[SPOILERS] scooter, pindicator, and Huayna Capac try some fast Zulu cuisine

[NobleHelium]

Yawn. Fuck him.

[scooter]

Sorry NH, I'm going to be ignoring all your Commodore-related opinions. Whenever you get over the bitterness you have for a game you won, let me know . Anyways, I'm trying to think positively here. Just because we have the human version of Montezuma to our west doesn't mean our game is over. We have two major barriers. They're both significant, but if we can get over both of them, we can be a little less woe-is-me-like. Here they are:

1) Somehow convince Commodore to play nice. This is going to be difficult. I think Gaspar said this once but it's true - Commodore's main weakness is he focuses too much on nearby players and loses sight of the big picture. If we can find a way to carefully communicate we'd like to avoid a war, we're OK. Impis won't conquer him, but Ballistaphants may struggle against the team sporting Impis soo... It's not exactly an idea target for him either. However, this may be meaningless unless:

2) Hope, pray, beg, and hope some more that there's land north of us.



North of LJS - we just need to hope that's a loop into the main continent and not the north coastal edge of our horrible existence. Unfortunately, I'm not real sure when we'll be able to scout that. After we get out first city down, we may want to build a scouting WB and send him north. Something to think about. If that's water to our north, we're boxed in and then the fireworks will really have to be prepped.

[pindicator]

Just because we have the human version of Montezuma to our west doesn't mean our game is over.

I was thinking the exact same comparison this morning

1) Somehow convince Commodore to play nice. This is going to be difficult. I think Gaspar said this once but it's true - Commodore's main weakness is he focuses too much on nearby players and loses sight of the big picture. If we can find a way to carefully communicate we'd like to avoid a war, we're OK. Impis won't conquer him, but Ballistaphants may struggle against the team sporting Impis soo... It's not exactly an idea target for him either. However, this may be meaningless unless:

2) Hope, pray, beg, and hope some more that there's land north of us.

Good points on having the right mentality! Yes, we have Commodore bordering us and like every other player he has his own tendencies. But I think we do need to keep a realistic view on what to expect and how we can try to mitigate his aggressive tendencies as of late.

RE: 1) - Difficult is quite the understatement. Rego & I thought we had mended bridges and made a friend with Commodore in PB5, but it sounds like he was still harboring thoughts of attacking us anyway. I think friendliness isn't going to be enough: if he sees us as his only avenue of expansion then he WILL attack. The question is just going to be when, not if. Better is to be prepared: monitor power graphs and keep a force against him.

RE: 2) - We're going to need to take to the seas. I'm more concerned that the only route to contact other civs is going to be through islands that go by Commodore's stuff (kind of like how Brick could only get to the other civs in PB5 by going through your territory.

3) First priority right now needs to be finding his capital and then trying to devise how we want the land split to be. Then we need to try to look at it with Commodore-glasses on and see where he would want the land split to be. Hopefully there is a happy medium and he doesn't think we are "pink-dotting" him. The difficult part is that with him being CRE/PRO he may be looking to pink-dot us. This may be a silver lining in all the crappy land between us. If it isn't appealing then there's less to fight over. Provided he has other directions to expand...

4) Let's do some C&D on Commodore. EP points will probably get us graphs in... 10 turns? I know 43 is the magic number but that it scales up to 43. As soon as we get graphs let's try to reverse engineer his initial turns via the graphs. Especially good idea to watch the power graph...

5) I don't think we can afford the hyper-aggressive farmer gambit starts we were proposing before. In fact, after workboat - worker, I think that may be time to get our first warrior out. Waiting until t40 for our first warrior is probably unwise. Yes, Noble, I am giving you permission to say "I told you so" for doing warrior first instead of Ikhanda...

6) It may not be smart to suggest kicking a hornet's nest like this, but what about using impi to harass Commodore early? Yes, he's CRE & PRO and we likely won't take any cities off him, but if we could slow him down that may give us an upper hand. I guess this is more a question of how do we want to play with Commodore as a neighbor? Do we try to play nice and give him flowers or do we say that any gestures are futile and he's going to attack us anyway so why not take any advantage we can get?

North of LJS - we just need to hope that's a loop into the main continent and not the north coastal edge of our horrible existence. Unfortunately, I'm not real sure when we'll be able to scout that. After we get out first city down, we may want to build a scouting WB and send him north. Something to think about. If that's water to our north, we're boxed in and then the fireworks will really have to be prepped.

I doubt there is much to the north, maybe room for 2 or 3 cities. Hopefully I am wrong. But notice there is an island in the fog to the east. Perhaps there are more? I'm still high on Great Lighthouse as a wonder target, but we need to be smart about building it with Commodore as our neighbor.

[scooter]

Ok, logged in. Before getting to the scout, here's a better shot at the north:



I don't think it's totally impossible that it leads to the main continent, but I agree with Pindicator that it's much more likely to be a peninsula with just a few city's worth of spots. LJS swapped to WB:



Swapped to plains forest as noted with the sign. Although, didn't we agree that it wasn't really necessary as it does not speed up the WB or worker? So I'm kind of thinking we should swap back to the pigs. Thoughts?

The scout pre-move:



The wolf appearing sort of forced our hands on the move, would rather not lose our scout. Moved 1W:



Next question is which to move to next. I'm thinking onto the grass forest for safety - seems best to land on defensive tiles whenever we can. Thoughts?

[scooter]

Scout move 1W was better all-around:



A thought that we might be on the main continent on a peninsula rather than a PB5 Viking-style island:



That coastline kind of "shooting" north would make this a pretty enormous island given how far south it goes too. It's not impossible - B&S does some funky things with island coastlines - but I think it's possible we're on the mainland.

[pindicator]

You can see some coast peering through the fog W-NW of where the scout currently is at. Makes me wonder if Commodore came from the narrow land bridge that we have sight because of the map hut. If he did, then I would bet his capital is just beyond that choke point. But it looks like the scout may be on a peninsula to the SW. We'll find out next turn.

[Cyneheard]

Do we try to play nice and give him flowers or do we say that any gestures are futile and he's going to attack us anyway so why not take any advantage we can get?

Gestures are futile; if he thinks attacking us is to his benefit, he will do it. And we don't have the ability to chat him up to feel him out or cut a deal. This is gunboat Diplomacy, not GChat Diplomacy: don't leave yourself open for the other guy. I didn't do a thing to him when he tried to warrior choke me; only reason that didn't mess me up more is I won a 20% victory on flatland against his Shock warrior.

[NobleHelium]

Hey, I'll get over my bitterness when he actually admits his mistakes and/or wrongdoings. It's not about the game. It's about how loathsome he is. But you misinterpreted my statement - I meant fuck him as in there's no reason to be scared.

[pindicator]

Turn 008



I moved the scout SW and hurray for another food resource. SW or NW to finish off his move? Probably NW but I didn't want to take all the fun

Capital is changed to 5hpt, work boat due in 6.
We're the only team that grew capital to start.

[scooter]

Yeah NW sounds good. I'll login now and finish the turn.