However, if mackoti signs peace in 2T (I've lined up a bunch of units on his front to hopefully pressure him into re-signing peace), then all bets are off. Lewwyn's real weakness is the rest of the pictures:



Once I take down the defenses, I will easily get odds on all of those units from the ocean.



Same deal here. Ok, the CG2 Musket is a quality defender, but the rest I should be able to get odds on. The further south, the worse it gets



Sure the island is defended by a musket, but the others are defended by a warrior, archer, and spear. Not to mention a single archer in his Confucian shrine city (go get it, Azza!). The south:



Not too difficult either. Anyway, I'm hoping Azza kinda figures this out and counter-attacks Lewwyn - he's sitting on a serious standing army and Lewwyn isn't even bothering to defend this stuff. Azza could rather easily capture it all, but it doesn't seem like he's noticed. I'm thinking about how to get him to notice.



There's post-golden age demographics. I'm producing more MFG than Commodore is in a golden age (I'm assuming mackoti is still #1 there anyway), and mackoti and I are pretty much neck-and-neck in GNP. Also tops in soldiers now with a growing lead, seeing as mackoti more or less isn't building any units right now. Granted, I need more than him since I have a considerably longer border, but the point still stands. Here's my military:



Still building more...

[scooter]

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.

Oh, I think this is absolutely the most competitive game we've had this far into it. If, hypothetically, everyone were to play as well as they could, I'd estimate chances of winning something like this:

Mackoti: 32%
scooter: 32%
Plako: 25%
Commodore: 10%
Dtay: 1%

That might be a tad generous to Commodore seeing as his MFG is awfully pedestrian and his GNP is mostly FIN + Feitoria powered (he's far closer to maxed out than I am is what I'm trying to say), his tech position is noteworthy enough. Plako may sound absurdly high, but he's going to cut through Bacchus laughably easy in not too long I believe, and that'll help him a great deal. You can quibble a lot with those percentages and I won't argue with you, but the point is that the field at the top is remarkably well bunched, and I believe the high tech costs right now are having a great deal to do with that.

All that said, I suspect there won't be enough energy to really commit to a proper endgame. Oddly, this is one of those cases where diplomacy on might actually allow it - the big players could agree to leave each other alone and just commit to a race to conquering our own continents, which would be quite fun (unlikely, yes, unfair, also yes, but fun is all I'm saying). However, that's impossible here, so the constant "cold war" we've got brewing is kind of exhausting.

[Krill]

Can I just say, you really shouldn't go and talk to mackoti (or, frankly, anyone) in private about declaring this game as a draw. You don't know enough about individual civs to know if it's reasonable; your opinion about chances to win is simply what you have based off your incomplete knowledge of the game state and is potentially wrong. I'm not saying you have to keep on playing, just that you should discuss ending the game through Brick. I agree that the cold war aspect can be exhausting, and it's definitely not any lurkers place to demand you play on, but if the game ended, I think it's fair to say that all the players should be involved in that decision from the start.

That said, updates are still really interesting Thanks for posting them.

[scooter]

Can I just say, you really shouldn't go and talk to mackoti (or, frankly, anyone) in private about declaring this game as a draw. You don't know enough about individual civs to know if it's reasonable; your opinion about chances to win is simply what you have based off your incomplete knowledge of the game state and is potentially wrong. I'm not saying you have to keep on playing, just that you should discuss ending the game through Brick. I agree that the cold war aspect can be exhausting, and it's definitely not any lurkers place to demand you play on, but if the game ended, I think it's fair to say that all the players should be involved in that decision from the start.

That said, updates are still really interesting Thanks for posting them.

Fair point about going through Brick or lurkers in general. I'm just trying to avoid discussing it in the tech thread too which is even worse IMO (once "draw" or "concession" gets mentioned in the tech thread, it tends to become a self-fulfilling prophesy real fast). So hopefully I at least chose the "less bad" route there, but I'll avoid it from now on.

FWIW, in case it's not clear, the chat simply stated that we would both be OK with calling it a draw if others would be OK with it too (chiefly Plako, but to an extent Commodore/Dtay). Just trying to clear up that the implication wasn't that we felt we were the only ones with a shot at winning so we talked it over (not to justify it, just clarifying), that's definitely not how I feel.

[Krill]

Thanks for that extra information, I didn't get that form what you said before. I definitely agree about the self fulfilling prophesy of how these games tend to finish. I think the main problem with going through Brick (now that I think about it) is that Brick is becoming increasingly busy himself in RL, so maybe now would be a good time to get a new person to co-ordinate potential game ending through (and I'm not much better FWIW, so not trying to worm my way into that role).

[pindicator]

If the game keeps going what do you plan to do?

[antisocialmunky]

Maybe we can take inspiration from recent events and host a twitch plays Vikings?

[Dhalphir]

As much as I don't want the game to end, if you feel like you're about to burn out, you should push for it. Better to halt the game early, take a couple weeks off, and come back fresh with PB18, than burn out of civ completely due to feeling obligated to PB13, and end up dropping out of games for months.

[scooter]

So I'd like some input from the lurkers here. I have a message I'd like to get to a few of the players who are really putting in effort so far, but I don't want to step outside the bounds of communicating or anything like that. For instance, I'm pretty much positive Azza will not object to the idea of calling this game because he's way behind and not spending much time on the game nor is he reporting. I'm also sure Mackoti would not object because he explicitly told me he would not object . Commodore's position right now is pretty strong obviously, but for a variety of reasons I rather strongly believe he doesn't have a ton of interest in playing on with the goal of winning.

However, someone like Plako I'm not so sure - he's clearly still trying, the game is winnable for him (even if he may not be the favorite), and I don't want to sabotage the game by discussing this publicly if he still really wants to play on. I'm happy to keep playing, it's just that life is quickly cutting into the time/interest I have in playing at a high level, and I'd rather not mail turns in while being in such a strong position if I can avoid it. A replacement at this point is probably not realistic - putting a green player into the game at my position would be wildly unbalancing, and I really doubt there are any veterans not following this game that are interested in picking things up at this point.

So, I'd be interested in seeing if a lurker is willing to volunteer to pass on a message, and generally go in order of players most likely to want to play on (speaking to Plako first I would imagine, but I trust those with an omniscient view of things if they went a different route). Something like this:

Do you have a strong interest in playing on? A couple players in strong positions would be happy to call it a draw due to personal time constraints and the increasing time required to keep up a game like this, but all are happy to play on if some would still like to continue.

Something short and sweet like that, just gauging interest levels without collapsing the game by talking about ending it publicly. Any thoughts from lurkers on the cleanest way to do this? I just flat-out don't have the time or interest to play this game at a strong level right now, but I would genuinely be satisfied with a good game were it to be called.