[SPOILERS] swance bitten, twice shy

[ljubljana]

man, i don't know..... i mean, it HAS to be that GT doesn't abide by that convention, right? who on earth could we possibly jointly go to war with....? not just now but ANYtime in the medium-term future, we straight-up might go this whole game without ever sharing a neighbor (which, yes, is another reason i think GT is our best target, they are the least useful to us in other potential wars)

anyways, near-term GT plan is this i think: if they back all the way off, they get cow/cow straight-up and maybe some kind of thank-you/apology present (free ivory or gold?). if they settle this turn and move up a bunch of military, i PROBABLY will settle nearby and give cow/cow but with some kind of small monetary payment from them attached... it gives us both an off-ramp to a conflict neither of us reeeally wants, and lets us express that, while we feel wronged, we are willing to normalize relations if they will give us something in return for swiping our spot. if they do neither (eg if they move up military, don't settle this turn, but keep the settler in range), i proooobably move to our preferred spot and maintain status quo for another turn

i should also mention that i did NOT accept their fur tribute offer this turn.... it seems slimy to do that and THEN attack, so i rejected to give them as clear a signal as we can that, um, we might still do just that. i might have taken it if we didn't have one from ginger already but well, sorry bestie you need more compelling shit to bribe us with

[ljubljana]

getting a little worried my diplo messages to nauf and ginger might have been, like, completely incomprehensible and also hyperaggressive-seeming - actively soliciting feedback on this

Turn 100 - Zululand

clearly i should give some kind of t100 update but time for that = i do not have

ask me again tomorrow morning lol

response from nauf (ginger hasn't played yet)



hot ok amazing, see yall on, like, turn 155??? idk how precise a thing we have committed to here (hopefully not that precise as i don't have the faintest idea of if that's feasible)... but cool, lmk if yall think i should sent a countdown to 54 but i thiiiink probably not as seems like the meaning went through and i haven't really gamed out if we want to push knights or whatever

PFHHHH no fucking way.... got a random judaism spread, and where you might ask



ohhh just the city that delayed monument for granary but is desperately culture-constrained and in a border war with our CRE neighbor NO BIG DEAL

ok apparently getting sailing (and notably NOT getting trading access to the religion founders which we've had for forever with dreylin) has totally turned on the faucet as far as religion spreads go

big important question of this turn (and the one that is, i think, going to make me bow to reality and split this turn into two sessions) - GT what do???



stack to the NW is two workers and another axe/spear pair..... more could be in the fog, but i can't check without exposing my scout (and potentially tipping us over the line into war by giving them a chance to kill said scout). next turn we have in range 5 impis and 2 chariots, but will be at a promotion disadvantage as only two of our units are at 3/2 experience while i think all of GT's are. if they settle on that hill and move everything up, and we slam all our guys into the city, vodka gives us.... actually really good odds to win which is kinda baffling to me??? anyone wanna double-check my math on that while i go to my friend's cat's birthday party and stew over this lol

of course they MAY also really swing for the fences and go for their #1 good boy site 1SE of their settler to get the spice in range. but if they do THAT we can obviously burn it.. potentially that gives us some impetus to take our settler (under an impi 4E of GT's) and move 1W ONTO (and therefore wasting!) a floodplain to settle there, which at least locks them out of that particular spice-stealing spot (although not all of them....)

[El Grillo]

Those diplo messages would’ve been incomprehensible to me, but I dunno about hyperaggressive. I probably would open the turn, be confused, and then decline the offer and think no more of it

[ljubljana]

thank u for ur perspective!!! i am a little shocked nauf has apparently comprehended it.... maybe i'd better echo it this turn just to confirm that they've interpreted it correcty (although again idk if i wanna commit to a specific timeline

bendrbebebeb im drnk on my partner's soju pls stop me from getti g home and IMMEDIATELY declaring on gt (do not worry i am not gonna do this) (i just LOVE drunkposting on realms beyond LMAO)

[aetryn]

thank u for ur perspective!!! i am a little shocked nauf has apparently comprehended it.... maybe i'd better echo it this turn just to confirm that they've interpreted it correcty (although again idk if i wanna commit to a specific timeline

bendrbebebeb im drnk on my partner's soju pls stop me from getti g home and IMMEDIATELY declaring on gt (do not worry i am not gonna do this) (i just LOVE drunkposting on realms beyond LMAO)

If you don't have a particular time frame you could just send metal for metal as an answer? Might be good enough, no risk of accidentally being pulled into a war if Nauf accepts.

[ljubljana]

If you don't have a particular time frame you could just send metal for metal as an answer? Might be good enough, no risk of accidentally being pulled into a war if Nauf accepts.

advice taken, appreciated, and acted upon! but there is a problem



...they don't have copper hooked up....? no, it's locked in a deal with superdeath so we can't trade for it. oh well, horse/horse should accomplish the same thing (so i gather anyways)

i am soooo normal-feeling and capable of playing this turn

no idea wtf i will end up doing but i suppose one of the nice things about pitboss is that it will force me to stop obsessing and at least do SOMEthing lol

log in to see ginger did not respond to our weird diplo.... well, it's not really ginger as civac logged in to play the turn. conceivably they have to have some discussion first and so it's not affirmatively suspicious that they've left us hanging for one turn



someone has calendar.... you would think ginger is a good bet because they've had currency for so long, but they're actually saving with 191 gold in the bank and making 55 per turn..... i do not see anyone with a calendar resource hooked up though, and no insta-complete on MoM which is a good sign.... we actually COULD pivot to trying for the CoL religion now if we really wanted to (4 turns to complete it and if ginger is still saving, they are NOT partway done and probably can't cleanly beat us to it anymore) but idk if the reward is there now that we have hinduism and judaism in our land already and have invested a bunch of worker turns into thie MoM try. i will stay the course, with ETA t104 (KTB seemingly nudges us over the edge into "definitely will get calendar in 3 turns")



GT is muscling up on our NW border, so i'm showing a few units too so they know we have more than just, like, one archer here. they can see 7 units and we have 3 more in reserve; Abi even took a brief break from wealth builds to overflow into a 1-turn archer last round. and this turn i will put one hammer into ANOTHER archer in case we have to whip. tomokaze chopped out its walls this turn and there are no GT units within a 2-turn march of it yet. in conclusion i am pretty sure we're safe up here for the time being.... i am TRYING to not give GT any affirmative reason to declare war this turn (eg, to enter our territory in search of a plausible-looking city kill, or to snipe a weak unit like our scout) and i THINK this accomplishes that, their axe and spear pair is obviously not enough to accomplish anything besides getting slaughtered. if they sent all their garrisons as well they could muster 7 total metal units but i don't think that takes a city off us either

misc: i have noticed both SD and dreylin DO have an extra gems, but both are committed.... dreylin's is going to gingac for clam (...? what? why do they need that?) and SD has two deals w nauf, a crab for crab and.... a gem + copper on SD's side for just copper on nauf's? i guess they REALLY didn't want nauf to intervene with their inca walkover.... well, i'll try to send drey gold for gems this time (in contrast to the less valuable ivory we offered them earlier) to at least let them know that it's on the table if they ever decide they don't need, um, whatever drove them to give something so valuable away for something as useless as a clam. i maaaay still be willing to send them gold AND ivory for it if we have to but i don't wanna have to

my housemate is watching me play this turn and came up with the following VERY good idea re GT. if the plan is to send them gold for free if they give us the spot to make it feel like less of a "feels bad, game is ruined" moment... we COULD just send them the gold NOW, without cow, which doesn't commit us to peace for 10t but does imply to them that we're willing to accept SOME kind of relations normalization that involves us giving them some kind of compensation for the site..... while also allowing us to declare war (in a way that costs them a resource) if they settle in a way that invalidates our preferred spot, which we can move up onto on this turn to, i think, clarify the message. only problem: we just offered our gold in a separate deal to dreylin for gems like an idiot, and i assume if drey accepts before GT logs in the deal will disappear without them ever getting to see it.... i guess we can send them ivory and hope it has the same effect.... it probably won't as it's significantly less valuable than a slice of what appears to be our monopoly on the world's gold supply, but GT does at least need it and is not currently trading for it. and if they want the gold instead they can just ask for it on THEIR turn in theory

as for how many cities that will plunge us into unhappiness? kirishima but it can whip a settler to fix it... and hoshoryu which is at size 5 and is 2 turns away from being large enough to do likewise.... well, i can deal with hoshoryu being unhappy in a way that actually costs us yields for what i believe will be just one turn (GT has played already so yields from this turn will get calculated before the deal goes through.... right....?).

so ok, i'll offer them ivory and move to our preferred spot (thought about attaching like a 50 turn timer to the ivory as well to indicate it's a long-term offer but i'm worried that will be viewed as a commitment to stay peaceful). ball's in their court - they can settle in a way that invalidates it, provoking possible retaliation from the following stack



or they can take the ivory, as good as the spice they're trying to go for, and settle elsewhere. and if they DO call us and settle in place.... i PROBABLY do not raze their city (possible exception if they move SE to settle with just 2 units of escort) but do demand financial reparations for the cow/cow and settle in a close, competing spot and take the ivory back in 10 turns when the deal lapses

everyone say thank u roommate addy for the beautiful idea <333

hit end turn and



NICE :[ damn, am i ever going to successfully build a wonder in one of these games?

opinions on if we should finish calendar or take a flyer at the CoL religion? gingac can probably beat us to it if they go for it, with 252 gold banked they can get there without needing to spend a turn on gold generation as we will likely have to. but here is what the bar looks like



if we can scrounge up just a biiiit of extra cash from somewhere we can do this in 3 turns, which ginger probably doesn't have the economy available to strictly beat just because they can't convert their gold stockpile into beakers fast enough. maybe we wait and see if they are still saving after they play their turn?

ok, this is really highrolly and probably dumb but also..... we can still chop chichen itza in atamifuji as our consolation prize if we land the religion..... we have a gorgeous situation for leveraging the actual effect, with a crapton of widely-spaced, difficult to defend holdings and at least one neighbor who has seemingly no option but to attack us in the medium-term and badly needs to be deterred from doing so.... AND it gives great prophet points to fix the "just the one priest" situation you were talking about earlier, aetryn and if GT settles in place as i kinda expect him too, we can extort a loan from them as a possible lever to get us to CoL in time (OR just go around begging people for a loan generally)

[aetryn]

Yeah, that's about what I expected to happen. I think that likely accounts for both Engineers though, so now the field should be more clear.

On the religion question:

I'd probably go ahead and save a turn while we think, if we need to save to get to Code of Laws anyway (no need to rush Calendar now, unless we have silks ready to hook up right now and need them).

Who has the holy cities for the two religions we picked up? Are they likely to build a shrine? Are we okay with feeding them money if they do?
If we found a religion, do we have a plan for spreading it to our cities? Do we have an obvious production site that could build a quick monastery and then spread it? Do WE have any prospect for generating a Great Prophet for shrine (presumably after the first GA, since we're getting close to the time when we're going to want to plan for that)? Do the monk wonders seem at all possible for us to get (with fewer resources, they're going to be GOOD on this map, just a question of whether we have any chance at them)? Is there anything else we urgently need, like civics to swap into for GA?

Basically, I'm trying to tease out the motive for going for religion and whether it makes sense. Some good reasons to found a religion:

• You want the happiness and religious civics enabled, and you don't want to feed the shrine income of whatever religions you got a spread from
  
• You plan to build a shrine yourself and use that to prop up your economy
  
• You plan to build a lot of the monk buildings (temple/monastery) for the wonders anyway and it's more convenient to do that with a self-founded religion
  
• Denial of someone strong that wants and needs it for their strategy
  

The last two are much worse reasons because you usually CAN make use of the monk buildings with a religion someone else founded, and denial is usually a mistake outside a duel or a virtual duel.

Ginger's about the last person I'd expect to rush a religion for the religion itself, with +4 happy. I'd also suspect GT and Dreylin (+2 with the CHA monuments) probably aren't that concerned. People I would expect if they didn't get one earlier:
Gav - he can easily make a Prophet with his unique building, and is Spiritual so wants the religious civics to be on.
MJMD - again, easy to make a Prophet with PHI, probably interested in monk wonders with IND
Nauf - can easily make a Prophet with PHI and America.
Greenline - had to research down to Priesthood anyway to turn on his UB, might as well get something out of those buildings.

Has the monotheism religion ever been founded? Who got that one?

[ljubljana]

yeah i did more or less expect it to happen too lol. if it really was the GE and not 10 forests they saved it for a LOOONG time....

good analysis! i have to go run to my friend's house rn but to provide some facts, the religion founders are

gavagai - buddhism
dreylin - hinduism
mjmd - judaism

i would add superdeath to our list of likely competitors as they have currency already so they are confirmed to be just one tech away and likely have the econ to research it quickly (plus they seem to love wealth builds to get first-to bonuses, seeing as that's who i stole the idea from ) nauf could race us but i doubt it, they probably did calendar before currency (judging by how long they've been sitting on 11 cities as IMP) and i don't think they can afford to delay it further for CoL. so i am thinking greenline and SD are most likely to be currently rushing it, and ginger might turn on research as well with their huge pile of savings now that they know calendar for MoM isn't the play (if they wanted CoL next anyways and figure they may as well get incidental benefit from landing the religion)

[ljubljana]

the ludicrous case for (chopping out atamifuji's granary and then) chichen itza:

- aforementioned prophet gpp if we get the religion
- impi + 220% (CI + fortify + walls + combat 1&2 + spear bonus) = more than a combat 2 knight (less than a shock knight though). impi + 195% is less than both
- if we do not feel like we can defend a knight push with impi and longbows, we need to rush engineering..... but if we DO, we can go guilds instead for OUR knight push
- we are literally about to settle a plant that pissess off GT and can't get walls in any reasonable timeframe

pls rate how cope this is on a scale of 1-10

[aetryn]

the ludicrous case for (chopping out atamifuji's granary and then) chichen itza:

- aforementioned prophet gpp if we get the religion
- impi + 220% (CI + fortify + walls + combat 1&2 + spear bonus) = more than a combat 2 knight (less than a shock knight though). impi + 195% is less than both
- if we do not feel like we can defend a knight push with impi and longbows, we need to rush engineering..... but if we DO, we can go guilds instead for OUR knight push
- we are literally about to settle a plant that pissess off GT and can't get walls in any reasonable timeframe

pls rate how cope this is on a scale of 1-10

Eh, I've actually built Chichen Itza for its Great Prophet points before, so 3-4ish at most?. It's not a great wonder by any means, but as you said, the defenses aren't going to hurt, it plays into our entire motif of "spiky, don't attack me" and if the main plan is to use it to get a shrine, that's a reasonable play. It's actually interesting that the later religions tend to be accompanied by Great Prophet opportunities - Code of Laws has this one, Theology has Apostolic Palace (better, but also MUCH harder to build), and Philosophy has Angkor Wat (by far the easiest way to get a Great Prophet of the three, but Philosophy itself isn't really GOOD for much else at this point in the game except maybe running Pacifism during a Golden Age). I think if we do hit religion we probably have to ignore Apostolic Palace since someone will take Theology earlier than we would want to for the religion, but want to compete hard for Sankore (at Paper). We'd also want to at least guesstimate how the Great Person points will work for our first GA and subsequent Shrine Prophet.

Also, early courthouses will also help us get our expenditures under control, which will help us catch up to Ginger's commerce lead. Since we build Markets so easily we don't necessarily need the same whip-recovery that most people would after grabbing Currency and might be in a position to whip them in relatively soon.