SPOILERS-Tatan's PBEM10 Thread

[Tatan]

Well, since apparently I'm not getting Turn 111 tonight, executive summary of Turns 109 and 110:

Serdoa learns from Cyneheard that his stack attacking A&A and Canasta is a one-mover stack, and even then proves it himself with a sentry knight. Related: Serdoa has like 10 knights right by A&A, which Cyneheard apparently thinks are attacking me.

And a suicide trireme scout sees Cyneheard's army preparing to attack Monopoly:



Monopoly's defenses, several East Indiamen shipments later:



With a castle to boot.


So what will happen?! Wait for next turn!

Actually, Serdoa already told me:




[dramatic tension]




Tune in next time, on Masterpie- okay, not that cruel.

[SIZE="6"]THE CITY HELD[/SIZE]



Sweet, now all I have to do is win the rest of the war!

[Adlain]

I would call the pikeman Sharpie "Obadiah" or "Obadiah Hakeswill" personaly has he did love that pike of his, but other than that Woot!! - maybe this alliance thing may work in our favour for now

[Tatan]

"My state stands on me to defend, not to debate."
-Edmund in King Lear

Tatan,

I want to negotiate with you, and you alone. Serdoa is a backstabber who's stabbed Twinkletoes in PBEM7, and you and me in this one. That's ridiculous, and you know he'll find some way to stab you in the back again if it suits his purposes. And he'll run away with the game if Mackoti stays too scared of him to not give him iron, and if you're bound to not go against him yourself. My primary goal in this game now is to do better than Serdoa. Everything else is secondary. Thou shalt not suffer a backstabber to live.

I'm aggressive, but also follow my treaties and promises. I thought I saw an opportunity to expand, and took it (this isn't a friendly game, but it's supposed to be an honest one, though. Big difference.). Of course, Serdoa saw an even greater opportunity for himself, so here I am.

However, before we can negotiate terms, I cannot be negotiating blindly. I will keep any information provided confidential. What I'd need before the two of us (and only the two of us) could start talking:
1) The terms of your first peace treaty between you and him. I want to see how he broke that deal with you. And I can't trust a word that comes out of his mouth.
2) The terms of your current deal: I can't talk to you if he gets either veto power or a cut of any deal signed between the two of us, or what all is off limits for negotiation. Obviously, sensitive tactical information can be removed from whatever you send me.

I'm not going to touch the turn any more until I hear a "yay" or "nay" on whether or not you want to talk.

Cyneheard

Screw negotiations! It's time to kill and be killed, simultaneously!


So why did Cyneheard send that message?


Monopoly's garrisons were too intimidating, and my scouting trireme Pokey Paul was avenged.




Twinkletoes' spy-boat was spotted, and... "detained".




The raid on Canasta failed.





His surviving troops were left open after Serdoa's attack.



And vanquished.




My own losses? One catapult.


Every dog has his day. And every Dutchman, his.

Now, to wait for the inevitable counter-attack that rips my units apart.

[Tatan]

Okay, that still leaves questions. The main ones:

What will Cyneheard do?
I expect many of my outlying troops to be slain on the island; I can only hope that Cyneheard exposes himself to another counter-attack [I doubt it, though]. He will almost assuredly raze Canasta, if not this turn, then the next, and I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to stop him, that city is FAR too exposed. The main threat in future attacks will be from galleons, which you can already see floating around. I will of course need to counter that.

What will I be training?
East Indiamen, mostly. Because, see previous point: galleons will be the primary threat. Of course, that goes both ways...

What civics will I be using?
I would really like to go to Theocracy/Vassalage, probably revolting next turn. Although the anarchy isn't exactly timely, I feel that double-promo EIs are worth it. Any problems with this, Adlain?

What will I do with Great General Akbar?
The choices, as I see them:
-Join to an East Indiamen to get a super-navigation mover. Plus, then I can make hilarious puns involving Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars.
-Join him to a city, which would probably be Mott [where my other GG is settled], because that would mean [with Theo/Vassalage] triple-promo East Indiamen. That doesn't SOUND like a lot, but hey, flanking+navigation1+navigation2=six-movement East Indiamen strait out of the gate.
-Join him to a chariot for an Uber-Medic.

I'll want to get a super-medic eventually, but I'm on defense right now, so this option isn't looking so attractive at the moment [possibly next GG, if I can get one]. That leaves options one and two, of which I strongly favor option two. Quantity>quality, at least here, and that would help me more long-term as well. I'd appreciate thoughts on this as well, Adlain, but I can't gurantee that I'll listen.

What will I be researching?
Well, knights will be in shortly. So what then? Let me lay out my options again in dash/bullet form:
-Paper/Education
Serdoa is going for Liberalism, and I had exactly 1.0x10^-7% chance of getting that anyway, so Paper/Education doesn't look so attractive to me [universities are unnecessary right now anyway, I still have to build observatories!].
-Aesthetics/Literature[+Drama?]
I should really build the Epics eventually, the question is *when*. I think war gets priority right now, so I'm inclined to put this on the back-burner.
-Philosophy/Nationalism
Now we're talking! How do you make up for a deficit in production? By drafting, of course. This does conflict with Vassalage, though, and drafting maces isn't completely u83r anyway, so I think this can wait a tad. Which leaves...
-Gunpowder[+Banking]
The big G! Muskets alone aren't that awesome, but they would be better than maces against Cyneheard's current troop composition. Banking I added just because it is in the same area, but I doubt I will get there for a while. So what does this leave my tech path as?

Gunpowder->Philosophy->Nationalism
Final order subject to change and debate, but I believe that drafted Muskets will complement my East Indiamen fleet quite nicely. After all, if you can't fill all your ships with your production, why not use drafting? And furthermore, if I'm drafting most of my army, that leaves my production to build more ships! The perfect plan for unit-support bankruptcy! Let's do it!

[Whosit]

What will I do with Great General Akbar?
The choices, as I see them:
-Join to an East Indiamen to get a super-navigation mover. Plus, then I can make hilarious puns involving Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars.

This. Do this one. o_o

[Adlain]

No prob with the double revolt, personal I prefre the settling of the general into Mott for the 6movment ei.

I will admit to having him attached to an ei is also very apealing aswell.

[fluffyflyingpig]

How can you deny Admiral Ackbar?

[Tatan]

This. Do this one. o_o

I will admit to having him attached to an ei is also very apealing aswell.

How can you deny Admiral Ackbar?

Augh, stop tempting me! Fortunately, the allure of 8-exp naval units right out of the gate was strong enough to keep me on the right path. Akbar should be joined to Mott next turn.

No prob with the double revolt

Cool. Unfortunately, I forgot to revolt last turn , so it'll have to wait for next turn.

Not a lot actually happened in the turn, and what little did happen I forgot to take screenshots of .

Peace was made with Serdoa. I killed a trireme in the south in order to cover Serdoa's transport-galleys, and moved in a fairly large force to cover Serdoa's knight brigade outside of Covenant, which will fall next turn if not the turn after that for sure [Cyneheard's main force on Block Island has apparently been exhausted, and his knights are still in Cold County ATM].

Ad Hoc has galleons now, too, and furthermore has a caravel outside of my territory, which I may have to threaten him about.

Cyneheard also made another attempt at peace, sending me a message saying that he proposed AP-peace so that I could have plausible-deniability against Serdoa [who does not see the results on account of not having Hinduism anywhere]; naturally, I declined the offer, and defied the in-game resolution [Hindu is only present in Darujhistan, fortunately, so the stupid "the world thinks you are a villain" unhappiness won't be too devastating].

And nothing else, I think?

[Tatan]

stalemate reached, cyneheard's forces far better than serdoa's and my own

logistical errors gave him some extra victories as well

i might be able to pillage his iron within two turns or so if he has a brain-damaged moment

guilds finished, theo/vassalage revolted to

hey can you tell i got precisely 90 minutes of sleep last night

[Tatan]

If you have postulated based on evidence a)"I no longer really update my thread" that I have lost interest in this game, you would be semi-correct. I am still perfectly interested in this game; however, it currently taxes my already-ponderous brain to play when I am totally outclassed in war [and/or I don't really know what I am doing], to the point where playing the turn becomes a long and kind of painful affair, and the little writing I can do is put into telling Serdoa in diplomacy "hey i kinda [d]ucked up sorry".

I am sixth in literally every major category and then some, and I feel like I can make about ZERO (0.0) ounces of difference with relation to effort. So, uh, yeah, kinda wishing I had followed Adlain's advice and gone out in a blaze of glory against Cyneheard and Serdoa [and believe me, consider the difference in skill level and army size it would have been a very short blaze; more like a spark of notability than a blaze of glory], if only to avoid screwing up the game and delaying the turns any longer. However, since I've thrown in my chips with Serdoa and he is relying on me, I definitely can not let him down [and naturally copping out and gifting him all my stuff is not an option], so I must labor on. Just don't be surprised if I seem like a dead man walking from now on.

However, I FOUND THAT THE WORLD WRAP IS FLAT.

SURELY THIS COUNTS FOR SOMETHING AMIRIGHT?