RBP3 - [SPOILERS] - Team DIM (Mehmed of HRE)

[meatbalz]

i was thinking along the lines of us + ottomans pretty much joined at the hip in the medium term so yeah, i'd be on board.

although w/ that proposed arrangement we'd benefit far less than them, who would have 3 secured borders.

we should do our level best to assess england quickly and decide whether they're friends or enemies. and if the former, get them involved double-quick.

we have 1 enemy already on our doorstep + rome to the NE, we need some secured borders. ideal scenario is we bring england into the fold and partition the land between us them and ottomans (mostly us + ottomans as england's further south). we need to decide if they're trustworthy first.

also, as soon as people get wind of the alliance within the alliance, the sh*t's going to hit the fan, big-time. we better be prepared for that militarily (the paranoid in me sees krill + exploit on india + ottomans, rome and france on aztecs/us).

nice job on the diplo. masonry finished soon in india huh. we'll need to give major concessions - and even those may not be enough - to land mono CoL might be a better bet, that can't be bulbed with a GP for a while and the oracle's being used to take alpha.

hmmm, markets give +1 happy from fur, silk, ivory (forget it), whale (ditto). forges might actually make more sense than markets then thanks to the +2 Happy, should offset the +25% gold from mkt if we're working cottages + we get extra hammers

i'm going to try and set some time aside for a "T50 summary", although it might be a turn or two late :neenernee

[meatbalz]

T50 update

current state of the empire


DIM


Midas' Folly


Demographics


Military + Minimap



Current understanding of the world:

64x64 tiles
--------------------------------inca----
------sumeria----india-----aztec----rome
portugal---korea---ottomans---HRE
------egypt-----carthage----england----france
----------------------------mali
----maya(???)----babylon(???)---byz (???)

no idea about maya and all we know is babylon and byz are far away from england. will look back over my notes and refine the map.

still determining medium-term plans but current diplo situation is we're active recruiters for a short-lived tech alliance that could conceivably involve as many as 10 civs, and conspirators within that alliance to form a sub-alliance with aligned mutual interests into the middle game.

tech path is completely up in the air.

we plan to have our 3rd city founded on the river by the wheat and horses on T58.

will edit a few times, this a rough first draft

[meatbalz]

T51

DIM - settler [12/100]
midas - warrior [00/15]

tricky - moves onto forest hill, has a choice of 3 hills to move to next turn
hi ruff - 1T to full health
sysiphus - chop 3t
stakhanov - chop 2t

the cities are indeed unconnected, looks like i was unfortunately correct and we'll need sailing (or a road connection)

[meatbalz]

diplo update: caught up with cyneheard again in-game.

while we were talking they accepted the NAP, to T75, max 43 EP each (FYI, i moved them last turn, can't remember from who, as we'd already exceeded 43 EP)
he's directing mali's warrior, which should show up on the hill 2S, 1E of tricky this turn
i offered to have one of their units tag along with tricky on the way to meet carthage, which they accepted. richard the lionheart is 3E, 2N
mali have seen the first barb warrior near their city
england also has a NAP with mali
cyneheard pointed out somebody climbed to 42k soldier points (maybe IW? i'll look at the demogs in a sec)

all in all, i'm getting a good vibe with these guys.

we need to move quickly if we're to get them on our side, the thing is we basically have to trust them not to spill the beans to babylon/mali etc.

we need to move delicately but decisively (hey, nobody said diplo was easy )

D+I, i'd like to get your thoughts but I'm leaning towards drafting a pretty revealing email to them (btw, don't necessarily mean i should draft it, happy to do it but ilios since you're point man on diplo go for it unless you don't have time)

[Ilios]

Exciting news from Ruff:

Greetings Principality of DIM,

If you ever fancy a nice Saturday afternoon playing or watching cricket, drop on over. We have a very nice ground with a superb members stand (including the obligatory bar). I'm really glad that you are involved in The Alliance (the group of 4: India, me, you and Ottomans). I haven't met the Ottomans yet and I am not sure if the Indians have either ... so if you can feel them out about being involved in our Alliance, that would be great.

I also understand that you are involved in the Tech Cartel that Krill is organizing. The Indian's and I are using 'Alliance' for our secret group of 4 and 'Cartel' for the tech trading so that it is clearer in our heads.

I have met India, Exploit (further W of India) and Inca (to my East). I am currently hunting Krill (should met in 3 or 4 turns) then looking for the Ottomans and any nation to the Inca's east (Rome?).

The really big news is that I am 80% sure that Inca is planing on attacking me pretty shortly with axes and Qs. I am currently trying to work out what I can do to resist these slugs. How about I will say totally bad things about France if you say totally bad things about the Incas - does that sound like a plan?

DIM,

btw - have you met Inca ... they are just to your N. If I am right and the yare planning on attacking me shortly ... would you like to join in on some revenge? They might have left their capital empty (or almost empty) and you and I could take it down.

Ruff

India and Azteca seem to take our inclusion into their Alliance as a fait accompli. Before they meet up with the Ottomans, I'd like to have chat with our western friends and discuss the possibility of an Entente within the Alliance within the Kartel... This is fun isn't it?! While I wouldn't mind being allied to India and Azteca, I trust them about as far as I can throw them, and the Ottomans having our back would ease my mind considerably.

Well MB, we now know where that soldier count spike is located (Iron Working won't be discovered for some time). I'm going to ask Ruff if he's sure about Inca going after him, because with Rome next door (Azteca - Inca - Rome), it would make more sense to go and choke them. Yes, this is all making me very nervous given our current Farmer's Gambit status, but unless we head for Archery after finishing the Wheel, there's not a lot we can do about our precarious defenses other then keep on our toes, stare everyone down and get those NAP's until around T65-70 when we start rolling out our first real units.

Mali's warrior has appeared on the mentioned tile. I have sent them a friendly, if noncommittal message.

MB if you want to draft a message to England, go right ahead. We shouldn't reveal too much from the start. After all, we've just met them. What we could tell them is that we are forming a Kartel, and that we are considering including them as well, without specifying who is in it already. We need to stress the importance of meeting with Carthage soon, as we have both Krill and India sending units down there. ("representatives of other interested nations"). I really want to avoid them turning around and leaking the info to Mali and Babylon.

[meatbalz]

we need to chat with aztec. even if 80% sure he needs to get on the line to inca, call their bluff, and tell them to attack their other neighbour (not to mention recurring nightmare for yours truly) rome.

i'm happy to suggest this to ruff ilios, let me know what you want to do.

if we're going to be friendly with the aztecs let's not commit to a bargain we can't deliver on - we're going to be lacking "real" troops of rmany turns and the best we can do at this stage is lend moral support and that one warrior. take their capital down? that's a pipe dream for us at the moment. we've explored ~10T north of DIM and no sign of inca so it would take a while to get troops out there.

again the diplo picture sounds like it's tilted in ottomans' favour if's entente w/in alliance w/in cartel. we've worked our butts off to get into all 3, ottomans get a free ride.
- let's get on the line to ruff and lobby hard to point inca towards rome, which would lessen the threat from that direction.
- let's make a quick decision on england. i'd feel a lot better if we have strong deals with ottomans+england than if we have strong deals with ottomans+aztec+india, simply from a security perspective. also if we being england in with an HBR commitment that frees us to rsch something more useful.

what are we researching after TW? is it something we're going to get on T62 because in that case we may want to save gold now to take a run at something expensive. i don't remember what techs we're receiving on T62 - enough to start CoL (i.e. medi/poly + priesthood)?

i logged into the game and we do indeed have contact with mali now.

edit: crossposted with ilios's edit

[Ilios]

I will send a message to Ruff asking him to elaborate, and ask to give us the exact location of Inca's lands. We have Brute around, so no harm in having a look and forcing Inca to keep their cities defended. (Like you said, not much else we could contribute at the moment)

As for research, I had a chat with Krill a couple of days ago, and it doesn't look like he's inclined to give us Poly before he's researched Mono himself (and lands Judaism). His reasoning is that after getting Alphabet, there isn't a lot else he could be researching, as the other techs will have been assigned to other teams. I'm quite sure that is not the real reason, but Krill was being pretty cryptic about it, because he doesn't want to piss me off by denying us Mono. What will probably happen, is that he goes mono, gets the religion, then hands over PH and Mono to the team that will research Monarchy. He won't be going Parthenon, as he doesn't have access to marble, and it won't add much GP production as he's Philosophical.

The way I see it, that leaves us with 2-3 options:

A) Aesthetics + Great Library
B) Calendar + Maus of Maus (we've got 2 calendar resources nearby, 3 if you include the Silk to our north)
C) Code of Laws and Confucianism

Right now, i'm more inclined to head for the latter. We're one of the best researchers at the moment, and with around 600 beakers, CoL is one of the heaviest techs to research. We'll have a good chance of convincing the other teams we are the ones who should go for it. This also give us a clear shot to Civil Service, which opens up the very important Bureaucracy civic (we can run cheaply due to our Organized trait). And gives us access to those cheap Rathauses ofcourse...
Right now, it takes 28 turns to research it at 100% research, but we'll probably shave off about 5-6 turns when we get PH.

As for Wonders, we have access to Mable, which is why we should try and get one of the top Wonders as the game progresses. Which one we head for depends on how the game unfolds. I don't think those early wonders will fall soon. If you look at PB2, the only wonders built before T100 were Henge and Oracle. I propose we put our heads together and formulate a plan on which wonder we'd like, and how we'll pull it off. (I want the Great Lib, and a scientist to create an Academy at Midas). Our next city should probably be the Marble site, and with all those worker running around, we can get it up and running in no time. As soon as we have a credible defence, we can start on a settler. (I guess around T67-69) We should remember to put 5 hammers in DIM for an emergency Spear/Axe whip.

You mentioned that Ottomans get a free ride, but I don't agree. They basically ceded us all the lands to their east, for a worker/chariot deal, and a vague promise we'd lend them our Marble when we're not using it. With stone near their capital, and probably one of the first teams to build a Hamman, we can be pretty sure they'll be heading for Hanging Gardens, as you mentioned before.

And don't forget they will be the ones neighbouring Krill, who currently isn't considered for the Alliance. So even if their northern and eastern borders would be secure, to the west there's still Portugal and Krill's India. I'd rather be next to France, who only recently founded their second city.

Turn update:

- I turned off science completely, giving us a cool 20g/turn. We still get the Wheel next turn.
- I switched the Worker build back in DIM, as per the Micro, which will finish next turn, then back to settler to take advantage of the incoming chops.
- I added another warrior to Midas' cue, to give us at least another unit to play around with. Midas grows to size 2 in 12 turns at current food production. We can probably work the Corn tile for one turn when borders pop to have it grow in 10 turns instead, then work gold and copper mine for max hammer and build worker, waiting for the farm on Corn to come online.
- I switched our espionage points back to France, because we still need 4 to get access to their Demographics. They still haven't switched theirs. I'm inclined to believe that this is because the poor buggers still haven't met any other teams, but we can discuss this when we re-negiotate the NAP in a couple of turns.
- I have moved DIM's warrior, Cain, out of the city. He's heading to the tile just outside of our borders to cover the worker who will be road building.

[meatbalz]

fair points ilios, the way i see it i just want ottomans to be aware of what we're doing for them

ottomans will 99% be going HG, and i'm guessing they use the GE from HG on either pyramids or TGL depending on availability.

i agree with CoL. it's vital, it'll be available to rsch, let's put our foot down. again, i'm pretty sure krill will come up with some pretext to suggest he should be the one rsching it, but there's less he can do about it as we'll have the pre-reqs. our situation will also be improved if we're able to bring england into the fold with HBR in our stead.

how's this draft? do we have a rough ETA on the meet-up?

Great to hear. Thanks for the heads-up about the barb, that's the first one we've heard of. The EP limit is also fine.

We'll keep you up to date on Tricky's moves so Richard the Lionheart can keep up. He's not just tagging along on a rendezvous with Carthage: we've also arranged for units of two other civs to move to that location.

We ask you to keep this information strictly confidential, and that you hold off from committing to any tech deals until the meeting has taken place. The summit should happen within a handful of turns so we hope this isn't too much to ask.

Regards

Meatbalz for DIM

also, this might be a crazy thought but i was wondering (in the shower, natch) whether we might be able to offer the ottomans some kind of deal for the GE they get from HG. for example they give us the GE, we rush TGL with it, we use the first GS (academy) and then gift them the next 3-4. the advantage to them is they keep a pure GE pool + we can offer them other concessions, no idea what i'm probably just daydreaming but was wondering if the roles were reversed if ANY deal for that GE might be considered acceptable by us?

[Ilios]

Draft looks good. I have no idea what the ETA is but I know Krill and India will be headed Carthage's way.

As for GE - GS deal, I'm sure I'd decline and rush GL myself in my top science city...

[Ilios]

Message to Ruff:

Greetings oh Bringer of Lights,


I'm sure we'd appreciate coming over and watch Cricket, although I have never understood the workings of the game...
Is it the Aztec version of the game, with ceremonial daggers instead of bats?

The Alliance offer is currently being evaluated by DIM's junta, but I can already tell you we are inclined to take up your offer. We will surely consult with the Ottomans and come back with their reply.

Concerning the Incans, would you care to elaborate? What makes you think they are planning to attack you? (you haven't accidently sacrificed their favorite niece have you?). With Rome to their east, wouldn't it also be possible the Incans plan on choking them before they get Iron online?
As we haven't met Inca yet, we cannot but speculate. Can you point us to their lands, so we can send our exploring warrior their way (the one who's healing after meeting up with your warrior)
Allthough we would certainly want to assist you if the Incans do attack you, at the moment we could only offer you token assistance in the form of mentioned warrior. But you can rest assured we will add the Incans to the French international smear campaign...

Anyway, get back to us soon so we think on our next move.


Highest regards,


Ilios, Principality of DIM