Trani - 24th February 23:30 - Tick 0, Cycle 0

Three hours have passed as the game counted down to start.

Denizen (Royluc) rank #5 overall and with replaced the quit player but starts with a big disadvantage as before he left VMJ007 built a very expensive piece of science costing $400. Ouch. 

This part of the game is always so interesting because there are so many unknowns, and I've fallen into the trap before leaving myself paralyzed by indecision. Last time I did that I made myself commit to the idea that "a bad plan is better than no plan." so here is my plan and I'll talk through it.

Firstly, here are the diplomatic insights that are leading me down this path

• Gilgamesz seems like someone I can cooperate and work with on first impression.
• Ktøc and Dust had a marriage of geography as expected and I think this alliance is a problem. Especially when considering their communicated expansion paths which combine to block me in.
• Ktøc demanded rather forcefully that I give him the Visya wormhole, which you'll remember I was actually considering offering him. This combined with other red lines is an issue for me.

Now the plan.

Carrier waypoints:

I'm going to ally with Gilgamesz, he's struck up an alliance with Anita (he's friendly, and he doesn't want to fight either of his neighbours.) but I am going to be the bestest ally and I'm going to make sure that when the decision point comes he chooses to align with me. This does also give me a plan B of jumping into a three with the both of them if the other part of my plan goes south.

I'm also going to cooperate with Dust to throttle Ktøc. I'd negotiated handing over the Visya wormhole but Ktøc's negotiation style made me regret it. Instead, I'm going to take it and hold it and contain Ktøc's western expansion. Dust will then eat him from the other side, I hope. The desired outcome here is that all I need to do is fight a defensive war against Ktøc whilst I expand in my corner. Dust defeats his own long term ally and is likely still weaker than me. Gilgamesz is validated that I'm doing what I said I'd do (fight Ktøc) which will help pull him into a tighter alliance, and I get a route into the centre.

As I write this, it strikes me that a better plan might have been to just peacefully expand in my corner and keep my head down. Too late now.