[SPOILERS] - scooter's thread

[scooter]

Serdoa told SleepingMoogle and Twinkletoes that he would them peace for 500 gold. Their reactions:

Twinkletoes - Got all offended and told Serdoa to grow up (Serdoa FW me the message)
SleepingMoogle - told me the message was offensive, and as a result the war was going to hand the game to me.

My question is what on earth are these two thinking? I'm so confused. First off, these two need some thicker skin if that offends them. Second, how on earth does this hand me the game? Sure it helps me catch up, but does SleepingMoogle not realize that he still beats me handily in every single important category?? AND he has a vassal? AND he has a holy city for a religion that is well-spread?



I'll post the messages later if you'd like to see them... No time now.

[scooter]

Alright, here's a diplo update... Here's what Serdoa sent to Twinkletoes and SleepingMoogle:

SleepingMoogle,

You and your vassal will notice that Alesia burned. Thats a pity and solely to blame on you and your vassal. You and your vassal therefore should think about for what they ask. You and your vassal also should note that I will never let the good people in Silarus River be tortured again by the leadership of their former ruler.

Still, as so much blood has been shed, I am willing to talk with you and your vassal about peace. I am ok to agree to a peace treaty. This would be a treaty without any additional claims except for 500 gold, to be payed within 3 turns. If you pay the full amount or your vassal or you split it up is something I do not care about.

If you do want peace, there is my offer. If you don't I can only request you to bring forth your "numerous" forces. I can not wait to see them and find out if they are finally some sort of match for mine.

Serdoa, Emperor of... oh, I have no fun writing that again. Look down to my last email and simply add "Ruler of the lands of Alesia"

This is the message that the two of them got all bent out of shape about. I'm not sure what's so upsetting about it? Is it the 500 gold request? I have no idea. Twinkletoes response, as forwarded by Serdoa:

Serdoa,

Do not attempt crowing, it is not becoming of you. I suggest you grow up and write us a proper message, not an immature one.

Your friend (I am laughing this time)

TT

Huh? What was immature about Serdoa's message? I'm really not sure. Making a demand of 500 gold might prevent peace from being signed, but it's not immature..? So weird. Twinkletoes dude, SleepingMoogle demands 2 cities + vassalization for peace and you say "sure ok we'll be allies!" and Serdoa demands 500 gold (much cheaper than two cities) and you say he's being immature? I'll never understand...

I then had some correspondence with SleepingMoogle... His response to Serdoa's message will be near the end of this correspondence (you'll see it when we get there). His message:

Greetings scooter,

It is wish some disappointment that I have established that you are directly funding Serdoa. I would be interested into your reasoning behind this action, but know that any further assisting of my enemies will be considered a hostile act.

Regards,
-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

This was referring to the Merchant money split. My response:

SleepingMoogle,

Kinda funny that he went from a war ally to your enemy in a span of 24 hours despite doing nothing to harm you. Sort of reminds me of the broken vassal state feature introduced in Warlords and the exact reason why we all hated the feature and always turned it off .

Some poking aside, you are a runaway right now in this game. If Serdoa falls, I'll be faced with a 2v1, and one of those 2 will be the strongest civ in the game by far. What else am I supposed to do? You and Twinkletoes appear to be indefinitely joined at the hip, so I'd like to make sure I'm not the one who gets ganged up on next.

Why don't you all just sign peace and make this a little easier?

scooter

Note - this was before Serdoa's "peace for 500g" offer. His response:

Scooter,

My response to Serdoa has simply been to prevent him from turning into a runaway power. I am certain that you will agree that if India were to add the Ottoman empire to his lands, he would easily be the favorite to win this game. Either way, it would appear you would lose under that interpretation, so funding a potential enemy feels counterproductive. Perhaps under that reasoning I should close my borders and stop active trade routes? We both know that will hurt your economy far more than it will mine.

In any case, the matter peace will be up to Serdoa now. He has lost quite a number of forces this turn, and for his own safety I urged him to withdraw from Ottoman lands else his own cities would be threatened soon. Perhaps you could advise him to do the same.

Regards,
-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

This whole preventing him from being a runaway thing is garbage and he knows it. Or he has to right? HE is the runaway right now, Serdoa taking those territories will only help even the score. So he's lying really... I kinda explained my reasoning in a long-ish message:

SleepingMoogle,

I guess I'll try to explain why I'm less concerned about Serdoa running away... Right now he might be 2nd on the scoreboard, but by the demos he is definitely in 3rd place - I've overtaken him in every category. Normally I'm not too concerned about 3rd place running away, but I'll explain further... Also, you are currently a runaway if we're being honest - I was just starting to make up ground when you got two mature cities (one of which was a holy city) added to your number and suddenly you were miles ahead again.

I would argue that even if Serdoa takes all of TT's mainland cities, you'd still be the leader. Think about it for a second:

1. Two captured cities is nowhere near as good as two gifted cities. Captured cities lose almost all buildings, lose population, waste a ton of turns in revolt, and take forever to bring up to par. Gifted cities are 100% functional and intact immediately.
2. If he takes them all, he'd have the most cities probably (barely), but how many would be useful? It would take some time for those new cities to be useful
3. He would probably have a totally crashed economy by that point, and he'd be pretty much doing no teching for a good chunk of time afterwards. He also would have to stop building cities for quite some time while both you and I expand peacefully and claim the best land overseas.

I guess my point is this, absolute best-case scenario, Serdoa conquesting TT would bring him almost to part with you... Almost. And even then, only temporarily, as you and I would zoom ahead while he tries to rescue his economy. Sure he'd have the most land on the mainland, but he'd get the least on the islands as well as on the other continent.

So no, I disagree that he'd be the favorite... Best case scenario it would only give him a chance to be a contender. The upside is we get to see yet another player depart from the game, at which point the next phase of colonization (which you have the strong advantage for with the ship movement bonus) takes place with just three players, all of which are coming from totally different paths. Would be quite interesting.

Hopefully this makes sense as to why I don't share your view of being afraid of Serdoa... I'd be inclined to just let him have at it, maybe gifting some excess troops to TT to slow him down. How bound are you to not attacking Twinkletoes?

scooter

His response:

Scooter,

What I want in this point is, sadly, irrelevent. Rather than taking the recent loss of forces as an opportunity to consider peace, Serdoa has instead decided to be spiteful. He made an offer of peace that was quite frankly insulting and threw away forces to raze a city instead of withdrawing them to recuperate as would have been the wise, tactical decision. It is disappointing, to say the least, that someone who was so violently opposed to 'cheap tactics' on my part has sunk this low only a few turns later. While I don't mind capturing a few of his cities to force the issue, surely he must know that extending the conflict will benefit him no more than it does me. Perhaps that is the point though; I can't shake the feeling that he is doing this simply to deny me the possibility of winning, rather than having a tactically sound agenda.

So perhaps our recent discussion will prove to be a moot point. Whether or not you'll relish the victory that Serdoa may be trying to hand you is another matter though.

Regards,
-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

Yet another nonsense email. I haven't responded to this yet, who knows if I will. SleepingMoogle is either trying to spin things as hard as possible or he is delusional... I'm guessing he's just trying to spin things, as he seems the type to be pretty clued in... But who knows. If he really believes the game is being handed to me, he is out of his mind. If he's stupid enough to throw all his production into war with Serdoa then yeah, he might be handing it to me somehwat...

[scooter]

Couldn't stop myself from answering:

SleepingMoogle,

I found myself really confused at that last message. How is razing an enemy city a dumb tactical decision? That sounds like the kind of comment Sullla used to make in PB2 that we all groaned at . If it hurt you enough to complain about it, then maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all. If I were him, giving up a few units to raze a city I couldn't hold sounds like a good decision to me. Especially since if TT gets it back, the cultural borders magically re-appear. That's GOOD tactics. I think you know that though, which is why I'm confused as to why you said it the way you did.

Also, how is this handing me the game? Are you forgetting that you are destroying me in every relevant demographic?

I guess I say all that to say this - I think you're jumping to a lot of conclusions, none of which seem to be true.

scooter

[scooter]

Got this message from SleepingMoogle on Friday:

Scooter,

Demographics are pretty, but let's not ignore the fact that my hammers are not going towards growth and infrastructure. The longer Serdoa chooses to perpetuate this war, the more you will stand to benefit from it. And he knows this just as much as you and I do. I hope to keep this game going by destroying Serdoa before it is too late, but if I cannot manage to destroy him before the demographics swing your way, then allow me to be the first to congratulate you on your future victory.

Since you have already funded Serdoa in war, it would seem that a similar allowance towards the Malazan empire is appropriate. I wish to move some of my troops through your lands, and open up a second front with Serdoa. If you are neutral as you claim, you will allow this and not share this information with India, and in return I will be willing to overlook the fact that you have directly aided my enemy.

-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

Not sure what to think with this message - really bizarre... Seems like a terrible idea for SleepingMoogle and what incentive do I have to keep it quiet? Well the save stopped for about a day and a half (see the post in IT thread), so I set this aside, only to get this message yesterday before I even got another turn:

Scooter of the Incan empire,

It is interesting to note that, despite your timely responses thus far, you have thus far declined to return a message. Could it be that the current dilemma puts you in a tough situation as well?

I have decided to make the decision easier for you. Since I dislike following your example in using cheap tactics in order to get ahead, I will not be moving forces through your lands. Technically, this would not be an issue as we never forbade each other from doing it, just as technically we did not forbade funding each other's enemies. The difference is that I have no desire to sink to that level of strategy, and since you seem to be struggling in this matter, I can only conclude that you would. It would seem that our cooperation is no longer sustainable.

You will find that the Malazan empire has now closed its borders and trade routes with the Indian empire. I am not opposed to discuss reopening them and renew our cooperation, however this won't be an option until you cease supporting my enemies. With this I would also like to warn you: while I will continue to honor our Non-aggression pact and expanded eastern border, both in letter and spirit, any further support of the Indians will be considered an act of war against the Malazan empire. At that point I will no longer consider myself bound to any previous agreements we have made.

Sincerely,
-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

SleepingMoogle closed borders with me. Well I picked a bad month to stop sniffing glue. There are so many insane things in this message I don't even know where to start. Here's what I wrote back:

What on earth? What cheap tactics are you referring to? I've been using cheap tactics to get ahead? I spent 10+ hours yesterday working on a very large project, and since the save wasn't moving I set this aside for the day. I'm still working on it now (it's due tomorrow), so I was going to respond and play the save all at once later tonight when it finally got to me. I'm stopping now to respond real quick since apparently you keep getting offended and jumping to ridiculous conclusions so I need to put an end to this before it gets more out of control. Wow, where to begin...

1. I never claimed to be neutral in your war with Serdoa. I flat-out told you that I have no intention of letting Serdoa die, since that means you and your vassal would just dogpile me next. I told you that very clearly - go back and check the messages if you'd like. I'm not going to help Serdoa conquer Twinkletoes, but if he was in danger of dying (which he's not), you'd better believe I'd help him out.

2. Stop assuming that I was just blindly funding Serdoa. I owed him money from a previous deal - this was actually back when you two were war allies before you sold him out. He knew full well I had a merchant coming, so that was part of the deal - splitting the spoils from the merchant. Sorry for "funding your enemy", but I keep my deals, unlike some people.

3. What cheap tactics are you referring to? I have no earthly clue.

4. As an aside, no I had no told Serdoa of your plan of opening another front. I've actually sent zero diplo messages to anyone in any PBEM so far since then - like I said - I've been pretty busy and since the save wasn't moving I wasn't in any hurry.

5. Again - I have not supported your enemy one bit outside of paying up on a previous deal that occurred long before you were enemies.

Your diplo is so confusing right now - you seem so set on making enemies out of your only two competitors, and I can't make any sense of it.

scooter

#2 isn't very true, it's not even really a half-truth, it's more like a quarter truth... But given how much he seems to be lying to me, I don't feel remotely bad lying to him. He earned it. The preface about RL interfering is 100% true, Saturday was an incredibly hectic day for me. Nothing wastes your mind quite like spending 10 hours in a day programming an application that's decoding and executing Intel 8086 addressing modes and instructions.

That point aside, SleepingMoogle is out of his freaking mind. Either that or he's just lying/screwing with me, or he's totally delusional. I'm really not sure which I'd rather it be... Probably the first, since he seems to be a truly intelligent person/player, so I can't imagine he's actually this stupid. It's just hypocritical given his "I've got the moral high ground" routine he keeps giving, which is really getting old since he has a vassal right now which is quickly turning the diplo scene into a joke.

Along that line - these allegations of cheap tactics is so ridiculous it's not even funny. He complained that Serdoa was being spiteful by razing a city..? Um, tough luck. You were the one who approached him about attacking Twinkletoes. Now you're saying he's using cheap tactics to raze an enemy city? Pass the dude, I want some of that stuff too! He claims that Serdoa is just throwing the game to me by going all-out on his war... Umm.... YOU started this war. Don't come whining to me and throw around allegations of "cheap tactics" when 1: razing cities and heavily whipping your cities when you're getting dogpiles is not cheap and 2: There would be no tactics if you hadn't started this war. It was your choice.

Yeesh. Rant over. For now at least - at the rate we're going I fully expect another rant when he sends his next message . I'm going to try to piece together a T100 update today, but life has been busy so it might not be huge. Besides I just did one like two turns ago, so I might just call that my report and add a few more "big picture" things for comparison purposes.

Oh yeah - SM closing borders didn't trash my economy as much as expected, but it did hurt a little. I'm still in the green at 50% science though so I'll be fine in the long run - I've cottaged well in the last 25ish turns so that's made up for it.

[Square Leg]

Well I picked a bad month to stop sniffing glue

ha ha

Just paused from work to check the forums and read this and I giggled - so thank you!

[scooter]

Hey remember that time SleepingMoogle got mad at me for not responding for 36 hours despite the save never moving during that time? Well it's been nearly 4 days now, and he still hasn't written back. I poked him about it today, still nothing. He didn't explain why he was holding the save either, which is frustrating. If it's real life, then fine. If it's for diplo again... I'll be slightly annoyed.

ha ha

Just paused from work to check the forums and read this and I giggled - so thank you!

Glad it made you laugh!

[scooter]

I've been intending to do a full update all week, but this has been an extremely hectic week so I haven't been able to put something together to do it all justice. Short list of what I've been doing:

-Signed NAP with SleepingMoogle. This extended it to T150 and re-opened borders with him, improving my economy greatly.
-Taj Mahal Golden Age
-Settled a bunch of cities
-Popped Great Scientist for Academy in my capital
-Lost Liberalism race to SleepingMoogle (3-4 turns so it wasn't that close)

On the part about the cities - yeah I literally have plopped down a half dozen cities in the last 4-5 turns. I've settled over half of "my" islands now, and I don't intend to stop settling anytime soon. SleepingMoogle is pulling away a bit in every category, so I'm hoping to essentially out-REX him given my Lighthouse advantage. So far I am definitely ahead of him in cities, so maybe it'll work.

I'll try to get a full update with pictures by the end of the weekend at the latest.

[dazedroyalty]

Sounds like you're in a good spot! Those cities will expand/grow and then you'll be raking it in!

[scooter]

As you guys probably have seen, we have conceded the game to SleepingMoogle. Serdoa and I both signed long NAPs with him way back (in retrospect, a huge mistake), and he used the time to absolutely blow us all away. I don't have much time to report now, but I'll be home in a few days for break, so I plan on writing a lengthy post-game report and having it up by the end of the week. I'm also going to start sifting through the threads and make comments in there, but I have no idea how long that'll take. Looking forward to it though!

I'll say more about the map in my post-game report, but a huge thanks to Krill for designing the map... I think it's the best map to be designed for an RB MP game, and I haven't even seen the whole thing yet!

[Krill]

Once someone starts a post game discussion thread, I'll add a comment or two, but I think the critical point was copper placement.