Everything south of the rice is theirs, yes. They are poised to take everything two tiles above it
Which is half our available FP. Hell, even if they settle where I'm begging them to, it's still threatening to take 3-5 fp from us.
I know we've discussed the whole "do we stick with CUDDLE" issue before, I guess I really just don't give a shit now. Our "friends" are a bunch of shiftless layabouts and our alliance chronically lacks for any sort of leadership or direction. Only Ottos, HRE, and India seem to be putting any time into it, and we have a secret alliance with India anyway (although depending on what that settler does, I might have to take a very close look at our treaties...).
If we join PAT, there's no reason why we have to fight any of our old allies, we don't even border most of them anyway, whereas we're destined (well, more like "committed") for war with Krill if we stick with CUDDLE. And I'm starting to make a 180 and back away from my previous brinksmanship mindset. If we join PAT we get better techers and warmongers for friends, and Maya and Babylon can watch our backs for trouble. Kyan has offered before to help work with us to undermine PAT from within after we've secured ourselves militarily and technologically. Which leads to another concern- I'm worried that we're growing apart from our closest allies, as they spend all their diplomatic time talking to our "enemies" instead of us.
I suppose if we jump ship (assuming PAT will even take us, although I'm sure they will) that we might annoy some allies and Krill won't trust us or whatever, but again I ask whether we even give a damn. CUDDLE was always an alliance of convenience (plus at a minimum Inca has tried to sell us out already), and why would we ever care if England or Carthage trusts us? They're all a pack of opportunists anyway, and we'd certainly intend to betray them before the game is over if we wanted a chance to survive.
Basically, I'm in favor of at least sending out confidential feelers to PAT via Maya and/or Babylon, to see if they might take us. If India withdraws their settler, then joining PAT loses some of its urgency, but I think we should still strongly consider it, and sooner rather than later. If India settles in an unacceptable location, then I would urge us in the strongest possible terms to make an offer to PAT immediately.
Right now sticking with CUDDLE looks to be at best throwing away our fortunes in this game on the whims of bored & untrustworthy allies, and death by entropy (assisted by rifles) a likely worst-case scenario. Of course this post is being written as a rant somewhat addled by recent developments with India, but this is something we've been talking about for a while now- and we need to decide before PAT gets far enough ahead that we don't really have anything to offer them anymore.
Which is half our available FP. Hell, even if they settle where I'm begging them to, it's still threatening to take 3-5 fp from us.
I know we've discussed the whole "do we stick with CUDDLE" issue before, I guess I really just don't give a shit now. Our "friends" are a bunch of shiftless layabouts and our alliance chronically lacks for any sort of leadership or direction. Only Ottos, HRE, and India seem to be putting any time into it, and we have a secret alliance with India anyway (although depending on what that settler does, I might have to take a very close look at our treaties...).
If we join PAT, there's no reason why we have to fight any of our old allies, we don't even border most of them anyway, whereas we're destined (well, more like "committed") for war with Krill if we stick with CUDDLE. And I'm starting to make a 180 and back away from my previous brinksmanship mindset. If we join PAT we get better techers and warmongers for friends, and Maya and Babylon can watch our backs for trouble. Kyan has offered before to help work with us to undermine PAT from within after we've secured ourselves militarily and technologically. Which leads to another concern- I'm worried that we're growing apart from our closest allies, as they spend all their diplomatic time talking to our "enemies" instead of us.
I suppose if we jump ship (assuming PAT will even take us, although I'm sure they will) that we might annoy some allies and Krill won't trust us or whatever, but again I ask whether we even give a damn. CUDDLE was always an alliance of convenience (plus at a minimum Inca has tried to sell us out already), and why would we ever care if England or Carthage trusts us? They're all a pack of opportunists anyway, and we'd certainly intend to betray them before the game is over if we wanted a chance to survive.
Basically, I'm in favor of at least sending out confidential feelers to PAT via Maya and/or Babylon, to see if they might take us. If India withdraws their settler, then joining PAT loses some of its urgency, but I think we should still strongly consider it, and sooner rather than later. If India settles in an unacceptable location, then I would urge us in the strongest possible terms to make an offer to PAT immediately.
Right now sticking with CUDDLE looks to be at best throwing away our fortunes in this game on the whims of bored & untrustworthy allies, and death by entropy (assisted by rifles) a likely worst-case scenario. Of course this post is being written as a rant somewhat addled by recent developments with India, but this is something we've been talking about for a while now- and we need to decide before PAT gets far enough ahead that we don't really have anything to offer them anymore.
![[Image: unacceptableindiansettl.jpg]](http://img38.imageshack.us/i/unacceptableindiansettl.jpg/)
