[spoilers] Regoarrarr teams up with your mom

[regoarrarr]

I'm starting to wonder if Gaspadore and Sian have cut a deal, to allow one or both of them to attack me. I may want to slip in Construction and/or Machinery. Of course Gunpowder and Nationalism are not too far away either....

[regoarrarr]

Hey Sian,

I think our NAP expires here in a little bit. I figure we've both got other things going on so hopefully you'll agree that extending it makes sense for both of us. How's another 20-25 turns or so sound?

your mom of ottomans

sure ... no problem ... not really in a state to do anything against you so why not

Okay so at least there's probably not a GRAND conspiracy. Doesn't mean there isn't some sort of smaller conspiracy

[regoarrarr]

Okay so weirdness on the Pindicator front. I don't know if he's mentioned it in his spoiler thread, but a few days ago he asked for a 200g loan. I thought maybe he was going to use it to take Taoism, so I told him that I was going to finish it at the end of my turn, and asked if that would change his mind. That led to this exchange

9:04 PM Pindicator: no, i'd still want it. i'm hoping to get my econ going again with Spiral
me: oh
teching dr?
Pindicator: i know, kind of unconventional
9:05 PM me: nah
i did the same thing in '17
Pindicator: what i should have done is save the great prophet and use it on DR
got itchy fingers and pulled it off on theo when i could have stayed flexible
9:07 PM me: so 200g?
any land points this turn?
9:10 PM Pindicator: yeah, sorry. 20 things going on at once here
me: no prob
Pindicator: 4 pts for gasp
for ze land
9:11 PM i had 11 pts in land and 4 pop last turn
what's the eta on liberalism?
me: not sure
Pindicator: guess i'll have to go that way after DR to keep you at least a little honest
9:12 PM me: is that anyway to treat the guy givin you 200g?
Pindicator: you'll still be able to grab something decent off it
me: yeah i understand
9:13 PM Pindicator: trying to learn my lesson from letting you cherry pick with the oracle
me: trade world maps?
Pindicator: sure
me: ok trade offered
Pindicator: cool
me: 7 pop for you?
9:14 PM Pindicator: 4 pop & 11 land pts
9:15 PM me: so i'm fine with just interest free
9:16 PM Pindicator: really? that's very nice of you
me: what about a non compete on liberalism and/or the taj
9:18 PM Pindicator: in exchange for the loan? yikes, that makes me think i should just chug along
me: just throwing things out
are you thinking of going for either of those?
i'm fine if you are - i don't feel like i "deserve" them or have to have them
Pindicator: i was thinking along the lines of galleys since i have an abundance
9:19 PM Taj would be nice, it has a nice synnergy with MoM
me: but would prefer that if we are going to race for them then we be upfront about it
(not saying that you aren't)
9:22 PM Pindicator: i dunno, race doesn't seem like the right word. i mean, i'm resigned to you getting liberalism at this point
but if i can keep you from picking up physics with it then i'd prefer to
me: yeah
that's fine
so let's race for taj then
9:23 PM Pindicator: hard to imagine me winning that one
9:24 PM hmmm.... just had a thought
what if i don't tech liberalism in exchange for you letting me have Taj?
9:27 PM me: save otw
as for that deal let me think about it
9:28 PM but i lean towards not taking you up on that
Pindicator: ok
me: btw i decided to delay philo
Pindicator: well, i'll give us both some time to ponder. roommates want me to get a drink with them
9:29 PM me: okay
ttyl
Pindicator: why?
out of curiosity
me: i have one city that doesn't have a religion
if i founded it this turn
it would found there (i think)
Pindicator: yeah, almost guaranteed to i believe
me: but it has a missionary ready to spread next turn
9:30 PM and then it would go somewhere else
9:31 PM Pindicator: makes sense

Yeah, I know chat logs = boring but it isn't that long and I wanted to put the whole thing in there just to show this was the extent of our conversations about it.

Then this turn I notice that he's teched Philosophy instead of the Divine Right that he certainly made me think he was going after. I dialed him up to ask what was up

me: hey
11:08 PM Pindicator: hiya
me: turn in a bit
11:09 PM Pindicator: cool
me: so i thought you were teching d right with my 200g?
11:10 PM Pindicator: originally,b ut then i thought i was going to give it the ole college try, right?
me: for taj?
Pindicator: yeah
11:11 PM me: well i guess i don't mind racing
but i feel kind of weird giving you 200g to try and beat me with
11:12 PM Pindicator: heh, i thought it was odd too. i remember saying something like if there was a stipulation of staying away from taj then you should keep it
me: hmm i don't remember that
but whatever
i don't want to make a big deal abou tit
11:17 PM Pindicator: well, i don't want bad feelings over it either. Tell you what, if by some miracle i beat you to Taj I'll pay you back an extra 100g interest
11:18 PM me: gasp still on guilsd?
Pindicator: yeah, last turn it was down to 11 turns... he must be running a number of specialists
me: probably
yuri on machinery due in 1
Pindicator: oh, btw
11:19 PM i'm starting to cycle some great builds here and there
me: ?
Pindicator: dunno when i'll cash that in exactly but probably in the next 15t or so
just in case you want to throw some turns into it
me: great wall?
Pindicator: great wall builds i mean
me: ah
that makes a lot more sense ;-)
i wish you'd have let me know about the parthenon
Pindicator: heh
were you on that too?
11:20 PM me: no
but i'd have liked the fail gold
Pindicator: ah, sorry. we haven't been catching each other too much lately on chat
me: yeah
stupid christmas
Pindicator: :D
11:21 PM well, feel free to sink some turns into Zeus as well
although i'll probably finish Great Wall before that
11:22 PM me: so it turns out i'm working on an important tech
can i borrow 200g?
11:24 PM Pindicator: tell you what, if it's gonna be a big deal then just request it back
11:25 PM me: well shoot man
how'd we end up like this?
11:26 PM Pindicator: i dunno, but i thought it was odd and said so at the time. i can hunt for the conversation if you want
maybe we misunderstood each other
11:27 PM by my recollection it was a conversation where i started out talking about DR, you asked about Taj, and then we ended saying we were going to race cause we couldn't find sufficient compensation
11:30 PM i guess i never saw where you said you were going to go after anything but DR
Pindicator: i still don't see how it's much of a race; you're gonna beat me to it
11:31 PM me: if i had popped an engineer last turn sure i'd feel great about it
in any case, no hard feelings on my side
i'm sure it was just a misunderstanding like you said
email / chat are obviously hard to get nuances and such
11:32 PM but if you're okay with it, i would like to request my 200g back
Pindicator: well, i can't say i like it, but i understand it.
it must be closer than i thought
me: well for all i know you've got an engineer on the way
not to mention you're industrious
11:33 PM Pindicator: well, you got me on industrious, but i think i am 7 turns away from a great person at best. have to recheck those numbers
maybe still 6, but i had to shuffle things around and lost a couple spec/turns
11:34 PM and even then, a GE is a long shot

So I don't know if it was a misunderstanding, or if he was trying to pull one over on me or what, but I already feel like I'm kind of bending over backwards to treat him right, so I didn't feel like it was fair to have him potentially beat me to the Taj, researching on MY dime. I did request the 200g back. Hopefully this doesn't put a permanent damper on our relationship, which so far has been quite nice.

[regoarrarr]

I should have Nationalism done at the end of next turn, then I'll build Taj in So Skinny probably. Saving gold for a few turns before going for Machinery, Printing Press (part bulbed) and Astro (part bulbed also). At some point here, once I have a better ETA on the Taj, I'll have to plan my GPP / caste plan to see how many GPs I can squeeze out.

[regoarrarr]

Some BS from Pindicator

Hi Regoarrarr,

I was hoping to find you in chat to tell you, but you deserve to know that I have declined your request for 200g. I took a considerable amount of time to think through the situation, re-reading our recent conversations, and afterwards realized that I would be a negligent steward of the Viking empire if I were to agree to hand you 200g at this time. Instead I will raise gold at the completion of my next technology, and pay you back as soon as possible in that regard. I believe all that will be accomplished within 5 turns.

In truth I cannot help but feel a certain degree of hypocrisy at this insistance that I immediately repay any loan simply because you now think that it is a bad deal for you. When you led me to believe I would be able to trade nav galleys for longbows if I let you Oracle Feudalism, I did not come back demanding you make reparations once you changed your mind to use Oracle on Currency. I may have been upset, but I realized that there had been no assurances made that you were going to use Oracle a certain tech. So I can only congratulate you on playing that deal to your benefit as the early Currency certainly helped you catapult to your current lead. Similarly, no stipulations were put on the 200g loan, as you were even kind enough to tell me the loan would be interest-free and then suggest we race for the Taj in the same conversation.

I hope we can move past this matter and continue to work together in the future.

Best Regards,
pindicator


P.S. Best of luck in our race to Taj. I'm flattered that you think I have a chance.

I don't feel like it's in my best interest to make a big deal of it at this point. Hopefully I can still beat him to the Taj

This was my reply

Pindicator,

I understand what you are saying. I see where you're coming from on a few points, and disagree with your interpretation on some others.

Having said all that, I am not going to make a big deal about it for a few reasons

1) I feel like we're both too close to the situation to really be impartial about it. Let's face it, I am going to interpret any kind of "grey area" as best befits me and my game, and you are going to do the same. Perhaps after the game, when all is said and done, we can look back at this and other situations and come to a better understanding

2) I think that our alliance has benefited both of us, and in any alliance between folks, there must be some give and take. So I'll give on this one.

Your Mom of Ottomans

[regoarrarr]

So in actual game related news, without MY 200 gold , I could not finish Nationalism this turn. As such, I queued up a longbow in So Skinny (my highest hammer city)



I also fired a Moai citizen and hired a scientist, so that I could delay the longbow from finishing, to get maximum overflow at the end of next turn into the Taj.

Speaking of overflow, after a brief discussion on wonder whipping penalties, I whipped the Globe Theater to completion in So Dumb



Got a bunch of overflow into the National Epic. I will probably 2 pop whip a Jewish Temple here the turn after next to get some more overflow into NE. Remember also that I part finished the Nat Epic in another city so that failgold should be nice.

Final picture - I think I messed up my Oxford calculations. In any case, it should be done in 2t.



Unfortunately given that I have had to race for Nationalism, I haven't really been able to save up gold for a post-Oxford run.

I'm also wondering if Pindicator is psyching me out on this. He's making it up like he is racing me for the Taj, while really he's heading for Liberalism. I noticed he was vague in saying

Instead I will raise gold at the completion of my next technology, and pay you back as soon as possible in that regard. I believe all that will be accomplished within 5 turns.

(emphasis mine)

So that could jive with him sandbagging Paper, then trying to bust through Paper, Education (with a great person that he has said is coming in 4-5 turns to maybe part-bulb it) and then Liberalism while I'm stuck on Nationalism. Something to keep an eye on and maybe a good reason to use that GSci bulb on Liberalism. Luckily he can't bulb Liberalism even if he wanted to, as he's already teched Machinery.

[Cyneheard]

If we're finishing Nat, and are worried about Pind, then why not nab Constitution with Lib?

[regoarrarr]

If we're finishing Nat, and are worried about Pind, then why not nab Constitution with Lib?

Well we're worried about Pindicator, but we're not WORRIED about Pindicator.

At least from a Liberalism perspective. He did discover Nationalism this turn, which is a turn ahead of us (though that's offset by the fact that we're ahead of him in turn order).

So Taj is definitely dicey at this point. If we don't get Taj, our next GP is currently slated to come out of So Ugly (283/402) in ~13t (which we could speed up by working an extra GP or two. As long as it's not a prophet, we could kick off our 2-man GA, though obviously I'd prefer Taj

[regoarrarr]

The other good news that we have is that we traded world maps with Pindicator, so we can use the Espionage screen to figure out how many hammers he's got and when he's planning to get it finished.

[regoarrarr]

His Moai city of FAP is the likely target - it's size 14 and has 2 plains hill mines.

So 12 Moai tiles, city center, and 2 plains hill mines, gives him 21 base hammers.

Compare that to my Moai city of So Skinny, which is size 17, and has 12 Moai tiles, city center, a grass horse, grass hill mine and a plains stone quarry, or 26 base hammers.

Advantage me, right?

Except that he's Industrious. And while that's not quite as big of a deal given that we both have Marble,

Taj is 469h. So for me, that's 188 base hammers, or 8 turns

For him, that's 157 base hammers, or 8 turns also.

But wait! There's more (good for me version)! I actually have a better advantage because I can whip before him. Even if we're on track to be able to whip it on the same turn, I can whip first and complete it

But wait! There's more (bad for me version)! If he gets a great person soon (which he seemed to indicate that he was), he can go into a golden age, which would give him 15 more hammers in his Moai city, or 36 base hammers, which would definitely give him a big edge.

I'm assuming that he also set up a good amount of overflow this turn, and I did check and he doesn't have any forests that would go there