If players not neighboring the affected parties want to reload but the players next to don't but get outvoted that way lies madness.
The conflict of interest is much deeper for players even if its only subconscious the depth you get involved in these games is quite intense. It far outstrips any influence we lurkers get just by reading.
The players also rarely have the information to make the decision. I honestly like the everyone gets one oops rule. At least for experienced players. Its not perfect but it takes all the bias out.
I really like that rule too, but we need to consider an expiration on when you can ask for it. It's a lot like the coaches challenge rules that professional sports leagues have: you want to get it right but you also don't want to sacrifice the flow of the game for it.
19 knights (1 straggler there will catch up next turn)
6 horse archer
2 chariot
19 catapult
2 war elephant
11 longbow
11 vulture
8 spear
3 pike
81 units total
Up against:
20 horse archer
2 chariot
26 catapult
8 war eles
6 axe
3 spear
1 crossbow
66 units total
Cretto di Burri I visited in 2022 when I went to Sicily when visiting the town that my great grandparents immigrated from. In the 60s there was a big earthquake on Siciliy that destroyed many towns in the Belice valley. My great grandparents had long since immigrated to America, but the town they came from was destroyed, as were many other towns in the Belice valley. The town of Gebellina was a few kilometers away and in its place the Cretto di Burri was created. A giant concrete impression of the town layout: city blocks carved out with pathways between them, all in stark white. I visited it as an afterthought, because it was nearby, but I was rather haunted by it. A very solemn tribute to the town that once stood.
I'm actually a bit upset at myself here. I missed an opportunity that I had been looking at but then forgot in the buildup to just go after his capital. With how Amica's stack was held, I could have hit it with enough knights out in the open - he had not had it deep enough in his culture. But once I moved on his capital he retreated everything into Philips and now my opportunity to remove his catapults is gone.
Now the plan is to build up enough knights that we can kill most of his hitters on a first strike attack. Then his catapults will suicide against us and he will not have much left to kill our defenders with - and we clean up for the end. We will need at least 40 knights for this. Currently we have 20.
The world has erupted in the last few turns: Plemo is actually on the back foot now, losing cities to both Tarkeel and Superdeath. Ginger has started a war that may end up with him conquering the eastern continent - or it might cause all his neighbors to team up against him. He has taken a city off Magic Science, but Donovan Zoi declared on him this turn. GKC did a war/peace, so he is still weighing his options. And finally, gavagai is inadvertantly turned into scooter's savior: he seems to be carving through GT, taking 3 cities off him in the last few turns.
We are slowly building up. Still stuck on Amica.
Cispus has finally built our first forge. It's rather criminal how long that took. We are switching it over to Heroic Epic, and I tried to trade Gav for some marble. Then it builds knights non-stop.
cretto di burri is interesting, didn't see something like this.
At first, "wtf" comes to mind, but with the background of a destroyed town... actually a really nice idea.
It really doesn't hit you until you're walking amongst the carved out paths that used to be city streets. Then you start to think about how people lived there and it's just an outline of what it used to be.
Our newest city is on the border with Commodore: Monasterio de Irache (which I realize now I should have named Bodegas Irache but oh well), where they put wine in their drinking fountain. This city is entirely for keeping our cultural control of the wine. We were down to 53% on that tile thanks to Commodore's more developed cities. Mather Point is going to be on infra for a while.
The short term goal is still to conquer Amicalola. We argue about the best way to do that. I'm increasingly becoming disillusioned with our strategy of never building infrastructure and then wondering why the world is passing us by. Amicalola has played his defense in a certain way and we need to adapt to that strategy. Instead we're playing into his hands and ruining our own prospects for long term growth.
Anyway, Knights being built in our Moai city of Finisterra and the Heroic Epic city of Cispus. Capital is building a few longbows because we see Commodore's galleons sniffing our coastline. Lots of middle-tier cities on knight duty as well, especially in the north.
A few of those key cities:
Goat Rocks isn't going to be a great capital in the long-term. It will work some cottages and probably hit 20hpt then build some necessary units like longbows, galleons, and missionaries. It's already doing the important job of pulling in almost 90gpt just from the shrine.
Finisterra is our first major production center to come online and has been 3-turning knights until Commodore's galleon showed up this turn and reminded me it's time to build decent garrisons in our coastal cities. I whipped a knight and pulled another back to make sure we were covered here - and that Commodore wasn't tempted. We'll continue knight production for the time being.
Cispus Pass finished Heroic Epic and now needs to grow and develop its tiles. We're going to take the farmed flood plains and start converting the plains into workshops here and get over a base of 32hpt - which will convert to 72hpt for units under HE. I don't think this city builds anything but units for the rest of the game.
