[Spoilers] Haram hopefully reports

[scooter]

Haram - can you avoid spoiling yourself a little longer? I'm totally unspoiled other than reading your thread this morning and accidentaly clicking on Joey's a few seconds ago (I saw nothing but angry words ), and I'm noodling on the possibility of taking over for you. I noticed you posted in Joey's thread, and I'm hoping you can hold off on reading his (or others) any further for another day or two. I'm in the middle of writing up some questions I was hoping you could fully answer without being spoiled.

[scooter]

Haram,

As I mentioned, I'm toying with the idea of taking over for you if my proposed 4-player game doesn't fill up soon. I haven't followed a single thing in this game, so when I saw your post get bumped this morning, I basically just clicked your thread and read it, and I've really enjoyed the game you've played. Haven't read any other threads either, so I'm unspoiled. I also think this game deserves a little more playtime because it's interesting.

That said, after I read your thread, I clicked on the IT thread and saw Joey is being more than a little crazy, and now I'm not so sure I want to deal with that. So I'm on the fence. I'm planning to login to your civ tonight and take a look around and figure out if playing it is feasible for me. I won't be able to put the time commitment in to seriously win the game, but I think I can at least function as a high-quality AI that makes it a real challenge for TBS or whoever on their way to victory. It sounds kind of fun, and it's better than letting a quality game die.

I've got a whole bunch of questions to basically pick your brain about the state of things as well as your plans going forward. I've only got a partial understanding of your empire/plans/neighbors from reading your thread, so I'm hoping you can fill in some gaps. Some of these questions I think I know the answers to, but I'm just wanting to hear your exact thoughts. I may not even necessarily follow these things, but it'll help me understand your in-game decisions when I take a look at your civ later.

Also - even if I decide I can't commit to this, having these answered would probably make this a more attractive take-over for some other potential replacement.

1) Do I have this understanding of the geopolitical situation correct?
*Joey attacked you post-Astro unprovoked, pushing things slightly in favor of TBS. It was essentially a stalemate, and now you've recently revenge-attacked him, causing him to tilt and lose his mind.
*Joey currently wants you to pay him for peace, but given the stalemate and TBS's strong position, he'll likely take white peace indefinitely if a new player takes over whom he doesn't have an emotional rage-fest aimed at because his chances of winning rest on getting peace from you so that he can conquer somebody else.
*The Black Sword is the odds-on favorite to win due to his land advantage, neighbors, and your current war with Joey. He does have a fairly severe tech/beaker disadvantage in the short-term.
*Nobody other than those 3 players can win this game.
*Wetbandit is probably tops of the also-rans.

2) Is the gist of your economic plan State Property + workshop spam? Seems like an extremely powerful route with the Productive trait, just clarifying. Assuming this means using great people for something other than corporations.

3) What's the ideal route to victory? Eating a non-Joey neighbor, then using that land + production advantage to wealth-build your way to a space victory? If space race is the goal, how much land do you think you'd need to push for a space win?

4) Can you give a brief description of your neighbors? Something like "X is my western neighbor, sizable standing army, but lagging in tech, good land" type things. Basically, size up your immediate neighbors and give a summary on how to handle them, how feasible invading them is, and what their likely strategy will be. The geographic situation is the hardest to pick up on from reading your thread, and I haven't read other threads to fill in the gaps. I don't know who's played well, who's over-built military, who looks like a paper tiger, etc. If I take over, I may very well just play peace-nik just out of time concerns, but wars can be fun if they aren't slogs.

5) If you were still playing and could wave a magic wand to make Joey sane and not grudging against you, what would your broad one-paragraph plan for the next 50T be?


Little bit of overlap here and there with those questions, but it would go a long ways to making a takeover feasible - either from myself or from somebody else.

[Haram]

Thanks for considering to take over!

I'll answer in 2 hour or so. Meanwhile, feel free to log in and see.

[Haram]

1) Do I have this understanding of the geopolitical situation correct?
*Joey attacked you post-Astro unprovoked, pushing things slightly in favor of TBS. It was essentially a stalemate, and now you've recently revenge-attacked him, causing him to tilt and lose his mind.

Yes.

*Joey currently wants you to pay him for peace, but given the stalemate and TBS's strong position, he'll likely take white peace indefinitely if a new player takes over whom he doesn't have an emotional rage-fest aimed at because his chances of winning rest on getting peace from you so that he can conquer somebody else.

That’s what I assumed, even if it was still me in charge of Sumeria.

*The Black Sword is the odds-on favorite to win due to his land advantage, neighbors, and your current war with Joey. He does have a fairly severe tech/beaker disadvantage in the short-term.

After I’ve made that tech comparison I concluded, that TBS’s chances are lower than mine and GJ’s, even taking into account his city count. That almost 23k beakers is a lot at this point of the game and conquests are very doable for me and GJ with this tech advantage and the mobility galleons give. The problem was, that Joey’s attack on me indeed gave him slight edge and he was a few turns before me to Rifling and could launch his invasion earlier. Also, Tsargon is weaker than Dreylin and he was additionally fighting TBS and Borsche, so I concluded, he will fall quickly and Joey would get the mainland. That would also mean, that Joey’s hands would be free again, before I could finish Dreylin and he most probably would not let me finish it peacefully, as I was one of the main contenders (that’s what I was assuming). So, the decision to attack Joey was not only to have some payback. I wanted to delay his conquest, so at least we would be starting our invasions at the same time. That is also the reason that I didn't send peace offer yet, even thou I basically went to defence (but Joey s not able to do any direct harm). I wanted to have more army to do it.

*Nobody other than those 3 players can win this game.

Yes.

*Wetbandit is probably tops of the also-rans.

Yes.

2) Is the gist of your economic plan State Property + workshop spam? Seems like an extremely powerful route with the Productive trait, just clarifying. Assuming this means using great people for something other than corporations.

I was debating whether Corps or StateProperty will be stronger. Eventually I started to lean towards StateProperty, but having a chance to take Minning Corp and Sushi, I would spare a GP just to deny it to others.

3) What's the ideal route to victory? Eating a non-Joey neighbor, then using that land + production advantage to wealth-build your way to a space victory? If space race is the goal, how much land do you think you'd need to push for a space win?

My plan was to build tech advantage and then don’t stop building military until conquerable civs are in range. That doesn’t mean conquest, of course, but probably concession. Initially I was planning to abuse MoM GAs to get more land and be decisively first to destroyers and this way force other contenders to concede. At this point I can say that it probably won’t be that easy, cause Joey’s tech pace is also very good, so the tech lead at destroyers would be minimal, if any (depends also on the conquest success of both of us).

4) Can you give a brief description of your neighbors? Something like "X is my western neighbor, sizable standing army, but lagging in tech, good land" type things. Basically, size up your immediate neighbors and give a summary on how to handle them, how feasible invading them is, and what their likely strategy will be. The geographic situation is the hardest to pick up on from reading your thread, and I haven't read other threads to fill in the gaps. I don't know who's played well, who's over-built military, who looks like a paper tiger, etc. If I take over, I may very well just play peace-nik just out of time concerns, but wars can be fun if they aren't slogs.

Some later.

5) If you were still playing and could wave a magic wand to make Joey sane and not grudging against you, what would your broad one-paragraph plan for the next 50T be?

It’s pretty funny, but my strategy would be pracaticly the same, whether there is Joey to the west or some other player. I got my tech advantage and I need to convert it into more land. The only difference is, that with Joey I just need to leave some more units behind, have some more spies in his land and so on.

[Haram]

4) Can you give a brief description of your neighbors? Something like "X is my western neighbor, sizable standing army, but lagging in tech, good land" type things. Basically, size up your immediate neighbors and give a summary on how to handle them, how feasible invading them is, and what their likely strategy will be. The geographic situation is the hardest to pick up on from reading your thread, and I haven't read other threads to fill in the gaps. I don't know who's played well, who's over-built military, who looks like a paper tiger, etc. If I take over, I may very well just play peace-nik just out of time concerns, but wars can be fun if they aren't slogs.

I skip Joey and TBS, cause I think I've written enough about them and I already looked into their threads. I think there is a noticable difference in empire management between the top3 and the rest of the field and players 4-7 are very close to each other in empire strenght (tech/city count/demo). Tsargon is lagging.

1. Wenbandit/Fenn - They are doing pretty ok and have the best land except TBS and Joey. Except of the mainland they got the whole southern island (formerly shared with Scipio) and part of the island they share with me and GJ. The island we share should be really easy to take, but that means another direct border with Joey.

2. Dreylin had a great begining and should be higher right now, but for some reasons started to fall in the scoreboard and all cetegories. Before he attacked me with knigs in reaction to Joey's attack, I think he was preparing an army for Tsargon, hi eastern neighbour. So, he sacrificed resources to build an army, lost part of it and didn't get anything out of it. I've chosen Dreylin as a target, cause both his southern/northern coast and an island are accessible with galleons, I didn't open borders after his attack (but he has Great Spy and I think he didn't use it yet). The downside is that he still has the strongest army out of all the rest.

3. Jowy is another potential target, but I see he has militarized border with TBS on the island they share and he also had some minor early forum feud with Joey, so I consider him as an ally (or better target for TBS/Joey, than for me). His power is low atm, but he skipped a lot of different techs and is now reaserching directly to Rifling.

4. That is a player I had almost no contact in this game and I don't consider him as a target, as he is not accessible to me. He is the neighbour of TBS and Joey but I haven't noticed any 'situations' between them. He is Joey's friend from different site.

5. Tsargon. The weakest of the rest of the field. TBS (and I think Borshe) took his island cities and he is now reduced to his mainland. Low power.

[scooter]

Lurkers - One thing that definitely needs to be cleared up before I can proceed is this idea Joey has in his head that a 2v1 war should be split 3 ways. If he continues to think this is true, I see no point in proceeding, because there will be other 2v1 wars I'm sure. The issue doesn't matter right this minute because the only active war is ours with Joey (all others made in-game peace), but it still needs to be sorted out or else this game is even more of a dead man walking than it already kind of is. If a multi-part turn order like Joey talked about (5 spots in the turn timer) comes to reality, the game will be called very quickly because it's just not fun, and life's too short to be dividing a pitboss turn into 5 segments.

I'm saying all this in here because someone impartial really needs to step in, and I'm not sure what it's going to take to convince Joey of this.

I get that he feels having the 2 intermingle their turn order is a (verrrrry small) disadvantage, but... tough luck? Don't get dogpiled?

[mackoti]

Lurkers - One thing that definitely needs to be cleared up before I can proceed is this idea Joey has in his head that a 2v1 war should be split 3 ways. If he continues to think this is true, I see no point in proceeding, because there will be other 2v1 wars I'm sure. The issue doesn't matter right this minute because the only active war is ours with Joey (all others made in-game peace), but it still needs to be sorted out or else this game is even more of a dead man walking than it already kind of is. If a multi-part turn order like Joey talked about (5 spots in the turn timer) comes to reality, the game will be called very quickly because it's just not fun, and life's too short to be dividing a pitboss turn into 5 segments.

I'm saying all this in here because someone impartial really needs to step in, and I'm not sure what it's going to take to convince Joey of this.

I get that he feels having the 2 intermingle their turn order is a (verrrrry small) disadvantage, but... tough luck? Don't get dogpiled?

You brave man Scooter,but is near imposible to convince Joey something, what he knows is the absolute truth.He realy likes everithing to be his way .

[scooter]

Lurkers - One thing that definitely needs to be cleared up before I can proceed is this idea Joey has in his head that a 2v1 war should be split 3 ways. If he continues to think this is true, I see no point in proceeding, because there will be other 2v1 wars I'm sure. The issue doesn't matter right this minute because the only active war is ours with Joey (all others made in-game peace), but it still needs to be sorted out or else this game is even more of a dead man walking than it already kind of is. If a multi-part turn order like Joey talked about (5 spots in the turn timer) comes to reality, the game will be called very quickly because it's just not fun, and life's too short to be dividing a pitboss turn into 5 segments.

I'm saying all this in here because someone impartial really needs to step in, and I'm not sure what it's going to take to convince Joey of this.

I get that he feels having the 2 intermingle their turn order is a (verrrrry small) disadvantage, but... tough luck? Don't get dogpiled?

You brave man Scooter,but is near imposible to convince Joey something, what he knows is the absolute truth.He realy likes everithing to be his way .

Yeah... I typed up a couple replies to his last message in the tech thread, and then I deleted them before posting. I don't think he understands that people have read his thread and obviously don't agree with him, but they're all afraid to say it because they've seen what happens when someone disagrees with him. Something tells me I won't actually be playing any turns of this.

Joey did PM me and suggest that he's wanting to be done with this game, and offered for me to replace him instead. I sent a note on to Haram just letting him know the offer is on the table if he somehow wants to return. It'd be pretty messy given my new spoiler knowledge AND I'm pretty sure Haram is definitely out, but it's technically an option. For the sake of the game it would have easily been the best option had it been one 24 hours ago, but the damage may be done at this point.

I think Haram is definitely out, and I don't think Joey is willing to proceed under my request that 2v1s don't follow 3 segments no matter how messy it is, so I don't think this game will continue. I don't think they'll find a more ideal/willing sub than me, and if Joey AND Haram leave, what's the point in replacing the only civs capable of challenging TBS? And I am serious that I'm not going to play this if Joey continues to insist on this turn split stuff.

[scooter]

Haram confirmed that he's definitely out. I don't see a way to convince Joey, so one of two things seem likely to happen.

1) I'll step aside, and maybe they'll find someone else to sub. Most likely nobody will given the conditions.
2) Everybody strong-arms Joey into agreeing with me, so I sub, and he ragequits in response leaving this game back in square 1. May be a tad easier to find a sub, but when there's 3 contenders and 2 of them drop, why bother replacing them both when there's one original contender left standing?

Seems to me both routes have the same outcome. Anyway, door number 1 seems to be most prudent for me, so I'll go with that for now.

[Haram]

Sigh, I've posted about this repeatedly in my thread, with screenshots. I'm so tired of this. The issue wasn't about generic 2v1 turnsplits, it was something specific related to a specific shared front.

Joey forced another 3-way split just this turn, AFTER all the discussion in the tech thread and AFTER I pulled all my ships back. There can't be any specific need at this point.