[SPOILERS - PBEM29] spacetyrantxenu - Mao of Babylon

[spacetyrantxenu]

No pictures, I had enough trouble emailing the save with this crappy Mississippi EDGE network from I-20. Just a bit more exploration from our scout and warriors, the finished bow began his long trip toward Kuro's horse tile for harrassment duty. Capital grew to 4 at EoT (I think? I'm not really sure... ). ...

Ok, this isn't a reliable turn report. I'll post later when I'm more aware of the game situation.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Weekend survived. Hazy. Anything major to discuss from your brief time in-game? You just moved a couple guys around, right? Workers still building road? Mmm-hmm, OK.

Any issues to clear up on the Kuro we're-not-at-war-but-going-to-kill-him-anyway front?

I need Scotch. That will be all.

[spacetyrantxenu]

We do have a bit of diplo to discuss. Kuro met us by building a city in front of our scout. I only wish we had been scouting that area with a warrior instead so we could have found out if he had defended the settler. His message to us:

[COLOR="Cyan"]Shiver me timbers, arr. I was just placing me ship in for repairs and, ho ho ho, it seems I have met one of your little scouts!

So then, laddies, shall will be friends or shall ye be walkin' da plank?[/COLOR]

Our response:

[COLOR="Magenta"]Fellow Dictator,

Apologies for the late reply but the Chairman has had a busy weekend
gambling away his peasants' meager money, leaving little time for
diplomacy or considerations for anything other than winning at the
craps tables. As a pirate yourself I have no doubt we share common
ground in our love of gambling.

To business, and I'll be to the point. We Republicans will not be
walking the plank as we have no intention of being caught aboard your
sea-going vessels. As to whether we shall be friends or foes, that is
up to you, fellow dictator. We Republicans believe in the golden
rule, to treat others as we are treated. If you should be friendly
with us then we should do likewise. If you feel compelled to sail
your pirate ships into our harbors we will be compelled to sink them
to the last vessel.

Our desire would be for peace, since everyone knows Republicans are
peaceful by nature. Only when spurred on by the hateful words of a
liberal do we lash out and seek war with our enemies. Seek out the
wise ways of our greatest leaders and prove yourself the best of
friends!

Hail Ronald Reagan!

Mao,
Chairman
Republican Party[/COLOR]

I bolded the relevant part for further discussion. I said we should be friendly with them, not that we would. Is it duplicitous? Absolutely. Is that OK? Why not. We have a war to put on, after all. Anyway, the message is a greeting with a lot of fluff and, oh by the way, we're coming to crush your skull as soon as we are able (that part he can infer later). Honestly, though, the bit where I said we Republicans are peaceful should have been a dead giveaway....

[spacetyrantxenu]

Oh, as for unit moves I just followed the plan for the three turns I played while on the trip. Out of town, not slowing the game pace...if this was PB7 I'd be lining myself up for the Plako Nice Guy of the Clock award.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

We do have a bit of diplo to discuss. Kuro met us by building a city in front of our scout. I only wish we had been scouting that area with a warrior instead so we could have found out if he had defended the settler. His message to us:



Our response:



I bolded the relevant part for further discussion. I said we should be friendly with them, not that we would. Is it duplicitous? Absolutely. Is that OK? Why not. We have a war to put on, after all. Anyway, the message is a greeting with a lot of fluff and, oh by the way, we're coming to crush your skull as soon as we are able (that part he can infer later). Honestly, though, the bit where I said we Republicans are peaceful should have been a dead giveaway....

I advocated for declaring war and scouting through his forward city, and also for killing Kuro's scout with our warrior (95% odds) to the SE. No sense pussyfooting about.

However, I am concerned by one development. While we were partying in NO you scouted out the land SW of our capital and discovered a horse. If Kuro has a similar horse that he could settle nearby it renders our Bowmen much less effective because he'll have access to Immortals.

Immortal - 4 + 50% vs. archery = 6 vs. Bowman 3.

According to the combat calculator, our absolute best case Immortal vs. Bowman combat gives us 74.36% odds to survive on defense: 3 (50% Bowman on hill + 25% full fort + 50% forest. This comes out to Immortal strength 6 vs. Bowman strength 6.75. Moving the fight off a forest but still on a hill (full fort) drops survival odds to approx 57%, the same as no hill but a forest).

Hammer cost: Bowman 16, Immortal 20. This is a losing proposition for us if Kuro settles horses. You need to figure out if he has researched AH!

If we DO go to war vs. Kuro and he brings immortals forward to attack our cities, we will hold out just fine (forward city plants will be on hills) but there is still a lot of land to settle and this will set us back vs. Sian and Catwalk. This was much less expensive to contemplate before you found our random horse SW of Newt Gingrich.

My suggestion stands, though. I want our scout to see if we can find a horse near his capital area. DoW and scout through, stick to defensible terrain. Likely our scout gets whacked, but we can kill his. What do you think?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Note: post delayed again due to server issue...

I'll have to think about the bows vs. immortals issue. I honestly don't know if we'll go to war because I don't think Kuro will stay in this game. The timer is at 33 hours now. I don't see Sian and Slowwalk wanting to let him stick it out.

A bit of diplo, I'm requesting maps from Catwalk and Kuro, hopefully we can find their horse and verify their knowledge (or lack thereof) of their equines.

To Catwalk:

[COLOR="Magenta"]Meow, Dictator!

Any interest in forcing your cartographers to send over an updated version of your map? We'd be glad to exchange ours with you again, provided you don't mind a bit of blood smudged around the edges of the scroll. Sometimes I get careless with my whip when around my staff and they suffer for it.

Hail Ronald Reagan!

Mao,
Chairman
Republican Party[/COLOR]

To Kuro:

[COLOR="Magenta"]Hail, Dictator Pirate!

Evidently you were unaware that our scout was trying to advance into your territory and you've thrown down a city to block his progress. With that being done, do you have any interest in exchanging maps? I'm curious as to the layout of your land, as you undoubtedly are of mine, since you have a scout continuing into my territory at this moment. If you're going to scout my land it only seems fair that I scout yours. Unless you'd prefer to not scout my land and would like to turn your scout around. If you need help not scouting my lands I'm sure my nearby warrior can assist in removing your scout.

I'd rather we didn't start a tickle fight over it, though. So how about it, then? An even exchange of my map for yours?

Hail Ronald Reagan!

Mao,
Chairman
Republican Party[/COLOR]

Kuro was quick to reply, as he had just played his turn:

[COLOR="Cyan"]Actually, TBH, I met the Scout when I founded the city XD

I'd be fine with a map trade, I'll send mine when the turn gets around to me and after I move my units for maximum scouting for you.[/COLOR]

I sent back:

[COLOR="Magenta"]
Arrr Matey,

Considering you just passed on the save now is as good a time as any since we've both currently played the same number of turns.

Are there any other topics in game you'd like to discuss? Maybe gossip about our competitors? We Republicans love to slander others, I'm sure you're aware. It's how we continue to get re-elected!

Hail Ronald Reagan,

Mao,
Chairman
Republican Party[/COLOR]

[spacetyrantxenu]

Another server delayed post.....

Played T23. At end of turn Mining finished, began BW, due in 6. Settler completes in 2T, the workers started building the NW road so we can settle city 2 the turn after the settler completes.

NW scout turned around, will head into Sian's land next I suppose.

We screwed up at the start sending him into the tundra and the warrior into our 'forward' area, but there was no way to know that at the time. He's just spent a lot of time scouting land that really shouldn't be our settling priority. I think we still want to settle this way because we have better map knowledge and have seen it the longest. And because it's the short route to our rivals. Still going through with settling C2 and C3 as planned, I think, but after that we're going to have to spam cities toward Catwalk and the S/N world wrap. There is a river down there with some rice tiles that may be the point of wrap, we'll know more later.

I took a current view of the world map to send off to Catwalk and/or Kuro if they send me theirs:

Isometric view to make it all fit easily. If they want to stare at it they can figure out where the resources are. I hope Kuro sends me his map and I can't find horses on it. A second possible source would really screw up the invasion plan.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Watching Kuro on the PBEM tracker is like watching the US national debt clock.

Let's send out some diplo to the other teams. Everyone agrees to send whatever attack units they have toward Kuro and an interim NAP until the holder of the clock is eliminated. Then an agreement not to settle the land until a determined time so that no one is unduly impacted, positively or negatively. There's no reason we should be the only ones sending units, let's get them to bear some of the cost.

Kill Kuro. Sorry buddy, but it's time.

[spacetyrantxenu]

The save is moving, but before that happened I received an email from Kuro this morning with the map screen shots we had agreed to exchange. I don't think he knew he was being replaced when he sent them, but if he wasn't playing the turns I don't expect he had been visiting the tech thread too frequently.

The result is that this may now be considered contraband, or not, depending on your point of view. But I've already seen them now so may as well post them:

From the images you can see he has both AH and BW. So immortals for certain if we still planned to war.

About that, the motivation to go to war was to speed up the turns by killing Kuro. If Dazed has taken over I don't see the need to go to war, nor the wisdom because he certainly would get immortals online if we get aggressive with him. Fighting an unfavorable war out of need of something to do against Kuro made sense to me. Fighting unfavorably against someone who presumably will be playing the turns on time doesn't make sense so I see no reason to continue with the war plan at this point.

[Ceiliazul]

I see no reason to continue with the war plan at this point.

But but, BLOOD! Fire and brimstone! Mutual Amusing Destruction!

I'm sure all that will come, in time. That was a very complete map Kuro sent, very nice of him.