[NO PLAYERS] PB25 Lurker Thread - Then Happy I, That Lurk and am Belurked

[GermanJoey]

He didn't gift away all of the island. Just two cities. He could have taken it all though, but then it would have been a bitch to develop and sucked up resources better spent on other things.

What? Like 500 caravel kamikazes? Or the opportunity cost of letting HAK profit from that land for 90+ turns? No fucking way are either of those better than just letting a few Protective longbows just putz around as a crumple-zone while either you (entrenched in a hot war with Elkad) or HAK (is HAK) has to mount a major military campaign to dislodge them.

[The Black Sword]

Ah, the grand RB tradition of leaders doubting their chances.

Donovan actually seems more optimistic than the other 2!

[Mardoc]

Not that he really needs them, since he's had control of the waters pretty much this whole time because Ruff kept his Galleons sitting idle forever.

Yes, of course. And you don't have domination because Gavagai chose not to roll over and die. And I'm not a billionaire because Bill Gates didn't give me his money.

Really, why do you think Ruff owes you an alliance? He's chosen the long shot attempt to conquer someone instead of dogpiling Commodore and still being third place even if it worked.

[Dreylin]

Not that he really needs them, since he's had control of the waters pretty much this whole time because Ruff kept his Galleons sitting idle forever.

Yes, of course. And you don't have domination because Gavagai chose not to roll over and die. And I'm not a billionaire because Bill Gates didn't give me his money.

Not to mention their own decision not to put pressure on Commodore by, y'know, researching Astronomy and trying to outmatch him on the water themselves.

EDIT: Actually, didn't they have a plan to steal Astronomy from Zulu/Ruff; I wonder what happened to that!?

Also this from yesterday:

A gang-up on Comm has been the only way we'd ever get the game to a point where he doesn't win, and no one has been willing to do that this entire time.

from the team who themselves passed on two opportunities to hit Commodore while he was busy eating other neighbours. Have they actually made an offensive move on Commodore the entire game? Why would anyone else think they were ready to "gang-up" on Commodore enough to make a first move against him!?

I mean I get that there can be a feeling that the breaks haven't gone their way, but it could have been worse; e.g. Tasunke/Ruff could have hit them instead of Gavagai / Donovan. There's probably an element of not wanting to be kingmaker involved on that score ... plus if you're a 200lb Gorilla watching two 500lb Gorillas at a stand-off, do you /really/ want to get involved...?

[Zed-F]

HAK/Mindy probably had the best luck of anyone all game long, given they should have lost their army a couple different times in Gav-land, not to mention having the best start position of anyone in the game and stealing the Taj because Elkad screwed up Comm's micro by war declaration, HAK/Mindy had an eager ally to prevent Comm from being able to sabotage them, and then they won the coin flip.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

The cost of the Gavagai war would have been less if HAK/Mindy hadn't wasted two (IIRC) opportunities to collateral Gav's stack and wipe it (or near enough given stack sizes at that point). You make your own luck by not missing opportunities when they are there. They may not always be obvious but you can't swing and miss when gifted a mistake by an opponent.

Also, yes to the comments that wag the finger at the notion that any other civ owes them this or that action to further their goal of winning the game. All anyone owes the field is to do his (or her?) best to win the game for his civ. Once that goal breaks down, don't just throw the game if you can help it and do whatever you can to play out the string serving your own interest. Sorry, HAK, but they don't owe you support just because you think Commodore is ahead. Also, please stop calling him MC! I've read that as Metal Casting so many times now....

[GermanJoey]

The tech pace of this game is so insanely slow, geez. Multiple teams had factories up in PB22 by this turn, and PB18 was already in the modern era...

HAK's only working half of his tiles (the real price of drafted maces and muskets ) and the other half are freaking farms and mines. The new emancipation would be a lot better than caste for him right now.

[The Black Sword]

Well the map is smaller than 22 or 18 and the leaders have been knocking lumps out of each other for ages, a slower tech pace is sort of expected.

What does Emancipation do here again? I guess he originally needed Caste for the specialist slots for Merc.

[GermanJoey]

Emancipation: Available at Banking. Low cost. +1 commerce from cottage, hamlet, village. +1 food from cottage. +2 commerce from mines, +1 hammer from farms.

HAK and Com are each at about 30 cities, right? That's about how big anyone was in PB22 at this point. Also, HAK wouldn't need the slots from caste if more than 30% of his cities had a market or library (or forge)... on T214.

[Old Harry]

Smaller map means higher maintenance. But they could have drafted less and spent less cash on upgrades...