Ranamar and Lewwyn, ministers for Bismarck of Mali

[Ranamar]

Some diplo... seems like it's worth posting, considering then we can use this thread for lurkers to comment on whether or not this behavior was honorable, too.

7,

So much for you being an honorable guy.

GES

Hey GES,

I assume you saw we sold some galleons to yuris. I don't see anything dishonorable about this. You can't expect us to not trade with other nations just because there's a possibility it will hurt you. Just like us having open borders with yuris which has given him much more commerce which let him research his military techs faster is not being dishonorable.

We started to negotiate about sale of galleons to yuris immediately after we had to overbuild them and were done using them to shuttle the initial troop wave to France. I consider one of the benefits of early astronomy to be that you have a valuable thing to trade to other players, in particular the owner of the colossus. Since yuris wants to delay astronomy he becomes willing to pay really well for the galleons which we no longer need, it's pure win-win. I'd no idea he would be declaring against you.

Secrecy was also part of the deal, which I also don't find unreasonable. I'm not telling everyone about our deals, after all. That doesn't mean I would have lied to you. If you'd just asked me, though I wouldn't have said directly, I think it would have become apparent. In fact I tried to warn you to be careful in general by pointing out he has much more power than is visible in the center of the map. (I think that's reasonable under my secrecy obligations, but more wouldn't be.)

Seven

7:

The fact that you would even try to justify it is embarrassing to you. I would just stop.

Our agreement specifically included not working with anybody else, exchanging troops to an enemy etc. If someone had come trying to buy war chariots early in the game to attack you, not only would I have told them no, I would've told you about it. But I guess we have different interpretations about what is friendly.

But its OK. I know who you are now as a Civ player and so does everybody else at RB.

GES

7:

And BTW, I stress the "Civ player" part. You seem like a nice guy and I am sure it is no reflection on you as a person.

I am sure I seem super pissed, but I really don't care that much. Krill is trying to talk me into getting revenge, and I have a hard time mustering up any interest.

GES

[Ranamar]

My thoughts:

Given that we're getting a Great Scientist out of this galleon deal, yeah, Yuris is paying pretty well to get those five galleons. I bet we can get the beaker cost for Astronomy mostly back out of that scientist. (Okay, I guess we only got half of it out of the scientist we spent ourselves on Astronomy, actually... so, good deal all around, in that case.)

Also, other than us, everyone seems to consider GES, to be the biggest threat, and we're at the stage of the game where everyone knows they need to go beat up on a neighbor. Honestly, if they'd decided to go after us, it would have been pretty bad for us, so I'm not going to complain about redirecting their wrath. On the other hand, it would have also been pretty bad for them, too.

The one point of irony, to me, is that Seven managed to frame the debate in terms of them paying us to not cause trouble for them while they went to go attack GES. Given that we weren't even paying them for peace, it seems to me that accusations that we were financing a proxy war, while not untrue, are also a little moot. Sure, we financed a proxy war, but only insomuch as we sold them hardware at a good price with a stipulation that they not use that hardware on us, which left two targets, one of which they'd been making threatening noises toward for awhile and had been asking us to help them go to war against.

You know, I wonder if GES would have felt better if we'd canceled our NAP. Even a couple turns ago, but definitely now, we could probably get MGs up to make our cities hard to take in time to make him trying to attack us a losing proposition.

[Ranamar]

Played turn... It was pretty uneventful.

I gifted Yuris a galleon to shuttle the GSci. Hopefully, it's lost in power noise for Yuris so GES doesn't notice? Meh; probably doesn't matter. Incidentally, GES switched to Nationhood this past turn.

Scientific Method came in EOT. All the oil is water-based, which is just as well, considering water tiles are usually pretty bad. Unfortunately, that means we managed to miss "our" oil in a BFC due to it being on an arm and us placing a city 1W of where the BFC would get it. (It's completely within our territory...) The one in the lands formerly known as France is, however, in a BFC.

For some reason, I didn't take a picture of ours. However, I looked around and... Yuris got really screwed in terms of getting it in the BFC of his city:


Notice that the only city that would get it in its BFC is a hypothetical city founded on the deer, which is not something anyone would ever plan on.

Looking again, because he hasn't been driving culture in the right cities, he doesn't even have it in his borders! (Hmm... I should check if "our" Oil is in our borders.) Third pop from the city next to the rice or Best FM should probably get it, but... that's just awkward to get at!

[NobleHelium]

That tile is fourth ring from Best FM. But yeah, it's ridiculously exposed.

[Ranamar]

That tile is fourth ring from Best FM. But yeah, it's ridiculously exposed.

You're right... it is fourth ring...

How incredibly (in)convenient!

[novice]

Scientific Method came in EOT. All the oil is water-based, which is just as well, considering water tiles are usually pretty bad.

Most important implication is that you need Plastics instead of Combustion to hook up oil.

[SevenSpirits]

Did we start oxford?

How much commerce/prod/gpp did we lose from scientific method?

I looked at the save btw and saw that GES had upgraded a ton of units for about 1500 gold maybe, presumably muskets and/or other units to rifles.

Yuris lost a significant amount of power on GES' turn, but earned a general.

Commodore declared on GES.

[Ranamar]

Did we start oxford?

How much commerce/prod/gpp did we lose from scientific method?

I looked at the save btw and saw that GES had upgraded a ton of units for about 1500 gold maybe, presumably muskets and/or other units to rifles.

Yuris lost a significant amount of power on GES' turn, but earned a general.

Commodore declared on GES.

I waffled on where to put Oxford, so no. <.<
Edoras had the production to get it out in 3 turns, but Minas Tirith (and I think one or two other cities, but we certainly aren't building it in Lorien!) has better commerce due to trade routes. Then again, it doesn't have a university, so that was pretty silly of me, come to think of it.

We should just start it in Edoras next turn, come to think of it.

[SevenSpirits]

We should just start it in Edoras next turn, come to think of it.

Sounds good!

Edoras is defintely the place for it; you're forgetting how much more commerce it's about to get from Free Speech.

[SevenSpirits]

Brief chat with Luddite (GES sub).

He said he's not as mad as GES, isn't sure whether he wants to continue being close allies, and will not attack us (that would break our NAP, so not very surprising).

I tried to give him some free, useful intel to show we're still friendly, namely that oil exists only on water. However, he said he had just researched scientific method himself!! (Though he had not noticed that fact about oil yet.)

We are totally beating him to Communism by one turn. And he can't get Physics before us either because he still lacks Compass.

I asked him why he researched SciMeth so early with all the religious buildings boosting his monasteries. Apparently he thought the free gold/science hammers would stay and only the 10% science would obsolete. Cool.