[SPOILERS] MNG as Hattie of France

[Mr. Nice Guy]

The T79 report will finally be the bigger report that I've been promising. Probably one overview post, 2 domestic posts, and 1 international post. First, the overview. I've shown a lot of demo screenshots lately, so I skipped that. Instead, here's the direction my research is headed:

Yep, heading right for Banking. I don't know how much longer GES/Commodore will keep OBs with me. So... I'd best keep my options open, and that means Mercantilism. Along the way I'll also pick up longbowmen (if I choose to hit archery), crossbowmen (ditto), grocers for more gold, improved workshops (which I'll be building soonish) - and oh, yeah, a little civic to take advantage of a strong capital.

And an empire overview, starting in the north:

My fourth-next city to be planted will be the filler between the fish and iron. All around, the north is coming out according to plan. Worker labor here is getting to the point that I will need fewer workers up here soon.

In the south, I have quite a bit more worker labor needed. Calendar just came in, which means 4 plantations. Plus 7 or 8 more cottages needed ASAP and roads needed. The majority of the workforce will be here over the next 20 turns.

And the east. These cities will never be massive, but they are tactically important. I know of only 2 sources of silver in the entire map, and I now control both of them. If I get the chance, I expect to settle 2 more cities out here in roughly 15 turns. One on an island to make up for losing trade routes, and one further east to try and minimize Yuri's expansion space.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Next, the "core" cities. Note that since taking these pictures another turn has passed, but I'm going to stick with the T79 theme for now. I'll just dump pictures, and make a couple of comments on the few that need comments.


Growing nicely as a hybrid capital. Probably 10-15 turns away from CS, at which point there will be no stopping Paris.


Helping to grow the western Paris cottages, and not a bad city in its own right.


Soon enough this city will become a commerce center with more restricted production as Paris grows to size 12-13 or so.


Rheims, which will probably unintentionally make my second GP soon. I haven't focused on Great People, but I have used scientists when that was the best choice available. I don't think I'll complain if I get either a scientist or a merchant, although I'm not 100% sure what I'd do with either.


Tours will start growing once the spices are plantationed. It will also then start getting more cottages to grow.

Time for a short break...

[Mr. Nice Guy]

The last cities, then a brief foreign update.


Parthian, which is doing well for itself. I chose decent timing to whip the library here. Notice that I get the library plus growth next turn, plus some huge overflow. That will help with the courthouse.


One city that still needs quite a bit of worker labor. I hate working unimproved tiles and I seem to frequently do that here.


My land grab. It's very expensive to maintain but the silver makes it profitable. This is exhibit A in why international trade routes don't make the GLH overpowered. From turn 0, this city was just barely a net loss because it was drawing in +4 commerce from domestic routes.

And my 2 other new cities:

.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

First, a shot of my Maoi city, which I somehow skipped before. I did the same library whip overflow here, which will have its overflow doubled for the maoi project. That means Maoi will take 4 turns total (2 from previous overflow turns, and 2 more after this overflow). Not bad. This city will quickly become my 2nd best in the empire once it hits size 12-13.


And finally, a shot of Commodore's land. Notice the placement of New England, GES's landgrab. I thought I was screwing Commodore with my landgrab, but GES takes the cake in that category! With luck, Commodore will use his Great Artist to bomb here. It would be, in my opinion, a waste of an advantage, and would perhaps spark tensions and allow me to continue to grow uninhibited.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

So, while I've been writing T79 updates, T80 has come and gone, and Commodore is playing T81 as we speak, which means it will be here before I can finish this post. The big news in T80 is that GES is now planning on closing borders with me. Here's our e-mail communications from this morning:

Hi GES,

Wow... I thought my city plant was aggressive against Commodore, but I think you have me beat.with your New England plant. Do you think Commodore is going to use the Music GA there? If he does, do you think you can hold the city?

In other news... I've largely left RL7 alone recently, but have you been able to witness any changes since his golden age started? Obviously his GNP and production numbers are through the roof - what's your perspective on this?

MNG,

I was wondering when I would hear from you. For starters, I am getting lots of outside pressure to close borders with you. I've delayed as long as I can, but I will be closing them this turn. This has nothing to do with you as a player, but is in response to the overpowered nature of TGLH. I have no intentions of a complete trade embargo--our gems for ivory trade is beneficial to both of us.

I hadn't really considered Comm artist bombing that city. If I lost it, I would just rush Construction and then annihilate him.

As for RL7, they are clearly the leader right now. And the GAge has nearly doubled their GNP, and upped their production 50%. But this GAge will end soon, and strikes me as a waste by using it too early, so that doesn't really concern me. Also, much of the GNP is based on having Henge, Parthenon, TGL, Mids, ToA, NEpic, plus libraries. That might be 75 GNP per turn right there.

Hi GES,

As far as Comm artist bombing, I figured he would either bomb near my city or yours. Settling might benefit larger nations for the GPT, but him being a smaller organized HRE - I just don't expect he'll be needing the gold any time soon. And a golden age at this stage doesn't provide much benefit for a smaller nation at this stage of the game. So I expect a culture bomb against one of us. The question is, which one?

As for the closed borders coming, I understand, although I would have liked a few more turns to allow my chariot to get the same scouting information that I've allowed in my own corner of the world. The funny thing is, I don't think the GLH provides quite as much power in a small multiplayer game like this as any of us thought. At 11 cities, I would have the same number of international routes with or without it. The benefit comes from the +2 domestic routes in each city. That's nothing to sneeze at - it helps make new cities profitable quickly. But if all teams opened borders with me, I would have the same number of international TRs with the GLH or without it.

So I'm sad to hear that you're closing borders but I understand. RL7 is a very strong empire and I expect they would like as many of your TRs to themselves to continue growing their lead. I'm sure they will appreciate it, and with luck they will turn on Yuris first.

If it were me, I would be saving that GArtist for a GAge. It is the most useless type, so it works best as GAge fodder. Not sure my fishing village is worth wasting a GAge.

As for plants, I basically took a couple seafood from his eastern most city. From what I saw of your plant, you cut off his path to the tundra wasteland, and took fur, whale and double silver from him. If I were Comm, I know which one of us I would be coming after. Do you have triremes yet?

It's worth mentioning that GES played T80 after telling me that he would be closing borders. And yet, he did not close borders as promised. We'll see when T81 comes in in a few minutes if he closed them now or not. In the meanwhile, I'll keep scouting with my intrepid chariot and keep enjoying the profit I'm getting off his +3 trade routes.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

So the good news from T81 is that I reached #1 in production, by a healthy margin. (120vs 102 for second place). I'm also still climbing in crop yield and population. The bad news is that GES did indeed close borders. That sparked this course of action and conversation:

3:23 PM me: Hi GES. unfortunately after looking at the impact of losing open borders with you, I was forced to end our gems-for-ivory deal. i hope you'll understand
3:24 PM Mansa: That's fine. There is no one else available to trade ivory with, so if you choose to shoot your own civ in the foot out of spite, well, not much I can do about that.
3:25 PM It just means I have very little reason to work with you.
And all that that implies.
3:26 PM me: well, i hope we can return to a more amicable state in the future.
3:27 PM Mansa: I am not sure I want to work with someone who cancels mutually beneficial deals, when they don't get to keep unilaterally beneficial ones going. Not my idea of a useful ally.
3:28 PM You weren't willing to trade me ivory before I had gems available. I haven't forgotten that.
3:31 PM me: nah, the open borders benefited me (and held back our opponents) more than helping you, just like the ivory trade helped you more than it helped me.
just a little tit for tat, and i'm always looking for an opportunity to provide a little positive tit for tat too
Mansa: Your ivory did very little for me. I can still build warriors. I can produce as much happiness as I please.
3:32 PM For 10 hammers a pop.
3:33 PM I will re-offer you the trade this turn. If you don't accept, I will trade gems to someone who wants them. You will not find a trader for your ivory. The choice is yours.
3:35 PM me: i will consider it. but you must understand that with my wealth of happy resources, that is asking me to accept a unilaterally beneficial deal - at the same time that you are choosing to benefit RL7, yuris, and Commodore while hurting me by taking away open borders.
3:38 PM Mansa: I am providing no benefit to RL7, yuris and Comm. Every civ right now only needs two other civs open borders to complete their foreign trade routes. I could close borders with all three to no effect on them. Until Corp or Free Market, no one needs a third OB partner. You will at some point want the +2 happy that gems will provide in any forge city. Right now, I think I am more likely to be health capped than happy capped because I lack sugar, spice, and wine. So getting my gems back to trade for one of those may be in my best interests regardless.

So I created some real diplomatic fallout. That may have been a big mistake. But I'm still having a blast with this. It just reiterates that I need to move toward banking for mercantilism.
The other half of the coin is that now only Commodore has open borders with me. Should I gift him my exploring chariot to explore more of the world? I think I will. It does me no good but costs me gold per turn, and it could help Commodore out quite a bit - and I think he'll share anything interesting he happens to find out.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

And that exchange with GES brings me to the other diplomatic/international area of focus: Commodore. This is tough for me. On the one hand, I made a Krill-esque plant in his backyard. I screwed his access to the resource-rich tundra. In all likelihood, that move killed any chance of him coming back into the game.... he's been behind thanks to slow expansion for a while, and now with far less land than everyone else I think he'll stay that way. And with my next couple of cities, I intend to further block him in and consolidate my holdings in the center of the map. It will cost me a lot but I think that is what will help me have more cities and more land than the other teams. Basically, I've been pretty aggressive in my actions toward Commodore, and actively hurt his chances of winning.

That having been said, I really do enjoy playing with him. We have G-Chat conversations every other day. He's fun to talk to, both about in game and out of game life. He is also the last to keep open borders with me. He has also fed me a lot of information, and given me trades that I think benefit me more than him without any complaints. So even though everything I said before is true, he is my most likely ally.

That's led to this note that I sent after my conversation with GES. 3 gpt is nothing to sneeze at, but saving him 2 MP warriors per city in his more populous cities is a pretty big deal too. And our stone deal is pretty fairly balanced, so I think I have a reputation of building deals that are even between us. Here's the note:

Hi Commodore,

Just wanted to congratulate you on holding out and keeping open borders. You are now the only person to keep his own head on his shoulders.

Would you like my exploring chariot that's currently in your lands? You may use him for any purpose you want except any kind of aggression against France, and I would be happy to offer him to you as a gesture of goodwill and appreciation on the next turn.

As an additional gesture of goodwill, I would be happy to offer you silver for the super-low permanent price of 3 gold per turn. As far as I can tell, I have a worldwide monopoly on silver, which makes them an extremely rare and valuable resource. In addition, I know you are heading to HR, which makes me believe silver would be a big help for you. And considering that you have a very erratic and generally aggressive neighbor in GES, I want to help you as much as I can.

The gift of the chariot is unconditional, not tied to silver or our existing stone deal, and truly free. If you want it, just let me know.
The silver deal would be a permanent price with only one condition: I would ask that you maintain our mutually beneficial open borders. It is independent of any other deals, agreements, etc that we may make. I want you to know clearly that it is a generous offer of gratitude for continuing to maintain open borders, which surely must cause ripples for you on the international scene.

Let me know what you think. Hopefully I can execute these deals on a fourth turn tonight

[Mr. Nice Guy]

And I figured that while I was botching up diplomacy and trying to smooth over other areas of international intrigue, I may as well take a chance with Yuri. This, too, could backfire. But our relationship is pretty cool to begin with. And my previous note to them was a few days ago and pretty aggressive. So maybe this will have a net positive effect?

If not, at least it's consistent with my goal to just go out and have fun in this game

Hi Yuri,

So, it seems that RL7 is becoming more and more successful in turning teams against me. Considering all of the wonders they have accumulated, and their recent golden age propelling them into a clear #1 position, that's an impressive coup.

I am wondering if you would consider either re-opening borders with me or closing borders against RL7. I realize that you must have a pretty strong relationship with RL7, but while neither would have a major impact no your team I think both would have an impact on the world at large. Obviously I would appreciate the goodwill gesture of open borders. It wouldn't make as big of an impact on my #5 economy as you may think, but it would be a helpful, nice way to cultivate a good relationship which may be necessary in the later stages of the game. Closing borders against RL7 may be a more assertive option, but remember, this is a team that has proven their aggression toward you already, and has been able to convince GES to close borders against me, even though GES has war chariots and could likely hold them off if it came to it.

Just a thought that I wanted to float out to me. Let me know what you think.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Yuri's reply. Friendly and amicable, but unfortunately the response that I expected:

Hi MNG,

I'm sorry to hear that GES has also closed borders with you. I can
imagine how frustrated you are with the teams closing borders, and I
wish I could help. Unfortunately, at this point re-opening borders
with you or closing borders with RL7 would violate terms of the deal
we signed with RL7

I have to agree with you that RL7 are looking like a runaway; they
played a very impressive game so far, and we would've been happy to do
something about their lead. However, breaking an agreement is not an
option for me, and the game played out in a way that accepting this
deal was the only thing we could do. If RL7 made us sign a deal which
will hand the game to them by settling just one aggressive city, then
so be it

I'm truly sorry that you are finding yourself on the receiving end of
another team's hostile negotiations, and I wish my answer could've
been different

[Mr. Nice Guy]

And I continue to try and dig some holes in the anti-MNG alliance. My goal is to find a hole, any hole, and try and pry my way through it.

Hi Yuri,

I'm sorry that it has to be that way, but I respect your wish to honor deals, even if the deal hurts my team without giving me a chance to have a part in the deal-making process.

I would still like to pursue mutually beneficial agreements between our teams. May I ask, what specifically are the terms you have agreed to with RL7, so that when I make another request or proposal I know that I'm not asking you to violate said terms?

Yuri has been polite, friendly, cordial, etc. I think I have a better chance with him than GES. We'll see.