[SPOILERS] DaveV: Seriously, Capria?

[DaveV]

Cairo's zombie has a bunch of promotions, meaning he had poor odds when he killed my warrior. I hate it when the whole game swings on a single combat roll.

Also, I played a late night turn to keep the game moving and let Market Garden grow so he can capture it instead of auto razing. This has been a poorly played game by me, but I still don't see how any conquests by Cairo will improve his abysmal GNP.

[DaveV]

I offered peace to Mr. Cairo, and he refused, so it's pile up warriors the rest of the game. Enjoy your war weariness.

[DaveV]

After Cairo offered peace for my map and I refused, he offered white peace. I struggled with what to do, and finally decided to accept and send my warrior army to help out Aurorarcher. Auro is on the verge of being eaten by Mack (he's down to three cities), which would be game over.



All my guys were stacked up on my border with Cairo, and it's going to take a while for them to cross all the rivers. According to my count, Mack's world spell expires on turn 105, so maybe I can recapture some of Auro's cities for him.

I'm sure Mack will be pissed that I'm intervening against him, and he probably has a right to be. I'm not going to win this game no matter what happens; the best I can do is wreck the game for someone else. That "someone else" has been Cairo for the last 40 turns or so, but I'm not sure he can turn things around to win at this point either.



So am I playing kingmaker for Bob? Maybe; I view it as keeping the game interesting.

Edit: additionally, there's a very good chance that Cairo will send his zombie army after Bob after gaining peace with me.

[DaveV]

So, many turns have passed since my last update and I'm back at war with Mr. Cairo. He offered white peace but I see no reason to take it. During our first war, I put all my cities on pure military production and used my disciple of leaves to pop borders instead of spreading FoL. This pretty much sums up my attitude:



Note that I don't dislike Cairo (he seems like a decent guy, with good musical taste) and hope he doesn't take this personally when he reads it after the game. For anyone who's unfamiliar with the movie The Princess Bride, the picture above is the character Inigo Montoya from that film. He devoted his life to revenge against the man who killed his father; when he finally triumphed in his swordfight against that man, the dialog went like this:

Inigo: HELLO! MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA! YOU KILLED MY FATHER! PREPARE TO DIE!
Inigo: Offer me money.
Rugen: Yes!
Inigo: Power, too, promise me that.
Rugen: All that I have and more. Please...
Inigo: Offer me everything I ask for.
Rugen: Anything you want...
Inigo: I want my father back, you son of a bitch. <Runs him through>

It's the old question of what you do when you have zero percent chance of winning the game. In this case, I've chosen to do what I can to ruin Cairo's game as repayment for him ruining mine. Also, having the reputation of being an unreasonable revenge seeker can be an advantage in future games.

[DaveV]

My home computer is acting up again, and I've had to play a couple turns on my old laptop. Which apparently had auto-promote turned on, so now I have C1 promotions on a bunch of warriors instead of Mobility. It's not worth activating the time machine and replaying turns, since I'm probably not going to affect the outcome anyway.

By the way, lurkers, I've been ready to concede to Mack for the last 50 turns or so.

[DaveV]

When I picked my "Military Disasters" naming scheme, I had no idea how appropriate it would end up being.

[DaveV]

Cairo and I have been building massive stacks to glare at each other across our border (although he shouldn't be able to see my mobile reserve).



Note the two workers north of Market Garden. Is he planning on building a road and attacking?

One of the interesting things that happened is visible in that screenshot: I got a passive spread of FoL. I'll try to spend some beakers and hammers on taking advantage of the religion I'd planned to use before the zombie rush.

I signed open borders with Bob and built a road for trade routes; a few turns later, Mack offered open borders. I reoffered open borders with him also giving me a spare wine. Some of the other players might not be happy about me giving extra commerce to Mack, but I have nothing against him in this game. He's clearly winning, and can probably do it without my help.

[DaveV]

This game is still going. I guess Mack is waiting for an overwhelming tech edge. I'm still giving him open borders for wine and corn, so ~6 gpt for those two resources. There was an amusing message in the log file this turn:



Good for Aurorarcher; he hasn't given up yet. I'm not sure how much benefit he'll get from werewolves; that's another thing I put in the "fun for single player games" category.

[DaveV]

Mack is eating Aurorarcher, who's down to two cities. Cairo offered peace again, but that's not happening. If he's invaded on the other side of his empire and all his units are out of position, that will be a real shame.

I popped a great merchant at EoT, which was the second best result at something like 38% odds. I would have preferred a prophet at 6%, but it's better than the bard or sage. That's all assuming that Bob lets me cash in the merchant, and that the game goes on long enough for me to research Priesthood and build some priests. None of this matters to the outcome of the game, but I'm trying to find satisfaction where I can.

[DaveV]

Bob agreed to a map trade, which gives me updated information on almost the entire map. Cairo has mage guilds and planar gates in a couple cities, which means Mobius witches:



The Maelstrom one is concerning, but he lacks body which he really needs (although zombies can't be hasted).

There are three possibilities now:

1. Mack attacks Bob. This will probably force Bob to use his worldspell, which turns Cairo's witches into really expensive warriors.

2. Mack attacks Cairo. I'm sure Mack has hawks, so he can see that Cairo has his whole army stacked on my border. At this point, I think my most satisfying move would be to retake Market Garden and its two (!) gems.

3. Mack attacks me. Although I'm sending signals of neutrality, I am the weakest and nicely bite sized. That would force me to use up my army defensively, and Mack and Cairo might end up fighting over my scraps.