[PB70] The Cartographic Correction Committee convenes

[scooter]

Alright, I took a look last night about a size 4 capital plan, and I'm going that route instead. If I grow Beijing to 4, then double whip the settler and instead chop the WB in Shanghai (rather than whipping it), 3rd city is settled and Fish netted on both T42 which feels about right and feels better than whipping Shanghai at size 2. Turn pace is blistering fast as I've played 3 turns since I posted in here 24 hours ago. A thing happened too.





Met Charriu. His and Bing's scouts appeared at our south border at the same time, so I pulled back my warrior just to keep them from being annoying. Charriu sent a quick hello message, and I sent messages to both requesting they not declare and enter borders and interfere with what tiles are worked. I'm not afraid to pop a scout if I have to, especially because I can just hand the game back to Ginger in a couple weeks and he can apologize for the "idiot sub" that did a reckless thing he would never do, and the relationship would be repaired. I'm confident it won't come to that though.

Beijing will swap to settler at size 4 and whip it once it gets in range. The fresh worker is chopping the second WB, and then it'll road for the settler. Shanghai grows onto a completed camp next turn, and the worker will get the Gold next.





Finally scouting in the north again. Seems to be a jungle band marking the midpoint up here.

A couple stray notes:

* Charriu's capital is size 5, ours is 3, and all the rest are size 4.

* Bing seems to have built an extra warrior as his power graph just went up in a size that looks pretty warrior-ish. He's also the only player left to not settle a city despite going an absolute eternity at size 1. I can only assume he went worker-worker?

[Magic Science]

I'm not afraid to pop a scout if I have to, especially because I can just hand the game back to Ginger in a couple weeks and he can apologize for the "idiot sub" that did a reckless thing he would never do, and the relationship would be repaired.

Disavowable asset. Plausible deniability.
You are a natural diplomat. I love it. .

EDIT: Literally Machiavellian.

[scooter]

I'm not afraid to pop a scout if I have to, especially because I can just hand the game back to Ginger in a couple weeks and he can apologize for the "idiot sub" that did a reckless thing he would never do, and the relationship would be repaired.

Disavowable asset. Plausible deniability.
You are a natural diplomat. I love it. .

EDIT: Literally Machiavellian.

Well, the last time I played a diplo game here 10+ (!) years ago...



Oof, yeah let's not think about that right now.

But this is a good segue. After talking with Charriu a little this morning and getting an idea of the shape of the world, I’ve put some thought into what it all means, and then Ginger messaged me with some thoughts too. It appears our world wrapping land strip is ordered like this:

Superdeath
Us
Bing
Charriu
Mjmd

Cool, we’re between Protective Skirmishers and War Chariots piloted by a guy literally named superdeath. Crucially too, it’s diagonally wrapping. So those that are not land neighbors are the ocean/island neighbors. I’m not gonna try to visualize it, but Charriu said this to me.

There's more. I think I am just across the sea to your north-east.
My minimap confirmed it for me

Note: I’m not going to post a full chat log in here, but anyone can join the discord and global lurk them to see it - it’s all viewable.

So, this game is split in two halves. The first half is conflict with land strip neighbor(s), and the later game is contested by sea. So, the question.


How do you win?

Galleons.


Ok but before that

I think it’s going to be super important to make a friend that shares a neighbor with us. So, Charriu and/or Mjmd. In a perfect world, the first CKN-aided target would be split with an ally to make it a decisive and quick war. Striking first and getting bogged down is death when you have an opportunistic neighbor at your back door while your primary army is 20 tiles away.

The rest of it can sort of fall into place backwards out of that. For example, if we can befriend Charriu, maybe that isolates Bing as a target, which means we need a Superdeath mitigation plan, so then maybe we can come to some sort of deal that involves a demilitarized border or something. This is just an example. For now, I mostly want us to meet Superdeath and Mjmd in game and get a feel for how they see things too. I don't see any reason to commit to things now. But I really think in this map setup, we want a war ally of some sort before committing to anything.

[Amicalola]

Just wanted to echo the appreciation that others have offered for your posts, Scooter. They're fun to read.

[scooter]

Just wanted to echo the appreciation that others have offered for your posts, Scooter. They're fun to read.

Glad they've been a good read!





Mjmd has settled his third city already which is really quite fast - well done by him. Comically, this is before Bing has built his second city. Last I looked last night he was not into Slavery yet, which I took to mean the settler was not in transit yet. I don't know what's going on there, but it's good to have someone lagging behind as a neighbor. Northern worker will build the road needed to speed the settler and the road needed to hook Beijing and Shanghai, while the southern worker hooks gold.





Beijing working on a settler. It'll get whipped once it's in range.





Eager to get this gold mine online to speed our early tech priorities as we have a few. Chop came in this turn to keep the work boat on track.





The main story told here is that 4 players are very close together and played similar starts, and one is lagging behind. Also I think someone is working their gold given that GNP.





Hello superdeath. As expected. Scout is going to beeline north in an effort to meet Mjmd rather than circling back to unfog everything. Sent him a message. Will definitely ask about his northern neighbor and "just asking questions" my way into wondering out loud if Mjmd has built a single warrior given his lightning fast 3rd city.

[Tarkeel]

Hello superdeath. As expected. Scout is going to beeline north in an effort to meet Mjmd rather than circling back to unfog everything. Sent him a message. Will definitely ask about his northern neighbor and "just asking questions" my way into wondering out loud if Mjmd has built a single warrior given his lightning fast 3rd city.

Ah, JAQing off, a time-honored technique.

Just want to add that I too appreciate your posts, and while I really can't comment on your choices I very much appreciate seeing how you solve the puzzles of the land.

[scooter]

Hello superdeath. As expected. Scout is going to beeline north in an effort to meet Mjmd rather than circling back to unfog everything. Sent him a message. Will definitely ask about his northern neighbor and "just asking questions" my way into wondering out loud if Mjmd has built a single warrior given his lightning fast 3rd city.

Ah, JAQing off, a time-honored technique.

It's super annoying, except when I do it, and then it's great.

[Kaiser]

JAQ?

[scooter]

JAQ?

Just Asking Questions.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions


Just a joke about how me asking superdeath "how did Mjmd build 3 cities so fast? Did he even build a warrior?" has a slight chance of subtly prodding him to go kick over the sandcastle while leaving us alone. It won't, but the idea that it might amused me.

[Kaiser]

Thanks, I was mit aware of that term