[PB59 Amicalola] The Vespertine Hour(s)

[Amicalola]

T136-137

Perhaps I was throwing in the towel too early, as it looks like Naufragar might be willing to work against Mackoti after all... for a fee.  I offered peace for 25gpt, and he took it. 

Naufragar's army in Underhill was the reason I couldn't advance into Pindicator's territory; he would have done exactly what I did to Pindicator 5 turns ago. But with that gone, we can advance! So this turn, I captured Underhill, and all three of the other mainland cities will fall next turn. The island will take quite a while longer. I'm not going to rename the cities until Pindicator is dead, but I wonder: is there any sort of universal etiquette for that? 



Naufragar declared on Pindicator too, presumably trying to grab a couple of cities for himself. But he moved his main army onto this tile, which doesn't have a road. I'm not exactly about to build one for him, so he won't get Brandybuck or Mugwort. Only Chubb will fall to a small HA stack of his (is there any chance Pindicator whipped a spear?  ). I'm not sure if I'll go for the island, or let The Village have it.   



Naufragar also started teching this turn, into Optics. I'm guessing that means he has physical circumnavigation, and just lacks the tech. I'd be pretty close to that too, if a certain someone hadn't whacked my boat. I'm guessing Nauf is about to launch a GA, although I'm not sure why he didn't do it this turn. Otherwise I'm not sure why he spent so long saving gold.

[Hitru]

I think most commonly city is renamed after it comes out of revolt, but there's no universal rule about it. Nice to hear that things are looking better, hope you get some motivation from that!

[Amicalola]

T138

We captured Brandybuck and Mugwort, which alongside Naufragar razing Chubb in the south means that Pindicator is reduced to only his island. It will take 8 turns to even reach it with my first galley (Pindicator's raging herpes really screwed me there), so I think we'll be leaving that for Naufragar. But there's some other good news this turn. For starters, Frozen accepted a white map trade, which means when I reach Optics in a few turns, I will have circumnavigation. Frozen gets diplomatic favour if ever relevant, from now on.

Pindicator hasn't taken too kindly to Naufragar's backstab (Naufragar has now backstabbed both of us  ), and is using his dying breaths to raze Naufragar's cities on the coast. Pindicator's last ride, indeed. 


I think I have a decent chance to resettle these before Naufragar, which I never would have expected. Although it might unnecessarily annoy him just when we've reached something resembling a truce. However...

Speaking of annoying, Naufragar is pillaging the land I've conquered. While we've made peace to fight a common enemy, and while I'm paying him for the privilege.   It seems he is absolutely determined to be as obnoxious as possible. I've started pillaging my own land as well, because if someone is going to get that gold, it might as well be me. At least it pays for Optics?   I sent him an offer of mutual war with mackoti, in 10 turns. If he sends back something in agreement, there's a chance we can work together to take down the island's runaway. But my God he's making it difficult to stomach. 



The demos are... grim. Especially GNP, due to my extensive loans (I have superb culture, and 100% research with ktb, but barely crack the average). Every city has been whipped 2-6 times in the last 10 turns, because I had to get that magical defense army from somewhere. It feels like years ago that I was Top 5 in almost every category, but it's only been 15 turns; that is absolutely insane. 


Happiness is also a real problem, to the point that I'm building a few markets. I'm not sure if this is recoverable, the first step (sadly) would likely be making my peace with Naufragar.

I think most commonly city is renamed after it comes out of revolt, but there's no universal rule about it. Nice to hear that things are looking better, hope you get some motivation from that!

That's good to know, thanks.  

As a final note, now that I have a map, I'm considering doing a brief overview of every player, from my perspective. I've already noticed a few very interesting things. We'll see if I'm crazy enough to actually try it, but I feel like it could be fun to compare my perspective to the reality, after the game.

[Amicalola]

T139

Naufragar sent this back:


Or translated, "You fight Mack and do all the work, while I (equal in strength and superior in opportunity to you) sit back and reap the rewards."  Yeah, not fucking likely.


So when I saw 'Bad Neighbours' captured (not razed) by Pindicator and open like this... 


I had to think... for about 2 seconds. Ok, obviously I took and kept it. I'm only human! Naufragar isn't willing to work together in remotely good faith, and so I'm finding it impossible to see him as anything other than an enemy. For that matter, even as a neutral/friend, without his help I just lose the 1v1 vs. Mackoti anyway. So blood feud it is. I have city-visibility on Nauf's whole empire, so if he's planning anything hostile I'll know about it.



Cairo has held out really admirably, but he finally lost this city. It looks a little bit like he abandoned it, and I'm really, really, really hoping he's not about to slam that stack into me.   I'm not sure why he would, but given the last 10 turns I've experienced, I'm more than a little paranoid. I whipped the castle in Stonemilker, in a fit of irrational(?) panic. It would be absolutely crushing to actually require it. 

I took another loan from Tarkeel, this time 250 for 31gpt. It will let me get to Optics 1 turn faster, which in theory will net a little over 60 gold. So basically everybody wins. My loans repayments are over a third of my total expenses now, and I'm considering taking another one(s) to beeline Astronomy. Man, loans are addictive; this feels a little like starting a Pyramid scheme.

Final side note: Pindicator's name changes are amazing.  

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Wicked! Tricksy! False! They stole it from us!

[Amicalola]

T140

I settled Alarm Call, on top of an old Pindicator city. I am sure Naufragar will be very relaxed and understanding about this.


Overall, I'm settling 5 more spots over the next 4 turns. They're a mixture of resettling the cities that Pindicator razed, and settling his old core. I probably got quite lucky here; I had two settlers on the way to resettle the old spots, when Naufragar's cities got razed. That means I was accidentally prepared to settle here too. 

Next turn I get to cancel 75gpt in loan repayments, and the turn after that Optics trade routes should kick in. Each will help the economy considerably. I'm starting to wonder if I might recover beyond 'roadkill for Mackoti?' 

In local-geographic news, Mackoti will finish off Mr. Cairo this turn, and has galleons. Naufragar finished Optics last turn, so will presumably get Optics trade routes next turn too. We will be the first continent to eliminate 2 players; the other four all have 4-5. If Miguelito/Rusten can eliminate Donovan quickly, they might not be far behind.

Wicked! Tricksy! False! They stole it from us!

Never thought I would simultaneously get to play a game as the nasty little hobbitses and the marauding Shire-scourers.

[Amicalola]

T141 Ramblings - Backstabbing Pindicator: A Bad Idea.

I don't have anything to report this turn, but I've been thinking a lot about this. Now that the war is basically over, I'm going to guess that two of the bigger mistakes in the entirety of PB59 happened on our continent, and they're both 'backstabbing Pindicator.'

In my case, I've already discussed it at length so I won't say much. The harsher consequences on my end could have been avoided with better macro play, but I think it's likely that after I razed 3 Pindicator cities, he was always going to make me regret it. It's certainly how I would have acted in his position. His invasion knocked me from 'contention to win' into 'contention to survive,' when I could (and should) be competing with Mackoti right now.

But in Naufragar's case, the consequences might have been even bigger. I cannot stress this enough: before Naufragar signed peace with me, I was absolutely, unequivocally fucked.

I had whipped my empire to the bone, and was 13-20th in every major demographic category (still am). I couldn't advance on Underhill, because Naufragar's catapults would have shredded my army as badly as I'd shredded Pindi's a few turns ago. I couldn't keep whipping knights, because my cities were pathetic. If I had kept whipping knights anyway, there was another problem. Mackoti was finishing up his conquest of Cairo, and I was his natural next target; my units could not have stayed south for long (they've already gone north now, just in case). Meanwhile, Pindicator's army was destroyed, and Naufragar could have just used his stack to eat Pindi afterwards, and split me with Mack.

There's a reason I was so despondent during these turns - I had no way out, other than this peace-bribe (which I didn't think there was a chance in hell he would actually accept). I guess that goes to show that I need to work on my morale, but things really did look unrecoverable. 

Instead, now I have the majority of Pindicator's land, and Naufragar has about 3 cities to show for all that effort. I have enough troops that he can't attack me now, and enough cities that I should out-scale him. Depending on where Nauf's stack goes, I might even be able to grab the rest of Pindicator when the peace treaty expires (although Mack/Cairo makes that unlikely). And there's no way any of this should even be a possibility, given how bad things looked 5 turns ago; 25gpt for this outcome is the best deal I've ever made.

I'm not gloating here. I've made some truly terrible decisions this game, and the only reason I didn't mention them more is because I've talked it to death already. I just think it's amazing that backstabbing Pindicator (at the wrong time) had such big consequences this game, for both of us. It's also crazy how many ups and downs there have been. Even if I die before the end, it's been a wild ride.

[Lewwyn]

A good retrospective there hahaha

No matter how it happened, you came out on top. Best leverage it and make the best of it.

[Amicalola]

T142-144

A good retrospective there hahaha

No matter how it happened, you came out on top. Best leverage it and make the best of it.

Thanks Lewwyn, I do hope my various successes and failures have been entertaining to lurk. I was chatting with Tarkeel, and joked that my friendly neighbour Mr. Cairo had been replaced by Big Cairo. Tarkeel pointed out that that's still better than Big Mackoti, even if Mr. Cairo is still a couple of tiers above me. Looking forward to hopefully continuing the same beneficial peace up north. I'm also looking forward to seeing Mr. Cairo play the lategame, since I've heard that's his strength.   

There has been some tentative friendly diplo with Cairo (fish/fish stuff), but he has yet to move his stack from my border yet. I'm not sure if I can trust him or not - it seems that he is settling Astro islands in the fog. It feels like a pretty safe bet as to where those are:



I realised that our western continent (TBS-Commodore-Tarkeel-Superdeath) has no one very close to Astro, so I'm thinking about heading there next and settling the island to our northwest. Um, and southwest.   But it's possible Cairo is going to get that one too, long before I can, in which case I'd probably wait on Astro for a while. I'm not sure how big they are, but he has ~3 cities off-shore currently, I believe.

[Amicalola]

T145-146 - Peace?

Here is Pindicator's territory, after the dust has settled. About half the cities came with granaries, while the other half were settled, or the granaries were destroyed. 



As you can see, I got the vast majority of it. Doubly so, considering Naufragar already had Hornblower before the 2nd Nauf-Pindi-Amica war started; this is a better outcome than I could have hoped for, and probably than I deserve. His main stack is holed up in The Scouring (great name  ).



Nauf also has a 2nd stack sieging down the island. I decided to let him have that, because my galleys were too far away after the mess that Raging Herpes caused. I think there's a pretty decent chance he takes it next turn, but he might have to wait 1 more depending on what's on his ships. Pindicator has 8 units on the defense, mostly humorously-named swords and spears. 



My 1-movers can't hit Nauf's stack first if I attack, and the exact same is true for him. Cairo also acts as a counterweight in the north; I have knight whips prepared in that scenario, but hopefully they're unnecessary. With Pindicator's death, it looks like the orgy of death and destruction over this land might finally come to an end.