RBP3 [SPOILERS] Hannibal of Byzantium (Bobchillingworth, ManiaMuse & SleepingMoogle)

[ManiaMuse]

I have no major objections to that plan. And yes I agree we should really try to keep hold of that chariot as it is so close to unlocking HE.

Apologies for not being able to get into chats recently, RL is just getting in the way of things but I should be a bit more available in the next few weeks.

[SleepingMoogle]

No worries Mania. RL tops a game every day of the week.

Finishing the first cottage at Eden Prime knocked a turn of Poly research. We'll probably want to run 0% on T70 in preparation for whichever tech is most helpful by T71 and the first set of trades goes through.

I've been playing around a bit with worker micro. Mostly I've changed the workers at Eden to mine the grassland hills, as having to slow-build that monument is excruciatingly slow (the borders won't expand until T82 because of this). With the hills mined, the city can at least have some half-decent production if it needs to and until the borders expand, it can work 4 cottages (1 is shared with the Citadel though).

We'll also want to chop the remaining forests around Feros soon-ish. Once we get mathematics, we can rush the Barracks and future Stable (?) to completion, and then just crank out a mountain of HA's. It has taken a while to get there, but Feros will finally start living up to its intended use as a military pump.

[SleepingMoogle]

Diplomacy updates:

I sent a brief note to the members of the heracles alliance to agree that continuing the conflict now would not be a good idea. The HA idea was also mentioned, so let's see what the others think of it.

To keep at least communications open with India, I also replied to India and noted that war would be preferable to many players over just waiting to get steamrolled. I'm not sure they'll buy that we moved the chariot away from their borders to avoid antagonizing them, but I figured it was a nice touch.

It also looks like Rome is preparing to Praet-rush Portugal, probably before the current NAP proposals would run out. Now that sounds like a cause worth contributing a unit or two for.

[Bobchillingworth]

Seems like Krill met our borders. I had a chat with him that ended up with me being perhaps a bit more antagonistic than strictly necessary, but I was aiming for Krill's massive ego, which I suspect is the best way to get info out of him. It's in the chat inbox.


Highlights:

-It sounds like a major attack on Exploit is indeed forthcoming.

-Krill sounded ready to abandon India, but this may have been rhetoric or misinformation. Still, it may pay off to query with India as to their relationship with Krill. Also of curiosity- would Krill personally assist in the defense of India, and was implying that he would resist doing so, or does he have the power to command several other alliance members to send forces that direction?

-We should prepare for war with Krill. I don't think that he's directly coming after us, but we should make him our #1 personal target (unless France, who I seem to be entirely unable to find, turns out to be much worse)

- Krill claims that his alliance could splinter, but he offered no evidence or plans to that effect. He seems very interested in breaking up our group, however, which benefits him for obvious reasons.


Exploit is alarmed about the number of troops being arrayed against him- looks like it might be 8 chariots. We need to keep him alive; I've been sending the Iwo Jima down to his borders, and we should send the 4th chariot as well after it finishes, unless you guys object for some reason. I really don't want to gift the Normandy, but we might not have a choice if it means if have to to protect our alpha guy. Thoughts?


Btw, if one of you actually likes the sound of Krill's proposal for us (he gifts alpha in exchange for us abandoning exploit and spreading hinduism), then feel free to send him and email and play "good cop" to my bad to restart negotiations.

[SleepingMoogle]

It sounds like Krill is trying to get us to turn on our allies. Even if he does gift us Alphabet, we still won't be part of the Hydra and we'd definitely not be part of Heracles if we took him up on his offer. Besides, our ties with the nations surrounding us are too strong for me to consider betraying them.

I checked ingame, and a scouting warrior from Egypt is currently to the NE of the Citadel. My best guess is that the Agincourt is currently in the land between Egypt and France, and that going west will see us find the French borders before long.

Babylon also requested open borders, which I accepted.

Based on exploit's mails, it would be a good idea to send Chariot 4 down south as well, yes. He's only a couple of turns removed from finishing Alphabet now, and I'd like to at least keep him alive long enough to share it with us.

[Bobchillingworth]

Ref is suggesting that we go with my good cop / bad cop idea and have either you or Mania send out an apology email to Krill to restart talks. I personally am not in favor, but perhaps something to consider if you think he actually could have something to offer. I would much rather that Ref play the Good Civ when he meets Krill, which sounds like it will be soon (he can see yellow borders).


More Violent, Alternative Idea: Send over the 4th chariot to whack Krill's warrior, slow his scouting, prevent him from getting discounts by meeting our allies. I am taken by the prospect of random, semi-necessary violence, but getting peace afterwards might be an issue... besides, exploit needs the help sooner rather than later. Do we gift the Normandy? Do we gift the other chariots when they reach him? If we do, when do we ask for them back, or what compensation if he loses them?



Also, any interest in fowarding parts of the chat to India, specifically the parts where he mentions a willingness to sell them out? May be useful if India really isn't that close to Krill, but if they are it just tips Krill off that we're spreading his messages around, and he'll be much more circumspect in future communiques to our alliance.

[SleepingMoogle]

Let's not forward it to India just yet. We can file it away for now, and mention it later on, when we can get more value out of it. For now I'm still convinced Krill is deliberately spreading misinformation to try and break up our alliance. At least until he can produce evidence to back up his claims.

If we are going to try and win over Hydra members, France would seem like a better candidate. Looking at the score, we may have to revise our opinion of them as they seem to have been left out of the tech trading so far. With that in mind, finding their borders becomes more important too.

Gifting units is something I'd rather not do until the actual war declaration comes. We should consider gifting them at that point, on the condition we'll be repaid in kind down the line, because I don't really see the reason for us to start raking in war weariness as well, and we could do with the reduced maintenance.

Since the turn rolled over a bit earlier, here's turn 68:



Maintenance is really starting to rear its ugly head. I'm fairly sure we were at 9 gold last turn, so our latest chariot (the SSV Hastings) spilled over the figure even further. That's why gifting may be a bit more attractive down the line.

Anyway, since we may be sending the chariot down south as well to assist Exploit, I set production in Feros to another chariot rather than a warrior. I'd really like to have something a little more beefy available for zone defense (not to mention it is a 2-mover). Perhaps we can call it the SSV Thermopylae if we do keep it at home?

All units have been moved, but the turn wasn't ended yet. Please feel free to do so once you've had a look for yourselves.

[ManiaMuse]

I agree, it really does look like Krill is playing the diplo game hard. Personally I don't think we should go along with any of his propositions for the moment, he is definitely somewhat uneasy with Rego but the impression I get is that he is happy to be buddies with India so long as it suits Egypt.

Wacking his unit with our chariot could be fun and quite useful if it stops him meeting civs like Maya and Babylon. However might not be the best option if he then decides to take his wrath out on us while most of our units have gone off south to protect Exploit?

I approve of gifting some of the chariots if war breaks our, but we should really try to keep hold of the 7/8 Xp unit. Immediate heroic epic once we get literature could be very useful. Also maintenance does look like it could become problematic very soon. When are we going to found the copper city? We're in a bit of a catch 22 there because it won't do anything good for our maintenance but we need to settle it quick enough before Babylon's creative culture starts to press it hard.

[Bobchillingworth]

Some very interesting diplo info in our inbox, courtesy of Rome that you guys may wish to review- apparent (but unconfirmed) dissention / splintering in the Hydra (unsurprisngly, Rego seems to be behind it), some useful maps, and Rome's attack plans.

Also, we may wish to gift the Normandy to exploit for quicker healing (and being able to spare ourselves declaring on India / Portugal, especially as India has offered a NAP and we may wish to talk further with them if they really are a future break-off element of the Hydra)- an email from Ref reveals a potential way of getting the unit back even if Exploit gets it above HE exp levels, by abusing the unit gifting system to knock its exp down to pre-level 4 amounts, which removes my main concern about letting it go.

[SleepingMoogle]

The attack plan definitely looks interesting. Here's hoping it works, but we should focus our efforts on ensuring Exploit will finish and trade around Alphabet for now. We can consider a NAP with India, however if we do we will either need to ensure we can still gift the chariots to Exploit, or gift them before the NAP goes into effect.

I suggested to the other Heracles members that France may potentially defect as well. We should move our chariot west for the next couple of turns to get into contact with them, and then allow it to heal. I'd rather not have it limp around like this for too long.