[PB64] naufragar's bingo parlor for assassins

[naufragar]

Every report with Tank as a song is a good report.

I'm glad you liked! But I have a shameful confession: I have never watched Cowboy Bebop all the way through. I've gotten about halfway in twice before stopping. I'm now on my third attempt. I'm feeling like this time I'll make it!

Can't think of a good song to go with this report. In fact, I can't even remember to take good pictures. Forgot to take a "before" so here's the "after."


Amica retreated most of his units from the jungle hill, leaving only 2 axes and a spear. I sent in 3 catapults, losing two, and then cleaned up the wounded defenders with 3 vultures, losing none. This is lucky, but I forgot to take pics of the combat log, so I don't know how lucky.

It's looking very likely that I can take The Wheel with minimal casualties. (He said, jinxing himself.) On the one hand, great! On the other, I worry about where all the defenders are going. I guess Amica's focusing his efforts on Get to Heaven. I haven't thought of which direction I go after The Wheel. If I go North, the cities are likely underdefended, but Amica'll have more time to hit me with Cats and Horse Archers and Elephants and all sorts of nasty things. I might just go West to help Gav with Get to Heaven if he hasn't taken it already.

I'm leaning towards burning The Wheel and resettling it. I don't want to be forced to garrison it while I'm still trying to advance, and so long as Get to Heaven lives, Amica can shuffle units over to it pretty easily. In addition, and I feel like a bastard for saying this, burning it might further damage Amica's morale, presenting him with a picture of opponents who just want to make him bleed. He hasn't been updating and in the past has had a tendency to get demoralized, so maybe we push in this direction. (And yeah, bastard thing to say.) I whipped a settler for the resettle this turn.

If not for this war, Amica would be in an amazing position:


This is GNP in a golden age, true, but it's also after like 20 population whipped away. You can see in the previous screenshot that he's going for Meditation. My brain was too overloaded with troop movements to think about what this could mean. I'll try to puzzle it out later. The tech pace in this game feels pretty slow, and no one has touched the artistic top side of the tree. Perhaps Amica's got a mind to go for things like the Great Library and the Music artist.

In the meanwhile, he has to survive this war, which is looking nastier by the day:


Commodore actually hinted to me via diplo that he'd be up for fighting Amica but I ignored it because it seemed like nonsense. After all, here is a map showing where their respective empires are:



Yeah... How? What could they have to fight over?

I tried to figure it out. Commodore's been settling cities, which surprised me, and Amica also seems to never run out of land, which no longer surprises me. So I looked around for evidence of islands:


Is there the vaguest hint of coast in that red circle? Perhaps in the fog 2E of the fish? As a side note, I must say that Commodore's game has been wild. The guy started out with a terrible starting position, grabbed Colossus ahead of the guy that Oracled Metal Casting, got invaded by that guy after he beelined Crossbows, survived after the loss of a city and his entire economy in tribute payment, retook the city he lost to the Crossbow guy, and now (presumably by choice and not accident) is at war with the game leader and may be poised to take territory off him. I mean, that's just a fairy tale of a Civ4 game.

[naufragar]

I forgot something. I had a surprise this turn:


Not sure what an Amicalolan Immortal is doing all the way down here. It's got to be some sort of scout that got bumped out of Gav's open borders. I'm glad I've got garrisons down here. Otherwise this could be annoying.

In this shot, you can also see some pretty embarrassing half-assing of the war effort. I'm about to settle an iceball city and my best production city is currently twiddling its thumbs building Moai. Oh well.

[Charriu]

Every report with Tank as a song is a good report.

I'm glad you liked! But I have a shameful confession: I have never watched Cowboy Bebop all the way through. I've gotten about halfway in twice before stopping. I'm now on my third attempt. I'm feeling like this time I'll make it!

Well thankfully Cowboy Bebop is a rather short (but very good) series unlike some other monsters of a series.

[naufragar]

That's...a lot of whipping. Is Amicalola in "existential fight" mode or in "burn the world down" mode? Or both? Well, nothing for it but to play on.



Amica emptied The Wheel in favor of reinforcing around Get to Heaven. Gav moved back, probably sensibly. He doesn't have vision on Amica's catapults, but it's safe to assume Amica would stash some just in range. By the way, Gav gains positive ally points for not burning The Wheel on his turn. He had a chariot. I appreciate that and will try to return the favor.

I took the city with the spear and then agonized a bunch.


In the end, I moved up what units I could. This might end in disaster. Amica has 5 Immortals and 1 Horse Archer in Get to Heaven alone. If he has anymore in the fog or being produced from the 3 cities that are within 4 tiles of my stack, he could choose to attack with his two cats, 1 axe, and mounted units and do serious damage to my stack. I could've made different moves. I could have parked my stack on the city ruins. I could have used the roads to move to one of the plains hills (probably the one not in range of Amica's cat stack). I could have stayed on the jungle hill. I decided to make the move forward for a couple of reasons. The tile with those couple of catapults won't be in Amican culture next turn. It's a quirk of the city raze. So, I threaten forking those two undiscovered northern cities. I assume this provokes a response. Maybe the response kills me. But maybe it also shifts Amica's focus away so Gav can capture or destroy Amica's city to the West of Get to Heaven.

The game gets trickier now. Both Gav and I want to do what damage we can and, in a perfect world, peace out at the same time so Amica's frankly terrifying army + whip spree doesn't crush one of use singly. My goal is to keep enough of a presence on this eastern side so that Gav has some room to maneuver.

In the meanwhile, I planted a city:


Go away Immortal. The tundra is no place for you.

[naufragar]

Played t128 very late at night, hoping to get the turn roll at a slightly less brutal time. The order Amica-Gav-Me means that I've been having to play either late at night or at the crack of dawn. In turn 128, sleepy as I was, I decided, screw it, see if I can advance deeper into Amicalolan lands. I moved up a bit over half my army (the portion in range) to threaten a small, undefended Amicalolan city.

This turn (129), I opened up the game to some diplo.













No.

Amica, remember this city, formerly Get to Heaven, now Smoking Hole in the Ground?


Remember how I had two cities set up to share that irrigated grassland corn, which would have been literally the only terrestrial 6 food tile in my entire empire? Remember how you founded a city by it at minimum distance and forking mine, 9 tiles from my cap and 13 tiles from yours? Remember how, when I couldn't dislodge the plant, you demanded another of my cities 16 tiles from your capital, despite already bleeding gold due to maintenance?

You've been playing this game like a bandit chieftain, doing what you wanted because you could get away with it. You've loudly proselytized the religion of Might Makes Right and pushed every advantage you had. Now, you're the one with a vulnerability and think you can threaten me away from punishing your greed? No.



Amica does indeed have a massive, massive army:


But it's really difficult to care.

Well that was cathartic. Now let's do some realpolitik calculations. I cannot take peace with Amica yet. I believe that currently Gav is completely pinned by Amica. Whoever makes the first move on the Amica-Gav front takes heavy damage. While their two armies are staring each other down, I've been able to raid around the edges of Amica's empire. If I peace out, Gav probably doesn't stay at war because it's too difficult for him to make gains against Amica's fortified, catapult-heavy border. And then he's got a gigantic army near the part of my border that hasn't militarized to fight Amica and he probably feels a little peeved that I left him hanging.

If Gav himself peaces out in the next couple turns, I'm in serious trouble. This is what Amica is threatening with the diplo. If Amica has guaranteed peace with Gav, he's got 10 turns to move his gigantic army from the Gav front to my cities. That would take ~3 turns. The stack that I used to burn Amica's first peninsular city will die soon, if not next turn than probably in a couple. Honestly, I'd be surprised, happy but surprised, if that diminished stack could do anymore infrastructure damage.

So is there an exit strategy? In a perfect world, Gav takes a ceasefire with Amica, which signals to me that the war is done but leaves the possibility of hitting Amica if he shifts his army East. Will Gav do this? Idk. I don't know what Gavagai's goals are for this campaign. As I mentioned above, I don't think I've got the ability to make peace myself.

Absolute worst case? Gav takes peace next turn and I face the wrath of an Amicalola who feels he has nothing left to play for (although he's still the city leader   ). If that happens, we just shrug it off. I've got the emotional fortitude to turn this game into a duel. It seems to happen in all my Pitbosses. 

[naufragar]

If Gav himself peaces out in the next couple turns, I'm in serious trouble.
...
Absolute worst case? Gav takes peace next turn and I face the wrath of an Amicalola who feels he has nothing left to play for.

I forgot how much of a snake Gavagai is. He didn't take peace. He offered it!


(Also visible on this screen, me losing a Vulture to an Axe at 2% odds.    ) This is on me. He did this exact same thing in PB38, inviting one neighbor into war with another, then backing out, leaving his neighbor to hold the bag. I haven't been reporting Gav and my diplo, so let me recreate it for you using words instead of gold timers and copper for copper trades: "Hey naufragar, we should attack Amica together." "Ok, Gav, sounds good. Give me ~15 turns to get to maces, then we'll clobber him." "No, we must attack in 5 turns." "Wait, what? I haven't built an army. That would require serious whipping. What's the rush? "Leeeeerrooooooy Jeeeennnnkiiiins." "Gosh, oh, ok. Fine. I'll help you out, Gav." "Hey nauf?" "What's up, Gav?" "I've decided it's best that you fight Amica solo. Good luck!" 

I feel a little sheepish for thinking over the past couple turns how to get out of this war without screwing over my ally. Obviously that was wasted effort. I've offered Amica a massive bribe. I mean like "quintuple your economy in one swoop" massive bribe. But Amica for some reason really seems to think I've been the bad guy our relationship instead of him, so he might want the satisfaction of making me bleed first.

Which he can:


So my goal is just to make peace a better option for him. (Although, again, the emotional calculus is hard to adjust for.)

Amica has many, many units not visible on this screen. But here's what we see:


I've moved to cut the road leading to the jungle hill. Amica might try to dislodge the spears next turn. He could have units in the fog that could hit them, but I don't think so. I know he does have something like another 8 catapults and something like 16 hitters somewhere in the fog, but out of range. Jesus, Gav, couldn't offer a ceasefire?

A lot depends on just how much force Amica can bring, but weirdly, I think it's correct to stay on the jungle hill and just take the catapult pounding. The jungle gives +75% defense. I'm trying to build a fort on the tile, but I won't have time. (Thanks, Gav!) Catapults on the attack can reduce units down to 25% health, which is painful, but their collateral only reduces units to half health. A unit at half health +100% defense defends a lot like its vanilla self on flatland. Unfortunately, the difference between +75% and +100% is pretty massive. A vulture at half health +75% is 5.25. A crossbow is the same. A spear is 3.5. A crossbow still gets odds on one axe. A vulture still gets odds on a spear. The spear at +75% rather than +100%, however, does not get odds on a horse archer. This is the real rub. (Thanks, Gav!)

So, excepting the horse archers (which are going to be a massive problem) I think we still trade very hammer efficiently by staying put. But those damn horse archers. Best case, Amica just takes the bribe, but he's a pretty emotional player and I did burn two of his cities.... (Oh, he's still in the city count lead, btw. Thanks, Gav!)

[naufragar]

I too am a pretty emotional player, and my current driving emotion is pettiness. I opened the turn up to this diplo offer from Amica and I almost took it:


This is a thing of beauty and I wish I could screenshot it and send it to Gavagai. Gav attacked Amica, dragged me into the war, incentivized Amica to arm to the teeth with catapults and horse archers that have a famously long shelf life, did zero damage, and then peaced out leaving me to bear the brunt of the army he encouraged to make. Our coalition burned 2 Amicalolan cities, both of which were next to massive food resources and therefore easy to regrow. In exchange...Amica gets 200 gold and an excellent city? Gavagai must be the most shortsighted player I've ever seen. He basically engineered a situation by which Amica could get stronger. Let me be very clear about this: if Gavagai hadn't declared war, Amica would be in a worse position than he's in now. I'll repeat myself one more time because, as mentioned, I'm on that pettiness streak. The war that Gavagai was the architect of, did not help any other player than the one against whom he declared war. It's almost beautiful in how strategically inept it is.

And the best part is, Gav could've had a victory if he did nothing. Only by doing exactly what he did could he have helped Amica.


Notice how the time on Metal Casting is in the hundreds? That's because Amica is making 0 beakers. Notice how Amica is also not making any gold per turn? This means that he is currently at 0 or losing gold due to army supply. Amica literally cannot afford to march his army out of his borders. Why in the name of God did you give him ten turns of peace in which to salvage his economy by extracting concessions from me? All you had to do was sit still and Amica's soldiers would go on strike!

I ended up not taking the offer. My pettiness was pulling me in two directions. On the one hand, I wanted to give Amica as much as I could because I felt dirty being manipulated by Gavagai. On the other hand, I hate hate hate giving up territory, especially territory as strategically valuable as Uruk:


Remember how Amica's old city locked down that jungle pass? If Amica holds Uruk, I can basically never push the jungle pass again because of peak vision and catapult mobility.

I spent a very long time on this turn because I really didn't know how I wanted to play it. Currently, I'm leaning against throwing the game to Amica but I have stretches where I think otherwise. I ended up pulling back to Uruk and I've offered Uruk for peace. I think if Amica doesn't accept it, I beat a retreat. This would mean I lose many cities, which annoyingly gives Amica capture gold to save his economy, but I've got too much pride. I would literally rather be annihilated than give over enough tribute that I'm out of contention. Gah! The more I think about it, the pissier I get. Gav screwed me and the way to screw him back is to yield to Amica but I can't bring myself to blow up my empire for revenge. But again, the calculus changes with the emotional swings.

I will say this, if I ever play with Gav again, I'll know better.

Pseudo-edit: Amica has accepted the offer. Time to dust oneself off and move on.

[naufragar]

Amica and I were logged in at the same time. He's always so friendly that I feel bad spending my every waking moment plotting his destruction. Oh well. Back to plotting.

Every time I turn around, Amica seems more and more untouchable. I wasn't able to crack that jungle pass. (Let me correct myself. We did crack the jungle pass; Gav forced me to give it up.) And I also can't hold a candle to Amica's economy:


I got city visibility on Uruk since it has my religion. And this was just such a gut punch. Amica has 3 islands! I have zero. Every coastal city that Amica settles has an automatic +9gpt. Yeah, currently Amica's economy is hurting, but when he's back up the +2 cities I burned (putting him at 15 to second place Gavagai's 10) he's going to be right back in it. The Great Lighthouse and those 3 islands give him practically inexhaustible economic potential. He doesn't need cottages or any other tile for that matter. Someone please tell me why, when we had this guy completely dead in the water, Gavagai decided to return his territory to him and add some of mine? The swing Amica just had from dead to winning is so incredible that I have trouble even having a nightmare in which someone would help an opponent out like that.

This is an old screenshot:


I actually logged back in while writing this and switched off Aesthetics. As I've moaned about before, I really wanted a long stretch of peace. I had forges to build, religion to spread, and the highest GNP at a time when the peaceful parts of the tree were completely uncontested. (Goddamit, Gav.) Now, after my heaving whipping and city loss, I don't think I can contest the top part of the tree. I spent a long time back and forth on this. I've got Marble and a very high hammer-output city, which makes the Great Library a possibility. Ginger just entered a Golden Age, however, and has an Engineer in his back pocket. I suspect this Engineer is bookmarked for the Taj Mahal, but even so, I worried about racing. Honestly, I'm still going back and forth on this one. If my economy were in better shape, I'd be gunning for Great Library->Music Artist (probably not Taj. Too expensive in my small, hammer-poor empire). I just think I can't make it now. My only consolation is that Ginger gets them. Ginger is certainly a threat to win at this point, but he is blessedly Not My Problem.

[naufragar]

On a happier note, I love me some elegant new city micro:


Ain't it beautiful? (The micro, not the tundra and ice tiles.)

[Krill]

What is the gold cost of that pop point?