RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

Well, this is interesting... a message from Ioan76 to basically request help from us in the war against Luddite. Clearly things aren't going that well for them.

Hi Lord Parkin !

I write this ( short ) email to inform you - as probably already noticed - about our ongoing war with Luddite which ... seems more complicated that we belived before.
as long as you are "the other empire next to Luddite" and I'd like to know if you consider acceptable and comfortable a situation in which he will be victorious from our actual conflict ( and with a good ammount of promoted vultures which ... proved to be unexpected strong units ! ).

Our civilization don't have right now and also it's very unlikely to have in foreseable future any "teritorial issue" - so probably we could establish a common basis for cooperation. Of course - we didn't ask to break any existing treaty - just to evaluate the situation and to inform us if there could exists such a "common base" for future discussions.

Best regards,

Ioan

The thing is, there's no advantage to us in helping out Mackoti - and we couldn't do so for at least a dozen or so turns anyway (breaking a NAP in the process, which we wouldn't do). It's simple logic that right now the best situation for us is to just sit back and let those two fight it out between themselves. Luddite may eventually get an upper hand, but I'm sure Mackoti and Ioan76 will hurt him in the process. Even if Luddite takes 5-6 cities he'll still only be breaking even with us in terms of city numbers, and behind in all the other demographics due to the war. And if he tries to send a horde of promoted Vultures our way (which I doubt he would), our War Chariots will be able to have a great laugh.

I guess I'll write a non-committal response, but they must have known they were grasping at straws anyway.

[nabaxo]

Well, to a point. If you wreck your economy beyond a certain point, the recovery time becomes so long that you pretty much permanently fall behind in tech. We're not at that point though.

Exactly!

Well, it's Currency 1 turn later vs the Silver city 3 turns later (and slowed growth in a few cities). It's probably roughly equal in reality, but it just feels wrong to delay settling a city when a Settler is ready. I'll maybe check over the sim once more, but my inclination is to go ahead with settling the Silver city on turn 97 at the moment.

My point is just that, you have settler lying around and you're considering not settling for three turns to get currency in four turns instead of five? I fail to see the benefit of that. Three turns of head start on growing the city and start on its improvements, I believe, has more benefits than just waiting around.

I guess I'll write a non-committal response, but they must have known they were grasping at straws anyway.

My thoughts exactly.

[Lord Parkin]

My point is just that, you have settler lying around and you're considering not settling for three turns to get currency in four turns instead of five? I fail to see the benefit of that. Three turns of head start on growing the city and start on its improvements, I believe, has more benefits than just waiting around.

Well, waiting around does get us a slight gold benefit, plus (potentially) Theology a turn earlier. But in the end, yeah, that stuff doesn't make too much difference (since I'm pretty certain that no-one else will be going for Theology anywhere near that time anyway). The main thing against founding immediately is that the Silver city site isn't that great, so founding it 3 turns later doesn't really lose us out on much for that specific city - although it will delay our capital's growth.

I think all in all it's much the same regardless, perhaps with a slight edge to founding the city on schedule. I'll just go ahead and found the Silver city in 3 turns then.

[Lord Parkin]

Replied to Mackoti.

Hi Mackoti and Ioan76,

Yeah, I did notice about the war that Luddite started with you just recently. It seems from watching Civstats that he managed to capture and raze a city of yours - is that correct? Either way, it doesn't sound too good. As you suggest, we certainly wouldn't be comfortable if Luddite emerged from this conflict stronger than ever and with a large Vulture army on our borders.

I'd like to be able to help you guys out, but the problem is that I don't presently have much of an army to spare. Plus I have the issue that I'm stuck in a non-aggression pact with Luddite at the moment. Even if I ignored that and built a sufficient number of units to warrant an effective attack, they'd still take 12-15 turns to move into place - not including the construction time. That'd probably mean at least 20-30 turns in total before I could get onto the field at a minimum. So all in all, I'm afraid that right now I don't think I'm in a position to be able to help you out directly in your war with Luddite.

However, in the meantime, I'm happy to help you out in other ways if I can. Let me know if you have any suggestions... perhaps we could work out a trade for resources? I'll also have Currency at some point in the near future to enable gold and gold per turn trading, so we might be able to figure something out there.

Anyway, keep in touch. Sorry I can't help you more right now, but perhaps later on I'll be able to be of more assistance.

Kind regards,
Lord Parkin

Even aside from the NAP issue, I wouldn't consider a war with Luddite at any point in the near future unless Mackoti really made it worth my while. That'd probably have to involve a lot of gold being transferred, which he probably wouldn't do. Even if he did, it wouldn't be worth my while to trash my reputation like that.

Anyway, I'm content with how things are going so far, so there's no real reason to mess with that.

[Lord Parkin]

Well, we finished the Temple of Artemis, and will switch to 100% on Currency next turn.

The Silver city will be founded next turn as well. Horses at the Horse city can also be hooked up starting next turn.



The capital can now either spam out military for a while (it already has a Barracks), or build the Great Wall. Military is probably the better option, unless we just want fail gold in the bank for when/if someone completes the wonder. When Currency comes in in 4 turns, we'll be able to build a Market there, which isn't a bad idea (+2 happiness and +25% gold when we're running a fairly low average slider).

Working a scientist at the capital now that the Temple of Artemis is done (will be doing two in a few turns).



Delayed Evermore's Library by 1 turn so that it'd grow a turn earlier. Makes no difference since we're at 0% this turn anyway. Felidae completed its Library and is working a scientist (two in a few turns).

Note the border expansion at Onca which revealed a Horse resource on the "island" below the city. Interesting... might be a good city location around there. We'll have to discuss it with Rego though.



Border expansions at Pardus and Leo. Mining the Gold at Leo.



Demographics aren't too bad. We've got culture from Stonehenge and ToA boosting our GNP, but we're still not in a bad position for 0% research. We'll be at or near the top once we switch to 100% next turn, and pretty much fixed there once Currency comes in.

Our MFG is decent, and our food is impressive considering we're competing with a guy who got one of his cities for free.

[Lord Parkin]

It's research time.



Also, founded the Silver city.

Plako's up beyond 200 in GNP - he finished Currency this turn. We're about 150 and second, so everyone else must be below. Not to worry though, we'll easily break 200 ourselves as soon as we get Currency.

Had a very long and tough negotiation with Plako about the southern border. Ended up deciding that he'd get both canals, and I'd get the eastern Fish. He also wanted a free happiness resource for 100 turns (?!). We finally agreed to a 10 turn freebie agreement for Ivory or Gems at some point after turn 130. Not that big a deal, and at least it secures our southern border. Plako can be pretty stubborn when he wants to be...

[Lord Parkin]

We're #1 in food, if only briefly. Not a bad accomplishment. We should be competing for #1 in GNP soon too, and MFG will follow once our cities grow some more.

[nabaxo]

How are we doing militarily? Are we in any immediate danger of war? Any shifty people we share borders with?

Sorry, I just recently started to follow this thread and there's lots of walls of text. It's hard for me to sift through and find how the other players acted and their personalities.

[Lord Parkin]

No danger of war at all right now. We have great relations with our western neighbour (Luddite), and he's just started a war with his western neighbour (Mackoti). We have NAP's with both of them (Luddite until turn 150), so we definitely won't be seeing anything from the west for a long time. Luddite mentioned to me in chat just recently that he's practically crashed his economy right now, so there'd be no sense in him turning around our way anytime soon anyway. Plus we keep offering him free resources.

Our eastern neighbour, Rego, is running an even lighter military than we are, and badly needs to expand or he'll risk permanently falling behind the pack. Attacking us would be suicide for him anytime in the near future. We also have a NAP with him until turn 140, and have a sea between us. Suffice it to say that I'll eat my hat if he attacks us in the next few dozen turns.

As for the more distant southern neighbours, we have decent relations with both, and even longer NAP's with them (Nakor to turn 160 and Plako to turn 180). They both have decent sized militaries, but both have closer and more pressing targets than us right now - Plako has WarriorKnight who has held a grudge against him since he lost a city to him, and Nakor has Plako and Locke to contend with. I'd be very surprised if either broke their word and attacked us anytime soon. They wouldn't gain any more than a single city from an attack anyway, if that.

Nobody else could possibly stage a serious attack against us this early in the game (i.e. anything beyond a hit and run with a passing unit), because the distances are just too large. Plus everyone has plenty of land to be expanding into anyway.

So while we're running a fairly light military, it's not as light as some of our neighbours, and I'm very confident that we're safe from any invasion for a long time to come. Now is still the time to expand and grow, not build up military (beyond the basics). In 20 turns or so I might start thinking more seriously about military.

Hope that clarifies the situation for you.

[nabaxo]

It does. Thanks for the primer. We don't have war-plans of our own then I take?