[spoilers] Gaspar and Commodore welcome you to the islands, mon!

[Commodore]

How's this for an informative yet inarticulate tactical map? Generating errors is the plan. Send the weak Numid to pillage cow-road next turn I'd say, maybe get a defender to go outside the walls for a night.



Turn began with Sid being all nosy, as usual. For once, though, I'm going to concur with his advice. Courthouse slated for after the Numidian completes next turn, let the worker chop the silk tile to get it down to a 1-pop whip and then we're golden. Such a great city.



Much as it seems like we're at the high water mark vis-a-vis Sian, Rego is still plowing ahead strongly here. That's his scientist, and he's about to snipe the ivory/sheep/sugar it looks like.



This is really our land by right of conquest, should we manage to claim it. Two settlers and a swarm of workers might be hard to shake loose at the moment though.



Check here again, Rego might be trying to opportunistically dance with us near Zul'Farrak, not a lot else to do unless we want to whip a caravel and start going pirate. Which I wouldn't oppose, of course, you well know.



Today's administrative note is about the island formerly known as Pedro, Atal'Hakkar. Nice as it is to run scientists I think we should grow to size five and stagnate at a cool 16bpt minimum.



Empire overview, newly centered.



Stupid Forever War.

[Commodore]

Oh-ho!

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]Hi Mr Commodore

I was wondering, would you be interested in some military?
Got a confession to make. When I attacked Yuri i also set up a NAP with Rego. Did both on the same turn figuring I'd secure one border while I attacked with the other. Well... doh, that didn't play out well because now I barely got to fight and I'm tied to NAPs on both my borders.

So... maybe you'd like to buy some military? I won't ask what you'd use them for because it's probably better if I don't know, but if you like the idea of having a few 4-move galleys or possibly even a zerker or two, let me know and we can talk price.

Best Regards,
pindicator[/COLOR]

I'm thinking not much, but if he'd like to liquidate his whole military, Rego might could get a surprise.

[Commodore]

Updated, fishing hooked something.

[COLOR="Orange"]Hello Mr. Pindicator

Well, that explains the bolder frowny faces that Rego has been giving. Are you forced to keep the lengths of those NAPs secret? I'm wondering how long-term the Turkish window is. Thanks for letting us know, though.

We might be interested in a fire sale, if you might be able to deal us in some volume. Thanks too our second great general we're set up to roll out amphibious knights to deal with hard points that remain (dang 1-tile hill islands). Yuri mentioned something about a terrifying wave of 24+ zerkers on his doorstep. Are you bound by your NAP with Yuri to not move those 24+ zerkers in mass to his other doorstep? We might be up for Costco membership, if your rates are good.

Regards,
-Commodore
[/COLOR]

Because hey, why not. He ups the ante all the while missing the point.

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]Mr. Commodore,
No stipulations were made on either of our armies. Right now the zerks are playing MP in the new part of the empire, at least until some proper defenders can be ushered in. This does free up a number of galleys and zerkers.

I'm not very familiar in prices, but afaik the conventional conversion is 1f :: 2h :: 3g. That would be 69g per zerker and 50g per galley based purely off of hammer cost. Is that in line what you were thinking? Here's another spot where my MP experience is lacking.

Pindicator[/COLOR]

So, yeah, we can't afford that rate at all. We po', yo. A massive (say 16+?) army of 'zerkers, with 4 move galleys, would wipe out a nice section of Turkey and cripple Pin's biggest rival for victory while benefiting his lower rivals...may be able to talk him down.

One other consideration...we really would prefer to get Pin's extra ships and zerkers out of his hands before he considers selling them to our unNAPped neighbor Mr. Arrarr.

[Gaspar]

Well, before we get too excited about that let's consider that pin mentions he napped rego to keep a secure border blah blah blah after telling us he didn't have one. What does this tell us?



So if he's willing to sell of his army to us... perhaps he knows rego has or is about to have a nice force of jans that will eat up our zerks? If pin really has a 24-zerk stack somewhere, it might be worth buying it - no doubt we could smoke just about any handful of cities rego has, promoted longbows or no.

Regardless, short of getting a great price I'm loathe to buy up a soon to be obsolete army.

[Commodore]

Well, before we get too excited about that let's consider that pin mentions he napped rego to keep a secure border blah blah blah after telling us he didn't have one. What does this tell us?

That's he's Your Mother's lover?

Yeah, I just hear an offer like this, honestly, I'm not thinking "let's pay a fair price" I'm thinking "gee, how can I finagle this, Mr. Slaze?" No worries, I'm not going to give away the cow here, magical as his beans are looking...

[Gaspar]

One factor to consider I didn't mention earlier - if we can ascertain that he's not in cahootz with regoarrarr about this offer it could have the added benefit of souring Turkish-Viking relations. I know if I were rego I'd pretty pissed off at pindicator if I saw a horde of Carthaginian Berserkers show up at my doorstep.

Also, given that pindicator's forces could stomp us into oblivion at this juncture its fair to say it would also have the benefit of reducing the power of another rival with whom we have no NAP.

Still, I stand by my original thought that he's up to something and its probably best just to let his huge army drain his economy.

[Commodore]

One factor to consider I didn't mention earlier - if we can ascertain that he's not in cahootz with regoarrarr about this offer it could have the added benefit of souring Turkish-Viking relations. I know if I were rego I'd pretty pissed off at pindicator if I saw a horde of Carthaginian Berserkers show up at my doorstep.

Also, given that pindicator's forces could stomp us into oblivion at this juncture its fair to say it would also have the benefit of reducing the power of another rival with whom we have no NAP.

Still, I stand by my original thought that he's up to something and its probably best just to let his huge army drain his economy.

These are all thoughts I'm agreeing with. He's talked himself down on price and up on volume a bit though.

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]Ah, I asked in my lurker thread for established rates of army swapping and was given a different conversion rate altogether. In Pitboss 3 Exploit sold units at the price of 5g for every 4 hammers with a 10% premium for unique units and promotions. So, if we use Exploit's mercenary menu as a CostCo model, that would bring us to a baseline cost of 45g for a nav-galley and 63g for a berserker w/o any promos.

I'm willing to go better than that. I want to sell you 5 galleys loaded with 10 berserkers for the price of 750g. With Exploit's rates these units would cost over 900g when you count in promotions. The catch is I need the gold ASAP, as in right away. The galleys will start heading your direction this turn and probably arrive in 5-10 turns. Also, these units can never be used to invade me, or take any city I hold. Of course they should be able to defend your territories, should at any time we find ourselves at war (perish the thought!), but they cannot be in territory under my culture.

Let me know what your thoughts are. I'd like to start moving 'zerkers and galleys to you this turn if we have a deal. Also, I'm up for negotiating the schedule of payment, or if you want to buy more troops than 5 galleys & 10 zerkers. But right now i gotta drive to my folks' for Christmas. I'll get the turn in later today from their place. (Sorry for the delay in the turns!)

Happy Holidays!
Pindicator[/COLOR]

That's almost tempting, but first, hedge.

[COLOR="Orange"]Fair enough, and I might have counter-offer, but I'll want to toss things back and forth with Gaspar and the dedlurkers first. Obviously there would need to be some sort of payment scheduling if we did opt to buy, as we don't currently have 750 gold in-stock.

This is another aside, but have you given any thought to cascading wonder fail-gold, particularly the Great Wall's? If you were planning on building it anytime soon we'd appreciate the heads' up for the double-effectiveness failgold.

Take your time with the family and have a Merry Christmas man,
-Commodore[/COLOR]

So, I'm thinking something on the order of 1000 gold for 8 and 16, with the caveat that he drops them off in our territory where we want them, IE, within a couple turns of surprising Rego. Obviously, any deal like this would have to have him swearing utter secrecy, as well.

[Gaspar]

I don't think we should take it.

1. He needs money AND to stop paying for all those units more than we need units.
   
2. He needs us to drag rego back more than we need to drag rego back since he stands to benefit from it more.
   
3. He needs us to take this offer because he has nobody else to offer it to.
   
4. If we spend cold, hard, Carthaginian cash on the units - they can be used however we see fit. You can't sell me something and tell me I can't use it against you. You can GIVE me something and tell me that, but if I bought it, I'd use it however.
   

The last point should be non-negotiable, and should give him pause to not haggle too deeply. I have no interest in paying PB3 rates for anything - we're much smarter now with many more games of MP under our belts.

If he wants to sell these, I want a BIG discount. Like I'd give him eh... 400 for what he wants to sell.

Also - stop giving him tips on how to get out of his gold-hole.

[Commodore]

Wisely put, so that being said, here's a draft to Pin:

[COLOR="Orange"]Hey Pindicator,

Well, Gaspar and I have been talking and while we're interested, I think you might overrate the value of these units somewhat. This isn't the wild old days of Exploit, and this is quick speed. The value of gold, especially "gold now" in Quick is massively increased, whereas the obsolescence of galleys and maces looms closer each turn (or is already here, in some cases, our odd tech path means a crossbow-mass). If we did purchase anything at this fire sale, it would be literally smoldering, on a short fuse, whatever analogy you'd prefer.

Not only that, but in terms of geopolitics you could almost profitably give us your expensive army. It's already gotten its whips' worth, what with an almost bloodless seven-city expansion into Inca. Obviously, you're not positioned to use it against us, but then obviously we're not positioned to use anything against you, either, and to speak frankly (trusting your discretion) if we did find ourselves in sudden possession of a big second army we'd use it to strike your biggest rival. I'm not sure how much you recall of PBEM 19, but you're in the enviable Seven Spirits position of being able to use your weaker rival (us, not so much now as in the long term) to hurt your biggest rival. We're not Yuri, however, and we know that if you use us in such a way, we need to at least have an outside chance of advancing our own position.

All this to say, here's our counter-offer: We pay 500 gold ASAP or some less amount and collude with you to finish the Great Wall for your 250% fail-gold rate, and you in turn sail us 8 galleys and 16 zerkers (again, 10 is a nice number and all but it's just not enough to matter, really, in the much pricklier world we live in), to be gifted in the middle of our lands for rapid surprise, with the caveat of never using the zerks or galleys offensively against you. Full payment and no-hitting-blue clause is of course contingent on ensuring that no details of this deal leak out.

Hoping we can do business,
-Commodore[/COLOR]

[Commodore]

Holy crap. Gaspar, can we please please please buy this? I know it might not be the wisest buy, but it's Christmas man...

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]Hey Gaspadore!

Did you know that 8 galleys and 16 zerkers is exactly 1,000 hammers worth of units? As much as I like a good bargain, buying troops at a rate of 2h for every gold is practically giving them away.

But I like you and Gaspar. I really envy the level of mayhem you've added to the game. And I do like a firesale as well. I'm countering with 650g for the 1,000 hammers worth of troops. You'll even get some CR2 zerkers in the mix. Did I tell you that I kind of regret not planting my first off-shore city directly on top of that copper and sowing some real chaos in this part of the world? Would have made for a different game, that's for sure.

And we absolutely should work together for a Great Wall bonanza for all sides. When would you like the windfall for that wonder to come? I haven't started any cities on it yet, but I could start cycling a couple through as opportunities come up.

Merry Xmas!
pin[/COLOR]

This could potentially be the most fun we'd had all year if we take this and Mr. Arrarr remains clueless. Too big ifs, but...