[PB70] Charriu tries to promote the arts again

[scooter]

True, but that monastery was constructed in my capitol, which was my main source of income and especially beakers. I think whipping down the capitol should be the last resort and my capitol didn't have that many hammers to produce something. It probably would have only contributed one musketman, which in the grand scheme of things would not have made a difference. Same logic applied for my other cottage city Uematasu. After all I need some way to pay for all those troops.

I get what you’re saying, but I think the only disagreement I have is that you were a lot closer to “last resort” than you’re letting on here given that you were eliminated from the game 15T after that screenshot was taken . I whipped myself to absolute death trying to stave off what felt like inevitable doom. I should take some pictures of my whip anger even all these turns later. Dead empires produce 0 beakers/turn.

Thanks for the offer, but the tight map games are even less entising to me as they just enforce even more what I don't like about MP. I take “I’ve had my fill.” then.

Totally fair!

[scooter]

Why should I whip myself into the ground so that Mjmd is defeated and Superdeath can triumph.

I noticed a general tenor of you thinking the 3v1 would help SD but not you. Can you explain this? I was pulling my hair out not understanding why you seemed so disinterested in gaining a bunch of cities, which you definitely could have done had you been willing to try. Were you just too burnt out to do all that? I get that committing to a big war is exhausting, and sometimes you just don’t feel like you want to do it.

As you can see Mjmds finances dropped way down and is economy is suffering from the war. If we just keep him that way either his morale will defeat him or his finances. Anyway even in a stalemate we should keep the upper hand in my opinion.
But the big ugly problem already showed itself: Defeatism. Scooter is already talking about concession. As always here at RB a game will probably end prematurely. (PB66 seems to be a rare exception from this conceed-early-meta). I wonder if I am perceived strong enough so that my non-concession prevents this game to end. Then again we can all talk. My prediction. Scooter will soon write in the general thread that he will concede to Mjmd. Superdeath will probably follow him as will Bing. What happens if I don't concede then?

Well I think you got your answer . From reading this, I get the feeling you really underestimated how strong Mjmd was at this stage of the game. It was a 3v1, but you were probably facing 15% of his military. What you were asking for here, from my perspective anyway, was for SD and I to continue bearing the brunt so that you could quietly tech with minimal defenses. That is more or less what began to strain things.

Look at this screenshot very closely. I actually achieved something great in there. Did you find it? Well actually it wasn't me who achieved it, but rather Mjmd. He used his privateers to plunder me resulting in me having -5 gold in the bank.
But that's not all. I suspect that this is a rather serious bug. I found out that I cannot whip anything anywhere even those cities that are capabale to whip. I suspect that the negative gold is connected with that. The hurry with gold mechanic actually uses the same code as the hurry with population (aka whipping). And I suspect that somewhere in there is a check for positive gold in the bank that unintentionally also affects the hurry with population mechanic. I see no reason to halt this game that more or less ended anyway for a bug like this.

This is absolutely amazing. I had no idea plundering like that actually subtracted gold from the other player? Let alone the negative/whip implications.

[Charriu]

Why should I whip myself into the ground so that Mjmd is defeated and Superdeath can triumph.

I noticed a general tenor of you thinking the 3v1 would help SD but not you. Can you explain this? I was pulling my hair out not understanding why you seemed so disinterested in gaining a bunch of cities, which you definitely could have done had you been willing to try. Were you just too burnt out to do all that? I get that committing to a big war is exhausting, and sometimes you just don’t feel like you want to do it.

Well the plan back then was that I try to distract Mjmd by moving my troops to the border. The hope was that more of Mjmds troops are on my side rather then on SDs and he would have an easier time to capture something from Mjmd. As we know he also managed to capture one city. Therefore back then I thought he will get most of the spoils as Mjmd would be less or unaware of his attack.
I also loaned a bigger amount of gold so that he can research cuirasseurs faster and upgrade some knights faster. He said that I would get the money back in a few turns. I asked to get some of the money back so that I can research cuirasseurs of my own. Superdeath then started complaining that I should whip more before I get the money. That broke the camels back.
I know you and Superdeath are disappointed in me as an ally, but you have to admit I did something. I loaned money to Superdeath to speed up the process; I did move my army into Mjmds territory; I suffered some pillaging from his ships and I did draft muskets. That's not nothing and other players certainly contributed less into a joined war effort in past games.

[scooter]

Well the plan back then was that I try to distract Mjmd by moving my troops to the border. The hope was that more of Mjmds troops are on my side rather then on SDs and he would have an easier time to capture something from Mjmd.

Where did this come from? Is this something Superdeath said to you? (I need to read more of the discord still.) That was certainly not my expectation. My expectation was that you both would split his land. I would be the one not really gaining, but Mjmd’s loss would have been sufficient gain for me. Honestly I originally expected you would be the big winner as SD was NAP-stabbing, and I sort of thought Mjmd would spite him more over it. So I was really confused when you didn’t really build units, at least not nearly to the same pace SD and I did.

I also loaned a bigger amount of gold so that he can research cuirasseurs faster and upgrade some knights faster. He said that I would get the money back in a few turns. I asked to get some of the money back so that I can research cuirasseurs of my own. Superdeath then started complaining that I should whip more before I get the money. That broke the camels back.

Hah, he mentioned something about this, but I didn’t quite understand the circumstances. I think by that point he was fed up because it was already sort of too late. But I would still be mad in that case if I were you too.

[Charriu]

One other question I sort of have from reading this thread is uh, why did you hate Bing so much? You seem to have taken everything extremely personally with him in a way that confused me all game, but rather than find answers in this thread I’m finding it to be even more extreme in here. Did I miss something? For example, this post was from the turn Mjmd burned your city and extorted 400g (a massive sum for that phase of the game) in exchange for peace.

...

Maybe this will be discussed later in the thread, but I really don’t quite understand what was going on here? It made me wonder if you have some bad past history with him in another game or something, because I really can’t figure out why his actions angered you a degree of magnitude more than Mjmd’s whose actions clearly harmed you way more and more or less took you out of contention.

Totally missed your question about Bing. My distrust towards Bing came from two things:

- Not doing diplomacy in a diplomacy game (at least in the beginning)
- Pink dotting me in a way that I did not get any of the 3 spices.
- Playing the "I won't attack you" card, but the first instance Mjmd captures just 1 city (back with the trade embargo) he immediately moved troops to the border.

Why should I ever have trusted him? Compare this to Mjmd, who was willing to talk and find border agreements that everybody can live with. Of course Mjmd was strong and hurt me, but for the most part he was just the friendlier neighbor. Mjmd managed to establish a certain trust level, which Bing never even tried.

[scooter]

Interesting. I definitely get all that, I think I just struggle to relate to those issues being anger-inducing but a city raze + extortion being a minor flaw. But obviously you and I have very different priorities! But I really enjoyed talking about the game with you overall all game long. Parts of my thread - particularly in the last few months - were a little "down" on diplo games, but chatting about the state of things with you throughout was really enjoyable.


Anyway, sad to see you go, but you know where to find us if you ever get The Itch again. Also thanks for all your work on CtH and the related tooling. It's been a super valuable contribution.

[Mjmd]

Did you end up getting the gold back from SD/ how much was it? I ended up kicking myself for not realizing his rapid upgrade meant someone was loaning him gold, but that was one of the times you could definitely tell I was playing two complicated games at once and at that point this one wasn't yet as complicated.

[Charriu]

I got gold back from him.