[SPOILERS] Bismarck of Mali (NobleHelium and Lewwyn)

[Lewwyn]

Kuro is holding the turn. He's had the turn for 35 hours. He messaged me wanting to know what I thought about the war. I told him I was planning to take Jkaen out too. He asked for a NAP so that there would be no backstabbing I said No NAPs. He said I see and has held the turn an additional 10 hours.

It's pissing me off.

I think there's a chance he's discussing a deal with EMC to attack me.

[Gaspar]

Kuro is holding the turn. He's had the turn for 35 hours. He messaged me wanting to know what I thought about the war. I told him I was planning to take Jkaen out too. He asked for a NAP so that there would be no backstabbing I said No NAPs. He said I see and has held the turn an additional 10 hours.

It's pissing me off.

I think there's a chance he's discussing a deal with EMC to attack me.

There's also a chance Kuro is just notorious for holding turns, see: FFH11.

(YMMV. As I've barely read anything this game, for all I actually know Kuro is plotting against you with everyone and has tanks next turn.)

[Lewwyn]

Finally got the turn, and I immediately looked:





Allow me to channel my inner Izual from Diablo 2,

"Kuro was a fool to have trusted me!"

I sent this to Jkaen:

I have the turn now and here is my proposal:

-I will attack Declare War on Kuro this turn.
-You will gift me Johnny English and I will whip units out to help you defend. (Don't whip it this turn, I'll do that). This means that the city will be useless to me as an investment in the near future but will aid you in this battle. In fact, I will use this city entirely to fight Kuro until I have fulfilled the 2 points below. And units you have in that city can immediately begin to move toward your front lines.
-I will help you to reclaim any cities you lose.
-I will help you take 2 cities (Karkat - Aradia Megido), (Or the equivilant)* from Kuro, though I need to build an army first in order to do so.
*(I may have to raze the cities first then rebuild with a settler.)
-NAP until the end of war with Kuro. This means neither of us may declare war with each other until we are both at peace with Kuro. Additionally there is a 5T cooldown once we are both out of war with Kuro.


This does not mean I will win immediately. Don't expect the cavalry to charge in next turn. I need to build troops, but you will see me switch civics and you will see my military spike. Units WILL be on their way. You still need to whip out units like mad. I still recommend more spears. Longbows are good too. I would put 1 turn into longbows and then 2 pop whip the longbows and slow build the spears as you regrow with the whip overflow.

Do you accept my proposal? If you have anything you want to add email me back, but I think this is the best deal you're going to get. Kuro offered to split your territory with me. The only reason I haven't accepted that is that I'm pissed at Kuro from another game and I think this is more interesting. I understand if losing Johnny English seems painful, but you can see the benefit in this proposal I hope.

Lewwyn

I am waiting, but I'm either declaring on Kuro or Jkaen today.

[Bobchillingworth]

Pretty fair deal you're offering there. Did you know that games where Kuro dies have historically been proven to show a subsequent increase in the save file turnover rate by over 400%? It's true!

[Lewwyn]

Yes, the new fair deal.

Jkaen has accepted:

Sorry I was out most of yesterday (my weekend) didnt realise you were waiting for a response. As much as I don't like the plan I agree I have little option but to go with it

He could stand to show a little enthusiasm.

Anyway let's get to it.



Har har har. 91 gold plundered.

I've switched into Police State and Vassalage. My tech dropped a bit but I still finish Guilds in 1 turn. The plan is to run at 100% tech next couple turns as well. Construction>Meditation>Engineering. I started the final Great Wall in Helium. It's a 2 turn build and that will give us the gold to run 100% tech during Meditation and Engineering. We will tech Med first in order to stack overflow beakers and 1 turn Engineering. I do not know if EMC had tech visibility on us or not but one can never be too sure.

What EMC does have visibility on is this:



Notice his goddamn scout... Well that will not do. Here's a draft of an email I'm about to send:

I have declared war on Kuro. You will see it in the news. I will be building and moving units to Kuro. The problem is that you are friends with Kuro. I do not trust you not to send any information you can to him. In our deals we never discussed Right of Passage, but it is not normally granted unless specified. We have allowed your scout to travel in our lands for too long as it is. Also your trireme is traveling East into our territory. But now it is truly an issue. Military movement and Troop Counts are valuable info and I will not have you leaking this info. Thus you have two options.

-You can either move your trireme West next turn and delete your scout in my territory and I will gift you the hammer cost for said scout. OR
-I will close borders with you and you will lose trade routes with me. Additionally, Jkaen will close borders with you and you will lose trade routes with him.

If I receive the next turn and your scout is still in my territory, and your trireme has not moved back west, I will be forced to close borders.

Since I am at war I would prefer to keep trade routes with you alive. And I'm sure you feel the same way. This is a joint war with Jkaen so my military information does not affect only me but Jkaen as well. I hope you can understand this. This is the nature of war. I do not believe I am asking for too much given this scenario.

Lewwyn

I just need to confirm with Jkaen that he will back me up on the trade routes thing.

Back to Kuro. Scouting warrior finds goodies:



Two things could happen here. Kuro will be smart and road the tile and attack out of the city to kill my unit. Or he will run the GP and the workers into the city and I will be free to pillage the farm.

Power graphs:



The fun has just begun.

[Lewwyn]

Jkaen agreed to back me up. So I sent the message and got this reply:

Can I not simply promise not to pass troop info to Kuro?

SMH. Sounds so whiny.

No. Basically I'm saying you don't have Right of passage. You never should have had right of passage in the first place and if I had been the one negotiating in the first place that would have been stipulated. Now that I'm playing turns AND we've started a war with Kuro I'm making a point of it. Even if you promise not to pass info to Kuro, it is human nature to let things slip. I think that paying your hammer cost is fair compensation though.

I see.

I see too. I think he'll delete it but he will try to move the trireme north. At which point I'll warn him one more time and close borders.

[Lewwyn]

I love the smell of stirrups in the morning.

This turn was a lot of fun, and we got a lot done. Lets start with the military in the field.

The scouting warrior:



Kuro moved a spear onto his workers. I pillaged his farm and deleted the warrior. I got 3 gold back from the pillaging. Nothing better to do really.

Next is where it gets interesting. Kuro had 11 HAs last turn outside of Jane. When I checked this turn with my advance chariot unit, Kuro had 7 HAs in the city and 2 wounded ones outside. Thus he had lost 2 HAs attacking and had 2 wounded left over. The funny thing is he left these 2 wounded HAs outside the city and moved all the other HAs into the city. Now I have a chariot but these two HAs have health of 1.5 and .5. Awesome for me:



Yes please allow me to snipe an HA. What I'm in Jkaen's territory? Yes allow me to gift the chariot to Jkaen and have him kill its second HA of the turn. I can confirm that after I gifted the chariot in his turn Jkaen killed the second HA with the gifted chariot. Thus my chariot killed two HAs in one turn. I believe Jkaen left it there so It'll die next turn. Kuro has 7 HAs left in his invasion force... Honestly that's not much.

Hey check out this awesome city that I got Jkaen to gift us:



It's even got a courthouse and a mint and a library producing culture for me. I'm going to 2 pop whip the Mace next turn and with the overflow I will 1 turn a LB. It's also contributing to the empire with a lot of beakers. Love this city.

Speaking of building units:



Heh heh heh. That's 6 knights, a mace, and an LB that finished EOT. Also the Great Wall, a courthouse, and a barracks finished. Two more knight finish next EOT, and I will be whipping an LB and the mace in Johnny next turn as well. The current LB whip was a 2 pop whip so the overflow will be enough to 1 turn another LB (provided I switch one tile to a hammer). I will be starting new knight build next turn and again 2 pop whipping them. Ellimist will be facing 20+ nights in 6 turns. And he still has:



Very little defense. He has an archer and polaris and an archer, spear in Arctus. Also he's just built a trireme in Arctus. That's all well and good but you're gonna need LAND units buddy for when I come crashing through you.

We got 3 cities worth of fail gold this turn and will get Hydrogen's fail gold next turn. It will be enough for 2 more turns of 100% tech. so we will blast through Meditation and overflow that plus a full 100% tech turn onto Engineering. I'm hoping it will be enough but it will be close. Especially with all the whipping I'm doing. It hurts the econ's bottom line. It does reduce maintenance though.

Power and Demos:





Sweet sweet power spike. May you grow crazier than our opponents ever suspected.

Note the crop yield. That's huge in this military whip economy.

I can't wait for the next turn.

EDIT: forgot to mention but Ellimist deleted his scout. He also moved an axe out of Vega and I suspect he's going to be gifting units to Kuro.

[novice]

What I'm in Jkaen's territory? Yes allow me to gift the chariot to Jkaen and have him kill its second HA of the turn.

Pretty sure that's frowned upon. When gifting units, care is usually taken that it only moves once during a turn.

Seems like we lurkers can look forward to lots of fun fighting though.

[NobleHelium]

Pretty sure that's frowned upon. When gifting units, care is usually taken that it only moves once during a turn.

Seems like we lurkers can look forward to lots of fun fighting though.

Really? I haven't heard anything to this effect. Note that the turn rollover threshold is purely arbitrary - had the current turn ended after us, and had Jkaen been first in turn order, would you say that he shouldn't be able to move the chariot on his turn either? And if so, then gifted units would have to always be immobile for one full turn after being gifted, would they not?

It's not like we're gifting units back and forth in order to get double movement out of them. That would definitely be exploitative.

[novice]

Pretty sure that's frowned upon.

That's presumptious of me. It's frowned upon by me, at least.

Only precedent at RB is PBEM10:
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...post113750