[SPOILERS] swans will bite u

[ljubljana]

At 12-2, Shodai has now bested all his direct competitors for the title except one. At 11-3, maegashira 14 Tobizaru can force a playoff with a win here, in a decisive match on the final day of his first-ever top-division tournament.

Tobizaru has a playoff in his sights not once but twice with the sekiwake one good shove from disaster at the edge of the ring. But as Tobizaru’s fingers brush just past the belt grip that would seal the match, Shodai spins on his heels like a ballerina and drops him to the clay.

It is rare and highly frowned-upon in sumo culture for a rikishi to overtly display emotions in the ring, no matter how joyous the victory or crushing the defeat. But here neither sumotori can resist. And really, who outside the Japan Sumo Association can blame them? Tobizaru in particular had already become known for breaking this taboo with exuberant wins and a characteristic “well, you got me there” expression after defeats, especially close ones. But it is his agonized tear-choking here that will go down in the history books, even as his title chase won him a staggering 10-rank promotion and a permanent fan-favorite status among a generation of sumo followers.

And as for sekiwake Shodai, he had beaten both ozeki and won 13 matches in this tournament, and 11 in July. But his record in the previous basho, all the way back in March in the pre-COVID era, was only an 8-7, barely enough to stave off demotion. 8 plus 11 plus 13 is just 32 wins in three tournaments. But remember, in borderline cases, the promotion committee loves an upward trend. And an outright championship doesn’t hurt, either.

Ozeki SHODAI

Since his promotion, Shodai’s career as an ozeki has been enigmatic, and, frankly, a little disheartening. He got injured in the very next tournament, and since then his tachiai has seemingly regressed to its old form. Instead of a barreling rush forwards into a belt grip, he all-too-often simply stands straight up and gets pummeled from below and forced out without really accomplishing anything. Some attribute this to a confidence issue, others to anxiety levels so high that he reportedly chooses not to learn who his opponents will be until he sees them walking across the dohyo towards him. Maybe, some say, his training regimen has been compromised by his small stable with only one other salaried rikishi, or his psychology undermined by one-too-many rounds as Hakuho’s favorite chew toy during inter-stable practice. Whatever the reason, ozeki Shodai much more closely resembles the lugubrious maegashira 8 Shodai than his fiery 2020 run at sekiwake.

Somehow, he has clung to his rank for 2 years like this. He has been kadoban 5 times since his promotion, just one short of the theoretical maximum of 6 in 12 tournaments. This year, his records so far have been: 6-9 (kadoban), 9-6, 5-10 (kadoban), 10-5, and 4-11 (kadoban). He has lost more than he has won, and it’s not close, but an ozeki he remains, and the sumo media has started to turn on him as it so often does when a high-ranker struggles. Even his winning tournaments both opened with utterly listless-looking 1-4 starts.

But when the pressure mounts and demotion looks him dead in the eyes, the old Shodai comes roaring back from somewhere deep down inside him. That elemental creature looks harder to summon up each time Shodai calls him, and the psychological damage of life as a disappointing ozeki has been visibly accumulating within him for years, as it did with ozeki Goeido in Hakuho’s generation. This last tournament was his worst in a long time.

But wherever his perambulating path leads, I think I will always love Shodai, my first champion. If I ever make it to a real in-person sumo match, live in the Kokugikan, his will be the monogrammed towel I drape over the railing in front of my zabuton. がんばって、 正代直也! However your ozeki story goes from here, I hope it ends like it began, with happiness.

(to be continued)

[ljubljana]

Turn 45 - Japan



as feitoria candidates go, shodai here is a serviceable one with 6 spots visible and some chance for a 7th, not half bad in case we can't spare a settler for the north channel island. and the monument repair should accelerate us into poliphil and let us keep asanoyama on a boat for now. with a monumentality builder this spot can 3-turn galleys at just size 4, which is not too far off at a +3 food surplus. its defensibility from the east is really pretty decent, should thrawn choose to reach this far. and with this capture we have regained sole second place in expansion and an empire score "just" 12 behind thrawn's - not that any of that matters, of course...



TAD has opted for a defense of Mogadishu, which is reasonable - if we can't stop their snowball, containment is probably impossible even for all three other teams combined. i am not too optimistic about our chances and think thrawn will likely attack and kill the forward galley next turn - but a 33 hammer galley for the 70 clef defensive tactics inspiration, and for denying that inspiration to thrawn who needs it for alliances, while getting us into the war we need is actually a decent trade. that is, if we can manage no further losses, and if more longships come out of the northeast this turn TAD's ships will get trapped and annihilated. but a miracle is still possible here - if we draw the longships away for long enough that Mogadishu completes a galley, i do think that in conjunction with some healing on the city center would probably be enough to kill thrawn's attack, or at least delay it to the point that it becomes impractical. that is probably our only wincon in this theater but it's better than nothing.

i also note that, curiously, thrawn has not yet opted to make us of their ocean movement. most likely this is for maneuverability on the longships, which get +1 movement if they start their turn on coast, and maybe they are also trying to bluff us into thinking they haven't finished the tech yet and walking into tactical disaster. but i suppose there is the smallest chance that they diverted to mining or something and are still a few turns away, which would indeed help us survive here, though not for very long.

well, at least i'm still having fun

[williams482]

This "flying monkey" guy has my emphatic approval.

Is there any meaning behind the colors of the wrestler's garments?

[ljubljana]

yeah, he is pretty much impossible not to love

As for the garments (mawashi is the japanese term), sort of. One of the sumo traditions states that they are supposed to be purple or dark blue, but even the JSA doesn't bother to enforce this one, and the only real rule is that they can't be white (because that's the color of practice mawashi). Many wrestlers have a signature color (Tobizaru's light blue has not changed since I started following him); others change their color after a few start-of-tournament losses, in the hopes that it will help turn things around.

Here is my favorite article on the subject, by the inimitable Herouth (@SumoFollower on twitter, though their feed, as well as the tachiai.org one on the right side of the screen in that link, definitely contains spoilers). It is entitled "Everything you ever wanted to know about mawashi, and some things you wish you didn't" - peruse it if you dare

[ljubljana]

Hey folks,

Unfortunately, I need to make an errata regarding the March 2020 basho, the last to feature both yokozuna, Hakuho and Kakuryu, as more than just names on the rankings chart. Here they are in the final match of the tournament, both 12-2, in what was actually the first title-determining bout between yokozuna with the same record in 7 years. The match itself certainly does not disappoint. Yet the crowd seems strangely muted...I wonder why?

Yeahhh, this one's on me - I misremembered the order of operations here, because the way things really happened was just so implausible. The March 2020 basho took place not right before COVID, but during it - while most of the world went into hard lockdown, the JSA barred spectator attendance but allowed the tournament to go forward, unfiltered face-to-face contact between gasping, sweating rikishi and all. This tournament was the "ghost basho", not the July one, though after the May tournament was indeed sensibly cancelled, it would be years before crowd quotas and social distancing rules were fully relaxed. Sorry about that, folks...

[ljubljana]

Turn 46 - Japan



If that injured longship is not about to promote, and there are no more boats in the fog, we have a chance. If the longship was fresh when it came down here, it would have 9/15 XP now and we might be ok, though it will heal between turns by coastal raiding the horse farm (why did you have to build a horse farm, Mogadishu ). But since it came down with a promoted ship, I'm guessing it was part of a wolfpack that already ate a CS, in which case it probably has a bit of prior experience and will promote right now. I think two full-health Embolon longships should be able to take our little attack force here pretty easily, though at least we will slow them down and give Moga time to heal back up, I guess.

Things are bleak, bleak, bleak though. Thrawn is over 500 milpower on turn 45 of the game. They have State Workforce and are barreling towards PP - at their current culture rate, it's a 5-6 turn research, and they'll get there around t50. Turn 50, with no self-built monuments other than the first one and no culture pantheon! That's the power of city-state rushes...it snowballs you along EVERY axis...

The one "bright" spot - they took Pingala, who is not Victor! This means they have triple our beaker rate, hilariously, but that will actually take some time to materialize in a military advantage, since longships are the best ship available for some time. They could start Cartography research now, but unboosted at 490 * 1.2 = 588 beakers that will take them a nice long time even at this research rate. They will probably do CelNav first instead for the boost, but that research isn't free either, and harbor builds are not longship builds.

Meanwhile, TAD and I are both going for Victor now, and will have him around t60. That kinda sucks! And our culture and science are going to fall far, far, FAR behind everyone else's until we can get some campi up. But if we can buy survival for now with promoted ship spam, both our civs have levers to catch up. I can prioritize high-adjacency campi and growing new plants to size 4 with FtW, and my own free monument in Shodai should help with the culture catastrophe. And once TAD gets their 8 traders up, that is worth 12 free BPT via trade routes to a campus city. Free Inquiry might be off the table for them, but that's ok - they can just build campuses straight-up instead of worrying about harbors. Inefficient compared to our pre-game plan, but not unsalvageable, if the game's still going on turn 80.

Naturally, I think there's zero chance of that happening - this game is only still going because Woden and Banzai haven't met thrawn yet. As soon as they do, or, I'd imagine, as soon as thrawn gets their next wave of CS captures, we'll probably see concessions. But I don't really mind that we're still playing, especially since there may not be another Civ6 game ever, or at least for some time...stubborn refusal to face the music in thrawn's single-player scenarios is a well-known flaw of mine



My two new promoted ships will head over starting next turn. Thrawn can still outfight them with their early support bonuses, and there will be a window when things are even worse thanks to Oligarchy. But around turn 60, when I have PP and MiliTrad and Victor 3 in the capital, things are actually going to swing the other way in terms of ship-to-ship combat odds (though they will have the tactical advantage, of course). I am also encouraged to observe that, somehow, Asanoyama and both of TAD's cities actually have a follower of my religion already! To my utter shock, they will convert naturally in "just" 24 or so turns, which is forever in most contexts, but here it's just turn 70. Wow - maybe Crusade will come into play after all.

Terunofuji's extremely dumb, shrine-delaying galley will pop next turn. Naturally, I'm undecided about the next build, which actually might be the rest of the shrine this time - we do really need to start catching up on science, and that means size 4 for what is now the campus here. But thrawn has 500 milpower so it should probably just be another dumb-ass galley. What a stupid game :|

Abroad, Woden has the world's first campus. Or...they HAD the world's first campus, six turns ago, and I totally missed it. Whoops

Horrifically, our six little cities and exceedingly limited economic development rank us a firm second in total empire score. Incurian and Chevalier are still on 3 and 2 cities, respectively. Inc was about to pop CelNav for Cothons, which would have been pretty fast at before t50 and set them up for a rapid wave of expansion...but now I think they might have switched to Mining or something to frantically chop out biremes. Fine by me - the more time they take to get a classical tech, the longer I have to crawl towards PP. Woden and Banzai are doing better in development, with Banzai at 2 RNDs and Woden starting to tear up the culture tree...but they are both on just TWO cities, so I'm not sure how sustainable that is. I imagine Woden has a wave of galleys out now, and Banzai has a few from the RNDs, though, so hopefully they can hit their own CS soon and start to turn things around, if thrawn doesn't get there first...

It is really looking like we're past the point of no return here, in terms of the "can thrawn outproduce the rest of the world combined" question. We met them 3 turns ago, and they have added 150 milpower in that time - TAD and I have meanwhile produced one boat between us, and it fights at 30 strength compared to 39 strength for the new longships once they hit Oligarchy, plus support bonuses. If the others are in a similar position, then it really is the case that, here on turn 45, one civ in Norway can outfight a coalition of all six opponents, maybe even in a rout. That's just astonishing, major props to thrawn's play, as always

I think once this game ends, I might reach out to them and see if their offer to play some duels with me is still open... That is, assuming they can stick to their stated aim of not playing another PBEM here again

[ljubljana]

oh shit you guys, idea: the asanoyama plan opens up the possibility of faith-buying the trader in hakuho once we hit monumentality. we need 7 hpt to get a 2-turn victor galley. count with me:

2 PFH/plains hill mines = 6 hpt
+ 2 JFH/grass hill mines = 10 hpt
+ city center = 12 hpt
+ trade route = 14 hpt
+ palace = 16 hpt
+ urban planning = 17 hpt

so we can do it at just size 4, and without much builder investment too. that means this is going to happen starting right on turn 61. later than i would have liked, but you do what you have to

the trader will also get us growing (at a +5 food surplus) towards the next benchmark, which is 33 hpt for one-turn victor galleys in apprenticeship. for that we need

4 plains hill mines = 16 hpt
+ 3 grass hill mines = 25 hpt
+ city center = 27 hpt
+ trade route = 30 hpt with a harbor at Asanoyama
+ palace = 32 hpt
+ urban planning = 33 hpt

so if we have the foresight to do the harbor in Asanoyama before the campus (defensible anyways to give TAD more gold and the city itself a quick lighthouse to salve the lack of FtW), we can do this at just size 7 at the capital. if we maintain 17+ hpt in the meantime, the growth rate at the capital will look like:

size 4: need 45 food, will work 2 PFH + 2 JFH for +5 food = 9t growth, ~t70 eta
size 5: need 55 food, will drop 2 PFH for 3 2f/2h tiles IF we spend the gold to buy the third-ring campus spot at Hakuho. that's a +7 food surplus = 8t growth, t78 eta
size 6: need 66 food, best we can do is add a 2f tile like the 2f/1h forest. 10t growth = t88 eta

but we can shave some of this with the jungle chop and the fact that we should regrow to size 4 slightly before the era change to bank a little food. if we go for apprenticeship next, our beaker costs along the way look like

Archery: 50 * 0.8 = 40
HBR: 120 * 0.6 = 72
Currency: 120 * 0.6 = 72
Apprenticeship: 275 * 1.2 * 0.6 = 198
= 382 beakers, which is doable in that timeframe if we drop a couple of campuses in the meantime.

Compare a Cartography beeline, which costs us
Shipbuilding: 200 * 0.6 = 120
Cartography: 490 * 1.2 * 0.6 (assume TAD boosts it for us) = 352.8

significantly more beakers, and I am not sure which yields a greater effective military strength multiplier in the short-term. in the long-term, it's probably apprenticeship - all those galleys are FREE to maintain and would serve as a very effective sink for Portuguese gold when the time comes, so the more time we have to build up a giant blob of them, the better. This might mean a useless CH in Asa instead of the harbor (if we don't want to divert to CelNav), but, uh, i guess at least that would make us favorites for Crassus?

of course, cartography does unlock the essential ocean movement... i guess it depends on how feasible it is to hold off these Norwegians without that. if it's NOT feasible to hold them off without that, we're honestly not going to make it long enough for this to become an issue anyways :| plus it is looking unlikely that TAD can get us an especially fast boost anyways...

[ljubljana]

what's that you say? construction for lumbermills also gets us 33 hpt at size 7, doesn't condemn asanoyama to an early harbor/CH, saves hakuho's HS adjacency, and takes us through both archery AND MASONRY along the way, the latter of which i have to boost ASAP for TAD anyways so they can make walls, instead of useless-ass currency? ok fine i guess i see your point i GUESS :|

apprenticeship helps at way more cities though and like we DO really need the acceleration from some well-timed chops. but yes, the need for masonry for both of us is difficult to ignore

[williams482]

I hate to be a killjoy, but those conversion timelines are fraudulent unless the to-be-converted cities don't grow in that period. Each extra pop point will increase the amount of pressure needed to convert them, and add additional "atheist" counter-pressure from the city's current dominant (lack of) religion.

[ljubljana]

awwww yeah honestly i don't understand religious conversion times literally at all beyond "don't let it grow past size 1 until it converts, whatever you do"

so does that mean the one follower we seemingly have at these cities is going to go away once they grow? or just that we now will need more pressure to add a second follower and get the conversion?

also, even in that case, we still might get TAD's capital...it is probably going to finish a settler before it grows, i don't think there's any way for it to hit size 4 in 30 turns without ruining its productive capacity. god the capitals in this game are bad