[Spoiler] Team slowwalk of the Reservoir Cats (Suleiman/Korea, slowcheetah + Catwalk)

[Catwalk]

What is Sian going to do? He has few troops here, we have a bunch. He can't stage a naval invasion on our coastal cities. Any MoM worker that is threatened by him can easily retreat, and they will be there for a very short period of time. Is it in his interests to go all out warring against us at this time? Look at the demographics, we're finally ahead in MFG and crops. We have plenty surplus gold (and a good research pace) at 0% research. Sian is not only our #1 enemy, he's the only one. dazed is in GNP hell, to an extent that I don't think he'll be able to recover from it. xenu is our friend, and he's also pretty far behind. Sian wants peace, I say we give it to him. After we liberate 3 of his workers that he presented us a gift. RAWR!

Not to mention, he'll be screwed in a naval war against us since we have triremes and Magellan. I don't think he'll be eager to see his island plans evaporate if it comes to war. I think you're too cautious here slowcheetah. We're not going to let anyone else sprint ahead of us by poking fun at Sian here, and it's definitely going to put us ahead of Sian. I find it highly likely he'll agree to the NAP after we steal his workers. He will be pissed off and plot his revenge, but that's inevitable anyway. This game is leading towards a conflict between us and Sian, no reason not to score one here when we're presented with a good opportunity.

[Catwalk]

I see you're responding, I made some edits to the post above. brb showering.

[slowcheetah]

Xenu is up to ten cities now, Dazed is still expanding. Sian is NOT our only threat in this game and I think we are better off waiting until we come into our own about 30 turns from now.

[Catwalk]

Look at the graphs, dazed and xenu are both screwed. I think it's tempting to play too cautiously in MP games, to the extent that opportunities are often overlooked. What's your worst case scenario here? brb now.

[Catwalk]

Also, trump argument: xenu has a big army that he's itching to use. Sian will definitely factor that in when deciding how to react. We know for a fact that xenu will glad join in if we ask him, probably even without asking him. dazed is in no shape to fight at this time, we could probably bribe him off. This is not to say that I would prefer war, but I consider the risk of war to be a far lesser cost than the value of us gaining 3 workers and Sian losing 3 workers.

Sian is the best capable of expanding of all of us. He has courthouses at 37.5% cost and GLH for instant profits in new cities. I don't see how waiting strengthens us more than him. We have an excellent chance at curbing him now, I say we take it. And I also think we should make an effort to keep the game interesting, PBEM25g was a sad sight for lurkers. If we're 50/50 on the outcome of this action, I say we take the more interesting one.

As far as decision making goes, I think we agreed earlier that the turn player can make any decision he pleases if the other player is not around. If both players are around, I suggest that we requirement agreement in order to forward the turn. If we can't agree, flip a coin. Whoever loses gets to win the next big argument. We will both promise not to abuse this by faking disagreement. Sound fair?

[slowcheetah]

Your turn agreement sounds fair.

When you set this NAP with Sian did it go up to and including turn 75?

[Catwalk]

To the best of my knowledge, it only said "t75 NAP". I will look it up later.

Important question for lurkers: Assuming that the NAP only said "t75 NAP", are we justified in attacking on t75? What would the standard interpretation be?

[Ceiliazul]

To the best of my knowledge, it only said "t75 NAP". I will look it up later.

Important question for lurkers: Assuming that the NAP only said "t75 NAP", are we justified in attacking on t75? What would the standard interpretation be?

I would expect the deal to end at the start of t75... I don't know about "standard" reading, but that's my understanding.

Edit: Where's the pics?? I want to see the panic on the workers' faces as their Sianic master forces them to continue digging/chopping with enemy units approaching.

[Catwalk]

A Tale of Three Workers

It was just another day in the lives of W11, W12 and W13 (not that they knew they'd soon be renamed in this humiliating manner by the barbaric Koreans). They were having a leisurely picnic in the tundra building hunting camps for their master Sian. They pointed out that it might not be altogether safe to waltz around this close to the cats, but Sian decided that the kitties were toothless. After all, they had rolled over and surrendered when Sian's war machine took back territory in the tundra that was rightfully his.

Earlier, in the Korean empire....

The shrewd, wily and occasionally foolish Catwalk was out walking in the tundra too. When spotting Sian's workers strolling about, he relayed back to his partner-in-crime slowcheetah that these workers looked really tasty. The more sensible (and hence slow) slowcheetah reminded Catwalk that they were honour-bound to not attack Sian for at least another turn. Sulking, Catwalk returned to his room and started (resumed, rather) scheming to overthrow the boring tyrant slowcheetah.

So nothing much happened for another 40 years while Catwalk sat in his room, boring his tail off. Then one day he decided to go have a look at those workers again, sighing at the harsh mandate slowcheetah had given him not to lay a paw on them. Much to his torment, he saw that the 2 workers had now moved south west to meet up with another worker!

Upon sneaking closer, Catwalk overheard them discussing with one another and realized that they were having a union meeting. Apparently Sian was underpaying his workers (in this case, by not paying them at all) and they were ready to go on strike! Catwalk excitedly relayed this news to slowcheetah, who once again proved to be a boring old cat. He refused to partake in any assault on Sian who was an old friend of the Koreans (other than that burning business). Catwalk was not to be put off so lightly this time, so he argued up and down walls for a few years. At this point slowcheetah simply didn't care enough to try to stop the upstart, so he agreed to whatever foolishness Catwalk wanted to commit on condition that he accepted full blame when it went terribly wrong. Not one to shy away from blame (or screwing up), Catwalk eagerly accepted and ran back out to the workers!

The workers eagerly followed Catwalk when they heard his promises of getting 2 fish, lots of bread and shiny gold toys as payment for their labour if they would join the glorious Korean empire.

Coming up: How will the evil tyrant Sian react to the news that his workers defected to the enemy, the neafarious Korean kittens? Will W11, W12 and W13 be any happier as Koreans? Stay tuned for more exciting kitty news!

[Catwalk]

If any lurkers are around, I'd be interested in an opinion on our decision to build academy earlier, rather than save the GS. The academy is worth 9 bpt at 0% research, around 12 bpt at 10% research (which is close to breakeven). We would have had to hang on to him for a long time in order to bulb something.

A GA (with MoM) will be worth a lot, but we will have a GP ready for that regardless. Any rules of thumb to go by?