Nicolae Carpathia and Selrahc bring about World Peace, UHC, Apocalypse as Sheaim

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Oh crap, and I forgot to explore that stupid dungeon. Oh well, next turn, It's going to delay me moving on that Barb city by a turn (assuming nothing really bad happens).

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Oh sweet, got an Empyrean disciple from it. Popped it in San Francisco. I'm more happy about the culture than than anything else, I'm already up to 40% tile culture in my 2nd ring, meaning I could get even more riverside aristofarms into play!

[Nicolae Carpathia]

There...

There are no words to describe how screwed I am.

I don't even know how best to arrange these pictures.

Change of plan, we're gonna dogpile Kyan.

[Cyneheard]

Change of plan, we're gonna dogpile Kyan.

Details, please?

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Probably hit turn ~150 or so, because that's about when the Kyan-RG NAP ends. Mine runs out at T140. The lack of diplomatic contact tells me Kyan intends to pick us off one by one. Gaspar is going to settle a leaves temple in Sludgehome so I'll have some cultural borders/defenses to protect against a Gibbon/Haste alpha strike.

Still, the issue is this map is absolutely terrible. I didn't have a single 5-6 yield resource within my starting plot, making the crawl towards getting workers/settlers out incredibly painful. Maybe I should have gone for God-king instead of Aristocracy.

But the biggest issue is that, of the "landmass" that Gaspar and I share, he started in the middle, while I started on the edge. And just like that, Gaspar naturally expands to 2-3rds of the continent. The only way out of this was to attack him, but not only did I fuck up my diplomacy, but how on earth was I going to mass Pyre Zombies without any good tiles? And so many jungles/forests to eat up worker turns/worker food-hammers?

And despite all that, Kyan has casually expanded to almost double the score of Gaspar. And this isn't because of some bad play by RG the way Ioan and Sareln kept screwing up. Holy crap is this map badly balanced. At least there are still some options in play, it's just that I've basically vassaled myself to the elves.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Hello mate,

It's been a long time since we spoke and i can't help but notice that you've claimed, rather than razed, the barbarian city on the landbridge between us. Bearing in mind that land was given to the Balseraphs in our initial NAP, i wondered what happens from here?

To be honest, i don't necessarily begrudge you it. You need it more and you have less room to expand to. I'm mildly worried by you not just throwing me a message to ask (as i would have ceded it anyway) and i can't help but wonder what this means for our NAP. i.e. if i ask for the mana which you also agreed to give, am i going to still get it? Also, does the NAP itself still stand?

I agree that this NAP was negotiated whilst i was in a significant position of strength with units that could have crippled your long term potential. I can also accept that this game probably hasn't gone how you wanted but i would fail to accept that i'm entirely to blame for that. I've been lucky this game and i've utilised it. Your position would have been a lot worse had that NAP not been signed.

I also have noticed no Elven invasion by now. We both know that you're out of expansion room so i can only assume i'm the next logical target. Can i just ask what you might have to gain? Even if my civ gets wrecked (which, at this point, i don't think all other civs working in tandem could achieve. Sounds big headed, but it's the facts, the demos say enough), then what? The Hippus and Elves are already significantly ahead of you and the Elves will simply get better with time. I guess it boils down to what you're playing for:

-to stop number 1

or

-to achieve the highest position you can.

If the second option is appealing, let me know as i can most certainly help in that regard. If it's the first option, then i would hope you would be decent enough to fulfil the rest of the NAP terms (i.e. mana). After that, let's see if a RB dogpile can't work out for once

Yours,

Kyan

Not very please with that message, dogpile or not. He did, after all, say he wanted the land up to Yggdrasil. Not beyond.

Response:

Sup Kyan,

That's a tad presumptuous to say that you had a claim on the territory on my side of Yggdrasil, considering that you did after originally wanted the land "up to and including that site". If I didn't know any better, I'd suspect that pretending that our original deal ceded you Austin was a deliberate attempt to force me to stick to the letter, but not spirit, of our deal.

Unfortunately, you did concede the high ground when you tried to explore an epic lair 2 tiles from my border and 5 tiles from my capital, after I specifically told you not to touch the thing. In the words of Uberfish, "I'd consider opening lairs near people without warning or permission a clear NAP violation in FFH considering how much damage early Mistforms can do". Nevertheless, the T140 NAP remains. However, I'd need an extremely good reason to hold to the mana part of the original deal. And no, threatening to break the NAP further isn't good enough.

As for the global perspective, my game was over long ago, when the mapmaker put me in the middle of worker-turn soaking jungle without a single food resource. At this point, I'm waiting for someone to roll me and this game. I know you'd love to do the honours, but at the same time, I know you'd love to neutralise me bloodlessly and eat the world piecemeal. So sure, what are your terms for vassalage? I'm flexible enough to consider anything at this point.

Cheers,
Nic

Should I send this off? It could spark a NAP break! I wouldn't mind, it would be an excuse for RG to break his own NAP.

Christ what horrid things am I instigating now?

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Hi mate,

My understanding was that the whole arm was ceded. However, i also trust your word and its entirely possible that i've simply remembered wrong on this. If that's so, then i apologise for sounding like a total cock. This truly was my belief as you'll see in my thread after the game. There is no alterior motive here. Granted we haven't spoke for awhile, but we got on well when we did no?

This is kind of 'by the by' though to be fair, as i literally have no problems with you taking it. I just wanted to make sure the other deals stand, which, clearly, they don't- in your view.

That is possibly the flimsiest excuse for trying to get out of a deal that i've seen in awhile. You asked me not to pop any dungeons (after a NAP had been agreed) as a gesture of good will. I agreed because it seemed fair. I also agree that a dungeon had been popped previous to your request. However, quoting someone that isnt even in the game who has one opinion suddenly constritutes a change of the rules? Also, this was frigging ages ago- when were you planning on telling me that you'd considered the deal null and void? Is it not true that if i weren't winning, this would likely not be an issue? This game was set up for people new to FfH, not experienced hands. I still, to this day, have never finished a game and back then, had barely played any whatsoever. Granted, i now know better but i figured that dungeons are like huts and ive never seen anyone complain about someone popping a hut before. If you'd told me nearer the time, i could have done something to apologise or make it up to you if i had upset you. I did not break our NAP. Popping dungeons wasn't even mentioned in the NAP and when running this past both of my ded-lurkers, Bob and DaveV, they both agreed that i wasn't breaking anything.

If you agree that you've already lost the game, then why are you going to break a deal in such a manner when it won't make a huge amount of difference regardless?

As for vassalising, no thank you. I'm quite happy to go to war after the NAP ends if that's what you want. I'm comfortable enough now that you going down quietly or with a ,literal, bang, should make no real difference. The best i can do is offer you a NAP and therefore second place, which considering your shite land, would be an impressive finish in my book. I'd also be amenable to mana loans or resources etc. I can get hold of quite a few spares that i havent bothered to hook up currently.

Whatever you decide to do, i'd request that you keep me informed at least. I wont't be breaking my NAP regardless so you won't be seeing the Balseraph army until that time is up. I won't break a deal this game or any other.

Yours

Kyan

For the record, my intention is to antagonise Kyan as much as possible and make it incredibly bloody for him to invade. I've lost long ago, best to throw it in a way that equalises the playing field.

Ultimately I'm not losing sleep over it.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Oh motherf...

Since I pretty much threw the mana deal in his face, Krill pretty much threw the "please don't pop my lairs" request in my face. Don't blame him at all. I mean what am I going to do, declare war on him ? He's gonna kill us all anyway.

Krill popped 5 azers from a shipwreck (how that is physically possible eludes me). That's okay, I filled it with a stack of skeletons and adepts. A total of 6, though I'm risking a few adepts because I didn't have enough dudes on hand.

Aaaand after I ended turn I noticed on the FFH wiki that Azers explode on death a la Pyre Zombies .

Beyond that, sorry for the lack of reporting, I've known I was fucked for a long time, and I've been busy (though not so busy to spam other threads on RB). I've been pumping Adepts, though Arcane is simply not enough to turn them into Mages. Sorry Selrahc, but there's no way I'll have 20 mages ready on T140. I've gotten on Acal's good side, and he sent me enchantment mana from the goodness of his heart after I told him of my plight and how Krill is going to straight up destroy me with puppet mages (though Acal is dying first).

The sheer amount of land Kyan/Krill managed to expand into simply boggles my mind. After him, Gaspar takes second place thanks to the runaway taking everyone else attention. Even then he's "safe", he'll probably concede after Acal and I are dead/neutralised, as Krill will have ~50% of the entire world.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Hahaha, what the hell, how do you dispel the Pyre of the Seraphic? I have metamana hooked up.

Oh yeah, and that stack of Azers still isn't attacking. I'm going to risk a few adepts in defending that city just so have have a chance of gaining xp on them.

[Square Leg]

Hahaha, what the hell, how do you dispel the Pyre of the Seraphic? I have metamana hooked up.

Oh yeah, and that stack of Azers still isn't attacking. I'm going to risk a few adepts in defending that city just so have have a chance of gaining xp on them.

Not sure if this works but if you pop the Pyre, build a fire node, dispel it with a meta II mage, can you build any other type of node on it?