[SPOILERS - PBEM19] Huayna Capac of Ottomans - yuris125 & Maestro

[Maestro]

Played Turn 65. No word from RL7.

Whipped Hammam instead of Colossus at Nashe, since whipping wonders suffers a penalty. With the overflow from Hammam Colossus will finish in 1 turn anyway.

Also did a 1-pop whip at Rock FM. It still had 2 turns of the previous whip timer, but was at 39/40 on lighthouse, so the overflow is perfect. I queued up a Forge next. We have so much happy that I deemed 2 turns of +2 whip unhappiness worth it.

Killed the barbarian warrior at Europa. No trouble.

Set research to 100%. With stored gold and Colossus fail gold we will get currency in 3 more turns, which is good, because our breakeven research rate is down to 30%.

[yuris125]

Unless we get a positive reply from RL7 by next turn, I would change that Forge to an Axe. We need as many as we can get by the time the NAP runs out

[Maestro]

Or maybe a galleon? If we wanted to really make a statement, we could invade the RL7 mainland. There's a forking opportunity on is western coast, between Gray Havens and Osgiliath. 2 loaded galleons would almost assuredly raze one of those cities. Osgiliath in particular is his only copper site. We could sail south, so they wouldn't see us coming, and pillage the copper or raze Osgiliath. That would mostly cripple them.

Anyways, food for thought.

[yuris125]

Galleon? I don't think we will have Astronomy in 10 turns

An idea of Galleys going on Osgiliath is an interesting one, but it would take too long, and only will make sense if we get involved in a protracted war after we raze the rice city. I don't think we should aim for their core, just raze the offending city and then hold ground

[yuris125]

Got this from Seven

Hm, our team's plans seem to have changed a bit from what I was aware of when I left. I don't think this admittedly aggressive plant was our best move, though I do think we can hold it and best you in war if you attack. Skirmishers are pretty darn effective and will be for a while yet.

I've posted in our thread trying to convince Lewwyn and Ranamar that making a deal for the site could be a good course of action for us. Hopefully I am persuasive enough and we can start negotiation as soon as possible. Every turn that the city costs maintenance and grows is a step away from the possibility of a mutually beneficial deal.

Of course, keeping our city seems like a good course of action too. As you may have noticed, we have less than half the riverside tile count of the other blobs, the worst access to the middle, the second-worst luxury distribution and no real compensation for those things. So we're trying to grab any advantages we can before the full power of everyone else's land starts kicking in and leaves us in the dust.

I like your guys' diplo style, you seem like people who can be reasoned with. Hopefully we don't have to be enemies.

Seven

Doesn't really say anything. Maybe they didn't expect us to see this plant immediately, and are trying to find a way out of it; maybe they're just playing good cop bad cop. If it's the latter, we decided that two can play this game I sent the following

Hi Seven,

Maybe you can hold that city, maybe not, it's 50/50 at best. Skirmishers are good, but the city is a long way away from your core, and I don't remember seeing a lot of Skirmishers when our Warrior was passing through your land

In any case, I don't want to be enemies with your team either. Maestro is pushing for blood ever since he saw that city plant, but I think I can convince him to stay peaceful if we can work something out. I don't think it would be good for either of our teams to go for military build-up now

I'm definitely open for negotiations, the 20t loan of ivory we offered in our email is still on the board. I'm happy to hear counter proposals, as I want to come to a solution which would be satisfactory for both sides. I see what you mean about the amount and quality of your land, and appreciate that you have to expand somewhere. You founding a city in our continent isn't too much of a problem, the big problem is its location. It makes several planned city sites unavailable. Letting you keep a location on our continent not only cedes that location, but allows you to found a fishing village on the landbridge as well

I'm not including Maestro in this email; as I said, he wants to go total war, and I don't think I can talk him out of it unless we can work out a reasonable deal. I hope you can convince your teammates to go for a peaceful solution - good luck with that!

Cheers
Yuri

[Maestro]

To expound, I actually don't want to war at all. Yuri and I are intentionally playing a good cop/bad cop routine, and I'm the bad cop. Technically our latest e-mail doesn't give up anything the first one didn't, but we hope that the perceived threat of my impending rage makes it feel like Yuri is really reaching out. We'll see if it works for us!

[yuris125]

Received this offer from Seven this morning

OK, I can try to negotiate some. Unfortunately Lewwyn is pretty happy with the situation as is (and wants to defend our prize), but Ranamar and I can override him if we agree.

Naturally trading an entire city which has a luxury and two food resources for a mere 20t of a luxury is not going to fly. Here is my counterproposal (for ease of pronouns I'm treating our team as singular so that "we" can refer to both our teams):

* You may raze the city (and you may declare war to do so, but may not take other hostile action and must make peace immediately thereafter. I won't stop you from razing it).
* We will have a NAP for 35 turns. (Of course, we can always add more NAP to the end later.)
* You will give me ivory for the duration of the NAP. (Just the 35t)
* Neither of us will settle a bridge that between the other's blob and another blob during that time. (With The Middle counting as a blob.)
* At least until 5 or fewer turns are left on the NAP, we will maintain open borders with each other, and close borders with France.
* You will not complete Mausoleum of Maussollos before t80, and I may do so. You're welcome to all the failgold you can manage. If MoM is built before this deal is signed this term will have to be replaced with something else.
* You will give me $50 when one of us reaches currency.
* I will not use a great artist for culture in a way that takes tiles from any of your cities or potential cities while we have a NAP.
* We will resolve to attempt cooperation and friendship in the future.

Hopefully these seem mutually beneficial to you. I think getting your entire dotmap back and avoiding war is a big win for you guys. Losing a nice city (and several turns of wasted city maintenance and production) would be disappointing for us of course, but acceptable with the above terms, which I have tried to keep cheap from your perspective.

Please respond quickly so we can come to an agreement before the military production ramps up too much.

Seven

This mostly looked a very good deal to me. Bolded clause is the only one we didn't like. MoM is 2 turns from completion, and we were not ready to give it up so late. It also wasn't clear what they meant by this clause: "Neither of us will settle a bridge that between the other's blob and another blob during that time. (With The Middle counting as a blob.)". I read it as "neither team settles in the middle continent", and thought giving up all of the middle continent to MNG and GES was silly. Here is my reply:

Hi Seven,

I'm happy with most of these terms, with the following exceptions:

* You will give me ivory for the duration of the NAP. (Just the 35t)
35t sounds too long... let's agree on 30?

* Neither of us will settle a bridge that between the other's blob and another blob during that time. (With The Middle counting as a blob.)
I'm concerned about the provision about The Middle. Firstly, it doesn't have its borders clearly defined - can we ask you for a screenshot of The Middle, which would show which area you consider to be inside blob? Secondly, I don't think it's a good idea to just give it up to GES and MNG, what do you think of "neither side will settle The Middle without discussing the settlement with the other side"?

* You will not complete Mausoleum of Maussollos before t80, and I may do so.
Unfortunately this is out of question. MoM is 1 or 2 turns from completion (Maestro played the last turn, so I'm not sure of the exact number), and we will not give it up at this point

All other terms are acceptable to me. Please let me know if you agree to the amendments I proposed, and possible replacements for the MoM clause

Cheers
Yuri

Seven then caught me in chat. He agreed to the reduction of ivory loan to 30t, and then we agreed to extend it to 40t in exchange for removal of the MoM clause. After a few refinements, here is the deal with signed:

* We recall our notice of NAP cancellation; NAP continues to exist between our teams
* We will raze your city on the rice not later than on T70. We will have to declare war to do it. This will not constitute a violation of the NAP
* After the war, we will sign a new NAP for at least 40 turns
* After the war, we will gift you ivory for 40 turns
* After the war, both teams will close borders with France, and will keep them closed at least until there are 5 turns of the NAP left
* After the war, our teams will maintain open borders with each other at least until there are 5 turns of the NAP left
* We will gift you 50g as soon as one of the teams has Currency
* Neither team will settle a city on a tile which has only a 1-tile-wide connection (landbridge) to the other team's continent
* RL7 will not use a great artist for culture in a way that takes tiles from any of Radioland cities or potential cities while we have a NAP
* We will resolve to attempt cooperation and friendship in the future

I'm very happy with the deal. We raze the city in our landmass; we get two good city sites back; we get safe border with RL7 for a long time. All this for 50g and a happy resource we have an extra copy of. Oh, and trade embargo against MNG which will reduce his GLH benefits - this could have consequences, but I think our border with MNG is very secure, and our production city is close to it, so I'm not very concerned. In any case, when we close borders with him, I will try to say something like "we didn't really want to, but it was part of the deal which was vital for us", and hopefully convince him we didn't want to do it, but had no choice

Talking of embargo against MNG, a few turns ago Commodore has hit us with a proposal of a joint action against MNG in the near future. We're not really ready for an aggressive war right now (attacking RL7's poorly defended city far away from their core was possible, but not much more), but it's an interesting development, and we will consider joining in if he goes ahead. In any case, I sent him a message, briefly describing the situation, and inviting him to join the embargo. Unless he's worried about his security, he will probably accept, and MNG will be left with international trade routes only from GES, thus making his GLH much less attractive

All in all, I think we can be very happy with the result of this diplo round

[Maestro]

Played turn 68:

• Declared war on RL7. Moved nearest axe into their territory. Should be able to raze in 2 turns.
  
• Finished Currency. Our 100% research rate went from 100 beakers to 120. Nice!
  
• Finished MoM in Maximum. Got 101 failgold from Nashe. Not bad for 1 turn of production!
  
• Great Prophet spawned in Ultra. Moved him toward Maximum for shrine.
  
• Moved 2 workers toward the newly founded Retro FM.
  
• Microed tiles at Ultra a bit to grow in 2 turns and still finish axe in 2.
  
• Thought about a Monastery before lighthouse at Nashe, but left it as is. We should think about a good monastery location though. And when to convert to Buddhism. Next turn might actually be a good time.
  

[yuris125]

We don't have a good choice of monastery locations so far, with religion in just 2 cities I agree with building it in Nashe; I also hope Buddhism will spread better once the shrine is built

I wouldn't delay IW, we need to start cutting down jungle, especially on bananas at Europa Plus and Maximum. After IW, we can convert

[Maestro]

Played turn 69:

• Researched Iron Working. We have 1 source, on a desert hill SE-SE of Nashe. It's under cultural influence, so we can connect it, but it's not workable by any of our cities, falling in the desert/peak wasteland east of Europa.
  
• Moved axe next to Fords of Isen, which we should be able to raze next turn. Tried to send RL7 50 gold, but can't without also signing a peace treaty, so I sent them a quick note explaining that.
  
• Moved lots of workers onto jungle tiles in anticipation of IW chopping.
  
• Moved settler in an east-ish direction, as I'm not sure where we want him to go.
  
• Whipped Hammam at Best, since it has the food to spare. Fired a scientist to drop growth from 3 turns to 2. We should rehire once it grows.
  
• MNG's GNP is 189. We're 104 at 100% research. The embargo actually sounds like a good idea. Commodore's GNP is pretty strong, too, but he still has too few cities, so I'm not as concerned about that long term.