[SPOILERS] Pindicator emerges from the wilderness to play pb74

[pindicator]

Or even just playing them all at once? When he plays both before and after me then it's impossible for us to ever attack. Again, we probably won't, but we might depending on the situation, and he is literally taking away us even having the option by playing like this.

[pindicator]

181

Quite a bit of action as Miguelito is closing in on DZ's army. Wonsan changed hands twice and then was razed, and Magic Science jumped in and razed a city of DZ's in the north:




Down at Wonsan's ruins the game is getting complicated again, and here is where my complaint about Miguelito's turn playing comes in:




When we played our last turn Mig had moved half of his units, and we came into the game here to find more movement. I know he asked for more flexibility but ...

It appears he is trying to settle on that hill where the 4 rifles are sitting. Thanks to the worst possible timing on our point, we moved our settler away to jump onto a galleon and we aren't able to capitalize on Wonsan being razed. So I'm not sure if we're going to get anything out here, regardless of the turn splits. But if it goes that direction, we are going to look more and more at attacking Miguelito...




Here are metal's lands, and you can see Miguelito has stacked units into a number of cities. It looks like he is trying to deny movement to DZ's troops - but he also could be staking territory and trying to claim all of this for himself.




Mig landed at Marseilles this turn. So much for him offering the cow/stone site...

We did take Avignon:




Losses were a bit high with two attackers doing zero damage... We lost a treb, a knight, and our CR3 vulture.

Hitru was asking about us contesting Marseilles, but I dont' want to split our forces.

[pindicator]

I'm sorry, but this feels pre-meditated. The fact that he had been in the game for almost an hour but settles the contested area right as he sees me log in? Then in game he tried to argue that he should have a coinflip for the area? We had an established turn order of me - GKC - him which we agreed to let him switch with GKC as long as he minded areas we were in. Now he pulls this.

I hate this Parkin-esque type of gaming the rules for every advantage.

[pindicator]

DMs to and from Miguelito:

Since you wrote to that effect before logging off in game, if you want me not to move any units in the area before you then yes we need a hard split. Also I understand this is irritating, but I've been doing 3 to 4 way war splits for a few months now and am just happy when I can take a turnin the evening. Didn't have my mind set on peacetime splits on top. Hope you can see an error instead of malice.

I honestly can, and even though we are both at peace due to the fact we have been contesting over the same person (GKC) a turn split still needs to be maintained between us.  I thought that was something I made clear when I agreed to you and GKC switching places in turn order, and it certainly worked to your favor in other situations (like Lyons).  Perhaps this is over-sharing, but the turn you captured Wonsan we were going to make a move on the city.  So please understand a lot of this is still connected and decisions in a contested area - especially where we have 5 people fighting at various stages.

I'm sorry for insinuating that this was intentionally done; that was my frustration spilling out.  I had been looking forward to this turn for a while, including some diplomatic proposals to yourself.  So please look for those when we get this sorted out.

And then he just sent this now:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...edit#gid=0
fwiw, I fucked up here already, but nominally our game rules as per the spreadsheet in Commodore's OP state "coin flip for turn order when realized " for settler races. I did see your settler and should have called for the coinflip.
Your call if we do a coinflip, else just settle ahead.

So since he's contesting this I need lurkers to jump in and settle before I can play

I contend that this is part of the greater struggle over GKC's lands and I should be able to keep my turn order first going first and then settle. He wants to treat this as a separate issue and ask for a coin flip. But he says he saw my settler and double-moved anyway, so I call BS on his argument anyway.

[Mjmd]

Sorry this is partially my fault for not fully grasping your earlier request and the war situation involved. Anyways here is the lurker ruling.

In this instance while you two are not at direct war you are at war with the same player, in close proximity, and for the same territory and therefore part of the larger war turn order. In this case that would mean Pin plays first.

[pindicator]

Thank you for the quick ruling.

Now watch Miguelito take it out on me with a stack of Rifles

[pindicator]

182

After the drama unfolded, we got to settling cities:




This was the contentious one, and I did my best to smooth it over. For starters, it leaves the bonus food tiles for Mig. Second, I gifted him a Gems. Then I sent a couple more messages that I forgot to capture:

• 2g + Cow + Wheat + Ele for 10g + Banana - Hoping this tells him we want Metal's two cities and then he can have the majority of what's left on the continent.
  
• Fish + Copper + Mig War with Gavagai for fish + Copper + We War with Commodore - Self explanatory. We shouldn't fight and both of us should fight the leaders.
  
• Stone + Wheat + 40g on both sides. A little odder, but I'm trying to think of a way to signal that we both can get to 40 cities with this path. City in this case is the Settlers of Catan version of (2) wheat + (3) stone. I really doubt he gets it, but I hope he sees from all this that we want to work with him, not fight him.

From John Muir our knights will invade Metal: They can move N-NW and fork both metal's cities and hopefully remove him from the game in one turn. I think we need to wait until t184 to attack, though.

We also settled a second city this turn:




I'm running out of places I've been to and now am listing places I would like to visit.

We did a bit of a pass-by on DZ's island up north: the one city we spied showed 2 chariots defending. So we're loading up to conquer that island:




Hoping it's enough!

[pindicator]

Sorry, didn't get a chance to post 183 pictures, but it looks like Tarkeel & Civac are going to take their shot. I started a bunch of units for just-in-case whips and sent them a fish for fish.

If I don't like their response or unit movement then the metal invasion is called off and the knights are coming home and everything is getting whipped. That might give Miguelito a window to kick us off the island, but I'd rather lose that foothold on the eastern continent than Amicaland. (Also, if Tarkeel invades then we change our goals to conquering him.)

[pindicator]

183

We did get Fish for Fish back from Miguelito, which was promising. But then he also sent me this:




Oh I think I know what that means. Let's look at metal's cities and compare resources:




He wants to split metal. Even better: he'll let us conquer the difficult city stocked full of all metal's units. Gee, thanks. Anyway, that's not going to happen. I'm going to take both cities if I can, and settle the ruins of Seoul. And then let him have the rest of DZ because that's what I offered to him.

Side note: Someone needs to explain to Miguelito that listing what he wants under the "offers" tab is very confusing. I thought he was offering me Marseilles earlier because he had put Stone & Cow on his side and not mine. At least here I know he's backwards about it all.

At least, that was the plan up until I noticed Tarkeel's units:




As you know we loaded up knights that were in our north to go after DZ. Now I don't know if Tarkeel realizes they went onto boats and can easily unload next turn, but him moving like this screams to me that he sees an opening and is going to try to go for it with all his units before he falls behind. Either that or he's trying to hide a lot of units from Plemo in some odd maneuver.

So I sent the fish for fish to Tarkeel and decided my ultimatum. I figure I can have the eastern continent knights loaded onto boats in 2 turns, unloaded on the mainland in 3 turns, and up to any potential battlefield in 5. And if he attacks then it will take him 3 turns to threaten anything, so he would be capturing and I would be in position to counterattack. I just would need to get more catapults up north here.

[Qgqqqqq]

I think both are confusing - that's the point/difficulty of AI diplo. On the one hand you have two columns, each belonging to each civ. On the other they say 'offer' at the top. Which way should one jump.