[SPOILERS] scooter - Zara Yakob

[Bobchillingworth]

I'm not sure if this game is even still going on (?), but I was going through my email account and came across the initial "handing off" email I sent Amelia- I've posted it below in case you wanted to take a look at what my thoughts were at the time, and the recommendations I left (I don't think that there is any spoiler info that you haven't already known for a long while now.)


Warning- it's long:

Heya,


First off, thanks for taking over! Let me get the most important stuff out of the way first. The game has a PBEM tracker set up here for you to upload the save for Scooter. Alas for some reason Sandover (the player who precedes you) isn't able to upload saves himself, so you'll have to receive them directly from him via email. His address is I believe posted in the PBEM 3 tech thread.

The password for my civ is -redacted-




Okay, so for a brief summary of the game set up:



You are playing as Augustus of Rome. The map is a normal size Highlands edited (very poorly) by Darrell. The difficulty is Noble and the world wrap is flat, so you can found a city almost anywhere on the map and it won't cost you more than a 5 GPT or so if you build a courthouse. Most of the land has already been settled, but might be nice to keep in mind.

Darrell edited in a giant lake into the middle of the map- no one has explored the center yet. There's a lot of random map oddities, like ocean tiles adjacent to grassland squares, or rivers on ocean tiles, or forests on ocean tiles. The map is also very poorly balanced, and Rome has badly suffered for this. There are few rivers in Roman territory, and an alarming amount of desert. You have a great scarcity of resources, especially for food, while our other civs like Ethiopia and the Khhmer have multiple gems, dyes, and masses of riverside FP and grassland. Sleeping Moogle and TT got even worse starts, both stuck off in the northern tundra. Consequently, both have been almost complete non-factors for the entire game. Rome is also very poorly positioned on the map as you'll find, stuck away in the lower SW corner with no reasonable opportunity to ever grow as large as most of the other civs through peaceful means. The hill iron at the capital and grassland hill gold mine were both lucky pops.


The all-important civ theme is the Half Life series- feel free to change it as you see fit


Rome has a few wonders- the Hindu shrine (Hinduism is by far the most widespread faith), Pyramids, Colossus, and Great Library.


Rome is in the middle of the pack in almost all regards except military. Rome has mid/late middle ages technology, an average amount of land (with almost no expansion spots left nearby), 14 or so cities, and a large military.


Rome has two great people available for immediate use- a scientist (the best science city already has an academy), and a merchant who I recently set to auto-move to Scooter's (Ethiopia) capital for a cash mission. Feel free to recall him. Rome has already generated one great general, who was gifted to Sandover (Egypt) a while back as part of a trade.


Rome is at war with Egypt, which is the strongest civ in the game and your northern neighbor. I have so far lost few units (besides some workers I carelessly tossed away as bait, because I was out of things for them to do and playing poorly), and have not lost any cities. See below for diplo summaries for each team.



Egypt (Sandover):

Sandover was for a long time my best ally and trade partner. We had a variety of mutually beneficial deals, and I happily looked the other way as he pushed aggressively against TT. That all changed when, while planing a war with the Khmer (Rome's other neighbor), I tried to secure an NAP with Egypt. He was evasive in his responses, and by pressing further I revealed that he was planning to backstab me. Since he had lost the element of surprise, he backed off, and I did end up going through with my Khmer war, but I never forgot or forgave Sandover. After I concluded peace with the Khmer it was clear that Sandover, who was in the process of overrunning TT, was going to win the game if left unopposed. I struck in secret some deals with every team but Egypt in order to slow Sandover down. We arranged for Celtia to assist TT, while the Khmer would strike at Sandover through my borders, with Ethiopia sending reinforcements as needed. Sandover apparently did not take well to seeing Khmer units streaming at him through my land and declared war. I very much doubt that there will be any diplomacy between Rome and Egypt for the rest of the game, and I honestly see no reason for that to change, as Sandover must be stopped by force if he is to be kept from completely running away with the game.


Deals- War to the Death.

Likelihood of winning- High.


Celtia (Sleeping Moogle):

Moogle is the furthest civ from me. He played a very slow start with a heavy emphasis on religion that really hasn't paid off for him. We haven't had much contact for most of the game, and he was the last civ I met. He briefly joined in the war I fought with the Khmer but I believe that there was no bloodshed on his end. Although he is not officially at war with Sandover yet, he is an ally and stockpiling troops for the inevitable confrontation with Egypt, although whether he intends to do so on the offense or simply is bracing for an assault is unclear.


Deals- He is gifting Rome several resources that were lost when Egypt declared. War ally vs. Egypt. Open borders as well.

Likelihood of winning- None.


Khmer (timmy):

The Khmer is Rome's other neighbor. There was very little diplomatic contact from timmy for most of the game, as he has been busy with RL and I think is reserved by nature. As he played a farmer's gambit heavy expansion with light military game, Ethopia and I hatched a plan to both attack him simultaneously in a war of opportunity. I razed timmy's closest city to me, and scooter captured another on his end, but timmy whipped a very impressive defense in a short time period, and we all arranged for peace after about a half-dozen turns of war. As part of the peace proposal timmy was allowed to resettle the city I razed- I really had no way of stopping him anyway. I made nice quickly afterward, and he is now aiding Rome directly against Egypt, stationing a steady stream of reinforcements at strategic defensive locations throughout Roman territory.


Deals- There may be some resource trades with timmy currently ongoing, I don't remember. I have a Hindu Missionary-for-worker (Rome's missionary, his worker) arrangement with him. War ally vs. Egypt, currently contributing troops. Open borders as well.

Likelihood of winning- Low.


Ethiopia (Scooter):

Scooter is now Rome's best friend and ally in this game. We fought together vs. the Khmer, and he presently collaborates to help stop Egypt. As Ethiopia is the most advanced and developed empire behind Egypt, his assistance is crucial for winning the war. Unfortunately he is rather distant from the front lines, and lost much of his military to timmy's counter-assault in our earlier war.


Deals- We have some resource deals, and he's gifting stone for castles and the moai national wonder. War ally vs. Egypt, currently contributing troops. Open borders as well.

Likelihood of winning- Moderate.


Germany (TT AKA Twinkletoes):

Heh, this guy. TT has been a non-factor for almost the entire game. Sandover was chewing him up when the rest of the civs decided to make a stand and come to his assistance. He managed to lose his entire military of 20+ LB and an equivalent number of catapults through an incredible feat of tactical incompetence, and then with no warning suddenly decided to gift away his entire empire over to Egypt, already a runaway power and the civ who had aggressively bullied him for the entire game. He now resides as the most irrelevant miserable city state to ever exist. His stated reason for the betrayal: he thought that if he had peace with Egypt, Sandover would make Rome the first civ to die and TT wouldn't have to leave the game as "last place". Prove him wrong


Deals- As if!

Likelihood of winning- Hahaha.




So, that was a lot of text! In case you haven't realized, you'll probably be seeing a lot of combat in this game. Rome is probably in a hopeless position right now in terms of winning the game, but the war with Sandover has yet to really heat up. When it does, however, expect the fighting to be brutal. It is absolutely imperative that Sandover be stopped- while the diplomacy from here-on-out will be yours alone to make, peace with Sandover at this point would be tantamount to suicide and would irreparably damage relations with your allies. The combined might of Celtia, Rome, Ethiopia, and the Khmer exceeds that of Egypt, but coordination has been minimal- Rome may need to take a leading role in the alliance, as most of the upcoming action will surely take place in or around your land. The Roman economy is currently based on Representation-boosted specialists thanks to the Pyramids, therefore there are few cottages and a lot of farms. I had set tech to Optics, not because it has any real tactical purpose (I guess you could bother Egypt with caravels using coastal blockade in the ocean tiles untouchable by galley...) but because I wanted to see what was in the middle of the damned map :P Feel free to switch the tech, although be aware that Ethiopia is due to get liberalism first. My final recommendations- build lots of units, spread missionaries where you can, coordinate your defense or attacks with allies, and have fun!


You have my blessing to update my thread for the game as you see fit. In fact, if you're willing to do an overview for the lurkers, please by all means do so!




Many thanks for taking over, and feel free to message me if you have any other questions,


-Bobchillingworth

[scooter]

So yeah, I more or less abandoned this thread for some time, although since my last post we've probably only played 20ish turns so it's not like you've missed that much. Actually 20 is probably overly-optimistic, because we more or less play 3 turns a week now. Most of this is because Amelia doesn't fit in the turn schedule very well I think, but who knows really. It's resulted in my not being super excited about the game, and generally for me - my frequency of thread updates reflects how much fun I'm having with the game. It's not that I'm not having fun right now, but it's more like it's just not exciting, and I don't have the ability/desire to try to turn "selected tech, moved infantry/cavs to reinforced GES, hit enter" into an exciting report. Most of the action is between Sandover/GES right now, and it looks like they're doing a good job of updating you judging by the frequency of their updates.

Anyways, so Sandover sent me an email out of the blue today - I think he was bored. Though I'm guessing he's probably shown it to you, here it is just in case:

Scooter,

Hi there, friend! How are things in that little corner of yours? Everything is dandy sweet I hope.

I've been able to enact some revenge upon the Khmer Empire lately. Yes, it did take me over 50 turns to do it. But you can't say that I don't deliver eventually, can you?

Anyway, I might struggle a little from here on. I've been told GES pulled in some Infantry. That will be hard to break. I wonder where he got them? You don't happen to know anything about it? No? Oh ok, I'll probably figure it out sooner or later.

Got an ETA on that spaceship yet?

Pharaoh Sandover of Egypt

Did I ever mention I can't wait to read his thread? I swear if it's halfway as entertaining as his emails, I'm going to enjoy reading it. I did FW this off to GES, only to make note of the "those infantry will be hard to break" part - which I tend to think he's actually being serious about. I have some hope left at least. I can't let an email like that go without a response, so:

Sandover,

Oh hey there! I love my corner, thank you very much! What can I say, I'm just a content person. I can't travel too far outside my borders or else I get homesick.

He got some infantry? How is that even possible? I don't build military, remember?? I'm just a humble peacenik who makes friends with everyone and sits in the corner building spaceships and stuff. And buildings. I like buildings. Lots and lots of buildings.

Spaceship should be done in about 9 turns... Give or take. How are you doing tech-wise? Are you even able to build Grocers yet? Well good luck in yet another one of your warmongering escapades. Tell your puppet Amelia I said hi!

scooter

I always enjoy some good natured taunting. It's not quite as fun as when you're playing a game in person, but it's still fun. The silly emails have continued:

Scooter,

You and those buidlings - inseparable you are! Shame though you never get to build any Lighthouses and such. Must be sleeping poorly at times, having that aching in the back of your head?

Personally I like to travel. I've yet to visit Celtica, since they wouldn't let me in. Odd that they didn't really, considering I'm such a friendly spirit. I wanted to pay you a visit, but when I got to the Khmer border it turned out my passport was out of date. I'm working on "clearing that up" however, so maybe we'll see each other soon.

Last time I checked my tech rate was pretty okay. Seems I can research stuff like "Carriers" and "Bombers" pretty soon. I'm not sure what they are for, but I can probably think of something once the time comes. I'm creative that way.

Pharaoh Sandover of Egypt

Sandover,

I mean they don't call me an architect for nothing! It's been said before that the fastest land animal is the Ethiopian chicken, but frankly I think that's nonsense. My people are well-fed if nothing else. I also have many Egyptian immigrants in my land, and they all claim to be fleeing from their "maniacal dictor" - their words not mine of course! Not sure what that's about.

The Celtic people are quite religious, so I wouldn't worry too much about them. They can't even make up their minds what religion they believe in, so it's understandable. I'm sure it has nothing to do with your reputation of killing people just for looking at you funny!

Hope you're able to work out your Khmer passport dispute without too much bloodshed!

scooter

Okay it's mostly just nonsense, but I take all this as a sign that Sandover is pretty confident right now, and rightfully so. I've funneled in the neighborhood of 40-50 infantry/cav into GES's land recently, but I'm really not sure if it'll be enough. I also sent this off to SleepingMoogle, looking for whatever help we can get:

SleepingMoogle,

Okay so I don't exactly remember... What are the terms of your NAP with Sandover? The reason I'm asking is that Sandover's invasion of Khmer is going on, and things are getting a little tight. I'm gifting GES with infantry/cannons as quick as possible, but we could use every warm body possible. I wanted to approach you about this to find out what the state of your NAP with Sandover is... If it's long-ish enough that you're comfortable, would you mind sending some help? Or at least I'd request the Knights I gave you to defend against Sandover. I genuinely don't know the state of things up there or what your NAP is, so if it's tense and not possible, I'll understand. I do know though that Sandover seems to have the bulk of his army in Khmer land (it's really some impressive stacks), so that's the only reason I'm asking. Hope you don't feel this is too forward or anything, but I felt I had to ask you given the state of Khmer land right now.

Since I'm more or less gifting GES all military that I funnel in, I'll fold like a deck of cards if GES falls, so I'm kind of betting the house that we can hold in his land. Here's hoping.

Thanks!
scooter

Basically I've continued giving GES everything I have, so if he falls, I'll fall very soon after. I'm more or less betting the house on holding Sandover in GES's land, so once Khmer falls we'd probably concede to Sandover. Actually I'd probably let it play out a bit more, only because I'd feel kind of bad if Sandover went through all the effort to get to me only to have me go "ok gg" when he got to me. Regardless though, if Egyptian units enter my borders, I'm done. I do have a definite lead in tech though, and if I'm able to protect my isolation, then I have a real shot at this thing. We'll see what happens....

[scooter]

BTW Bob - forget to say so earlier but thanks for posting that... Was interesting to read. If I lose this game (looking likely now), it'll be my failure to court Amelia as a friend. Stupid, stupid mistake on my part - I assumed way too much. It's funny, I feel like a lot of what's kept me in this position so far has been managing diplomacy, and the irony is that in the end, it could be that my biggest mistake was a diplomatic failure.

One thing's for sure though, we're not going down without a fight.

And some sarcastic emails.

[scooter]

Got a response:

Hey there scooter,

While I am bound by a NAP that I'd rather not end or break, the agreement did not mentioned indirect aid or troop gifting. Technically speaking, I could help out in this way, but to tell you the truth I would prefer not to do so to not provoke Sandover in cancelling the agreement. Even if I were to send my own forces south, keep in mind that they would be medieval units, rather than industrial age ones. They probably wouldn't accomplish much against what Sandover is bringing to the field.

If you have specific ideas you'd like to discuss I'm happy to hear you out, but I cannot guarantee that I'll agree with them. My position in this game is precarious at best. Ending in the third place was not something I considered possible for a long time, and I'd rather keep it that way if at all possible.

By the way, I did return those Knights to you already, as soon as Sandover and me were no longer at war. Given the pace of the game that was quite some time ago already, so I can't blame you for forgetting. ;-)

-SleepingMoogle

(a serious oops there on the Knights he already gave me! totally forgot)

Translation: Hey man, we're friends and all but....... Do you really need help?? I'd rather not die, thank you.

Got some convincing to do. Here we go. *rolls up sleeves*

SleepingMoogle,

Okay I admit that I laughed when you said you returned the Knights already - yeah I'm a liiiiittle out of tune in this game. The current dire state of Khmer has somewhat revived my interest, but given that you returned those Knights probably a few months ago - which probably only encompasses 15-20 turns - yeah I totally forgot. My bad about that.

I do understand your situation, and I won't blame you at all if you send nothing. GES actually didn't think you'd send anything, but I told him I'd give it a shot.

Here's the deal. I can get 1100 gold/turn at 0% science, so I've been spendin ga lot on upgrades, as well as giving GES large stockpiles of gold just so he can upgrade. We both got Steel recently, so we're upgrading cats -> cannons immediately. I gave him 900g last turn, 110g this turn, and probably another 800 next turn just for this purpose. Next he'll upgrade all his Knights -> Cavs, and hopefully this'l lbe enough to hold off Sandover, when combined with the infantry I"m sending him.

While that might make it sound like we've got it very much in control, the truth is we don't quite yet. A lot of GES' units are having to hold back because Sandover keeps floating Frigates/Galleons along his coast, so he has to protect from naval landings. Also, if you check the power graphs, Sandover's army is off the charts. His main stack probably has well over 100 units, along with several other stacks. Amelia is also contributing units to Sandover.

The problem we've run into is we just don't have nearly enough siege. Not even close. His upgrades from cats -> cannons will help, but there still won't be nearly enough to do realistic damage on a Sandover mega-stack. So if you are willing to contribute (again, no pressure), we would sell our firstborn children for some catapults. I have more than sufficient funds to allow for them to be upgraded to cannons, so it won't matter that they are outdated units.

From a "not making Sandover mad" perspective, catapults have a very low chance of detection on your part... You would gift them to me and I would upgrade them to cannons - and the cannon upgrade will be a much bigger spike than receiving a small stack of catapults. The main gift then would be from me to GES, so the only way you could possibly be implicated would be a tiny dip in your power graph, which honestly might not even be noticeable because Sandover's graph is SO high that it skews the chart. For instance, I recently gifted GES 12 infantry and 20+ cavs in one turn and it was barely noticeable on the charts. A dozen or so catapults would be practically invisible.

Again - if you say "nah I don't want to risk it" - no hard feelings. This is mostly out of desperation, so I'm trying everything I can. The issue is that GES is much closer to falling than you might realize, so I'm doing all I can now. He's already lost 1-2 cities, and he's trying to gradually retreat now while we scramble defense. If he falls, then kilillng me will be childs play for Sandover because I'm sending everything except 1 military police/city into Khmer.

Super Short Version: a stack of catapults please?

Thanks,
scooter

Everything I said is 100% serious and honest. SM has been out of the loop on all the screenshots GES has been sending me, so I'm very clued in on how desperate the situation is, and SM probably knows nothing really. All I really need from him is a bunch of catapults to upgrade to cannons, so hopefully he's willing to take the chance and give me help. Fingers crossed.

[scooter]

Also, here's a quick look into the emails between myself and GES. The first email is the text I sent him when I sent him the save, as well as the follow-up emails. Gives you an idea of what's going on in-game:

1. Moved the 4 cats 2 spots closer - really close to your border now. upgraded 3 of them which ended their turn (you can't upgraded with 0 move points left). didn't have enough for 4th upgrade so i moved him one spot closer.
2. Gifted you the 110g I had left. Set sci at 0% science, getting me 1100 gold for next turn.
3. I'll gift you a lot of it. See if you can estimate how much you need to upgrade everything - all cats ->cannons and other units -> infantry. I"m guessing that # might be north of 1100 so I might end up giving you all of it.
4. several cannons (and obviously infantry) completed at EoT. One of them is my border city so that'll be in commission for you really quickly.
5. Railroads is my next tech. I'm going to spread out my villagers 2 by 2 on my supply line to you, so as soon as RR comes in they should be ready to slap down a huge railroad all in one turn.
6. Don't forget to keep drafting. Draft the max every turn... That population doesn't do any good if it gets razed so might as well draft + whip as much as possible.

That's all I can think of at the moment...

How many turns until RRs? It might be worth teching that rather than gifting me gold, but I am sure it will be quite a bit of money to upgrade all my knights to cavs. I've probably have 20-30 at least floating around. I've got a GG I could save to create a heavily upgraded machine gun. StM says if you create a machine gun with tons of first strikes, it is damn difficult to crack.

I don't have Assembly Line obviously, so I would need to gift you my rifles for you to upgrade, which I am not sure if you can do in my land.

GES

That's what I was debating - figured I'd bounce it off you. Railroads will probably take 3 turns. Thing is, if I run 100% science for 3 turns, I'll still have gold leftover because 100% science only loses me 100-150 gold at the max. I'll calculate it out. I think what I"ll do is I'll blow through RR at 100%, calculate how much gold I need to keep for that, and give you the rest. I may also launch a golden age which will help me pull in even more gold. I've occasionally run wealth in a few cities, so that's an option too.

Good idea on the machine gun... Ideally that could kill off a ton of units all by itself. Might be worth a WB test.

Yeah I think I can upgrade units that are inside your land, but you can't gift them to me when they're in your land.

Quick math looking at my units, I probably need:

3000+ gold to upgrade all my cats to cannons.

3000+ gold to upgrade all my knights to cav

1000+ to upgrade lesser units to rifles.

God knows how much to turn all my rifles into infantry, probably 5-10k.

Sandover probably needs 3 more turns to hit Rhenish with siege, but he now can get an opportunity to fork me down the road.

GES

Okay. Cannons is probably top priority, followed by Knights. Rifles might not be feasible given that they'd have to walk to me and then back to you. I'll probably try to build rails in your territory as well, but I'll have to be careful I don't get caught by Sandover or anything.

Starting to enjoy myself a little more again. Of course it'll dampen when I don't get the next turn til Tuesday , but that's life.

[scooter]

Just got this from Sandover:

Scooter,

On another note entirely. The slow pace of the game is really starting to get to me. I know I'm guilty of the long christmas related delay, and I'm definitly not going to point fingers at anybody, but the fact is that we can't even keep up playing 1 turn per 2 days. When the game get around every day you have your slot for it and everything is fine, but when it doesn't you start doing other things instead, and once it does show up it sometimes feel more like a liability than something you do for fun since you have other stuff going on.

I'm still having fun with the actual game, but I question whether it's enough to be worthwhile. It's was nice of Amelia and GES to jump in and take over, but the time zone rotation isn't working out and considering their relative positions in the game I don't think either of them would be much opposed to ending it prematurely. Amelia hasn't been bothered about moving workers around for quite some time now, and the recent renaming activities of GES suggests he's somewhat fed up with how things turned out. I can't say anything for sure about SM but I assume he isn't getting much value out of this game anymore either.

I suggest we announce a draw and call it quits. Winning isn't a big deal to me and I don't think it is for you either, and as far as I'm concerned it's been an even match this game.

Sandover

Going to need to give this some thought... The pace of the game kind of makes me want to agree, though it'll be a little disappointing to not be able to attempt this big defense of Khmer lands. Going to have to think it over.

[scooter]

I went ahead and sent him this real quick:

Sandover,

Interesting email. I'm going to think about it... But yeah, the Amelia thing especially just isn't working.

My interest is really spotty I guess. I will say this - the game would've ended long ago if it wasn't for me - everyone was ready to declare you the winner and I stubbornly insisted that I had a chance . So if I say yes to your email, then yeah the game is likely over, as I'm pretty sure SM and GES would be happy to end it. GES isn't necessarily bored - it's probably no surprise to you to know that I've been doing my best to help him some in his attempt to survive. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he might have had Ethiopian help to get Infantry .

My only hesitance is that this game kind of has had a "just about to get to the good part!" feel to it, but playing 2 turns/week makes it hard to keep any sort of focus. I have to admit I do kind of want to see what kind of damage your mammoth stack can do, but I don't know if I want to wait 2 months to find out either.

I'll think it over and let you know soon - before you get the next save (which admittedly might not be saying much!). This game has been quite a bit of fun, but the dragging pace suggests that yeah, it might be time to put it to bed.

scooter

[Sandover]

Cheking in for the first time.

Sandover - Hatshepsut
...
Our diplomatic styles are probably a bit different, but not that far off.

Yeah right.

I feel like Sandover could either be a reliable friend or a dangerous enemy in this game, and probably not much in between ...

Got that one right though.

Probably would peg him as one of the front-runners in this game.

And that one. Guess two out of three aint bad.

Cow, grassland gems, irrigated wheat, 3 floodplains... Happy with that.

That looks even more amazing without all of the tile improvements covering the sight!

*arms self with baseball bat and goes looking for Darrell*

[Sandover]

AHA!!! I knew there was a betrayal! I was right all along!

(Until scooter tricked me into believing I wasn't. Lets forget about that part.)

[Sandover]

Can we just say that September 14th is Sandover Appreciation Day from now on?

Absolutely! I'm actually gonna go put that in my calendar real quick...

In case you're wondering, I'm now back at the computer. Yes, I actually did that. I'm not joking.

PBEM3 would be boring without him. Actually I will go further - I will say that out of all the players in all the PBEM games running, he is the most unpredictable and interesting.

Just what I needed - another ego boost!

So it's not like I just dissolved an alliance or anything. I basically just canceled a deal about 48 hours too late.

No. Bob mentioned talking to Timmy about attacking me in an email posted 1 september, and I never heard anything about it. That's 13(!) days prior to cancellation. This is exactly what my accusations was all about in my first email, and I had guessed it exactly right.

Sandover - when you're reading this... Yeah I'm kinda the bad guy here.

At least you realised that much!

Thing is, I honestly think you've kinda been the bad guy all game. So there's this thing called Karma....

There's a difference between being a jerk and being dishonest, though. Yes, I'm most definitly a jerk. But I never broke any deals, and I never lied. The cards always end up on the table when dealing with me whether one likes it or not! What ultimately cost me the victory in the end was that I was being too trusting when I relied on Bob to tell the truth and you to honour our agreement, not that I played out the diplo the way I did.

Oh, and I had to laugh out loud when reading that huge email painting me as a super villain. The information isn't exactly distorted in my favour, so I can finally see what everyone was smoking when they refused to make peace with me to your benefit.

This thread delivers!