[SPOILERS] William discovers a source of horse. FDR of Mongolia

[MindyMcCready]

This could be true with a wider body of water. A trouble here is that the city you want is attackable with a galley moving from inside his city that same turn! And it would be open from 3 tiles, so we can't really defend against that with just navy no matter how much sea control we have. With galleons it gets even worse.

Quite possibly true. We'd need/have caravels to keep eyes out.

But, an attempt to contain Darrabod is at odds with an attempt at horizontal expansion! The kind of cities you were talking about had pretty slow growth curves. The ones actually settled have much faster curves, which is why we have more cities than all neighbors.

I'm going to leave some of these arguments aside as they're ancient history now. I don't agree that they're slow growth cities: with Pigs first ring + my HE city with shared cow + rice + fish and over on the West first ring corn + wines while sitting on the coast as well as my arguments for the city that you were forced by Pin to settle. Things would have been tense over the ivory, however. :LOL:

Here again we diverge. I know you see me as making decisions and standing pat on them in the face of logic, but I really think I'm seeing logic too. I don't think war with Pin is inevitable at all. This is the key point - if it really is inevitable you could be right. I think incentive is at least as if not more important than opportunity. If he doesn't have anything permanent to gain by razing cities, I don't see why he'd devote the resources to doing so. I think it's in both our best interests to avoid naval conflict, and I'm signaling about as strongly as it is possible that I don't want to give him incentives for this.

While I have (IMHO) seen stubborness from you 'in the face of logic', I am not concluding that here. It's our diverging view on the probability of war coming from the peaceful actions.

War with Pin is not inevitable. But I see only a small uptick in likelihood of war (over fish) which is why the fish is worth it. I also consider deterrant to be very large and us having a fleet (even if it couldn't successfully defend HE city) that could counter-raze his cities or costal seafood as a very big consideration for him to not make such a move. There's no profit in razing our HE if the fish and whales are pillaged. I'd expect him to (grudgingly) come to see it this way.

Lastly, although a HE raze would hurt, we're IND so could rebuild more easily.

Then to Darrabod or whatever is left of him/them. I consider war with them as inevitable. Just a matter of timing. I completely expect them to make a move on us whenever we go after MYKI and no amount of friendly signals will change that. This is why I considered containment to come before an MYKI move and also why we're going to need naval power. We'll need to keep our seafood safe to have viable costal cities or else suffer.

Fine, but the idea that he'd be doing a naval invasion at this point in the game would be madness.That's darn close to a zero percenter.

You watched this guy in PB8, right? An axe or two in a galley looking for warrior-defended cities, I'm not so sure that can't be a good game plan!

That's hilarious. And absolutely true of course. Nevertheless, I stand by my comment that 'it would be madness' as a true statement while
notching up the 'zero percenter' a couple of important notches.

What if we make an analysis between your HE site vs 1NE of it?

It's a fine city, but it does not contribute to naval power which I think is important as a deterrant.

[WilliamLP]

I'm going to leave some of these arguments aside as they're ancient history now.

I think that's wise! My biggest take-away so far is that yes, fortune has really favored the bold in this game, with the paradox Mackoti was talking about. TBS (I'm pretty sure) is the one who reacted in time to get Oracle, and land Confucianism with it, and he's probably in a pretty strong position because of that. It might have been possible to even reason, ok, nobody went Oracle in the first wave as a focused strat, so the first person to realize that could have gone for it in the second wave.

While I have (IMHO) seen stubborness from you 'in the face of logic', I am not concluding that here. It's our diverging view on the probability of war coming from the peaceful actions.

War with Pin is not inevitable. But I see only a small uptick in likelihood of war (over fish) which is why the fish is worth it. I also consider deterrant to be very large and us having a fleet (even if it couldn't successfully defend HE city) that could counter-raze his cities or costal seafood as a very big consideration for him to not make such a move. There's no profit in razing our HE if the fish and whales are pillaged. I'd expect him to (grudgingly) come to see it this way.

On claiming the fish not being a tipping point to setting off war and tension, you might be right. I think we're at odds on: 1. the value of a truly peaceful channel with very little incentive for war at all vs a peaceful, yet tense, channel with military buildup. 2. The long term value of an additional fish in a large empire. 3. The short term value of a faster growing city that points eastward more. (Fish city wouldn't actually be able to work the fish for many turns.) 4. The value of a city that needs no sea defense vs some. 5. The long term profit of massing a large naval presence in a channel where we've currently claimed no resources.

At this point, I see this as nearly a fully land-based game. About the only thing that would change that is winning that game and needing to look beyond.

The good news on the sea is that we should be first-to for the sea resources in the west, and being first to claim them is a pretty big deal as Pin shows here.

Lastly, although a HE raze would hurt, we're IND so could rebuild more easily.

That's sort of true, but still a really good reason to put it in the hill site (a better city anyway) with a dramatically more defensible sea channel.

Then to Darrabod or whatever is left of him/them. I consider war with them as inevitable. Just a matter of timing.

It's Zanth now, a solid player from the AlaePB crowd with some experience, and who often plays with Gavagai. If I saw Gavagai starting to play turns, that would be high alert.

Anyway, I agree completely that this war is inevitable, but would still like it to be as late as possible so that when we come out we're not so stunted compared to the rest of the world. It's not going to be a profitable war vs an unprepared noob like Pin vs Barry or Ichabod vs Cheetah in PB13.

I completely expect them to make a move on us whenever we go after MYKI and no amount of friendly signals will change that. This is why I considered containment to come before an MYKI move and also why we're going to need naval power. We'll need to keep our seafood safe to have viable costal cities or else suffer.

We agree on keeping seafood safe, but the difference is I accomplish this by simply having no seafood in the south.

One advantage here, that was extremely conscious, is that our northern border is extremely focused on being a pain in the butt to attack, and Darrell wasn't planting cities with this in mind much, especially with a city off a hill hittable from the fog with Engineering.

It's a fine city, but it does not contribute to naval power which I think is important as a deterrant.

I guess, but I really don't feel like this is the game where an eventual HE city that can pump boats every turn, isn't enough. Even in a game like PB13, a city like that building only navy for the whole game would amass a _lot_.

[WilliamLP]

Anyway turn 89:

Molach actually found us, with a galley from the southwest. (No screenshot.) If that's him to the northwest he might have a pretty expansive empire, we'll find out soon enough.

City 9 gets planted next turn, in the noob one-tile-off-coast spot where it can work two food without a border pop.

Calendar finishes in 3. I don't know about tech after that yet. I want to go alphabet even though it could be a bad idea. The Great Scientist finishes in 9. I think the Academy is the play - it probably gets us to Guilds faster. Bulbing Alphabet for much earlier currency is really really tempting though.

The other question is whether to rush out settlers right now to fill the east as soon as possible, sacrificing a lot of food, hammers, and research for quite a long time to do so. My feeling is it's going to be better to grow more slowly and organically to the new happy cap.

In this game, our shining moment where the traits actually become powerful is enabled with late classical techs: CoL, HBR, Metal Casting, Currency. So my feeling is the focus should be primarily on getting to that spot right now.

[WilliamLP]

Turn 90:




I actually spotted an island hut still intact. And there's a scout that can load up and pop it in two turns! It's a little tempting to load up and axe too and try to raze Pan Galactic too - it's still empty and just built a work boat. Zanth shouldn't see the galley. But I'm too nice a guy for this (read: wimp who finishes last).




There's Fury, the 1-tile-off-coast site that may test Mindy's limits to stay in this thread. I have a 3-unit forward party to at least make it annoying for MYKI to seal us off from going further east.

The best thing I can say about my play in this game is that the empire is set up basically how I said I wanted it to be 50 turns ago - decently expanded, peaceful on all sides, and pointed eastward.

City counts:

William - 9
Molach - 9
MYKI - 5
Cyneheard - 8
Pindicator - 9
Zanth - 9

Pindicator has iron connected, presumably he researched it because he has jungle nearby.




Calendar finishes in 2 and we can start growing again that turn. Breakeven tech is at 40% right now. I'll switch to gold after Calendar and turn tech on again after we get the academy.

[WilliamLP]

Turn 91:

Boldly bulbed Philosophy in an interesting deep beeline. I guess he could do that because he's Philosophical (duh).

Just another builder turn for me. Calendar finishes next turn when we'll hook up a silk to allow some city growths.




Molach's scouting galley from the southwest is carrying a scout that he unloaded to have a peek. Presumably the idea is to hop back on and off the boat. It's a good idea - I probably should have been doing that too.

Hammers into Pyramids (and Great Wall in Black Stallion) are deferred 1.5x wealth, obviously not an attempt at landing it.

I'm set up to maybe trap and spear a MYKI chariot in the east, if he makes the obvious moves. I'm not sure whether to kill it if given the chance, and reveal the game plan too early.

[WilliamLP]

Turn 92:

Calendar is done. I popped the island hut and it yield 51 gold. I'll take it! But I would have preferred to pop Currency. And don't tell me that's impossible in this mod and crush my dreams.

MYKI was scouting around with a chariot:




I thought about it and decided to kill the chariot! It was 96% over the river unpromoted or 99% with C1. I decided to take the 99%, just to chop down the chance of being really annoyed. But since it was wasn't catastrophic to lose it might have been better to take the 96% and get a spear that can promote to W2. That would be really useful for tactics in this current forested neutral zone I want to control.

I offered a cease-fire. I don't know if this border defense will affect how he acts now, or if it matters that much. But I felt like I had to do it, since I didn't want to have reason about getting Gavagaiied with every worker move, any more than I already have to do with Zanth. And not attacking gives him a scouting advantage, since I've been avoiding probing MYKI's border for exactly the reverse of this situation.

Also, declaring on MYKI (even temporarily) may send Zanth a signal that I really do view him preferentially as a friend, and not just that I'm a pussycat with respect to any and all hostile actions.

[WilliamLP]

So, this game...

Turn 95:

I'm still just playing builder turns. Going to get Alphabet, then an academy and currency since it's looking like I can get away with that. Then research will be on the fast track.




After killing MYKI's chariot, we're still technically at war. He didn't accept a ceasefire, and he offered a 10 turn treaty, but I didn't want him to settle in my face.

I'm trying to figure out where to try and settle here. The site is probably the "c" south of Zanth's chariot. I think strategic and tactical positioning is more important here than either growth or long term dotmap. It has the river defense going for it, and also that it cuts off intermediate cities from Zanth. Then, the idea would be to either settle or try to eventually conquer the south "c" site.

The big map, after some galley exploration:






The landmass to the west is interesting! I'm not even sure it's not an island. Molach has a large n-s spanned empire, and somehow isn't there yet. There's a new purple player to the southwest we'll meet soon, who may be AT.

Of course, there didn't seem to be any way of knowing the south seas would be extremely cramped while the west would be wide open.

Zanth seems to have a lot of land to our north, though it's of questionable quality with tundra.

Somehow I'm _always_ placed just kind of northwest of center toward a west coast, in every game I play...

[WilliamLP]

Please guys, don't play your turn differently when there's a reload.

Remember ISDG, where I was the only person on the whole site who thought this was the right thing to do? Someone sanctimonious is going to tell me how different that case was than this, probably...

[WilliamLP]

Turn 96:

A little bit of unplanned tension with MYKI:




I thought the deer tile in the SE didn't have a forest on it, since the graphic kind of looks like it's clear. So I moved a chariot there for vision, intending to move it back again. But I saw it was a forest and there was a spear to the SE, so I also had to move an axe to cover the chariot as well, and why not the spear too? So it kind of looks like I'm going for an attack.

I offered a ceasefire again, and MYKI offered a peace treaty again. Nope, I'm not going to let you march in an unguarded settler and settle in my face, dude, sorry.

I'm going to get Alphabet and immediately offer OB to the overseas contacts: Pindicator, Cyneheard, Molach, AT. This plus Currency will give a nice economic boost.

A really zany idea would be to use the Scientist in 2 turns to bulb Aesthetics, and run the Music beeline, and trying to build GLib in the capital. But probably I should think of being able to build real military units at some point in this game...

Pyramids are _still_ available.

[Ceiliazul]

Please guys, don't play your turn differently when there's a reload.

Remember ISDG, where I was the only person on the whole site who thought this was the right thing to do? Someone sanctimonious is going to tell me how different that case was than this, probably...

No, you weren't the only one. You were right tho, and I appreciated it then too.