[PB81] naufragar is a rock. He is an iiiiiiiiiisland.

[naufragar]

I just researched Currency, so it's time for posting misleading demo screens:


Look at that #2 in Mfg and Crop! Of course, this is illusory. I whipped just 3 pop away and plummeted to 4th place in both. 

You know what's not illusory? Mjmd's troop build-up.


Yikes. It's hard to imagine he hits TBS over a one tile chokepoint. More likely that he hits me in multiple locations with galleys. The only city that I really want to keep is the capital. His other targets I can presumably regain. Will have more defense in a couple turns. Just need time.

In the wider world, Xist burned a city from Dreylin. Good if there's lots of violence among all parties. Bad if Xist steamrolls the continent. I will laugh myself silly if Xist consolidates his continent and comes knocking on the "vet" continent with transports and marines while we're still contending with each other.

[naufragar]

It's getting worse:



Here are my defenses:


At the end of turn, the capital will have 2 axes and a spear. Bonnet will have a spear and a warrior with another axe arriving next turn. I can't add anything to Roberts, but it's also the most easily replaced if it burns. Next turn, my scout will also get vision on Mjmd's core to see how many galleys are skulking about.

[naufragar]

It's stressful being on this continent, man.


Mjmd rocketed up to 13 cities and landed the Hanging Gardens, catapulting him into the crop lead. My two continent-mates have monstrous empires already, and I literally only have room for 3 more cities, which would put me to 11, 2 less than Mjmd has currently.

TBS, for his part, is heading to the upper part of the tech tree to get the artsy wonders and start chaining golden ages together.

I'm not even playing particularly badly! I've clawed my way up to 3rd in crop and 2nd in GNP, but with these two neighbors, it's too little and, soon, too late.

[naufragar]

I got scared by Mjmd's power and city build up and suggested a military alliance to TBS. He seems amenable:



But now I feel kind of silly because TBS is only 1 city behind Mjmd, right with him in Crop, and way ahead in GNP. (I'll show graphs at the end of this.)

I can feel myself flailing around for something, anything to do in this game, but I can't see it. I'm at 8 cities and will settle a couple more in the next few turns, but setting aside my atrocious rate of settling, I just don't have enough spots.

I've marked with an X all my future city spots.


If I completely settle my land, I can only get up to 13 cities, tied with TBS and Mjmd (and that's with that awful foodless southern dot). But my neighbors have tons more spots to settle. Mjmd still has a whole continent to himself. TBS has much more land to his south than I do to my north. We are not equidistant from the poles, as we found out with the "queue moves in the fog" trick. So I have zero growth potential.

The more I think about this game, the more I'm convinced I'm screwed. Let's walk through the options and see if I missed anything.

If I don't gain more land, I get outscaled by TBS and Mjmd. I can't hope that they'll drag each other down, because they're good enough to not attack each other without an advantage and by the time that develops, I'll be an irrelevant minor power (if they don't eat me first).

If I try to take land off of Mjmd, I could maybe snipe a couple of cities over the water, but then he still has an empire as large or larger than mine with which to retake the conquest. And I would be fighting Mjmd over the water, while TBS is growling at my land border.

If I try to take land off of TBS, with knights or whatever, I have to somehow gain an edge on the player with more cities, mfg, and crop than me, who also has the Pyramids and Colossus. That seems unlikely, but even if I could make gains against TBS, I'm fighting a difficult war just to gain my half of the continent, while Mjmd simply develops the half he already has.

If I try to sail away to torment the other continent, I have to trust that I can a) make gains against players who have militarized to fight each other, b) defend my homeland against two empires who are much bigger than me, and c) keep the gains on the other continent once TBS gets his fleets going.

I don't see how there's a path to victory. I'm not so very sad. Mjmd killed a player early in a way that benefited only himself. Superdeath had no other neighbor that could benefit from his demise, but I think Mjmd should be rewarded for killing a player. TBS has played very well, even leaving aside Library shenanigans. Still, it leaves me no room to hope.

If you've got a way that I can carve a path to victory, let me know (or put it in the lurker thread, I guess  ) Me? I'm out of ideas.

Here are some graphs in the spoiler. I'm doing ok in GNP and Mfg, but my crop is terrible. Power is in line with TBS, but Mjmd is much stronger than both of us.

[Commodore]

Wait a gosh darned minute, you're saving gold on Code of Laws and feeling stuck? Well no wonder. Optics is just a dozen turns of wealth-building away.

WE WERE PROMISED NEWB-VASIONS OFF OF CARRACKS, DANGIT.

[scooter]

WE WERE PROMISED NEWB-VASIONS OFF OF CARRACKS, DANGIT.

+1.


Admittedly, I am the firmest of believers in "if your continent sucks, leave for a better one."

[naufragar]

Look, I can promise harebrained schemes. I just can't promise that the harebrained schemes will remain consistent from turn to turn.

Case in point, I briefly considered snatching some of Mjmd's coastal holdings, but then I discovered that Mjmd and TBS are probably going to come to blows sooner rather than later, and I don't want to get in the way of that:


Maybe Mjmd feels he has enough land and can share? To me it looks like TBS is eating Mjmd's lunch and Mjmd will react. TBS and Mjmd are tied for highest crop and together lead the field by a massive margin. They're both higher than me by ~50 food per turn and I'm 3rd place. Some quick, back of the envelope math suggests that the players on the other continent are pretty undersized.

Spoilers for math

Rival best food is 212. We're calling Mjmd and TBS equal, so each at ~212. Rival worst is 55. I thought this was Gira but he just took a city off of Dreylin, so who knows. Irrelevant. Knowing rival average (134) leaves 191 food between the two unknowns (Xist and Dreylin?). I'm guessing a split like 110 food for Xist, 80f for Dreylin, putting the biggest power on that continent at half the food of my two neighbors.

So if that continent is as undersized as I think it is, maybe it is best to stick with the NEWB-VASIONS OFF OF CARRACKS™ plan. It just feels so weird to do that rather than hit Mjmd with Maces off of galleys in 8 turns when he's just researched Calendar and is nowhere near Crossbows. That's the big decision I have to make. Honestly can't decide.

Consider this update as penance for missing t100.

Oh, and we revolted to Bureaucracy off of a Civil Service Merchant bulb.

Edit: And hey, if we're trying to go full Scooter, maybe we end up invading into Gira's India...

[naufragar]

Case in point, I briefly considered snatching some of Mjmd's coastal holdings, but then I discovered that Mjmd and TBS are probably going to come to blows sooner rather than later, and I don't want to get in the way of that.

Far sooner than I expected:


It remains to be seen whether this is just a run of the mill Mjmd "border adjustment" or the start of something bigger. TBS could reinforce from the galley (underneath the galley is just a workboat). Either way, this is inclining me to not savage Mjmd's coast with macemen in a few turns. We'll see. ~18 turns until Carracks in that case.

TBS, for his part, is just romping through the tech tree:


He's showing 4 turns until Construction, at which point I finally have to start paying attention to military. Man, that's a scary economy.

[naufragar]

Well, nevermind. After Mjmd took and auto-razed that island city of TBS, they're back at peace and with open borders. Guess it was just one of Mjmd's border adjustments.

Speaking of, he sent me fish for fish and I sent back the following:


I couldn't offer a "declare war with TBS" so I figured this was the next best thing. (SchoonerMoonlit is his city on TBS' border.) Honestly, I dislike using fish for fish as a canary in a coal mine to tell if I'm going to attack. Yes, I'm too honorable to give fish for fish if I'm planning on immediately declaring war, but I dislike that being used against me, especially if my opponents are notorious fish-for-fish disrespecters. It drove me crazy that Ljubljana in PB75 would send me a fish for fish every ten turns. "Hey you're not planning on attacking me right? Because you've got to tell me if you're going to attack me.  " I never even planned on attacking him and it drove me crazy.

Who knows if I attack Mjmd. It might not be possible. He just got Metal Casting ahead of Construction, so he's likely more concerned about triremes vs. me than catapults vs. TBS.

Very difficult, too, to attack along a narrow front when we've got Open Borders, but closing open borders likely spooks him. We shall see.

Further random thoughts: Mjmd settled a great general, so his boats have promotions. But he only has 1 real port on my side of the water. Entirely possible that I can just brute force my way in. Still thinking.

[naufragar]

I saw in my trade balance value was -3, so I closed borders with Mjmd and offered them back in exchange for a payment of 3gpt. Should balance the trade. His trade routes with TBS lost their peace time bonus, so I'm his best trade partner for the next 50ish turns. We'll see if he swallows this.

And more interestingly, if he doesn't accept, it keeps his scouts out of my land until I can get all these future Macemen into galleys:


I'm still not 100% committed to this play. It's just that Carracks are still ~14 turns out. In that gulf to my west, TBS and Mjmd each have 1 port. In a perfect world, I control all the ports on this gulf, so if I do end up attacking Mjmd, his island and his capital are the goals.

I'm still very ambivalent about how to proceed. Mjmd has space to get up to ~20 cities by my count, which puts him at roughly double mine or the total of TBS and my cities combined. Does this mean that he's the greater long term threat? TBS has literally double my tech rate.

I'm having so much trouble deciding a course of action because I can't imagine what my opponents are planning. Mjmd teched Calendar and looks to be doing his typical Mjmd builder thing. If he were concerned about TBS, he'd be at Construction and trying to knock over TBS' fortress of Celsus. So Mjmd, at least, thinks he can outbuild TBS with his land-lead.

TBS looks set to do the usual Great Scientist, first-to bonus thing. He's a lock for the Music Artist. He can probably get to Econ, Liberalism, etc. first. But what does he do with all of that? Despite his tech advantages, I think I can build enough pikes to hold off a knight push. Him pushing into Mjmd by land is tricky. If he goes for Astro, he obsoletes Colossus, but then I do have to react somehow. I don't know. Besides just being more advanced, I don't quite know where TBS goes. Maybe all the way to rifles? That over Astro would be the decisive advantage I think.

If I can take Mjmd's island and capital, he probably just builds up an army for revenge, but is that so bad for me? Idk.

But rest easy lurkers. I probably do have to invade the other continent no matter what. So expect that in ~20 turns.