This game feels very impish

[The Black Sword]

I'm just going to play the turn, it's not worth holding the game up overnight.

[RefSteel]

So a couple things:

1) I would say it's completely fine to double-move him on T64-5: Per your screenshot, you are not at war and not intending war, and if he is intending war then he should not have double-moved you in preparation, so allowing you to double-move him in response would be appropriate.

2)

Anyway, I'll PM Ref to see what he thinks.

Please don't do this in the future; just post in the tech and/or sub thread asking a lurker to check your thread. There will be many occasions when I won't be able to respond to PMs for several days!

[The Black Sword]

Our spies took a break from getting mack's graphs to intercept this message between our enemies.

From: Sid Meier the Barbarian
To: Native Superdeath 
CC: Viking Druids

Comrades! We just won a great victory over the Meta empire! I outmaneuvered the opposing general, sending my trusty warrior to steal his bacon. It was a bait of course, with such tasty pork at stake I knew the shock archer couldn't resist attacking. Only 87% odds, the man still hasn't learned! I bet he thought he was going to unlock the heroic epic too! Noob!

Our great barbaric alliance is going splendidly. I see your Dog diverted his latest encampment down south Superdeath. Jolly good! We've truly brought him down to our level now. Dotmaps? Long term planning? Hah! Without having to devote resources against each other, or indeed towards our own development we can truly be an annoyance!

We have some concerns on Druid front. That was a remarkable spell you cast on the Meta's silver mine. I daresay they won't get anything from it for the next thousand years! It's the side effects that bother me. It looks like it might also benefit your people too! I'm sure you didn't mean it. Maybe talk to our friend Superdeath. The random, unpredictable and remarkably unproductive meandering of his units truly brings a tear to my eye. Beautiful!

Your most barbaric friend,
Sid.

[The Black Sword]

To Superdeath after the game:

From my perspective I feel you are building a lot of excess units that are not doing anything to help your civ. In theory you should build the minimal amount necessary for defense and then focus the rest of your hammers on economic uses. Rushing someone or trying to hold a future city location militarily can be good for you, but a) these are often exceptions and b) you don't even seem to be doing this. 

So I see you wasting hammers and all they seem to be doing is annoying me. They do slow me down a bit of course, which is a positive for you, but they slow you down even more(because you spent the hammers earlier). The net effect is just helping everyone else. And dog soldiers take up a lot of power on the graph, I don't think you have enough to be annoying your other neighbours this way either. 

I hope you won't mind if I crack the odd barbarian joke here and there. And with the combat result this turn, I felt it was either write the previous post or get pretty frustrated.

Ref: Thanks for the help, and I'll post in the sub thread in future. I did end up double moving him, but I didn't do the teleport trick so I didn't take any advantage anyway.

[BRickAstley]

Of course you already have Shudderwock.

[Zalson]

Our spies took a break from getting mack's graphs to intercept this message between our enemies.

From: Sid Meier the Barbarian
To: Native Superdeath 
CC: Viking Druids

Comrades! We just won a great victory over the Meta empire! I outmaneuvered the opposing general, sending my trusty warrior to steal his bacon. It was a bait of course, with such tasty pork at stake I knew the shock archer couldn't resist attacking. Only 87% odds, the man still hasn't learned! I bet he thought he was going to unlock the heroic epic too! Noob!

Our great barbaric alliance is going splendidly. I see your Dog diverted his latest encampment down south Superdeath. Jolly good! We've truly brought him down to our level now. Dotmaps? Long term planning? Hah! Without having to devote resources against each other, or indeed towards our own development we can truly be an annoyance!

We have some concerns on Druid front. That was a remarkable spell you cast on the Meta's silver mine. I daresay they won't get anything from it for the next thousand years! It's the side effects that bother me. It looks like it might also benefit your people too! I'm sure you didn't mean it. Maybe talk to our friend Superdeath. The random, unpredictable and remarkably unproductive meandering of his units truly brings a tear to my eye. Beautiful!

Your most barbaric friend,
Sid.

So so so great. Please post more things like this.

As far as I can tell, you lost a Shock Archer against a warrior (what a bummer). But I have no idea what this comment is on the silver mine? Did I miss something?

[The Black Sword]

I think I settled Shudderwock on the first day of Witchwood when people were going crazy about the card. It turns out the deck is neither good nor popular right now when faced by other optimised decks, but Brick has already infected my naming scheme with meme decks. 

Zalson, I can try work in some similar tongue in cheek reports if people like them. The silver mine spell is referring to the Stonehenge culture, which I had seen coming for a while but he only just popped the 3rd ring. Despite being a creative civ I'm still losing my 2nd ring and my silver source to him. We only have 2 early game happy sources so it's decent handicap.

Btw, mack has a size 8 capital, which would suggest he has access to a 3rd happy source. It's possible the map is just kinder to him in this regard but I wonder if he may have settled on his jungle gems equivalent. In hindsight I think that would have been a pretty good move, the early happiness would be well worth the loss of the tile yield down the line. I might have missed a trick there.

[Zalson]

Thanks, The Black Sword. I now remember that you mentioned that earlier.

[The Black Sword]

Still doing decently:


I got mack's graphs, he's below me in Food(and he's got more population inflating that figure), but his GNP is a lot higher than mine(and I've got the creative culture inflating that figure). I think dtay is the one beating me in food. GNP scrying indicates that one of my neighbours just picked up HBR too and only the two of them have the score increase that turn to allow it. My money is on mack being the one with the beakers to get there. I've been exploring the other side of superdeath and haven't found his borders so superdeath is unlikely to be the target and there's no immediate consequences for me. Mack getting a good invasion has pretty bad long term consequences though, so I hope his other neighbours noticed this possibilty.

Sailing and Iron working also have a pre-req bonus on them. I think Sailing was probably the dtay increase, he has a lot of cities, so island trade routes make sense. I didn't get the exact turn that IW came in so I can't figure it by score bonuses. It's likely to be one of the other 3 though. Pindicator would be bad for me since it indicates he might settle the jungle between us.

Superdeath's dog soldiers just turned around after the last picture btw, which was pretty confusing. He moved right up to my borders and then walked away. It's either totally random or 'Ho ho ho, I have a dog soldier'.

Overview pic:


Dead Man's hand was settled 1S of the horses instead of 1NE as planned. I'll need another city in the area eventually but it's not much of a difference in the short term(arguably better).

I could get Sailing already but I don't need it until Snow Clones is ready to whip a galley, so I figure I might as well wait for more pre-req boni. Dude paladin is building the settler to go in this galley. This was supposed to happen ages ago but the barbs had other ideas. I need to see if there's any resources to settle in the south and if I can steal that superdeath island next. Having a 2nd island could be important for currency.

After Sailing I'm going to make a run at the Pyramids and tech Masonry. I'm philo, I have stone, I need happiness, even if I lose I can run the failgold through the academy. Plus if Mack has gone for HBR then I doubt he goes for the Mids too. I could build it by T85ish in Shudderwock, but I'm slightly worried about trying to chop forests beside my unpredictable native neighbour. Dead Man's hand is also a decent location to do it but there would be a decent delay growing it up to size. I could also save the forests for another wonder but a lot of future wonders are tech constrained and my bpt is pretty poor. I may think about not going for Iron Working as I figure out the Mids plan. If I get 3 happiness from representation then the gems resource could be delayed somewhat.

Inner Fire is working on the scientist for my Math bulb. Razakus and Cubelock have finished a pair of workers, which get better now that Math is coming in, and are going to build a pair of settlers for about T75. Looking at these locations:



I've had a bit of a think about where to settle in the north. 1S of the corn is a really powerful city but it's very aggressive towards Dreylin. I could hold it since it's on a hill but it feels like I'd be locking in an enemy which reduces my options for later. The 'x' spot is a pretty slow starter but it's diagonal is covered by the mountain which is nice. I want to settle this area quickly to block of dreylin, a good strategic location is probably more important some extra yields or tiles claimed. In the south I can't decide whether to get the fish first ring or go for the stronger city 1N on the plains hill. Depends on what I think pin will do. The whole area east of there is very lush and I really want to beat my two competitors to it.

[BRickAstley]

Hey I didn't make you pick Shudderwock! Though it is a more interesting name than "Odd Aggro Paladin"