[SPOILERS] Roland and Suboptimal Team Up

[suboptimal]

Seeing the prior post after playing my turn I'll take the honorary win and concede. Here's my turn report as written before I got here.

Turn 200

Start out by hitting Al for another 42 points off the walls. The garrison is at 177/200 so won’t quite fully heal during the barbarians’ turn.

Over on Big Island I settle a new city:




I lock the cost of a Harbor and start a monument. Once I get a builder down here (6-7 turns) I think harvesting the marsh is in order for the population boost. I send Graceland’s just-completed spy to He Was My Brother. Seven turns to get there and then I’ll try to neutralize the governor there. Loyalty pressure will recalculate on Australia’s turn.

I send Confucius into the gap between Admiral Ushakov and Mikasa to see what’s up and find nothing. I’ll find a spot to go ashore down here (I see there’s also a Chinese missionary in the area) to do some more defogging.

Back home I’ve now got a niter mine at Diamonds. The builder has five more actions and I think I might harvest the stone and remaining forest into...something. A Wat or a settler, perhaps? I also don’t have a Government Plaza constructed but I don’t know that it’s worth it at this point in the game. Gotta get Al rebuilt first.

There’s room to put a snowball city east of OC – I could place it SW of the niter and then Kampung the coast for some food and housing, with a mine and lumbermill providing some production.

My next settler will cost 1160 if I buy it in the next 11 turns. Once Al is sorted out I’ll want to get a settler over to the island west of Have a Good Time and get that settled. I could use the jongs to clear out the barbarians unless you do that first. Do you want to settle Chocolate Island or should I?

[williams482]

This was a good read after the fact. Thanks for continuing to put in the time and effort to play and report a hopeless game, and nice job creating and achieving a few goals to keep it interesting. Offering peace for the island city was a very good move from you guys, and one I regret taking: we really needed the third ring coal (I was prepared to hand over the city for peace until that resource popped up), and I failed to both properly weigh the loyalty ramifications and figure out how pathetically small the war weariness relief would actually be. Timing that offer with the abrupt and totally unexpected appearance of a modern army was also very well executed.

Nicely done!

[ljubljana]

Thank you so much for sticking it out all this time!

I am still digging into the thread but, oh my god, I had no idea China's capital lost FIVE population from a tornado outbreak on turn 80. That's awful, I knew tornadoes were pretty much the worst disaster but that's a devastating, indeed almost game-ending loss and I definitely don't think I could have recovered from it. I can only imagine the salt that would have flown in my thread if that had happened at Cuneiform but your team took it in remarkable stride, major props for that.

edit: Not to mention 1 pop the next turn and lots of tile improvements not pillaged but wiped off the face of the earth. That explains a lot about why China was not in a position to help out with the Russian attack...

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

That said, I do have some questions:

1)Why were you so determined to fight me to the finish? I get that it was settling Vladimir Monomakh that triggered the war declaration (too bad - if I hadn't settled that city I'd have won the game fairly handily!), because you had decided the central island was "yours," but once it was clear that you couldn't win the war, why did you reject the several pretty reasonable peace offers sent without any attempt at negotiation?

2)Why did you not build more ships beyond the initial wave of jongs? No galleys in support, no follow-on units being faith purchased or hand-built. You definitely could have mustered more - my thread is full of calculations of worst-case scenarios.

On the whole, this thread does reinforce my conviction that settling cities OFF the coast in an island game is clinically insane. You make yourself harder to kill but you also make it basically impossible to win the game, since you can't build ships yourself! It's cutting off the nose to very much spite the face.

But you did a great job hanging in there, even after I wrecked your fleets and capitals and peaced out from the game. That's a tough position to be in (ask me about PBEM18), so kudos to you and Bruindane for sticking it out!

Also, no kidding, ljub, about hte tornado. I was pissed about a hurricane that destroyed a single Russian fishing boat.

[Bruindane]

I don't recall Russia offering peace until China and Indonesia had nothing left to lose. Threaten to a burn a city, I might accept and pay the Danegeld, but after a certain point with our coastal cities gone, we were more secure than before. I was embarrassingly willing to trade half of Indonesia for peace. I offered peace, and there was no negotiation.

Of course, we could have rebuilt and refought a new war, but maybe not.

[roland of gilead]

Thank you so much for sticking it out all this time!

I am still digging into the thread but, oh my god, I had no idea China's capital lost FIVE population from a tornado outbreak on turn 80. That's awful, I knew tornadoes were pretty much the worst disaster but that's a devastating, indeed almost game-ending loss and I definitely don't think I could have recovered from it. I can only imagine the salt that would have flown in my thread if that had happened at Cuneiform but your team took it in remarkable stride, major props for that.

edit: Not to mention 1 pop the next turn and lots of tile improvements not pillaged but wiped off the face of the earth. That explains a lot about why China was not in a position to help out with the Russian attack...

We lost defender of the faith to that tornado. We lost all sorts, i think about 10 pop all in. We would have finished mahabodi if not for the pillaged holy site. 

It was devastating. 

I have never recovered.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I don't recall Russia offering peace until China and Indonesia had nothing left to lose. Threaten to a burn a city, I might accept and pay the Danegeld, but after a certain point with our coastal cities gone, we were more secure than before. I was embarrassingly willing to trade half of Indonesia for peace. I offered peace, and there was no negotiation.

Of course, we could have rebuilt and refought a new war, but maybe not.

Russia offered 3 times, I recall. Once after I upgraded frigates to match Jongs, a second time after sinking said Jongs, and then again just before the decisive attack, I believe.

We were scratching our heads in our thread trying to figure out why y'all were so committed to continuing a war you started.

[roland of gilead]

You asked for too much in return for peace IIRC that was our island.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Obviously it wasn't

[roland of gilead]

Obviously it wasn't

i ended up with it.