Gavagai's PB42 thread

[Gavagai]

An awkward situation Krill asked for a pause and I cannot play before him as I am very likely going to declare war at him this turn. If I do it before he plays, that would be a double-move which would allow me to sink a good chunk of his fleet for good.

[Gavagai]

OK, Krill took the island city from sj and burnt two remaining cities in the mainland. Very puzzling. I have signaled him that I am OK with him keeping the cities, so the only reason to burn them is him not being OK with me keeping Ravenna. I expect him to try to capture it before but that should be rather tricky - though not impossible - for him to do. Ravenna will be defended by 7 Rifles at the least next turn. I am not sure he'll be able to ship enough units here before my stack arrives.
I am coming to think that this whole war was a major strategic blunder on my part. I should have asked for white peace immediately after I killed sj's initial army and refocus on Cairo. What I am getting from sj's war now is a marginal improvement of my overall economic capacity, which is already unmatched, and about a coinflip chance on taking Pyramids. Nothing of these, I think, worth losing 30-40 Rifles I am going to lose in this war. On the other hand, if I take Cairo it will bring OH to his knees and end the game.
I didn't make peace with sj because I didn't want to leave a strong enemy at my back and was afraid that Krill can invade uncontested. In retrospect, both these worries were overstated. Also, I expected Cairo to get himself some fleet like a reasonable person would do in his position but it looks like he goes straight to Rifling and will likely his Rifles of his own before I can attack. It means I'll need Infantry to break him quickly enough and by this sj detour, I lost a lot of tempo. Irritating. I don't think I am going to lose the game because of this but still a blunder.

[Gavagai]

1. Ravenna fell. Krill made no attempt to contest it from me.
2. OH took SD's Great Lighthouse city which put him ahead of me in GNP. I am taking it as a signal that I should stop fucking around and this whole northern war was a fool's errand. I need to wrap it up now and go after Cairo.

[thestick]

Why will going after Cairo end the game?

[Gavagai]

Why will going after Cairo end the game?

Because if I control Cairo's land, it will make OH's core indefensible. I will be sitting right next to his three shrines and religious wonders which are the backbone of his economy.

EDIT. And yes, it was a kind of a fuck up on his part that he decided to go after SD instead of Cairo for these precise reasons. Lucky me. If he decided to attack Cairo while I was engaged with sj and succeeded, it would not be unlikely that the game would end by the space race.

[Gavagai]

No pictures. I attacked Cairo and got attacked back by OH. Kind of a smart move on his part, he cannot really allow Cairo to fall to me. I am considering concession because of meta reasons. I am not certain that I can afford to expand the amount of time and mental energy needed to sustain the world war against Harry. The game has already been putting much more mental strain on me than I am comfortable with. Case in point: there were a lot of signs that Harry is going to attack, e. g. he was doing way more scouting than could be explained by simple curiosity. Reason I didn't put up some contingencies? It was either thinking of that or thinking about invading Cairo, I could do only one of those two things. Harry, on the other hand, appears to have zero trouble with masterminding the war against me and fighting SD at the same time. This is why I give him an advantage in our conflict. He also has a second person on his team, it helps a lot at this stage.
Strategically speaking though, the outcome of this war is uncertain. Harry has almost caught up in mfg (though I have an advantage of having Police State) and has significantly more powerful GNP. Also, I need to care about Cairo. I offered him peace but he has no reason to accept. I will possibly just evacuate the foothold I made on his territory and give him back his cities.
I wonder what would Krill do, he can pretty much decide who of us two wins right now. Really, I am not particularly pleased with the role he is playing in the game right now: his passivity is pretty much the only reason OH wasn't forced to concede long ago. If Krill doesn't want to play, he can end it at any moment by Alt-clicking on Harry's name.

[Gavagai]

Here is a funny thing... I only now recalled that OH has this stupid circumnavigation bonus. This is how he has been constantly able to reach cities he could not possibly reach by my estimates.

[Gavagai]

Lurkers, I CONCEDE THE GAME TO HARRY. It is very obvious that I don't have time and mental energy to play this kind of game properly, I am missing a lot of stuff and can't make myself care. Please, end it quickly before Harry is forced to play an unnecessary turn, I sympathize very much with the amount of effort it requires.
The game was a huge disappointment for me, I invested way more time into it than I really had and it all was for nothing.

[Gavagai]

Basically, here is what happened. I lost interest in this game at some point during the war with superjm which was way too much a chore for me. At that moment immediately everything went downhill. I forgot that Harry had a circumnavigation bonus and forgot that circumnavigation was a thing at all. I never considered how exposed my coastline is and how many resources its proper defense requires. Instead, I was driven by a singular purpose to end this game as fast as possible (and this is what kind of has happened). I attributed Harry's choice of target to a mistake, never realizing that he is thinking not in defensive but in offensive terms and taking out sd is a stepping stone towards the attack on my eastern coast. The attack on Cairo, as a result, found all my resources massively out of position. It was a crucial mistake.
The position is it is right now is probably still very much winnable, assuming that some more motivated player takes over from me. I, however, don't want to play this game for several more months.

[mackoti]

krill belives he has a small chanses so game on.