[PB 64] Ginger plays as Charlemagne, famed man of letters

[RefSteel]

Actual detailed turn reports are terrific! Unfiltered salt is fine if you enjoy it, or if it helps you enjoy the game more by getting it off your chest. (Or if it makes it easier / more fun to write and include actual turn reports too!) If I for some reason could only read one though, it would definitely be the report.

[Ginger()]

Truth be told I'm puzzled why I'm so angry, I told myself I would take this game casually, but I suppose it's a combination of time investment and perplexment. And I am really perplexed. Embassytown is a really slow city spot to get going, and by all indicators Gav seems to be settling in to keep it and hold out. I rated Gav's chances of winning this at almost 30% based on geography, but now I'd put them at 5%. This is a really silly negative-sum engagement as Embassytown will not generate enough value for him compared to what I will take away. 

   
These demos will start to flag as I am out of room to expand. I have one more city to settle post-IW and then that's all I'm getting without blood. I wonder what Gav's reaction to my powerspike will be. 

   
Overview of workers making lumbermills and the backlines moving up.
This is what has me uncertain, should I be cranking out 8 axes/chariots to storm the city or not? I'm putting hammers into Forges because they're effectively free whips, my production is happy capped by the singular luxury I posses, and with excess food the Forge is easy to whip in. Earthsea will probably start running an Engineer, getting ready to bulb Feudalism eventually. I would've really liked to build Colossus, but I just can't find a good spot for it. Might actually happen in Dune. See this is the problem. I'm just not sure whether to gamble on whipping myself into the ground for enough chariots to "fix him". I don't know if I'm making the wrong choice here, but I think I'm going to play his game, and play the long game. Forges will help produce the much more expensive Crossbows, and in the case of Earthsea, my Moai.

Edit Omission:
SD sent war with Gav diplo. Now SD diplo is to be trusted about as far as you can throw him, but it makes sense given that SD has two possible targets, Gav or Amicalola, and I'm tying one down already. If I had to suspect, the timing would be Numidians. Whether that happens before or after Currency is anyone's guess, SD is hard to predict

[Ginger()]

   
*gurgle gurgle*
That's the sound of Gav pissing away the easiest win in random map history as a total of 8 units and two workers are being invested in this effort. Of course, the hilarious thing is that when you're this far deep in the lunacy, there's no wait out but forwards, Gav's economy is bottom of the barrel and shows no signs of improving before Monarchy. 

Of course I had to gratify this fool by screwing up my defense of the forest hill by moving a chariot, thinking that surely the Axe wouldn't be selected as top defender for it's counter unit and the chariot would soak the other chariot.

I could've simmed it to test, but I really don't care enough about this game. Whether it takes everyone 30 or 50 turns to realize Amicalola (landing their beloved GLH) has won is anyone's guess. I would rate Naufragar given he has access to much of the same land, except his score and F/H output has been strangely low for a player with normally solid micro. Oh well, random map, I shouldn't put too much thought into it. 

Of course, I promptly threw away the other axe that you see here in the picture by moving it up into the range of the follow-up Ethiopian chariot. Barring some atrocious RNG, I shouldn't lose my city, but it's clear there will be no recapture of Embassytown until Crossbows or possibly later. Truth be told I will probably just bypass the city once I have my crossbows and try to aim for Gav's horse source with boats. Embassytown really isn't worth anything by itself, although it is area control.

SD whipped barracks in his capital, which is either really good news for me because he's rushing out an army on a few cities or really bad news because he's just going to gimp his growth curve by firing prematurely. 

Edit:
I almost feel sorry for Gav, this war wouldve been a cakewalk for him without my shock promo Axes (although I wouldn't have gambited so hard if I hadn't had that up my sleeve, I may be reckless, but I never leave myself totally open if I can help it). Well I don't feel that sorry, his cover melee largely neuters my tech advantage... which will be arriving soon... any day now... Still about 7-8 turns from finishing Iron Working....  Zzzzz Zzzzz

[Ginger()]

Ack, I fucked up and my forge in Earthsea is slated to build one turn too slowly to birth an Engineer before Oracle GP completes. There goes my plan for a Feudalism bulb on the way to Guilds, ah shit. To be fair, I can do a lot with 68 food, but the screwup still hurts. There is one way to fix this which would be to build a Buddhist temple after religion spreads there (???) and run a couple turns of Priest, or just build Moai in under 30 turns (without being able to whip-away the engineer). Alternatively I could try to dirty-pool the capital  . Next turn I'll do some math on the total possibly hammer output of Earthsea and see if its feasible to complete Moai (gives 1GPP!!  ) in 30 turns. With Engineer, Lumbermill, and Mine I can get 10 hpt into Moai curtesy of the Forge, and complete in 25 turns. Of course it's more complicated than that because I won't have all that population ready right away. I might have to pull out the spread sheet for this stupid Moai-before-lighthouse plan.

Arghh I told myself I would take this game casually, but here it is sucking me in again. 

This is probably the silly thing to do instead of whip more units from that city, but it's too fun a plan not to carry out. I love me some sandcastles (Go away Gav, go home!)

[Ginger()]

I offered white peace to Gav, he’s showing an impressive power spike that I really don’t want to have to match.
People who war before Cats really puzzle me. You’ll win your first strike sure, but there’s no subsequent advances to be made. And if that first strike is just one out of 7 cities, your opponent isn’t going anywhere. You’ve pissed on their sandcastle without taking their shovel away. I mean sure you can drag em down and make them whip, but mutual whiphilation isn’t a winning recipe.

I don’t think he’ll take the peace offer even though he’s territorially advantaged, but it’s clear I can’t really predict him in any case, so I’ll offer anyways.

[Ginger()]

Oh Gavagai, you absolute bastard
He declared on Superdeath, then reoffered me white peace. I'll bet $12 (enough to buy a particularly good burrito) that this was intentional so that SD sees me peaceing out on this turn and "defecting" as it were. Turning it from him taking the opportunity to continue to be aggressive to me being the bad friend. Well played.

I wonder if I should play meek or play hardball and deny the peace? I think I will resend the peace offer to avoid Gav getting a peace guarantee from SD and forcing more premature whips out of me.

I'll have some Shock Crossbows ready when peace is up, Gav's GNP graph isn't going anywhere

[Ginger()]

Oh SHIT, I'm a complete moron and deserve everything bad that happens to me diplomatically this game.
I didn't realize that SD declared on Gav, not the other way around. WTF
Did I NOT CHECK THAT?????
Oh man I just assumed that SD wouldn't have done it given his low power situation
Oh my god what an epic fuckup

In other news I got the blacksmith quest, this one is pretty good actually. Medieval 3% event chance already paying dividends

[Ginger()]

Oh man this is gonna haunt me, what a total throw. I can't believe that SD chose the war, rode to my aid, and I promptly dipped out. In my defense I wanted to get out of the war and Gav had sent that peace offer before SD had declared, but this mixup is just fantastic, fabulous timing for Gavagai. Incredible. I'm actually fuming. Again! I said I wouldn't get emotional over this one. F me.

I thought for sure that SD had been declared on by Gav and I was peacecing out because I had to "at least it wasn't me" sort of thing. It's so much worse and a betrayal of SD's intentions that he chose war and has to pay for my dumb ass mistakes. Because now it's me who is victimizing him, not Gavagai. Such terrible timing.

If there's any relationship with Superdeath left to salvage this game, I have to immediately join back in and gift him some gold once one of us gets Currency (if ever). Fuck Fuck Fuck
I'm seething


Edit: later in the evening when I've cooled off and been able to think it through:
My reasoning for reoffering peace was that I was worried that Gav was war-peacing SD and I would be hit with the full stack. But it was obviously a strategic blunder if SD was the one to chose the war. The funniest thing was that Gavagai sent back the peace offer BEFORE he knew he was at war with SD, so this was entirely fortuitous for him and a full idiocy on my part, especially because if I was going to peace out with Gav and stab SD (which I didn't want), I would've demanded better terms and asked for my city back. Oh god, what a blunder, I'm so sorry Superdeath, I didn't even check who declared, I thought no way before Numids you'd join.

[Ginger()]

   
Hehe

Do the units spawn on that resource tile or in the capital a la stables quest?


   
is the marked sea area visible from the signed hills?

[Mjmd]

I don't believe so, but I usually test in world builder real quick if I want to make sure.