[SPOILERS] scooter's PB53

[scooter]

Turn 107

I'm just going to drop a couple details in here about the Cornflakes/TBS war, partly because I know TBS isn't reporting his end of it. I opened my turn to the following requests in this order.








I said yes to both. The wine gift was easy. It costs me nothing, and presumably he needs the happiness. The gold trade with no interest rate for me made me pause, but ultimately I decided it's worth it to just straight accept rather than haggle, because if it helps him hold out longer, it's worth it. I'm not sure if he'll use that cash for upgrades or to get Guilds, but either way, hopefully it helps.





I also saw this. It appears he emptied out Sabratha as evidenced by the units under my warrior. This was confirmed as Cornflakes captured and kept a city on his turn after this.

[scooter]

Turn 108

Picked up Alphabet last turn with the intention to get a spy or two into Cornflakes territory in the next couple turns. Also opens up the Education bulb to open up the Economics Merchant as planned. But I'm mostly going to eschew reporting my own stuff for a turn or two in favor of reporting TBS's defenses, since he understandably isn't bothering to report currently. Here's what he's looking at this turn, though I'm unclear if Cornflakes has moved his stack yet because his turn was halfway played at this point. I'm pretty sure it moved already.





(That TBS catapult is alone - it's got 2 workers underneath it.)

So we finally see Cornflakes' stack. My initial thought was that I honestly thought it would be bigger than that. I'm really surprised to see there's only one Mace. I thought for sure he just whipped out like 7-8 of them. I know he has a stack of Xbows as well, so I'm guessing those are on the eastern front, but he's made no progress there. It's really important for Cornflakes to take Leptis, because his core issue right now is he's advancing on two fronts, but TBS's defenders advantage allows some of his units to effectively defend both fronts. Anyway, despite being slightly underwhelmed by this stack, it looks like he has enough here?





Nevermind. The good news for Cornflakes is TBS does not yet have Engineering, so he's going to have to advance this stack a bit to actually be able to counter-attack. That said, he might just have enough to wipe this Cornflakes stack with road advantage. I suspect Cornflakes will turn around if he gets eyes on this stack and just wait for whatever unit he's going for next, but this doesn't look like a home-run invasion to me. And it shouldn't, really, because his military is not that much larger than Carthage anyway.


One big disclaimer: What I don't know is what kind of forces Cornflakes has advancing on Oea. Given the elephant positioning, maybe there's enough there that he can't use all these units. I do know he's got a stack of Xbows/Cats around that area, and this stack positioning suggests he wants to be able to stuff units into either one, so that may be what's going on.


As for me, picking up Alphabet means I can work out everyone else's tech situation, which I'll do later when I get some more time.

[scooter]

Let's look at the tech situation. First, an update on Cornflakes where he did pick up a new tech recently, though not what I expected. The gap here has widened, but I've got Paper 99% complete, so I'll go ahead and remove that from the list. In fact, I'm going to count Paper for all of this.

Tech vs Cornflakes

I am UP:

Priesthood 60
Monarchy 300
Feudalism 700
Guilds 1000
Banking 700


I am DOWN:
Code of Laws 350
Aesthetics 300
Literature 200
Music 600
Construction 350
Engineering 1000
Philosophy 800
Education 1800
Nationalism 1800
Gunpowder 1200


== Net Down 5640 beakers

I expected him to do Liberalism next, but he cleared out Gunpowder first. That may just be to help his TBS war. Hopefully he doesn't sandbag Liberalism too much. Onto Commodore.

Tech vs Commodore

I am UP:
Meditation 80
Priesthood 60
Alphabet 300
Civil Service 800
Banking 700
Paper 600


I am DOWN:
Code of Laws 350
Theology 500
Construction 350
Gunpowder 1200


== Net Up 140 beakers

Shockingly, I'm pretty much in a dead heat with Commodore tech-wise right now. I guess this makes sense. My raw commerce output has always been higher, but also my expenses have always been higher, and my infrastructure has been weaker as I've been skirmishing and whipping all game while he grows massive cities. It really just underscores how ludicrously ahead Cornflakes is then in comparison to the rest of us.

Tech vs The Black Sword

I am UP:
Meditation 80
Calendar 350
Alphabet 300
Civil Service 800
Guilds 1000
Banking 700


I am DOWN:
Compass 400
Theology 500
Aesthetics 300
Literature 200
Construction 350


== Net Up 1480 beakers

TBS has some interesting tech choices. For one, he's skipped Calendar. I can't fathom this one. I suppose you can just cottage over calendar resources, but the Calendar happy has been absolutely massive for me. No wonder he was begging a luxury off of me. Also, it looks like he raced Cornflakes up the Aesthetics/Lit/Music trail and lost, and he also recently teched Paper... Which I can only imagine is... so he can build Sankore I guess? Otherwise that one's a puzzler to me. I have a lot of questions here! His tech is honestly pretty impressive for someone who tanked their economy as badly as he did. Hail Cothons.

Tech vs Cairo

I am UP:
Alphabet 300
Civil Service 800
Guilds 1000
Banking 700
Paper 600


I am DOWN:
Code of Laws 350
Construction 350


== Up 2700 beakers

Cairo is pretty checked out of this game. He should have settled Bigfoot and screwed me badly expansion-wise, but it didn't happen. Minor side gripe: the middle players always had a much worse angle on the middle land than the corner players who got a longer spoke and fewer neighbors. I should have been the most screwed given that the other middle player was IMP, but thankfully that didn't happen.

[scooter]

So when doing that write-up, TBS skipping Calendar bothered me. Calendar was one of my best techs. TBS is not an idiot. Why on earth did he not tech it? So I decided to see how many resources he's missing out on by looking up my old screenshots of his land from a few turns ago.










Uhhhhhhhhhh.

[scooter]

Turn 109-111





First signs of Cuirs on the scene (Cornflakes libbed MilTrad as speculated and apparently upgraded some HAs). That said, TBS is increasingly looking to be OK here. I know Cornflakes has another mini-stack inside Oea, and I've also seen a sizable naval force south of Oea. So, I wonder how well defended his front with me is? Also, I wonder if Commodore has declared on Cairo yet?





World War 1 has begun? Every player alive is at war currently. TBS also slipped himself into a Golden Age thanks to that Engineer. Cornflakes has a sizable military edge over me, so I can't really properly conquer, but he does have two front cities containing 3 wonders of varying levels of usefulness, so here's the tactical situation.





I offered him peace for Rotterdam or peace for Nijmegen. Actually, I'm not sure if I actually sent or closed the Rotterdam peace deal even though I have a screenshot of it, because I'd rather not sign peace for that. Though, minimum 10T of GLH income wouldn't be the worst outcome.


Rotterdam contains the Great Lighthouse and the MoM of incorrect spellings. Nijmegan contains the Great Library and 10 population. If he rejects peace, I burn his GLH/MoM next turn unless he's got more than I expect in the fog. This is very possible, but not a sure thing. He did move his Trireme back last turn, so I think he finally realized this was coming. I'm also hoping jumping on inspires TBS to keep fighting back. What I really want here is a bigger buffer. I'm worried about Cornflakes getting to his Galleon-replacing UU and wrecking me with superior technology. If I can push back some of these borders and maybe take out a wonder while I'm at it, I have more wiggle room to defend myself. If he takes peace, I might swing these units down and capture that TBS city, or maybe I try to pile onto Cairo or something. I whipped quite a few more units, so I'm really curious how Cornflakes will respond and how well he's stocked his defenses in this area. I'm always a bit overly pessimistic, so I assume he'll be able to muster the units, but we'll find out soon enough. It should be much harder for him to reinforce Nijmegen, so if he does muster enough at Rotterdam, I'll just land all the CKNs and load up some Knights and burn that the following turn.


Everyone is at war. Are you not entertained?

[scooter]

Turn rolled. Bottom to top.

09/29/2020 18:59:35 112 - a new turn has begun. It is now 75 BC
09/29/2020 18:38:16 111 TBS score decreased to 1238 (-15)
09/29/2020 18:37:45 111 TBS score decreased to 1253 (-16)
09/29/2020 18:37:25 111 TBS score decreased to 1269 (-7)
09/29/2020 18:36:55 111 TBS score decreased to 1276 (-16)
09/29/2020 18:31:30 111 TBS score decreased to 1292 (-15)
09/29/2020 18:25:14 111 Cornflakes score decreased to 1309 (-31)
09/29/2020 18:25:14 111 TBS score increased to 1307 (+31)
09/29/2020 18:22:02 111 - game resumed by player.
09/29/2020 18:18:21 111 TBS logged in

Looks like someone recaptured Oea. I wonder if that had to do with Cornflakes suspecting my stack incoming? I hope that wasn't a peace deal. The whipping during a Golden Age suggests that's unlikely.

[Miguelito]

Everyone is at war. Are you not entertained?

Yes, is beautiful. Thank you so much for doing your part in making the world a bloodier place.

[scooter]

Turn 112





Cornflakes didn't take kindly to my attack. He did follow this up with a straight peace offer, which I also rejected. I suspect he has misunderstood my intentions.





He emptied Rotterdam. Obviously the plan from him here is to recapture with Cuirs on Engineering/Construction roads. Minor issue: I'm not here to capture Rotterdam's wonders. I'm here to burn them.





Most painful burn of my Civ career. But if I attempt to hold this, and he peaces out with TBS and comes at me with Cuirs with culture in his favor, which I'm not prepared to handle right now. I want Astro and a hobbled Dutch neighbor, not to lose my stack in an indefensible city.





Nijmegen on the other hand I intend to keep if it looks doable. I offered him peace for the city again, though I suspect he'll reject. The cultural borders at Fan Death are going to get a lot more comfortable. I was just a few turns away from losing the Stone tile to Cornflakes which would have been really bad. We'll see how likely he is to get out of this war with me after that. He can still conquer TBS if we get out of this without a big skirmish, so we'll see.





Commodore picked up two Cairo cities already, which is concerning. I don't think there's been a big skirmish yet.

[scooter]

Turn 113





Here's what Cornflakes is moving up. Nothing particularly scary yet. Remains to be seen how tilted he is. I've withdrawn my units on the mainland back into Fan Death, so maybe he'll still sign peace after Nijmegen falls given that it'll be fairly bloodless, and TBS is still ripe for conquering. Given that he didn't even offer white peace this turn though, I'm starting to suspect he's not going to do that. I was vaguely concerned me might peace-out TBS, but TBS did login earlier briefly, and no peace happened, so that seems to not yet be happening.





Couldn't attack this turn, but this city will fall next turn barring a surprise. He had more Triremes in the area than expected, especially since I know he has several more to the south. With that in mind, I switched tech to Compass-Optics, and I'll knock that out before completing Economics. I need to get some Caravels out, and I need these techs before Astro anyway.





The zoomed out shot. Stevie Wonder out east got its Granary, so I'm going to let it grow for awhile on its host of ridiculously great tiles. Cairo begged a couple luxuries off me, so I said yes to that. My cities out east look loosely defended, but I just walked a unit through Commodore's cities, and I can assure you that they are even more lightly defended. He also significantly lightened the garrison of Sunnyside/Yakima as well, so that gives me a lot of wiggle room.


A lot rides on how Cornflakes reacts to all this. I've made it clear I just want the border adjusted (and the tech runaway knocked down a peg) rather than a full-scale conquest. If he's cool with that, he can go on conquering TBS and I'll leave him alone. Early returns are iffy on that, though.

[scooter]

Uhhhh.

10/02/2020 13:57:25 114 Cornflakes score decreased to 1209 (-68)
10/02/2020 13:57:25 114 TBS score increased to 1223 (+69)
10/02/2020 13:32:01 114 Cornflakes logged in

Sure looks like Cornflakes just gifted 2-3 cities to TBS for peace.


This is allowed via our non-existent rules, but I'm going to go ahead and say it's moderately scummy. That pretty clearly signals an intent to throw himself at me at the cost of his entire game. That might make sense if I captured cities of his that he could theoretically recapture, but I haven't. It does make sense to try to remove himself from a 2-front war, but he can make gains on one front where his army is already located but not the other where I have a larger and more advanced army with more favorable borders, and yet here we are. IMO it's him deciding he's no longer going to try to better his position. I'm guessing this is why the lurker thread has been on fire for the last few days.


I think that's absurd. He's got 1) a huge tech lead, 2) Pyramids + Colossus + upcoming Astro power spike, 3) Largest army in the world, and 4) A backward neighbor he's already winning against and that's before his Cuirs really arrived on the scene. He's going to throw that all away for spite because he made multiple mistakes that were punished while being on the verge of winning the game? Gimme a break.