February 28th, 2024, 09:58
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(February 28th, 2024, 09:28)Zed-F Wrote: That trireme event should be pretty useful, since everything that encourages Thoth to look north instead of south is going to help. We definitely do not want to get double teamed here, and it’s very possible Commodore would prefer to look toward us rather than Pindicator since we might be the bigger long-term threat. Also, sniping the barb city via flip could be a thorn in his side.
Yeah for sure. If they try to 2v1 me, there's basically nothing I can do, so I'd like to avoid that possibility entirely. You're definitely right that Commodore is slightly more likely to look at me than Pindicator. My hope here is basically that Thoth will be more interested in looking at Yuris, and I think there's a good chance at that. The boosted Triremes will help buy me time on that front, so I definitely intend to build a few. The map/resources are all pushing me to settle the Commodore front first anyway, so that helps too.
February 28th, 2024, 21:47
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Well, having your religion is his capital might make him to look to get the matching holy city, no? 
But yes, really bad luck for him :D
February 28th, 2024, 22:03
(This post was last modified: February 28th, 2024, 22:12 by scooter.)
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(February 28th, 2024, 21:47)GT Wrote: Well, having your religion is his capital might make him to look to get the matching holy city, no?
But yes, really bad luck for him :D
I was trying to pretend this possibility did not exist. 
Anyway, as I was saying earlier.
I love random events and think they're totally great with no downsides.
Weird opening complete, time to try to pay it off. Hopefully it's not too greedy, there was definitely a cost to all this.
February 29th, 2024, 19:16
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How aggressive do you think Commodore might be about coming after Yellow Castle when you try to flip it?
February 29th, 2024, 19:58
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(February 29th, 2024, 19:16)Zed-F Wrote: How aggressive do you think Commodore might be about coming after Yellow Castle when you try to flip it?
Honestly, no idea. Coming after it sounds stupid to me, but then a lot of choices he makes with his neighbors in games seem stupid to me, so it seems possible. In general he should be focused on getting to Guilds and coming after me or pindicator then, so this doesn't really fit his timeline. Importantly, I should have a little bit of time before he can even build Keshiks, so we're really talking about Axes. So I dunno, if he wants to slam into Archers on a hill, he can, but it seems like he ought to build settlers instead and/or get moving after the other barb city. One weird quirk I noticed is the longbow in the city will be downgraded to an Archer (pre-Feudalism), so I plan to be ready to reinforce. Speaking of, let's fire this bomb off.
Sure hope this works. I ran two independent tests, and once it took 12 turns and the other time it took 3 turns. It could have theoretically happened as soon as I pressed enter, but it did not. Hoping for some good luck. Commodore did go pillage the improvements, because of course he did, so he seems to be assuming I'll flip it, which is a pretty bold assumption given that I'm not even sure this is a good idea. If it flips quickly and there's no drama over holding it, it's a good idea, but those are two important Ifs.
Time to pop out some settlers. Bingo/Creek are swapping to them at sizes 6/5 and immediately chop/whipping them. Given Granaries and high food/happy, I'm trying to grow and whip rather than slow build them, so that's why they aren't in the actual queue. The culture bomb has the pleasant side effect of totally fog busting all the land down here. But hooray, barb Galley. This means my south coast city will need to build a Trireme before a Work Boat, which is especially annoying because I'm not sure Triremes have much value otherwise on the outer ring. At least, nowhere near as much value as on the inner water.
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Is Comm still putting all EPs in to us? That might mean he’s disinclined to wait for Knights.
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(March 2nd, 2024, 23:26)Zed-F Wrote: Is Comm still putting all EPs in to us? That might mean he’s disinclined to wait for Knights.
Yeah, this is basically what's going on. He's essentially declared war without bothering to Alt-Click.
So, when this city flips what will happen is one longbow will disband, and the other will down-convert into an Archer. Maybe that's not exactly what happens mechanically, but functionally this is what will happen. At that point he'll declare and try to take the city. The problem is being sequential turns, there's actually nothing I can do about this. What will happen is I press end turn -> flip happens, I accept, but cannot move units -> Commodore's turn, just one Archer inside. So even if I stick a bunch of units next to the city, I cannot move them in to defend upon flipping. His Axe/Archer combo will have roughly 2-in-3 chances to capture against an Archer on a hill. As a result I'm going to have to seriously consider raze & replace.
It's truly a wonder Commodore hasn't attained the forum reputation that Superdeath has attained despite doing the same things constantly. I think it's just because he reports better. If this clown wants to duel, I guess he can have it. Maybe this time I'll finally learn my lesson to never join games that he's a part of. This move decreases his chances of winning significantly, but that's never really been a consideration for him. This is the guy who practically ran TBS out of these games by kamikaze'ing into him every chance he got regardless of whether it made any sense for his civ.
Anyway, I'll give Commodore his duel, but I don't anticipate reporting it much. It'll be a boring slog, and he'll eventually win the duel given Brennus/Mongolia, but not until Pindicator has 2x as much land and is an era ahead of him, at which point everyone will concede and he'll express wonderment that building settlers and teching things is good, actually.
Addendum 1: Thoth is also massing EPs onto me instead of getting graphs on other players, so I'm sure he's gonna Galley me at some point here despite being absolutely miles away.
Addendum 2: Would suggest that loaded midpoint barb cities are generally a bad map idea. I think placing them like that confuses "entertaining for lurkers" for "fun to play."
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I should address some natural objections to what could be understandably attributed as sour grapes, mostly just to give some background here.
Q: Didn't you culture bomb this city? Isn't that aggressive?
A: If capturing the barb cities is aggressive, then yes, this is aggressive too. Someone has to take them though, and I'm paying a fairly high opportunity cost to do it. Notably the culture bomb does not actually take any tiles from him at all, which was intentional. Also, he's SPI, if he really wanted the city, he could have done the same thing faster. Is he going to holy war Pindicator when he takes the barb city on the other side, which will surely happen given that he's focused entirely on me in under 30 turns?
Q: You're winning, shouldn't he attack you?
A: Food/MFG demos have me in 4th place? I'm not even sure I did my opening correctly, tbh.
Q: Rephrasing, you have better tech, shouldn't he attack you?
A: For now I do, I guess? My traits will fall off harder than his. Seems like a wise choice on his part might be claiming all the land he can and then aiming super-Knights at whichever neighbor botches their start and/or he can organize a 2v1 against. That might actually be a winning move.
Q: He hasn't actually done anything yet?
A: He will, otherwise his units would not be on that tile, and the "Small Injuries" guy knows how that ends.
The bitterness is mostly just chalked up to the second game in a row that in under 30T I could tell that the whole game was going to be a total waste of my time. Sorry Bluey, you're cursed.
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I guess your revenge is to ensure Pindicator wins, and that Thoth and Commodore don't. (I mean we won't act against Yuri either, but I'd be a bit surprised if he were to pull it out.) You have to make secondary goals if you can see others are determined to pile on, right?
Who knows, if you let Pindicator know Comm is going to be occupied, he might do something helpful for a natural ally... though I wouldn't hold my breath given how early it is, there's probably not much he can (profitably) do other than take what advantage he can of Commodore's distraction.
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(March 3rd, 2024, 20:02)scooter Wrote: Sorry Bluey, you're cursed.
Actually, I can't totally let that get missed.
The city itself is a tad awkward, but it's a necessary awkward given the other cities around. There's a worker under that Archer and a missionary 1T behind. The second ring foods aren't as bad as it looks as I've got the ability to build culture in addition to the incoming missionary. The Barb Galley is a bit obnoxious. I'm hoping it continues sailing East. As for the city's namesake:
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