[SPOILERS - PBEM29] spacetyrantxenu - Mao of Babylon

[spacetyrantxenu]

T50 - It's a shame I wasn't able to post this sooner, I tried to do a write up a few times and the server was busy. By now (T52) the war has been begun and ended, so this is a recap.

This image shows pretty much what was going to happen:

Spear + Chariot + 2 Bowmen meant that city was going to burn whether Dazed tried to defend it or not with those two warriors (last minute reinforcements not included). It looks like Dazed made an effort to build military in the turn before he settled that city, but his production base was too far away for it to matter regarding this battle. He made a very good effort in his diplomacy to try to scare me off, but I don't think he thought I could get this many units to the front in the amount of time I did. In all my SP games I haven't had to do much combat worker action so this was a fun exercise for me planning it out. The workers were able to chop the forest to get the units built on time, then they built the roads just when needed to rush the new units to the front in time for battle.

Dazed threw together a few units in preparation for combat:

T51 -

Email from Dazed:

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Hail Regan!

Well, logic said to give it a try, but we logicians don't make great diplomats. Congrats on razing a city! One more turn and the outcome was going to be different (see power graph spike). You'll see that we have vacated the city and pulled all other military units in the area back in order to prevent unnecessary death on either side--logic dictates this is the best move for both our peoples. We will be anxiously waiting to see what move you make with your chariot as that will dictate our ongoing relations. Previous attempts at preventing this razing aside, logic does suggest that a white peace will be the best action moving forward so we await the outcome of your next turn.

Dazed[/COLOR]

On his turn Dazed realized that city defense was hopeless and withdrew his two warriors and his worker, leaving the peasants to fend for themselves. Mao wasted no time getting to the slaughter:

I took that screen shot after I ended turn so you can see Poly finishing and Hindu founding in Rick Santorum.

After sending the chariot in to burn the city I settled our newest, Jon Huntsman, on the hill we originally wanted to settle. This will give us a defensible border and allow better access to our resources in the area.

The worker movements are detailed in the screenshot. First two turns we'll get the wheat farmed, then chop the forest into a city wall, so by T54 this city will have walls and a garrison not easily removed. Next will be a monument to get our fur and silver online sooner. After that we can worry about a granary for this poor little tundra town. I doubt we will whip Jon Huntsman very often. Working the wheat should allow us mine the silver and work it (unless we need to put a fort on it out of necessity), which will help this city pay its own way. Have you seen our GNP numbers? They're terrible!

Demographics from T51:

Yeah, this isn't good.


This is better.


Well, we did just whip....


Finally, something to crow about!


I should stop posting the culture graph.

I sent Dazed an email requesting peace after playing the turn:

[COLOR="Magenta"]Hail Dictator Dazed!

We've offered peace in game as we have no desire for a ruinous offensive war. You will find the only attack we took was into your city, and we have not advanced forward anywhere else. While the game engine will enforce only a ten turn peace, our hope is to resume the good relations we had prior to this incident and have a peace lasting longer than that.

To that end, we again urge to undertake collective action to deal with Sian's trade routes. While we acknowledge the rather large block pyramids Catwalk has built, we do not fear their rapid advance quite as much as Sian's and still view him as a common threat to us all. Catwalk has urged leaving borders closed with him as an opening action and we agree to that proposal as long as you will keep borders closed with Sian as well. As you've seen before in previous RB games, building the Lighthouse is often punished by closed borders, but there still remains the benefit via internal trade routes.

As a matter of trust I will not ask for a NAP at this time and hope our collective concerns will allow us to pool our efforts together in the turns ahead. If we were to see an offensive army upon our borders soon (or at the near end of that 10 turn enforced peace) we would indeed be suspicious and concerned about our way forward.

Hail Ronald Reagan,

Xenu,
Tyrant
Republican Party

PS: If you're wondering why Mao hasn't issued this message it's because he realizes peace means less suffering, so I've left him out of the loop on this one. But I promise this is still a legitimate diplomatic proposal. -xenu[/COLOR]

T52

Dazed accepted peace on his turn and continued to withdraw his warriors and worker.

GNP does not look good. At all.

GNP could certainly be better. Our next city placement will help with that (after it grows a few times). C6 will be the long overdue floodplain / crabs city east of Newt. It should found in 4 turns on T56. With cottages on all 4 floodplains hopefully that will help. Also, I'm working on scouting out both Catwalk and Dazed's territory to get trade routes setup. We now have open borders with both of them and hopefully trade routes in the next few turns. As for this turn, I finished a barracks in Rick and started on a galley. Finished a worker in Mitt, started a galley (that one should probably change to a workboat and sail it around to the C6 site for one of the crabs - no urgency there, the WB can explore a bit until C6 is settled and gets level 2 borders). We finished Polytheism, with the holy city landing in Rick Santorum, the true conservative's choice (lol). I set research to 0% to save gold and set us back onto Mathematics. We need Currency with all these cities going down and with foreign trade routes coming online. If you have a different tech path in mind let me know. We don't need Monotheism for OR just yet, as Hinduism is only in Rick for now.

Photo dump:

Sian is making an upward move in power. Maybe he's protecting his Lighthouse? Or maybe he has heard of some of the chatter going around about him?

We're 15 GNP behind 3rd place

Current production:

I shouldn't post this for a while either. It was like tracking my portfolio last year.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T53 - Nothing really exciting here. Chopped the walls at Jon. Sian is building a little power. He says it is two chariots and a spear. Also, he told me he is building granaries now, so he finally has Pottery.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I think the chop should have gone into a granary first. Then monument, then wall again, depending on how you feel the diplo is going. I think Dazed recognized he was overambitious and has not taken this personally. Also, he is unlikely to try to take our city again, realizing it is a lost cause and will only hurt him to make us suffer a reprisal. We only get 2 chops, one had best get out the monument so we can control border. Worst case, 10 turns of cooldown, but we can get walls in before then anyway.

Currency is #1 goal. Keep on target with that. If we don't improve our GNP, we'll be irrelevant soon. Push commerce.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T54 - Exploration continues in search of elusive foreign trade routes. We've established the ability to trade resources with Dazed, but we don't have a trade route yet. Can anyone explain why? We have an unfogged coastal route to his territory and open borders. Don't know if the ice is causing a problem or what. Same goes with Slowwalk to our north. Defogged coast to his culture and no trade routes. Yet somehow Slowwalk and Dazed have trade routes with each other and they're in opposite "corners" of the map/wrap.

One thing I don't have (yet) is visibility on any of Dazed's cities. That will happen next turn I think. I have visibility on all but one of Slowwalk's cities, but so far none on the coast facing my empire. That may be the problem...they need to connect a road to a river that empties into our shared ocean? Someone please explain how this works. I'm dead last in GNP and the last thing I need is everyone else getting free commerce from foreign trade routes before I can manage it, especially people ahead of me in the turn order.

As for the current turn, like I said, I kept on exploring toward Dazed's territory and came across his latest settling party:

So he's going to grab the other available silver source. Maybe he'll fare better this time. Once I saw that he was going for that silver I emailed Slowwalk and sent them the screen shot I posted above. I asked whether they were interested or able to quickly grab their western silver, thereby locking Sian out of any silver at all (for now). Slowwalk and I would then be able to settle the last silver on our shared border at a later date, and maybe sell it to Sian or more likely just deny it from him since hopefully no one will have the open borders with which to facilitate the trade.

In other news, our GNP is still dismal. I'm trying to build some more workers and lay down cottages, we'll see how well that works out while our rivals pull ahead.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T55 - There is a new international incident going on and it's being blamed on me! Sian declared war on Slowwalk, apparently because Sian got locked out of the silver race. With us razing Dazed's city, Dazed took his next settler and grabbed the silver between his land and Sian's, which Sian had previously claimed. Rather than contest Dazed and his much larger army, Sian decided to move on to the northern silver between him and Slowwalk, except they've already settled it. So now there is an open silver between Slowwalk's land and mine, and Sian may have trouble getting it (it's not defensible, obviously). So his response was:



I hear there's going to be a chariot vs. warrior attack next turn. Catwalk settled on a hill, and the attack is across a river so it may be a coin flip (4.0 to 3.75 according to Catwalk). If I was Sian I would have played cool a few turns and sent up a proper army instead of insta-declaring. In any case the #1 and #2 score players are fighting, so .

Here's the international arena as it stands:

No one has open borders with Sian.

Add to that that as of this turn I've signed a (secret) NAP with Dazed through T70. Either of us can declare war legally on T71. Why the agreement? To aid the enemy of my enemy, of course! What Republican could resist interfering in international affairs? I know I stated an aversion to NAPs while playing in this game, but with my front vs. Dazed covered by that flimsy agreement and his reputation, I'm free to send the forces that were garrisoning Jon Huntsman out into the tundra to practice real diplomacy. It's just what our state department has been waiting for. Why do this? It's probably not helpful to me in terms of winning the game, but if I cause some grief to Sian, the demographics leader, why not do it? It's the only advantage I have on him, power, so if I can use it to prop up Catwalk in the impending tickle fight, why not do it? I've talked to Dazed, he's considering providing war materiel in aid of Catwalk as well. Also, I've talked to Dazed and Catwalk both, asking them to switch all EPs onto Sian, which I have also done. Hopefully together we can put a blind spot in his demographics vision and cause some paranoia. So here goes nothing.

Domestically, our first galley is in the water to begin inner sea exploration. If it finds something fun we may need to ready a settler for the stone island soon. That may be a good next target anyway, since our GNP is horrible and an ICTR would be great in the lead up to researching Currency. Settling another city on our landmass will probably have painful start up costs, as we're about to find out in a few turns when we settle the flood plains city, C6. But that city will be working crabs and FP cottages from close to the start so it will at least pay its own way some.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I forgot to mention, the point of my force isn't necessarily to defend Slowwalk's city of Flower Shortage in the screen shot above. I'm thinking about getting into Sian's supply train and destroying anything in it I can find, or sniping a front city if he gets careless about defense. Dazed is still considering his role in this effort. If he agrees to provide units for this exercise maybe Dazed and I can burn down a city or two while Catwalk holds his front.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Evidently we still don't have trade routes connected. If someone is willing to have a look at the save I'll post it. We're getting killed in GNP right now and that isn't helping.

[Ceiliazul]

Evidently we still don't have trade routes connected. If someone is willing to have a look at the save I'll post it. We're getting killed in GNP right now and that isn't helping.

I'd be happy to check it out later today, PM or email me the save

[spacetyrantxenu]

I have an offer from Catwalk to buy some of my military units. Is there a fairly standard way of determining value? I've never sold a unit off before. I'm looking at selling him my Tundra Expeditionary Force (1 chariot, 1 spear, 2 bowmen).

[Ceiliazul]

I have an offer from Catwalk to buy some of my military units. Is there a fairly standard way of determining value? I've never sold a unit off before. I'm looking at selling him my Tundra Expeditionary Force (1 chariot, 1 spear, 2 bowmen).

The "standard" rate of resource conversion is 1f::2h::3c. This is useful as a *rough* tool for unit trades, city micro decisions, measuring uses of a GP and whatnot. There's a huge caveat though: nothing is ever standard.