[PB56] Amicalola and Tarkeel are Feeling Spicy

[Tarkeel]

Having slept on the situation, here's my take.

Anise was slated for being built 2E, but we settled on the current location to make it more palatable to ElGrillo, who nevertheless challenged our spot instead of claiming strategic resources. This led to our initial plan, because we just couldn't let that city swamp us in culture; Anise would probably even flip at some point. Noble's war with AT was hotter than we'd realized, but without strategic resources the result was always going to be bad for AT. A captured SoLong isn't as crushing culture-wise, but it's still a great problem for us.

I think Noble's goal was to enforce peace for 10 turns after seeing our power spike; I don't think he's quite ready for an offense against us now. The thing is, I doubt he has vision of just how barren the rest of our land is and underestimates our desperation, and has really left us no way out. Sun Tzu said "When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard." If we had an other option than war, we'd have taken it. Besides, I think he would come for as the end of the enforced peace, as he's really not shown friendly intentions so far.

I think our best bet is to fake a threat towards his capital by roading the forest S-SE of Basil (under spear-cover), and staging our forces so that they can go either way. Our primary goal for this should be to take SoLong, possibly even razing it, and suing for peace.

Secondly, we should spit out a settler for red, and possibly even green (moved south?) since that can share capital food and we need more source to stack whip-unhappy in.

Here's a list of all the food available to us:

• Pigs at red dot, requiring a lot of worker input and in the wrong direction.
  
• Dry corn at Basil, marginally ours.
  
• Fish at silver-island, requiring Sailing.
  

We can also fight for the following:

• Wet corn at Anise, nominally in AT's land.
  
• Sheep in the far north-east, equidistant to AT.
  
• Cows in the west, which are feeding Vanrober's copper city
  
• Deer in the north, which should be feeding Ruff's horse city
  

In hindsight, pink-dot should probably have been claimed by force instead of settler, and our first two cities should have been cyan and red, but then we'd been forced into fighting for every new food source, which kinda sucks. At nominally 110 tiles per civ, we shouldn't be forced into an existensial war at 3/4 cities.

I'll be gone for most of the day, but I think our plans are now committed.

[Amicalola]

I just accidentally logged in at the same time as Noble. So he'd played his turn (and finished it) but not logged out yet. I didn't realise until he logged out and I got the notification though. I just want to check if that was bad practice or if I broke a rule with any lurkers? More than happy to not do it again, or even to reload to my login if he wants that (I know Noble can be a real stickler for rules).

Would ask in the diplo thread but I don't want to post spoilers.

Also; in-game news: We are basically going to attack Stonehenge a little later with a feint towards the capital (the feint is deliberately poor, and relies on Noble believing I am even dumber than I am in reality ) with about 8 units. Still not 100% convinced it will work, but if it doesn't we might strike at the capital instead. Unfortunately, we just can't live with that Stonehenge spot; it will cripple our game even worse than my (now defunct) military builds did.

100% agree with Tarkeel's hindsight post. We should have settled red dot (the northern pigs city) first, then blue dot 2nd (as we did) for copper, and then rushed the entire pink dot area instead of leaving our good production city unsettled for so long. Ah well, hindsight I guess. But we should have seen these wars coming. I think Red and Green dots will be settled around T60+ now, which is absurdly late for being IMP. God it hurts to know you've badly misplayed your start.

[Amicalola]

Gah I’ve just realised I forgot to switch a tile. Not a huge deal, but if a lurker/Tarkeel happens to see this before turn roll, and could be bothered to log in and switch Basil to working its corn that would be amazing. I’d do it but I’m out.

Password is herb if anyone is willing.

[Tarkeel]

I just accidentally logged in at the same time as Noble. So he'd played his turn (and finished it) but not logged out yet. I didn't realise until he logged out and I got the notification though. I just want to check if that was bad practice or if I broke a rule with any lurkers? More than happy to not do it again, or even to reload to my login if he wants that (I know Noble can be a real stickler for rules).

That should't be a problem; if anything it's your part of the turn after he ends it and shouldn't be hanging around.

Also; in-game news: We are basically going to attack Stonehenge a little later with a feint towards the capital (the feint is deliberately poor, and relies on Noble believing I am even dumber than I am in reality ) with about 8 units. Still not 100% convinced it will work, but if it doesn't we might strike at the capital instead. Unfortunately, we just can't live with that Stonehenge spot; it will cripple our game even worse than my (now defunct) military builds did.

The more I think about it, we might be best off just razing that city. The more we delay the more new units Noble can whip out and/or move into position.

100% agree with Tarkeel's hindsight post. We should have settled red dot (the northern pigs city) first, then blue dot 2nd (as we did) for copper, and then rushed the entire pink dot area instead of leaving our good production city unsettled for so long. Ah well, hindsight I guess. But we should have seen these wars coming. I think Red and Green dots will be settled around T60+ now, which is absurdly late for being IMP. God it hurts to know you've badly misplayed your start.

The thing is, red dot wasn't any good without Animal Husbandry and a ton of worker effort, we're still missing masonry to get it at max effect. Green dot to spread around whip unhappy would actually have been a better spot I think. The thing is, pink dot wasn't that bad, it was the one source of food we could steal early on, and I think ElGrillo/AT should have settled his strategic resources first and not whipped out Stonehenge to challenge it.

Gah I’ve just realised I forgot to switch a tile. Not a huge deal, but if a lurker/Tarkeel happens to see this before turn roll, and could be bothered to log in and switch Basil to working its corn that would be amazing. I’d do it but I’m out.

The turn rolled before I woke up.

[Amicalola]

As usual, agree with everything you said. And no big deal about the corn, was a very minor thing.

Just a heads up: I have to wait for Noble to play (he still hasn't yet) to play my own turn, and I'm going to bed now with 7 hours on the clock. I might need an extension of 2-3 hours to get my turn played after I wake up tomorrow. Don't know how to ask in the tech thread without spoiling for people who don't know Noble and I yet.

[Amicalola]

Thanks for the time add, Charriu.

Looks like Ruff played after me anyway. Er, as he has for the last 10+ turns.

[Amicalola]

I am unable to take screenshots right now so I cannot report very well. This will be the case for the next five ish days.

Noble played a very effective move (he sure used those 18 hours after he first logged in productively), and used 2 workers to road. I should have seen that coming; inexperience. He has stepped on Anise's only forest with an axe, spear, and 2 warriors, so that it cannot overflow into the 2nd axe I wanted in one turn. There is only an axe in Anise, and no units can get there in 1 turn (many are 2 turns away, because of a river). Amazingly, there is actually nowhere that I could have put a unit in range of both Anise and Basil thanks to the river location, but I should have realised that and split my stack into two. Very poor tactical play on my part, and I should be chopping Noble's stack into bits right now. Kicking myself.

Basically, it looks to me as though Noble can take and raze Anise, but we could maybe take and keep Stonehenge. That might be optimistic, but I don't think Noble has many metal units that I can't see. Probably about 4. So I guess the question is whether I would rather have Anise and no Stonehenge, or Stonehenge and no Anise. And sorry Anise, but you won't be very useful with that city of Noble's there anyway...

Alternatively, I can cut my losses and peace with Noble, overflowing in Anise into a monument and keeping at least some of it's first ring. If only Anise was the holy city, this wouldn't be a problem! In fact, that would be a solution to my dilemma about staying and peace and staying at war. The way small dice rolls change the game... Worth noting the war dilemma could also have been solved by better play though.

Of course, it might turn out that Noble can hold Stonehenge too, in which case our game is essentially over, and Noble REALLY snowballs this into victory. I would then become exactly what I'd tried to avoid in the first place. And actually, I'm starting to talk myself into cutting my losses and expanding peacefully at a crippled rate to try and curb Noble's snowball and mount as good of a defense as I can later. If only I'd decided to do that 10 turns ago, before rush-planning started.

This game really is a tragicomedy of errors and misunderstandings on my part, combined with really unfortunate geopolitical events and timing. I will decide what to do over the next hour, and then play the turn with that in mind.

[Amicalola]

Of course, Noble offered peace again this turn. He doesn't strike me as someone who offers peace out of mercy. So perhaps he is worried I will do exactly what I said and take Stonehenge afterwards? I have no idea. More likely he doesn't want a war that drags down both of us. But I don't exactly have much to lose right now, thanks to my earlier mistakes combined with the map.

[Amicalola]

I think I am going to accept the peace. Worth staying in the game, maybe I'll learn something from playing from so far behind. And I might have the opportunity to join a dogpile or something later, if Gira+Lazteuq decide to sign peace with one another, or if one of them fully eats the other. No point literally dying and just snowballing Noble even further right now.

Kicking myself over my tactical mistake at Anise. Definitely should have seen that coming. Hopefully I'll learn something, and actually will see it coming next time. This game reminds me a bit of 51; my micro was nowhere near as bad in this as that game, but my overall decision making (in hindsight) was lacking, and a critical tactical error has sunk the opportunity I had to recover things. Right now, I would put considerable money on Noble winning this game. However, I said the same thing about Grillo in 51, so perhaps something will surprise me again. I hope so; boring snowballs are boring for everyone involved, both players and viewers.

I will obviously keep playing this game to the best of my ability. However, as far as reporting I will probably stop that for the time being; our growth curve is hilariously crippled and any chance of winning the game is long-gone. As such, they will not be very interesting to read, and probably not worth the time to write. I imagine there's only so many self-loathing posts that people are willing to put up with. That will probably be the case here until something interesting happens, most likely Noble devouring me in 50-100 turns, but hopefully something else.

[Amicalola]

Oh, nevermind, I misunderstood how that works. I thought I could press no on the offer, but re-offer and it still counts. Is there a different button I should have used to minimise the diplo window for next time?

Anyway, looks like we're still at war so Anise is going to be razed. Whoops. Maybe Noble will uncharacteristically show mercy.