[SPOILERS] JR4 tries his luck in PB 37

[RefSteel]

GEEZ LOUISE, FELLAS.

I know; and to take that exact example, that worker was completely non-aggressive: You even left him farming instead of canceling orders lest there be any doubt that his intentions were peaceful - and there was just one of him. It took us a while to realize you had zero incentive to attack us, and even then we only saw about half of the reasons.

I think my problem here was that the only MP I'd played in a decade was a weird little piece of a crazy EitB game in which first strikes conquered all. That, and the force Gav landed our islands when his power graph seemed uninspiring helped make us paranoid in general.

[JR4]

One of the problems with SPI is that it's basically unchanged since the original version of vanilla Civ 4, and most other traits have been buffed between that and RtR. It's still okay but not terribly exciting; it's not clearly top tier as it once was -- though I would have seriously considered taking Isabella if you hadn't.  (I still would probably have picked Washington over Isabella -- I wanted an EXP civ for sure.)

Anyway.

I suppose we could have been friends, yeah, but I wasn't trading maps with anyone at all for a while since early on I had superior scouting -- for too long; I waited until my once-superior maps had no extra value before I finally decided to trade.  Open Borders might have happened, but I was too stingy about making those (eventually I signed them more aggressively).

I refused peace with you originally because I felt like I had nothing to lose at that point, and I was determined to make a fight of things (partly because I felt like I was going to die quickly and had to try something).  That didn't end up working out, as I'm sure you're aware, but that's far down the list of decisions I regret this game -- I'm not sure I regret doing that even in retrospect.

And like most games, this was decided by who your neighbors were, really -- more so than most other games, since everyone only had two land neighbors.

One thing I wish I was clearer on that I haven't mentioned was doing enough not to be the most hated target of someone -- it doesn't take much goodwill to achieve that in this game, so it's worth the investment.

To be sure, we didn`t use SPI in the best way. We didn`t have a single 5 turn spell in Caste. We were too scared of swapping out of Slavery as the threat of a neighbor invading us always was hanging over our head. At the beginning of the game we wanted an EXP leader and Shaka (Refsteel`s top choice) or Mehmed (my top choice) were the alternatives.

I think you got left out on the trade loop for a while there. Having early trade routes would have benefited you a lot. Trading does work as a deterrent against warring I think. Even a map swap would probably improve relations with your neighbor(s). I still think that I would have traded maps in your position. At the same time it`s understandable that you`re reluctant to trade away your maps with your superior scouting. Losing the Great Lighthouse with a single turn was rather unlucky. If you had gotten it instead of Joey you definitely could have offered OB to anyone. Especially on this water-heavy map it would have made a fortune for you.

Oh, I don`t mind you fighting it out for a long time, turning down our two peace offers. we had to expect a fight until the bitter end when we rather cynically attacked your island cities when you had enough on your hands. Gavagai pulling out of that war was.. not the best thing that could have happened. I really appreciated the experience of playing out that war of ours. Those 5 movers were a complete nightmare to defend against. Remind me to go aggressively for circumnavigation in the next Pitboss I join!

[JR4]

As requested, a few screenshots of our unit composition and buildings. We built more than 50 Knights and 50 Grenadiers it seems. 20 Buddhist Temples and 18 Monasteries is not bad with our monk economy in mind.

Sigh, I already want to play more MP civ and the PB 38 ship has sailed. I could sign up for a PBEM, have to think about it. I prefer Pitboss to that but maybe a smaller game could work also.

[Mardoc]

the PB 38 ship has sailed

I would be surprised if everyone who signed up actually plays the first turn. You may be doing everyone a favor if you hang around and volunteer to take over the slot of whoever doesn't actually show up as promised...

[Dark Savant]

Oh, I don`t mind you fighting it out for a long time, turning down our two peace offers.  we had to expect a fight until the bitter end when we rather cynically attacked your island cities when you had enough on your hands. Gavagai pulling out of that war was.. not the best thing that could have happened. I really appreciated the experience of playing out that war of ours. Those 5 movers were a complete nightmare to defend against. Remind me to go aggressively for circumnavigation in the next Pitboss I join!

I had been wondering for a long time why neither GermanJoey nor Krill were seriously attacking me in force. Then I eventually came around to thinking that first of all, doing so would make it cheap for my land neighbors to take territory at their expense (GermanJoey actually says this outright in his thread); and second of all, it avoids getting locked into a long war with someone who has nothing to lose -- one reason for my continuing to fight was to make it clear you might get neverending war if you were to attack me, for future games. (I actually was concerned I was unavoidably giving away information by signing up for PB38.)

I would have accepted a white peace, but that's impossible to communicate in no-diplo and I can't at all blame you for being completely unwilling to back down (since there's no way you can know I'd just stop there).

Yeah, Gavagai bouncing off my Oromos behind castle walls turned out to be bad for you, though I don't think I can blame you for thinking that wouldn't happen.

[GermanJoey]

I was actually about to attacking you soon at the end there, DS, in the next few turns. I was waiting to see if I could catch any of dtay's stacks out first though.

[JR4]

I would be surprised if everyone who signed up actually plays the first turn.  You may be doing everyone a favor if you hang around and volunteer to take over the slot of whoever doesn't actually show up as promised...

I could consider taking over a slot if someone drops out for a reason. I have, however, already posted in the PB38 lurker thread so it would obviously be better if a non-spoiled player stepped forward.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Your map knowledge would be a bit of an advantage but I don't think it would be disqualifying by any means, especially before the game even starts. If you had knowledge of what your two nearest would-be neighbors had been up to for 25 turns then that would be another story. As a player, I'd be happy to have someone willing to take over a civ that was holding the game back because someone signed up and then didn't report for duty when the game went live. I doubt many others would object either.

[JR4]

Your map knowledge would be a bit of an advantage but I don't think it would be disqualifying by any means, especially before the game even starts. If you had knowledge of what your two nearest would-be neighbors had been up to for 25 turns then that would be another story. As a player, I'd be happy to have someone willing to take over a civ that was holding the game back because someone signed up and then didn't report for duty when the game went live. I doubt many others would object either.

Fair enough. Let`s see if everyone shows up at the start of the game.

[Coeurva]

Regarding your settling order, I remember being surprised that you seemed to have settled the double-6f site north of Börte very late for how close to your capital it was (some 100t into the game, iirc), instead having gone for the Toregene site; and from that I had suspected that you had lost your scout very early (as we did). I don't know if that was actually the case as I'm writing this, though.

He rejected our map trade early on and never reoffered (except for 80 gold).

He offered us his map for 300 gold at around t100 iirc. I know that I thought Savant was vetting us specifically but after reading the spoiler threads, he seems to have done this with everyone. It makes sense not to trade maps before achieving circumnavigation, of course.

we managed to secure OB with Couerva. His gift of 18 gold was indeed appreciated. Now everyone knows: My price for eternal friendship is 18 gold exactly, heh!

We saw you as a natural ally from when we first met you, being placed next to almost everyone we saw ourselves as likely to go to war with, except Russia (this did not include Krill, tellingly). (Bacchus had figured out very early that we were all placed in a ribbon around the globe in pick order, as soon as we met Gavagai north of Savant.) At that time, I said that I wanted our relationship based on continued mutual benefits. Consequently, I did absolutely nothing to help you for the rest of the game.

I was somewhat sour about you signing peace with Savant after conquering a size1 island that was completely stifled by his culture, and later about your pouring EP into us which I mistook for growing hostility, but I'm not sure if these were actual errors on your part, rather than simply inconvenient to us. I was surprised that you never seemed to have made more than rough sketches of attacking our islands. From our point of view, of course, we had nothing to gain from a war with you at all -- funnily, Savant's city of Tularean Forest culturally cutting off access between Nambui and your north, combined with your lack of OB with him, made us feel secure from a Mongol invasion. Besides, we trusted in the Divine Wind.

But we had to stay vigilant for the neverending threat of a big stack landing on one of our islands.

Krill went on record that he thinks this is a sucker's bet. Ignore the stack, isolate it with superior ships, lure reinforcements away, capture everything else, then concentrate your forces to kill the island. This is what he did with us. In this case, it certainly went well for him. Having 2:1 production capabilities and C2 galleons from CHM Theocracy might have helped him, too.

Couerva probably could have ended in top 3 in he hadn`t been entangled in that unproductive war with Krill. I hope you sign up for another game soon!

I will not play Civ4 free-for-all MP again any time soon. I don't think I'll improve much from what I managed here, I played half my turns at impossible times, I'm terrible at getting out of a duel-mentality strategy (and prefer duel games), and I flipped out over imagined insults: none too glorious, either. If we hadn't gone to war with Krill, we would most likely have finished 6th or 7th depending on Savant's fate, and on whether dtay can still kill us if we don't build 20 swords,6 trebs, and 10 galleons that all went sleeping with the fishies. While Krill whooped my ass good, I think he overestimates how much that changed our fate (or his); we had set up our own clock when we "gifted dtay an empire" (still not sure whether better play after we first signed peace with Yuri might have prevented this, or dtay's Guilds/Colossus/PRO granaries strategy was simply stronger from the outset), which also caused an arms race with Savant as he constantly strove to match us in power, and then chased too many rabbits during the midgame (and were not OT4E while we did that. ) -- Krill is right that him building Paya should have been our "mutually assured destruction" deterrent (well, from our side; he could still have killed our eastern seaboard presence with C2 galleons because lol at the idea of us ever getting enough ships-of-the-line to stop him, it's for Krill to say if he would have done that, though), btw, but he did have about half our power when we started the war and it was clear I didn't have much of a plan after Mandrake when Krill easily defended Bracken; perhaps a good player might have made more of this. I still appreciate that you choose to remember my play for more than "attacked C2 galleons with C1 galleons and posted spoilers in a public thread", but maybe there just isn't that much more to it

I frankly think we played exactly the seventh-strongest game here and the final standing is accurate of my playing strength. Also, Bacchus is a great teammate who would probably have placed higher on his own merits.

But sure, if you mean this, I'd like to play something else with or against the Khatuns. Maybe a Master of Orion SG? Though I suck even worse at that. I'd be no match at chess either.