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

[naufragar]

Our predicament only grows more predicamenty.

I get home from work and slip on my ceremonial smoking jacket and feather headdress. I start sipping some ceremonial mezcal from a ceremonial sacrificial victim's skull while I watch my grandfather clock tick away the seconds until the turn timer runs down, ceremonially. What I'm trying to say is that I'm at my leisure and can hop on to play my turn in the final moments of the clock. I only need to make three moves: Worker road->worker road-> stack move. It'll take ten seconds.

I had planned on doing this before our first extension, too. The predicament is thus: very frequently we've been extending the timer without anyone asking. The absolute last thing I want is to squeeze my turn in at the very bottom of the clock only for someone to say "wait, wait. We didn't get everybody in. Let's add more time. Naufragar, you count as going earlier." I'm declaring war this turn; by thunder I'm grabbing the second half of the timer (so long as we don't keep extending the damn thing without reason!)

Of course, it's entirely possible that Magic or Ginger declared on my on t89 and I am the one holding us up on t90, but by this point I imagine someone would've told me... This is getting silly. When there's ~30 minutes left in the turn, I'll ask if people need an extension but request that we don't extend unless requested. I really don't get why all three of us haven't gone. No way we all picked this turn to attack each other.

[naufragar]

Superdeath:

[naufragar]

Too tired to report, but not much happened. We moved our invasion force into Gingerlito's sight and declared war:


Ginger revolted to Representation, so he got Pyramids and didn't necessarily research Monarchy.

I didn't see a reason that Ginger needed to hold the turn for two days.

Magic has yet to play. He'll declare war on one of us. If declares on Ginger, I'll . If he declares on me, I'll  . But now, to sleep.

Edit: Last thought: The fact that Ginger revolted shows he's not too worried about defending. Oh well.

[naufragar]

Good Lord. One day the majority of my Civ4 energies will be spent on playing the game and not litigating turn timer splits.

Ah I was under the impression that Naufragar had taken his turn already when he said he’d pause for me, I was preserving the turn order prior to treaty expiration. Since I did not want to double moving while taking the anarchy turn

Ginger logged in and played his turn on t90. I then logged in and declared war on him. Ginger logged in t91 to discover that I had played after him; he had thought that he played his turn t90 after me, but in fact I never logged in until afterwards to declare the war. This upset him for reasons I’m not entirely clear about. (Uncharitably, I assume that he wanted to game the timer so he could know whether or not I was attacking him before he decided to revolt. But I hope he wasn’t gaming the timer like that.)

The last turn of our peace treaty was t88. I made sure to preserve the order (with me going first) for t89 in case Ginger wanted to resume our war with the prior order. He did not, so I felt free to take the second half in t90. Ginger comments “I was preserving the turn order prior to treaty expiration” but he doesn’t get to claim the second half in perpetuity because he declared in the second half back on t78. (As a counter-factual, how long does he think I am supposed to wait until I get to use the second half of the timer myself? 2 turns, 5 turns, 20 turns?)

He also comments that he didn’t want to double move while taking the anarchy turn. I’ve got no problem with him double moving me while in the anarchy turn. I don’t see how he gets any unfair advantage from it.

Spoiler for irrelevant venting.

If I can express my annoyance a little bit: for about a day and a half Ginger refused to play his turn so he could go second. He never communicated a need for a pause or an inability to play. His desire to go second seems motivated purely by defensive considerations, i.e. holding on to the advantage of going second. In fact, just as the timer was about to wind down for its final time and we have communication, he does write that he’ll get to the turn. When he finally gets to his turn, we find out he didn’t actually intend to play his turn first and if he knew I hadn’t gone, he would’ve still waited it out! I’m trying to see this as anything other than clock shenanigans.

For the record, this is why we need to refuse pauses unless a player requests them. Had Ginger tried to pull this stunt without an overly generous admin, he would’ve just forfeited his turn when I rolled with 10 minutes remaining. As is, the player that wants to sit on the timer can trust someone to pause for him forever.

As far as I can tell, the crux of the issue is this: Ginger played his turn with incorrect information: he thought an opponent had already moved. To my mind, that mistake is on him. He hasn’t been unfairly treated. There’s no reason play can’t continue.

Lastly, I notice that Ginger hasn’t proposed any fix. He knows there’s no reason to reload back to his turn so he can play his turn with the knowledge of what I’ll do in mine. I do feel for him because I think in just about every game he’s played here, he’s gotten bitten by going first in turn order. I feel a little less bad because I suspect he was trying to game the clock.

P.S. Last little bit of trivia about his claim: “I was under the impression that Naufragar had taken his turn already when he said he’d pause for me.”

Using my local time:

Naufragar: 20:37: I’ll pause for Ginger.
20:39: Edit: Nevermind. Thanks.

Superdeath 20:41: I added time.

Ginger: 20:44 Logs in to play t90.

I can believe that Ginger didn’t see my edit 2 minutes after my post or Superdeath’s post 2 minutes after my edit. But how bad is his luck that he holds the turn for 14+ hours and then 5 minutes after he thinks I play, he plays?

Again, I completely believe he didn’t check to see if I played. But I don’t see why that error must be fixed.

[Cornflakes]

I see no reason to reload, and I didn’t read Ginger’s post as a request to reload so didn’t realize that a reprobate response was needed. (Edit: autocorrect )

[naufragar]

You're right. Perhaps I'm just touchy.

[Cornflakes]

Wow, thanks autocorrect. I totally meant “response”, not reprobate.

[naufragar]

Well, you were right, Cornflakes, and I was overly sensitive. We play on.

I moved my chariots up to get a view of Ginger's two nearest cities.


We had a choice. Ginger's cap looks a bit soft and, after all, this is just a revenge romp for his earlier burning of Geidi Prime. But the possibility of burning the Pyramids in Javert is just too tempting.

So we move towards Javert.


This attack looks good on first blush, but it's insanely dicey. We basically need 2 axes for every 1 of his, and that's just if the dice roll "normally." We currently have 8 axes to his 3, but we know he has a city nearby in the east (because that's where his Copper must be). A couple more units and we can't take the city.

I'll be interested to see if my scouting chariots survive next turn. The northern one is at least pretending to threaten the capital, although I suspect Ginger trades chariots. The southern one should be safe unless Ginger wants to move a unit out of Javert for a turn, which we'll be fine with.

Lot of words to say, next turn will be interesting. Oh, and playing at 5am sucks.

[naufragar]

Ginger moved his chariot out of Javert's garrison and built Walls during the inter-turn:


Brute force carries the day, and Javert burns.



We lost 1 more axe than projected (5 lost because 1 died doing no damage). But we had the numbers to deal with more than we encountered.

With the burning of Javert, I consider the earlier cowardly, uncalled-for burning of Geidi Prime repaid. (Well, sort of. Ginger also salted the fields all the way down to pillaging its roads.) But I might try to be a little opportunistic and see if I can't push a tiny bit more.

I still need to keep cranking out units, since I am, after all, still in Serfdom and fell from top power after losing those axes.    The 94 capture gold will help me limp to Currency.

Where do we go from here? Well, Ginger is hopefully decently crippled. He's lost 2 cities in 3 turns as well as the Pyramids. By the way, what happens to his civics next turn? He's currently in Representation. Ginger's not dead, and if any leader can recover from a couple lost cities, it's Joao. Still, I've hopefully put Ginger on the path to irrelevance and we can eventually absorb his empire. With our need for vengeance satisfied, we try to get back to the economic plan: Currency, plant more cities, bulb Theology for Apostolic Palace, followed by a Divine Right bulb for Minaret.

I think I mentioned before that I'm scared of Commodore's Temple of Artemis build. He can beat me to Theology by a lot. He also grabbed what looks to be an Intercontinental island I had my eye on:


Surely Brother Commodore would never launch a surprise naval invasion against an opponent he might see as encroaching on his turf?

[DaveV]

By the way, what happens to his civics next turn? He's currently in Representation.:

Swap to Despotism, with maybe an extra turn delay.