[PB56] Amicalola and Tarkeel are Feeling Spicy

[Amicalola]

Yeah, I guess I would just rather check than have the game blow up next turn or something, or break a rule. It's so ingrained in me that gold-gifting is wrong, probably from reading Sullla's PB2 report back in the day.

Edit: I'll play my turn in a few hours when I get back to my laptop.

Edit2 (4hrs later): Ok, seems like there's no drama, so I'll play the turn now.

[Amicalola]

T143 - Golden Age!

So, this turn we started our GA. Here are the GA demos:



I expect these to improve significantly over the course of the Golden Age, particularly the hammers. I'm curious to see how Serfdom long-term plays out! The GNP is at 0% research, we're about 500 with 100%. 

Mjmd is also in his first GA, while Gira, Civac and Noble have finished theirs. I imagine Noble's second is very close though; I'm kinda surprised he didn't go straight in a chain. 



My plays during this GA are based on a few assumptions, that may or may not turn out to look pretty dumb. So for example, we aren't making any attempt to grab GPP for a 2nd GA. We don't really have any good cities for it (even getting Francis Bacon here was tough), but more importantly, this game can go two ways I think. Either 
1) Noble creams Gira and/or us. The game is over in 15 turns, and the 2nd GA doesn't do much.
2) Somehow we all manage to catch up to Noble. Maybe if he badly screws up in a war or something? The game lasts 50+ more turns, and we'll have time to set one up later.

So that's my thinking on that. Very possibly some grade-A    though (the 'A' stands for Amicalola  ).  



There was an embarrassing mishap a few turns ago. I was researching Engineering to protect against Noble's knights (which he's whipping now), and prebuilt a bunch of spears to upgrade in the queue. Of course, it turns out you need iron for pikes, and we didn't even know how to smelt that yet. So what we got instead was a bunch of Very Scary Spears. Oops. Anyways, we've got iron now thanks to a slight detour, and are building some pikes. File that under 'things that never came up in SP before.' 



The other thing we're doing in this GA is building the AP, and as many monk buildings as possible. This is really asking for trouble with Noble right around the corner, but my thinking is this (more assumptions):
1) If Mjmd decides to attack us, and Noble joins, we'll be dead no matter what we do. 
2) If Mjmd decides not to attack us, and Noble does in the next 5 turns, I think we're already strong enough to hold him off. Our whole army is over there, while (hopefully) Gira is tying up significant units. A lot rests on that last sentence. 

Right now, it seems that Mjmd is deciding to be nice. Which is great! But that means I think we have to be greedy and go for a wonder that will help us keep up in the long-term. Once we have the AP and monk buildings, that should be worth something like 60-80 production per turn, which will really help us keep up with the other players (we have the least land). 



Oh, almost forgot; obligatory Moai screenshot goes here:


Garlic has been stealing the capital's fish for about 15 turns to grow as tall as possible. It's probably our best city though, so I think that was worth it(?). Anyways, soon we'll stop growing it fast (either size 16 or 18) and give the fish back.

Any questions? Feel free!
 

[Amicalola]

T150 

Well I guess if I'm better enough to properly report 59, that has to apply to this game too. We're actually in the final GA turn, so T150 is a good turn to come back on anyway. Here's an empire-level overview:



We've built quite a few pikes, and are going to do a round of knights in most cities. Hopefully they'll finish right around the time we unlock stock exchanges.

Another thing of note is that I decided to build ToA in Cumin. This was dumb - I should have built it pre-GA, for the GPP. Which is the reason I'm building it now; we have literally no specialist cities, so I'm going to passively get one out of Cumin in 30 turns, and crank one out ASAP in The Rack once it's fully grown. Should be ready in about 30 turns, although Noble might have won by then. 

Here are the GA demos:


Note that Noble and Civac are also in GAs, and Noble is researching Nationalism. Also, production graph, because it makes me happy:





The group of 4 has split up a little bit, into what I would call a clear ranking. This is my subjective opinion, and could change, but in order of how I think we're doing:

Noble------->Amicalola/Tarkeel->Civac-->Mjmd/Miguelito->Giraflorens

Unfortunately, Noble can't really be stopped by any means I've figured out. We need to attack him before Galleons (which he's actually pretty close to), but Cho-Ku-Nus make that pretty impossible. I'm not even sure a committed 4-way dogpile could do it, let alone just me and Gira. So I'm mostly just waiting resignedly for Noble to get to Astronomy, so we can finally concede and/or die. 



But to not end the report on a depressing note, I alluded to this a couple of weeks ago, but this game was overall a positive experience. I've gotten so, so much better at micro, because our cities were close together and had to swap tiles every turn. I'm also getting to test out the Serfdom economy, and to be honest I'm liking what I see. I can definitely see myself using it again, especially as a non-FIN civ.

The downward-spiral wasn't much fun, and I don't really have a good reason for it; 'stressful civ game' probably doesn't count. Mental health is weird like that, I guess. But it was probably just coincidence, and would have happened for a different reason anyway. I've likely had anxiety for a while, but this game made it obvious enough that I got professional help, and a diagnosis. From that came new strategies to deal with it, and even just understanding what's wrong helps a lot. Anyway, I hope you don't mind me reflecting on it here; I think it's just because this is where it became obvious to me in the first place. Maybe 56 will always be a little meaningful for that reason.

[Amicalola]

T150

We're back, after a strange 3-day delay. No idea what that was about, to be honest.

No serious overview stuff, because you all have a pretty good idea of what the empire looks like anyway. But our demos leaving the GA aren't as terrible as I was expecting, considering Civac/Noble are still in theirs and research is 0%. Building the AP on the interturn certainly helped; I seriously love that wonder.



We're heading up towards banking now, and I have a serious decision to make. Do I try to help Gira fight Noble with knights now, or do I build stock exchanges and Spiral Minaret now? The latter makes me much more likely to win the game if Noble is stopped anyway, but I don't see a world where Noble is stopped without us playing a decisive role. I don't really see a world where Noble is stopped at all. So it's probably attack time, Stock Exchanges be damned.

I sent Mjmd an offer to attack with me in 8 turns (his army needs time to march across). I doubt he'll take it, but I would in his position, just for the chance to have someone else win, so I figured it was worth a try. I'll need to talk strategy with Tarkeel over the next few days, re: if we attack or not.


Oh one more thing. Civac asked us for marble last turn, with a very generous offer. I would take it no matter what, but my desperate hope is that he's going to try for Taj? I can't think of any other good marble wonders right now. I'm not sure he can get it, Noble finished Nationalism this turn. But if he does.....

[Amicalola]

Noble is whipping up an absolute frenzy this turn, during his GA. I forgot to mention, my best guess over the 3-day wait was some drama with Gira/Lazteuq and Noble. So on that note, I moved all our units into attack position this turn (so they could in theory invade next turn, although they definitely won't) trying to spook him. Looks like it worked.

It's nice to be on the other side of the 'spooking' on this border for once!

[Tarkeel]

If the server comes back up with my turn half played, I ask all players to refrain from logging in and making changes to their civ before I finish my turn.  Thanks.

No, I don't believe it is.  I would have finished the turn already if Tarkeel hadn't crashed the server.  As it is I must go to sleep now.

I'm posting this here in our thread so as to not inflame tensions further. The only reason I can find for such a request is that Noble has or was about to declare war on us, or for some other reason claim a turn split. We haven't been informed of any such turnsplit, so I don't see any reason why we shouldn't log in. If the lurkers are aware of something different, please let us now. You don't even have to state what the reason is, just that there is a legitimate reason to hold up this game even more.

[superdeath]

If the server comes back up with my turn half played, I ask all players to refrain from logging in and making changes to their civ before I finish my turn.  Thanks.

No, I don't believe it is.  I would have finished the turn already if Tarkeel hadn't crashed the server.  As it is I must go to sleep now.

I'm posting this here in our thread so as to not inflame tensions further. The only reason I can find for such a request is that Noble has or was about to declare war on us, or for some other reason claim a turn split. We haven't been informed of any such turnsplit, so I don't see any reason why we shouldn't log in. If the lurkers are aware of something different, please let us now. You don't even have to state what the reason is, just that there is a legitimate reason to hold up this game even more.

In a nutshell

[Amicalola]

Thanks SD, that gave me a chuckle. Well it turns out not to have mattered because Noble played while I was asleep. But I’m still seriously confused. There is no war, and for that matter we should be allowed to play after Noble by my understanding, let alone at the same time. For that matter, there’s no reason we can’t play after him this turn, which if I WAS attacking (I’m not) I probably would do.

I was actually really pleased tarkeel woke up in time to check on T151 while Noble was still playing, because I could get advice quicker than I’d thought. It didn’t even occur to me this would be an issue...

Is he he trying to enforce a turn split? Or is he just paranoid about crashes? The latter is understandable but ultimately unfair, the former is absurd. So I feel tarkeel and I must be missing something. Again, posting here to not inflame the tech thread. Please tell us if we’re missing something!

[Amicalola]

At this point I’m half tempted to play after Noble this turn just to make the point that I can. Again, what if I wanted to attack? Sorry, I’m just so confused by this whole thing...

[Charriu]

You have every right to play after him, if there is no war. A peace time turn split between you two was never established.