[SPOILERS] Yossarian blames Caledorn

[Cheater Hater]

Are dinos and/or Eggheads settling up on Rome as well? (assuming they border Rome; not up to date on the geography) Do you think they would (or could) support you if you provoke war? Which is the better city spot?

[YossarianLives]

Can you fob them off with something about your settling micro plan being sorted for the next 30 turns?

Yeah, that's what I've been trying to do.

TeddyKGB
if they connect iron maybe not
they has barracs in every city
i think they hit dinos
but we could hurt them if they do
u should place some city toward them soon, i suppose
YossarianLives
Yeah, exactly
TeddyKGB
wheat is good

TeddyKGB
still we might need construction
yep
tough choices
congrats on new city btw
in romes direction?
YossarianLives
Thanks, we'll get another one next turn
lol, no, south
And the next one is north claiming silver
TeddyKGB
heh
YossarianLives
And the one after that is being built in a city near Sumer, so I don't know if we'll send him all the way across. So not for a little while still

YossarianLives
Would you say our three-way defensive pact with Dinosaurs is confirmed?
I mentioned it in chat the other day, and dinos agreed to it in their last email
We all need to cooperate together
TeddyKGB
i agree to take some military action vs rome
YossarianLives
Do we want to go on the offensive?
TeddyKGB
hmm, i should
YossarianLives
We have no horses for chariots
We can bring spears and axes, but it will take a little while
TeddyKGB
just plant city in gg's direction
wheat is unclaimed i suppose?
YossarianLives
Wheat is still unclaimed
TeddyKGB
go fo it
i would kill for a wheat
literally
YossarianLives
Let me check out our dotmap again
We really weren't planning to settle that location for a bit still
TeddyKGB
up to u

But he's being persistent. From Dinos it was just that one email with them asking us to box them in:

Yes, we met Byzantium so we can make anti-Rome pact with them and you.

We will try to build city near your warrior. If we will succeed, we will block Rome, so they wouldn't build more than one city on "our" side. Could you try to block them from "yours" side?

Are dinos and/or Eggheads settling up on Rome as well? (assuming they border Rome; not up to date on the geography) Do you think they would (or could) support you if you provoke war? Which is the better city spot?

Here's the picture that shows where Dinos are planting their next city:

Here is the picture they sent us with them email I quoted above:

So Dino's are definitely settling up on Rome.

Here's a shot that shows how close EggHeads are, and where they want us to settle.

The circle is on a hill so that's the best defensive spot. Moving the city south or southeast will get food in the first ring, but would make it harder to defend.

[YossarianLives]

Turn 86

Scouting:

Overview:

Lands near Rome:

Demos and Power:

[YossarianLives]

Turn 87

Scouting:

Overview:

Demos and stuff:

The Great Engineer belongs to Care Bears. That is why they "vetoed" the reload. They want the Pyramids more than a Shrine.

[YossarianLives]

Did a little diplo this afternoon:

To BowAivo:

Hey, here's a picture of what we were talking about earlier.

To Care Bears:

Greetings Team Care Bears,

Congratulations on the birth of Wilhelm Shickard. We hear he is an expert at constructing large stone structures

Things are exciting here in the land of the Incas. The Aggressive Romans to our east and your south have just connected their iron resource and the age of praetorians has begun. Take care to keep your southern cities well-fortified!

We would love to grab a religion, but we fear we can't keep up with the Fin teams and can't plan on any of the "first-to" bonuses. Do you know if any of the other teams are going for religions?

To Asterix:

Hi Asterix,

Sorry for the delayed reply, I had a really busy week. Yes of course we will keep that information confidential. We completely understand your position with India. They are indeed very concerning, with their dozen cities, Oracle, and now a Great Engineer for the Pyramids!

Rome has been very troubling for us. They have not answered any of our messages, and now have hooked up their iron. We know the praetorians will be arriving very soon, and just hope that they won't send them to us. Dinosaurs are on their other side, so I imagine it will be us or them.

Take care,

Yossa

And importantly, I sent this to both EggHeads and Dinosaurs:

Hello England and Byzantium,

I thought we should start three-way communications to discuss what is to be done with the Romans. I think that we can all agree that if Rome should DOW one of us, it will be the same as a DOW on all of us. The other two teams must immediately DOW Rome if this should happen.

We should also continue sharing information with each other. I can confirm that Rome is Best Soldiers at 103k. They haven't had any major spikes since hooking iron, so I don't think they have any Praetorians yet (maybe they're getting their first this turn). I am attaching a picture of the Roman south from T87.

Let's keep in touch,

Blame Caldorn

[Corresponding image attached, with research / minimap edited out]

[Old Harry]

Once Rome does declare then settling up may not be such an issue. You can probably do it then without losing too much face... What are you planning to attack with?

Also the pics from your last two reports aren't loading - its probably just my phone, are they working for you?

[YossarianLives]

Umm, apparently I actually sent that Anti-Rome email to SutOxy not EggHeads

A quick heads-up to let you know that we were cc'd on this msg instead of Byzantium.

Yours Confidentially,
OxySut

lol, whoops! Definitely a good use of the stoner smiley...

Sorry about that, and thanks for letting us know right away.

So I sent this off to Dinosaurs and EggHeads (for real this time):

Damn, I got this off to a bad start, by accidently sending the first message to Native Americans instead of Byzantium. OxySut has promised to keep it confidential. Really, really sorry about that.

Team EggHeads, please see my email below, which I meant to send you earlier today, along with Team Dinosaurs.

And we got this in from Asterix:

Hi Yossa,

Thank you for your understanding, it seems that you have a good feel of how delicate our situation with India is. I am afraid that geopolitics dictates that conflict between India and its direct neighbors is unavoidable since they refuse any landsettling deals and are generally very concerning anyway. By the same logic, looks likepraetorians may go either towards Dinosaurs - I think more likely as they are a weaker team - or towards you . For some reason, we seemed to got lucky with Rome diplo - they did respond to our message, albeit briefly, from what I heard not everybody got that lucky. So we will try to feel them gently - perhaps we would get them interested to work on the "biggest problem"? Perhaps all the "concerned nations" - and their neighbors - could offer them some kind of incentives or help to sent praetorians certain way? Since they chose aggresive Rome, seems that they best strategy would be to war early. What do you think? Of course, this is a very long shot, but worth trying, imho.

Cheers,

Asterix

Hi Yossa,

I have a request: could you send me a screenshot from the location when we met - I have not explored the area South-East of it yet. If you are not comfortable with it, for whatever reason, never mind. Exchanging screenshots in these game is allowed pre-paper.

Cheers,

Asterix

I wrote this back:

Hi Asterix,

I can send you the picture you are asking for. I'll take it next time I log in.

Are you available to chat? I'm at vhinderl@..., or victor.hinderliter on skype. I'd like to speak with you more about the Romans. Can I share your idea with Rome's other neighbors, England and Byzantium? Praetorians mercenaries attacking India would be in everyone's best interest.

Talk to you soon,

Yossa

And I want to send this to the anti-Rome alliance:

Well I do have some new information. Apparently the Romans aren't completely mute after all. They have responded briefly to Asterix. This is Asterix's proposal:

"Perhaps we would get them interested to work on the "biggest problem"? Perhaps all the "concerned nations" - and their neighbors - could offer them some kind of incentives or help to sent praetorians certain way? Since they chose aggresive Rome, seems that they best strategy would be to war early."

What do you guys think? Praetorian mercenaries attacking India would be in everyone's favor.

[YossarianLives]

Once Rome does declare then settling up may not be such an issue. You can probably do it then without losing too much face... What are you planning to attack with?

Also the pics from your last two reports aren't loading - its probably just my phone, are they working for you?

Sorry, imageshack was acting up so I used photobucket. I can see the pictures so I don't know why they don't load for you? I'll post a bunch of pictures of T88 to make up for it.

As for what we would be able to attack with, we're quietly building up an army of axes (some with 2 promos)

[YossarianLives]

Turn 88

Scouting

Continuing through OxySut's empire, we've uncovered Nivose. Let's take a look at the other cities.



Their capital, Vendemiaire, has a palace, granary and lighthouse. Nivose only had a granary, btw.



Frimaire has a library and granary.



Pluviose has a granary and totem pole, for super archers.

Hopefully we'll make contact with Orgy soon. We should be the first ones to get contact with everyone. Caledorn, any interest in doing a story post for that occasion? I see Care Bears are starting to get into it.

Overview:

I'm starting to grow the cities that are at their current happy cap, in anticipation of the silver coming online on T91. Leane the Axeman has +80% bonuses compared to the barb's +50%. I decided not to give him either of the two available promotions, but now I'm thinking that's a really bad idea. With the pause for classical_hero I could log back in and give him C1 or C1+Shock. What do you guys think?



A city 3S1W of Gov't Shutdown is a priority to lock in the wine and FP for us. We've already got hammers invested into a settler in GS that we'll resume once it grows. I think this should be our next city.



I 2-pop whipped an Axe in SC, with the overflow completing the workboat this turn. It'll arrive at Hangover's fish the same turn borders pop. There is still some overflow that will go into a spear out of SC, next. Silent Neighbor and Bad Econ are trying to help remedy our major worker shortage.

Expansion areas:

We've conceded most of this land to BowAivo. I figure to keep them friendly for now while we deal with Rome. We can go take all this land later after we've finished with the praets. That city south of GS is important now. At some point we'll want a city in the southern peninsula that will claim the horse and dye, and share the pig, and eventually a filler city in the hills north of Hangovers.



This is the area EggHeads wants us to settle. The pigs / wheat / copper city will actually be really good, and I'm growing more confident that Dinos will be Rome's first target. We should start getting the settler and workers ready to lay down this city as soon as the praets are sent east, as Old Harry suggested. What would be the best location for a city east of Server Problems? On the desert hill next to the silk? Or 1W so it can share the capital's fish? Or the north-most desert tile so it is more easily reinforced from our core?



The sugar city needs to be our objective in the inevitable war with Rome. If we can get that, and EggHeads or Dinos takes their iron city so they can't build any more praets, I think then the war will be a 100% success. Then we can fill in that nice juicy land between us. Razing Neapolis would also be awesome if we can do it.

Demos and stuff:

We're doing ok here, I think. Fairly middle-of-the-pack, but we're way ahead of our neighbors in food, and about even or ahead of them in GNP. It's the northern teams that are ruining the grading curve, so they'll have to duke it out amongst themselves at some point. We'll help EggHeads come out on top of that fight, hopefully.



But this shows why we're in trouble. Not being Fin is killing us. We're breakeven at 10% research, and Currency is a 30+ turn tech for us right now. We really need to be laying down the cottages. I used our Scientist to build the academy in the capital, but it's not helping us at all at 0%. And Server Problems doesn't even have a library yet so I can't even put up some scientists!



And that shows Care Bears completing the 'Mids and catapulting even further into the lead. This is really going to be a handful for EggHeads and Maga to deal with if something isn't done soon.

We received this message from Care Bears today:

Thanks. That reminds me I should write a post in the story thread...
Yes, Rome connected Iron a few turns ago. Indeed their Iron city is located near our Southwestern border, on the other side of a polar landbridge. Our border city is extremely well fortified / defended so I don't think Rome are a great problem for us. They seem to play AI diplo style and don't respond to their mails. Their EP don't go on us for the moment so I think we're pretty safe. Being power #1 helps, too. Do you fear some kind of Roman aggression on your own?
About religion, the Monotheism religion is still available. I wonder why no one tried to grab it.

[YossarianLives]

Ok, I freaked out and did some tests. The barb axe gets 23% against our axe Leane if left unpromoted. Promoting to C1 brings the barbs chances down to 12%, and adding Shock drops it all the way to 4%. So I logged in and gave the two promotions. Shock axes are what we need against Rome anyways.

I also sent this picture to Asterix: