[PB69] Naufragar turns over a new leaf. Randomly.

[Mjmd]

If you hadn't been attacked would you have had a work boat there on time?

[naufragar]

If you hadn't been attacked would you have had a work boat there on time?

Nah. I didn't even know about the seafood until I misclicked on the turn I was attacked. I was just looking for the +5gpt from ICTR.

Sorry to drop reporting. Been busy and then felt guilty updating this when the EitB 55 players were still waiting on their map. I'm not back, but I can at least report.

The world's gotten real violent all of a sudden:


I don't know what's going on. Commodore and Gav have been at war forever. Comm lost a lot of power, but Gavagai hasn't gotten off 3 cities. Then Commodore sniped a Bing city? I'm not happy about this because I need Bing's cities for foreign trade. In the meantime, Superdeath, who at the time had 0 soldiers plus the Great Lighthouse, declared war on Magic Science. The big takeaway is that Magic and Bing are both involved in wars leaving Ginger free to recover. (Ginger is trading with the Great Lighthouse player because his economy is completely trashed. But Joao can recover. People always overstate the crash.)

Pseudo-edit as I look at the above pic: the barb city over the seas is garrisoned by archers.  So not taking it until Swords, probably. 

Speaking of Ginger, he is really powering up:


I've got my two most productive cities on military production. Hopefully we can keep up. Again, if I swap into Slavery, I can stop pretty much any attack stone cold, but other players might not believe me.

I had a nasty thought today. See all the hills between Ginger's borders and my capital?


If he were especially annoying, he could send a stack of Guerilla 2 axes into my lands. They'd be a huge pain to dislodge. Vanilla Chariots would only get 50% odds on killing them. You can see me trying to keep a zone defense between Ankh-Morpork and Innistrad.

I'm hesitant about what I should do, and a lot of it depends on how good Ginger's economic recovery is going to be. I don't think he's crashed his economy. Again, lots and lots of experience playing Joao and other Imp leaders has led me to sort of disdain the threat of economic collapse. If Ginger's going to recover, I need to spike his tires. If he's not, I need to play defensively, get to Currency, bulb Theology, build monk wonders, etc. The problem is that Ginger's pretty rabid. One remembers all his ultimately fruitless attacks against Commodore in PB64, and his random city snipe against me in this game. No idea why he's so hostile, but he certainly is, and I don't know if he'll let us develop in peace.

[Tarkeel]

If he were especially annoying, he could send a stack of Guerilla 2 axes into my lands. They'd be a huge pain to dislodge. Vanilla Chariots would only get 50% odds on killing them. You can see me trying to keep a zone defense between Ankh-Morpork and Innistrad.

The guerilla line is only available to Recon, Archery and Gunpowder units.

[naufragar]

The guerilla line is only available to Recon, Archery and Gunpowder units.

Sort of. Guerilla 1 is only available to those, but G2 is available to melee. This lets a Celtic player build Barracks+Dun for Guerilla 2 melee units. I strongly suspect Ginger has Masonry. Building a bunch of walls and barracks is hammer intensive, but he doesn't have much else to spend on. He's top Crop and Hammer while trying to avoid crashing his economy further.


Edit: Huh. I just World Buildered this. I'm wrong. First time for everything, I guess.

[Tarkeel]

In all fairness, I forgot that Joao is Celtic this game.

[Charriu]

The Dun like all other buildings that give promotion only give them to valid units. Therefore melee units do not gain Guerilla. The reason why the rest of Guerilla applies to melee is so that the Celtic UU can promote that way

[naufragar]

The Dun like all other buildings that give promotion only give them to valid units. Therefore melee units do not gain Guerilla. The reason why the rest of Guerilla applies to melee is so that the Celtic UU can promote that way

Makes sense.

You know what doesn't make sense?


Comm lost a city to Gav last turn, but instead of military, he was building wonders? My alarm bells instantly started ringing. I sort of had a lock on Priest Specialists by grabbing Stonehenge and Oracle. Magic Science and whoever founded Hinduism could theoretically use a temple to beat me to bulbing Theology and get the Apostolic Palace, but I don't think that's so likely. Commodore worries me though. Is he looking to spam out a quick Prophet for a Theo bulb?

I don't know. Temple of Artemis is a weird wonder. He could also try for a Great Merchant to bulb Metal Casting and land Colossus? I just don't know. Interesting times.

Ginger's power is also skyrocketing as our treaty draws to a close. And he's positioned a chariot in such a way that he can attack Geidi Prime as he did last time. The guy's getting on my nerves. 

[naufragar]

Happy President's Day to those who celebrate. In honor of this holiday, let's take a tour through some opponents' capitals:


Mr. Superdeath, the proud owner of the Great Lighthouse. I've offered him Open Borders. How to say this delicately? I don't mind propping him up with trade. I don't want him eating Bing or Gavagai, but I would like him to be strong in the late game. So, trade with the Lighthouse guy is on the cards.



Bing has had some trouble with Brother Commodore. He asked me to go to war with Comm the turn he peaced out. It looks like Bing just got caught with his hands down, like I did versus Ginger. He's Imp/Fin Carthage, so the best combo on the map. Unfortunately, I don't know if Bing's skills have grown sharp enough to contend with his neighbors of Gingerlito and Commodore.



Commodore is the only one who moved on t0 and he lucked into Copper at his cap.

Wait a minute! Every single player has Copper 2 squares away on a diagonal from their starting tile. How very interesting.

Here's Ginger's capital:


We know he doesn't have Copper on his NW or NE diagonals. That leaves SW or SE. Ginger settled his Silk city 3 tiles away from where his copper would be if it were on his SW diagonal. This makes it unlikely that his Copper is there, otherwise he would've founded closer so he could work it. As is, it would be impossible to be worked by any city. So his copper is to his capital's Southeast, in the safest possible back line. That's a real bummer.

Why is that a bummer? Take a look at the mouse-over in the above screenshot. Next turn, we send a gentle probing attack at Ginger. I really want to take the second half for this. Giving Ginger an extra turn to whip all his myriad cities doesn't seem great. Unfortunately, teams tend to take freaking forever to end their turn. Be decisive!   

Ginger has a massive, massive food lead over the rest of the field, although his actual pop is not much higher than mine:


So there's a very good argument to be made for playing defensively. Ginger's Joao, I'm Agg/Spi. He only has a couple cities more than me. Presumably, I could try to out-scale him. A decent argument, but I'm just not that player. Sorry. The guy sniped a city from me in the fog, hoping to spike my development at no cost to himself. I just can't shrug that off. Maybe other players could.

My strategy involves an ancient Civforum tactic: Shock Axes. Who would've thought it? If Shock axes are sufficiently covered from chariots, they are monsters to clear. 4 shock axes take 7 non-Shock axes to dislodge. I doubt I can take any cities off Ginger, but hopefully I can wreak enough economic devastation to even the scales after his burning of Geidi Prime. "But naufragar!" I hear you say, "Aren't you going to pay a king's ransom in unit supply costs that won't be offset by any economic gains made in the war?" Why yes, hypothetical lurker, but cowardly civilized people always demand you act in your own economic best interest. Yes we punched you, they say, but how expensive would it be to repay that insult? We reject this.

By the way, I worry that someday my simple bovine psychology will be manipulated by some clever matador. Annoy the bull and cause him to charge into your bright red cape. Notice how my power dwarfs everybody else I have graphs on...except Ginger. It's very likely he knows what's coming. I didn't declare war this turn, which was the turn our peace expired. Hopefully this lulls him. In a perfect world, he even revolts...


He just researched Monarchy. Good for him. It's a very important tech on this map. Btw, why can I see the option to ask him to swap into Hereditary Rule but not into Serfdom? (He is not currently in Serfdom.)

[Qgqqqqq]

Are you in Serfdom? Normally you can only see options to ask a player to join your civic. That's odd if you are though.

[naufragar]

What in the world is going on? Magic and Ginger both have missed their normal play windows twice now. This is the turn I attack Ginger, so I’m waiting for him to play.

I can think of four possibilities in order of likelihood: 1) Ginger has already attacked me last turn (t89) but hasn’t PM’ed me, so he’s waiting for me to play in the first half. 2) He’s simply been unable to play (unlikely since he’s been pretty prompt in a wide window) 3) He’s still at peace with me but doesn’t want me going first (unlikely since I don’t think Ginger’s the type for clock games) 4) Magic has declared in one of us and somehow it’s caused a three way split from hell.

In a handful of hours, I’ll be able to write more detailed instructions, but the simple version is: after Ginger plays, all we do is road two particular tiles and march pretty much everybody in. Shock Axe invasions aren’t the most complicated, after all.

Pseudo edit: You’re right Q. I’m in serfdom (hence the diplo option to revolt to slavery). I can’t figure it out.