[SPOILERS] Margarita and the Lurkers

[B4ndit]

It appears that DMOC doesn't want to pass control of his empire to DT because of "poor play from DT", so I am almost 98% sure that DMOC will invade Bisons. However Bisons is completely confident that he can defend himself. In case of Bisons problems my short term plans stays pretty much the same:

- steal education/liberalism/printing press/engineering from Bisons (that techs I'm missing at the moment)
- go for rifles while producing Janissaries
- expand south

Long term would change from:

- going for democracy, building jails/security bureau

To:

- constructing universities

I have NAP with suttree till t220. My plans regarding CH/GG will clarify after first turns of the war DMOC vs Bisons. Best case scenario would be quickly signing the peace between the two of them AND bisons borrowing me his military units or something like that for invasion. But we will see. Bisons is more into attacking GG, but I will try to convince him that cutting of suttree would be more profitable for us in the long term.

[Catwalk]

How many turns from now is DMOC planning on invading Bisons? Are you able to station some defenses in Bison's lands? Do you know if GG or anyone else (who else is left?) is planning on joining the attack?

[B4ndit]

Probably in next or the following turn (160 or 161). Unfortunately only one my Janissary will make it to the border DMOC vs Bisons on time. Between 160 and 162 I will have more units ready to send there, but it will take 5-10 turns of travel time. Bisons is generally on his own for now (there was too short notice for me to switch productions and produce more units earlier).

About other players, as far as I know they are not. I have full city visibility on GG and CH and I can see theirs units moves. Both their armies are pretty weak and backwarded and they can not threat my core cities, however my south is exposed and I don't have a lot of units there, something like 1.5 medieval unit per city on the south. In the core cities I have only ancient units. My situation is steadily improving and I have constantly increasing focus on military, but instant attack from GG could do some harm.

Fortunately GG's economy is almost non existent. He doesn't have a city with size larger then 5 or 6 (his capital is 4), many unimproved tiles so he shouldn't feel incentive to attack and annoy me. I'm keeping an eye on him and his units. He is deconcentrating and spreading them over his empire so that is one more indication that he is not planning any aggressive moves.

With CH I have nap until t172.

Arki has no interest in attack me nor Bisons and he is more concentrated on Suttree.

One last player, Yossarian (DMOC's strong ally) is currently at war with avirtuoso and Yossarian doesn't border with Bisons nor with me. But I don't have any espionage info nor I have any contact with him.

[Catwalk]

Have you tried to get a NAP with GG? Any idea what DMOC's and Bison's militaries are like?

[Catwalk]

I have been attempting some diplo with DMOC and Bisons, I hope you will forgive me. I have made sure to emphasize that I have no authority to make binding deals. I'm suggesting to Bisons that he surrenders a city in exchange for peace, maybe some cash as well. DMOC is frustrated with our refusal to go against suttree, I have hinted at him that we're interested in helping him strike against suttree at a later time and that our hands are tied now. If Bisons refuses to make any concessions in exchange for peace, do we still want to defend him? That's being extremely stubborn IMO.

[B4ndit]

Ok, no problem.

I don't know how much I would like to invest in defending Bisons. So far I have invested only one Janissary, but I would like to try help Bisons because of couple of reasons.

1. I am allied with Bisons, not with DMOC and I don't want to my words mean nothing.
2. If Bisons loses this war, then I don't gain anything. I end up with very strong neighbor (DMOC) who is not very interested in cooperation with me. It would be highly probable that DMOC would like to conquer me rather then cooperate with me.
3. I don't trust DMOC the way I trust Bisons/Yuufo. Same feeling had Asterix, he was warning us, that DMOC can backstab you if he will find his interest in that. Btw, that exactly what has happened in war GG vs DT. DT and DMOC had mutual defensive pact in case of GG aggression and indeed, DMOC declared war on GG, but they signed peace after 2 or 3 turns... In other words, even If I have defensive pact with DMOC against suttree, that cloud mean nothing to him.

To challenge suttree I need strong ally and I prefer way more Bisons over DMOC.

[Catwalk]

Just sent the following to DMOC:

Hello again DMOC.

I have discussed it a bit with B4ndit, and we agree that we remain committed to helping Bisons defend. We have made a prior promise to do so, and we have a strong interest in not seeing him fall. We have very little interest in fighting you, though. Are you attacking Bisons solely because cataphracts are available now and he's your only target? We are sending Janissaries to his lands now and Bisons is loading up on pikes, you cannot realistically hope to defeat both of us. Best case scenario you win a city or two and bleed yourself into economic ruin in the process along with Bisons. Normally that would be good for us as a third party, but we both have suttree to worry about as well.I urge you to reconsider, what would help change your mind? I know I'm repeating myself some in this message, I just want to make sure that all arguments are attempted before you plunge us into a war that you cannot win.

Sincerely,
Catwalk & B4ndit

[Catwalk]

Well, do you feel like playing on or not? It seems everybody is quite set against playing, and this fatigue likely started before you took over. I think we should negotiate for a consolation prize as Most Promising Player or something in exchange for agreeing to end the game You did well here, do you have some screenshots showing what the current standings are in-game? Maps, demos, graphs, diplomatic relations.

[B4ndit]

I would like to play it. IMO it's ridiculous that DMOC has written of this game. I agree, he has lost this game for 99%, especially if he wants to focus on attacking Bisons, but suttree is not that far away from me and Bisons... In terms of research suttree has technologies worth ~10500 science that we (me and Bisons) don't posses, but at the same time we have technologies worth of ~5200 science that suttre doesn't have... and we are catching up lately...

Thanks to your guidelines (expanding peacefully to the south), my score and economic situation is steadily improving. Thanks to espionage cooperation with Bisons our science looks very promising.

I will upload screenshots tomorrow.

[B4ndit]

Techs overview. In 3 turns I would steal from Bisons Construction and Liberalism (this turn I have failed to steal construction at 75% chances ). Btw, after stealing printing press my GPT has increased by about +60 gpt and my score has increased to 1005 points.

Demography with espionage and science focus:

Charts. Check out crop! and remember that my GNP is lowered because of espionage. Score is from previous turns and I had big jump in this and previous turns (I have finally reached 50% stationary spies and stolen 3 techs):

Territory:

For my it looks like I was quickly advancing to second power (from 4th/5th when I took over Asterix), with great prospects for conquering south and with enormous GNP from Bisons. Bisons GNP is matching Suttree at the moment, so for short term we would keep up with suttree. In long term (hopefully) my crop + constant expansion would kick in and I genuinely think that we had very good chances against suttree.