Civ4BtS : KRAKATOA - #42 Pitboss APT

[Vicente_Pisha]

Perdón por lo escueto, tengo poco tiempo.


Felicitaciones al que ganó, y a quien lo asesoró. No es fácil vencer al tremendo jugador que es metraninja. El se quedó molesto, pero el problema es que realmente infunde mucho respeto con sus posibilidades.

Bueno, yo he sido quién ha ayudado en algunas cosas a Estilpón desde un poco después de declarar la guerra a Carlo, cuando ya tenía bastante ventaja en la partida. Le he hecho alguna sustitución en algún turno que él no ha podido jugar pero siempre ha sido él el que ha movido las unidades en todos los demás turnos. Yo le he dado mi opinión en algunas estrategias, como lo de buscar la victoria cultural, y también mi opinión militar en algunas cuestiones y en microgestión de ciudades y alguna cosilla. He visto la partida desde dentro pero con cierta objetividad y hay cosas que la verdad no he llegado a comprenderlas.

La principal es que no entiendo cómo Mocte permitió a Amini crecer tantísimo y estuvo tantos turnos vendiéndole tecnologías baratas. Amini se ha aprovechado de no tener que investigar. Su producción de comercio era ridícula pero se le ha permitido tener el triple de ciudades que los demás. Si la partida llega a ser más larga hubiese sido imposible detenerlo. Esta estrategia no la puedo comprender. Mocte tenía una oportunidad única de que Sury se desgastara en una guerra contra Amini que tenía superioridad militar pero Sury tenía económica. Pero Mocte le dio alas a Amini compensando esa superioridad económica de Sury vendiendo barato a Amini. Así decantó la balanza del lado de Amini. Entiendo la preocupación de Eli y Mocte respecto a Sury por su economía, preocupación legítima ya que de hecho ha terminado ganando, pero no entiendo que dejaran a Amini crecer tanto. Es decir, para mí ha perdido la partida dando alas a Amini militarmente, que era tirar piedras contra su propio tejado, y también no evitando la victoria cultural de Sury, que ha sabido anticipar. Y su posición económica y productiva era muy buena.

Con respecto a Carlo, Sury podría haberle arrasado fácilmente al principio de la guerra, pero dejó la mayor parte de sus unidades por si Ely y Mocte le atacaban por el oeste. Yo le aconsejé que fuera con todo a por Carlo y que se la jugara a que Mocte y Eli le quitaran alguna ciudad. La verdad es que era una temeridad y un riesgo y creo que hizo bien en no hacerme caso, pero si lo hubiera hecho, Carlo no hubiese aguantado hasta la llegada de los refuerzos de Amini.

Metranija, como siempre, ha jugado fenomenalmente, pero cometió un error al firmar el tratado con Sury. No sé si por un malentendido y creyó estar firmando algo que no era, pero quizás dio por hecho algo que no ponía en el tratado.

[Estilpón]

Claro que nunca te metiste, ni siquiera al inicio cuando me declaraste la guerra ni a pesar de la gran ventaja que tenias en ese momento, precisamente porque extender las líneas de suministro de una manera rápida hubiese significado exponer tus unidades en territorio enemigo y que yo podría destruirlas poco a poco aprovechándome de la movilidad que yo si tendría… y no vayas a poner la excusa que no avanzaste rápidamente porque Amini te declaro la guerra… Eso paso VARIOS turnos después

No pongo ninguna excusa. No me metí PORQUE NO HACIA FALTA: casi todas tus ciudades eran costeras ¿para qué iba a meterme en una zona sin movilidad y expuesto a tus ataques?
La idea principal era hacer razzias sobre tus ciudades y eliminar tu minipilas de unidades tan bien posicionadas: 6-7 catapultas al lado de la costa y cosas así. Con tu capacidad productiva reducida a 3 ciudades, desembarcar e ir a por ellas era fácil si fuera necesario, pero en su debido momento.

Tenías un ejército muy escaso y mal colocado (que no pasa nada, yo mismo he tenido ejércitos piojosos cuando no he podido, Stromboli sin ir más lejos) que no hubiera durado nada.
Te protegió el hecho de que Mocte y Eli no firmaron un NAP conmigo y por supuesto la asistencia de Amini, no tu estrategia.

Como viste en la guerra moderna, porque al finaaaal te diste cuenta, atacaba las ciudades con unidades para ir laminándote tu ejército. Lo mismo que en la primera fase. Y firmaste la paz porque la alternativa era la eliminación, y rapidito.

/QUOTE]
Bueno, ya que La tenias tan tan perfectamente monitorizada entonces dime… que unidades tenia yo por la zona
[/QUOTE]
Pues no tengo pantallazos, pero más que tú, más cerca de un puerto seguro y con más movilidad

Mocte te podrá decir cuanta flota tenía en mi costa oeste en el tramo final de la partida, un 50% llegó desde mi isla y el resto llegó del norte de Lavo.
La de mi costa este la podías ver tú, que fue la que te atacó. Seguro que llegas a una conclusión.

Mis dirigibles desde la isla ya veían tu flota. Y los dirigibles tienen más visión que los cazas, además de ver submarinos que los cazas no pueden ver.
Y que yo sepa, los dirigibles no se pueden embarcar y tu posición terrestre más cercana estaba más lejos. Por lo que tenía mucha más visibilidad que tú.
No tengo muy claro como defines una trampa si en el mejor de los casos tienes una ratio de pérdidas 1:1, teniendo en cuenta la diferente capacidad de producción entre nosotros.

Nunca me preocupó porque no ví transportes...
Seguramente se me escapa algo, pero bien.

Claro, claro, tu buen amigo y aliado Amini te dijo en sus conversaciones cuales eran sus estrategias y objetivos y se estaban coordinado para lograrlo juntos… Mientras a mi, su enemigo, con quien estaba en guerra, me tenia engañado diciéndome lo contrario… Ah! Espera! Que la cosa es al revés!

Confirmamos pues que no tenías ni idea de lo que ocurría en el tramo final de la partida. No pasa nada, no tenías toda la información.
Cualquiera de los otros jugadores te lo podrá decir, con seguridad el propio Amini y probablemente Mocte. Eli no sé si se había dado cuenta.


Como resumen de tu capacidad de análisis: iba 3º en el medallero a 30 de junio, pero según tú: "para Sury al principio maneje dos posibilidades y una de ellas era Estilpon Pero termine descartandolo porque veía que había jugado muy bien desde el inicio y se mantenía jugando bien...".
Clarividente.

PS. Lo de Chávez se barajó seriamente pero preferimos no arriesgar a encabronarte y conseguir el tratado contigo que me facilitaba la victoria
PS2. Respecto a la victoria religiosa, igual debes de releer mi crónica.

[Gigante Verde]

Pues no tengo pantallazos, pero más que tú, más cerca de un puerto seguro y con más movilidad


No tengo muy claro como defines una trampa si en el mejor de los casos tienes una ratio de pérdidas 1:1, teniendo en cuenta la diferente capacidad de producción entre nosotros.

Nunca me preocupó porque no ví transportes...
Seguramente se me escapa algo, pero bien.

Sip, hubiese sido una excelente batalla, y ya me queda claro que hubiese logrado mis objetivos...


Ratio de 1:1 Si hasta te di un previo de la estrategia que luego planeaba usar! Varios turnos antes metí un solo submarino en tu territorio, si es que hasta lo viste llegar!

Un solo submarino, sin ningún upgrade, y se enfrento a un destructor tuyo con upgrades... mi unidad de fuerza 24 contra tu unidad de fuerza 39, y mi unidad salio ganando! Necesitaste de otras unidades para destruir ese submarino!

Si eres al menos algo de lo inteligente que tanto te crees, con esto te darás cuenta de cual era la trampa que iba a usar y por donde iba la cosa...

Pero bueno, todo se quedo en el tintero... esos 11 submarinos llenos de misiles que no viste... Upps Se me salio! ... Nah, lo digo para que los demás sepan que el plan era simple: Mi flota destructores, acorazados y portaaviones que actuaba de cebo, a la distancia segura de 11 casillas de distancia de tus destructores y acorazados mas cercanos, pero a la vista de tus dirigibles para animarte a que los atacaras.... en cuanto posicionaras tus barcos a distancia para atacarme, yo atacaba primero con mis submarinos, bueno, en realidad con los misiles porque los submarinos solo se moverían 7 casillas dejando dentro del rango de los misiles a tus barcos ... y luego una batalla entre mis destructores/acorazados y los tuyos... claro, los tuyos iban a estar debilitados por los misiles Ya luego la batalla con tu segunda flota (sip, esa flota que tenias 4 - 5 casillas atrás y al sur de tu primera flota que mencione), dependería de los resultados de esa primera batalla

Peroooo, nunca te moviste, nunca posicionaste tus unidades a distancia para atacar mi flota cebo... termine pensando que de alguna manera habías visto mis unidades de respaldo... fuiste todo un aburrido en ese sentido


Ah, se me olvidaba! Tus submarinos! Jejeje, vamos sé sincero, dime que al menos viste a mis 2 submarinos (que no formaban parte de los 11 que mencione) navegando en el polo sur que correspondía a tu territorio (el de la isla y el continental)

PS. Lo de Chávez se barajó seriamente pero preferimos no arriesgar a encabronarte y conseguir el tratado contigo que me facilitaba la victoria
PS2. Respecto a la victoria religiosa, igual debes de releer mi crónica.

Con quien lo barajaste? conmigo no fue, por que es ahora que la partida termino que vienes a decírmelo. Pero tranquilo, ya estoy acostumbrado a la gente que sale con comentarios que no tienen que ver con el tema que se discute solo para insultar al contrario

Porque, cualquiera se puede preguntar, que tiene que ver la partida de Civilization con Chavez???

Toda esa lista de fallas que me achacas, no tengo problemas con ellas... jajajaja, si yo mismo lo dije en mis crónicas que yo era un desastre!

Sabes, me acabas de recordar una canción que habla sobre esa actitud tuya... por mi parte, a mi nunca me ha preocupado ser un zamuro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjMPqUkEEu0

[astrologix]

Enhorabuena al ganador, a sus seguidores del podio y a todos por participar en esta gran partida!!

Los puntos APT serán consolidados en la clasificación trimestral del 30 de septiembre, de próxima publicación.

[Vicente_Pisha]

Con quien lo barajaste?

Porque, cualquiera se puede preguntar, que tiene que ver la partida de Civilization con Chavez???

Conmigo, comentaba conmigo la partida, ya lo hemos explicado.

La partida no tiene nada que ver con Chávez. Solo era una broma. Nadie pretendió que fuera un insulto.

[Estilpón]

Un solo submarino, sin ningún upgrade, y se enfrento a un destructor tuyo con upgrades... mi unidad de fuerza 24 contra tu unidad de fuerza 39, y mi unidad salio ganando! Necesitaste de otras unidades para destruir ese submarino!

Creo que no te has dado cuenta.Ví venir tu submarino solitario y envié 2 destructores a la zona norte.
La historia era que si me atacabas tú por esa zona, eso me daba carta libre para atacarte TODAS tus ciudades: el pacto con Amini te protegía del ataque global pero existía la condición de que esa cláusula decaía si tú extendías la guerra a otras zonas.

No sabías que habían barcos míos ni cuantos, tenías 0 visibilidad, acercaste tu submarino, encontraste un destructor, lanzaste tus misiles, lo hundiste y... quedaste a mi merced. Y no lo digo por el submarino: abriste el melón y ahora yo podía atacarte cualquier punto y por cualquier lado.
Para mí un intercambio excelente, un paso para mi victoria.

No caí en tu trampa por una sencilla razón, no necesitaba atacar un flota estática sin transportes o apenas transportes en medio de la nada.
Si es como dices, ningún problema, hubiera acercado mi flota, recibiría misilazos por todas partes y me retiraría: mi movilidad era mayor que la tuya: no sé de donde sacas que iba a colocar mi flota en el rango de alcance de tus destructores

Ah, se me olvidaba! Tus submarinos! Jejeje, vamos sé sincero, dime que al menos viste a mis 2 submarinos (que no formaban parte de los 11 que mencione) navegando en el polo sur que correspondía a tu territorio (el de la isla y el continental)

Sin problemas, no ví más submarinos tuyos (creo recordar que alguno en la flota, pero no donde mencionas).
Ya tenía los dirigibles muy ocupados y solo pasaba ocasionalmente algún destructor, y también 2 submarinos míos. Por lo visto no nos vimos.
Por cierto, los míos llegaron hasta el sur de tu ciudad, cerca de la ciudad que fue mía y conquistó Amini.


No acabo de entender algo. Te dí por saco con submarinos y destructores por la zona de Pisa, donde tú tenías control terrestre y visibilidad ¿y tu flota se va a dar un garbeo por ahí? Supongo que formaría parte de tu estrategia o algo.
Bien, para mí finalizó estupendamente, espero que para tí también.

[Gigante Verde]

Creo que no te has dado cuenta...

No sabías que habían barcos míos ni cuantos, tenías 0 visibilidad...

Si, si, claro, lo que tu digas...



Ya me da flojera seguir hablando contigo sobre esa posible batalla... esperaba poder compartir contigo sobre el asunto porque al final fue una batalla que no se dio.Trate de que me dieras tu impresiones al respecto, pero lo que he obtenido es que "yo no veía nada, no alcanzaba, no entendía nada, no me daba cuenta de nada" Mientras que tu estrategia para esa posible batalla seria: Ser el tercero en el ranking APT y hablar mal de un muerto...

Definitivamente: Felicidades por tu victoria CULTURAL...

NOTA: Dejo aquí esa imagen rápida, por supuesto, editada también rápidamente para no mostrar mas información de la necesaria, porque quizás algún día pueda poner en practica esa estrategia... Para los demás que puedan tener curiosidad, la flota cebo la tenia ubicada a 11 casillas a la izquierda y 3 casillas abajo, midiendo desde la ciudad Beng Melea...

.
.
.

Pasando a otro punto de la partida: No entiendo por que hay varios opinando (o aceptando la opinión) de que Mocte estaba a menos de 10 turnos de ganar por Victoria espacial, según mis cálculos, para el turno de la victoria de Estilpon, a Mocte le faltaban por lo menos 18 o 19 turnos para ganar por carrera espacial, y eso, asumiendo que las 3 o 4 tecnologías que le faltaban las investigara cada una en apenas 2 turnos...

[Estilpón]

Ya veo que tenías algo de visión sobre mis ciudades, primero he pensado que era un pantallazo de Amini, que tenía un dirigible por la zona y no entendía porqué!
pero el amarillo de las "perlas negras" parece carolingio, no egipcio...Luego el clásico acercar 1 portaaviones y mirar con los cazas, pero no me cuadra con tu visión al sur de Harappa.
En fin "nunca te acostarás sin aprender una cosa más"
Mi flota estaba en 2 ubicaciones entre Beng Melea y Harappa, supongo que más tarde.

La buena estrategia te permite evitar errores tácticos (por eso no ataqué a tu flota).
Tampoco Amini cayó en la mía por si te sirve de consuelo.

Yo tampoco entendía lo que de Mocte estaba a menos de 10 turnos (de lanzar la nave, no de ganar). Una posibilidad es que tendría todos los elementos de la nave que podría construir ya preconstruidos y lo mismo con las investigaciones, pero nunca hice los cálculos, lo veía más lejano que mi victoria cultural, pero me ha sorprendido, sí.

Al final, lo importante es que durante el proceso -la partida- todos acabamos mejores jugadores que cuando empezamos.

[2metraninja]

I was Amini/Egypt.

The beginning of time.

I started in poor small land with my capitol on the far coast with couple of puny 1-tile islands in sight. Until turn 5 I had met 2 other nations, both coming from where tha land of my small peninsula was extending, so I told to myself: this will be one more dull game where I die due to someone choking me while I am without copper and horses. Well, my predictions started fulfilling themselves. I was Egypt without horses for my War Chariots and even without copper for axes and spears.

The Ottoman war.

At some point my ottoman neighbor showed up on my border declaring me a war. I was at 3 cities I think and had something like 3-4 warriors cumulative army LOL. I did not saw the attack comming, but even got accused I play the timer to deny chance to my enemy to declare me a war. I went Archery to prolong my resistance and accepted my fate which I was anticipating anyway. Even if I manage to defend some time, I was going to be overbuilt and overteched by all neighbors and finally someone else would finish me off even if Ottomans was unable for some time. I got brave in my counterattacks and Erdogan was not leading his army very good, plus Sid gave me amazing luck in crucial fights. I normally consider a 70& battle a loss and I do have a backup to finish the battle if this is important, but this time I was winning like 4 out of 5 50% battles. Even was winning some 20 and 30% battles. I got to become a bit more optimistic. This luck and the brave tactic I used against Ottomans gave me time to research Iron Working and finally got source of metal. With axes and spears things looked way better. I not only managed to push Ottomans back from my cities, but also took one great border city from them. We had a lot of fighting and I was not able to research anything. Other nations were skyrocketing, while I was barely able to pay for my growing army. Ottomans were in not much better situation, but anyway better than mine. I tried to sign peace with Erdogan many times, but he always wanted my cities and more, which I would not do. Then we had like positional war, where everything seemed calm for prolonged period of time. I was making my plans for sea expansion looking for more land to settle and most important horses for my War Chariots, but I had no luck in that - only couple of other poor islands I found. No one was willing to give me any help, so I was preparing to sell my skin expensive when the ottoman catapults start rolling. Then came the unexpected Ottoman chariot attack.

The great Ottoman chariot attack.

Ottomans managed to muster about 15 chariots and got me by total surprise. So far the war was mainly axes vs axes, so I had very few spears and very bad positioned units for reacting to a strong 2-movers attack. This move by Ottomans was genious and could had won them the war, but somehow Erdogan managed to screw this golden chance he created. At one point I was left at 3-4 cities, Erdogan could had taken a key city of mine, cut my territory in 2 and the road to my capitol open. I said to myself: well, it was a good fight, time to die. But he hesitated for 2-3 turns what to do after breaching my front and capturing/razing my best city-fortress. And in surprise war against someone who is any good, 2-3 turns are like whole eternity. Erdogan was very cautious in the war ever since its start, maybe relying that time works for him and he had no need to hurry and take risks, but this time his cautiousness was fatal for him. I managed to gather my forces and not only stabilize the front, but kicked the hell out of Ottoman army and force him to run, with only couple of units managed to escape. I had saved myself once again, but my economic was in ruins. My best city besides the capitol was razed, all other cities whipped to size 1-2, huge army demanding huge for my situation money and no help in sight. England/Eli spoke to me so I could at last speak back. I offered what I could to get the tech which allows me to speak so I can negotiate. I gave Eli settlers, workers and agreement to settle on disputed land. I had huge army compared to Eli and he could not just come and settle my land at that time.

The great unexpected generoucity.

I was going to start losing units next turn, when I got Literature from Eli and saw that Carlo had researched Currency. I wrote Carlo in open that I am in deep trouble and I seek for help. I told him I have not much to offer besides units in the same manner I gave units to Eli for technologies, and of course my friendship, which can prove more valuable than any techs and units that can be exchanged. Carlo was real powerhouse at that moment and I was suspecting he is looking at my South lands, which I was unable to settle due to the war with Ottomans and I expected he to laugh at my offer, or at least keep silent, but surprisingly Carlo replied favorably basically saying he sympatesize with me against Ottomans and that he will gift me Currency for the sake of our future good relations. Meanwhile I had changed my name to Amini. Amini was the girl, which iranian authorities had killed for not wearing hijab and Ottomans changed their name from Erdogan to the more generic Osman. This was funny little game for people's minds. This generous gift changed the game for me the second time after I repulsed the Ottoman chariot attack. Now things were looking way brighter. I was still backward as fock, but I had a way to generate gold, to talk to people and negotiate and a normal way to pay for technologies to whoever wanted to sell me.

The English affair.

So far so good, but I still had powerful Ottoman enemy at West and unsecured North border. I saw English power rise quick and research heading in military path and I was wondering when will England knock on my door and was already making plans how to divide efforts to defend on 2 fronts. Surprisingly, Eli wrote to me proposing to join the war on my side. WOW! Just WOW! This was so unexpected and so great news that I already felt like I might actually live a bit longer and even become some factor in the game. At that point Erdogan wrote to me that he finally thinks white peace is OK, and he even asked me for a way to compensate me for the war. I Calculated what economics would had had if not in war with him, multiplyed that by the turns we were at war and asked him for some 40 000 gold or some impossible sum just for the lulz, not that I was going to accept that when we were preparing to attack him and kill him with England. I was seeing Ottomans research catapults and horse archers and rushed England to prepare and join the war quicker. Despite not 100% ready, English involvement was too much for Ottomans to handle. Eli was very good at communication and planning, our view on the course of actions was almost identical and war went quite smooth. Erdogan concentrated on fighting with me, so I had few times bigger losses than Eli, but this was fine, I had a lot of units. With 1-2 minor local setbacks we managed to take all land and finish Ottomans without much troubles.

The other nations on the world scene.

So far I had limited my vision and interactions only to mey imminent neighbors England, Ottomans and HRE. Until now I was some miserable nation turtling somehow in obscure corner of the world. I was like 1/4 of anyone else on the top scoring positions economics and food, but I was sure that was going to change quick and drastic.
Korea was somewhere in the ocean and I did not even knew where.
Babylon was friendly, but was far away and had no much ways to help me, as he had problems on his own in the form of Azteca attack.
Azteca/Mocte was also far from me, but not much. He managed to conquer Babylon while we were fighting Ottomans and get such strong land, that it was clear he will be the main Khmer/Sury contender. We had exchanged few messages with Mocte, where we spoke in general good will tone, but I felt Mocte is not going to commit to any specific action. Then and there I started suspecting it is played by FLV lol, no offence meant, mate. But it is always like that - you sound caring and good meaning, but always cautious and ambiguous and rarely commit to some hard agreement.
Speaking of Sury, he had everything given to him by Sid on a silver plate. Sury had so much land to settle on, that maybe we 3 nations - me, England and Ottomans had fewer and poored cumulatively. Sury had expanded very slow after boxing in Babylon and Aztecas. By the time we finished Ottomans, he still had not settled all the juicy green lush land he was given. He even had 2 barb cities sizes 10 or more with green pigs and blackjack and hookers lol. Yeah, thats right - barb cities size 10 and up when my own capitol was size 8. He had boxed Mocte effectively and was not in a hurry to settle and use that land. I myself sometimes try to avoid showing very high on score to not scare other nations and make them reluctant to trade with me and eventually end up being embargoed or outright gangbanged. But this is made by growing horizontally and avoid growing vertically. You still settle all your good land, but use the whip to get those improvements in the cities while keeping low pop to avoid huge score. Sury was ignoring me initially, as I think he was expecting me to simply die to Ottomans, or because I was so in the periferal of the civilization and insignificant or he was helping the Ottomans, or all 3 reasons combined, but with the realization Ottomans will actually die and we will end up neighbors on the Narrow Sea, he started to be way more responsive and carefull with me.

The weird calm before the storm. Belle Epoque.

After we killed Ottomans and Mocte killed Babylon, new frontiers were made. Sury had solidified his border, just as Mocte. I was so-so, despite I had no visible way to expand and I needed more land. Eli had it the worst. Not only small land, but streched in some weird and hard to defend manner, logistical and defense nightmare. But whoever knows me, he knows I will never show ungrateful to someone who helped me when I was in need, so attacking Eli was not an option. Carlo after his explosive start and being one of the top nation sin the world for so long, had slowed his development very bad. He was just not moving anywhere. He was surprisingly weak military, despite having good land and economic. But he also helped me, so I would never attack or oppose him without provocation.
Mocte was way too powerful and way too far for my current situation.
Sury was the top dog clearly. Also clearly I knew this is the monster I had to kill if I ever wanted to achieve something worthy in that game. Besides outliving the Ottomans of course, which was something of a miracle and achievement by itself. But at that moment I simply had no means to do anything. My economic was in ruins, I had taken burnt land, had to settle few cities in the south jungles, I had sold almost all my workers and settler, had to produce/whip new ones, my army was big and well promoted, but outdated. I had no money and had so many technologies to catch up. I tried and got NAPs and technology trade agreements with everyone. I needed time to stabilize and grow a bit.

The Anti-Sury block

After the hot wars phase, Sury was looking like monster. Land, economics, prospects - everything. In diplomacy he was not doing very well I can say. Carlo was trying to bring us all 4 on the main continent to embargo Sury. Our combined demographics were barely surpassing Sury. And everyone was saying was afraid of military attack by Sury. So it was only natural that we agree to embargo Sury and promise each-other we will help defend one-another in case of Sury attack. We signed no treaty, or it was very loose written. I tried to warn Carlo that he is the most likely target, he said "yeah, I know, I am doing steps to increase my defence, dont worry", but I was seeing things are not looking good and he is not ready. I even bought some technologies from Carlo with units, Carlo had a lot of gold, he could upgrade, asked him to start drafting muskets, but he did not do any of those.
Mocte was saying he fears Sury attack, but in my opinion was also not ready. Thinking now of it, I think Mocte and Sury had secret NAP, but maybe I am wrong. Eli was also not looking ready to defend from Sury. I was most distand from SUry, so I was not feeling threatened much, but I switched to nationalism and started drafting. I gave away some units to my new allies Eli and Mocte and had sent like 15 units to Carlo in exchange of his techs. There I got semi-accused by Mocte I am sitting in peace and only watching lol. I was the poorest guy with worst land and I was gifting them units and I told them I am ready to pay tribute to feed those units that stand against Sury. Weird, but anyway. Mocte also demanded that we change our ongoing written agreement so I pay 1:6 instead of 1:8 we had agreed because otherwise it was unfair. Somehow we managed to keep the embargo and alliance safe and alive. I said to myself - well, I will be mediocre civ, who finds joy in coordinating with his neighbors managing to survive against monstrous SUry. Surviving till the end is not bad outcome in competitive game anyway.

The big East Ocean jump.

After few 1-tile islands chain I was investing in, I managed to expand my culture and make north tundra coast bridge to one bigger tundra island. Besides drafting units to give to my allies and defend my own coastal cities on the Narrow sea, I was only whipping/chopping galleys and settlers and was sending them in hope I will have way to make culture over other islands in the East ocean. In no time I had like 15 galleys in chain with 5-6 settlers and few axes as guards to defend the new settlements from eventual barbs. England had gotten Astromony from a hut like 15 turns ago, but I barely saw any galleons leaving English ports. For some reason Eli was not in a hurry to explore and eventually colonize the sea. Sury also had Astronomy for a lot of turns, but I never met any Khmer settlement on the islands until very late. So somehow I managed to get ahead of Eli and SUry in conquering the ocean with galleys against their galleons lol. I was settling and managing logistic like mad. Near the end of the expansion phase With great concentration I managed to research Astronomy for our team, as we were embargoing Sury and I knew I will need stronger ships to defend my new island settlent once Sury realizes I claimed almost all the islands and no one else from my allies had incentive to research navy technologies, because the main front was on the land. Eli was so surprised I settled almost all the islands, that came to ask me to leave some spots for him. I agreed, as considered him closest friend and battlefriend. But Eli ended up with only 3 small cities on 1 island. He even did not settled spots I had left for him on another island, so Sury came and settled there instead. I was worried Sury will realise the importance of those foothold he had in the East Ocean island group, but he did not. Lol, one comic situation Sury sees on some island my workers, but I am not settled my city yet, so he does not see my cultural borders. He writes to me: what are your workers doing on that island? He must have considered it all his rightfull property. I enter the game to see which exactly island he means, as I had workers on a lot of islands and there is new turn. I settle my settler and write to him: Well, my workers are there, because I live there and they improve the vicinity of my city. LOL. He never suspected I went so far. He totally neglected those lands and the opportunities they were giving. I knew how important those will be and I was preparing to fight for them. My fleet was 3-4 times stronger than any other fleet in the world. I was writing to my allies to increase their fleets, but they simply ignored me. Well, OK then.

The Khmer-HRE war.

I was looking at SUry's land and I was his preparations to attack Carlo. I knew they are not going along good in diplomacy and I was warning Carlo for many turns already to increase land defence, to build fleet, to prepare for imminent war, he agreed and di almost nothing. I was worried of course. All my resources was directed towards colonizing the East Ocean islands and archipelago group and I almost had no anything in my core, besides the farrisons on the coastal cities of the Narrow Sea. Despite free trade between 4 nations, ouralliance was still behind in technologies. We had no SOTLs, we had no canons, etc. I had almost no income due to tremendous expenses for the distant ocean settlements. So I could not help with research. I was thinking how best to find my role in our alliance to not be a leecher. I wanted to contribute with important help too. Eli, Mocte and Carlo had few times better economics than me, so I had no way to help with that. But if there is something I can do well, it is fighting and winning wars. I decided I will be the sword and the shield of our alliance. I invested in navy and land army. Whipping, drafting, money for upgrading, preparing, positioning, etc. I knew the hit will come from the Narrow Sea against Carlo and eventually me. So I had ships nearby, units hidden in galleons and prepared logistic chains. I was confident in my abilities, but also Sury was fearsome power and in war you never know, as war is risky endeavour, so I tried to talk him out of attacking. I openly told him that if he attack HRE, I will intervene. I am not sure if he decided this is desperate attempt with empty threat and decided to call my bluff, or he was overconfident that he can easily defeat me too, but he said he will do whatever he wants despite what others think or do. Actually once Sury attacked Carlo, I was so-so ready. Sury attack was very powerful, Carlo defence was near pathetic and very soon our South flank was in danger of full collapse. Sury took many HRE cities but most important one key HRE city on the isthmus, which gave Sury a channel to move his fleet East of the Narrow Sea and in 1-2 turns from my exposed core. I asked Eli and Mocte to intervene, but they said they are not ready, or they dont see way, lets wait and see what happens, if things become dangerous then we declare war to SUry, etc blah blah. What more you wait for when seeing our South front collapsing? I knew it is me who have to save the day, but I was not feeling bad about it. As I said, I was grateful to Eli and Carlo for helping me live through my darkest days, so I wanted to return them the favor. Also I said I wanted to be valuable member of our alliance by doing the dirty work. Far back on my mind was the knowledge that when everyone sees how I deal with war, they will be more reluctant to act against me and will be more cooperative towards me in later stages either from love that I saved them, or from fear I can kill them.
We started to coordinate with Carlo and in 2-3 turns I declared war to Sury, moved in HRE territory and we managed to put heavy defeat to the Khmerian army on the same important channel city. I also engaged with my fleet sinking number of Khmer ships in the Narrow sea making it impossible or at least unsafe for SUry to send evacuation ships. Also I cleared my core sea from Khmerian ships so things were looking a bit brighter and I could concentra on the Narro Sea and HRE territory. The defeat at that channel city was not complete, we could not finish all SUry units, as Suty had enormous amount of units there, but the vast number of units he had there sitting wounded did him actually a bad favor. He simply had not enough ships to evacuate them lol. So he was forced to actaully bring new units and upgrade more units in that city in desperate attempt to save his wounded units until enough cargo ships arrive to evacuate them all at once to safety. Next turn we finished the massacre with Carlo and claimed total victory over the monster lol. Sury tok this hard and decided to act way more cautious from now on. We kept talking normally, as I already knew he is and I highly valued him as player and personality based on previous games. One by one Carlo took back almost all his cities and war became positional. I wrote to Sury advising him to seek way to make peace, but he refused, saying he prefer to wage open war instead of being again embargoed and separated in cold war. I warned him this will get worse for him and he said lets see.

The attack on the Big Khmer Island.

Positional war, but only for Sury and Carlo I guess. I had already good amount of units and ships and I had to find good use for them. I was in Nationalism and was drafting for more than 10-15 turns non-stop. My new ocean island cities were mainly fisherman with a lot of food an almost no production, so I was drafting them mercilessly. I decided to split my army and fleet in 2. One part to go threaten Sury's big island west of his core. I was not sure I can take and hold it whole, as was too far from my core and too close to Sury's core. And I was not willing to risk opening my and HRE core by sending all units and ships across the whole ocean. In the ocean, I managed to easy take all Sury settlements and have defeated all his ships in the area. Way easier than I could expect. So I gained full control over the Ocean up to the Big Khmer Island. I did sent most of my destroyers with some transport ships, but I had left most of my land units near home. While I managed to take one city on Sury's big island, I suffered absurd amount of high-percentage losses as luck was clearly not on my side this battle and I decided not to push further as I was seeing he brought a lot of land units from his core and most of the transports. He also had sent some destroyers, but I was well able to defeat his fleet there so I was not afraid for the Ocean, but also did not wanted to go deeper in his waters towards his core, as there could had been ambushes. Anyway, I succeeded in making him to worry for his East front and weakens his West front.

The attack on the frozen isthmus cities.

There were 2-3 cities on the frozen North pole isthmus HRE land, which were settled or captured by Sury. I had concentrated there the bulk of my transports and land units. While SUry's transports and units were on the other side of his core defending his big island, I made landing on the frozen isthmus and took the first city by storm anihilating any Khmer unit in it. Sury tried to organize defence in the second city, but it only resulted in more casualties on his side, as I was well prepared. He withdrew his fleet and the new phase of the war started. I already had bases in the North sea. Despite I had defeated SUry in all and every encounter we had so far, I was like alone in this and my production and economic capabilities were nowhere his. Yeah, Carlo was adamant loyal friend and war ally, but he was failing to gather the units I advised him, he did not want to slave and draft drastic, he was late to react to plans I propose and in 2-3 turns situation has changed quite drastic. Some times he was great support with sending units to cover my wounded stack, or by giving me Great General where I need it, etc. but the level of coordination and cooperation was not ideal. He even sometimes was missing turns I think, etc. But things were going OK. I had gathered already about the same power as Sury and I was getting more bold in my plans.

The indecissive alliance.

I was getting more and more ambitious as war was going well, but others were nowhere enthusiastic as me. Eli was in some kind of lethargic sleep. Mocte was as always ambisuous, basically agreeint with me that we have to attack SUry and defeat him, but actually not doing anything in this regard. Carlo I guess was happy that he was in relative security and was making some plans how we defeat Sury. Korea was in heavy isolation and barely replied to me from time to time. I though he was our natural ally as he must have been afraid of SUry might too, but actually Korea was neutral with slight allegiance to Sury. For example Wang asked me to remove my scouting airships from his territory to not spy Sury. I did that but wrote in my notes black point for Want. In the beginning when I declared war to Sury I did not wanted to go the full length and kill Sury, I just wanted to save Carlo and I wanted to keep Sury as scarecrow, because it was the fear from him that was bonding our alliance and once Sury threat was gone, our alliance would be gone too and I was not ready and did not wanted to fight on 2 fronts against Eli and Mocte. But with the advancement of the game, I decided we need to get rid of Sury, as we simply could not outtech him. He was always on par with us. Self-research, espionage economics, but he never fell behind and was staying a real threat. So I asked my allies to actually kill Sury and save ourselves troubles in the future. I asked no less than 4-5 times all of them to sign military alliance, so we can coordinate war plans and research path, but hit wall of silence each time. Last my attempt in this direction was after I took the frozen Isthmus from Sury. I already had plans and was thinking I can defeat Sury on my own, but somehow I wanted to share the victory with my allies to not turn them on me after the war. My NAPs with Eli and Mocte were expiring soon and I preferred to not take chances. With signing military alliance, Sury was going to be dead in no time. I took the efforts to draw a map where we all 4 receive equal pieces of Khmerain empire, despite military power and possible involvement in the war was clearly going to be not equal. I had fought wars for 9/10 of the turns in that game while others had the comfort to build in peace, but I decided to not discriminate and offer equal war bounty. All I asked my allies was to agree on signing official military alliance and prepare as much units as everyone could in 5 or 10 turns positioned to attack Sury and report how much everyone plans to bring, so we can make plans and predictions how to fight the war. Guess what. Mocte had some other ideas how to distribute the spoils, but it was OK. He at least sent report on his expedition corpus, despite he complained that he will have to be the one who will get the blunt of the war and share equal prize with everyone else. LOL, how is he getting the blunt of the war when I had already lost like 100 units in that war and I had the most powerful and mobile attacking army? Mocte had tens and tens of fighters just sitting and he did not even helped me so far by declaring war to Sury and only making air fights with him and destroying his precious cottages. He did nothing to help in the war efforts so far, he and Eli even stopped researching and both accumulated some insave 20 000+ amount of gold, while I was making 200 gpt and was using each coin to upgrade and purchase units. Carlo and Eli only had the courtesy to say they are OK with the spoils, but did not bothered to say how manu units they can bring or to start move any army or fleet.

The lone wolf.

We have a saying that the wolf has thick neck, because he does his job himself. Yeah, now translating it I realise it does not sound very well, especially when wolves are known for hunting and fighting in packs, but anyway. Means that if you want something done, you must be able to do it yourself. So I decided I dont need those ungrateful and unrealiable allies and I will defeat Sury on my own.


The first Khmerian port fleet disaster.

I made plans how to sink the mighty Kherian fleet numbering about 150 steel war ships. My own destroyers and battleships numbers were lower, but I had invested in carriers. Carriers and fighters are great way to move power from one place to another. I started with casual air dueling against Sury. I was using only exceptional 2 and 3 star fighters and soon enough I managed to reduce the Khmerian fighters significant. Sury was producing about 5-10 new fighters each turn, but I was producing 10+ and I was losing 1 fighter while he was losing 4-5 each turn. So in one moment I managed to secure stable air superiority. Sury's fleet was divided in 2 big stacks and one huge. The 2 smaller were on ports in the Narrow sea. Carlo helped me with 1 or 2 Great Generals, so I was able to make enough fast transports that will reach those ports in enough quantity. I filled them with marines and well promoted tanks and waited for the right moment. I knew Sury will make the mistake I need. Because I was disappointed in my allies, I spoke with Sury again telling him I will inflict him yet another great defeat. I dont know why I warned him. Maybe I was cocky and did it for the lulz, maybe I wanted to put pressure on him to make him nervous and do more mistakes, or maybe simply it was because of my need to talk with someone who is interested about the war lol. Sury said my predictions are not alway scorrect, so he is optimistic. I said OK, I warned you. Mocte helped by giving me the Refrigeration tech in time and in one beautifull turn I launched the attack. Fighters from my carriers shot down the patrolling Khmerian fighters and cleared the sky. Despite heavy losses this time on my side as luck was not with me, I had accumulated enough resources in the sky, in the sea and in land units. I took both ports sinking like 50+ ships in this operation. Destroyers, battleships, transports and carriers. In the following turn Sury took out of nearby ports all his remaining ships in the region and attacked my naval group, but managed to kill just few ships, most notably 1 carrier full of fighters. I was hoping he will do that and in retaliation I sunk all of his remaining ships in the Narrow Sea. Eli and Carlo helped me with that by giving me 1 ship each to not risk my transports in 50% battles with Sury remaining 2 wounded battleships. I returned those ships with added promotions to them to their respective owners later. So no more enemy ships in the Narrow Sea and my whole fleet and land army was free to move further. Also Khmerian sky was open and I started to bomb strategic resources and good food supplies. Sury was unable to repair all damages, as I had like 100+ fighters. I did not destroyed a lot of cottages though, as I was not sure if I will not get that land to use and enjoy those juicy towns myself in short time.


The second Khmerian port fleet disaster.

The remining Kherian fleet was not a joke either - more than 50 ships - mainly battleships and detroyers. Sury moved it away from my reach and few turns we just looked at each-other, but I knew SUry is going to make a mistake again, so I prepared my things to be ready to take advantage of this mistake. After 2-3 turns this mistake happened. Not where I expected it, but still great opportunity. Sury had decided to move his fleet in one fort on the coast he built I think especially for this reason to avoid being bombed by my fighters from carriers. That is OK, but he put too few land defenders there thinking he is out of reach of my supertransports. I made the move, bombed the **** out of his defenders and by small abount of luck and magic spice, I took his fort and sunk again 50+ ships Was almost comic to do this just few turns after I sunk his other half of the fleet again in dock. This was real disaster for Sury. Now he was laying totally open to my attacks. He had a lot of land units still, but how long he can resist against my horde of fighters and spies which I was sending this way? All his land was going to turn to wasteland, his beautiful huge cities was going to starve to death, his army was going to disband due to no money, I was going to take his big island, as there was virtually nothing to stop me, he was running with WOODEN ships out of the coastal cities I was going to take next turn. I had plans for taking 3-4 of his inland cities right next turn from the Narrow Sea. I had GG units prepared and so on.

The great blunder.

Then I got emotional. I felt pity for the poor Khmerian bastard. He never said a bad word about me. He played not great, but still very good, building that marvelous empire. And then comes Carlo, who I knew who the player is and despite being loyal friend, I know from personal experience he is pain in the ar$e to those he happens to does not like at this game. So Sury plays his cimcity. Does no harm to anyone, but others embargo him and stubborn Carlo seeks conflict with him on purpose. Yeah, if it was me in SUry position, I would had subjugated efficiently one by one all others before they are able to do much to oppose me, but not being successful imperialist is not a sin and a reason to want to destroy Sury. Also I knew he is realible and he keeps his word. Also I am afraid Mocte is holding his money and is preparing for Space Race. And even if I conquer Sury - which I was going to do in no more than 10 turns - I am sure - then our NAP with Eli and Mocte expires, I am left with no working economics on my own, so I cannot efferciteve research. I will have huge lush new green lands and huge cities, but those lands will be scorched and those cities will be in 10-15 turns unrest. So before I can put a working economics in place, I will be totally out of the Space Race. I could had won even Space Race, but that is long and tedious planning game, which I preferred to not have to play due to RL busy life lately and general uncertainities with races. I was not seeing Domination as variant either, as I was not going to raise hand against Carlo or Eli who helped me in the past. Despite I saved Carlo's life and someone would say my debt to him was fully paid and more, I woudl never betray someone's friendship. We never extended our initial written agreements, we just went by our honor and our word.
This is the moment I decided to spare Sury's life. Both for the santimental reasons I mentioned and for the practical ones. I saw a way to win the game by AP victory and even be "the wolf is satiated and the lamb is whole" as we say. Yeah, a lot of sayings about wolves we have I guess lol. I wrote to Sury telling him I now have the possibility to destroy him, but prefer to not do that. He admitted he knew what will happen, just did not expected it to be so soon, he was self-pity he did those mistakes that helped me to defeat him. This is true he made mistakes and made it easier for me, but the main thing is he lost the initiative long ago and never tried to regain it, so his defeat was inevitable. How on Earth you expect to defend in deaf defence against competent and motivated attacker? Sury almost had no transports, which allowed me to keep my coastal cities and tens of island cities virtually empty. I was not afraid he will attack me, because he have no way to bring his enormous land army on my turf. Keeping your fleet separated and in ports. Why? And so on and so on.

He asked what I propose for sparing his life. I said I will spare his life, but I want him to help me to win via AP victory. He said he have only one condition - to let him take his cities back so he becomes naturally in second place. I said OK and please do not attack seriously Carlo in this time, I cannot force Carlo to make peace with you, but you will not have any problems defending yourself, just dont hurt him. He said OK, let me check turs for AP votes and once I tell you when the votes will be, consider we have a deal. A bit later he sends me message informing me when the voting will be. ANd I consider we have a deal.

Between my proposal to spare Sury's life and his message with the turns left for the votes confirming we have a deal, I play my turn, but since I am still not received his confirmation, I play cautious, because he may not say we have a deal and then I have to go on and continue conquering him. I position my ships and fleet to take 3-4 of his cities and chase his wooden fleeing ships, but do not even sink them, just cut their way so I can sink them next turn if he dont confirm we have a deal.

Next turn, but after I got his confirmation we have a deal, I get an official proposal in the APT portal. I It says "lets make it official and there are some terms like: We sign cease fire, but not NAP, Sury proposes and votes what Amini tells Sury, Sury does not attack Carlo East of whatevercity unless Carlo attack Sury from the South or East or whatever, No espionage between us etc, etc. I tell to myself: This is him, he wants to be sure I will not go back on my word and anyway destroy him. He is not trusting my word enough, which is rude, especially after the history we have and just after I have agreed to spare his life and did not attacked him last turn and even let him take the silver medal, but anyway. I will show understanding to his fears and as a generous victor and sign this so he feels secure. So I sign it and forget about it.


Post fight chill.

I lower my guard, as I know we have a men's word how to end the game. I am not afraid of anyone and I casually play turns waiting to accumulate enough votes for AP victory. I check the turns left, something wrong happens, turns change, but I am not worried. Sury gave me his word he will support me to win via AP.
Meanwhile Sury writes me that by mistake he attacked Carlo east of whetever is written in our written agreement. But I am like: no problem mate, we have our men's word, you promised me to not harm Carlo, what is written does not matter. I just ask again Sury to not harm Carlo and he says dont worry. I said to my allies I was running on negative income and was going to fall in bancrupcy and start losing units, which was truth so I sign cease fire with Sury. I of course did not tell them I have agreement with Sury for AP victory to not give them ideas.


The great mishaps and shenanigans.

I am not concentrated at all and I make one bad mistake by switching out of Organized Religion. I have cities with monasteries in my core, so I can continue to produce missioneries, but it is the distant island cities that need to be converted. I airlift those priests, but it takes 1 turn to move to city with airport as the cities with airports and those with monasteries are not the same ones. Then 1 more turn to airlift to the distant island city, then 1 more when he can spread. And missionaries are limited to 3 in existence and in production, So I can start producing the next one just after the previous ones arrived in destination and attempted spread. And if he fails, this is already disaster. Also, I see Mocte and Eli start spreading Hindu in their huge cities. Then I think it is some very good alertness from those guys and I give them credit for that, but now after I know what Sury did I can bet 5 leva (which is about 2 beers) that it was him who divulged our deal. Anyway, I am not worried, because I have more population than them and it will be enough for AP victory combined with the Khmerian votes after I spread Hindu to most of my own cities. So date comes for the vote and I see I am not ready yet, so I tell Sury to propose something else. So no vote this time.

Meanwhile Sury starts conquering city after city from Carlo, for whom was not enough 100 turns of war to prepare for attack from SUry. I asked him so many times to build stronger army and fleet, but as I already said, I knew Carlo is stubborn and sometimes irrational. None the less, he is my friend and I was calm he is safe from serious harm, but start to worry. I ask Sury what is going on, which cities are being taken, then SUry turns on the ice chill tone and tells me Carlo must be happy if he does not kill him at all, because he was stupid enough to attack him from East. later it turns out it was attack by 1 submarine lol. What is this ****? I ask Sury to not harm Carlo and he says twice OK. Sury attacks Carlo behind that imaginary line he drew himself in his treaty and I say OK, but later just as Carlo makes wrong step (it is also my mistake I did not told Carlo about this clause, but I was still relying on Sury's word.) I am busy and dont know what to do about Carlo, also I feel bad for overlooking to secure my friend and ally. I wrote to Carlo to not give in, that I will support him by giving him army, but it is too late. In the meantime, Carlo signs peace with Sury and agrees to whatever clauses Sury proposes. I start to suspect Sury is up to something, but I say to myself: "Dont get paranoid, he is a man of his word, he can never be act like such ungrateful bastard. Dont even think about asking him what is going on, because this will insult him." Little I knew.

Next vote comes, Sury sends me a message informing me after he proposed voting and saying he hopes I am ready for the vote. Even in our written agreement it say I will tell him what to vote and by firing the AP win vote and voting for me he is telegraphing to the whole world what we plan. Surprisingly, Carlo and Wang vote for me, so I am just few votes short of winning. Righ that turn Sury switches out of Hindu, halving his votes and I slowly start to realise I was tricked. I ask Sury "what the hell man, I though we had a deal - I spare your life and let you finish second, and you vote me to AP win?" He says: "I am sorry you feel this way, but you must have been mistaken. It is not allowed by the rules, so I cannot promise such thing, Whatever is written in our official agreement, this is in power." I am ofcourse disappointed, as I never protested he broke our official agreement, nor I am sure how is keeping your word prohibited by the rules. I cannot decide by whom I am more disappointed. By Sury, who betrayed my good will and generoucity to spare his life or by mysef, who actually misjudged and believed him. But I have a principle to not complain when tricked, but to make sure there will be no next time same guy will trick you and also you make sure to bleed his nose next time you can.

The Korean war.

I am pleasantly surprised by the fact Wang voted for me. He have a lot of big nice cities and only 1 with hindu. I see great opportunity to spread Hindu there and with his votes I can easily win next vote. But with my suspicious about Sury affairs I decide to be more prepared and less gullible this time. I quickly assembly and send a fleet near the Korean continent. Turn switches while I am at work and I have little window of opportunity to declare war if need be and I know each turn counts. I decide to write to Wang asking him to sign an official deal where I describe well what I thought Sury agreed on. To turn to Hindu and not switch out of it, To produce each turn 3 missinaries and use them to spread, etc, etc. I tell Wang I have to declare war this turn to not lose it, but if he signs the deal which have also a NAP clause, we are immediately back in peace and I am sure I get what I want. I declare war and enter his teritorial waters, but do not attack or destroy anything, thinking I did things right this time. Oh, the irony. Wang/HBHR writes me back that if I had asked him politely, he would had most likely did what I want, but this way he feels this like vassalage, so he will not do it and will resist me with whatever he can. I am equally surprised and ashamed. Surprised, because he was complaining he have no time to play, he misses turns, etc and I was offering him way to finish the game in 5 turns and stay where he was in the ranking. Ashamed, because due to Sury's treachery I let myself suspect other honorable players of treachery too and I wanted everything written and set in official agreement. We have a saying (phew, not about volves this time) that "The biggest punishment for a liar is not that others dont trust him, but that he does not trust others." Well, in my case, the biggest harm Sury did with his lies was that made me dont believe the other people.

I say to mayself: ANyway, lets do this the hard way. I was not at all prepared for real war, I mostly wanted to project power and get what I want from Wang. I could had sunk his fleet, but I try my luck with his capitol, but no luck at all. I kill what I can and damage his fleet. In retaliation and with some good luck he sinks few of my ships. In retaliation and with the late coming reinforcements I take his capitol and sink his whole fleet which was hiding there battered after the 2 battles. So far, so good you may say, right? Actually there my problems started. As I had prepared the expedition corpus in hurry and did not expected to have to fight at all, I had no spies with me who to switch Wang out of slavery and nationhood and in State Property if necessary, switch him to my religion and run counterespionage. I had accumulated good amount of espionage against him and he had just 200 or so points, sO I said to myself: no problem, all will be fine. Little I knew. Wang used ALL his money, slider, production and so on to acumulate enough espionage points towards me and had sent spies to his capitol. Due to the enormous bonuses for his culture and religion and sitance, next turn I enter the game to see I am switched out of State Property. Which for me is huge hit. I lose like 2000 gold per turn, 1000 hammers and 300 food isntant each turn. Smallest fisherman village costs me 45 gpt. I had sent and gift earlier ship with spies to Carlo and ask him to send them in closest city to be prepared to switch me back to what I want, but he loses the ship to Khmerian attack and said he cannot send spies now due to maritime blockade. SO I just have to sit and suffer. I make counter-easpionage mission to Wang, but it is not enough, he switches me out of Hindu too. Adding harm to the insult, seeing I destroyed most of his army and all of his fleet, he knows he is defeated and Wang whips down to size 1 each and every of his cities. So no more juicy size 20 cities to be converted and vote for me.

It is bad, but it is what it is. I keep pushing and after 4 turns Korea was no more. One of those 4 turns I missed my turn and decided not to ask Astro to reload. Wang killed some group of my units, which obviously contained one of my GG units and gloated on me saying "Pity your Great General died", but I dont blame him, he must have been emotional for his nation being brutally killed and most likely he did not knew I missed my turn at all. He tried to win more time by relocating his last unit stack and popping cultural borders, but against somewhat modern combined army it is hard to defend with small groups. I killed all of his units and took all his cities with aviation, sea embarkments, rockets from submarines, paradrops, special forces, etc.

Kinda late realisation and plannig accordingly.

SO i am swithced out of Hindu and I am not eglible to win via AP vote and even no eglible to be elected Pope. Sury switches out of Hindu and his votes are halved, I am not Hindu, so vote is between Sury as AP resident and Mocte and Mocte wins so now he is Pope. Sury is now obliged to vote for what I say, but he is no longer Pope, so he will not put vote for religious victory, and Mocte will not propose that for sure, as he have no obligations to me. It was maybe that time when I also realised Sury was very close to Cultural Victory LOL. I had watched the victory screen so many times and somehow missed that Sury already have 1 legendary culture city and 2 close candidates. From bad to worse. I knew that Sury tricked me and I was preparing to have the opportunity to show him what I do with ungrateful lying ba$*****. Mocte writes me that he demands I move my fleet away from his side of Korea. This is while I am in hot war with Korea. WTF?!? I write him back that there is no reason to panic and ask him to stop putting his enormous espionage points. He promisses to stop the espionage, but does not does so. I am mad and fed up from his void promisses. I knew Mocte is aiming for space and decided to make preparations to stop him from achieving this with spies and army if needs be, as our NAP was running out in just few turns. I was going to propose to Mocte to sign a deal to not build any space parts for 40 turns or else I would had attacked him. When I realised the imminent threat of Sury winning, I had to change plans. I wrote to both Eli and Mocte telling them about this and telling them we need to stop Sury from winning. Mocte said nothing about this, while Eli said he have no any agreement with Sury. At that point of time Eli was still in his lethargic sleep. He had like 20 000 gold and not researching anything for like 20 turns, despite I told them both I can use Modern Jets and Gunships very well while I was still fighting Sury. Eli was at fourth position scorewise and with weak army and with no any chances of winning the game or even climbing upscore on his own. I told Eli I will kill Sury, so he will become at least bronze medalist and if Mocte refuse to sign the no-spaceship deal I would kill or severely damge him too, so he can even get silver medal and my long time friend Carlo who was dead last on score half the game would get Bronze. All I wanted was that Eli stops ANYTHING else he is doing and prepare to sabotage one of Sury cities culture. Switch him out of culture civic, destroy cathedrals and making unrest each turn. I told him I will send all spies I have and will keep sending as I produce, but he have to have at least 20-30 spies and more for each turn he plans to sabotage. We had time. Like 8-9 turns It was doable. We needed just each turn to send 20 spies. Why build anything else if this is the only thing I needed from him? By that time I knew it is Chinchin, which no offence to the other spaniards, but in my humble opinion he is the best civver amongst you guys. I was sure he will make it. I hate to rely on someone else's doing or not doing something - remember the wolf with the thick neck - but I had no other chance, as Carlo also said he have clause to not make espionage against Sury.

Sudden MFP

I never knew by heart how this end-game mark works, because up until then I usually resolve the games I am able to. I think there was just a single game where I reached that phase without diying or winning earlier. So now we suddenly cannot talk and sign treaties. And have all existing treaties to end in 10 turns. I said to myself - bad news is I cannot ask Mocte to not build the damned space ship, which I was sure he is after, but on the bright side, Eli have to stop Sury from getting third legendary city just 10 turns before my NAP with SUry is cancelled 15 turns earlier. When MFP hit, I had like 25 more turns NAP with Sury and now I had to wait just 10 turns before showing on his doorstep and teaching him painfull lesson on good manners. I was checking each turn if Eli managed to make revolt in one of Sury's cities and each turn I got no news. I was telling myself: "He have huge army of spies there and just waits for those 5 turns stationary bonus so he get better odds and costs less spy points. Though Eli had like 50 000 or 70 000 spy points against SUry lol. I had asked Eli to send that amount of spies because I had played that game earlier. Not sure if it is the mod or something else, but I had case in previous game where I was trying to slow cultural victory where I had 36 spies fail and just the 37-th did the job. So I asked Eli to bring there 20 spies EACH TURN. The victory screen was showing 16 turns for last legendary cuty, but I knew he must have at least 1 Great Artist, so those were 10 turns at best before legendary. For those 10 or so turns we had 200 spies would had been enough I think. Turns out Eli managed to use 10 or so spies. Only I mylsef gave him at least 20 spies. I dont know how it ended like this. Maybe they got caught a lot like 95% of each, ANyway.

Preparing for Armagedon. Last and final disappointments.

I had good enough land, sea and air forces, but I wanted to take no chances. I aimed to nukes. I have fought few successfull nuclear wars, I know how to do it and have put a lot of giants to their knees this way. I have calculated that I need 6 turns full research to get nuke alowing tech Lazer, then give it to both Eli and Carlo so there are 3 nations in the game who knows Lazer, then finish Manhattan next turn, then build 9 tactical nukes in the next turn and load them in previously prepared swift quick submarines in reach to niuke the hell of the 2 Khmerian Legendary candidates cities and then take them and raze them in the same turn. I had prepared cascading overflows from finishing and whipping units in some cities, I had grew enough population in other cities, had planned everything and just needed constant flow of money to be able to research at 100% for 4 turns. I had also put all production besides those 9 cities in producing beakers to speed up the research of Lazer. And I asked my friends Eli and Carlo 1000 gpt each. THey both refused. LOL, what are you storing those money for? To bring to the afterlife? We had agreed with Carlo that we will nuke Sury and I had told Eli I will silver crown him after I kill Sury and they both refused mere 1000 gpt, which was not even 1/2 of their incomes per turn and they had thousands just sitting. Then I offered them gold per turn for their lump sums. Like loan. With 10% interest. I ask for 2000 and I offer 210 gpt. Again no luck. So I had to halt researching Lazer for 2 turns. During those 2 turns Sury got another Great Artist and double culture bombed his last legendary candidate and won the game by culture. My final turns were real pain to play. To rely and expect someone else to do and each turn to be disappointed. To plan everything so carefull and to know it may simply not work, because it is not in your hands to ensure you will have the chance to put in action your plan or not.

Afterwords.

As I said I got to be disappointed by everyone, myself included. I wont congratulate anyone due to the same reason. The golden medalist got that medal by breaking his word and hiding behind some legal mumbo-jumbo. Shame on him. The silver medalist lost already won game. Shame on me. The bronze medalist got only bronze, when he could have won the game also, but was always on the fence, always waiting, always undecided. Fourth place missed a silver medal. Fifth place missed bronze medal. Sixth place missed finishing the game alive. Babylon died so easy, despite I warned him about the coming attack. Ottomans played weak and lost already won war when he hesitated with his chariots, Not to speak about refusing England offer to double me lol. So shame on us all lol.

Still, this is a game and the game was very thrilling, full of turn-arounds and rolacoaster of emotions. And when losing you learn more than when winning. So I will thank you all guys for the game. Only bad thing is the championship is ending. It is not enough that it ends, but it ends with such emotion at least for me. I will miss you all guys. No offence meant. Hope we meet again in civ somehow.

Love and peace in the real life.

[Estilpón]

Mi respuesta a Metraninja ya estaba escrita por aquí:

Metraninja siempre ha cumplido su palabra. Y no es el único caso. Varias veces he sido aliado de él, a las buenas y a las malas, y sin queja. Mi comportamiento con él, porque es de fiar, siempre ha sido de hablar mucho, pactar lo que sea y luego los pactos caducan pero mantenemos la palabra.
Otra cosa es que al final del proceso haga un poco la paz por su cuenta o informe tarde, mal o no informe pero sin dejarte solo.

Supongo que él esperaba un comportamiento similar aquí. En este partida era distinto: era mi rival, no mi aliado, y aún en ese caso, por supuesto cumplí lo pactado, pero no más allá de lo escrito. Distinto hubiera sido de ser aliados: cumples lo escrito y más si hace falta.

Y lo pactado se cumplió. Y como dije anteriormente, pude sabotearlo antes (sacando Medios de comunicación), pero eso me pareció incorrecto.
Y no voy a "defenderme" de algunas acusaciones/valoraciones que se han hecho, es un gran jugador, el mejor de los que jugaban la partida, y aún está escocido por la derrota. Y sí, Chinchin también es muy bueno, más que yo de hecho.

PS.Gigante Verde tiene la respuesta de ¿quién iba tras la victoria religiosa? en el largo post de Metraninja.
PS2. No había pensando en el puente de submarinos para nukear, pero sabía que no llegaba a tiempo. Tampoco podía nukear Banteay...
PS3. Todo el mundo le vendió techs durante toda la partida, incluso yo mientras quiso comprarme.

Saludos,

Yo me he llevado varias lecciones valiosas.

[2metraninja]

Nope, the deal was I spare your life and even let you finish second, while you vote me winner by AP victory, I even checked our messages to be sure it was not only in my head. And you tricked me because you knew very well what you are going to do at the moment you said we have a deal. The one who spares your life shows generoucity, the one who does not help genuinely fulfill what he promissed to do for sparing his life and works to rob him from victory shows ungratefulness. This is in my moral book. You are absolutely right you dont have to defend yourself. It is just a moral issue and moral is like the ar$e - everyone have his own, some are great, some are not that great, but he lives with it. If you trully feel 100% proud about your win, then all is good for you. You tricked me, good for you, I believed you, and now feel sad - it is my own problem.

See, I dont regret losing that game. I am thanking you for saying I played best in that game, I also think I did great, given my start and initial war, and I am proud of my performance, but in my belief also I did what was right and you did not. I have won enough games in this championship and in 5-6 other championships. I have also on my own gave away wins and medals in this very championship when rules were 100% on my side, just so I keep my word and follow what I believe is right to do. But that is just me.

In one game I was going to defeat Ot4e and win the game by domination. He was trying for AP victory, but I was releasing colonies, which is allowed by the rules and that was making the AP vote invalid each time he put a proposal. He protested and asked for admin ruling. Astro told him it is allowed and fair, then Ot4e told me that he feels this is unfair and if I release more colonies, he will stop playing in the championship. I dont like such childish extortion, but Ot4e is great civver and I preferred to lose the game than to lose a fellow civver and good friend. So I stopped releasing colonies and he won by AP, I got second. Despite he stopped playing in the championship after this game anyway, but we are still good friends and I dont regret losing that game.

In another game Mack helped me survive very powerful attack from HBHR. After this HBHR offered me his WHOLE army if I promisse to kill Mack and if I had taken this offer, I would had killed Mack most likely as we did not had any written NAP or agreement and he did not expected attack from me and then I would had won the game. But I refused, how can I turn on the one who saved my life? Later in that game I had chance to win again by AP, but I did not challenged Mack's win and became second. So that is 2 golden medals so far.

In my first game at this championship I rivaled Buddah. But he was in way better place, had way more land to expand, more nations to trade with, more nations to conquer and vassalaze direct or indirect to him, etc, etc, so he became real monster in the end and was about to win by culture. I was the only nation in the game out of 18 who put good opposition to him. He tried to kill me, but could not. But because I was fighting against monstrous nation and with lots of his minions, I was in bad condition and was out of the podium score. He came few turns before reaching Culture win and offered me to gift me all his technologies so I get bronze or silver medal because he was impressed I was the only one with balls big enough to oppose him. I thanked him from my heart, but of course I refused his gifts, as I did not felt it right. I had made my choice to oppose him and I was going to bear the consequences of my choices. We were rivals and I wanted to lose with my head up. So this is a bronze or silver medal lost due to my understanding of honor.

In another game I attacked one player near the end of the game, where we had no NAP, no anything. He was third in score, I was fourth in score. I wanted to get third and get bronze and I damaged him very good, so I became third by score and the next turn another player met a vicroty condition and the game ended. First he complained that I cannot do that, because we were fighting side by side for long time. Which is clearly a moral issue, not a games rule. But we were never close friends, nor I owed him anything. Quite the contrary, I gave him a lot of units to fight our common enemy, which he promissed to return, but later refused to return those units. Also I wanted to settle some islands near him and he refused me and despite I could settle them before him, I did not do that, so he went settling them himself. So I was not obliged to him. Then he said it is not fair, because it turned out this to be the last turn of the game and he had no chance to retaliate. I said there is no such rule. He knew there is no such rule, so threatened to quit civ if I dont step back. I told him I value people more than mere win in a game and agreed to reload and being left without a medal. 1 more bronze less for me.

In yet another game Mack offered me military alliance, for which was clear that will end the game. It was the whole world against him, but I was seeing it is him who will win in that war, with ot without me. If I had choose to side with him, I would had ended second with silver. But I had spoke with few other nations and had gave my word I will do what I can to help them. No signed deals, no nothing. But my word is worth more than any contract. So I opposed Mack and as expected fell. But I kept my word and fell with my head upright. Funny thing is that most of those who were swearing to me and were most vocal explaining how we must oppose the monster, they bent their knees, vassalaged and survived, some even got medals for bending their knees lol. Mack got angry at me and stopped talking to me for quite some time too lol. So this is sure silver medal lost for me.

Those are just the clear cases where I lost medals due to sticking to my word, not counting those with looser prospects. It is like half the medals I won at all in the championship lol. And this last game will be the first one that I lost because of written agreement against my understanding of honor. I am not sad about losing this particular golden medal. Only thing I am sad about is I got disappointed in someone, not that it is you exactly. Also I am sad the championship ends and I will not have the chance to teach you why it is a bad idea to have reputation of trickster lol. Also I feel a bit better when I saw it is Vicente who was advising you lol, and I bet 5 leva it was his idea. Besides great civver, I consider Vicente sneacky and I prefer to put the blame on him for influencing your rock solid moral, making you to trick me lol. LOL, just kidding, guys. Vicente, it is a joke, it is all good, I always enjoyed playing with you, just have something on my mind to be more careful when dealing with you.

Anyway, it was great ride guys. This game in particular and the whole championship. I enjoyed it tremendously and I will miss the games and all of you. I even start to think like in that popular meme for when you finish great TV series "What I am going to do with my life now?" lol




I am not exactly sure why I am writing those things. I guess it is a way to talk it out and deal with the end of the championship somehow.

[Estilpón]

In relation to the game, an assessment: as you well know, my naval situation was terrible after the defeat, but my land forces were intact. That meant that Mocte and Eli had no interest in attacking me.
I'm not sure why you think that when you start conquering my coastal cities, Mocte would have continued supporting you. You were financially dependent on others, and becoming the monster would cause you to lose the favors of others.
Yes, I would have lost a lot: my cities conquered, my interior terrain devastated by fighters. But Mocte would have won, not you.
That's why you offered me the deal.

I promised to vote for you, and I kept it.

And the times we have been allies, I think you have had no complaints at all: my money flowed perfectly, my front line held and many of my units were transferred under your command, even with no treaty in force.

__________________________________________

The stories of the games fascinate me, I find them very interesting. There are a lot of them.

I also suffered from a rival who was releasing cities, but I held on and lost...I no longer remember who it was.

I also had allies-from-the-whole-game who made a peace agreement behind my back without consulting me (less than informing in advance) and I received rumors of players who randomly gambled for victory. I do not do that.

Your attempts to destroy my reputation clash with my record (that I remember, in more than 10 years, only 1 time did someone feel cheated on me, he played as Carthage, I remember, although we had nothing signed).

In another order of things, the promise to help someone win is illegal, the Regulations are very clear. You can specify something, but not the generic help to win, not that.

You are very good at making others pursue your goals, but that is difficult to achieve until the end of the game.

Do not feel bad. You had all the luck and everyone helped you, finishing in a magnificent 2nd place, when your elimination was the most reasonable ending. And that's because you play very well, also diplomatically and sowing for the future, as you have done now.

I wish we could continue playing games, it's fun and we (I) learn a lot.

[2metraninja]

What you say is simply not true and shows either you never understood the dynamics in the game, or you simply look for a way to calm your consciousness for having to resort to lying to survive and win it.

In relation to the game, an assessment: as you well know, my naval situation was terrible after the defeat, but my land forces were intact. That meant that Mocte and Eli had no interest in attacking me.

Mocte and Eli never had interest in attacking you I think. They were both happy to do their things and feel secure from you. Your land forces were big, but you were doomed. Your naval forces were also big, but I crushed them easily. Ask Korea how long one can resist against me after he loses his fleet. 4 turns. It is almost comic how I defeated you when I actually had at most of the game 0.8 or 0.9 of your power. Just late after killing so many of your units I became equal military power with you. Yes, you were in complicated situation because you had no NAPs with anyone (or you had NAP with Mocte?) and had to garrison your other borders, but I did not needed anyone's help to kill you. I was beating you constantly in each and every time and place. If you are so convinced you could defend against me, lets ask Astro to reload the game from that moment just for the two of us and see how well you fare. We will play only the two of us, the rest will not be turned to AIs to not influence the game, we will not interact with them - no trade, no nothing. Just the two of us. Agree? Go, show me how wrong I was. It will be fun I am sure.

I'm not sure why you think that when you start conquering my coastal cities, Mocte would have continued supporting you.

I did not needed anyone's support at that moment anymore. I got tired of waiting for them to decide to attack you. I have thick neck both in RL and in games. I was going to kill you on my own. As of technologies, I had a NAP and trade deal with Mocte which ended just after the MFP, so I had like 20 turns to finish you. I did not bought any tech from Mocte during those 20 turns anyway because he had stopped researching or at least he was not researching in the direction I wanted. You can ask him. Absolutely same was true for Eli. Mocte was slowly researching towards his spaceship, while Eli simply was accumulating money. I said what help I received from others. 1 ship from Eli and 1 ship from Carlo and 1 or 2 great generals from Carlo. The ships I returned immediately after this.

You were financially dependent on others, and becoming the monster would cause you to lose the favors of others.

I was dependant on others for research, because we specialized our roles. We spoke that out. They were needed to research, I had to fight and secure their safety. I had to feed 400 units army and had like 20 unhappy faces in each of my cities from war weariness, because I was killing so many of your units in your territory. And because I was investing all my money in upgrades and buying units instead of libraries. I had like 3 times more cities than the rest, how I can be dependant on someone else if I wanted to be rich and have good research? It was quite the opposite as history showed - my allies were dependant on me containing you. Carlo was 100% dependant on me tu survive. I saved his life in your first war and he said that himself. Later when I signed peace with you and asked you not to attack Carlo and you agree few times and then still used that tricky official deal to attack him, even after I had weakened you in the sea so much it showed that without my protection he was doomed. Eli had even weaker army. He said it himself. So he was also depending on me. Mocte was self-sufficient in the end, but that is all. He needed me to beat you so he can play his cimcity with spaceship happyending.

Yes, I would have lost a lot: my cities conquered, my interior terrain devastated by fighters. But Mocte would have won, not you.
That's why you offered me the deal.

You were going to die and I spared your life. Mocte would had not won, because I would had not allowed it. Even without conquering your unbelievably strong land, before the end of the game when our NAP ended I was still well able to defeat Mocte. He said it himself he was afraid that I will turn on him and crush him. Not to speak that I would had taken your Hindu population and could voted myself winner either with the help of Carlo or with the help of vassal as he is obliged to vote for me.

I told you why I offered you the deal. I felt pity for you and that I preffered you on the second place instead of the always indecissive Mocte. I am not bragging, I really do have that problem sometimes for wanting to do good to others. Yes, one may say it is egoistic, because I truly do feel good for this, but OK. I volunteer for lot of things, I participate in charities, I have taught tens of people a useful trade and arranged them to work to make a living and feed their families, I am active blood donator, etc. And I felt good for making that good to you to spare you the sad turns when you see your beautiful empire being destroyed, just so that Mocte becomes second. Also I had little time and preffered to end the game quicker. I was not afraid of space race with Mocte as I said already few times. It was like 1% chance I lose to Mocte, but I was thinking it is 100% sure thing to win when you gave me your word. Imagine how much I trusted you. Well, I was wrong in my judgement and showing you mercy. But that is mainly my problem.

I promised to vote for you, and I kept it.

You voted for me knowing that we dont have enough votes, so you risked nothing. I can vote each day ssomething that I know does not matter. You said it yourself - you could not believe when I signed the deal. Why you could not believe it? Because you knew it is a trap and you knew you were lying to me and you were going to trick me from the beginning. I spared your life and you showed ungrateful. You planned a trick and it worked. Good for you. I did not sought to specify anything in an official deal, for two reasons. First how I forbid you to empty your cities and let Carlo take them all? How I forbid you to slave down your cities to size 1 so your votes dont matter? How I forbid you telling to everyone what we had agreed so they increase their Hindu votes? I did not thought for Mass Media - I thought I myself must have it to make AP vote void. Second is the whole reason at all to offer you that deal was because I had high opinion on you and I trusted you. I would had never offered such deal to someone I suspect can lie to me.

And the times we have been allies, I think you have had no complaints at all: my money flowed perfectly, my front line held and many of my units were transferred under your command, even with no treaty in force.

This is like trying to justify yourself for beating your girlfriend, saying that the previous day you were the perfect gentlemen bringing her flowers and doing the dishes. This and other previous games were the reason I felt pity for you and decided to spare you. In that particular game you speak about you held the line at first because I kept garrisons on your front the whole game and Mack was preocupied with me in the main war theater Russia and later because I had made him promise he will not hurt you after we sign peace. For a difference, he is one who keeps his word not seeking for excuses to break it.

The stories of the games fascinate me, I find them very interesting. There are a lot of them.

As you can see, I also like stories. And the lessons from history. This one in particular is sad story, but still quite good for learning.

I also had allies-from-the-whole-game who made a peace agreement behind my back without consulting me (less than informing in advance) and I received rumors of players who randomly gambled for victory. I do not do that.

I also regret agreeing on peace with Mack in a hurry, but the military disaster was surprise for me too and I had to choose accept that offer or keep fighting and losing the war for both of us. At that point Rusia was already dead and I made sure you are safe. Despite you were attackng him, he never retaliated in full power, nor took any of your cities. Never wondered why? Because you defend so well? No. Because he had promissed me not to do it. We never had written agreement with him by the way, yet he is one who always keeps his word.

I received rumors of players who randomly gambled for victory. I do not do that.

Have anyone ever offered you such deal? To gamble on victory you should have someone to gamble with. LOL, sorry, could not resist. Those are not rummors. I said that to Vicente and he sneached it, despite I esplicitly asked him not to tell it to anyone. And I asked Vicente not to say it because Mack asked me to ask him after I told him I told that to Vicente. I dont have any reason to hide that, I am quite proud of my conduct in that game. It was not a gamble. There was a moral problem and we found an ellegant solution. Mack helped me in one point, I helped him in another. I was offered by the whole world to lead their coalition so we can at last beat the invincible Mack. LOL how is this fair or funny or something to be proud of? With the advancement of the game we both felt like we dont want to fight each-other and compete for the victory. Also prospects who will win were unclear so we wanted a draw, but it is not a chess, there have to be a winner. So we came up with the idea.

Your attempts to destroy my reputation clash with my record (that I remember, in more than 10 years, only 1 time did someone feel cheated on me, he played as Carthage, I remember, although we had nothing signed).

Only you can destroy your reputation. No one else can. I said what happened, you said what happened, we both said our interpretation and now everyone can judge for himself who deserves reputation hit. I have judged for myself and got disappointed by you. Thats all. If you feel 100% happy with yourself, thats OK. I wont congratulate you on the way you won, as in my book you showed ungrateful and lied and it is not something to feel proud about. In gipsy culture stealing or tricking someone is reason to be proud. It is in their culture. I had a lot of friends gipsies and they dont hide it and think of others who dont steal and lie as stupid schmocks. That is their way. I dont like it, but it is what it is and I am more careful. But if someone believes being ungrateful and lying is bad, he must be able to realise when he was ungrateful and lied. If he feels proud how he sneaked win, then OK, that is different story. I dont like it, but it is what it is and I will be careful.

Speaking of that, you did not said if I would had won those 5 leva I bet that Vicente gave you the idea to give me your word and then trick me with later written agreement. Vicente quoted FVL "its not easy to beat 2metra." Nope, I beated you and then decided to spare you. You guys just tricked me.

In another order of things, the promise to help someone win is illegal, the Regulations are very clear. You can specify something, but not the generic help to win, not that.

Nope. It was not "generic help to win" it was specific "I spare your life, you vote me AP winner and I let you become second". In the rules it says alliances for the whole game are forbidden and alliances length is limited to 40 turns. I never signed alliance with anyone for more than 40 turns. Another rule is that everyone should try to improve his ranking. Accepting to become second in the alternative of not finishing the game alive at all sounds quite in line with that rule to me. Third rule is every player will lead his nation as real nation. How is risking genocide preferable instead of voting someone else religious leader. Even it is the same religion as yours, it is not like Christians against Muslims or something else. There is general problem with rules, which cannot be spelled 100% or even controlled, let alone forced. We are humans. This is the beauty of the game. If I wanted clear rules without moral I would had played at home against the AI or I would had played chess ( I did played a lot of chess before PC games though). How are you going to force me how I feel? How you force me to feel ungrateful or go against my morale and how you prove it?

You are very good at making others pursue your goals, but that is difficult to achieve until the end of the game.

You give yourself the explanation which soothes you. "He is an evil master of pupets, he uses the others to his advantage, so I am the good one who rebelled against his schemes." Truth is people do like me in general and trust me, or use my abilities to protect them, or simply fear me. I never beg, nor I threaten, I am just such person. It is people who come to ask me. This game is no exception. England came to ask me alliance against Ottomans, not the other way around. And he said I compromised. Carlo came to ask me to form block against you. In the gmae you mention where we were allies, it was you who came asking for protection against Mack, not the other way around. Mack offered me 5 times that I dump you and we split you, both before we signed official NAP and after it finished, he was giving me the better piece of you, but I refused each time.

Do not feel bad. You had all the luck and everyone helped you, finishing in a magnificent 2nd place, when your elimination was the most reasonable ending.

I feel bad for completely different reason and I stated it numerous times, but you pretend you miss my point. I had won enough games. If I had died to someone outplaying me, I wouldnt felt bad, that is why I play - to test my skills in the game and I even feel good when someone shows good play. Good player can appreciate a good play by another player. But you played bad, I defeated you in each and every battle we had, you had everything and I had nothing and still you had to rely on tricking me to survive and win. I feel bad for losing trust in you and a bit in players in general. In RL we have to be somewhat practical, but in games we can be whatever we want. And you choose to be ungrateful and liar.

And that's because you play very well, also diplomatically and sowing for the future, as you have done now.
.

I already explained why people prefer to cooperate with me. Please explain to me why for example Korea voted for me on the AP vote? We barely exchanged few words the whole game. Why he preffered me to win over you? Get some pattern?

I wish we could continue playing games, it's fun and we (I) learn a lot.

I also learn of course. This game I learned I must kill you when I have that opportunity lol. Just kidding of course, but this is was the first time someone gave me his word for something such important and did not kept it. So unfortunately (for the others) I will be way more cautious in such cases in eventual next games.

Lets make something positive out of this sad game. I also wish we continue playing those games. I will provide hosting for the APT games and someone else - you? - will do the scores and ranking calculation, which I find tedious. And Astro will be the judge if need be. Come on guys. Lets keep that great championship alive.

[CHINCHIN]

Totalmente de acuerdo en que estuve aletargado, prácticamente desde la conquista de Turquía, vi que mis opciones eran nulas, y me deje llevar. Me dio pereza colonizar las islas del este, me dio pereza entrar en nuevas guerras... Tuvo mucho que ver problemas en el trabajo, y otros juegos que ocuparon mi poco tiempo libre.

Sobre las rebeliones para impedir la victoria cultural de Sury he de decir que me confié, teniendo yo tantos puntos de espionaje pensé que sería más fácil, además fue raro, en varios turnos no perdí ningún espía en el cambio de turno, y justo el turno que iba a realizar rebeliones en dos de sus ciudades, en el cambio de turno ya perdí 4 espías, y luego fallaron todos los intentos de rebelión. Supongo que los puntos de espionaje de Sury también tuvieron que ver, que tenía muchos, aunque no tantos como yo.

Gracias 2metraninja por decir que soy el mejor español, pero creo que no es así, de hecho creo que últimamente cada partida juego peor.

En cuanto al conflicto estilpón-2metraninja, creo que todos os tenemos por buenos y honrados jugadores, creo que fue un mal entendido, y que tal vez Estilpón se valió de una pequeña triquiñuela, pero bueno, como se dice en España, cualquiera tiene una mala tarde.

Siempre digo que no me apuntare a la siguiente partida por el poco tiempo libre que tengo, pero al final siempre me apunto, así que si sigue el campeonato me apuntare. Yo puedo hacer me cargo de la clasificación, y por supuesto puedo seguir haciéndome cargo de los cuadros del medallero, y demás.

[astrologix]

Hola, en cuanto a la continuación del campeonato. Creo que vale la pena reflexionar un poco. Yo sería el primero en querer que siga, pero se van acumulando impedimentos que hacen que su organización y gestión sea cada vez menos "rentable".

Por mi parte, he metido mucho de mi tiempo libre para que todo esto funcione a la perfección. Creo que no os dais cuenta de ello. Y además cada año meto dinero de mi bolsillo para asegurar el mantenimiento. Pagar el host, el dominio, la electricidad de un ordenador encendido 24 horas al día, etc, etc,

Otro problema es la creciente falta de jugadores. Cuando comencé el campeonato éramos unos 40 jugadores. Era fácil encontrar sustitutos si era necesario. Actualmente, sólo quedamos unos 10 jugadores activos. Otra cosa es que habría que darle un repaso al reglamento. Con el tiempo he identificado cosas que habría que cambiar o mejorar.

Y actualmente, la gente está más interesada en Civ6 y pronto tendremos Civ7. Creo que es aconsejable esperar más información sobre este nuevo lanzamiento.

En mi opinión, no vale la pena gastar nuevos esfuerzos para mantener vivo un campeonato moribundo.

Otra cosa sería organizar alguna partida privada Civ4 estilo APT entre buenos jugadores seleccionados. Sin hostearla, a una de esas si que me apuntaría

Podemos hablar de ello en un hilo específico. De acuerdo? CHINCHIN puedes abrirlo?