[SPOILERS - PBEM29] spacetyrantxenu - Mao of Babylon

[spacetyrantxenu]

Yeah, PRO + me being a mediocre to bad player probably doomed us to being runners up in this game anyway, but I don't feel too bad about what we've done so far for our first competitive MP game. We're economically relevant still, even though we're going to be badly lagging Sian's Lighthouse economy and Slowwalk's PHI/Rep specialist economy. Dazed is running a spam out cities and rely on the whip economy, and we're trying to run a cottage economy when we haven't built our cottage cities early enough. Example: we dicked around and didn't build on the site that became Rick Perry until our fifth city. That double crab + FP site should be running 4 flood plain villages by now, yet last turn we just popped borders.

So we've had some unfortunate decisions and game events that led to our settling order, but I don't know how differently we could have done things. Also, we haven't even touched the mass of forests NE of our capital. Surely we should have converted that into a useful wonder; we're EXP, so: 1. build as many workers as it takes to chop those trees, 2. funnel the chops into something useful, 3. PROFIT! We didn't need an underpants gnome to tell us that, we just haven't capitalized on it yet. What useful/viable wonder is coming up that we can feasibly beat someone to and use those chops? The Great Library? That's probably about it...I doubt we'd ever get a chance for the SoL and its benefits wouldn't be that spectacular for us since we don't have that many cities on the mainland. Anyway I'm just rambling here.

We've certainly contributed to our current 4th place position, we weren't really DOOMED to be in last place. But I still don't feel like we've done horribly. I've played the diplo OK, I think, I mean I haven't been a jerk and got us dog piled/eliminated yet (or maybe no one wants to attack protective yet, who knows). My one aggressive gambit against Sian, marching the Tundra Expeditionary Force around his border had the desired effect of forcing him to build a military. That was the one unilateral action we've taken to reign in a GNP leader. The other incident, though, where Dazed forced me to raze his city really set both of us back in this game. It was at a time when we were both realizing we'd be playing catch up to Sian and Slowwalk, yet he forced us to engage in a costly minor border skirmish, mostly costly for the turns afterward when we couldn't establish trade routes with each other by virtue of the war penalty. Even though we've cooperated since then, our economies have been off track vs. before that action, I think. The cost from the arms buildup and the lost revenue from trade that our other rival (Slowwalk) didn't suffer just put us further behind.

The only thing internationally that has gone exactly to plan is that no one has opened borders to Sian, but the only loss he has there is probably 1 or 2 commerce in his capital vs. what everyone else gets in their capitals from foreign trade routes. The ICTRs from his island cities is mostly offsetting the loss of FTRs, such that the GLH has still been more than worth it. If we had been smarter and understood earlier that we wanted the Lighthouse we could have had it by placing city 2 in that area instead of city 3. We didn't do that at the time because we hadn't properly scouted it, though, and since we didn't have BW we didn't have the correct city placement established either. So it's hard to whip myself too much on that issue. We were close on the Lighthouse, just too late.

I feel like we leveraged EXP appropriately, as we've had plenty of workers throughout this game. I don't think I've really been in a situation yet where I didn't have enough worker labor for the tiles I needed improving. And you've mocked me enough for "roads to nowhere", but I've done a lot of that instead of wasting worker turns travelling. Eventually those road could be useful. At least they aren't costing us anything (I'm looking at YOU, Civ V). As for leveraging PRO, well, we've built a few bowmen as a deterrent and the two turn city walls at Jon Huntsman (the only walls we've built) were nice because it let Dazed know in no uncertain terms that he was never going to get that site back. We slammed the gate shut with the forces that would become the T.E.F. and that city on a hill with walls. What else are we supposed to do with protective? I guess we could have chopped a bunch of forests into a city finishing walls for massive gold overflow -- wait, this is BTS 3.19, nevermind. OK, so protective isn't an economic trait anymore. If it isn't a spoiler, can a lurker suggest something else useful we could have done with PRO in the BC years? I can't really think of anything else.

Anyway, this post seems fitting enough since when we get the turn it will be 1 AD. Consider this the BC years postmortem.

[spacetyrantxenu]

So who doesn't like palace intrigue? Mao has servant bones buried under the marble slab in almost every room of the palace, and the weapon mounted on the wall he used to kill them, but that doesn't pass for intrigue in our Republican empire. So maybe these emails aren't interesting, but I'm posting them anyway :neenernee

[COLOR="Cyan"]Hey guys,

Catwalk's put me more in the forefront of diplomacy (at least until he comes up with his next crazy scheme). Anyway, Sian is asking whether we would like an NAP extension to t90 or 100, we are considering taking this offer with the following conditions. Firstly, we would like to ensure that you guys aren't pertubed by this. Secondly, we would like Sian to give up his rights to the colossus (we could use some cash). This NAP shouldn't affect warplans, which we are still interested in, because we probably wont be ready i.e. have access to maces, knight etc until turn 100-110 (at least that's what we are envisioning). If we are ready for turn 100 then this won't affect first strike capabilites because we are ahead of Sian in turn order.

Hope you guys are well

slowcheetah and Catwalk[/COLOR]

Our reply (and I've kept Dazed and Boldly both in this email loop):

[COLOR="Magenta"]Hail Dictators Slowcheetah and Catwalk!

My second in command Boldly drafted out a good reply, here it is exactly reposted:

My thoughts are that we should tell him no to the NAP to simply deny the security to Sian so that Sian, as leader, would have to waste hammers on military rather than economy. No OBs + no NAPs should make Sian feel insecure and build power. He has already done this, but he still is in the lead overall so we should not help him in any way and a NAP does that.

Boldly Going Nowhere,
Commander
Republican Party

Of course, if Catwalk wins the discussion you guys seem to be having about sniping the workers, this will become merely an academic debate about renewing the NAP, because your worker steal would obviously indicate to Sian that you decline!

If you do go forward with the worker steal, and I by all means support that action, we will be prepared to send a few protective bows to your silver city so that Sian doesn't get too frisky there. And if he does get frisky I'm sure it will cost him more hammers to kill 16 hammer bowmen than it will cost me in losing them, so it's no real loss for our side (don't mention that to the bowmen, by the way. They seem to value their worthless little lives for some reason).

Anyway, you have our answer on these two issues. Good luck, and may you enjoy your worker hunt. There's nothing like the smell of a triple worker steal in the morning.

Xenu,
Tyrant
Republican Party

PS: My apologies, Mao was indisposed this morning and had me send this message. He's busy torturing peasants in his newest dungeon. He wanted a new on for the A.D. years.[/COLOR]

Catwalk and Slowcheetah have had the save for about 13 hours now, which is very long for them. Clearly they haven't yet sorted out how to play the worker steal opportunity. I really hope Catwalk prevails in the discussion!

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Brief one-way communication to Catwalk, making my plea for action.

me: Greetings, briefly, as I'm again on the way out the door for lunch.
I'm sure Xenu has been in contact with you, but I wanted to chime in as well. I would fully support the triple-worker steal for the following reasons:
1) It's bloody good fun
2) It was terribly foolish to leave them unprotected
3) your NAP could be interpreted as being expired, given enough rules lawyering.
4) Sian is currently leader and this would certainly lead to retaliation against you, which we could assist with.
I am generally agreeable to any widespread conflagration of war, which is the only way we'll be able to make use of our terrible Protective trait. Fan the flames and watch the world burn, that sort of thing.

I hope he takes the workers.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Update: He took the workers. Let's hope Sian doesn't let this go easily, and let's further hope that he feels the NAP was violated. Burn, baby, burn! :fireball:

[spacetyrantxenu]

Well this is certainly amusing. Catwalk gave me permission to read this one post:

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....tcount=329

He didn't bother to redact anything in his screen shots. To wit:



He is only making 7 gold this turn running 0% research. His economy really took a beating from slamming down four cities in one or two turns a little while back. Good thing he's PHI so he can farm them and run specialists as soon as he gets some infrastructure in them. That would be crippling to us if we had done that.

Also, with all the specialists he's running he's making 39 beakers this turn running 0% science. If he had some cash in the bank he must have a killer tech rate right now, with the scientist specialists multiplied.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I drafted out this email before Catwalk did the worker steal. It's diplomatically obsolete now so I've saved the draft just in case things work out between Sian and Slowwalk.

[COLOR="Magenta"]You know I love the dopile idea. I keep coming back to it. One option of recruiting Catwalk and Slowcheetah we haven't tried is by coercion or ultimatum. We promise to attack them immediately if they don't assist us with attacking Sian. We're giving them Plako's logic from PBEM25v, "If i'm not part of the dogpile, I'm the target." I think we'd need to raise our power levels before issuing the ultimatum, but I think it would work even if it ruined any goodwill we've built up with their team. We'll have to take a diplomatic penalty with them eventually anyway, so that's not a big deal.

Maybe a good time to do this is after I beeline Gunpowder?[/COLOR]

[spacetyrantxenu]

T75 - With Sian back in better health he played his turn yesterday and got the game back underway. Word on the street is that he is indeed greatly displeased with Catwalk's triple worker steal and is going into full grudge match mode with Team Kitty. I'm glad for the timing of this incident as maybe it will deflect some of the attention off our accomplishment from T75:



Yes, Rick Santorum has completed construction of a massive garden, of the hanging variety. Coinciding with the advent of these "Hanging Gardens" (we're Babylon, why not build it?), we experienced a massive population explosion, about 1 in each city. I didn't check to see about this, but in cities that were already about to grow in that turn does that mean they'd gain two population, or will the food boxes be stuffed and ready for growth again on T76? I didn't have time to check that last night as I played in a bit of a hurry. Anyway, the net result of finishing the Gardens was:



We're not in 3rd place in score, WE'RE SECOND!!:2dance: This is temporary I'm sure, unless the (Second?) Sianic War of the Cats has a disastrous end for one side of the conflict (or both!).

End of turn demographics:

Now, just what will Mao do with all these new peasants??? I'm sure his whip hand is itching for action, but as I checked through our cities only in the newest cities are we working unimproved tiles, with just a few exceptions. There will be a mine under construction soon at Mitt Romney to rid it of an unimproved tile being worked, but that was mostly it. Jon Huntsman began running two science specialists so we can churn out a Scientist in 12 turns. That will go for Academy duty in Newt, most likely. Speaking of Newt, it has grown past the happy cap but we're presently improving our gems tile, so that should be short lived. When Newt is happy again it will claim both of the shared cottage tiles that Rick Santorum and Ron Paul were incubating (Rick didn't do a good job on his, but Ron's is almost a village). Newt will build a market to go with its library to maximize our output there. Once CS lands (whenever that will be) Newt will be in a good position to be a commerce powerhouse.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. With the war between Sian and Slowwalk looking to be serious (let's hope it turns into a real tragedy with massive losses on both sides!), we'll have to work with Dazed to build a short term plan to take advantage of the situation. More on that later.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Here's the chat I had with Dazed last night. I was talking to him while I played my turn.

Dazedroyalty: hey you around? you hear about the crazyness?

Mao: i'm playing the turn now. do you mean the war declaration?

Dazedroyalty: well it's more than that
Sian not only turned down the deal
he was adamanet
he's going full tilt war i think

Mao: i know there was a triple worker steal but that was the last thing i heard

Dazedroyalty: he offered peace in exchange for the city with the Mids
:D

Mao: haha. nice. so sian is going grudge match mode vs. slowwalk?

Dazedroyalty: yeah
and catwalk really wants a 3v1

Mao: this is really nice for us.
hmm...the best outcome for us would be that sian's attack vs. pyramid city works.

Dazedroyalty: yeah

Mao: would prefer that the MoM finishes first though. in case sian razes it, you or i capture it back and burn it down
oops
in case sian CAPTURES it and keeps it you or i raze it
that's what i meant

Dazedroyalty: i doubt he'd raze it
he wants it

Mao: not if he thought he could hold it
catwalk plays ahead in the turn order, he'd have an advantage to reinforce
do you think sian can capture the city on his own?
if you or i are "late" with defensive reinforcements?

Dazedroyalty: i don't know to be honest
not at the moment, that's for sure
but he is going for HBR (don't tell Catwalk---that's private)
so we'll see

Mao: sian produces a lot of hammers when he wants to, i do know that.
yeah, i won't tell catwalk
but you and i can build a ton of spears

Dazedroyalty: that's the plan

Mao: i have the save open now and the most recent turn that the demographics reflect showed sian with a massive GNP line upward. he teched something.
and he's down to 46 gold from however much he had
this is going to be a good turn i'll finish HG when i end turn. it's my consolation prize for missing the Lighthouse earlier.
i'm going to guess it's time to put some of those new peasants to work building military units

Dazedroyalty: very good idea
and don't be afraid to whip
wait---this is mao
never mind
just do your thing

Mao: if i have tiles that are worth working i won't straight whip without reason. i'm trying to keep mao occupied at the palace and let some of our more practiced government officials run things. but every now and then mao runs out of the palace shooting people as he goes. it's a real madhouse.
well he fires arrows at them for now. but when we have gunpowder...it's going to be a bloodbath for our people.

Dazedroyalty: well if your cities are above the happy cap b/c of the HG, whip whip

Mao: yeah. actually only our capital will be over the happy cap. not that it was any fantastic micro planning on my part to acheive that.
and gems come online soon to counteract it. just don't tell mao until then, ok?

Dazedroyalty: haha deal
are you still interested in gold trading to fund research?

Mao: yeah, if we can put together a good deal that works for both of us and makes sense. also we need to figure out who needs to target which military tech. since i'm protective i think it makes sense for me to go after gunpowder so every musket comes with drill I
but that's a long way off

Dazedroyalty: yeah.
well i need currency ASAP to make that work
but i'm happy to do a deal

Mao: if sian and catwalk are fighting now, we might need to tech something closer at hand
i'm still saving cash for CoL right now
66 in the bank, +43 before i hit end turn.

Dazedroyalty: FYI, you won't get confu
catwalk gets it in 2T

Mao: no but i will get courthouses
i have 6 cities paying 7 maintenance
those people need law and order

Dazedroyalty: heck yeah

Mao: how much gold do you need for currency?

Dazedroyalty: i think i need about 200 but I can't say for sure without seeing the save

Mao: you have 108 now

Dazedroyalty: 200 is in my mind
i can't remember if that is 200 total
or 200 more

Mao: i'll be over 100 after this turn, but i assume it won't let me give you money i'm earning this turn
PM i'll offer a trade of 60 this turn if that's ok
oh, this may be relevant soon. just in case, i accepted the last of the money catwalk owed me this turn, so i think that means i can't declare on him for 10 turns, right?

Dazedroyalty: if it was a gift, I think that's correct
just check if it says you can't declare war
then yes

Mao: it looks like i can ALT+Click to declare
let's not try it. i don't want to reload the turn

Dazedroyalty: yeah or just open F4 and see if it's an option

Mao: all that shows is that you're -3 on me for declaring war!

Dazedroyalty: oh sorry

Mao: hehe

Dazedroyalty: i meant the foreign diplomacy/trade screen
not F4

Mao: well that was just a misunderstanding. if we had had GPS in the ancient age it wouldn't have happend :P

Dazedroyalty: haha. very true

Mao: i have a scout next to catwalk's pink dot city. 1 axe and 1 warrior on defense, sian has a chariot poised to attack across a river
i'm tempted to leave the scout to watch but i should scout sian's land before i'm unable to
i think catwalk has a few more units coming up to reinforce ayway

Dazedroyalty: he has a second axe and spear 1T away

Mao: ah

i moved forward. sian has a vulture 6 tiles away on the coast

Dazedroyalty: screenie? he isn't moving towards my city is he?

Mao: i'm on the southern coast between catwalk and sian, not between you and sian
the scout was next to "too much civ"

Dazedroyalty: too much civ?

Mao: yeah that's catwalk's pink dot city
i think you have a guy by it
probably the best military techs you and i can do at this point are construction and HBR, what do you think?

Dazedroyalty: oh
i didn't remember th ename
i agree
construction is a bigger goal in my book

Mao: 221 beakers for HBR, 309 for construction

Dazedroyalty: true.
but construction leads to more useful stuff
(besides knights which aren't a big goal of mine atm)

Mao: yeah, i'd love to build pikes and get the road movement bonus
why aren't pikes protective buffed?
(i know, not archery or GP units)

Dazedroyalty: don't let that get you bothered. they're strong units

Mao: that might make PRO actually powerful

Dazedroyalty: and don't need PRO

Mao: i know. but think how OP they could be!

Dazedroyalty: it would be impressive. but settle a GG, build barracks, run Nationhood/Theocracy and it's basically the same or better
:D

Mao: maybe sian gives us the opportunity to earn GGs
you get a bonus generating those don't you?

Dazedroyalty: yeah, but only within my borders

Mao: IMP?

Dazedroyalty:

Mao: ah damn
so much for warmongering
but if sian tries to run at you and i have units nearby, i'm not opposed to gifting them to you long enough for you to get some points off them
unless that's really complicated to deal with

Dazedroyalty: no it's not
but i'm not worried about that
besides, he's gonna focus on catwalk for a long time
the longer they fight, the more likely he'll keep his focus there

Mao: i hope so.
high five
hey i don't need the extra health right now but do you want to send me a deer when i send you the 60 gold in case anyone asks?
you have 2 deer

Dazedroyalty: sure.

Mao: i have zero and blame sian

Dazedroyalty: i doubt anyone is tracking it but i'm happy to do so

Mao: i don't think they are either but you never know. i'd rather they not figure out we're teaming resources

Dazedroyalty: true
what's the ETA on turns?
i need to play in the next 20 or I'm out for the night

Mao: ending turn asap
just offered the trade
checking city tiles now
to make sure i didn't do anything temporary last turn. it's bee na few days and i don't remember
ended turn, incoming save

Dazedroyalty: good call

Mao: GZOMG I'M #2 IN SCORE
now i can be dogpiled!!!

Dazedroyalty: :D
well done sire
lots of pop will do that

Mao: let's hope that higher population doesn't make us more bankrupt.
save is in your inbox sir

Dazedroyalty: why thank you

Mao: ha, i'm still 3rd in GNP and MFG. so much for the boost.
mao will take care of all these spare peasants we have running around
well since i took too long to play my pitboss turn and ended last, i cna't play that now. so i'm off for the night. see ya later.

Dazedroyalty: have a good night
Thansk for the gold!
:D

Mao: np
it's a civ 5 research agreement!
everyone wins (except the AI)

Dazedroyalty: haven't played Civ5 yet

Mao: don't bother. i haven't played it in a year

TL;DR : Sian is going full war against Slowwalk for the worker steals, Sian is teching Horseback Riding so he can throw HAs at Slowwalk, and I sent Dazed 60 gold to help him finish Currency and get his economy back online.

I know that is a dangerous thing for me to do, helping Dazed revive his economy, but if we're going to be relevant I believe we need to work together, and that means pooling resources to help each others' economies. Me jumping Slowwalk in score this turn is a short term effect of the HG, nothing more, as it doesn't change the economic underpinnings of our situation. They'll be able to bank Great Scientists to pursue a tech bulbing plan and we won't, so our CE will still lag their SE for a while, nevermind what setbacks the war with Sian causes them. If the war goes horribly for Catwalk we have to make sure that it doesn't go very well for Sian because if he slaps down his only current rival that's bad for all of us. We have to make sure Sian suffers as much in this war as Slowwalk, and that Dazed and I spend minimal resources in the event. The best case involves a scenario where Sian takes the Pyramids/MoM city (after MoM finishes) and Dazed and I swoop in and liberate the city, burning it down in the process.

Mechanics question: in a hypothetical situation where Sian captures the Pyramids/MoM city (if MoM finishes by then), if he fires off a golden age and then we capture or raze the city, would his golden age be truncated down from the MoM powered 9 turns (quick) back to 5 turns, since he no longer controls the wonder, or does the game code only check to see if the MoM is in a civ's possession at the start of the GA? That would be a danger if he got his hands on it and immediately fired a GA, I assume he'd switch to Representation at the same time. Maybe it's not worth the risk letting Sian capture that city after all. It may be necessary for Dazed and I to just dagger Slowwalk when they're done bludgeoning each other vs. Sian. Food for thought.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

With all this backstabbing going on, someone's bound to have hurt feelings when this one is over. I hope I'm wrong.

Good job slyly getting Dazed to give us the Deer resource. Hopefully we can keep that for a while, if not permanently. This war is already helpful in that Sian is teching HBR. That won't move his economy forward. I hope this thing turns into a bloodbath.

The best thing we can do is build up a bit in case an opportunity manifests. Otherwise, we're best served by letting the two of them fight. If either we or Dazed get in prematurely, it would shift the fighting to us and could cool the antagonism between Sian and Catwalk. Let them fight as long as possible. In theory, the longer they fight the more we can narrow the gap between us. As they weaken from attrition, we will be better poised to strike.

Do you know if Dazed has built a canal like we did? I'm thinking kind of far ahead here, but certainly Sian would not be likely to think of getting boated by us. We could do a nice proxy war for Dazed v. Sian and possibly get a good decapitation shot in if we can maneuver our forces into the soft underbelly of core cities behind Sian's front cities. Just something to think about for the future.

Good job with HG. These should let us whip out some courthouses once CoL is in (after markets).

I think it is time to settle our Sheep/Clams site up north, and the gold location. Is the galley moving to the northern sea yet? It needs to be on the way to pick up a settler for that location. Gems/Silver/Gold = +6 happy with forges, and would make HR garrisons unnecessary.

What is your plan for the next 10 turns? CoL -->?? Construction would be helpful to be prepared for an assault, but we need forges more.



PS:

Put long chat in spoiler tags! :neenernee

[spacetyrantxenu]

PS:

Put long chat in spoiler tags! :neenernee

I wanted you to read it :P