[SPOILERS] scooter Expands the Empire Across the Sea

[scooter]

I'm really unhappy about what's going on with what looks like straight up gold gifts. I would like this to be looked into and believe strongly this should be stopped ASAP. If these guys wanted to play a team game, they could have done so, but come on. If you need to pool resources to win like this, well. I don't think I need to complete the sentence. It's scummy, especially for what the impact is. Loans (ie, lump for gpt) are one thing, but gifts are another entirely.


Anyway, I did play on. Agonizing turn. Let's start with good news though.





Yuris did send a stack, and it's definitely not enough. With castle defenses he has no chance of punching through anytime soon. I whipped the half completed Gren to completion. If I need to upgrade the Crossbows, I will do so, but right now I do not. I also can reinforce from One Eye Cat at some point too. Anyway, I killed 2 of the Galleons with my Frigates, so he's stuck here. I assume he plans to bombard the defenses? We'll see, but for now I'm thrilled to see 12 units and 4 boats (2 now dead) committed to this. Which leads me to the other theater. Actually, first, something I did not care for.





This scared me badly. Now, Cairo did send me a fish-fish just a few turns ago. And his power seems way too low for those to possibly be full. However, uh, man those could cause me some issues. I shuffled some defenses around and preforted the other side of Skinny Island in case I need to emergency chain in units from the former SD islands. I'm pretty sure he built these defensively, but I am not certain.


This impressed on me the need to get someone, anyone, out of the war. So I increased my offers.








I'll be sort of shocked if SD agrees? I would not be shocked if Bing agrees, actually. His Caravels I noted earlier can be a real problem - there's enough of them to do some damage. There's 18 of them, which is probably enough to kill 5-6 Frigates. So I'm going to have to try to stay out of his range. That should be doable. I'm really glad he showed.





The agonizing decision was this. I didn't do a stitch, but this gives you the idea. He pulled his Galleons out of Nagoya and spread defenders between Nagoya and Satsuma. I want to stage on "stage here" with two loaded Galleons to quad-fork next turn, including his capital. The challenge is I would have to defend it with 3 C1 Frigates and 1 SotL. He's got 3 Privateers and 4-5 Galleons in range of that tile that I can see. That is surely not enough. My quick check shows him with like 5-10% of a wipe and just a 25% chance of killing a single Galleon, at the cost of losing his whole fleet. So he's pretty unlikely to even try because there's a good chance at losing everything at almost no gain just to watch me promote.


However. The "x" marked spots are the death spots for me. If he's got 2-3 Privateers on those tiles? Well, now I'm risking watching my Grens sink to the bottom of the ocean. If he doesn't though, he's going to have a whale of a time defending everything.


The alternate was "safe stage" where I focus on Satsuma. I begin bombarding it down. It's on flat land, so it will be challenging for him to defend. It's one of his best cities, so he cannot lose it. The tricky bit here is there's a chance Bing shows up and fouls the thing up.


I opted for the more aggressive spot. If I fail, I fail. But I like my chances. I do not believe he's got Privateers in those spots. They're weird places for them to be. And I can see two of them down in the bottom-right, so it looks to me like he's simply out of position. I don't think he's noticed this angle yet. I don't think he would have sent that attack if so. Big huge bet. You're welcome for documenting it because it's going to feel pretty rough if it fails.





Nobody else is actually building up to the same degree I am.





The core of my army/navy. It's a pretty huge force now. The problem is mostly just how widely it's spread.

[scooter]

Oh, couple more things.


1) I can officially revolt again as of next turn. This is relevant because we can get into Nationhood if needed. I would like to stick in Vassalage, but if someone springs an attack angle I can't see, it's nice to have the ability to emergency draft in the back pocket.


2) Tick tick tick, Taj and Kremlin are coming along. I sort of wish now I had reversed which cities were building which in order to speed Kremlin, but too late to worry about that now.

[T-hawk]

Yes, the lurker thread is talking about that gold gifting. Opinions are split. Are there any rules enacted against it? I know it's been talked about, and may have been codified at some point on RB, but was this game ever defined as adhering to any such set of rules, either formalized or "don't do that" informal?

[Zed-F]

I think this means the plan to pillage Bing's seafood is off for the moment; we need a still bigger navy first it seems.

Good luck on Yuris's navy being out of position! I guess we will find out when you open the turn whether an attack on one of Yuris's cities is still possible.

Also good luck on finishing Taj before anyone else decides to try to snipe it with a GE. Hopefully everyone else is too busy building military and/or researching Chemistry to try. Of course Kremlin is certainly ours, it's just a matter of time.

I'm probably not the right person to speak to what if anything has been said about gold gifts for this game.

[scooter]

I have no idea if we officially banned things or not. I am a touch annoyed that we apparently have to make rules about clearly exploitative things after all these years. I tend to prefer trusting players not to do stuff like this, but it seems I cannot do that anymore.

[Cornflakes]

Where do you draw the line with gold? You yourself have demanded gold from other players in this game. How is it ok for someone to give gold in one situation when they consider it to be in their best interest, but not in other situations when they also consider it to be in their best interest? Is it only OK for the person in the lead to demand gold, but not for the lagging players to give gold?

Considering that the scale of the gold trades are not orders of magnitude out of line with either your previous demands nor your current economy, nor what you are currently offering to buy off your neighbors, and considering that trade restrictions have loosened considerably in games since CtH unlocked the True AI Diplo option, it doesn’t seem right to intervene.

[Zed-F]

I think there is a difference between making a deal to get something versus just giving away stuff with no expectation of return. In the past, that's my understanding of where the line has been drawn.

Give gold for gpt? Cool.
Give gold to get peace? Cool.
Give gold to bribe someone to go to war? Cool.
Give gold for a lux or strategic resource you need and don't have? Cool (assuming it's a semi-reasonable amount for the value obtained.)

Give gold away with no expectation of return? Not cool.
Give gold away so that someone else will win instead of the current leader, with no real change to your own chances (i.e. king-making)? Not cool.
Give units away for similar effect? Not cool.

My understanding is that if you want to coordinate with an ally at wartime, use AI diplo and try to coordinate your forces. You don't just give your stuff to them and hope they can do better; you need to stand on your own feet.

[scooter]

Where do you draw the line with gold? You yourself have demanded gold from other players in this game. How is it ok for someone to give gold in one situation when they consider it to be in their best interest, but not in other situations when they also consider it to be in their best interest? Is it only OK for the person in the lead to demand gold, but not for the lagging players to give gold?

Considering that the scale of the gold trades are not orders of magnitude out of line with either your previous demands nor your current economy, nor what you are currently offering to buy off your neighbors, and considering that trade restrictions have loosened considerably in games since CtH unlocked the True AI Diplo option, it doesn’t seem right to intervene.

Do we really have to pretend a gold gift and a gold extortion - which trades gold for peace - are remotely similar? Cmon, this is such an unserious objection.


This is why I've always preferred we be grown-ups and have good faith policies rather than delineate every single rule. But if you sincerely find it difficult to see the difference, I don't know what to say other than I guess we have to make rules.

[scooter]

I'll be more explicit because I was being diplomatic yesterday. The gold gifts get unwound or I think I'm not going to bother playing on. We gonna allow unit gifts next as if we haven't already learned that lesson?


Not making explicit rules when signing up for a game with Superdeath is probably my bad. But I'm not gonna continue to play 2 hour turns on a dogpile where opponents are just openly pooling resources. It might make for good lurker drama, but seeing that degree of coordination tells me all I need to know about the game, and I'm satisfied with the result.

[Zed-F]

Giving units away is more serious than giving gold because the former is open to more exploits, but I agree that giving gold straight up with no trade of comparable value involved is bad form.