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

[Bobchillingworth]

I think the game is back up, finally; turn tracker shows that our score decreased... any idea what's up with that? I'm heading to bed so can't check up on the game right now, I guess machinery needs to be gifted around again.

[SleepingMoogle]

I had a quick look around and the reload appears to have occured after the original T109 moves. The score increase probably was due to the rolling back of turns (we have one city growing next turn for one) so no need to worry. Machinery is still traded around as well, not all teams have logged in to pick it up yet though.

[Bobchillingworth]

Ended turn, sent out a couple small gold requests and an email saying that we'll need more.



The more I think about it, the more I like the "Or city here?" sign I placed in the NW over the other location- I don't think the original spot picks up more than one or two tiles unclaimed by other cities, and it doesn't pick up anything particularly great that the tile above it would lack.

[Bobchillingworth]

I've logged in a moved a couple workers who had listed instructions, and the Normandy to speed down to the SW to take out a barb axe that will reach Feros in a couple turns.



Also gifted the HA to India. I hope they use them, otherwise we'll want them back to upgrade to phracts.


Eden Prime has been switched back to working the mines, which means that we're basically hemorrhaging gold right now.


And in most important news, we got our Great Merchant- who wants to bulb paper? What



Turn not ended, workers unmoved, so do so at your leisure

[Bobchillingworth]

Oh apparently paper is going to be bulbed by someone else on t113. I think given our current numbers guilds will be in at turn 116. I updated some of that stupid CUDDLE Clearing House spreadsheet document.

[SleepingMoogle]

I'll have a look tonight. Jank mentioned being declared upon.. do we know anything more about that yet?

[Bobchillingworth]

We only know what they emailed us about, so not much. I think it was a pre-emptive thing, because they were bothering Mali with a chariot.


Edit: Also it's your turn up in PBEM 3- If you, TT, and Sandover play tonight I might finally get to play two turns in a day

[SleepingMoogle]

Won't be home for another two hours. But I'll play before going to bed tonight.

[Bobchillingworth]

Moved stuff, but didn't end turn (I'm out of the office today on "sick leave" )

One of the chariots is heading to a grass hill where we have a "city?" sign, to scout out that area. We can recall him if need be, of course.



We need to decide a few things-



First, where do we want city #6? I'd like it to go to the "Or city here" marked location and made my case a few posts ago, but I don't think we actually agreed on anything yet.


Second, is the Citadel building a barracks? That's what I set it to, but I forget what we wanted there.


Third, What should Therum build? I placed it on the Heroic epic; the city is a great production site, and the culture really will help- but it will take a while to build, even with Marble (which we should ask for before we end turn if that's where we can agree to put the Epic).

[Bobchillingworth]

So got some bad news from Kyan; their alliance will have Engineering in 3 turns, soon enough that India's planned raid should be aborted. Additionally, PAT seems set to surpass us rather badly in technology soon, with little chance for us to catch up.


Alarmed, I sent out an impassioned email for CUDDLE, calling on us to raise some sort of army to hit PAT while we had at least superiority of numbers and fairly similar levels of technology.



But then Kyan noted some -top secret- info; Inca tried to sell us out to PAT. They've been happily expanding, getting free techs for a little gold, and they bragged to him how they were exploiting the alliance system. And Kyan pointed out that many of our allies are doing the same, and dammit he's right. We're 2-3 cities behind all of them, and they keep pushing all the damned responsibilities of the world on us while they expand and expect us and India to build the armies and carry the teching responsibilities. And Kyan offered us and India to join PAT, with us tearing up some of our former "allies" and then turning on Egypt, Carthage, and England.


But worthless tho they may sometimes be, we've had good relations with a lot of CUDDLE, and just suddenly turning on them leaves a really bad taste in my mouth, so after conferring with Darrell, it looks like this; we give them this one chance to organize and put something together against the PAT, military action where everyone contributes and plays a role. If it falls apart, then we should join PAT after recieving appropriate non-aggression and trading arrangements.



Part of my chat with FK on the subject:

Bobchillingworth: from discussions with India and Babylon, plan looks like this; I have proposed a final effort to get something going against PAT. If it succeeds, and people actually contribute troops, then we butt heads (well not really "we", you and babylon won't be involved), and hopefully the tech pace is slowed at least
I do owe them at least one real chance to take action before turning on them
but if they don't...
then India and I join PAT after recieving appropriate tradig and saftey gaurantees
India would also like some sort of safety arrangement for Portugal, which I think is a good idea, and I might want one for HRE
basically, we can each claim one "client state"
then we romp around and eliminate aztec, rome, inca, ottos
then, and Kyan suggested it first ( ) we turn on Carthage and Egypt
then England
and then
we've won
basically

So yeah, I'm torn here; I don't want to turn on friendly civs like the Ottos, but our allies are letting us down, and this alliance has to make a stand, or we're just going to sink into irrelevancy.



Thoughts? Oh and we should probably switch back to slavery eventually, maybe turn after guilds?