RBP3 [Spoilers] Capac of Mali

[Swiss Pauli]

The attack plan on India has the Warrior attacking first, do you think that's what they actually meant or the order is just arbitrary?

No idea: not read the plan in any detail seeing as we're not directly involved

[Swiss Pauli]

Diplo mostly flim-flam and a couple of hellos from Inca.

We're not far from meeting Sumeria's exploring warrior and Byzantium will find us next turn. I'll be leaning on them quite heavily because they have been pretty silly so far (e.g. IW duplication, eagerness for war). Will give them some carrot too: they can be our key military civ because of their Cataphracts.

Plan B if Oracle falls: settlers, workers & chariot. We three can chat over the details; if not convenient then all decisions default to the turnplayer. Only one team (England) left to play the current turn, though there are a dozen hours left on the turn.

[Swiss Pauli]

T61 Report: still no Oracle, so our workers are all set to move into the forests next turn. Cottage completed at Sirianfish and one turn into a road on the sheep. Marianne put a token turn into a cottage (but I don't think we'll ever finish it).

Keef bested the bear (yea!) but is down to 0.9 health (boo!) and has 4XP. No sign of the barb warrior, though we'll have to keep an eye out for him. Mick moved west, and should continue to do so in order to meet Rome & Sumeria. He has 2XP and can be promoted if needs be.

We met Byz and exchanged greetings, and requested OBs with Babylon now that they have Writing. Diplo quiet for a change, but thankfully the phony Byz-Bab war has been shelved.

[Swiss Pauli]

I didn't read this properly when it came it, and failed to notice that Babylon has screwed up and accepted a NAP with England giving them carte blanche to continue with their landgrab

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Babylon
To: capac

this was my reply. just stalling really. This game is hotting up!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:Babylon
Date: Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 7:20 PM
Subject: NAP
To: England


Greetings Lords of Avalon,

Firstly, thank you very much for passing on our request. We can live in hope, no?

Whilst i appreciate the directions you have given, we both know that number of tiles doesn't necessarily constitute the most fair distribution of land. A lot depends on the quality of said land and the distribution of resources.
I mentioned previously a screenshot of the middle ground between our two lands. I would of course expect you to black out anything relating to your cities and research, unit distribution and the like. We have no interest in such things, we just need to know what land we are agreeing to split before we split it.

I'm not suggesting that you are proposing anything unfair but we would appreciate this picture before we put pen to paper as such. All the other terms are fine by us and we're happy to have the NAP either linked or seperate- it makes no real difference to us.

Your friends,

Kyan
Kysit's Periwinkles

[Swiss Pauli]

And my reply:

Hi Kyan,

Thanks for forwarding the email, but I'm a bit concerned about: 'We are glad that the extended NAP terms and other non-settlement terms are acceptable. Shall we consider those agreed to, and we can continue working on a settlement deal?'

I think you made a big mistake and have now tied your hands with England which I'm sure wan't your objective with a putative stalling email

Best Wishes

Emperor Capac

[Swiss Pauli]

Map of the borders with England:

[Swiss Pauli]

A let's make the best of a bad job email to Babylon:

Hi Kyan,

Having recovered from my intial, Sullla-esque reaction ('ruined! everything's ruined!') to the faux pas with England, I've come up with a plan B:

- Mali accepts NAP terms but declines RoP ban (what if England is the aggressor?).
- Make settling agreement conditional on acceptance into their group.
- We cancel NAPs on T100 whether we're planning an attack or not.

We need to keep the military option open with England to stop them expanding like crazy, and we can try to slow them down on tech by forcing them to grab Gibraltar and Drunken Pigs sooner than they'd like.

We look forward to your feedback.

Best Wishes

Emperor Capac

[Swiss Pauli]

Bit more diplo (bottom to top), and it seems the current turn will run more or less its full course:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Byz to Mali, Babylon, Sumeria & Maya


It fits better with the current Incans-Aztec war. If the two conflicts merge into one, the turn order won't cause any issues.

If the current location of the bear is unknown, we'll probably try to go either around the barb warrior or fortify and let him come to us. Our chariot is Combat I and Shock now, and the barb warrior would have to cross a river, so we're confident of our odds.

Moogle


On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 6:01 PM, Maya:

In case you're all wondering what's going on, I'm sending this from my cell, which is obviously not civ capable. We'll get the turn played today somehow. Last I heard from Ref before his connection went down was that India still only had 1 warrior in the city, and as they had ample time to reinforce, that should be what we're facing.

I guess we're taking the 2nd half of the turn as that seems to better fit our time window and I believe that's what Byz wants us to do.

Sorry for the delay.

Maniac

[Swiss Pauli]

Exchange with Byzantium re France:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Byzantium to Mali & Babylon:

Greetings Mali,

The rumours of France's allegiances are worrying and we should excerize caution in our dealings with them. However, until it is certain they are in the Hydra's pocket, we may yet be able to persuade them to join us. We agree with your assessment about delaying offers of substance until our attack has started in earnest though.

On behalf of the Spectre Council,
-SleepingMoogle


On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Capac Mali to Byz, cc Babylon:

Dear Byzantium,

We understand that you are poised to meet/have just met the French. As you know, they've been criticized by members of the Hydra, but we're think that this is a ruse designed to get us to spill our plans to the Hydra by presenting France as a possible ally.

How do you plan to approach them with regards to finding out where their true allegiances lie? Our suggestion would be to be somewhat guarded with them until T65 - at which point the cat is out of the bag - then if they still sound interested & we believe they're lying then we'll have to think about what to do.

Best Wishes

Emperor Capac

[Swiss Pauli]

Ok guys, how's this for a plan:




Ideally we'd get a chariot onto the red dot (ostensibly to fogbust), and pre-road up to it on tiles that England can't see from their spot on the river hill.

We settle both cities on the same turn, each with two chariots. Depending on the timescale, we may have Skirmishers available to relieve the chariots after a turn or two.

Pink Dot is a spot we're allowed to settle according to England's proposal, so we should make our intentions obvious by moving our chariot(s) & settler into England's LoS (assuming the chariot remains where it is).

Red Dot invalidates England's Gibraltar, and whilst they could settle one north and fight a culture war that city (or drunken pigs) would have no food

It pretty much sets us against England for the rest of the game (and the subterfuge won't work if England has a fogbuster on Red Dot), but I thought I'd throw it out for discussion.