[PB64] Amicalola Gets To Heaven with Tarkeel and Ljubljana

[Charriu]

Oh yeah. I remember this legendary spearman.

[Hitru]

I believe it had Leonidas attached to it actually

[Amicalola]

About bad combat luck: I just need to share this. In pb49 Fintourist, me and OH had the worst luck I have ever seen in any game. We calculated the combined odds for Elkad's 2 defenders ( spear and archer) to hold his cap and they were around 0,0001%. And this was early war, turn 77 to be precise, and we lost around 9 good and costly units at that point of the game, mostly HA. We went on to win that game in any case. If you want to read about our depression and some statistics it starts from page 5 or 6 in our thread .

So even though it feels bad just take a step back, look at the game as it is and do your best from there. You sre still in the running!

Hah, yeah it could definitely have been worse. Like I said, 80% is not 100% and I shouldn't expect it to be. It's more just how consequential the loss was; it's the difference between (probably) runaway Amicalola and (actual) runaway Naufragar. But in consequentiality, it sounds like you guys had it worse too. I am the first to recognise that I have moral issues following setbacks, and I appreciate the comment, it cheered me up. And I will probably will go read that thread later!  

And, yeah I am still in the running. Well, as much as anyone other than Naufragar is:


Yeah guys, I'm the one you need to worry about.  


Ginger is particularly frustrating. He's protective, he's not even getting anything from the trade routes!  

If we are still in the game, though, it is because of this:


Behold: our salvation. There's room for three cities here, of which two have food resources. That's enough for the three trade routes that most of our cities need to fill, and each gains us money immediately upon founding. 

Here is the before and after founding of Kevin's Car:




Man, the GLH really is the best wonder. 

I thought about pre-emptively attacking Naufragar, but unfortunately, geography favours him massively. I can attack him at only two choke points, while the rest of his empire is essentially unreachable, for me at least (the reverse is also true, but Naufragar scales. I don't). With everyone else desperate to cuddle up with the leader, that means my temporary power advantage is not enough to take either of those choke points, particularly while Gavagai looms. So peace, for now.

My geopolitical prospects are grim though. Not only do the people far away apparently hate me for some reason, the people near me are heavily encouraged to cooperate against me. I expect Naufragar and Gavagai to try to eat me within the next 20 turns, when they get to Construction. 


Tech-wise, the path is probably Construction->Metal Casting->Monarchy/Machinery. I might try to slip MC in before Construction, but I think that's optimistic re: the Naufragai problem.


The culture screen, unfortunately, is less wacky than you might have hoped.



So, in sum, phase one of the game, Push for the Centre, failed. Now we deal with the consequences as we enter phase two: Desperate catchup.

[Magic Science]

The culture screen, unfortunately, is less wacky than you might have hoped.

Is that because the many city exchanges in that region have occurred through peace treaties? That does something with the culture, right?

Well, thank you. I'm not sure if anyone else cares about that overview option, but I like it.

It is colorful and pretty, especially when the cultures mix, though not informative.

[Charriu]

Yes, peaceful exchange of cities resets the culture and avoids the dreaded "We want to join our motherland" unhappiness

[Amicalola]

T121
I admit I haven't been paying as much attention to these turns as I should be. Partly that's because PB66 is starting, partly it's because I'm quitting coffee, but mostly it's just despair. Naufragar is free to put all his EP into me because everyone else is handing him the victory, which means I've lost graphs. His GNP is still of the charts, and I know it's him with at least Calendar, maybe Construction. Speaking of which:


It looks like Gavagai intends to go back to war again. His HAs are staying here (for now), where they are two turns away from the border, but his axes are moving back towards us just in time to cross the borders as the peace treaty expires. He continues cranking out units, too. Between that and Nauf winning the graphs, it seems my prophecy about the Gav/Naufragar split is coming true. Ah well, we'll defend as best as we can. I've been building wealth to get to Construction, but it's probably all catapults from here unless Gavagai changes his tune. 

Does this war help gavagai? Sort of - if I'm split successfully, Gav gets a decent amount of territory, at least as much as Nauf. But Gav's economy is even worse than mine, so he either has to raze them, leave them for Nauf, or go bankrupt and die to Nauf's knights in 30 turns or so. Naufragar can be sure to thank him in the victory speech, I suppose.   So to a point, I am relying on Gav realising this and not attacking, although the Wealth->Construction tech path is probably what I'd have done anyway. We'll find out for sure next turn. 

I meant to finish Construction last turn, but I switched a Wealth build at the last minute and it didn't work. Oops.  Didn't I mention not paying as much attention as I should be? I have, at least, the overflow to finish a couple of cats next turn, but it means all the catapults I planned are a turn late, which will matter a lot if he attacks. Hopefully they dissuade Gav, or I am just wrong, but neither seems likely.

[Mjmd]

Amica, "Oh poor me I'm leading cities and about to launch my own GA"

Appreciate the drama build up though

[Amicalola]

Amica, "Oh poor me I'm leading cities and about to launch my own GA"

Appreciate the drama build up though

I'm actually going to bulb CoL instead. It's the only way out of the economic hole, I'm pretty sure, and I have no civic options yet.

My position is fine, if Gavagai isn't planning to attack. Then Naufragar and I have a pretty interesting duel to play for, although even then I think he's ahead. But Naufragar has basically won, if Gavagai is plannig the attack, which is what it looks like. That's where the despair comes from. 

I should clarify as well: my 'is this a good idea for Gavagai?' assumed that he can split me. This is untrue - he might take a few cities, but I can't win without those either, which means he gets stuck in a war with me forever (and, to be clear, the same was true of my attack on Lenin. If I'd taken it, he probably would have whipped endlessly, sacrificing his own game to ruin mine. So that attack was, in hindsight, a mistake either way. Hey, I learn!). It does beg the question of "how should I have played this?", which is an interesting one. I'm sure I'll have to sit down and write about that at some point.

[Amicalola]

Oh, and one more thing while I'm getting my no-coffee crankiness out. You know how SD always gets EXTREMELY upset whenever someone promises to join him in a war and then doesn't join? Like, remember how he ruined our game in PB55 for that exact reason, beyond any plausibility of his own interest? Guess who promised to join the first attack on Gav, and then didn't, and then for good measure demanded all of our cities by diplo a few turns afterwards just to run it in(?). Which like, fine, that sucks but I get it with no past context to work with (though the following demand was just unpleasant regardless). But this is Superdeath! He's playing 5 minute turns so he's not exactly angling for the win, and I literally have past history with him on this exact thing! Man, I like SD as a person, but playing civ with him can be so unpleasant when he just constantly. fucks you around. And again, it'd be one thing if he was threading the needle for a win, or if he felt bad about it, or something. But I just know he doesn't, he hasn't given it a second thought, and that's what drives me so crazy about it. I haven't even talked about this, I think, because I wasn't sure how to do it not-nastily. That's about the best I can do; who knows, maybe I'll delete it in a few days when my judgement is better.

[Amicalola]

Well, Gavagai is moving in. I wonder if he'll be spooked when he sees catapults, but I doubt it. The funny thing is, seeing them a turn sooner might have mattered. In any case, Gavagai knows I have 13 cities to whip and he has 8, so this is a pure spite war. I'd hoped giving away 2 cities might avoid that (it's about as good of a peace offering as you can get), but I guess not. 


Anyway, unless Gav changes his mind, this game can probably be called for Naufragar. On the note of losing interest in games, I want to be clear that I don't necessarilyget fed up when I can't win anymore - there was a huge part of PB59 where I thought I couldn't win - it's when no one but [x player] can. Here it's Nauf, in PB56 it was Noble, but it's that which kills me. The reason I say this is that Naufragar is not only miles ahead of the field, but he's miles ahead as Darius of Sumeria against a bunch of IMP, PRO, EXP and CHM leaders, with two busy neighbours and a (screwed by the map?) pitiful third one. This isn't a snakepick where everyone has some long-term strategy, it's a random game where one player got a long-term strategy and everyone else apparently didn't notice; Naufragar's had the lowest non-Commodore power nearly all game! I was possibly comparable in stats/potential, but not anymore. Ain't no one catching that in this diplomatic universe.

In the meantime before everyone realises that I'm not the runaway they apparently think I am, I guess we get to have fun defending in the Classical Era. Which I've never done before, so it could be interesting. Silver linings? More on that later, but for now the main thing I'm thinking is that there's no point bulbing CoL in this situation. I'll probably have to pop a GA and spend it saving gold and building units. I'm taking a break for a few hours before I decide. My non-wealth income, for anyone wondering, is 12 gold. My maintenance is about 170.

Edit: Next turn, assuming Gav waits until after me to play (and in fact, he'll have to. He is clearly waiting until after me today), I might declare war and offer the final southern city for peace. It's still costing money, and it might stir some trouble between him and Nauf; we're not out of the game in that scenario. Otherwise, our moral win condition probably becomes kill Gav (or, if Naufragar joins, survive).