[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[Zed-F]

Good luck

[TheHumanHydra]

I suppose one needs luck against mackoti.

[BRickAstley]

--> We are not going to go down without trying something radical. Be it attacking mack, dtay, ichabod, eastern continent.. Who knows when the time comes.

You are awesome and I'll be rooting for whatever it is you decide to do.

[Old Harry]

Cheers Brick - I'm sure you'll be on the front line whatever happens.

Yeah THH, I'm thinking we get guilds and then while building knights we get engineering. Of course that might be pie in the sky. There is a good chance ym will have maces or knights of their own by that point - in which case we need to just eat suttree and turtle... I could draw up a turtle map, but it won't be so interesting...

I'm not sure we need to worry about going down just yet, we've fallen back on score a little recently compared to dtay's wonder-hogging and ym's land grab, but I don't think we're an appetizing meal for any of our neighbours...

Hasn't suttree played yet?

[Fintourist]

Hasn't suttree played yet?

Couldn't sleep...

Anyways, suttree finally played.. Before coming to that I declined this:



Suttree situation:

When I logged in I was pretty sure that I'm going to find that 35+ unit stack of suttree inside our borders, but instead we got good news!!



Happily accepted! Either this is an evil plan and he is trying to confuse us or there are good things happening..

Ideas for reaction:

1. Offer OBs (that does not bring anybody any gold, but we could put a unit or two inside his borders and keep an eye on his stack
2. Offer copper-to-copper trade (both to signal friendship and give something to think for mackoti. Downside is that if suttree really would really be going after mackoti that might be a warning)
3. Declare and offer peace (only thing that really gives us peace, makes it also clear to mackoti that we have all our units ready for him if he tries something cheeky with Nibru. Downside is that it signals lack of trust if suttree is really trying to be friendly)
4. Offer a gift back? 10g + health resource? (just to signal friendship) ((offer something more generous to really make him our friend and make him attack mackoti?))
5. Combo of aforementioned things
6. Something else?

What do you really believe that is going in suttree's head? Is he checked out and just wants to outlast some other teams? Is he trying to apologize? Does he really have ambitions into some other direction and wants a peaceful border (I'm pretty sure he could raze mackoti's size 15 capital if he wants to)? How could we co-operate with him so that it causes most problems to mackoti?

In other news...WilliamLP cancelled his 2gpt payment to us. He does not have OBs with anyone we know at the moment so I think we could keep demanding money from him. Only reasons not to demand would be:
1. We want to be nice to him in the hope that he keeps sending marble to us also when we actually need it
2. We want to make him stronger so that when Ichabod is finished with slowcheetah, William can last a little longer. (Downside is that if WilliamLP looks strong and we look busy at other fronts Ichabod might be interested on our island instead)

I'm leaning towards demanding cash, because it's probable that our only dealings with WilliamLP will be business-related during the whole game. But you know me..

Btw, sorry Harry that I keep bugging you in gchat.



There are many nice posts in this thread that I haven't reacted yet! I will tomorrow! Now it's 2.30 AM and maybe I can get some sleep..

[Old Harry]

Crikey! So we just whipped those axes for nothing?

Possibilities:
1. He's sending his troops to the east and this is just to lull us - we can check on that with our chariot and with Brick
2. His enforced peace with Mackoti runs out this turn or next turn and he's not sure where those horse archers are going - we should keep our eyes open for a declare-peace between them
3. He's tired of this fighting and just wants to build in peace for a little while - ah ha ha ha hahah ha ha
4. Something I haven't thought of

If it's #1 then a declare-peace offer from us might expose that, but our first action should be to check if the catapults are still in Barcelona.

If it's #2 then a declare-peace offer means that Mack has ten turns to take his cities. But if Mack does that it gives us another ten turns to get to Guilds first...

Any ideas what #4 could be?

[Old Harry]

Turn 130

This picture might enlighten a chat we had this morning:

Fintourist: suttree has now OBs with mackoti
..
me: Ah, crap
That's pretty bad
Fintourist: I like your post, I'm not worried about #2
suttree has enough units to deal with mackoti attack
those 15 cats are quite decent
me: Yeah
if they're allowed to hit
Fintourist: in his own land it's likely
me: I think we shouldn't complete the walls in Konig this turn
Fintourist: I'm wondering that DOW+peace and gift him back those 10 gold might be a way to go
me: That's what I was thinking
Fintourist: we could focus our troops west
me: Also offer him some happy?
Fintourist: can't do it at the same time i think
me: we really want peace with one of them
Fintourist: we would like to get OBs with suttree so that next time when peace runs out we have visibility
and agree with peace
me: Yep that would be great
Fintourist: I think DOW+gifting 10 gold would be good
world map?
me: Might as well
Fintourist: he already knows where jamestown and hastings are..
probably has our maps via someone else too
me: yeah
Fintourist: about walls, yes, no need to finish them
König does not have good 4th tile though
I think we want to finish dyes for Hastings
me: Hmmm, the chariot can't see into Barca this turn.
Fintourist: yeah..
me: I agree on the dyes
Fintourist: hmm
wanna put last check into Madrid and then head west next turn?
me: I think we should start moving our axes towards Hastings
Fintourist: I think they should be NE of König
me: yeah
Fintourist: for now
and bows too
me: then next turn we can see into barca
Fintourist: we also want to be prepared for our peace running out with mackoti
me: another sentry chariot would be very handy...
More spears needed for Mack
Fintourist: If we have units NE of König they can reach Cannae in time before macks 1-movers
2-movers can be handled with whipped spears I think
Well he has a mixed army I think, so 3 spears in nibru + couple of bows (later lbows) should be quite good
me: I see your "paranoia" tile
Fintourist: yeah
When does mack's peace end with suttree?
me: Withdrawing HA's and shock HAs should clear out an decent number of spears I think, I doubt we could whip enough to stop his whole stack.
this turn or next
I think we need to put hammers into spears in A, B, C and G
Fintourist: well, let's try to get enforced peace with suttree and we are safe :P
sure, but no need to do it before t133
it's still a completely crazy plan for mack
me: I think his stack will be 3S of Cannae on t133.
Fintourist: oh, right
damn this game is one huge cat&mouse game
me: He'll guess that we're short on units in the centre, and a stack of 15 or 20 horse archers will just pillage us into the dirt if it doesn't kill our cities outright
Fintourist: his troops must still be at m_h land though
me: or healing up
Fintourist: I don't think he has 15-20 HAs..
me: ?
Fintourist: but I get your point
He has less power than us
me: How many do you think he has
Fintourist: and part of that power is in axes & cats
me: I think that cat he showed us was probably a diversion
Fintourist: I would be surprised if more than 10 could be dedicated to an attack
me: So how many spears would we need?
Fintourist: 6 should be enough for the first wave..
me: Any way to stop the pillaging?
Fintourist: out 1-mover stack will be there almost in time
if we have peace with suttree, no problem
me: Yep
So the plan is offer war-peace to Suttree
Fintourist: I think yes
and 10g + world map
me: then put hammers into spears in A,B, C, G
Fintourist: do you want to already do it?
me: Just enough that they can be whipped...
Fintourist: can we wait one turn and see if suttree accepts?
me: We need them by eot 131
So yes
But does Suttree accepting change Macks possible plans?
Fintourist: in what way?
do you want him to attack or what? :D
me: I'm getting to be the paranoid one now!
What other reason is there for roading that tile?
And having OBs with Suttree
Fintourist: OBs for friendliness and future money
road for future attack and worker micro?
me: Dunno about that... OB's for future attack I'm saying
Fintourist: maybe..

Over in the east we used the DOW to have a good look at Madrid:


And then offered this back:

[Fintourist]

The above chat is another example of me and Harry trying to cover all the possible threats. There are dozens of similar discussions handling on possible actions of suttree and our other neighbors. In this case the threat is luckily pretty minimal. The described attack would be pretty crazy from mackoti's perspective, our pile of double-promoted axes can take care of any 1-mover attack and we have enough resources at our island and nearby cities to fend of a HA stack. That does not mean that we won't take it seriously though..

Btw, I wonder how our opponents interpret our DOW to suttree..

[Ceiliazul]

that chat looks like good teamwork taking place. keep up the good work and good reporting!

[Fintourist]

Ok still couple of things about the current turn:



We talked about this briefly. Dhalphir offered this deal at the start of the turn and we declined. I sent it back now. We are receiving both spices and ivory currently so this deal does not bring any immediate benefits. However, it's nice to have surplus ivory and we can soon cancel our silver-to-spices deal with pindicooter. They have both gems and stone, so we could try to use that silver to bargain one of those resources. And yeah, we have I think 6 own sources of dyes. And two unhooked near Nibru/Peterloo so we really can afford to trade away them. And yes, supporting Dhalphir so that he lasts longer against plako is not bad either..

Dtay offered this:



We already receive ivory, soon maybe twice.. If he wants sugar he must offer something else..

And it seems mackoti is copying our approach:



Yeah, he also is hoping for a safe border. With current power levels really attacking suttree would just be a stupid play for both of us. If I'm correct suttree will first receive our peace offer? In a perfect world he accepts our peace offer and then sees mackoti's offer and thinks:
"Hey, I have a safe border in the north and an unused army that will be obsolete in 25 turns. In the south I have a neighbor with a delicious size 15 capital two tiles away from my border and he has now stretched his units over a lenght of ~30 tiles in east-west dimension. Why don't we pile together with my former Babylonian enemies against this potential runaway who was just gifted the whole southern part of the continent and two wonders."

And we think:
"Dear suttree, we still hate you for what you have done to us, but in this adventure we are all in, and happily tie half of mackoti's army and take a city or five"

Unfortunately we are not living in a perfect world. We are living in a world where Murphy's law is reality and people around us just do stuff that does not make any kind of sense.

Back to that reality... Stuff left to do:
- Worker between Peterloo. I assume that we direct the chop into barracks in Peterloo, but I did not do that yet in case you have other ideas
- I put Königgratz on wealth for now. Actually building a worker there would not be a bad idea. This is the area where we most need increased worker support and we should be able to 1-pop whip a worker there in 3 turns.
- What do we demand from WilliamLP for OBs? Our import export ratio is ridiculous (~ -200) so we have some room to select our OB deals... I think something small might be in order. Close borders and offer OBs + dyes for ~6gpt would be something different? It's very cheap so it should be seen as a friendly action..
- I moved around 15 units NE of Königgratz and we still have other 15 units in the city. Should we put them onto the same tile too? That's simply the most flexible tile currently. We can reply to threats from suttree if he changes his mind and our units can also stop any kind of hypothetical aggression from mackoti