[PB64] naufragar's bingo parlor for assassins

[naufragar]

Holy smokes, I might've just made a massive, game-ruining mistake:


I accepted this. I checked Foreign Advisor and saw nothing strange. Saw nothing weird on the graphs. I accepted it. But I didn't realize Superdeath and Amica's treaty has expired! Because I've been ranting about it every turn, its been fresh in my mind, but it turns out it was exactly 10 turns ago. I'm a colossal f'ing moron. If Amica uses his ten turns of peace to rip Superdeath's heart out, I deserve the loss (and I deserve to have all my rants read back to me ). Holy smokes, I'm a moron.

I accepted because I thought I could use the ten free turns to pivot to Ginger and crush him, freeing up my Eastern defenses for a later campaign in the West:


That's still the plan. Do as much damage to Ginger as I can, so I can stop fighting a 2 front war, but damn. I might've just sunk this game. Stupid, stupid mistake.

[naufragar]

Well, Amica didn't declare war on SD last turn, although the possibility is still there:


Amicalola is regaining his former strength but doing so at an immense food and commerce cost. Commodore is a hero, now and forever.

Anyway, it's time to enact my plan against Ginger:


That's right. An army of guerillas.


I hadn't realized Monte Cristo would be so lightly defended, otherwise I would've planned something different. Right now, the plan is to use Guerilla Muskets (and later Grenadiers) to sit on the hills around Nome della Rosa and pillage his tiles.

Ginger is in Serfdom and Bureaucracy, so putting the pain on his capital windmills etc. really hurts him. He can certainly dislodge my ragtag bands of partisans but presumably he does so at a hammer disadvantage, which will only get worse as I send in Grenadiers. (Again, my plan is simply to put pressure on Ginger to keep my East secure so I can focus on Amica to the West. I hadn't planned a war of conquest, but since Ginger's main strength is tangling with Superdeath, I'll push my luck.) I suspect those Galleons are loaded, but that's fine. Indeed, the entire point is to get Ginger's units off boats and into cities.

The other objective for my guerillas is to burn Ginger's canal fort, enabling me to pin him back into his southern sea.

For the record, SD got Gunpowder this turn!  He can now build strength 9 muskets as opposed to his earlier strength 10 knights, and he's cut Amica's beaker lead to 15,000.

[naufragar]

Yes, it's true. I am the dumbest Civ4 player. Amica ripped our Superdeath's rabbit heart.


I'm just so, so stupid. Notice that the inland city Amica conquered is 3 tiles away from the coast and through a hill? Amica was likely keeping a Great General around, ready to promote a unit to Commando. I've got one. Why shouldn't he?

I mentioned before that SD only has triremes, so every single coastal city of his can be taken by Amica at will with just Galleons and Grens. Meanwhile, moving away from the amphibious threat, how secure his Superdeath's border with Amicalola?


I'm a freaking moron. 3-4 knights can take that city and every other city Superdeath has by Amicalola. 

Is it time to concede? Of course not. Amica's path to victory is incredible easy, but his morale is also incredibly low. I'd estimate there's a small but nonzero chance he'd prefer a draw to achieving a victory condition. On the other hand, perhaps he can reach the domination threshold with Superdeath's land, and in that case, we've got to play on. When was the last time a game ended in an actual, in-game VC? But regardless, there's many a slip twixt cup and lip...



Meanwhile, we move on Ginger:


This stuff is ridiculously complicated. (Are his Galleons loaded? Do I try to cut Monte Cristo out from his empire? How soon do I have before his anti-SD forces get back here? Do I need more cannons or hitters? Where do I apply naval pressure?) So forgive me if I don't go into detail. We're adding units to put pressure on the capital. I think his ships are empty. He offered peace in exchange for war with Amica. Buddy, yes, I would love to ignore you in order to focus on Amica, but do you remember when I was doing that and you launched a naval invasion from the fog and came within 1 battle of burning the most important city in my empire? Once bitten...

And now back to the Path of Exile league launch!

[Miguelito]

Buddy, yes, I would love to ignore you in order to focus on Amica, but do you remember when I was doing that and you launched a naval invasion from the fog and came within 1 battle of burning the most important city in my empire? Once bitten...

Eh, are you sure you aren't leaving out a tiny bit of the story there ?

And now back to the Path of Exile league launch!

Ah that got me interested. I read up on the announcement, and am now reinstalling. Want to see if I manage to to get a Hardcore SSF Ruthless character to Kitava during the league... or just past Dominus?
What are you playing?

[naufragar]

Eh, are you sure you aren't leaving out a tiny bit of the story there ?

All my actions can be ascribed to my love of wisdom and justice. All the actions of my opponents can be ascribed to their alien and malicious minds. 

And now back to the Path of Exile league launch!

Ah that got me interested. I read up on the announcement, and am now reinstalling. Want to see if I manage to to get a Hardcore SSF Ruthless character to Kitava during the league... or just past Dominus?
What are you playing?

I'm barely into act 4, but I'm loving the league mechanic! Admittedly, it's not rewarding and frequently frustrating, but I'm loving the game-within-a-game bit. Just trying to see how far in their mini roguelike I can go. (Answer: not very.)

My general PoE pattern is: league-start something good with the idea of swapping to a meme character, never spend that much time in the game, retire from the league with the starter in the low 90s, and repeat next league. 

I started as a cold DoT Occultist, which I've never done before. The current meme plan is still up in the air, but I'm tempted by a fire-converting Ele Hit marauder (chieftain maybe) using something like Cold to Fire support and White Wind. Or something with Ice Spear Totems, just to cheese the league mechanic. So many build ideas, never enough time to farm the currency to make them.

More power to you for Hardcore. I can enjoy SSF, but I play PoE to turn my brain off, not be stressed out of my mind. 

[Miguelito]

Do you mind me hijacking the thread for PoE?

Started with a duelist. The first iteration died to the fire witch on the Coast (just as my very first HC character many years ago did, nice flashback). The second one now got to the Passage and did Fetid Pool. Took me an hour of play, because I'm really not very good, and Ruthless makes those first areas pretty engaging already! Slowly kiting, cleaving, double striking... I like it for now. Ancestral Protector totem is a huge upgrade
Got a complete set of white gear already . Even a 3-link, but no support gems yet . I also found a magic scepter that the next character may have a use for. Curious if I'll find something with cold resist until Merveil...
So Ruthless is fun, but it's also possible that I'll abandon it after a few days, because it requires a lot of dedication and patience.

I did not understand the league mechanic. A portal in Coast opened, no NPC, no explanation. I entered, picked the entry room, killed guards, picked up some gold, lost some resolve. No reward. Then another portal on Mud Flats. Lost all resolve pretty fast in that room (goal was to just find the exit, I suppose I should just not have fought the monsters?) and that was that. Not sure what it is about yet, but I guess in the second or third room there will be a first reward?

[pindicator]

Miguelito, I agree the league does not have the polish it should. In fact, I think the number of leagues have been very rough around the edges. But once I'm starting to figure otu the sanctum I'm starting to like it. I think the afflictions are supposed to be eventually countered out by the relics you get, but you don't get relics often - at least, I haven't. So it's very grindy, but what isn't in PoE?

You both are brave for doing HC Ruthless! I'm just playing SSF, but I'm doing my own build and it's turning out well so far.

[naufragar]

Oops! I misread. No no, I'm not touching Ruthless with a 10 foot pole. More power to Miguelito for his willpower! Yeah, the mechanic has been hilariously unrewarding. Like, a couple chromes every room? Maybe a chaos? It would really bother me if I didn't find the mechanic so fun to play on its own. It's a completely different feeling PoE, where you have to care about being hit.

You'll get a lore dump in Fellshrine Ruins when you finally encounter the league NPC. (Oh, one further silliness: the rooms marked "reward" don't have real rewards. Just league currency to buy things in the Sanctum.    )


I guess I should make a comment on the whole Amica sub thing.

Is it time to concede? Of course not. Amica's path to victory is incredible easy, but his morale is also incredibly low. I'd estimate there's a small but nonzero chance he'd prefer a draw to achieving a victory condition.

Well, that flies out the window. Again, there's still a lot that can happen and I'd like to see just how wrecked Superdeath is in the next couple turns, but if this were a chess match, it would be the equivalent of the player with an advantage resigning to AI. 

Hey guys, I wanted to ask how you would feel about pausing the game for about 5 days? This is a really interesting game but I am very busy with University for the next ~5 days, and unable to spend very much time here. I would hate to lose by phoning in these critical turns (losing because I get outplayed, otoh, would be quite fun ), but would also hate to wreck my degree by playing them properly.

I am on (university) holidays after this until March, so it should be a once-off.

Amica's well-meaning, so I shouldn't let this get stuck in my craw like it does. I don't feel outplayed, tbh. I feel like the map set a player up in a dominant position. And in the tech thread and civ general Amica insinuates that the turn split drama about us founding cities has had him soured on this game since September. Brother, you got away with an illegal double move the consequence of which was that you breached my inner sea and burned a core city. And I didn't complain about that first move until you tried to illegally double move me again!

I understand how Amica's feeling. But it's a feeling in search of a justification. The game's been handed to him, he's benefited from the map, neighbors, rule bending, all of it, but even still this is a tough game and hard on the morale. So be it. The continued insinuation that I'm in the wrong when Amica in fact received a massive, massive, freaking massive advantage from his misdeeds pisses me off.

Look how mature I am! That all went into my own thread rather than the tech one!  Now we'll see how much gets edited away over the next day.

Edit: And Amica would like to withdraw regardless and now I feel like a dick. I'll leave the above up, but it wasn't worthy of an RB player and I regret it. I've got to go to sleep, but I'll try to respond to Amica's tech thread post before I head to work tomorrow.

[naufragar]

Post-Mortem

Naufragar is the worst.

[Commodore]

Bruh I'm loving this thread, never apologize for this stuff.