[Spoilers] The Golem Factory: Beeri Bawl of the Luchuirp

[Sciz]

Got a response from Mist, and we're chatting right now as well:

[COLOR="Cyan"]Dear future business partner,

I am afraid, you are seriously underestimating the weight of my arguments. I was last in power on the turn before. I'm first in power on the current one ( please do remember that graphs update with a turn delay ). I'll be out of reach for a while after I give axes to all my ground troops.

You might perhaps doubt I can afford said upgrade. Unfortunately for you my markets have been operating for a while now, and a certain great merchant helps greatly with any cashflow issues.

You'r wood golem capabilities are non-existent yet. You got construction recently, your Sculptor Studios are not ready, you have no roads yet. Neither of your cities can resist 8 axes 2 scouts and 10 wolves. Definitely not Cotton Valley.

Therefore I will either have your cooperation with cutting Ilios down a notch and compensation for involved heavy lifting or I'll cripple you here and now.

Yes I am confident. This operation was in the works for the last 40 turns or thereabouts.

Now if you go with me you'll get a crippled opponent, expansion opportunities in the west and maybe a city or two. My fee will be reasonable.

If you go against me it'll get messy, but it'll hurt you much more than me.

Yours,
Perdo of Mist,
Those who follow Mahala.[/COLOR]

[Sciz]

So apparently Mist's "concessions" are insane:

Mist: 1) I want the Mines, you'll get one Iron from them for as long as we remain in state of no hostilities
Mist: 2) I want you to settle eastwards after I make you some space there
there's enough for one more city between us at the moment and I want that spot :]
Mist: 3) You'll pay me 50g for each malakim city burned. Adjusted by ingame inflation payable on when one of us gets to trade gold
Mist: If you want RoK holy city fine, I'll exchange it for Cotton Valley or half of it's income and a number of hammers

l
o
l

I mean 1 and 2 are fine. I don't really need the mines, even though it'd be nice, and I was planning on settling east after Ilios demise anyways, besides if I want the west I can just attack Mist when I've got my army rolling.

But 3? Ilios has 4 cities now, that's 200 gold right now, plus inflation. That's not good. And then the last one is even worse, for me to keep the RoK holy city from Ilios, he wants my Cotton Valley. Really? There is no way I'm taking that. Might as well let the holy city burn for all I care. It seems to me, that if I accept the offer, it'll cost me:

Mines of Gal-Dur (don't care really)
Expansion room west (don't care really)
50 gold/city razed = 200 gold right now (ugh)

So basically it will cost me 200 gold. Should I accept? I don't want to, but on the other hand if what Mist says is true, he has indeed upgraded all of his beastmen to sons of asena, which does not bode well for me. He is wrong in his sculptor's studio assessment, but I won't be able to produce many WGs for a while anyways, and this will hinder me from placing my 4th city, etc etc. Blah I say. Even if I could defend, it would cripple me. I should probably accept, and then pay him his money whenever I can. I'll lose some turns of research while getting gold, but eh.

Basically what I think is this: I probably have to accept. I realistically can't defend against lots of sons of asena + tons of wolves (from the world spell). If I accept, I should probably stop producing tons of golems, let him do all the work, to get as much as possible out of the 200g im giving him, then expand rapidly to the east, and instead of building up golems, I build up on other stuff, and tech to be able to defeat Mist later on. Since he's definitely on my hit list after this.

[Sciz]

I've had a chat with Mist and then with Selrahc, and as I see it I have these options:

1. Accept Mist's demands, go fight Ilios with him, taking warriors and Barnaxus, paying 50g for every razed city, then expand east into Ilios's old lands. I do not want to do this. I don't want to cave into someone's demands and pay money for someone else's razed cities.
2. Accept Mist's demands, but contact Ilios, tell him about it, then attack Mist's stack together with Ilios when he reaches Ilios's lands. This could work. I may not be able to defend versus Mist alone, but if I gather up all my extra warriors in one bunch, leaving only token defense in my cities, and team up with Ilios, this could work. I don't see this as unethical, as nowhere in our agreement does it say that I can't attack him.
3. Accept Mist's demands, but contact Ilios and hope that with my warning he can defend by himself, taking out Mist's stack, which means I won't have to pay money for razed cities, and then I resume with my original plan and attack Ilios myself with Wood Golems, Adepts and Catapults in around 30 turns. This could work, but I think Ilios will lose to Mist on his own, this will basically turn out like option 1, except that Ilios will have a better defense so I will lose more units.
4. Get Uberfish on my side and attack Mist together. This could work. Problem is I need uberfish to be able to get up here pretty fast, and I'm not sure how fast he could arrive. I also need some incentive for him to help probably. We've had good relations, but I don't think he'd risk it all just to help a friendly civ.
5. Accept Mist's demands, do everything as in #1, but then just not pay him the money, by the time he has currency I should be able to defend myself hopefully. I'm not sure if I want to do this. On one hand, he did strongarm me into accepting the demands, it's not something we just agreed to, I'm basically forced to accept his turns. On the other hand it's still a deal, and breaking that deal would be a bit unethical. I dunno. I'd like lurkers opinions if there are any around. Do you guys regard this as a no-no thing to do?

Decisions, decisions.

[Square Leg]

So fighting isn't an option then? Or at least, I don't see it in 1-5.

[Sciz]

fighting mist? yeah it's option 4. With uberfish. I could attack him by myself, but if it's true what mist says (and i'm sure it is, since Ilios just dialed me up and suspected that mist just got bronze working) I would probably lose at least one city to Mist, and it's not worth it.

[Sciz]

Speaking of Ilios, we had a chat, and it's hard not to bring it up. He just came to me and said that someone's power rating just spiked, and guessed it was Mist discovering Bronze Working. Which is true. He also wonders if I want open borders, and I'm unsure. Would it hurt me to have them? No scouting allowed. Only the trade route boost. I don't know.

Apparantly Serdoa is running Phil/Exp/Fin because of his insane personality, and has done so the past 50 turn or so according to Ilios

[Sciz]

I just realized another thing. Code of Laws is done in a turn, and I had planned to research BW and Warfare to get Military State, but I might not need to now if I'm not gonna attack Ilios right away. I'll prolly get mysticism and KotE first anyways, and then we'll see what happens.

[Selrahc]

We could call him out. If he fights us, he won't gain as much as if he fights Ilios. He might be bluffing us, to add to his winnings from fighting Ilios.

From his perspective, if we reject then he has the option of either
Continuing with his original plan to wipe out Ilios, killing 4 cities and getting large amounts of gold from each. Possibly with some help from us even.
Or
Aborting his plan and trying to take us down. He can take out Cotton Valley, but after that we'll probably be too tough to take down. He ends up losing a stack. Having pissed off his neighbour, with conflict likely to last well into the game.


I think calling his bluff and being at least ready to fight is a viable option, even without Uberfish.

[Sciz]

Hmm. That's also a good idea. Still want to have a chat with uberfish first to know for sure

[Maksim]

5. Accept Mist's demands, do everything as in #1, but then just not pay him the money, by the time he has currency I should be able to defend myself hopefully. I'm not sure if I want to do this. On one hand, he did strongarm me into accepting the demands, it's not something we just agreed to, I'm basically forced to accept his turns. On the other hand it's still a deal, and breaking that deal would be a bit unethical. I dunno. I'd like lurkers opinions if there are any around. Do you guys regard this as a no-no thing to do?

Personally, I'd not view breaking the terms of a deal with Mist as unethical - a deal entered into under duress and threat of war is only good for while the threat can be kept up by the potential aggressor. Others may disagree, of course.

In either case, such a choice will likely limit your options in future games, as people will be able to go back and see that you do not honor deals entered into under such circumstances. So if somebody rushes you in the future games, they will likely not accept your offers of future favors as concessions.

Whether that means they decide to attack you outright, or just make sure that everything they ask for is stuff to be paid upfront, I do not know.