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

[Amicalola]

I think one of the reasons PB64 was so interesting for an extended period of time (from a player and apparently lurker perspective) was that all of the players continued to play reasonably, even if they felt they had no chance of winning.

[naufragar]

Yeah, I think PB64 might've been lightning in a bottle. Not to say that launching an army of chariots at the Holy City of the guy that burned your Pyramids is unreasonable. It's just that he's not doing it well. And he's leaving it to his dedlurker to clean up the mess. Again, I know it sounds whiny, but I want to play a good game!

I logged back into the turn to take some pictures and saw Magic offering me Copper for Copper with a 2 gold timer. He and Ginger made peace in 350 B.C., which I thought was turn 102, which would give that treaty another 4 turns until expiry. Perhaps I miscounted. I doubt that I'm able to make much progress against Ginger, and I really, really don't want to share with Magic.

Magic for his part is preparing to snap up Ginger's two most northern cities:


All of Ginger's army is in chariots, which famously don't get defensive bonuses. (Unless you're Persian...)

Unfortunately, Magic is going to be my likely enemy this game. I could spin some tale about that unwarranted scout murder by his chariot back in the early turns. The truth is simpler:


Magic currently has a monster GNP lead and is safe on every side but mine. To the east, he borders Superdeath who hasn't done anything all game after landing the Great Lighthouse. Superdeath's Lighthouse-boosted GNP is lower than Magic's and mine when we have tech turned off. SD's food is lower than Ginger, who lost three cities and whipped out 10 units. His power is less than half of mine or Magic's. This has all the hallmarks of another phoned-in game.  To Magic's Southeast is Bing, whose stats look fine, but Bing himself would probably tell you that he's not the most ruthless Civ4-er. (Bing's crop yield is truly excellent, though. )

To Magic's West, lie Commodore and Pindicator. But they'll never bother him this game. Why? Look closely at where Magic and Pindi's borders touch:


Pind literally does not have a land route into Magic. Commodore would have to walk a gauntlet between my and Pindicator's territory. So despite neighboring 6/7 opponents, the only one that will ever give him pause is me. So feeding Ginger to him is not in my best interest.

Oh well. If Ginger wants to keep whipping chariots to turn into Wretched Great Generals, so be it. We have to plan for the eventuality that he crumples like a paper bag in the face of Magic's troops in a couple of turns. (How hard is it to press the "whip axe" button in a hill city? We'll find out.) Only thing left is to try and profit more from Ginger's disengagement than Magic.

One last bit of bitterness: what happened to "persevere in the face of adversity"? How can man die better than facing fearful odds?

[Krill]

Players have to have something to work towards otherwise the game becomes a chore. Multiple awards, not just the basic VC are needed, but a game also has to give hope and interest.

[naufragar]

Sure, ideally. Regardless, when you join a multiplayer anything, you accept some obligations to your fellow players.


I'm trying to incentivize Ginger's participation. I tried to warn him of Magic's upcoming attack in two turns. (350 B.C. is t101. It is currently t109. )


Rice and sheep are the two resources in Ginger's northern cities. I know this message looks like I'm offering to fight Magic, but I didn't know how else to say "we have a common enemy and he's coming for your North." I have no intention of slowly marching my axes through wooded hills into Magic's Aggressive, Protective culture. I just want Ginger to know that if doesn't whip units now, he's in trouble.

Ginger's military is all facing me:



So I suspect that the North, where Magic's hammer blow will fall, is completely undefended:


Pity. I have a decision to make over the next few turns. Do I go for a couple rounds of infrastructure in preparation for the Apostolic Palace or do I build up troops in preparation for Construction? If Magic gobbles up those two Ginger cities, I probably churn out catapults to stake my own claim.

[naufragar]

Forget a quick conquest of Ginger with catapults. The man went to the Not Fucking Around school of Civ4.


That is... a lot of axes. Like, could really, really hurt me if he just marched those at me. We'll see.

The power graph is similarly scary:


Alrighty. We need to turtle up and not die to Axe Armageddon.

A chariot of mine could prove the Earth is round if we had optics. While circum-charioting we saw this interesting sight:


Comm was the first to Code of Laws and Confucianism, but he is spreading my religion. He figures, rightly, that I'm going to build the Apostolic Palace, so he can reap the benefits of boosted Buddhism. Good for him.

[naufragar]

Very fun. Ginger is looking to snipe my newest city with the remnants of his chariot invasion force:


In defense, I have a Formation Axe, a C2 spear, and a chariot. Sims say I've got pretty much exactly coinflip odds to lose the city. If I kill 5 chariots on the defense and the city falls, I won't be hugely unhappy. Anything less and I'll be very mad. Of course, best case is the city holds.

But Ginger's got a very scary army. Still in danger of just watching him waddle axes up to me:


Man, that's a serious power differential. And it's not like I'm a paper tiger. I've got the #2 power. It's just that the number 1 is a madman.

[naufragar]

Number of wars naufragar has declared on neighbors: 1 (completely justified for the barbaric burning of Geidi Prime ) Number of wars that neighbors have declared on naufragar: 4 (all criminal acts of depraved despots )

Magic sent us a PM that he declared war, which set my teeth on edge. Magic pivoting against us might let Ginger join in, and against both of them, I would eventually go down. Fortunately, Magic just wanted to war-peace us. Because I am an avatar of peace, I tried to signal Magic that I don't think either of us should attack each other.


I have no idea why Magic declared war.  I had moved a garrison out of a city in preparation for Ginger attacking with the chariot stack (which never happened). Perhaps this scared Magic? The terrain between us is so rough that neither of us can really attack into the other right now. I would've thought this made us excellent neighbors, but perhaps Magic sees it differently. I think Magic has just researched Monarchy, so maybe he wants safety from me to swap into Serfdom? If so, I need to communicate to Ginger that he'll get no trouble from me if he sends his scary army Magic's way. 

Our demos are slipping, which is sad. We've just researched Metal Casting and Forges are going up in a few places. I'm also just a breath away from Apostolic Palace. If you'd like a look into what goes into these turns that makes them take forever, take a look at Ankh Morpork:


This city is basically my entire economy and pretty much my entire industry. I had this problem in PB64 where, because the quality of my land was so bad, the few cities that were good had to carry the ambitions of the entire empire.

So here's Ankh Morpork's dilemma: We're going to get the Great Prophet for our Divine Right bulb from here (for Spiral Minaret). If we work 1 priest, we get that Prophet in 36 turns. If we work 2 priests, we get that Prophet in 21 turns. (I don't think I want to work 3 priests.) If the plan is to conquer Ginger ASAP both to remove the terrifying threat of an opponent who's sole goal this game is to screw me and to gain some grassland tiles (oh sweet dream!), then I should be working max hammers into catapults. If I want to out-scale Ginger and maybe keep up against Magic, I need the Spiral Minaret as soon as economical. But let's say we get that Prophet in 21 turns, does that fit our tech path? Well, I expect our Machinery research to take 15-16 turns. I expect the Prophet to bulb ~1200 beakers of the 1800 beaker technology. I don't think there are any other immediate technology needs, so I can go Divine Right after Machinery.

So I decided to work that second Priest specialist. That is many, many minutes of thought for one tiny button press. Boy this games are something else.

[Tarkeel]

I hope you changed the citizen to a priest afterwards?

[naufragar]

Mhm. This was just for demonstration. (So I guess sort of gives away what I was going to choose. )

[naufragar]

I think Magic has just researched Monarchy, so maybe he wants safety from me to swap into Serfdom?

This was the answer. Magic used our enforced peace to revolt to Hereditary Rule, Serfdom, and Organized Religion. He did this after popping his first Golden Age. Check out how much money he makes now:


He's making double my income. Not sure how far ahead of me on the tech tree he'll shoot, but it'll be considerable. Other players to watch are Bing and Superdeath who, without a golden age, have a 50% greater gold savings rate.