Gavagai is the last to open his thread

[Gavagai]

I think that's right, the opportunity cost is considered to be high enough.

Thanks. The reason I am asking is that I want to generate a GM for a Currency bulb but will need to pollute GPP pool with prophet or spy points to get it in a reasonable time. And I needed to choose what kind of GP I would prefer if I am unlucky. With infiltration missions spy is obviously a better choice.

[Gavagai]

Plako is the worst.

[Gavagai]

Here is what he was doing with his power so far. I was not particularly worried - it was hard for me to believe that he would want to fight a war with our awkward prolonged border and Commodore at his back. Still, I was worried enough to invest EP in him for getting visibility over his territory by the moment our peace treaty ended. And I saw this:



He has something like five more HAs in Vitcos. But the most alarming sight here is the settler: there is simply no reason for him to be there, unless Plako wants to raze & resettle. I am not sure we even have a legal place for a city in the area. Which means that he seriously wants war. I did this:



And offered him peace. Any rational agent would accept but no rational agent would want this conflict in the first place. Seriously: he looks at me, a civ twice his size, and decides that of all his neighbors I am the softest, the most vulnerable target? In what world does that make sense? Even Commodore is an easier target than me and Plako, surely, has neighbors besides Commodore. Because our mapmakers spent half a year on balancing this map and there is no way they could screw someone over that badly, right?

(Btw, I offered him sheep for sheep deals or something like that twice, no response at all.)

[Gavagai]

...and according to civstats Plako has chosen war! I just cannot believe it. How anyone could ever think this was a good idea?

[Gavagai]

From now I will treat this game just as a duel against Plako. I will not make peace with him, ever, and will not care about my relative standing to anyone else.

[Gavagai]

Interesting and overall positive developments.
1) I was wrong in respect to my assessment of Plako's rationality. As it turned out, he had a sufficient force to cover his northern city. After that, he burnt two border cities we had but has wisely chosen not to proceed further.
2) For a couple turns after that we were just staring at each other doing nothing. Plako's positioning indicated that he does not want to press his offensive further.
3) Today I logged in to see a peace proposal from Plako. I accepted as I am not going to have resources to damage Plako in the next ten turns anyway. It turned out to be a very smart thing to do because Commodore DOWed on me. He brought 11 Praets and some Trebs.
I am totally not surprised. The best strategy for Commodore would be to wait out until me and Plako damage each other and then join in on the side of the victor. Also, our current geography makes it extremely difficult for any of us to gain something from war: we have only one couple of neighboring cities and they are five tiles from each other. But, as I have stated very early in this thread, Commodore is a lunatic, he just does random stuff.
I offered peace to Commodore. He has to accept as I am no longer at war with Plako and have higher power. But he is a randomer, as I have said, so it's a 50/50 chance.
4) Hopefully, we end up here with a stable three powers dynamics where no one is able to attack any of others because of the risk of a dogpile. It is sad that it is taking so much trial and error for my two neighbors to realize this.
5) It looks like Plako will get his stupid city after all: he has a settler ready and we are at peace. Well played I am not sure, however, whether this city was worth it and it definitely makes a probability of a conflict between us in future much higher. It is not even a good city at this point, because it is going to be crashed by my culture: I am fully prepared for a culture war now. Don't know why Plako wants it so much.

[Gavagai]

And yes, the best news here is that Plako has shown that he has some other values besides screwing me over. Frankly speaking, I do not really understand why he offered peace to me. I would very likely collapse under their dogpile and in that case, Plako would gain at least as much as Commodore. It looks like he is very scared of Commodore in a long term.

[Gavagai]

Most probably, Plako does not realize how much a paper tiger is my military at that point. It mostly consists of War Chariots which die easily to pretty much anything.

[Gavagai]

Most probably, Plako does not realize how much a paper tiger is my military at that point. It mostly consists of War Chariots which die easily to pretty much anything.

Much simpler than that: Commodore played after Plako's last turn, so Plako was unaware of Commodore's declaration when he made his peace offer. I... was extremely lucky.

[Gavagai]

...and, according to civstats, Commodore razed my city, because why not? Observe, that capturing this city was the only even remotely beneficial thing he could have got from this war, so it was an act of pure malice. I am growing incredibly tired from all this frankly.