Gavagai is the last to open his thread

[Gavagai]

Let me make a prediction: Plako will start a golden age, generate a Great Artist and culture bomb Atico. How do I know it? Because this is the only possible reason for this city to exist.
You have three ultra-experienced veteran players here, me, Commodore and Plako. And I am the only one who behaves like an adult. I want to just let it sink.

[Gavagai]

Speaking of behaving like adults
Btw, Plako revolted into Caste and immediately swapped those two scientists for artists

[Gavagai]

This is what Plako is doing with cities on our border. Kind of ridiculous, if you ask my opinion.

[Gavagai]

By settling Atico Plako set up a really clever trap for me. I cannot allow the city to stand, because of culture bomb threat (also, the reason I could not allow it to stand in the first place - not necessarily culture bomb but a general threat to two key cities). It means that the moment he generates a Great Artist, I will be obligated to declare a war and raze it. But in that case, I signal Commodore that he is free to join in on Plako's side - and this is what Plako probably relies on.
(Not really relevant at this point, but there would be no symmetry if I had a city in this spot. It will only threaten Vitcos but Vitcos is already under pressure. This is why the border where I have a city there is stable but the border where he has a city is not. Still, if he, for some reason, does not want my city in that spot, I can live with that.)
Of course, it only works if Plako is fully confident that Commodore is his ally, not mine. If Commodore is at least neutral, then Plako has a barely productive city which taxes his defenses - already spread thing along our border. Keep in mind that I have more resources, hence any extension of the frontline works in my favor. By the end of our peace treaty, he is not going to have resources to defend both Vitcos and Attico. And if Commodore is on my side, then Plako is just playing with fire by provoking a war with a more powerful alliance.
So, this city means that Plako is, like 200% confident that Commodore is going to help him. This is a really strange confidence - so strange that if those were some unknown players I would suspect that NoDiplo rule is not observed here. This is because it is enormously more profitable for Commodore to split Plako with me, rather than vice versa. And this is exactly how it worked during our very first war - Commodore jumped in on my side. But in the next war he flipped allegiances. Why? The only answer I can come up with is that he got pissed at me for making peace with Plako.
And if this answer is accurate - I am pretty sure it is accurate - it sums up everything you need to know about Commodore. This is because I did not ask him for help and did not promise him anything. He sent me an Iron for Iron offer; I did not respond - exactly because I was not confident I want to continue fighting the war. Still, it appears he somehow assumed that I had an obligation to keep fighting in a war I did not want, a war, to which he was not invited and which had nothing to do with him. And now, because of that, he is acting against his own best interest just to screw me over. And, to be clear, when I say "acting against his own best interest", I do not mean my perception of his interest, I mean his own perception. Because his initial impulse was to attack Plako, not me, and no fundamental strategic facts have changed since then.
OK. Now, as I realize that, I wish to be subbed out of this game and to never play a game with Commodore again. Maybe I should give it a thought.
Still, the question is, what am I to do? No good outs. I sent Iron for Iron deal to Pindicator as he is the only possible ally I have. Unfortunately, he is also the person who has the best objective reason to want my blood - my borders are pressing against his core really heavily. The silver lining is that he would want exactly the same land Commodore would want, so they probably would not band together. With my luck, he would read my offer as "let's attack Commodore RIGHT NOW".
Also, I have sent fish for fish to Commodore. I can live with the current border. If I get fish for fish back, I would take it as a NAP and just burn Atico. If don't (the most probable outcome) - my only hope is to create a strong enough threat to Commodore to force him to give 10 turns of peace before Plako can react. Attacking Spread Eagle is a foolish enterprise but I can try to outflank it from the south and to create a threat to the city which is behind it. After that, I will attack Plako and, at some point, extort peace from him. In this way, I can cycle between wars in such a way that I always have enforced peace with at least one of the enemies. A very long shot but do not see what else can I do.
Anyone wants to take it over? I have a really bad taste from this game and do not want to continue playing. This is the first time in my RB career I feel like that.

[Gavagai]

Posted a request for a sub in general forum. To clarify, there are two reasons I do not want to continue playing.
1) Commodore. I am not bothered by dogpiles/backstabs - I survived much worse in PB22 quite cheerfully, even though IIRC I whined and raged in my thread a lot. But there is a difference. I am usually irritated as hell when I do not understand how my neighbors think but I still want to keep playing and solve the puzzle eventually. With Commodore - I believe I understand how he thinks very well and his thinking is shit. To put up with it for months ahead - sorry, I have better things to do with my life.
2) The map. It is terrible fair and square, the first time I am saying such a thing about RB-made map. I only know the full roster of B4ndit's neighbors and my own - and I already see that he had two and I have four. What even the fuck?

[Gavagai]

And one more thing: if Plako and Commodore truly found a way to establish that much trust between each other (and make no mistake, Plako's provocative behavior shows a huge amount of trust), then me stepping down is the only way to save my civ There is a chance that Commodore would reconsider his strategy when a new player steps in. But if those two would stay together, my civ has no future.

[OT4E]

Hey, Gav!

I am not going to judge you. Even more I am also a bit misaatisfied with the map and those "fair" maps at all which turn to be very unfair. But what exactly Commodore did to make you so unhappy? Doesnt he just wait for opportunistic chance to bite somwthing from you? Do you think he is plotting against you deliberately against his own interests? May be he just overestimates his chances against you and truely thinks he can gain more from you than from plako? Or it can happen that he realises that you gain more if you double plako and doesnt want to deal with huge powerful neighbor instead of 2 smaller ones with a tension in relationship.

I honestly dont see how he could be signalling plako to do that shit with plako's city. I think it his own "brilliant" idea.

Of course sometimes neighbors play for you and do what they want them to do. This happened in pb30 where you have won. Sometimes they play against you and your path to the win becomes a little bit harder.

But at the end of all if they both attack you simulateneously cant you crush either of them or eventually them both? This must be enough to stop them from entering serious conflict.

[Gavagai]

Hey, Gav!

I am not going to judge you. Even more I am also a bit misaatisfied with the map and those "fair" maps at all which turn to be very unfair. But what exactly Commodore did to make you so unhappy? Doesnt he just wait for opportunistic chance to bite somwthing from you? Do you think he is plotting against you deliberately against his own interests? May be he just overestimates his chances against you and truely thinks he can gain more from you than from plako? Or it can happen that he realises that you gain more if you double plako and doesnt want to deal with huge powerful neighbor instead of 2 smaller ones with a tension in relationship.

I honestly dont see how he could be signalling plako to do that shit with plako's city. I think it his own "brilliant" idea.

Of course sometimes neighbors play for you and do what they want them to do. This happened in pb30 where you have won. Sometimes they play against you and your path to the win becomes a little bit harder.

But at the end of all if they both attack you simulateneously cant you crush either of them or eventually them both? This must be enough to stop them from entering serious conflict.

Wait until you see the situation yourself if and after you take over. You will see our geography and the extent of Commodore's stupidity will become obvious.



The picture does not capture everything but I'll try to explain. As the result of his raid Commodore got exactly four tiles: NE, E, S, SW from Spread Eagle.
But let's assume the best case scenario: he crushes me and gets my core. He will end up with Plako taking everything to the south and Pindicator having his core cities right next to Confucian shrine. His own territory will be a narrow snake-shaped stripe between these two gentlemen. How anyone could want to end up in such position is beyond me and yet, this is what Commodore seems to be aiming at.
By contrast, he is positioned to get a better part of Plako's land after Plako falls to our dogpile. And this is something which would happen inevitably at some future point: Plako is the weakest of us three.

[Gavagai]

Commodore returned fish for fish offer. Notably, Pindicator has not returned Iron for Iron offer which is hardly surprising.
Also, Plako fired his artist specialists in both cities. Maybe decided that trying to pull off culture bomb is too much a risk.
If we assume Commodore stays neutral, there is nothing catastrophic about the current situation. If Plako would want to culture bomb, I can pre-empt it, as I will have a long enough warning. Until he is ready to do it, there is no pressing reason for me to raze his city. As time passes, I am becoming stronger in relation to both Pindicator and Plako and the point when I can fight them both is not far away.
Also, Plako's military is a bit of a paper tiger. He has built a lot of Catapults and they are not going to be that much useful in the kind of war we will most likely fight.

[Bacchus]

Устроили скондал на ровном месте