[SPOILERS!] Pericles of Babylon. Kyan, Twinkletoes, Whosit.

[Kyan]

True, a summary of everything would be nice - though with the way things are changing every turn that would probably be pretty difficult!

Also, I have a theme I would like for the workers if you would allow - as I was initially goin to do the military until those darned lurkers showed up ;-)

Help yourself mate. I WILL do a full update today one way or another!

[Twinkletoes89]

Well Ky's at the pub now so lets see how coherent his report is ;-)

Also, I logged in, ended turn and renamed our workers. Lets see if Ky gets what the theme is when he next logs on!

[Kyan]

[SIZE="6"]REAL UPDATE[/SIZE]

[SIZE="4"]

Plan to Defeat the Hydra

[/SIZE]

(Music to set the tone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fr4q7TAqgw )

-Byz and Babylon will build up our respective armies. We will tell England it is a bit of a stare-off situation at Leviticus' border if England asks.. In 10 turns, Byzantine will declare war on Babylon. It will appear weird if nothing gets posted in IT thread so they will post there asking for the 2nd half of turn. We will say we're not fussed and won't be making any double moves. They will then concede the point and we'll play without an order. I have primed The Hydra to expect this situation with my diplo.

-I have maintained relations with England. I pretty much begged to be allowed into their group the other day and have requested they forward our joint request (with Mali) to join. I intended to come accross desperate, disorganised and hopeless. England agreed to forward the request but made it clear that they don't think we'll be invited.

I assured them i didn't perceive this as their fault and brought up the topic of a NAP. I fabricated a situation that Byz had threatened to settle aggresively, we had won a settler race and they are now planning to take it by force. I showed us and Mali as close allies (as they know from earlier we were tight and as a believable truth it should make this sound more genuine) and that Maya were remaining neutral. The conditions of the NAP include a land agreement, which i was going to suggest but i was pushing England for their terms hoping they would mention it which thankfully they did.

We have no knowledge of the land between us so England have agreed to provide all scouting info of the region with their key info blacked out. We have scouted the area directly north of ourselves so Whosit can use these maps to formulate a battle plan.

-Sumeria and Inca are all denying having any sort of tech trade lined up with us. This goes for Rome also but none of us have met them yet. Byz will periodically message England and just be generally friendly to avoid suspicion.

-Sumeria is our Alphabet provider and therefore needs protection as he fears an attack from India and another? Portugal? He has requested Rome lend a warrior and we provide 2 chariots. Byz and Maya have both sent their chariots south and we have cross-referenced maps and come up with the following battle-plan:

I would like to propose the following plan of a 3-way joint attack on the Indian city of Karaoke Tuesday on Turn 65.

Karaoke Tuesday is situated on a stone tile and India has masonry so he may be making a play for the Pyramids or is just looking to build walls very fast. Either way it is in our best interest to take this city out first as part of our attack on India. If the attack is successful then there will still be time to attack the Indian city of T-Shirt Contest before it can expand and hook up the copper there. Finally this plan allows for Rome to make contact with both Maya and Byzantines as early as possible.

I have attached a screenshot with signs pointing out the plan below to make it clearer.

Turn 60
Roman Warrior moves SE to roaded forest tile (R60)
Byzantine Chariot moves S to desert hill (B60)
Mayan chariot moves SW to copper tile and then SW again to forest hill (M60)

Turn 61
Roman Warrior moves SE to Bison Pass and then NE to forest hill (R61)
Byzantine Chariot moves SE to desert then SW to flood plain (B61)
Mayan chariot moves NW to desert and then W again to forest hill (M61)

Turn 62
Roman Warrior moves NE to hill (R62)
Byzantine Chariot moves SW twice to flood plain (B62)
Mayan chariot moves W to flood plain and W again to plain (M62). Rome and Maya make contact.

Turn 63
Roman Warrior moves NE to grassland (R63)
Byzantine Chariot moves SW to pig and S to plains (B63). Rome and Byzantine make contact.
Mayan chariot moves SW to grassland and then SW again to hill (M63) (optional move but it lifts more fog for Maya with no delay in plan)

Turn 64
Roman Warrior moves SE to plains declaring war on India (R64)
Byzantine Chariot moves SW to grassland and then SE to plains declaring war on India (B64)
Mayan chariot moves NE to grassland and then SE to plains declaring war on India (M64)

Turn 65
Roman Warrior attacks Karaoke Tuesday
Byzantine Chariot attacks Karaoke Tuesday
Mayan chariot attacks Karaoke Tuesday

A picture for reference:



-Inca will continue it's assault on Aztec and do as much damage as possible. Maybe Rome can help on this front? However, it is fairly vital Rome gets to IW as soon as possible.

-Babylon have sent Reagan our proud axeman south-east to meet Rome, we will liaise with a Sumerian warrior on the way and then probably gift the unit to them or generally assist them or Inca.

[COLOR="Yellow"]-Techs:

Mali: Monarchy
Maya: Maths
Sumeria: Alphabet
Rome: IW
Byz: Masonry then saving gold
Babylon: HBR
Inca: Busy at WAR[/COLOR]

-We will keep Inca up to date with tech. They can make this up at some later date. Remember, by disabling one of the Hydra members, they are greatly assisting us as a group.
[COLOR="Yellow"]
-We should have alphabet by t71 at the latest, possibly by t69 if we can keep Sumeria sufficiently protected.[/COLOR]

-We need a name for this anti-hydra group! Heracles has been suggested a couple of times
[COLOR="Yellow"]
-Maya have now met India and will play nice for now. If they get asked about tech blocs- they will suggest there was a group forming but that now appears to be dead in the water. Pro-actively ask about potentially joining their group. By time they come to a decision, we'll be declaring war anyway.[/COLOR]

-Map.




Questions?

[Kyan]

Ha nice worker names TT

I'm confused about what our northernmost worker did last turn though?

I *think* you were moving him up to pasture the cows ready for city 4?
He's sposed to be chopping the forest he was on so it times the turn after writing for an instant library (combined with other chop)

No matter. Just get the chop 1 turn later and he was heading that direction after so it's not a biggie.

[Twinkletoes89]

I don't know - I only fortified a warrior in Exodus!

If something was happening you did it . Shall I bring back the scoreboard :-p!

[Kyan]

I don't know - I only fortified a warrior in Exodus!

If something was happening you did it . Shall I bring back the scoreboard :-p!

Pfft. Damn scoreboard. And fair enough, guess i mis-clicked the previous turn. Well, that was rather noobish indeed!

Maybe i should stop feigning great disorganisation to our rivals and just let them see the truth? hehe

[Whosit]

It seems I was beaten to the punch for organizing a war plan.

I guess that's what I get for not being the go-to man, diplomatically. Well, I guess it's not for us, but still. Looks like I'll have to log in and look at the Worker names soon.

Thanks for the summary. Very helpful.

So, it appears that Mali will not be contributing to the war, militarily? Or will they give Skirmishers to the under-defended Maya?

Hopefully I'll have more coherent/useful comments tomorrow, when I have a little more time to digest all this.

[Twinkletoes89]

Well I've seen the recent emails we have received and I'll leave Ky to summarise it.

Just to say that things may be more 'destructive' soon!

[Twinkletoes89]

Righteo, seen as I was doing my PB1 turn, I logged on and had a look around this game too!

Seen as everything was pretty much already done and no orders were left saying otherwise, I did the turn.

Writing will be researched, Genesis will be size 4 and the Barracks in Exodus will all be finished next turn.

[Kyan]

Sorry for lack of posts recently. I have had less time than usual and a lot of it is spent in various diplo chatter.

Greetings to Kysit's Periwinkles from the Lords of Avalon!

We are glad that the extended NAP terms and other non-settlement terms are acceptable. Shall we consider those agreed to, and we can continue working on a settlement deal?

As requested, please find attached an overview of the territory being discussed. You can see the culture of our capital in the top center; it is a little difficult to see due to the color. (A drawback we did not consider when choosing England.) Our proposed sites of Gibraltar and Drunken Pigs are marked. A tentative sign for another city further east with the grass cows is also marked, although that may be affected by negotiations with France. We have located their capital this turn to the east, and they are closer than we expected.

Please note that all our proposed sites are 8N of Exodus, 9N of Genesis if we correctly understand your capital's location. We certainly do not intend to crowd your first ring cities. In fact, Gibraltar and Drunken Pigs are our first ring, and their BFCs will be adjacent to (or even overlapping) London's BFC.

Please let us know your thoughts on the proposed locations.

Map showing the area:



you can see the English are being super nice and leaving us with absolutely zero resources... Combined with our knowledge of the lands north of us that means we have ZERO viable sites further north than the currently planned gold and FP sites.

Since this is all part of a delaying procedure anyway whilst still trying to appear friendly i'm going to negotiate over those sites. I don't actually want them right now- i just want to delay them long enough and not sign a NAP.

Mali got a bit freaked out by the above email which i forwarded to them. Their reaction:

[quote = "Mali to us #1"]
[COLOR="Sienna"] Hi Kyan,

Thanks for forwarding the email, but I'm a bit concerned about: 'We are glad that the extended NAP terms and other non-settlement terms are acceptable. Shall we consider those agreed to, and we can continue working on a settlement deal?'

I think you made a big mistake and have now tied your hands with England which I'm sure wan't your objective with a putative stalling email

Best Wishes

Emperor Capac [/COLOR] [/quote]

shortly followed by

[COLOR="Sienna"]Hi Kyan,

Having recovered from my intial, Sullla-esque reaction ('ruined! everything's ruined!') to the faux pas with England, I've come up with a plan B:

- Mali accepts NAP terms but declines RoP ban (what if England is the aggressor?).
- Make settling agreement conditional on acceptance into their group.
- We cancel NAPs on T100 whether we're planning an attack or not.

We need to keep the military option open with England to stop them expanding like crazy, and we can try to slow them down on tech by forcing them to grab Gibraltar and Drunken Pigs sooner than they'd like.

We look forward to your feedback.

Best Wishes

Emperor Capac[/COLOR]

I think they are reading into it all a bit too much. I'll send a reply to England tonite basically saying that whilst i understand those sites are in their first ring, that doesnt leave us a single viable site in that direction.

I think i will argue for the 'cow' site although it is useless to us and i don't intend to settle it. The land to our north is barren and any site there would be totally isolated. Long term it might be of some use but hey we'll probly have attacked England by then rendering all this moot

It looks like Byz will meet France any day now. We have no idea on their diplomatic stance. I suspect they're being given the hard shoulder by the hydra based up on the HRE slating them to us. Swiss from Mali thinks it's all a grand ruse. We've decided to just be cautious.

[COLOR="Sienna"]Dear Byzantium,

We understand that you are poised to meet/have just met the French. As you know, they've been criticized by members of the Hydra, but we're think that this is a ruse designed to get us to spill our plans to the Hydra by presenting France as a possible ally.

How do you plan to approach them with regards to finding out where their true allegiances lie? Our suggestion would be to be somewhat guarded with them until T65 - at which point the cat is out of the bag - then if they still sound interested & we believe they're lying then we'll have to think about what to do.

Best Wishes

Emperor Capac [/COLOR]

[COLOR="DimGray"]Greetings Mali,

The rumours of France's allegiances are worrying and we should excerize caution in our dealings with them. However, until it is certain they are in the Hydra's pocket, we may yet be able to persuade them to join us. We agree with your assessment about delaying offers of substance until our attack has started in earnest though.

On behalf of the Spectre Council,
-SleepingMoogle[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Magenta"]Allies,

i certainly urge cautioun but i think that mentioning to them how HRE have been saying bad things can't hurt.
If it was a rouse- then so be it. If they're being shunned - we may gain an ally.

Your friends,

Kyan
Kysit's Periwinkles[/COLOR]

Whosit, Genesis will be finishing a library next turn and granary the turn after. Exodus is working on an axeman now. If you wish to coordinate the English invasion, i would suggest you log in and use our maps plus the one above to formulate a plan of attack. We can count on at least 4 Byz chariots.