[SPOILERS] Catherine of China

[plako]

Message from Rego:

I think you're probably right that you're not quite as strong as the Spullla team in PB2 - they were really in a crazy position. But still you're in an enviable position I think, and we both know how much of a snowball game that Civ is.

As for the war, and what our role might be, my thought was more of a skirmishing role around Knossos / Mycenae. I don't have full maps of the area, so I don't know if both of those connect to "New Greece" where Athens et al is but that was my thought.

My response:

Knossos and Mycenae are connected to his core through Corinth.

I see that you settled the fork already. Good for you. Please don't settle any further without a discussion.

I consider the Knossos and Mycenae and areas nearby beloging to my area of influence. This means also that I don't want to see any cities razed or improvements pillaged. I don't know if this leaves you much incentive to join, but please let me know your intentions.

[plako]

T122

Thebes fell with a cost of 1 HA. Quite good result. WK got GG as well as we.

I've started to approach Corinth.

I'll leave sparta alone for now.

[antisocialmunky]

I think it might be good to pick a HE city and start settling some GGs. Maybe not this one but with the one after.

[plako]

Good idea concerning GGs. I think settling 1 would make sense now and if we get some 2-3 more then those could be settled also.

T223

I'm moving towards Corinth. Pillaged couple of roads to prevent attack against Nimby. I'll use couple of turns to bombard. Spear+Ha coming from the road. Mycenea has only warrior so I'll harass it with spear+Axe from other side.

[darrelljs]

RAFO.

Darrell

[Bobchillingworth]

HAX


There is also NR20

[plako]

T124

Bombarded Corinth. WK should have attacked out this turn. It was his last chance to do serious damage.

Our economy is officially collapsed. Without building wealth in couple of cities we would be in strike.

[antisocialmunky]

T124Our economy is officially collapsed. Without building wealth in couple of cities we would be in strike.

Worth it!

[plako]

Just posting this since we're discussing about our border with Rego:

[antisocialmunky]

So it seems we got a response from Team Zulu about the land partition, not exactly what we had in mind:

Hi plako (and ASM),

[RegoPlayVictim]
Sorry it's taken me awhile to get back to you. Well, I guess a day or so isn't THAT long of a time, but I do try to turn things faster than that where possible.

It's just that ... wow... I don't (and didn't) know how to respond. I felt that you and us had a pretty good relationship in this game. Sure we weren't that close due to distances, but I felt like we had had some good back and forth behind the scenes work. When there were talks about "stop the leader" or "boycott plako", I told you about them (twice).

And now we get this letter. Perhaps it is just due to the "coldness" of corresponding by email, or maybe I just mis-interpreted things. Or maybe you or I or both of us were just having a bad day. But the tone that we got over here was not the friendly tone I thought we had previously - it was more of the #1 power trying to use his big military to kick around his neighbor (us).

Hopefully it's all a big misunderstanding, but to answer your first question first, yes, we did settle the cows city as we talked about a few days ago. Per our earlier agreement, we will not settle past there without discussion.
[/RegoPlayVictim]


I recognize that you have a claim on the area between our lands and WK's core. We also feel that way - in fact we already have been sending settlers and units down that way for some time based on earlier understandings.

[More of the same]
I guess the question now is what do we do now? Before yesterday, I would have felt pretty confident that between the two of us, we could have hopped on chat or sent some quick emails, figured out a reasonable border between us and gone from there. But now I'm not so sure.
[/More of the same]


I do want to share that there has been a 3rd round of emails talking about "the plako problem", and I want to also admit to you that I'm actually taking part in them this time. Whereas when this subject came up before we kind of blew it off, now I am not sure anymore. Who's to say that you will not take your 30 unit stack towards us once it's done with WK? We have no active NAP, so it's something we have to consider, right?

The bigger question is whether you think that Mycenae and Knossos will put you into "Spullla" territory, or not? I will share that the general tone of the emails going around presently is concern that if you have twice the land of everyone else, you WILL become unstoppable at some point. The worry is that (once your economy recovers), you'll have twice the production and tech edge and eventually come storming across somebody's border with infantry to our rifles, etc. There has once again been talk of canceling or non-renewing of NAPs and/or closing borders with you.

[Trying to warm us up to his proposal]
Now this should not be construed as a threat. Especially not one from just Zululand. After all, you can see the graphs, so you know that we are currently not really equipped to take you on militarily. Nor do we really want to fight you. I'm sure you would also prefer to be whipping markets and courthouses rather than more HAs and catapults, right? We just don't want to be bullied - if we can't return to our previous good relationship, then the general feeling is we might as well make a stand now vs. waiting until you've snowballed even FURTHER ahead.[/...]


So how do we fix this? How do we go back to our previously solid relationship? I'd have to check with sunrise, but I bet we would be willing to discuss creative ways to compensate you for your trouble. I'm really not trying to just steal all your gains - really I'm not. I understand you've done the lion's share of the work, and should receive the lion's share of the gains. You've already got the capital and most of his cities / land, right? If you feel you need more land, I'd say our city SW of Bob's Fork is on the table for a trade. Or maybe we buy some units from you - that lets us bulk up our military and gives you cash to catch up on techs / recover your economy.


[Veiled threats to get us to do what he wants]
The other thing to mention is that WK approached us awhile back about a settler he sailed away on a galley. His plan was to sail it up into our backline and keep it there for awhile just to cause you war weariness. So once again, we're showing good faith and bringing it up to you. Needless to say, assuming that you and we can come to an agreement, we would be willing to decline his offer.
[/...]

Anyway hopefully we can catch up on chat - I should be around later on today

regoarrarr
zulu

Bold to emphasize the important bits. I guess he hasn't learned to not be greedy. I also really don't understand why people on these forums like to keep playing victim. (Locke, Nakor, now Rego) I mean, sometimes playing the sentimentality card suits the situation but when you do it when it doesn't suit you, well you just come off looking a bit strange. I'm not your best friend, I'm your competition because you define the relationship that way with your communications. That's not to say, I'm not willing to be your best friend but you have to drop the pretenses and the obvious self-serving overtones yo.

I'd rather take Sullla's wooden dialogue over fake-nice* so hats off to the winners of PB2.

I also LOL that his basic line of reason ends up being "Hey, you should give us this land because you're getting to Spullla-level. Give us some to not let that happen (or else)." To which I would reply "well Spullla won the game (even though that map made it easy to dogpile on) and you got killed for overreaching before turn 100." :neenernee



Anyway, Rego also chatted Plako up with some offers on border splits. Currently it seems he's willing to give us a city to take about half of WK's NE peninsula. (see above)

23:05 Rego: hey there
sorry for the long email

me: Hi np
Rego: we were just really taken aback
23:06 me: and sry for appearing cold. I'm not tnative and try to usually focus on facts in my emails
Rego: yeah i know
that's what i meant by maybe i just mis-interpreted things
that's the problem with having such good english
people just assume you're native ;-)
i actually had to ask 2 people to confirm
23:07 then found it in a chat transcript from a few weeks ago where you had mentioned it
23:08 me: yeah. Taking for example your latest messsgae, it would have taken virtually hours for me to write
23:09 So you've planned to settle SE from the fork
Where exactly
Rego: well there were a few spots
23:10 we had also been sending units down to potentially "take" a few spots
me: You understand that I've used lot of hammers to get where I'm. It feels a bit like you're claiming land that we've won
Rego: which is why we emailed you in the first place since we didn't want to get in your way
yes i understand that
why you would feel that way
23:11 and i'm not trying to do that
me: Well it is clearly WK's land and you wouldn't be settling there if WK would be around without war
Rego: do you understand where we all are coming from - about concerns of you having twice the land of everyone else?
yes that's true for knossos and mycenae
23:12 WK had said a few weeks ago that he wasn't going to be settling any further north
me: Lp has lots of unsettled land. Locke is doing alrigh
Rego: so we had started moving things down
me: You've almost same numvber of cities as us
Rego: agreed - you're not the only one
but nobody as much land as you and WK put together
23:13 me: The starnge thing is that WK actually doesn't have that much land in east
He was in teh corner
Rego: hmm
me: His main direction of expnasion would have been west and NE
I can send you shot
Rego: well i guess in a sense it's kind of futile for us to argue about who is best and such - after all, i'm sure that i would try to downplay how well i'm doing if someone was asking me about my cities
and i'm sure you will do so too
23:14 me: Naturally
Rego: in the end, answer this - would you want to trade civs with anyone else in the game?
i wouldn't, if i were you
me: Tricky question actually. #2 might be the best spot
No need to be afraid of embargos
Rego: okay that's true - i meant from a pure civ perspective
w/o having to worry about the metagame of it
23:15 personally i would trade with you, LP and Locke and maybe moogle but that's it
me: LP is probably only one
He has great resources
23:16 I've soon 2 nations and still have way less happiness resources than him
23:17 Rego: so i guess the real question is how do you and us get through this whole border thing, so that we can regroup, recover economy, and smack him around in ~50 turns?
me: Well I need to see what exactly you're offering
Can you send me shot what you suggest
Rego: well i'm a bit hampered by not having exact maps of the area south of knossos and mycenae
23:18 our plan had been that we would take out knossos and mycenae, and that seemed like a natural choke-type border between you from the southa nd us from the nroth
but you're going a bit faster than we expected
(or maybe WK is jus tfalling apart :-) )
23:19 now i understand your feeling that we're just trying to swoop in and take land that you've won (or are winning)
and so i want to make sure that we address that
that's why i was suggesting ways that we might figure out a way to compensate you for that, including purchasing units at a good deal for you
or the city SW of bob's fork
etc
me: Fork city os ok I've no problem with it
23:20 Rego: well my point was just that it was another city for you - the border seems natural with either of us owning it
me: However Mycenae and Knossos are not
I'll be there soon
23:21 Rego: sure. i'd argue that we're already there but if you made up your mind to take it, we can't stop you (at least not at this current point)
and i don't want to get hostile with you because i'd prefer to work it out a different way
me: Is that a threat
Rego: lol
i try to make it a point not to threaten people with 2-3x my power!!!!
me: lol
23:22 So You want Mycenae and Knossos
and tha is your suggestion
Rego: so i see mycenae (the western city) connecting back to wK's core - but i can't tell if knossos does or not
well i'm trying to figure out where would be a good border for our two civs
23:23 i also would prefer to work with you rather than against you in the mid to long term, and so i'm trying to figure out a way that you don't get dogpiled for having 2x the land
(i'm such a nice guy, right? sorry - that last paragraph came out weird)
so i'm not necessarily sold on having knossos and mycenae
23:24 but that was what we had been planning for before you blew through WK so fast
and if you take those i'm not sure where else provides a sensible border
unless we go all the way back up to bob's fork
23:25 me: Bob's fork would have been my suggestion
Nice place to have border
easy to defend for both of us
Especially to you with just 1 front
Rego: that is true but the problem is that you have twice the land of us
23:26 and so we're kind of all just waiting around for you to convert that to a winning position
23:27 me: I don't have twice the land as I said WK had way less land than e.g. Locke and Adlain has between them
23:29 You've also settled pretty agressively to claim land
So I suspect you've more than 1/10th
23:30 Rego: are you currently #1 in land?
me: yeah
tad under 10%
23:31 Rego: yeah like 237 or something?
23:32 me: did you try to log in
someone bounced from me
234
Rego: no
23:33 haven't tried yet
me: Must be Ioan then
Rego: they log in like 20 times a turn ;-)
23:34 me: Busy times for them
Rego: so does mycenae connect to the rest of WK's lands?
or just through knossos?
23:35 me: I don't see exact positioning o f the Knossos, but I see cultural borers SE from Mycenae
Is it there
Must be since he has only 4 cities
23:36 Its Corinth and then Mycenae NE from it and then Knossos SE of it
They're land connected
There is some unsettled NE from Mycenane
and E also
23:37 Rego: mycenae is the western city?
23:39 me: Knossos is further east
Rego: ok
me: Mycenae is directly south from your city in the fork
Rego: does knossos connect to corinth directly?
or only through mycenae?
23:40 me: through Mycenae there is quite narrow isthmus from Corinth
Rego: right
i see that
23:41 but i can't see what is south of knossos
if it's just ocean or not
me: ocean both sides
23:42 Rego: ok
23:44 so mycenae is very bob's fork-y also then, right?
1 city border for us?
me: To me most natural place for our border city is 1S of the mountain that leads to fork and claims cows in 2nd ring that are located east from the spot
also 1W of the cows could work
23:46 Just one thing I noticed when going through our chat. how serious you're about this: "so i guess the real question is how do you and us get through this whole border thing, so that we can regroup, recover economy, and smack him around in ~50 turns?"
We were discussing LP here
Rego: i'm mildly serious
23:47 it's a little bit tricky for us since we're across the ocean
me: yeah
Rego: but if you and us are truly going to work through the current greece issue
and if we can get our civ out of the toilet (which is a big if i know)
then i think it makes a lot of sense to smack around one of both of our main competitor
s
23:48 me: Makes sense
Rego: so when you say a border city near the peak / cows
do you mean that's YOUR front city? or ours?
23:49 me: ours yes. Would give us both easy border
Yours would be very easy just 1 border city
23:50 WE would have 2 directions
W and S
23:51 I admitht that the land there isn't nothing too special just cows and pigs outside of Mycenae and Knossos
So I'm open for suggestions
But I'm not really negotiating about WK's old cities
Rego: yeah there really isn't any good food there
23:52 me: Pigs are actually probably already claimed by Knossos
Rego: i think pigs are 3N of knossos
23:53 but i'm going off an old map
me: ok
Rego: how about this
we settle 2N1W of the pigs
you keep the greek cities
me: Now looking at it again you're probably right
Rego: i mean we're talking about 5 or so cities here on this peninsula, right?
23:54 the other thing we haven't talked about is "WarriorKnight's crazy adventure"
so if we're able to agree down here we will decline to get involved there
23:55 me: Your desicion, but I wouldn't be plased
Rego: yes it doesn't seem like the thing that 2 powers that are trying to move towards closer relations would do
which is why we are willing to decline it
even if it would be kind of hilarious (from a neutral standpoint) :-D
23:56 me: Just for the record. War weariness wouldn't be a big issue. I haven't wasted units
Rego: cool
seems like there's a decent amount of happy on the map anyways
23:57 me: With Forges yes
Rego: do you have MC?
me: But asI said we're unlucky ones in that department
Rego: yeah
me: yes
Rego: we can't all have double gold triple gems or whatever he has
23:58 me: yeah. Just makes me want to cry when I need to capture WK just to get 2nd silver+gold and our only furs
Rego: yeah we have one silver, but it's like 2 tiles from the north edge of the map in the tundra
23:59 we haven't settled it yet
me: I settled terrible spot also to get it
Rego: yeah probably intentional by the mapmaker
me: WK's is better positioned
Rego: oh.
me: it has 2*deers
00:00 But his copper was in bad place
Rego: on your border?
me: that gave us the early advantage
Rego: yeah
me: no in the north, but not riverside
Rego: ah
me: so he needed to have Wheel to connect it
00:01 Rego: right
00:02 me: After thinking about it I'm not very comfortable with your suggestion. It would waste lot of tiles. That would be pretty much only feasible city sites taking all the food resources
Rego: well that was my idea
00:03 trying to give us both a solid border
do you have a counter proposal?
what if in exchange we gave you the cows site SW of bob's fork?
me: It is hammered by your culture
00:04 Rego: well we'd have to remove it
what if we arranged a fake war
you raze it and then replant a few tiles back where you had talked about previously?
dunno just thinking out loud
00:05 me: Pretty wild idea had to think about it.
I thought that city was pretty good for you
being canal
Rego: it's okay
but it overlaps the copper with our other city
i mean we want it fo rsure
but i think our border to the SE is more important to us

00:14 Rego: thoughts?
me: Thinking and not really liking it
Maybe I could give up the cows for a city up north
00:15 But thats it
Rego: okay
me: and even then I don't like the biorder
00:16 You could fork several of our cities from there. In hypothetical war scenario
Rego: right - i think that above all we need to find a border that works for both of us
which is why i suggested mycenae and then backed up to the 2N pigs site
both of those i think give us both a good border
i actually have to run right now
00:17 but i'll follow back up with sunrise and try to catch you either tonight or tomorrow
me: I'm heading bed so tomorrow then cya

I have my own thoughts and plans about how to deal with the Zulu but I think I'll save that for another post. I suppose this would be another 'evil plan for X' but I'm not trying to be evil honest - no one will be our friends (except Adlain) so we might as well write everyone else off with real-politik based planning.

*That is, presenting yourselves as best-friends in a message that is no way expected to be received that way.**
**That is, I rather have awkward straight forward diplo compared to bad shady diplo. I am in no way against shady diplo when done well.