[SPOILERS-PBEM16] mostly_harmless - Zara of Germany

[mostly_harmless]

Remember this from a couple of turns ago?

Anyway, I also noticed that your border city did pop its border to its 3rd ring. To be honest, I am not happy about getting culturally pressured already now. I mean, we discussed that border agreement for quite some time and I think you got everything you wanted so I assumed that you would not try to steal even more tiles via culture. Was that just idle talk and you did not intend to honor that deal at least for some turns? I sure hope not.

Serdoa just completed The Oracle in Machu Picchu. Hindu Holy City and on the border. With the terrace (+2cpt?) it gets now 15cpt.
I also reveal more and more land between Scooter and Serdoa. And there is tons of land, with good ressources too. So much for Scooter pressuring Serdoa in the east.
Anyway, I am too busy with Krill in the south to annoy Serdoa right now.

Still no Praets and not other units to be seen.

mh

[mostly_harmless]

I am back from my trip and trying to catch up properly with what is going on.
Tons of interesting stuff.

Diplo with scooter first.

Agreed with scooter to stop spending epts on each other:

Hi Scooter,
just a quick question, whether we can stop spending espionage points on each other.

Cheers
mh

MH,

Sure, have I hit the limit for graphs? I don't pay good enough attention to EP's. If I have your graph, I'll swap away next turn.

Thanks,
scooter

Right, not paying attention to epts? Actually he forgot to stop spending epts.

Hi,
you probably forgot to swap?
I lost your graph and have out one more ept into you. If you swap away this turn, we should be fine.
In other news, I finally gave in to Serdoa's demands for a NAP.
I need some safe borders, now that Krill has begun to mass spam cities around my souther and eastern perimeter.

Regards
mh

And as already mentioned in the above exchange I finally agreed to Serdoa's NAP until T90.

Hi mh,

I understand that you can't do much being creative and stuff. I just had hoped for a little heads-up. Speaking of that I have built the Oracle in the horse-city. You have 12 turns to get a settler for the pig before my borders pop. Sorry for that but there was no other city capable of producing the needed hammers (that city just had sooo many forests) in a short enough amount of time.

Speaking of that, I would like to ask - again - for a NAP. You have war with Krill, I have war with Krill. And as I told you, scooter settled up on me and tries to squeeze me in (see screenie as I know nobody believes me anymore for whatever reason...). So we both do have reasons not to go to war with each other but instead help us get the aggressors driven back. So, what do you think about a NAP till T90 - not very long so hands will not be tied forever, but long enough that we actually don't have to worry about that front and can concentrate on those which deserve a beating.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

So Scooter is indeed settling up to Serdoa now.

Hi mh,

you probably are pressed for time right now but I wanted to ask if you would have an answer for me regarding the NAP? I would be ok with a longer one as well. I think we need each other right now or we will both get stomped, one after the other.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

So Serdoa is pressing some more about the NAP. Since Krill turned down my peace offering without any comment. I finally agree to a NAP until T90 with Serdoa.

Hi Serdoa,

yes, my computer time is very limited at the moment and my internet connection crappy.
I agree to a NAP until turn 90. Seeing your recent power spike, I guess you are going to move against Krill?

Regards
mh

The power spike is likely due to an expensive tech grabbed from The Oracle. I am lagging behind in C&D so I don't have a clue yet what he took.

Hi mh,

great. As for my power spike, I am undecided. That is just for defense right now. As you've seen on the screenie scooter really moved up on me. So I don't want to give him a opening. Depending on how that evolves I have to see how to proceed. Though I suspect I don't have any chances at winning anymore so I probably will try to have fun.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

Then the Beirut situation becomes critical as Krill chopped out Stonehenge in Beirut on T66.
I just spent hours over hours contemplating my next moves and tactics. Dug through some old sources, created new Excel tables, evaluated different scenarios.
The situation is that Beirut sits on a hill and has a fortified Praetorian as a garrison. I do have a first little scouting army nearby, namely two axes and an archer that could move next to Beirut this very turn, ready to attack next turn. Needless to say that that Stonehenge+Free Monument is going to swap my Ivory soon and will leave me with little room to develop my city.
My options were to engage in a cultural war with Krill in that area over the ivory, that sits in the 2nd ring of both cities? Or do I go for a daring early strike against Beirut, attempting to raze the city? Or do I go for a later more massive attack?

First of all I tried to figure out the cultural situation. And it turns out that under the current situation (cultural+Library vs. Stonehenge&Monument), the Ivory and with it my complete 2nd ring in the south will swap in like 5 turns or so. This will of course not give me the chance to use the Ivory and it will significantly reduce my abilities to manoeuvre.
That would only leave the option to try to raze Beirut with my three units next turn or with a couple of additional units 2 turns later. Of course a Praetorian on a hill city with Combat I and already 15% fortify is not easily dislodged. Plus the borders of Beirut will pop adding additional 20% defense bonus. But then again two CR-I axes and an archer might just do the job.
BUT, what if he is going to get a second defender in? The city is size 1 so can't be slaved. And even if, Stonehenge just completed, so the instant-slavery malus applies. Can he move in a second unit that is already on it's way, but just out of sight? Possibly. Not from Heu, but from further south maybe.
And then I noticed that my scout in the far east spotted a Krill Stone quarry. Going back to C&D I backtracked how the city developed (ie. when the pastured cows were finished, etc.) And bascially his two forest chops went into the Stonehenge with the Stone bonus. Same for his natural production from last turn. So, massive overflow, that could be diverted to another unit with no problems. So the chances are very high I will face at least two defenders next turn.
With that, I did not move my units next to the city but left them where they were. No point in risking them for no benefit.
Which leaves the option for a delayed more massive strike, waiting for much more units and possibly catapults.
But for that I need to hold my second ring.
Again lots of shuffling and projecting numbers and I can improve my situation a lot by building a monument in my city. The overflow from last turns whip just amount to the required 20h. That will result in my 3rd ring popping one turn earlier than before and 2 turns earlier than Krill's 3rd ring. And those two turns will dump additional 2x20 culture onto the Ivory tile. This headstart will allow me to hold the 2nd ring for long enough to bring in some additional culture into my city and maybe keep the military option open.
I really hope I got all my numbers right and assumptions correct, otherwise it could get nasty.

I also spotted another Krill settler last turn that I have lost sight on again. Remembering Krill's earlier plans for Serdoa, ie. settling right under his nose, I dropped of a quick eMail to Serdoa:

Hi Serdoa,

from earlier turns I remember Krill saying his plan is to drop cities close to your borders and guard them with Praets for maximum annoyance.
As you will see from the game-log he pulled a similar stunt at my southern border. Put a city close to mine and just chopped Stonehenge. Kind of a culture bomb. I am trying to figure out what to do against it at the moment.
Anyway, I wanted to warn you that I spotted a settler near the city of Heu last turn, that could have gone your way. If so the settler could be potentially 6S+1SW of your city of Corihua (end of T66). I lost sight of the settler this turn, so it could have gone my way as well.

Regards
mh

And that is his reply:

Hi mh,

thank you for the information. I will see if I can get that settler killed but I doubt it :/. As for the removal of his city: With praets and either culture defense or walls soon there is nothing to be done before Construction. Especially with him being Agg, meaning he gets to Shock 1 with ease (and getting culture for those half-cost Barracks on top... I think that again shows that Agg is already in Vanilla civ not weak, it is just that most RB games had a "Always Peace" setting for the ancient era). I think getting catapults and axes going (with some spears as defense in case of chariots or HAs) is the only possibility. But alone will still be a hard fight - so maybe we should do that together? At is seems that he is working with scooter already that might be our only chance anyway. Let me know what you think about it.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

Not much news there.

And then just as I am about to submit the save, Krill pings me with a peace offer.
Here is the chat log:

Krill: As a heads up, I'm willing to discuss peace if you want to. There is some interesting news as well you may be interested in
mh: On what terms?
Krill: OK, first of all, you know I just chopped Henge in Beirut?
mh: Yes.
Krill: ok
Basically I want to plant a city 1S of the horse next to Beirut, and that is that for the area down there
For the area north of Heu I want to settle a city 88899 Of Heu.
Now, that's it for cities. What I'm planning to do after that is hit Serdoa with scooters help
I don't intend to take much land north, maybe one city site
Krill: If you wanted to join in to hit a weakened flank, then that could be quite profitable. If you were to tech to construction, I'd bewilling to buy cats from you for 3XP agg preats, 1 cat for 1preat.
considering Serdoa needs 2 axes to every preat I have on our front it should be possible to overwhelm him.

Since I did not reply instantly he even sent an eMail asking for peace.

I decided to not change my turn and submitted it.
I will reply to Krill that "I will think about it."

Problem is, that scooter and Krill are apparently close and I have just revealed to scooter that I have a NAP with Serdoa. if that info goes to Krill, he will know, I can't really accept his offer. (If I am going to honour the NAP, that is.)

In other news, I settled my first island city.

I am still amazed nobody sees through Dazed' farmers gambit. Given his number of cities he must be running paper thin military.
Next on my list is to catch up on C&D for the last 10 turns or so.

mh

[mostly_harmless]

Hmmm. Very anticlimactic! I am a bit annoyed, that I spent so much time on analysing and C&D for such an premature end.
Anyway.
Here is my final shot of the empire:

Great Lighthouse in 2 turns.
Construction and Catapults in 3 turns.
Neubrandenburg in the south would have gotten a Marble boosted Parthenon to battle the Stonehenge culture.
Marble would have been online in 10 turns or so coming from the island.
With The Great Lighthouse I could have spammed coastal cities. At least 3 along the continental coast and 2-3 more on the big island and possibly more on others. (There is stone on the northern island).
I would have tried to circumnavigate with the galley.
And my first Great Scientist would have popped in 7 turns for a Academy in Güstrow.
All in all I think I was in pretty good shape. My in-game score was very low, but that was to some extent because of the coastal cities and high overlaps.

Fazit: If I play in this format again, it has to be a game without out-of-game diplo. In terms of testing, well I did not finish the Great Lighthouse and certainly could not test the early cannons. I like the +1cpt for barracks, I think. Apart from that, I think it is impossible to draw any conclusions from this game with respect to RB-mod performance.

mh

[Dicorion]

Thanks for updates.
Fingers crossed for the Lighthouse!

[mostly_harmless]

Thanks for updates.
Fingers crossed for the Lighthouse!

Uhm, the game is over.

[Dicorion]

hehe, I saw GES wrote a massage in new admin thread, but I thought that was a typo.
I was not following players or lurkers threads and now I look dump
Well that is life :neenernee

But thanks for all the [strike]fish[/strike] updates!