RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Speaker and Sullla

[Sullla]

Now for a long diplo rundown...

plako jumped into the game while I was moving the workers around, and we chatted for a bit. He gave us a few new tidbits of information:

* Whosit offered plako an NAP to Turn 200, but plako plans to turn it down. plako still wants to hit that intruding city to the NE of his capital.

* Kathlete and plako have an NAP to Turn 170. I agreed that this sounded like a good move, as plako needs to concentrate on only one opponent (Whosit).

* plako wants us to keep Kathlete and Jowy busy while he goes to war with Whosit. Basically the same thing slaze said, haha.

* plako told us that Kathlete is tranfering those Praetorians back to Whosit, moving them on galleys through the inner sea. (He heard about this through slaze.) In the Demographics, Kathlete's power rating took a drastic fall this turn (from 340k down to 300k) so that transfer may have already taken place.

In the screenshot I posted earlier, you can see plako adopting Vassalage civic, so that confirms that they discovered Feudalism this turn. Hopefully they will be able to return us that 66 gold next turn. Since I've been talking about plako, I'll start by proposing a message to send back to them:

Dear plako and Broker,

Nice chatting with you in-game today! We've gifted over one of our horse archers to you this turn; we'd like to take the second one over to scout your eastern island, then gift him as well. As stated before, let us know if you need the unit immediately and we'll make the transfer.

Congrats on discovering Feudalism, we agree that it should make defending a lot easier. Does this mean that you'll be able to pay us back the 66 gold we agreed on next turn? Our team doesn't have an immediate need for the money, but sooner is always better than later.

I know you mentioned something about having us deal with Jowy and Kathlete while you and slaze face off against Whosit; slaze actually asked us to do pretty much the same thing. Well, we are thinking about going to war with Jowy when our NAP runs out on Turn 160. In the intervening time we will tech Civil Service and Machinery for maces; with maces and horse archers and catapults, we think we'll be able to start taking cities off of Jowy. That would almost certainly lead to Kathlete jumping in to protect Jowy, which would keep them occupied and out of your hair. This isn't finalized yet, but it seems like it would be a good way for all of us to go forward. Please do NOT mention this to anyone else, even our other allies, as we want to keep word from getting out about our plans!

Dantski is talking about signing a longterm NAP with Nakor, which would probably be bad news for you. We can try to talk him out of this, but you should probably contact him directly.

Finally, we have an extra iron, would you like us to trade it to you? Might be useful to have!

Sullla
The Killer Angels

Now to get back to slaze, since we're writing him a very similar message:

Dear slaze of IKZ,

Thanks again for sending such a long explanatory email yesterday. I apologize if our team has come across as aloof or standoffish in the past; due to the revolving-door previous leadership of Inca, we never really had much contact from your team and didn't get a sense that there was much interest in cooperation. That last message really did a lot to change the mood over here, and we're prepared to be much more open now. Since you put some trust in us, we'll put some of ours in you.

We agree that it makes logical sense for our team, yours, and plako's to be working together in this game. We all share common enemies, and you are completely correct that the Kathlete/Jowy/Nakor/Whosit alliance seems unbreakable. If you could read our spoiler thread, you'd see a lot of complaning over that exact fact! They do indeed gift units back and forth like it's nothing, and I don't believe for one second that sharing a team in the Pitboss #3 game doesn't affect their diplomacy in this game. So indeed we need to hang together or we will all hang separately. We won't talk any more about the various mis-communications between our teams early on.

Our best guess is that Kathlete and Whosit are planning to attack you when that cooldown NAP runs out. Reason being, Kathlete has been asking us for an extended NAP, and we've gotten the same request from Jowy and Nakor. Jowy and Nakor both want us locked into peace until Turn 200 or later! Furthermore, plako also got the same request, with Whosit wanting an NAP with him until Turn 200. And Nakor also wants a long NAP with Dantski too. It doesn't take a genius to see where all of these teams are going to go if they lock my team, plako, and Dantski into longterm NAPs. Of course we're not that stupid as to agree to such a simple plan...

Both you and plako suggested to us indepedently that we renew our conflict on the Jowy front to tie up Jowy and Kathlete. Well, we can pass on some good news that we have been thinking along the same lines! We have an NAP with Jowy that lasts until Turn 160, during which time we plan to tech Civil Service and Machinery to build some maces. We think that if we attack at the end of that NAP with maces, horse archers, and catapults Jowy would have a very difficult time, and would start losing cities. Then Kathlete would inevitably jump in to save their buddy, or at the very least they would have to start holding back a lot of units on his western border. If we could combine that with a plako attack on Whosit, and a Dantski war against Nakor, you'd be able to avoid getting dogpiled, which we don't want to see any more than you do. I like the chances of our alliance in a 4 vs 4 game!

Please don't mention our plans about potentially going to war with Jowy. We're putting our trust in you, and secrecy will obviously help us a lot if we're to be successful in pressuring Jowy and Kathlete. The less said about the whole thing, the better!

We heard that Kathlete was sailing those galleys around the inner sea, planning to gift those Praetorians on board back to Whosit. Is that true? It looked like there was a big dip in Kathlete's power in the Demographics this turn, so perhaps that transfer already took place (?) We can pass on to you that we spotted a Nakor galley sailing in the inner sea past our borders, heading clockwise in your general direction. It's probably just scouting, but I guess there could be units in there. Probably not dangerous, just giving you a head's up.

I guess that's all for now. Hope that this message answered some of your questions!

Sullla
The Killer Angels

And finally responding to Jowy's message from two days ago:

Dear Jowy,

A 40-turn extension to our NAP is a little much, I'm afraid! We'd like to wait and see what happens when Turn 150 arrives before signing any more longterm deals. There's a lot of diplomatic chatter going on at the moment, and we need to sort things out before we can make an extended commitment to any one side. If we can clear things with our allies, then we'll look into extending that NAP for a longer period, and move onto Open Borders as the next step past that. It never hurts to have more trading partners!

Cheers,
Sullla
The Killer Angels

I'll leave these up to let Speaker comment before sending anything. We also need to respond to Dantski soon; I'm thinking we don't want him to sign that NAP, but we can't promise him lots of units either. Could be a tough one... we'll need plako to lean on him.

Not sure we even bother responding to Nakor. I definitely think we don't want to extend an NAP with them. Even if we have no plans to attack them down there, we want them worrying about *IF* we'll attack them. Ummm, what do you think, Speaker?

[Speaker]

Thanks for putting in all the time to type those messages, Sullla. I'm swamped, and have just finished my lunch. Can we catch up on IM or TS later and hammer this all out, and send out the messages tonight?

[Beamup]

My understanding of the sea-rules, is that even super-galleys with circumnavigation bonus can't sail in the ocean that is not under their owner culture ...

Looking back at some old screenshots, there's coast SE of the eastern X. A galley there could go SE-NE-N and land troops on the hill. One on the western X would have to settle for landing on the cows.

[BobRoberts]

Re: Project Colossus!

10 commerce in Hampton Roads seems nice... was wondering how many other sea tiles are you working in the empire?

Looking at the state of the empire generally, it doesn't look like a place that was on the wrong end of a messy dogpile recently?

[Speaker]

Here's a picture of that southwestern coastline. Note that any attack force would need to go through Dantski's land. Also note that he has open borders with everyone.

[Sullla]

So the compromise we worked out on the Colossus goes like this:

- Put overflow from forge into Colossus this turn.
- Swap to trireme, build naturally, then whip right before completion.
- Put overflow from whip into Colossus, and finish naturally.

We don't particularly care if we get beat to Colossus by a turn or two; the gold rebate from a partial build will simply speed us to Civil Service all the faster. The trireme closes off the loophole spot discussed above. All this might seem like excessive paranoia, given that we have NAPs with most everyone in this region, but losing Gettysburg would be catastrophic for our future plans. We have no plans to end up like PAL!

For the diplo stuff, Speaker and I talked it over and agreed that there's not really anything we can say to Dantski that's going to stop him from taking that NAP with Nakor. So we will flip this around on its head and advise him to take the deal, and accept Nakor's NAP offer ourselves! First Dantski:

Dear Dantski,

If you are correct and Nakor has longbows or will have longbows shortly, then it's true that there's no real way to attack successfully. Ancient and Classical era units won't work on the offense against Medieval defenders. We both need to bide our time, get stronger units, and make it a decisive war, when we are both ready. [Also, by delaying your war twice already, you foolishly obsoleted your huge army of Ancient Age axes!] We would rather you didn't sign an NAP with Nakor, since it would at least leave the option available to go to war if conditions change, but it's your call and we won't object. Gotta do what's best for your team.

We also have an offer from Nakor to extend an NAP with our team, but we'll wait and hear what you decide before answering. Obviously we won't be signing an NAP if you choose not to do so.

Cheers,
Sullla
The Killer Angels

Obviously not going to send that part in yellow, haha. Dantski had a really nice army 25 turns ago - but no one is going to be scared of axes anymore. Why he sat on his hands after switching sides in the alliances makes no sense...

Nakor is just getting a form response until we hear back from Dantski:

Dear Nakor and DMOC of Holy Rome,

That's a very interesting offer, thanks for sending it along. We'll take it under consideration, and get back to you in a day or two.

Sullla
The Killer Angels

Slight edits to the plako and slaze messages, to reflect the diplo with Dantski:

Dear plako and Broker,

Nice chatting with you in-game today! We've gifted over one of our horse archers to you this turn; we'd like to take the second one over to scout your eastern island, then gift him as well. As stated before, let us know if you need the unit immediately and we'll make the transfer.

Congrats on discovering Feudalism, we agree that it should make defending a lot easier. Does this mean that you'll be able to pay us back the 66 gold we agreed on next turn? Our team doesn't have an immediate need for the money, but sooner is always better than later.

I know you mentioned something about having us deal with Jowy and Kathlete while you and slaze face off against Whosit; slaze actually asked us to do pretty much the same thing. Well, we are thinking about going to war with Jowy when our NAP runs out on Turn 160. In the intervening time we will tech Civil Service and Machinery for maces; with maces and horse archers and catapults, we think we'll be able to start taking cities off of Jowy. That would almost certainly lead to Kathlete jumping in to protect Jowy, which would keep them occupied and out of your hair. This isn't finalized yet, but it seems like it would be a good way for all of us to go forward. Please do NOT mention this to anyone else, even our other allies, as we want to keep word from getting out about our plans! Thanks.

Dantski is talking about signing an NAP with Nakor to Turn 175, which would probably be bad news for you. He wanted a commitment of units from us if he was going to attack Nakor, which we couldn't give if we are going to be tied up with Jowy/Kathlete. We've left the decision up to him, so good luck trying to talk him out of the NAP! We couldn't make an empty promise to Dantski, I hope you understand.

Finally, we have an extra iron, would you like us to trade it to you? Might be useful to have!

Sullla
The Killer Angels

The slaze message didn't need to be changed. I just sent it, along with that delayed response to Jowy.

That's all for tonight. Go watch the basketball games!

[Jabah]

Here's a picture of that southwestern coastline. Note that any attack force would need to go through Dantski's land. Also note that he has open borders with everyone.

If you put some oudated 'junk' on the forrest and hill (including 1-2 spears), either you will have an extra turn warning or it would make a landing here far too costly, would't it ?
(also, except for horse, they still will give you an extra turn before attacking your city)

[Speaker]

Sullla, I have already done my part of the turn, and everyone else has ended theirs, so feel free to play, end our turn, and post some nice pictures of our financial situation with Gettysburg building its market.

[Speaker]

If you put some oudated 'junk' on the forrest and hill (including 1-2 spears), either you will have an extra turn warning or it would make a landing here far too costly, would't it ?
(also, except for horse, they still will give you an extra turn before attacking your city)

That's an option, but we don't really have any spare units at the moment, and they would probably be better served to fortify inside of Gettysburg. It is 60% and on a hill, remember. Right now we have 2 or 3 spears, 4 archers, and an axe or two, and we have a growing stack between Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, as our happiness cap continues to raise, and military police are no longer needed. We've also got 6 or so two-movers in the middle of our territory that can reach pretty much everywhere in a pinch. I'd like to get a couple more spears in Gettysburg at some point though, for sure.

[darrelljs]

It seems to me that given your plan to bulb Machinery, you would either want to tech Feudalism -> Guilds or Civil Service. I would like to better understand why you chose to go the Maceman route rather than the Knights route? I understand the tech routes differ in their economic focus (chain irrigation and Bureaucracy vs. Grocers and earlier Banks) and maybe you made the decision as much for that reason, but just for my education let's pretend you were to make the decision purely on a military basis.

Anyway, rather than typing up all my speculation, I think I'll just wait until you guys have the time to answer .

Thanks,
Darrell

P.S. Also, one last question...do you plan on picking up Engineering soon?