RB Pitboss #1 Spoilers - Joai of the Incans - Krill/Memphus

[Krill]

News just in.

Hi Krill,
there was a mutual interest of Open Borders, since The Lin's have a scout in our area looking for dsplaisted and Imhotep.

Our warrior has entered The Lin's realm, but has not direct sight of their capital yet. Gut feeling is we are located 4 tiles SE of it, sitting on their road network.
We will try to get to you asap.
How far is it from our future meeting point to meet sunrise (the other civ we are missing)?

With you apparently tucked away in a corner, have you not managed to get scouts out into the wider world?
Who are you still missing from the civ list?
As for the techs, we will have to wait for Alphabet and the see what everyone has apart from the agreed deal.
We have a couple of religious techs, you might lack.

Things in our part look ok. Latest intel hints on us losing the Oracle race to Broker, who might get Feudalism from it.
On the other hand we have managed not draw any Borg drones our way.

mh & Kodii

[Krill]

Reply and another chat with Shady. I need to talk with regoarrarr and ask him what tech he is giving once he gets Alpha, so I can start planning on what tech trades happen. I've already promised ruff everything he doesn't have for free (blatant pay off there), saying it'll speed up his next big tech. Win-win on my part, really. Shady looks to be sending an Immortal over to ZPVs' horse city. Hopefully he can get a kill in there with that and his archer, and really screw up ZPV.

That would just leave regoarrarr that I'd have as a possible short term rival, and with him next to a capable MP player, and Shadyforce who I can help tactically I think it might be best to try and have him left alone as a threat. That threat will hopefully keep the other 5 bound, to some extent, to me.

mh, Kodii,

That road network should help you then, I look forward to our meeting.

Once you are on the tile NE of the Lins' capital, assuming no roads and moving 1 tile a turn, you will meet sunrise in 6 turns by heading NE to the top of a lake and then heading straight east. You'll meet me 2 turns after stepping onto that tile, provided you inform me (one way or another), so I can move the quechua.

We've been OK with the scouting it seems. We took a wrong turning at the start and got stuck in a worthless belt of land that just screamed "road to nowhere", but after that we've explored a fair amount. We are still missing dsplaisted and Imhotep (apart from yourselves), and there are already units heading straight for them. I don't know when we'll meet though...

I'm happy waiting until Alphabet to sort out tech trades. But with the amount of duplication between us (you and Imhotep have priesthood, multiple people will have sailing etc) it might just be easier to gift everything, and start a fresh afterwards.

Losing the Oracle isn't that bad though. Longbows are expensive, slow and can be handled by HA and swords easily on defence. We can pull through, we do have an extra player teching on our side of the divide, after all.

And congrats on keeping the borg drones away. Did you pay tribute, or provide them with more, what shall we say, interesting, targets?

Krill

Krill: Hi mate, sorry for the interuption, but could you forward the new email I jsut sent to mh/Kodii please?
Shadyforce: will do
Krill: thanks
hope you discovered an unprotected worker with that archer of yours
Shadyforce: no worker... no city defence
Krill: hmmm
cool
thinking of attacking it with teh archer and asking ruff to attack as well?
Shadyforce: the city is on a hill... there is no road leading away from the city tile to another tile
ruff has just made peace with zpv
Krill: ah well
waiting fo the Immortal then?
Shadyforce: if I want the city gone, I probably don't even need him, looks like I could raze it myself
Krill: well, if there is a warrior in the FoW you won;t have odds
Shadyforce: he either has a dude on the tile next to the city or he doesn't
archer vs warrior in city on hill without cultural def?
Krill: 25% city defence
25% from teh hill
Shadyforce: 2 + 25% + 25% = 2.5?
I'm 3?
am I missing smth?
Krill: he is 3 as well
Shadyforce: sry yeah, he is 3
Krill: hmmm
you have the free strike
but tbh
he has the third worker still
he could be chopping something
puts that into an archer...
Shadyforce: if I had a worker at that city, I'd be pasturing the cow
Krill: Ruff said he had 3 workers there
and took 2
Shadyforce: yeah, so maybe the warrior/archer wandered off to escort the third warrior back to the city?
Krill: possibly
Shadyforce: hmm... the worker capture tile is very close to the actual city
but who knows which way the other worker ran to
I would give it about 50/60% chance I won't meet resistence next turn to attack the city, IF I want to
but tbh I'm not sure I do want to
given the whole UTA split potential
Krill: I see your point
OTOH, you probably want to look at your own position there
Shadyforce: plus... he might be good for a tech trade... what if he can get Maths a couple of turns before mh//kodii? that would be golden
Krill: Yup, that would be solid.
But
and call me paranoid
what if he is lying about the split?
What would you want to do to facilitate ZPV?
Because if ZPV wants to leave, he is going to have to be offered something good
but if you offer him something that good
he is going to know there is a counter alliance out there
Shadyforce: I wouldn't leave voluntarily if I were in a 5-way trading pact
maybe he is being forced out or is unhappy with something?
Krill: Maybe the other 4 didn't do as he wanted after he got attacked by Ruff
Shadyforce: yeah.... does he not have a trade route with someone that can give him copper/horse?
Krill: or he got what he thinkgs is a bad border treaty
I don;t know
I don;t have trade routes with anyone
so it is possible
Shadyforce: I'm 99% certain that Ruff has trade routes with at least Sunrise and rego
Krill: ruff hasn;t met sunrise
Shadyforce: because I have a trade connection with rego which I can only assume is through ZPV
*ZPV has routes with sunrise and rego
Krill: at least, that is what he told me
Shadyforce: sorry, mixed up name there
Krill: you have met both, you could check F4 to see if they have met
cool
ok
that's possible
ZPV is annoyed that regoarrarr didn't trade copper
Shadyforce: possible
Krill: As you said though
you don;t leave a 5 player alliance voluntarily
Shadyforce: maybe ZPV insisted on getting that horse and rego was unhappy
Krill: so I still think he is just fishing for infomation
well, how close is that horse to you?
Shadyforce: the horse is in the 2nd ring of his new city... and he's not creative so even if I leave him alone, it'll be a while before he connects it
Krill: I think he has henge...
only charismatic civ, henge is in a size 8 city...
Shadyforce: the city is slightly closer to his capital than mine, the horse is on his territory's side of the city BFC
henge... I forgot about that!
incidentally, my immortal is done and can be at his city in 6 turns
it can be in his city in 6 turns
Krill: Ah
I figure send it over
do some nice diplo work as you said you wanted
Shadyforce: I'll do that anyway, have a look around
Krill: yeah
ball is in your court so to speak
Shadyforce: speak softly and carry a big stick
Krill: preferablly a metal one that shoots bullets
Shadyforce:
Sent at 11:17 PM on Wednesday

[Krill]

The Lins get Alphabet...hopefully they just trade everything, and make the techs cheaper for our side to rresearch.

I should meet mh/Kodii on t79, just outside the Lins capital. I have also found Shadyforces lands with the woody 2 quechua, so he'll be heading south som more to find dsp, then hopefully heading west somewhere to find ZPV. In the mean time I'm sending the quechua over by ruff to meet Imhotep (and I have OB with Ruff to get there quickly). That should complete the set in the next 15-20 turns I think. The chariot is probably going to end up just scouting out the land and look for city sitesand useful resources.


Economics:

Slaved a settler out of the capital, down to size 4. It'll grow back to size 5 and complete the settler end of this turn, then complete another one on t80, settling both cities t82, then return to the barracks and stables. DD will slave the settler out t78, for the Moia city, settled t83. BB is size 4 and working 2 scientists, GS due t94. BB is going to double slave out another worker and then overflow into a second worker.

EE is going to most likely get a monument and a Lib after the terrace, and try to get some culture going for visibility purposes, probably chopped immediately with the 4 workers over there once maths lands. I'm ideally speculating about chopping out the HG in EE for a little extra culture (and in slavery with stone it's worth it for the production), but I don't think I could get the aquaduct fast enough, or the stone hooked up in time. Probably go for it if it's still around by t90.

[Krill]

Shadyforce sent back a quick message, at work, yadda yadda, head to his southern city and I can see dsps culture. He'll give directions later, but exploration is paying off at last...

[Krill]

OK, running commentary on tech trades:

ZPV received alphabet from the Lins, gave HBR (and archery?)
regoarrarr received alphabet from the Lins, gave Maths (and sailing?)

So missing Monarchy (presume Broker researched that to get Fued with the Oracle, he couldn't have gotten construction) and IW (Sunrise). So, it appears that either my original lining up of techs was wrong, or they changed it after I stole sunrises worker.

I'm now third in soldiers, probably because hte Lins just got 24k soldiers poitns from Sailing, Maths, Archer and HBR. Well, the soldiers graphs are going to be amusing in a few turns

EDIT @ 1437

Sunrise received Writing, gives Polytheism, Masonry, IW to the Lins. I assume Writing because he doesn't have Alphabet and yet had a score increase.

EDIT @ 1448

Tricky one to calculate, ZPV and Sunrise had score increase, but as I haven't met ZPV and sunrise does not have Alphabet, this one I have to work out from pure reasoning, and soldier points. Looks like HBR for IW, but I'd suspect Poly and Masonry thrown in as well to even up the trade a little.

EDIT @ 0001

Try to sleep and fail, but oh well...

Broker gets 24 point score increase = Sailing, Archery and HBR from ZPV
Broker gets 24 point score increase = polytheism, masonry and IW from sunrise
Broker gets another 24 point score increase? WTF? Alphabet, Pottery and Agriculture? Only techs I can see fitting that.

TBH I don;t see any real point carrying on. They are just sharing all techs amongst themselves.

[Krill]

Message from mh/Kodii.

Hi Krill,

We are now 1NE of Lin. I believe the "top of a lake" you speak of is 1NE and 1E from our current position.

We are anxious to meet you, and our meeting should coincide with shadyforce obtaining Alphabet. I hope the UTA is surprised by our cooperation

Regarding the Borg drones, we haven't exactly done anything spectacular to ward them away. Rather, this "anti-UTA" (which needs a new name) somewhat enforces a NAP between us. He has expressed interest in rushing Broker33, but now that he has Feudalism, Ruff might have some other ideas

I hope everything is well on your end and pass on our greetings to Memphus.

Kodii & mh

[Krill]

Email from Kalin. Neither me nor Memphus really understand what he wants atm.

Krill/Memphus,

You have not addressed my question though. There's not much S of Evil
Eye so if you wish you can make another city there. Since we were
counting tiles before, Demon Dirt is 6 tiles from your capital and
just like Hun if 6 tiles from our capital. Your Evil Eye takes the
cows that are *exactly* midway. Sure you moved faster and I
congratulate you, but we are at a disadvantage here when it comes to
partitioning the land between us.

I would take a NAP until T120 if we agree that the border between us
will stay at Demon Dirt and Evil Eye. We would be at a slight
disadvantage from having a larger border to defend, but I hope our
relations would be peaceful in the future.

Also, I am glad you have chosen the peaceful way, but know that I
didn't think you could mount an offensive force we couldn't have
defended against. Spears work well and are cost effective against
chariots and HAs, but of course you know that.

Regarding resource trades, we are happy to consider trades with you
and I am sure we can find a deal to benefit the citizens of both our
nations! Let me know if you have a specific deal in mind.

Kalin

[Krill]

To Ruff. I'd like NAPs with the western powers so I can keep the majority of my armies at the front, and border treaties so they don't think I'm overexpanding into their rightful lands. Ruff has already indicated I can have all the lands closest to me, and that is plenty, but I'd like the same deal with Imhotep as well. The defensive pact I would definately take with the other capable MPer in the game, ruff with his aggressive is also fairly solid in a war.

Hi Ruff,

After looking at the map a bit, and due to the current...political climate, I've come to the conclusion that you, me and Imhotep should really come to an agreement regarding where we can settle, as well as NAPs while the UTA exists, so we can keep our units dealing with the real threats. Maybe even as well defense pacts after the UTA has been taken down a peg or two, so we have something in place for the future.

Would it be possible for a tri-lateral talk to take place once me and Imhotep have met? We could carry out preliminary work by email to get the ground set for a pact.

Krill

[Krill]

Shadyforce is, quite rightly, getting paranoid after regoarrarr gifted me sailing. I was considering asking him how he knew it was regoarrarr that gifted me sailing, but it doesn't matter that much. It is almost certain that regoarrarr told him about it as disinformation.

Hi guys,

I see you got in on the action. An ancient tech? Off regoarrarr? May I ask what it was and how you managed to 'break' the UTA circle and get something out of them?

Brian
(shadyforce of Persia)

Ah, it wasn't a trade, it was blackmail on my part against regoarrarr. I threatened to kill his exploring warriors if he didn't promise to give me a (cheap) tech once he got alpha. All this happened prior to the 6 way alliance getting set up, so I wasn't sure I'd have any trading partners. I figured either he'd back out and I'd have propaganda to use against him later on, or I'd have at least 1 tech I wouldn't have to research. Little sneaky, but it doesn't affect any of our plans, someone has to have Sailing to trade to everyone else, and I'm still going to gift away any techs I have that others don't.

If I'd wanted to hide that I'd done any diplomacy with regoarrarr, I could have told him that I didn't want the tech and still traded for it off someone else.

Anything else I can help you with?

Krill

[Krill]

Next round with Shadyforce, chat with ruff coming up once it's finished.

Haha. That's hilarious!

So you reckon a faithless blackmailee will take a bigger diplomatic hit than the blackmailer?

What did you get off him and did you ask for it specifically at the time or just ask for any cheap tech? Maybe I'll try it myself... see if I can get Maths off him.

Thanks

I figured normally you'd be right, but if he did that and was part of a 5 player tech alliance people would look at regoarrarr a little more sceptically. But generally yeah, you're definately right there.

We just asked for any cheap tech (Sailing, Meditation, Polytheism or Masonry), or failing that any tech he had tech so he couldn't come back at us saying he didn't have a cheap tech so he wasn't giving us anything. With Broker having Meditation, sunrise Polytheism and Masonry, we were pretty sure regoarrarr would end up giving Sailing.

Good luck trying for maths off him actually. If you could get that heading striaght for Currency could be a very profitable move. I might try to outline some plans on that actually...

Krill