[SPOILERS] That's Donovan Zoi of the Zulu, With a Capital Z

[Hollybombay]

knock/knock any updates from the zulu?

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Any updates?

[Cornflakes]

I'm curious why you pushed an Impi towards me so aggressively around T45, and followed it up with an axe? Were you just trying to push back the fog, or did you have more nefarious intentions? That incident chilled relations to "Icy" from my perspective and it took 100 turns to thaw out But we coexisted peacefully in the 2nd half And I appreciate the militaristic response to my Iron/Iron request for aid at the end ... although that doesn't look like it worked out

[Donovan Zoi]

Holy crap!  With 3 rivals tearing into his core, Mr. Cairo pushes through for the cultural victory!  I am pretty sure his capital or Yokel Haram would have fallen this turn.

Exciting end to a pretty cool game. Sorry you missed my part of it, but figured I could be of some use here at the end.  






Congrats, BGN and Mr. Cairo!

[superdeath]

Due to some weird mechanics... i think only Yokel would have fallen, his capital was nigh-impregnable.

[Mr. Cairo]

So were you at all tempted to join in on the dogpile DZ? Especially considering my earlier attack on you while we were all dogpiling wetbandit.

[Donovan Zoi]

I'm curious why you pushed an Impi towards me so aggressively around T45, and followed it up with an axe? Were you just trying to push back the fog, or did you have more nefarious intentions? That incident chilled relations to "Icy" from my perspective and it took 100 turns to thaw out  

Sorry it took so long to get to this question.  

I am not gonna lie, there was a plan to raze your Copper city if feasible.  The prospect was too much of an ancient era game changer to not consider.   I was pretty pleased with myself for evading your Scout patrol by hiding my Impi north of the lake, before getting into position the next turn.  And if I had created and staged two Impis instead of Impi/Axe, I may have pulled it off.

I thought that your Worker move was brilliant, and there was nothing else I could really do at that point.  I only kept the Axe around because you Quechua was approaching.  I suppose I could have backed off a bit.


Cornflakes

But we coexisted peacefully in the 2nd half  

Agreed!  Once you gained my border from Elkad, I felt we had mutual trust at that point.  And our war with wetbandit was fun way to solidify that trust, until someone messed it up.   

 I'll be right with you, Mr. Cairo...

Cornflakes

And I appreciate the militaristic response to my Iron/Iron request for aid at the end ... although that doesn't look like it worked out

I just read your thread.  You attacked out at his stack?   I knew it!

I do feel I have to explain myself here, because my move on JR4 definitely looked to all like an opportunistic grab.  And yes, it certainly was to some extent but was based on good intentions.  

When JR4's stack was two tiles out from your capital, you offered me Iron for Iron.  I sent the deal back to you, and positioned my troops to attack the Aztecs next turn (Pretty sure I had workers to complete needed railroads through your culture as well).  But perhaps my unit placement was too coy for you to notice, as I needed to mask this attack from JR4's visibility as well.  Anyway, had you held tight, JR would have advanced one more tile, I would have hit his stack with about 40 artillery (and killed off what I could) leaving your fully intact city stack to come out and clean up after the turn roll.  We should have totally neutralized the Aztecs and who knows how the remaining turns would have gone.   Oh well, that's the trouble with AI diplo, though not a complaint.  It's my preferred way of playing, but man, signaling was a real problem in this game -- with everyone.

Anyway, I was left to fight JR4 on equal movement and then things went south quickly from there, as we all know.  It's a time in the game I should write about, especially since everyone sees it as "Donovan's lost weekend."  If I were to fully capture all of my thoughts during those 12 turns of aggression/confusion, I'd probably be forced to set up my own Patreon account for my friend Superdeath.

[Donovan Zoi]

So were you at all tempted to join in on the dogpile DZ? Especially considering my earlier attack on you while we were all dogpiling wetbandit.

No, not at all actually.    I was beaten up pretty bad and, in the end, you ended up being my only friend left in this crazy town.  

It did take me awhile to come to terms with your stunning betrayal lol, but I don't hold any grudges.  But Cornflakes and I did have wetbandit on the ropes, man!  The Vikings were down from 11 to 6 cities and I was content to keep my minor gains and let you and Cornflakes fight for Donerparte. You had a different plan.  And then everything all kind of just went back to how it was...definitely a surreal turn of events watching wetbandit get back all of his cities as quickly as he lost them.  

I'll admit that I was kind of glad to see you won, though I don't feel I was throwing the game to you with my late game moves as some have suggested.  I hadn't checked the win conditions for the last couple turns, so I did let out a bit of a cheer when the Victory announcement took me by surprise.  But that was mostly due to the exciting nature of your victory as I was observing your walls closing in -- aaaaand the fact that this marathon of a game was finally over! 

[Donovan Zoi]

Due to some weird mechanics... i think only Yokel would have fallen, his capital was nigh-impregnable.

Yeah I could not figure out the variance in collateral damage either.  I remember looking at the aftermath of your first attack on me and seeing your Cannons consistently getting damage on 6 or 7 units with each battle.  That must have been due to the small percentage of Machine Guns and Artillery I had in that stack.

It was fun getting a chance to play with toys we usually don't get to see in a Realms game though.

[JR4]

As I didn`t expect Cornflakes to attack the big Aztec army moving in on his capital, our Great Artist was a turn too late to the party and that left a big chunk of our army exposed. I was rather worried about Superdeath stabbing us (as we attacked him earlier) but didn`t see your attack coming. Perhaps trying to cut as many roads/railroads as possible would be best.

I always saw us as natural allies as we in principle could work together on bringing down Cornflakes or Mr. Cairo. We had several mutually beneficial trades and our little sea was non-militarized until almost the end of the game too. So, out of curiosity, why did you stab us? I mean, having at least one ally has some value, right?