[PB25 Spoiler] General Flauros leads the Creole Calabim

[Ichabod]

Joey, mate, I think you should try to calm down. It's not worth it to offend people over a game, it's bad for you and bad for them. Perhaps it's not possible to win this game, but you can always win the next. And as long as you are playing your best, it's all good.

Besides, if this game became a chore for you to play, you can ask for a replacement. I've felt this way in past games and I had people take my place. It's not worth to suffer over a game you were supposed to be having fun with.

[Tsargon]

Take heart Germanjoey! You can achieve it, so as long as you believe it!

[GermanJoey]

Joey, mate, I think you should try to calm down. It's not worth it to offend people over a game, it's bad for you and bad for them. Perhaps it's not possible to win this game, but you can always win the next. And as long as you are playing your best, it's all good.

Besides, if this game became a chore for you to play, you can ask for a replacement. I've felt this way in past games and I had people take my place. It's not worth to suffer over a game you were supposed to be having fun with.

I dunno dude, I think I care less and less about what other people here think of me. The lurker culture at RB is so gossipy, trolly, and back-biting. I know its become something of a pasttime here to laugh at me behind my back, because of the way I over-react with my words (although never in game, which people don't seem to notice). I saw it in PB20 and PB21, and I've had excerpts of lurker shit-talk IM'd to me from my currently running games too. I truly do think my starting area was designed to induce maximum drama specifically to entertain the lurkers as I can't honestly believe a guy who pays attention to details like OH, who spends 6+ hours to play his PB18 turns, could have looked at my position and thought it was ok, or even done something so simple as not count luxuries. Also notice how he's posted multiple times in others' lurker threads (and even more in the lurker thread itself), yet never in here? Not a coincidence I think, a telling sign. That's what really gets me riled up - not that I can't win, but I was never intended to have a chance to begin with. Whatever, play me like drum, and enjoy that popcorn you mother fuckers, I'll keep playing this stupid shit out for now but I'll let you have it when this game is all said and done. I ain't gonna just ignore it like I did in the past.

T88-T90.

HAK did not even send his whole stack to attack, and yet had the gall to send me this:



and also this:



I guess he's mad about this stone spot, saying I should let him have this since I have the island? No can do, bro! I now have three archers and an axe in the city, and can whip another whenever I want.

I sent him back a "my map + peace for peace treaty," telling him to look at the map. This spot is 5 tiles directly below my capital - and if I had settled it 1 tile north it would have even overlapped BFCs with my capital. In contrast, it is 10 tiles from yours, and I had left the stone spot unsettled specifically so that you could have it.

T90, he moved back, but still did not send back peace. Then it like we're still at war, bro! So, when you leave openings like this:







I'm gonna take them! Took the C1+Shock Axe and deleted the worker. Def worth the risk. The chariot survived with 3.2/4 hp, so, after debating it awhile, I figured it was OK to leave him. Even if one of his units gets a promo out of it, there's still a non-trivial chance for him to lose a unit and even if he doesn't, the unit should be wounded. Thus, it'll buy more time for my fort on the stone to complete (4 more turns). I can bring another chariot in a few turns, in case he tries to get rowdy with his axemen and threaten the stone.

I think his real plan was to get me to bite on this:




Thinking that he could then snipe the chariot, thus reducing the garrison by one. Well, I guess its a plan? He's also got a galley out now, trying to threaten my island cities, but they're quite well defended. I've got a shock Impi and imminent archer on the coast, should be enough to handle whatever he's got loaded.

Other than the HAK front, all seems quiet otherwise, although I was pressed for time so I didn't really get a chance to look around.

[GermanJoey]

Take heart Germanjoey! You can achieve it, so as long as you believe it!

thank you.

[Krill]

Fuck the lurkers.

[Krill]

But Cylindrical is fucking awful.

[GermanJoey]

Amen to that. And yes, I'm 110% convinced that Toroidal should be the rule rather than the exception. I think I'm even gonna try my hand at making a toroid mapscript - I had an idea for a different way to do resource distribution that I'd like to try out. I'll post it in the general thread if anything comes of it.

[Qgqqqqq]

I truly do think my starting area was designed to induce maximum drama specifically to entertain the lurkers as I can't honestly believe a guy who pays attention to details like OH, who spends 6+ hours to play his PB18 turns, could have looked at my position and thought it was ok, or even done something so simple as not count luxuries. Also notice how he's posted multiple times in others' lurker threads (and even more in the lurker thread itself), yet never in here? Not a coincidence I think, a telling sign. That's what really gets me riled up - not that I can't win, but I was never intended to have a chance to begin with.

Map-hating is okay. Always. Maybe it's right, maybe it's wrong, but it's okay to do it.

Mapmaker-hating, OTOH, is virtually never okay. Mapmaking is a thankless job, and IMO it's just not right to character-attack without due cause, and a single map that you feel is to your profound disadvantage is nowhere near enough.

Do you seriously believe that Old-Harry signed up to mapmake with the intention of deliberately disadvantaging you, for his own base amusement? Because that's what you're saying here.

And note that, as you say, OH has stayed out of your thread. If this was deliberate, why not just gather the popcorn and laugh maniacally at your failures? Think about that for a second.

Maybe OH knew that you'd hate the map when he sent it out, and that's why he's not lurking this thread. Maybe he doesn't enjoy reading your threads. Maybe he just knows that you have a tendency to lambast mapmakers (justifiably or no - that's irrelevant, and I don't care here).

Any of the above fit. But your conception of him as doing this deliberately so as to generate maximum amusement? That simply doesn't fit with his behavior.


I'm not defending the map. I haven't followed the mapmaking process for this game, or the game itself closely enough to have an informed opinion here. But mistakes happen, and sometimes imbalance is unavoidable. So I think that it's over the line to attack Old Harry himself. Attack his map, sure. Attack his decisions, sure. Attack his skills, sure. All of those you are entitled to do.

But if you want to attack his character, you better have more evidence than that.

Don't do a Northstar.

[Ichabod]

Joey, mate, I think you should try to calm down. It's not worth it to offend people over a game, it's bad for you and bad for them. Perhaps it's not possible to win this game, but you can always win the next. And as long as you are playing your best, it's all good.

Besides, if this game became a chore for you to play, you can ask for a replacement. I've felt this way in past games and I had people take my place. It's not worth to suffer over a game you were supposed to be having fun with.

I dunno dude, I think I care less and less about what other people here think of me. People here such gossipy, trolly, back-biting fuckers. I know its become something of a pasttime here to laugh at me behind my back, I saw it in PB20 and PB21, and I've had excerpts of lurker shit-talk IM'd to me from my currently running games too. I truly do think my starting area was designed to induce maximum drama specifically to entertain the lurkers as I can't honestly believe a guy who pays attention to details like OH, who spends 6+ hours to play his PB18 turns, could have looked at my position and thought it was ok, or even done something so simple as not count luxuries. Also notice how he's posted multiple times in others' lurker threads (and even more in the lurker thread itself), yet never in here? Not a coincidence I think, a telling sign. That's what really gets me riled up - not that I can't win, but I was never intended to have a chance to begin with. Whatever, play me like drum, and enjoy that popcorn you mother fuckers, I'll keep playing this stupid shit out for now but I'll let you have it when this game is all said and done. I ain't gonna just ignore it like I did when my games in the past completed.

I agree that some of the things said in lurker and private threads are of very bad taste.

What I've said is not about having people think better about you in this forum, though. I think we can only really judge our own actions and the things we say ourselves, not those of others. I also think you are a nice guy and that you don't really mean some of the things you say while "raging", but of course, that's just what I think. And, at least for me, sometimes I say things when mad that I regret later (you should see me watching a soccer game from my team, I go totally psycho sometimes) and, in my experience, I don't think I ever was satisfied about offending anyone when I think about it later. So what I've said is more about a personal thing than about doing good forum PR. Again, only my opinion.

And, as always, keep on in the game. A lot of things can happen still.

[GermanJoey]

You both bring up good points. On OH, Q, I obviously don't have any more evidence other than gut feel, because I cant actually read any of his posts about this. My gut just feels bad about it; he hadn't had avoided my pb22 thread, but here we find him missing, feels off to me. However, you're both right - I won't do a Northstar and I won't say anything more about him or anyone else... not to say that I won't continue to flip my shit about this map or this game.

For example. I PM'd HAK earlier today, after I played but before he played, to tell him I forgot to whip a city, and so I'd be logging back in later. He said that was fine. So, I log back in, and actually get a "world map + peace" from me for peace from him. Sure dude, you can have my map, I don't think it'll tell you anything new. He got revenge and killed my chariot, and that was the only two units we traded. Ok, whatever, unproductive war for him, and now I know to get walls up ASAP. A short while later, turn rolls. I set up my webcam, log in, and check the event log. Here's a real-time recording of my reaction to what I saw:






He nukes his routes. With his natural trade partner. For no reason. WHILE. BUILDING. THE FUCKING............. GREAT LIGHTHOUSE ?!?!??!?!???????????? what. WHat??? oh my god... WHAT????!?? really, what? whaaaaaaaat??? I'm practically speechless. Or at least, this is as speechless as I get, which is really saying something. This. This is worse than when he built the Hanging Gardens in PB22 with five cities. HAK, come on man, what are you thinking??????

Like, OK. I'm looking at his empire, and this would otherwise be a great move for him. He's got 5 coastal cities on his north and has plenty of room in his south, and he'd have two trade partners to get foreign ICTR's, totally making up for the fact that he doesn't have his own island. In fact, it would save him the hassle of boats and other weird defensive nonsense, and building the GLH is actually about the same cost as a galley+worker+settler. So, really, its a great idea here. However, now that we won't get routes for 25 more turns, his only other option will be Borsche, who is not only a way more aggressive player than I am (y'all don't know him since this is his first game on this site, but believe me, I do and he is - I've been watching our border like a hawk), but also one he shares a way more precarious border with. Borsche has room to get a few cities in on HAK's continent, and so he could later unload a big army there in the fog and invade HAK via land. With me, its just boats and you'll know exactly where I'd come from if I were to invade. The other thing is that Borsche has no motivation to give the Great Lighthouse guy free trade routes. Borsche has his own ICTRs, so they'd only be worth 7c in total for him. HAK will probably have to pay for them now. In fact, HAK actually needs two partners to completely fill his route, even if he does get them from Borsche. God, this is giving me a headache.

The other thing I saw, when I logged back in on T91, was this:




Being bordered on all sides, constantly feeling that you're trying to put out one fire then race across town to put out another, always on the backfoot - this is what it's all about. I was *this* close to, flipping out again, as I had just moved my Impi garrison back to defend the coast from HAK and also just whipped an Ikhanda here. I wouldn't be able to whip a real defender (archer or axemen) until T92, which wouldn't appear until T93, so I was completely vulnerable. -BUT-, but, then this happened, sorry to disappoint:




Ohhhhkay. He's just gonna chill. You know what, if you're gonna be chill, then I'm gonna be chill too. That spot is just fine with me. It picks up no tiles I care about and at least now I don't really border Commodore anymore, at least until he invades Elkad with rifles and cavs before either of us get knights. But, y'know, at least buys me some time and a little bit more advance war. Like, the more I think about it the more favors this plant does me - cheers Elkad, cheers my man, this one's to you.

Also pictured: Com's size 11 capital. :D