[SPOILERS] scooter - Zara Yakob

[pocketbeetle]

My dastardly-ometer hardly blipped at all.

But it would seem Timmy isn't that easily fooled...

[scooter]

Yeah I wouldn't be at all shocked if he didnt buy it, but it seemed better than saying "yup, get ready to get a beat down" and seemed better than "nah I'm going to attack SleepingMoogle"...

[pocketbeetle]

Yeah I wouldn't be at all shocked if he didnt buy it, but it seemed better than saying "yup, get ready to get a beat down" and seemed better than "nah I'm going to attack SleepingMoogle"...

And by going for the half measure...

But anyway, you seem confident it's all going to turn out well.
Is Bob going to declare first? What have you worked out with him, in terms of timing etc?

[scooter]

And by going for the half measure...

But anyway, you seem confident it's all going to turn out well.
Is Bob going to declare first? What have you worked out with him?

Yeah we'll see how he responds. Starting to think a non-response might have been best - that's what Bob suggested to me in a message. We'll declare in roughly 5 turns - he plays directly before me so we'll declare back-to-back. SleepingMoogle will declare right around then, but he's much less critical because he's only taking one city that's stranded way up in the northwest.

I wouldn't say I'm totally confident, but it'll be fun. Timmy is a better player than me no doubt, so I wouldn't be shocked at all if he whips me slaze-style. I feel like I could sit on the position I have and coast to a 2nd or 3rd place finish easily, but... I want to win. So in the end, this is why I'm declaring war - I want to play to win. I feel if I take 2-3 cities from him and don't lose any, that's enough for me to win the game.

My gut says I take one city, threaten a second, and then get locked into a stalemate. I'm hoping for better than that though...

[scooter]

By the way, isn't this a cool power graph??

[scooter]

I burned one turn at 80% real quick so I could see what everyone's techs are:



I've never done this before, so I imagine it's going to take me forever to put together a techs Excel sheet. I'll do Timmy's first obviously...

[scooter]

Okay, I'll do a full post later, but here's a tech comparison between myself and Timmy:

Techs I have that Timmy does not:
-Meditation
-Alphabet
-Code of Laws
-Civil Service
-Machinery
-Paper

Techs Timmy has that I don't:
-Polytheism
-Horseback Riding

And that's it. Research times worth noting:

Horseback Riding: < 1 turn
Feudalism: 2 turns
Guilds: 4 turns

Now that's at -40 gold/turn, but I have enough banked right now to knock all of that out in about that time, so 7 turns and I can build Knights.

Timmy can research Machinery and Feudalism right now, so I'm guessing he's heading towards one of those now. I need to hurry, because either way, longbows and/or crossbows will be a pain.

[scooter]

Well Sandover might blow this whole thing up. He's been leaning towards attacking Bob... And Bob has sort of caught wind of it. He hasn't necessarily suspected an attack, but he just wants confirmation that he won't be the target, and he hasn't gotten it yet. Sandover is going to try to cut a deal with Bob - though it sounded in my chat with him that it might be more like extortion. If that's the case, then wow Sandover is making no friends at all this game. I've been considering ratting out Sandover actually on the attack just because it feels like he's sort of taking advantage of me a tad in his recent dealings, but he's been my closest friend in this game and I just can't do that. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

If Bob has to back out of this war to defend against Sandover... I think I'll wait on attacking Timmy, which would be disappointing since I have the army to do it right now. I just think it would turn into one bloody mess that would only result in taking a marginal border city. Next couple days will be interesting...

[scooter]

I'm pretty sure Timmy believes me..? Hard to tell for sure, but that's definitely not how I would've responded if I was in his shoes and I didn't believe it. Here was his response, see if you think he believes it or not:

Heh, yes moogle has also been rather untalkative. He expressed displeasure a while ago at the city we agreed on (north of you), then nothing for a while.

Overall my diplomacy has been very slight due to real-life contraints (check out the last post date in my thread...) so rest assured it is not just you who is not hearing often from me.

It is good to hear reassuring words regarding peace. Yes I was aware I was ahead in power for a while but that was always the product of two things:
1) Khmer game is fast expansion, thus a higher pop->more soldiers
2) Having to fight the barbs myself - and more than my share, thanks to you and the Great Wall

Hard to tell, but I'm thinking so.

[scooter]

Okay, chat with Bob right now but it's winding down. He hopped on to let me know we won't play a turn tonight because he needs to hold onto the save to talk to Sandover. Apparently Sandover sent him an email. Here's the chat, I'll summarize at the bottom for those (probably 90% of you all) who hate chat logs, especially one that I won't bother cleaning up:

Ben: howdy!
me: hey there!
hows it going?
Ben: I'm afraid we might not get a turn in today
me: something up?
Ben: I'm gonna have to sit on it
yeah
me: oh boy
whats going on?
Ben: I'm sort of in a life or death situation
all of a sudden
sniffed out a betrayal by sandover, a few turns before it was to go down
me: thats..not good
oh wow
what'd he say?
Ben: yeah, got lucky
he has a proposal... sort of
it's all really vauge
and doesn't make much sense
me: you cool with forwarding it to me?
Ben: not at the moment, sorry
me: i'm curious... all this time i thought he was going after TT
thats fine, figured it couldnt hurt to ask
Ben: apparently TT bought him out
but the details of it don't make any sense...
he was paid by TT to attack me, but the payment is unreasonably massive
me: so... what - is he trying to twist your arm to call off the attack or something?
Ben: oh no quite the opposite
he wants to help
but wants "territory" in return
but the land between us is all wasteland
me: unclaimed? or territory you uh... already own?
Ben: I have no idea
it all sucks
me: oh fun
Ben: I'm not sure I really understand what's going on, and I need answers before I decide whether my army keeps going to the front with timmy, or rushes over to egypt
so, no turn tonight unless sandover is up extra late :P
me: got it - and no he's usually in bed by now
Ben: strangest thing is that I actually owe sandover a great person!
he gave me his first person, a prophet, many turns ago
but payment isn't due for a few turns
so I guess he was going to forfeit it...
me: weird... sandover seemed to indicate he got along well with you
Ben: yeah there's that too
me: i'm surprised TT would make a deal with him
Ben: and also that too
me: a lot of strange-ness about this
Sent at 5:14 PM on Tuesday
me: btw, i think i convinced timmy that i wont be declaring on him... but if this all falls through, i might not anyways
Ben: we'll see- I still want to declare on timmy, but I obviously can't if I'm at war with sandover, and that means that yeah you might not want to either
me: oh i definitely dont want a 1v1 war with timmy. i could take one city, but past that it would be a slog
Ben: depending on what response I get, I might want to even see if timmy can help me, if he fears sandover so dang much
I'll let you know what's going down, if I'm still in, etc.

1. Sandover was going to attack Bob (which I kinda already knew, I was just thinking/hoping the time-table was much later).
2. Bob asked Sandover for assurances that he wouldn't attack, and Sandover didn't give it to him at first.
3. Sandover sends some message to Bob (which I haven't been able to get my hands on quite yet) saying instead of attacking, he'll help if he can get some sort of territory.
4. Bob himself isn't sure what territory he's talking about there, so yes I know #3 is very vague.
5. So now Bob needs more specifics from Sandover, because he needs to know if he needs to be shifting his army towards Sandover instead.


I'll be honest, I'm kind of annoyed at Sandover for quite possibly blowing my plans here. His timing was awful. I would have liked to have known this earilier - instead of all the hammers (and now maintenance) I just sunk into military, I would've been filling out the 5-6 cities I can still plant while furiously teching towards Oromos. I think I might try to catch him on chat tomorrow and see if whatever deal he wants - if he'll cut a generous one for Bob and leave him alone, at least for awhile.