When and where and how did it all go wrong? Why am I losing this contest with Naufragar? Obviously no one can answer me now but I'm sure everyone has an opinion and I will learn them all someday.
More land > less land, 2 civs-worth > 1 civ-worth, right? Is that not true? The conquered Celtic land was supposed to make my civilization stronger than Naufragar's in exchange for putting me in a horrible tactical situation. I hoped my civilization would be stronger enough that it could overcome the horrible tactical situation and conquer Naufragar. That was the likely outcome, I thought. Instead, Naufragar's civilization is inexplicably stronger than mine, and combined with the horrible tactical situation it means I am doomed.
"Doomed" because he has 18 CANNONS to attack Joker, and I just this turn trained 1 CANNON only, which is not in position. I was only 3 turns slower to Steel. Gold and queue upgrades, I guess? He controls Joker's 1st-ring tiles because Cathy Ames has been building Culture for a while now. I just figured out that Culture-building is what must be going on last turn, which shows how sharp my play is at the moment. He gets the first strike, and I have to run or die utterly, but running feels like clicking the "MAGIC SCIENCE LOSES" button personally. Not that the outcome would be better if I stayed and made Naufragar click the loss button for me, but then the dice roll and there's a 1/1000000 chance of victory through outrageous combat luck, and it feels different. And what do gradients in outcome even mean when they are all defeat, very likely outright elimination? Of course, I placed a lot of value on those gradations in previous games but in those games I never seriously thought I could win. In this one my chances looked better than ever for a while, so it's different.
"Inexplicable" is wrong. I can guess at the reasons, I think. The Celtic land I captured was just that, land. Not many actual cities, with population and buildings and improvements for me, to give a headstart. Just land that I had to settle myself, or close to it. Distant land, with expensive city maintenance. Exposed land, with onerous defensive demands (Every city started by building Walls and a Castle, has since built multiple units before infrastructure, most have either built culture buildings or suffered from defeat in culture war or BOTH). And land that prefers Slavery to Serfdom.
The big picture place
is was, once I had conquered my unfair share of Celtia, to use the pure land advantage to overcome the tactical disadvantage and kill Naufragar. I knew all along he wouldn't have it any other way. Meanwhile, I hoped the political situation among the other 5 to 3 players would work out well for me, and no one would grow too strong too fast or interfere against me. Then I would have 3 well-placed civs-worth of land, and I could try for an actual domination victory.
Desire to influence the outside political situation in my favor was why I ever planned to attack Bing. Weaken Bing before he could grow with his whole well-placed conquest, and boost Commodore against Pindicator. At the time Bing was Top 3 in my estimation. I did not anticipate that Pindicator could do much more than raid across the weird little sea to take Ur and Nibru (I counted water tiles to check he could build Galleys there back when he first settled Voltron), but the culture situation unexpectedly left him a land route into Former Sumeria, I think, and I think that was the key.
Now both elements of the plan have failed utterly. Pindicator took all of Former Sumeria (Lagash the island is his, it just doesn't know it yet), and is likely to take some of Original Carthage along with Commodore. (Someone must have shown the Power Graph, right? An awesome and terrible shark fin for Bing the like of which I have never seen before, ever. I knew Bing would screw it up somehow, though I still don't know how). Pindicator was already Top 3. He has grown too strong too fast.
Meanwhile, not only have I proven unable to win against Naufragar and conquer him, I have even proven unable to fight him to a draw! He is going to actually win and finally capture Former Celtia! I cannot beat Naufragar in a fight. I had to beat him in a fight and I simply couldn't, for some reason. GG.
After everything, nothing. Back in my original territory (+Hannibal/Da, at least), but forever without my beloved 4th city. All for nothing. Pindicator wins in the end. Maybe I die to him and Naufragar along the way. Maybe there is a glorious dogpile to try to stop it.
I still harbor delusions of making a real summary report of the last 50 turns, but I should at least state this for now: believe it or not, there was a moment when the plan was significantly different. Turn 16Something, when me and Naufragar made a binding Peace Treaty after he burned Old Gendo.
I thought what I was agreeing to was giving him all of southern Celtia. Effectively Da-Bie (he could settle 1st-ring for its 2nd-ring Corn, which would leave it useless and his city alright), Da-Bei, and New Gendo, as well as the Sheep that is still unclaimed in reality.
The unclaimed Sheep
. An actual Barbarian Horse Archer attacked me out of that region a while ago.
I thought Naufragar surely had Settlers ready a lot closer than mine! My Settlers were turns away in the north across the rapidly closing cultural neck! Some weren't even done yet! I was ready to at long last accept an approximately equal division of the spoils, a bit worse for me than him, after I did all the work, for now, but then Naufragar's Settlers failed to appear, 5 turns later. And what was I supposed to do, not settle cities? So I settled them and got all the spoils and here we are 50 turns later.
If Naufragar's Settlers had arrived before mine, I would have accepted it and attacked Superdeath. I forget what stage of the Superdeath vs. Bing conflict was happening then, but I remember that the conflict was obvious and I was ready to join, take Eridu, Bad-Tibira, Kish, and maybe more. Me and Naufragar would still have been doomed to conflict because he would still have no way out, but it probably would have been a very different world.
Anyway, time to go play the actual current turn and oversee the ruin of my dreams in Cannon smoke, or merely its threat. Retreat from Joker, thereby abandon all of Former Celtia, survive intact a while longer. All for nothing. What else can I do?
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