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[PB59 Amicalola] The Vespertine Hour(s)

(March 30th, 2022, 23:46)Amicalola Wrote: Thanks for the kind words, Thrawn and Refsteel. They are sincerely appreciated. smile

The funny thing is, as my personal situation has started to stabilise, I am already vaguely tempted to join a (normal-sized) new game. Despite enjoying my break from it all! I guess I never learn anything. lol

Psssst, wanna try some different stuffshhh?
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Post-Mortem Part One
In which Amicalola officially promises a 'Post-Mortem Part Two' so that they actually have the will to commit and write one. If we're really lucky it'll be as detailed as Miguelito's, which I enjoyed enough to inspire my own. You have already read an abridged version of my plans for the rest of the game (overwhelming annexation of Piccadilly's continent abusing checked-out Frozen's Cristo Redentor to rush-buy airports/bomb shelters), which I believe would have likely been successful, but I would like to collect my thoughts on my own game overall. There will be lessons for me, and hopefully interest for you.

Coming in the next few days™. wink
Past Games: PB51  -  PB55  -  PB56  -  PB58 (Tarkeel's game)  - PB59  -  PB60  -  PB64  -  PB66  -  PB68 (Miguelito's game)     Current Games: None (for now...)
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Post-Mortem Part Two - Amicalola's Vanity Project Game Summary
So here is my game, in summary. It's as short as possible - this whole thing really was ridiculously twisty. Strengths/Weaknesses/etc to come in the third post. 


In the pre-game, we keep Roosevelt with the explicit goal of landing two early wonders. We reject Mongolia (Hunting/Wheel) for having appalling starting techs, and get Ethiopia (Hunting/Mining) instead; Great Success! Roosevelt, imo, was an early coup - as Naufragar has best covered, this map overwhelmingly favoured slow traits over fast ones (see Civac for what was probably the best-case scenario for a Fast leader). ORG is, I believe, pretty clearly the best trait in Closer to Home, and IND is severely under-estimated. Roosevelt wasn't the best leader possible, but he was probably Top 5 for the map. 

We decided to go for Stonehenge and GLH, and were successful with both! By T50, Stonehenge is built (with nice Ethiopian synergy, too), and we have already turned IND into a pseudo-CRE. But due to some pretty appalling worker micro, on top of the early wonder, our demographics are... less than inspiring. 


To be honest, I suspected our game was done here for a little while. Just a wonder-building noob that would be easy prey to some hyper-competent Imperialistic Mackoti/TBS style veteran. 

Fortunately, our neighbours were extremely convenient for us this game (FWIW, I think the same is true of Miguelito and Piccadilly. One could probably make a strong (if depressing) argument that this was what set the three of us apart from the other 22 players, more than anything else). To the north I had Mr. Cairo, whose extremely slow pick and passive playstyle worked out extremely well for me early on. To the south I had Pindicator, with an equally-slow pick and running a huge farmer's gambit (for the record, I think Pindicator would have been a strong contender if not for a certain Indian Menace alright ). 

We continued to expand very slowly, but were successful in landing Roosevelt's destiny - The Good Great Absurd Game-Carrying Lighthouse on T71. What followed was a part of the game likely forgotten by everyone else, but that I am possibly the most proud of: an extremely micro-heavy expansion campaign that took us from 6 to 20 cities within about 30 turns, and terrible to Top5 demos in the same period, while fighting a hot war and getting IND forges up in every core city. Here is where that peaceful expansion ended up:



Of course, not all was well. Naufragar attacked Pindicator, and in arguably the worst civ I have ever played, on T84-5 I razed two of Pindicator's cities including his copper source. smoke Really what I deserved here was for Naufragar to roll over the Netherlands and keep moving straight onto me. Pindicator managed to fight off the Indians somehow, and marched upon my own territory for revenge. Thankfully, he seems to have felt pity(?) and made peace before any serious damage was done; we somehow escape with frantic unit whips as the only serious consequence. 

The first (literal and figurative) Golden Age of the Vespertine Empire followed, from about T100-125. We launched a GA and used it to fund the next round of Classical Techs, build the Great Library and National Epic in Unison, and establish the key IND/ORG infrastructure of Forge/Courthouse in every city. Roosevelt does nearly nothing until about T100, but I'd learned from PB58 that the Classical->Medieval Transition is a period of absolute dominance for him, and we were on top of the world. 



It was not to last. Something else that Naufragar has touched on is the absolute hellzone that our continent had become. Mackoti, Naufragar and I were all extremely powerful, and Pindicator almost certainly would have been too as mentioned. This meant that while I was doing well, my rivals were too. Mackoti had been brewing an attack on Mr. Cairo, which commenced around this era. The Aztecs were apparently blindsided, and quickly began to crumble. Naufragar too began round two with Pindicator, and I didn't have much hope for Pindicator's long-term survival. As my neighbours collapsed around me, I realised that I'd been putting all my energy into infrastructure en-route to knights, and it was all going to be much, much too slow. Here's a quote from the time:
Quote:Me. I'm the joke.


My continent holds 3 of the Top 5(?) civs in the game, or certainly Top 10; these are Mackoti, Naufragar, and myself. But they've played the last 10 turns much smarter than me. Mackoti and Naufragar are currently building construction-era armies, while I twiddle my thumbs building libraries and courthouses (I haven't researched construction or HBR yet). shakehead 


Things went from bad to worse. Mackoti finished his invasion of Mr. Cairo, and researched Astronomy at a ludicrously early date. Worse, in what I had thought was a planned backstab ('backstab'), but turned out to be less planned than I'd assumed, Pindicator secured a peace with Naufragar and marched 60-ish units into my territory. He was never going to kill me, but three cities were razed and the entire empire was whipped to the ground. We managed to fight off a joint-Pindicator/Naufragar invasion force, but Naufragar still had a large army lurking in Pindicator's territory, and all the whips seemed to be for nothing. It seemed only a matter of time until Mackoti inevitably massacred us with janissaries off galleons, and by T133, we were at an impasse:



In desperation, I offered Naufragar peace for 25gpt, a significant sum for a player whose economy was already destroyed. Between that and several loans, we actually made negative income at 0% science for a turn here. However much it hurt at the time though, this peace saved our game. Naufragar turned on Pindicator, who took serious offence; I was able to basically waltz into Pindicator's core while Naufragar's earlier gains were severely harassed. We ended up with a very uneven split, from what should have been 50/50 at best:


Then, on the turn our peace expired, we were able to smash Naufragar's main stack with 25 knights and kill the entire thing. While we couldn't advance into the Indian core, we were able to fully annex Pindicator's entire 'segment,' leaving us with two players' land (and about 0.5 players' population bang). In the north, Mackoti had been replaced by his victim Mr. Cairo, who I suspect took a much friendlier stance to the Vespertine Empire than his predecessor would have. Something that is a little strange to think about is that if Mackoti had not been replaced, I imagine he and Naufragar partition me en-route to a Mackoti victory from here. Regardless, by T150 we were left badly behind, but with room to recover. It's difficult to overstate how unlikely that was. 



The following 50 turns saw very little action from me. Instead I turned inwards, turning my broken shell of an economy into a beacon of progress through trade routes. One particular event stands out - Frozen inexplicably traded maps with me to give Circumnavigation, which amounted to a huge sum of money. Throw it on the pile of 'things that saved me game,' I guess. Anyway, it turns out that in a game this big, Custom Houses are actually pretty good! This worked for longer than I expected, but by T210 the second Golden Age was nearly over. 
(December 8th, 2021, 05:35)Amicalola Wrote: My economy rebounded after I whipped everything to the ground against Pindicator. But that was a combination of regrowing cities above Size 6 (crazy, I know) and a strong focus on Harbours and Custom Houses to pair with GLH. This worked amazingly in the short term, but was never going to in the long-term. Kremlin was an efficient bandaid because it let me whip banks and universities, but even that is just a bandaid. 


Yes, my trade income is great, and that was enough to carry me from T150-200. But for 50 cities the tile income is laughable, and it is catching up with me. The truth is that no amount of whips and trade route modifiers can compete against the 2/1/9 cottages that Piccadilly has, or Miguelito's Mining Inc. Regardless of my heavy whipping here, my economy would be getting outdated - I am the sick man of PB59.

At the same time, Miguelito and Piccadilly's gameplans were hitting their stride; within 20 turns my GNP went from joint-1st to less than half of theirs. So as it became clear that Spaceship prospects were farcical, I decided on another path. One abusing the Kremlin, and Cereal Mills, to take over half of the world. We started with Superdeath, using an invasion force of Infantry and Machine Guns. It's difficult to remember now, but the early turns of this invasion were actually pretty dicey. Superdeath couldn't have killed off my force, but he probably could have stopped, or seriously delayed, any major gains I could have made. Instead, he and Tarkeel chose another path, and continued to squabble while I invaded. Miguelito mentioned this, and while with Donovan Zoi I had to kill everything myself, he is absolutely correct that Superdeath and Tarkeel made the job much easier through their continued conflict. Regardless, within 15 turns I had conquered an entire continent. For the first time since about T120, victory seemed plausible again!



I tried to continue the push against Lazteuq, but a committed assistance from both Charriu and Miguelito completely stalled that push in the end (Side Note: Why did you hate me so much this game, Charriu? huh). Meanwhile, Piccadilly's space victory was rapidly encroaching and I had focused too much on the Lazteuq front to do much about it. I captured/razed about 10 cities on the West Coast while Miguelito got stuck into the East Coast, and then peaced out in an admittedly jerk move. This decision was spurred by these premises:
1) I cannot fight three fronts at once.
2) If I continue to commit to the Piccadilly war with Miguelito and we actually stop Piccadilly, Miguelito is virtually guaranteed to win regardless. 
3) Despite 2), Miguelito refuses to let me advance on Lazteuq. This is extremely greedy on the French side for very little reward (and FWIW, I stand by that. I think it was a huge diplomatic mistake to stop me there, because it killed my incentive to help you with Piccadilly). It also just made me very grumpy. banghead 

I believe the results of the decision stand as the justification. I am sorry Miguelito, because I can definitely understand that it was frustrating, even if I think you somewhat brought it on yourself (I think at one point you briefly mentioned being worried about this exact scenario?). I'm glad you were able to get over it, both in-game and on a personal level.  

The Cairo massacre followed, using nukes to wipe the stacks of a checked-out player. Conquering half a continent (45 cities) within three turns was pretty cool, if I say so myself. It left me with two continents and a tangible plan to acquire the third. But unfortunately, that's where our story ends, because 6-8 hour turns are too much, and nasty breakups suck. Again, I apologise to everyone that had been lurking - it was a perfect storm of shitty life circumstances. But while I tend to think my plan was plausible, I am incredibly grateful that I'll never have to find out. This game was fun, but at a certain point it became an obligatory weight around my neck, and a joint-win was truly the best outcome from here.

I focused more on the early turns, because I think they're actually more interesting than the latter ones. The game mostly started to play itself, after a certain point; I just had to press all the buttons. The Frozen plan was the first truly original thought I'd had in a while. I think my biggest takeaway from the summary side of this is how unlikely I think this outcome was - if you run this game AI Survivor style, with a bunch of Alternate Histories, this is the fluke outcome that never gets repeated. But hey, it was a wild ride, and I'm glad I got to take part.smile  Join me next time for the part you actually care about - my good, my bad, and my ugly!
Past Games: PB51  -  PB55  -  PB56  -  PB58 (Tarkeel's game)  - PB59  -  PB60  -  PB64  -  PB66  -  PB68 (Miguelito's game)     Current Games: None (for now...)
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Thanks for the part one of the post-mortem. It's definitely interesting how much comes down to blind luck, in retrospect, from the first (Roosevelt, neighbor luck, Mackoti being replaced) to the last (Miguielito actually being able to stop Picadilly).

From your retelling, the GLH was the absolute game-defining wonder, giving you an economy out of thin air to get you through to the Industrial era. How powerful did you expect the GLH to be when you built it?

Somedays I think what Civ really needs is a HOI4-style front manager. This is probably completely ridiculous from a game design standpoint since the fundamental systems are different, but being able to automate things instead of messing with rally points and 'fortify all' would be really nice. Though we probably wouldn't use it, due to the obsessive need to micro every last hammer...
(March 12th, 2024, 07:40)naufragar Wrote:"But naufragar, I want to be an emperor, not a product manager." Soon, my bloodthirsty friend, soon.

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(April 2nd, 2022, 22:24)thestick Wrote: Thanks for the part one of the post-mortem. It's definitely interesting how much comes down to blind luck, in retrospect, from the first (Roosevelt, neighbor luck, Mackoti being replaced) to the last (Miguielito actually being able to stop Picadilly).

From your retelling, the GLH was the absolute game-defining wonder, giving you an economy out of thin air to get you through to the Industrial era. How powerful did you expect the GLH to be when you built it?

Somedays I think what Civ really needs is a HOI4-style front manager. This is probably completely ridiculous from a game design standpoint since the fundamental systems are different, but being able to automate things instead of messing with rally points and 'fortify all' would be really nice. Though we probably wouldn't use it, due to the obsessive need to micro every last hammer...

I'd say the GLH was expected to be powerful (in the way that it always is pretty decent), but not to be game-defining like it turned out to be. I have to imagine I pulled thousands of free commerce from it pre-Corporation, it was truly ridiculous. Because the map was so coastal (out of 45 cities, I think 38 benefited?), and there were so many intercontinental trade routes, it was basically the ideal map for it. Additionally no one ever cancelled trade with me, even once I'd become one of the major players. I'm not sure whether it's because I was underestimated or because people were worried I'd just find new trade partners anyway, but that kept surprising me and definitely helped a lot. 

What you say is interesting. I think you hit the problem with it squarely - anyone using that would lose to anyone not using it. My conquests would have either happened way less efficiently, or not at all, if I'd been using something like that. So you'd have to make it mandatory or no one would use it, and who wants that. I'm not sure late-game civ is a solvable problem on maps as big as this was. frown
Past Games: PB51  -  PB55  -  PB56  -  PB58 (Tarkeel's game)  - PB59  -  PB60  -  PB64  -  PB66  -  PB68 (Miguelito's game)     Current Games: None (for now...)
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There was no hate on my part towards you. When Piccadilly attempted the space race and then later Miguelito I figured my best chance of survival was to ally myself with them as they were the least likely to conquer me for their victory.

You of course attempted a domination victory and to achieve that I was probably a necessary conquest target. Therefore allying with you was dangerous for my survival.
I also saw how the Superdeath continent fared against you. From that I realized we have to defend you together
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Pitboss: PB39, PB40PB52, PB59 Useful Collections: Pickmethods, Mapmaking, Curious Civplayer

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In first place, thanks for the writeup. I read through your thread a few days after the game ended and there surely were some ups and downs early that I missed while playing. Great game hatsoff!

(April 2nd, 2022, 20:26)Amicalola Wrote: I tried to continue the push against Lazteuq, but a committed assistance from both Charriu and Miguelito completely stalled that push in the end (Side Note: Why did you hate me so much this game, Charriu? huh). Meanwhile, Piccadilly's space victory was rapidly encroaching and I had focused too much on the Lazteuq front to do much about it. I captured/razed about 10 cities on the West Coast while Miguelito got stuck into the East Coast, and then peaced out in an admittedly jerk move. This decision was spurred by these premises:
1) I cannot fight three fronts at once.
2) If I continue to commit to the Piccadilly war with Miguelito and we actually stop Piccadilly, Miguelito is virtually guaranteed to win regardless. 
3) Despite 2), Miguelito refuses to let me advance on Lazteuq. This is extremely greedy on the French side for very little reward (and FWIW, I stand by that. I think it was a huge diplomatic mistake to stop me there, because it killed my incentive to help you with Piccadilly). It also just made me very grumpy. banghead 

I believe the results of the decision stand as the justification. I am sorry Miguelito, because I can definitely understand that it was frustrating, even if I think you somewhat brought it on yourself (I think at one point you briefly mentioned being worried about this exact scenario?). I'm glad you were able to get over it, both in-game and on a personal level. 

Bolded part was my reaction to you wanting to eat Lazteuq while we were still fighting Piccadilly. The reason that's now apparent, was that I rated my own position in the game much worse than you did, and vice versa. So from my perspective you were already going to roll over us right after we stopped Mali. You had that incredible production advantage, and I had shipped everything just in the other direction. Now imagine you holding Persia, and then those 50 Modern Armours per turn worth of hammers you mentioned come rolling in right on turn 247 , through already established airports and canals, right into what is by then our core (we'd have trouble getting up the spaceship without the Mjmd cities).
Now you maybe imagined us launching a spaceship more or less the turn we'd take Picc's capital, but we were behind much further, having invested near everything into that invasion. Well the nuke rush buys only started after your peace. In part it was probably my fault to not prioritize the spaceship higher, but ultimately we were gated by tech and that could only be sped by cutting back harshly on military while in a two front war (and also we had to tech Laser and Advanced Flight to compete with your units, which didn't help for space). Anyways, on t240 I saw you as a likely winner after we'd do Mali, and by 247 I was really really wishing to place a commando in front of Picc's empty capital and offer him peace, just so you would not get an easy win afterwards. Fwiwwhen I sent you those Uranium + Mining Resources + gold demands, I was not saying that I was going to nuke you, but rather the game. Also I actually needed gold for more nukes to throw at Picc, and your illicit source seemed just right. My fear was not losing out on the win condition timing, but just straight up getting burned.
I decided that the game was too fun to not continue, and also:
(February 13th, 2022, 08:33)Miguelito Wrote:
(February 13th, 2022, 05:21)Rusten Wrote: I'm not up to date, but if Amica is acting poorly just let Piccadilly win. Best way to punish them.

Or maybe an even better punishment would be to chain them to the management of their 150+ city Behemoth empire for another couple dozen turns devil ?

(Seriously,  their turns are taking like 7 hours.  even assuming pauses it must be exhausting.  maybe their peace with Picc was also a way of saying they don't care if the game continues? Whatever,  to be clear,  I will of course not seriously aim to cause RL miserymisery a player because of annoying in game behaviour)
Looks like I was spot on there mischief

Your deal with Picc had two aspects that soured me beyond you betraying the alliance: One, you were benefitting (inadvertedly?) from exploiting the money printing bug, with the lurkers' blessing. Second, feeling used as a tool. After reading your thread it seems like you didn't notice at the time, but when you canceled deals with us around t225 for some gpt from Picc, for me it looked like you deliberately sabotaged our Internet build and gave Picc acredit for Fusion, while at the same time calling us to war against Piccadilly... so you made it so we lost the space race, so then we'd have to help you take out Picc (in the end we did most of the work), just so you could drown us afterwards. And then, after you called us to fight Picc with you, you leave us to do the job alone, and facing his nukes that I had hoped you would prevent (you couldn't know). Apparently that was not actually your plan. If it were, it would've been excellent diplomacy, but also felt quite bad. Fwiw, in the end you getting the gold enabled us to take out Picc, otherwise he'd probably rush buy enough nukes to stop us.

I can't write more tonight but I look forward to discussing your plan to win yet.
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(April 4th, 2022, 16:07)Miguelito Wrote: In first place, thanks for the writeup. I read through your thread a few days after the game ended and there surely were some ups and downs early that I missed while playing. Great game hatsoff!

(April 2nd, 2022, 20:26)Amicalola Wrote: I tried to continue the push against Lazteuq, but a committed assistance from both Charriu and Miguelito completely stalled that push in the end (Side Note: Why did you hate me so much this game, Charriu? huh). Meanwhile, Piccadilly's space victory was rapidly encroaching and I had focused too much on the Lazteuq front to do much about it. I captured/razed about 10 cities on the West Coast while Miguelito got stuck into the East Coast, and then peaced out in an admittedly jerk move. This decision was spurred by these premises:
1) I cannot fight three fronts at once.
2) If I continue to commit to the Piccadilly war with Miguelito and we actually stop Piccadilly, Miguelito is virtually guaranteed to win regardless. 
3) Despite 2), Miguelito refuses to let me advance on Lazteuq. This is extremely greedy on the French side for very little reward (and FWIW, I stand by that. I think it was a huge diplomatic mistake to stop me there, because it killed my incentive to help you with Piccadilly). It also just made me very grumpy. banghead 

I believe the results of the decision stand as the justification. I am sorry Miguelito, because I can definitely understand that it was frustrating, even if I think you somewhat brought it on yourself (I think at one point you briefly mentioned being worried about this exact scenario?). I'm glad you were able to get over it, both in-game and on a personal level. 

Bolded part was my reaction to you wanting to eat Lazteuq while we were still fighting Piccadilly. The reason that's now apparent, was that I rated my own position in the game much worse than you did, and vice versa. So from my perspective you were already going to roll over us right after we stopped Mali. You had that incredible production advantage, and I had shipped everything just in the other direction. Now imagine you holding Persia, and then those 50 Modern Armours per turn worth of hammers you mentioned come rolling in right on turn 247 , through already established airports and canals, right into what is by then our core (we'd have trouble getting up the spaceship without the Mjmd cities).
Now you maybe imagined us launching a spaceship more or less the turn we'd take Picc's capital, but we were behind much further, having invested near everything into that invasion. Well the nuke rush buys only started after your peace. In part it was probably my fault to not prioritize the spaceship higher, but ultimately we were gated by tech and that could only be sped by cutting back harshly on military while in a two front war (and also we had to tech Laser and Advanced Flight to compete with your units, which didn't help for space). Anyways, on t240 I saw you as a likely winner after we'd do Mali, and by 247 I was really really wishing to place a commando in front of Picc's empty capital and offer him peace, just so you would not get an easy win afterwards. Fwiwwhen I sent you those Uranium + Mining Resources + gold demands, I was not saying that I was going to nuke you, but rather the game. Also I actually needed gold for more nukes to throw at Picc, and your illicit source seemed just right. My fear was not losing out on the win condition timing, but just straight up getting burned.
...

Your deal with Picc had two aspects that soured me beyond you betraying the alliance: One, you were benefitting (inadvertedly?) from exploiting the money printing bug, with the lurkers' blessing. Second, feeling used as a tool. After reading your thread it seems like you didn't notice at the time, but when you canceled deals with us around t225 for some gpt from Picc, for me it looked like you deliberately sabotaged our Internet build and gave Picc acredit for Fusion, while at the same time calling us to war against Piccadilly... so you made it so we lost the space race, so then we'd have to help you take out Picc (in the end we did most of the work), just so you could drown us afterwards. And then, after you called us to fight Picc with you, you leave us to do the job alone, and facing his nukes that I had hoped you would prevent (you couldn't know). Apparently that was not actually your plan. If it were, it would've been excellent diplomacy, but also felt quite bad. Fwiw, in the end you getting the gold enabled us to take out Picc, otherwise he'd probably rush buy enough nukes to stop us.

I can't write more tonight but I look forward to discussing your plan to win yet.

I've noticed our differing opinions of our own standing as well. Here's my defense of mine, which having read your thread I do still think was more accurate:

You seem to have expected me to damage you enough to win through space, but that was never a realistic proposition. I was significantly behind you in tech (military and otherwise) when the game ended, and that was with the ridiculous cash injection from Piccadilly, and the significant capture gold from the near-lossless Cairo conquest. At least 10,000 gold, even after you got some for yourself (which well played, thereGolfclap). To catch up would have required such ridiculous damage that you'd have been nearly dead anyway. So I could only ever win through domination, or Spaceship via basically killing you (at which point Domination was there anyway).

Relatedly, you seem to have been worried that I'd keep pushing through Lazteuq to you. But my question would be: with what? noidea Two thirds of my troops were fighting Piccadilly or dedicated towards a future Cairo conquest. But more importantly, let's say that I could dedicate over half my troops to that fight. I didn't get to Modern Armour until T250, and that was with the aforementioned cash injections; without those, it would have been ~T260-ish. That means I'd have been attacking with tanks, infantry, and battleships against modern armor, mechanized infantry, and missile cruisers, in a world that also had nukes, planes, railroads and airlifting. While also having to compete on Piccadilly's continent, and kill Cairo, at the same time. That doesn't sound like an easy conquest to me; it sounds like suicide! So my opinion is that I could never have seriously pushed against you in a manner that stopped your victory or achieved my own once Piccadilly was jointly-killed by us, regardless of whether I had Lazteuq's territory by that point (which would have been largely uncultured, and with no way to rush-buy buildings).

Basically, I do think that my assessment of your near-guaranteed win without the peace is correct. I would be interested to hear any more counter-arguments, but currently I feel quite confident about it (it takes a lot of confidence for me to be this forward tongue ). However, I do suspect I was wrong that the peace put us at 50/50 and you were likely not to give up. Once the peace was signed, I was probably(?) more likely to win than you, and that was my mistake. It was a miscalculation that ended up having no consequences, but could have; you would have been much more reasonable to throw in the towel than I'd been imagining, I suppose. I also did not really suspect you would give up for another weak premise, in that I unconsciously ascribed my own civ philosophy onto you. More on that below. In any event, kudos for the admirable sportsmanship in playing the game out. hatsoff

- - -

As far as The Internet thing, yeah that was unintentional. I was very lucky (it turns out) here, but my turns were taking 3 hours already and I wasn't doing my due diligence in tracking what you guys were doing. I was just easily misled by Piccadilly in that context and wanted to make a quick buck, and I'm sorry it felt more deliberate. frown  

On the topic of feeling like a tool to be used though, I do wonder something: isn't that exactly what we are in these games? They're multiplayer games in which the opponents are faceless and their motivations are hidden, and there's no prize for second place. In my own opinion, it is the players' responsibilities to do everything within their power to win until that is literally impossible, and that's what I was doing here. I dunno, I don't want to get all superior, but I hate the idea of tanking my own game to spite someone that damaged me. I equally hate the idea of sitting back and doing nothing all game. I think the games are no fun when too many people do either of those things. I obviously had self-interest in getting you to attack Piccadilly, because I didn't care if you or Piccadilly beat me - I just wanted to create the world in which my own victory was most likely, and Piccadilly was the more immediate problem. That I had to mislead you guys in diplomacy to get there sucks, especially now that I can read the hurt that it caused, but I'd do it again in the same situation, and I mostly think that everyone should (in a 4X video game, to be clear. Not in real life). I guess what I'm saying is meaningful co-operation is great, but at the end of the day we all want to win, right?

I had hoped that the payments would at least damage Piccadilly's ability to fight you back; that was one of my main justifications for the peace. I had more been thinking along the lines of an immobile palace, but the nukes thing as well. I'm glad it wasn't incorrect, even while I was about so many other things.
Past Games: PB51  -  PB55  -  PB56  -  PB58 (Tarkeel's game)  - PB59  -  PB60  -  PB64  -  PB66  -  PB68 (Miguelito's game)     Current Games: None (for now...)
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