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

[naufragar]

Ha! That's really excellent, Tarkeel. The Rodian drinking drinking out of a star is a nice touch.

I had written a second half of a turn 100 post and then I closed the tab before posting.  So you're going to get the very abbreviated version. 

BING
I don't know much about Bing besides that he's Fin/Imp. He had a small city razed by Commodore but seems to have rebounded fine. He and I are just starting to put Espionage Points into each other, so I hope to know more soon. Hard to say what his future holds. He borders some scary players (Commodore) and some anemic ones (Ginger, Superdeath, Gavagai). I hope Bing does decently well. Always nice to see newish players grow. (His ded lurker is Civac, an ancient veteran of long ago times.) Before I forget, he has two Gems and 1 Gold tile which are powering his research.


Magic Science
Ok, ok. I've technically played turn 101 so I have a little future insight. In the future, Ginger razes a city from Magic! What?! It's only a size 2 city, I think, but still. I was not expecting that. Very good that somebody's slowing Magic down. I've discovered that he has an offshore colony. Intercontinental domestic trade plus Protective is so, so good. It's almost impossible to overstate. He has 3 gold resources and two rivers, as well. Basically, Magic is definitely a threat to win. If I can ever pull off my Conquistador dream, I'll be made very sad by his Cambodian Elephant units. (Btw, usually I hate the Baray, but on these poor maps, it's very good.)


Commodore
The ever-scary Commodore. He's taken cities off of Gav and Bing, I think. He's parked units next to my barb city to stake his claim. He's sprawling all over the place. He has a city a 2-turn galley ride from my capital. I'm very worried. On the other hand, he seems to have a pretty weak tech rate. He also adopted my religion, which makes me happy. Speaking of religion, I still don't know how scared I need to be of him stealing the Apostolic Palace. His tech rate isn't great. Hereditary Rule isn't the most natural target ahead of Currency or Construction. He has a 40% chance of missing the necessary Prophet. Still, I'm a natural worrier. On the other hand, if he adopts my religion, he may be content to let me build the monk wonders and reap all the benefits himself. I don't have open borders with him, and he's the kind of guy to stick a knife in a pack leader. It's scary, to be honest.


Pindicator
Just met him. Saw him eat some of Gavagai. Seems to be doing fine? That's all I got.


Superdeath
What in the world is Superdeath doing? He's got the Great Lighthouse and some amazing, amazing land. Very green. He's got at least one island and a massive Financial-boosted fresh water lake. He should be doing so, so well. But he has a sad city count (equal to mine ) and no military. Just what in the world has he been doing up there? He's very luck he neighbors 2-city Gavagai. He neighbors Magic, but Magic seems preoccupied. Honestly, I have no idea what he's doing.

Ginger
Poor Ginger. Never should've burned Geidi Prime.  My anger at what I saw as his earlier clock games has cooled and been replaced with some small measure of sympathy. Sucks to get ganged up on by the neighbors. He and his lurker Miguelito rebuilt an impressive amount of army and seem to be swinging it around. He also refounded the city I burned, minus the Pyramids, of course.  My next objective is Monk economy, but after that, I intend to eat Ginger. His economy is devastated, so hopefully I can manage catapults versus a lack of catapults.

I keep thinking about his and Magic's war. Magic seems to have gotten some territory out of it? But if Magic takes any more of his cities, Magic makes his territory awkward to defend against me. I'm certainly counting my chickens before they safely cross the road, but I'm pretty confident that I can eat Ginger at my leisure assuming Commodore and Magic don't hassle me.

Gavagai
Poor guy. I don't know much about that part of the world, but let me guess based on the personalities: Commodore discovered that Gav was his neighbor. Commodore has bitched about neighboring Gavagai every time he's had to (and Gav has returned the sentiment). Add to the mix that Gav is Rome. Commodore, forever thinking in the grand arc, decides that he has to smother Gav in the cradle. Gav reads Commodore perfectly and rushes for Praetorians. Gav gets there but somehow Commodore gains the advantage. (This I don't understand.) Comm makes gains which causes Pindicator to find a pause in his micro extravaganza to join the fight and pick up cheap gains from Roman territory. And now Gav is on his last legs. For what it's worth, he still has Iron hooked up.

Naufragar
We're leading GNP by 57 points, 39 of which are Culture coming from our capital. That still puts us *roughly* at top tech rate, but it's not as dominant as it might look to other players. We also have 17.5% of the game's current pop points compared to Bing's 18%. Given that Bing is Imperialistic (and we both lost cities, which slowed our growth curve), I'm pretty proud of this number. The trouble is that players like Magic and Commodore are sitting at size 2-4 cities, while mine are at size 7-9. This means I won't be growing much more pop. And I don't have any more spots for cities.

Serfdom's a pain when it comes to producing settlers and my land is garbage. [Pic would go here] The plan from turn 0 has been to find ways to find value in marginal land as well as value outside of tiles. We'll settle a couple coastal spots and slowly grow onto coast. If we can land the Apostolic Palace, I'll be so happy as our cities can get +4 hammers (the equivalent of two free Serfdom grassland windmills). At a certain point, even Monk Economy (Apostolic Palace, Spiral Minaret, University of Sankore) won't be enough. So I'll have to eat Ginger at some point.

Our path is very straightforward. Whether it's easy is an entirely different question.

[naufragar]

Long time, no chat. Currency came in, so I turned off tech to save for Polytheism->Monotheism, but if I'm not saving, here's what my GNP looks like:


Those demos aren't too bad. Of course there are a few caveats: I'm pretty much at my max size and have Currency. Other players will get Currency and continue to grow past me. But it's alright. These demos are ok for now.

There's some risk that I'm inviting a dogpile:


Yes, yes, I know that that stack is for capturing the barb city, but one worries about Commodore posturing with so many units on my borders. I'm doing ok in power, but Ginger has reason to hate my guts, Commodore will always jump on a chance to hit the front runner, and Magic is chaotically aggressive. I'm still building some units, but I have to keep building facilities if I'm going to keep growing with my poor, foodless land.

5 turns until we see if Commodore gets a Merchant or Prophet, I think. It's possible that he's nowhere near Monarchy in order to bulb Theo, but he could be if he put his mind to it.

[naufragar]

But then Magic turns on tech and our GNP lead evaporates (remember my capital puts out +39 culture):


Magic's got intercontinental trade, Protective, and 3 gold tiles. He's going to be very strong. (I'm almost certain top Food is Bing, whose graphs I don't have.) Edit: Since I've got Currency, I know that Magic's gold savings rate is +71. Mine is +51. Uh oh.

He also has a bunch of cities. I'm tied for second fewest. Commodore cracked double digits with this capture:


I'm about to be out-scaled by everyone. Even Ginger, who lost 3 cities, has more cities than I do! Well, nothing to do but trust the plan and hope I can land the Apostolic Palace. If I can't... I'm screwed? Oh, and Commodore started putting EP into me. 

[naufragar]

A Commodore-heavy post today, but it's not all bad:



I thought Comm was getting his Great Person on t108, so I was even further off a Theology race than I thought, but luckily, he got the low odds Merchant. I think somebody got Monotheism last turn. Maybe Commodore in preparation for a Theo bulb? If so,  On the other hand, Great Merchants are, well, Great (they bulb Currency, after all), so I doubt he's too sad.

He's making me a bit sad though:


He sees I've only got a token garrison in Dunwall and yet he's shipping more units in. This is not the way to gain trust.  It's not the easiest for either of us to attack each other here, so one would hope that this would lead to a troop draw down. Pity.

Last turn, I sent Comm a sheep for sheep to indicate that he could finish pasturing his sheep and that I wouldn't snipe his worker:
[Oops. Thought I took a picture, but I didn't.]
This was not returned. Maybe this message didn't need a response, but with him restarting EP spending on me, fortifying his cities on my border, and refusing open borders? A little friendly communication would've been nice.  Getting very nervous. Next turn I revolt to Organized Religion, which prevents me from switching to Slavery for 5 turns. Very, very, very scary.

[naufragar]

I'll talk more about this later, but I had earmarked today for some domestic policy stuff.

In the lower left corner, you can see our newest city, Oar. Less a hive of villainy, more a hotbed of Rebel activity against the Lady.


It's got to be the weirdest city I've ever planted. And, as threatened in my t100 report, I'm starting with Moai rather than a granary or lighthouse. Why? Because I can't be bothered to do micro. But as to the more interesting question as to why plant terrible city now, well, that's more complicated. I'm putting Moai here, where it will take a million years to set up rather than using Moai to strengthen an already strong city like the capital because my land is so bad. This leads me to turn marginal land (or in this case water) into good land. I would rather salvage 10 tiles from "unusable" to "usable."

I hope that makes sense. There's 1 or 2 other city spots I can claim that have their own food, but they all require significant garrisons to be safe from Magic Science. While I'm talking about the picture above, I should point out that I practically emptied Innistrad to defend against Ginger. I doubt that he's got a second attack coming in from the southeast. I can scramble a defense if necessary.

Last thought about Oar: before settling it, I had 93 gold income and 51 gold expenses for a net of 42. After settling (and proselytizing Buddhism), I had +99 and -58 for a net of 41. So the city is a drain of 1 gold but the sooner I can start this city, the sooner it can start paying back its investment. (Although never for any realistic definition of soon.)

But back to the excitement, here's how the front line looks now:


Only 6 of those 10 chariots are promoted, but I suspect all of them have 2xp points. Notice how the axe has an attached Great General, has taken Morale for +1 move, and has no other promotions pending? A great general gives 20xp to a stack. There are 11 units there. I'm going to bet Ginger used the general here and all those chariots are secretly Combat 1.

When I first opened the turn, I wondered if Ginger was just trying to pillage as much as he could, but as I thought about it more, I think he was hoping that my city would be under-defended. It's not, and simulations tell us we hold easily, but that can all be upset by some incredible luck by Ginger.

As always, war is uncertain. I don't know how Ginger will move. I've sacrificed a worker to chop out a forest. Sad, but I want more units and if I divert some Ginger troops onto that hill, even just a chariot, I think itll have been worth it.

Truth be told, I'm as happy as I can be about being attacked. Here's why:


Look at Ginger's GNP. He's settled two cities, which brings his city count above mine! But it looks like he just wanted these for the extra whipping potential. Because I'm going for Apostolic Palace before Construction attack, I had worried that I was giving Ginger time to get catapults of his own. Unless I miss my guess, this build up and attack has cratered Ginger's economy and he won't be able to build catapults before I have a force of my own in his borders. We'll see.

My bigger worries are geopolitical, rather than tactical. If Magic were to mobilize against me now, he could put me in real danger. Who knows if Magic and Ginger have communicated? I guess Ginger wants to burn my holy city, which would mean Magic gains little, but you never know. I also should worry about Commodore now that I'm shifting my troops East, but Comm sent friendly diplo, so I assume I'm ok. Honestly, besides GNP, my demos are slipping, so I doubt players are so worried about me. Magic Science's stats are rising. One hopes he draws the heat.

Ginger's attack isn't exactly surprising, given my experience with him in PB64. There I ruined his empire and he went radio silent, dragged the game's turn pace to a halt, and then launched a vicious surprise attack from the fog for revenge. Sound familiar? Why is he mad? Because I burned his Pyramids. Why did I burn his Pyramids? Because he burned my city of Geidi Prime. So it goes, the vicious back and forth feuding and escalation until one of us is dead. Is it too much to suggest that if you can't take it, you shouldn't dish it out?



P.S. I can't find the post, but I swear I remember Ginger writing in one of the recent PB lurker threads about "taxing a city" from an opponent. It stuck out to me, because I thought it revealed a certain casualness about attacking a neighbor. I remember recalling this and being frustrated with myself that I didn't defend Geidi Prime better. Does this ring a bell for anyone else?

[Mjmd]

That last part makes me think of someone else as well 

[naufragar]

That last part makes me think of someone else as well 

How come all these games of so-called "Civilization" always degenerate into petty little squabbles? It flummoxes this new naufragar, who, as the title says, has turned over a new leaf. 


Edit: This really ought to be a turn report, but there is no turn to play!

[Mjmd]

Makes it more historically accurate.

[Charriu]

Makes it more historically accurate.

Looking at all the crazy things happened during mankinds reign, I couldn't agree more.

[naufragar]

This game is such a drag. Not because I was worried about Ginger's attack. Quite the opposite. I thrashed it with ease:


But that's what's so soul-crushing. Miguelito, the best ded lurker to ever live, played the turn on Ginger's behalf. He didn't take the free worker. He didn't even pillage my farm. He just sat there and offered peace. If I thought Miguelito were the turn player, maybe there was an opportunity to repair our relationship. But if Ginger's the turn player, I have to grind him as fine as I can, because he'll harbor a grudge for the rest of the game. I might sound whiny, but it's not fair to me that I don't know who I'm playing against. I didn't sign up for a Perpentach game.

And because Miguelito is just a ded lurker and not invested, he doesn't have the info to make the best moves. An aggressive turn player would've pillaged improvements and captured the worker. A defensive one would've moved his stack out of range of mine. Mig, not being as invested, sat still and got slaughtered. Yeah, this was a great victory for me and it got me a very important great general, but this all felt so bad. Like I'm winning a boxing match against a child.

And, of course, Ginger is throwing the entire game, not just ruining his own. Here's Magic Science's GNP:


Remember, I have +39 culture from wonders, so Magic is handily top research power. This comes from 3 gold tiles (crazy!), Protective intercontinental trade routes, and not having an early city burned, retarding his snowball. (RIP Geidi Prime.  ) And Magic just this turn offered Copper for Copper, meaning "let's eat Ginger together." Ginger, upset because I revenged myself for his treacherous little city snipe, is throwing away hundreds of hammers while his other neighbor is poised to eat him and close out the game. Bad sportsmanship.

I offered Miguelito/Ginger peace. Maybe the optimal move was to accept Mig's first peace offer or not damage Ginger's army. That was beyond my self-control, plus I wanted the Great General. Now I just have to see if I can profit more than Magic from the upcoming conquest of Ginger. Magic has 4 turns until his peace treaty is up.

It's all just so wearying.

Edit: When I was most unhappy with PB62, I turned the thread into a radio station. I'm not hyped enough for more Nina Simone, so have some Maggie Rogers. I think I put some of her stuff in PB59? Feels appropriate to the mood.