RBP3 - [SPOILERS] - Team DIM (Mehmed of HRE)

[Ilios]

Currently I'm pretty pissed off at Krill. He has not taken Monarchy from England, which means that a Prophet could bulb Code of Laws should he choose to. When I confronted him with it, he replied with Krillesk dédain, wishing me luck on our research. I shouldn't have told him what our ETA for CoL is, because for all I know, he has his second city running priest specialists as well, and gets another Prophet in a few turns.

I already asked India, who have sold their Prophet to Krill, if Egypt would get the Indian Prophet before we finish research. Darrel confirmed that was not the case.

Still, I'm not reassured. It would really suck if we don't get Confu. Not sure what I can do. I really don't feel like whining to Krill. If he beats us to it, fine, but then I'm more likely to join an anti-Krill alliance than not...

Strange things are happening.

So far, Carthage has given Construction to Maya, Mali, and Babylon.

India and Ottomans both requested, and got denied the tech. Carthage claims that since they are not at war, they do not require the tech rightaway.
That could be their true reason, since both England and Portugal both got the tech. The Cartel is not going to last much longer I'm afraid...
Or Carthage don't want to give the tech to teams who can't give something in return later on.

I haven't requested the tech ingame yet, because I think it is impolite to just ask it (and I don't like it when teams just request it from us). I'll have a chat with them when I catch the.

Our intrepid explore, Tricky Dick, finally hit Babylon borders this turn, making us a joined third with Mali in meeting every team.

[Ilios]

I had a pretty interesting chat with Bobchillingworth from Byzantium. I always thought they were out of the tech loop and kind of lumpted them together with Rome and Inca. But it would seem they have pretty good relations with all the southern nations, and with India as well.

RB: okay. is anyone currently researching Feudalism, that you are aware of?
My civ is interested in a few key techs
me: feudalism no
RB: aha!
that's good to hear.
okay... and I suppose someone else already has monarchy?
12:02 AM me: yup
RB: (I haven't checked in a while, sorry)
hmmm.... okay. Well, I finish maths in a few turns (backwards, I know)
after that, I need Hed Rule and Feudalism
12:03 AM not sure whoever got hed rule.... assuming they don't trade it to me, I'll go for it myself
me: england got monarchy
RB: but I need someone to research feudalism, if possible
I supposed I could.... but I'd rather save hold
my team will reward anyone who could get us that tech rather handsomely
12:04 AM I also need Machinery and Metal Casting, but those are already arranged for
perhaps you see where this is going...?
me: future tech?

RB: hehe
12:05 AM military allies are also nice!
def. in the market for those
12:06 AM my UU seems such a shame to not use quickly
me: true that
12:07 AM RB: If your team goes for feudalism and gifts it to us, we could repay you with a tech of sigificantly more value
we're also happy to gift 'phracts to friends, although you're a little distant, so transmit time might be an issue
me: I'll take that under consideration
12:08 AM RB: my team is happy to trade for anything, of course, but some techs are of much more value to us than others
so if your team is looking for something to research after code of laws...
12:09 AM speaking of which, I do hope you get that tech. Speculation is that Krill is trying to dominate most/all of the religions
seems a shame to let him do that...
me: yeah I hope I've got that covered
12:10 AM RB: I need to consult my maps, but you... don't border him, right?
I think England is south of you, Carthage West, France East
me: no he's pretty far away
RB: k
any civs you aren't particularly fond of?
12:11 AM me: besides France?
RB: yeah
me: not really
12:12 AM RB: that's good; we have at least pleasant relations with most as well.... still, war is a very major part of this game
me: so who arent you guys fond off?
12:13 AM RB: we're "developing relations" with a number of civs; hard to tell how that'll turn our, although most conversations have been promising. Our bestest friends are Maya, Babylon, and India
who totally couincidentally just happen to cover all of our flanks
what with our northern neighbor in the process of dying and all
me: babylon too?
12:14 AM RB: babylon was our first contact, actually
me: i heard you guys didn't hit of well at the start
12:15 AM RB: really, now
I don't suppose England told you that
me: i think it was maya
12:16 AM RB: Kyan (he seems to be the only one on their team actively playing this game) and my team have had some differences
but they're good friends
me: good to hear it
12:18 AM RB: I meant what I said about no CAN 2.0, but I am interested in eventually forming a long-term core trading/military group. I already have a nucleus of that going. I've only known you civ for a day or so, and it's way too early in the game to seriously commit to any such thing, but I'm still looking for partners
something to think about, I guess
long-term wise
me: yup
12:19 AM RB: no reason why any "core trading group" has to have exclusive membership for each party, either
certainly one could belong to two or three such groups
provided they don't make conflicting diplo arrangements
12:20 AM me: yup
and that's the key
RB: how long till' you get Code of Laws?
12:21 AM me: 8 turns I think
RB: hmm okay. My civ has math in... 5 I think
might be 4
hed rule shouldn't take us long
with the discounts we'll have for others knowing it
and our various hamlets
me: ah financial
12:22 AM RB:
dude I can make 4 cities where the vast majority tiles are fp
it's kind of silly
I was horrified to see france's land
nicer cap than mine
but all grassland!
the horror!
me: yeah I saw those floodplains
RB: I assume yours might be similarly blighted
12:23 AM me: well it's not bad
RB:
me: lots of rivers
could use a bit more food resources
12:24 AM RB: agreed there
you have gems and/or gold?
me: gold
and the silver ofcourse
RB: right
my civ can get gems too... I think so can everyone else who can place something on the huge band of fp
uh not sure how well balanced this map is
me: not really
12:25 AM if you see how far France's copper was from their capital
they would have been dead ages ago if they didn't pop copper at their capital
RB: I do feel sorry for portugal... I'm pretty sure we asked for at least seas on this map, final vote be damned
12:26 AM me: yeah I'm not a big fan of the map
RB: actually the thing that bugs me most is the lack of natural boundaries
ah well enough carping
I joined PBEM 3 in part to experience something more "natural"
12:27 AM me: yeah I'm thinking of joining one if the opportunity arises
also
17 teams is way too much
RB: Yeah I saw your post in the PBEM 4 thread
me: diplo has been excruciating
RB: yes
12:28 AM it's impossible to keep up with everyone
I like to do personal diplo
part of the fun for me is just meeting fellow civ players
me: I was the one doing all the heavy lifting getting the different teams in the cartel
RB: half my conversations just end up being about mass effect (my theme)
me: busy times
RB: but 17 is too many
I can't keep up with everyone
12:29 AM me: welln we'll be down to 14 sooner rather than later
RB:
was going to say
there's one obvious solution
me: was surprised at the viciousness of the game though
RB: tone or actions?
or both?
12:30 AM me: but i think your "no natural boundaries" were a key element
actions
tone was pretty decent I think
kind of strange since there's still so much land to expand into
RB: yeah.... well the big alliances haven't helped
12:31 AM maya's strike on India was a calculated action
I was actually about to declare on them too, with a shock chariot no less
could have done some real damage...
but I stupidly attacked a barb warrior
me: yeah but Portugal attacking Rome had not much to do with the alliance
hehe
RB: but knocked down to almost no health....
12:32 AM which also meant that I couldn't reinforce exploit properly
oh well
me: exploit, well, he had a strange game going
no slavery
RB: very... but he and yaz made the ultimate sacfice for my team
I won't forget that
he didn't want to go to slavery... just a straight beeline to alpha
me: yeah it was close
12:33 AM RB: stuck with it even when it meant death
me: rome would have been dead
RB: I could have saved him for a couple turns... I had 2 other chariots who could have reached his capital at the same time as india
but yaz didn't want me to
12:34 AM I hope he wins PBEM 2, but I'm resisting posting in that game forum too much cause' I don't want to risk spoilers
also I think he's screwed in that game
whoops!

me: yeah pretty much
RB: Rome... seems to be winning vs portugal
12:35 AM Rome is a good friend, so I'm glad to hear they're doing well
but.... I kind of like Portugal too
me: status quo
RB: they helped me meet aztec and Ottos
oh well
not much that can be done, I guess
I like france too, but gifting them masonry was all they're getting out of me
me: Portugal attacked Rome for obvious reasons
12:36 AM RB: yeah
but it didn't go too well, I hear
me: there was bad blood between them from the start
nope
Sandover got lucky
12:37 AM RB: you might not be able to say, but is anyone funneling guys to portugal?
me: you mean troops
?
RB: my civ is staying out of this, unless Rome is going to be eliminated
yeah
I'm worried about this turning into a larger war
me: like Inca has been doing for Rome?
RB: exactly
12:38 AM me: not that I know of
RB: okay.... Inca is pretty much tied to Rome. If Rome dies, they're in trouble
me: yup
RB: I'm friendly with Inca, but too far away to really help
but if other civs have Portugal as their irreplaceable ally...
could become a mess
12:39 AM me: not sure why Inca went for the choke
RB: hah with aztec?
me: they should have been spamming settlers from T1
RB: to the best of my knowlege, no one knows why they did it, including them
me: lol
12:40 AM RB: they already wanted to fight ruff even before we knew about the CAN
it just happened to work well with timing
I don't think that ruff did anything to piss them off, so.... :|
who can say
me: Ruff did a pretty good job defending
RB: I hear he had some help
12:41 AM me: a bit...
nobody likes an early choker...
RB: agreed
12:42 AM hey any idea what the heck happened with Korea?
I know Krill killed them and all
me: they had no units in their capital
RB: but did Korea just miscalculate where their warrior needed to be to get back?
or was there something more sinister?
12:43 AM one hopes not, but I've heard nothing about it
me: sinister?
RB: yeah like convincing them that no aggression was intended
talking them up while moving into place
or just a strike of opportunity?
12:44 AM me: not sure
but if you leave your capital undefended
tough luck
RB: yeah
I think I personally would have attacked too, although my teamates might have been against it
12:45 AM me: I'm not nearly nasty enough to have done it
RB: well.... wars of elimination have to happen, right?
12:46 AM me: sure
but not much of a war is it?
RB: is there anything better about killing someone early as opposed to after they've invested a lot of time and energy in the game?
me: more gratifying
RB: hahah!
that's an impressively blood thirsty view :D
12:47 AM me: not much skill is needed to walz a warrior into an undefended capital
RB: takes chutzpah tho
12:48 AM lots of risk, leaving your own city undefended
me: but putting together a coalition
making the right strategic moves

[Ilios]

Reply from Ottomans to AWTA:


Subject: After CAN

Yeah AWTA stands for Alliance Within The Alliance. It isn't the best
name but if you can come up with anything better, I'd like to hear it.

Anyway, an alliance of 8 teams sounds like a good idea to ensure that
we aren't left behind post-CAN. 2 civilizations that I would like to
see on our side are Carthage and England. We have good relations with
Carthage, and they have one of the highest GNP's in the game ATM, so
that would be really valuable. We have dealt fairly with England so
far and they would have several troops left from the France campaign
to spare on attacking someone else, so that could be useful as well.
We don't really have a strong preference on the remaining 2 civs that
join us, so we'll let you guys think of some possibilities.

However, an alliance with the sole aim to take out Egypt is IMO not
really in AWTA's interest. Sure we eliminate a dangerous player and
capture some shrines, but in reality, AWTA is too far away to really
gain much of Egyptian land long term. Splitting the shrine income to
the victors won't work either since an alliance to destroy Egypt will
not last long after that objective has been reached, and therefore
since we won't control the shrine (we are too far away) very little of
it will go to us long term.

The main target for AWTA is Inca. 3 of us border them, they are behind
in tech and we can settle a good portion of their land since Rome is
preoccupied with Portugal. If Carthage did join another group instead
of us, we might be forced to attack them since their high GNP would be
a threat long-term to us. It is still preferable if Carthage join us
instead though since we can attack other people instead.

Is the IM summit you are proposing a chat between the 4 of us? If so,
that's a good idea. We would need to find a suitable time where we all
are available though (I am available most times, but if not another
member of A4 can take the call).


Enough Talking!
WarriorKnight of A4

[Ilios]

T84 Played


Augian Peaks founded. The trade route income together with a hamlet turning into a cottage increases our beaker count enough to finish CoL by T89.
Even with Augian and Singa working another cottage each by T86, and DIM finishing it's library by the same time, I don't think we'll be able to shave off another turn.

[Ilios]

So it would seem we are going to be left out when post-Cartel times arrive.

Krill seems to have organised something together with Carthage, with the former possibly supplying gold to the latter. England are in with them as well, which would suck because we get along pretty well, and we share a long border. We have an autorenewing NAP till T100 with a 10-turn cooldown, but that's not as reassuring as a formal alliance.

That and Cyneheard must have been feeding info to Krill about our research etc...

We had a discussion, where I told Cynehead we'd like both Ottomans and England in the alliance, whereupon he replied it would be hard, since they want to continue working with Carthage (also supplying gold I guess)
He also mentioned the southern nations of Mali and Babylon, another pair of nations pretty much joined at the hip.

So:

New Krill Tech Cartel:

Core:

- Egypt
- Carthage
- England
- Mali
- Babylon

Now nothing of this is confirmed yet, but I get the feeling this is the core.

Possible joiners:

- Maya
- Byz
- Portugal

Maya and Byz I'm not sure. On the one hand, Maya got Construction from Carthage, on the other, they seem pretty close to both India and Byz, who didn't.
For the moment I think I'll put Maya in the Krill column.

Portugal is another matter. They haven't got real friends, and have been pretty busy keeping Rome busy.
They suddenly asked for an NAP a couple of days ago, so I was going to put them in the Krill column as well. (NAP to cover their flank as soon as the new alliance is revealed).
But today all of a sudden they need to speak urgently to both Ottomans and HRE. I can't join the chat because I'm at work, but Warriorknight from Ottomans will talk to Mukha and see what's up.

So that's a possible 8 member alliance. With France soon to be dead, that would leave only 6 teams to oppose them. So let's hope not all of the previously mentioned teams join Krill, because it would include all the remaining Financial teams.

La resistance:

former AWA:

- Ottomans
- India
- Aztec
- DIM/HRE

All in all not very comforting. India and Ottomans have both been expanding pretty much, and will not gain access to critical techs in a while (India get Aesthetics in a few turns, yay).
And I have no idea what Ruff is up to. He's still stuck at 2 cities, while Inca, who admittedly are Imperialistic, have already expanded to 5. Maybe he's building Pyramids with the Marble I saw around his second city...

The stone agers

- Rome
- Inca

These guys have been seriously hampered by early warfare, and are technologically backward and diplomatically isolated. Even so, if the alliance around Krill takes shape as I predicted, we'll have no choice but to kick them into shape and send their forces to the front.

[Ilios]

It is as I feared...

Ottomans had a chat with Mukha:

Summary: Portugal has been asked into a new Krill tech group we have
all been fearing. However, Portugal plans on declining so by extention
they have just given us their plans.

This group is called PAT and currently consists of
Carthage/England/Egypt/Babylon/Mali. Maya have been asked but they
haven't agreed to the terms yet. They have probably sent a message to
Rome too (who, if included, will probably include Inca)

So that leaves us with AWTA/Portugal/Byz (with Rome, Inca and Maya
unaccounted for, although Maya is less likely to be on our side).
Unfortunately, if Rome joined them, then we probably wouldn't have
much of a chance unless we attack them.

Right now, we need to inform all non-PAT members about this. Byzantium
will probably join us. Inca/Rome/Maya need to be approached with
extreme caution (for now, we avoid mentioning this to them). Portugal
is talking to Rome right now to see what could happen there (since
that is of extreme importance).

Anyway, we need to get everyone in ASAP. At the least, get Byz in on the action.

Think i got the most important bits, although if you want you can
search the log for other stuff.

And more:

Please only share this around in the strictest confidence. Do not
share yet with Incans or Romans.

This was sent by England to us/carthage/egypt/maya/mali/babylon. It
has already had agreement from carthage and mali that I know of.
Others may have also already agreed as we were added quite late. These
terms were also modified by some later responses but nothing that
important.

So apparently the new alliance is called "PAT" (Please All Trade....j/k)

So, the other thing we need to do, is come up with the formal terms of what we're agreeing to do. I'm intentionally distinguishing the pre-Currency and post-Currency situation; the game changes a lot with Currency.
>
> England's proposal:
>
> 1) Sharing of techs and gold in an equitable manner:
> - Researchers will be chosen based on the following criteria:
> a) Maximum Beaker Rate
> b) Beaker-Gold Skew (For example, at current rates, England can convert 43 gold into 51 beakers, for a 51/43 = 1.19 skew; Babylon's is certainly significantly high)
> c) Gold availability/costs per turn: If we can't fund everybody's research, then this will be quite relevant
> d) Availability to start a new tech (not likely to be an issue long-term; this is more for the pre-Currency situation. For example, since Carthage has the highest max beaker rate at the moment, and has finished Construction, so can save some gold now, it's expected they'll start one of the next rounds of tech as soon as they're available)
>
> Funders:
> As long as a funder is sufficiently supporting research, they are owed all techs researched upon request. If a civ is not meeting the definition of "sufficiently supporting research", then gifting the researcher tech is at the discretion of the researcher.
> A definition of "sufficiently supporting research":
> a) Supporting, in gold, at least 60% of the cheapest researcher's costs OR supporting at least 50% of the most expensive researcher's costs, whichever is lower. At the moment, this is a very low value (England's costs are 28gpt, because of our large army, so 14 gold would be "50% of the most expensive", but for, say, Babylon, whose costs are around 15-18gpt, 60% of that is only 10-12gpt). Essentially, if we get to 8 civs, we're guaranteed 3 researchers, and hopefully can get up to 4, or at least mostly-fund the 4th researcher.
> - Subclause: Temporary exemptions for war-related reasons. This is for either large offensive operations, or for defensive conflicts where you need to whip your economy into the ground to survive.
> b) If the current researchers are not being fully funded, and a funders' civ has gold available, it needs to go to fund the researchers.
> - Subclause: Possible exemption: If you can justify that an upgrade is needed to prevent damage to your civ.
>
> Lightbulbs:
> Also owed to everybody, as if researched. First-civ bonuses are still your own (Liberalism's free tech is considered a lightbulbed tech).
>
> Wonders:
> All reasonable steps should be taken to avoid wonder races within PAT members. If an agreement can't be reached, one option is to have a third civ use a random number generator like random.org to decide who gets to go for the wonder; the civ researching the tech would get 2 chances, every one else interested would get one. Or you can race.
>
> 2) Bilateral relations:
> - NAPs are considered amongst all PAT members to be in effect for the duration of this alliance, with a 10t cooldown.
> - No obligations for mutual defense. While we want everyone to ensure the mutual safety of all PAT members, England does not believe it's fair to force you to defend your neighbor if it puts yourself at risk. Mutual defense is strongly encouraged.
> - Settling: be reasonable. Again, we're not going to dictate terms, but when in doubt, tiles closer to a players' capital should belong to that player.
> -Offensive operations: That is fully at the discretion of your own civ. Except for gold, as previously mentioned, any and all benefits of offensive war are fully yours.
>
> 3) Outside tech trades
> Any tech researched after Currency is finished cannot be traded to non-PAT members without at least majority approval.
>
> 4) Dissolution:
> So, while ideally this organization will last until the game end, we all know that there's a chance someone would want to leave. However, we'd also like to ensure that anyone who does leave isn't leaving their allies who funded their research in the cold without the techs that their soon-to-be-ex-allies paid for.
>
> Our dissolution proposal:
> No warfare within 10t of announcing your desire to leave PAT.
> Any techs researched or lightbulbed within that cooldown period are still owed to PAT members (letting a tech sit at 99% finished on the 10th turn would be in very bad faith). However, any techs researched by the remaining PAT teams during that time are NOT owed to any civs leaving PAT. Also, during that 10t dissolution, a civ leaving PAT is under no obligation or expectation to fund research.
>
> --
> Cyneheard, Haphazard1, Antisocialmunky
> Lords of Avalon
> Suryavarman II of England

[Ilios]

I better start fortifying our southern border... I'm getting all paranoid because England told me they'd peel off a HA from their French reinforcements to unfog the route to Midas. They could hit the city easily with a two mover, and both Singa and Midas are on flatland, which is why I wanted England on our side in the first place.
We have a NAP till T100, with a ten turn cooldown, but as they say, rules are there to be broken...

And I can't suddenly pull back all of our troops to defend our borders, because that would make England suspicious.

I had been planning on building a Library after the Spearman in Midas, but I think I'll switch to a Barracks and then 1-pop whip an Axe and finish the Spear the turn after.

We'll be going max gold for a while anyhow, so no use in building Libraries now...

[Ilios]

So, Mukha has convinced Sandover (Rome) to join our cause. He has spoken to Byz as well, and allthough they are in, they can't seem to believe they would be betrayed by their supposedly close allies, Maya and Babylon.

This message was sent by Portugal to India, Ottomans, HRE, Rome and Byz:

Dear WNA,

I've emailed all the people who I think are now definitely on board. Some details still need to be worked out I think with one or two but in principle agreement is there. So welcome everybody! And let's do this!

A couple of priorites we need to cover first.

1. We need a name.

2. We need to convince Incans, Aztecs and hopefully Maya to join us. Maya just teched Metal Casting this turn, so it remains to be seen where they stand with all of us but it needs to be sorted this turn.

3. We need to figure out some goals. Some of us have badly stunted development that we need to get back on track so that is our personal short term goal. To convert completely to a GNP based civ.

4. We have some big problems with techs. Rome and Incans don't have maths and can't be given it by the rest of us. We also can't give monarchy around. So for Rome, Incans, Aztecs, and Byz they need to work out who should tech those.

5. We need to discuss our mutual military defense. Portugal and Rome have now become some of the more securely located civs on the map, but others are now more exposed and isolated to PAT members.

Probably lots of other things to discuss but let's not get ahead of ourselves. We personally don't have as good a relationship as some of you others with Incans, Aztecs and Maya so we will leave that up to those members.

Team Hug.

Mukha & Dantski.

A reply by Ottomans:

WNA,

Sounds good, I'll adress my opinions on the priorities:

1. I'm not good at names, so I'll leave this to someone else. WNA is
good if no-one else can think of anything.

2. I think both Inca and Aztec will join us. Maya is currently unknown
ATM, but Metal Casting will probably tell us if they are/aren't with
us. I'll assume that Inca and Aztec are in and Maya is out for the
rest of this message.

3. This probably fits into the next 2 points so I'll discuss it there.
We aim to be a techer in this new group, while still being able to
contribute units to the cause.

4. This is the main problem. PAT are about to discover the next round
of techs while we are still behind. Even if they choose to honour CAN,
they won't give it to all of us. It doesn't help that none of us are
that good at research yet (as compared to PAT, who are comprised of
mostly strong researchers). With that in mind, we need to get some
researchers going and for everyone to start supplying GNP in some
form, wether it be gold or research. The most important tech that
someone gets is currency since then we can share our gold around to
everyone. It remains to be seen if Babylon will give the tech to any
of us, but someone needs to start researching it so the rest of us can
get it anyway. We also need to start researching the other techs that
CANT didn't recieve. So I think the important techs ATM are:

Monarchy
Currency
Calendar
Construction
Metal Casting (if Maya aren't in, they have given MC to several PAT
members already)

So, I'm not sure what everyone else is Re:GNP, but I think that HRE,
ourselves, Byzantium and maybe India could be techers now while
everyone else saves gold. Portugal could turn into a techer once they
have started to recover a bit. We are saving gold in preperation to
research one of them (probably Construction)

5. A Mutual Military Defense is good but we will probably have to
attack them before we fall too far behind. While we have the numbers
(10v6 is likely at this point) and therefore have the long term
advantage, we need to prevent them from gaining a big enough tech lead
in the short term. With that in mind, there is a possibility that some
civs that aren't researching could attack someone in PAT. I think this
is a map of PAT and their neighbours:

Ottomans HRE Portugal
(Egypt) (Carthage) (England)
Byzantium (Maya) (Mali) (Babylon)
India Aztec Inca Rome

Byzantium might need to be careful about a PAT attack, since they are
surrounded by PAT members. Otherwise, we all border a PAT member
somewhere, so maybe a co-ordinated strike (i.e. everyone attacks at
once) could be sucessful. We would all have to attack sometime soon,
otherwise they will have the next era of units and it will be too
late.

Anyway, what do you guys think?

Enough Talking!
WarriorKnight of A4

And another message from Portugal:

Hey guys,

This email is mainly about the tech problem. India and I were talking and I think we have the beginnings of a plan.

Here is a relevant piece of information to understand the plan:

Great Merchant:

Currency
Banking
Economics
Corporation
Metal Casting
Code of Laws
Mining
Constitution
The Wheel
Alphabet (BTS)
Pottery
Sailing
Paper
Railroad
Industrialism
Monarchy
Civil Service
Guilds

That is the tech preference list for bulbing techs with a great merchant. I think you can probably see where this is going, but I'll go through the details.

HRE is due to complete CoL on t90(?). At the moment Babylon has offered to honour the trade of Currency to us, although I'm not sure if it's going to anyone else. If HRE could somehow convince Babylon to do a bilateral trade of CoL for currency that would be perfect. Currency comes in t92 last I heard from Babylon. Does HRE have metal casting and how likely is it that can you get it from Maya if you don't? It's above the techs we need in the tech prefernce list.

T93 both HRE and ourselves whip markets in our largest food surplus city and revolt to caste system and run as many merchants as possible. As neither of us have had a single great person yet eta for our first great merchants would be 17 turns running 2 or less with more. We hope to run at least 6 ourselves but no idea how quickly we can grow our cities at this point. We will starve the city if needs be.

The first tech on that list of tech preferences with us both having monarchy is Civil Service. One of us bulbs Civil Service hopefully around t100. To get everyone powering through techs I think it should be a priority so that everyone at least has the prerequisites for Civil Service for when we bulb it. So those techs need to be made a higher priority than Construction and Calendar. Meanwhile, Byzantium should tech Machinery (I noticed that you must have had MC was that self researched or from Maya?), we will tech feudalism. Aztecs? maybe should tech monarchy and any other tech required to get civil service, feudalism and guilds should be assigned so that they can all come in around t105. I know what you're thinking, why don't we just slow tech Civil Service starting today? But this way we can slow tech something else and still get CS.

After Civil service someone needs to tech paper. It's not an expensive tech. We could also try to arrange a bilateral with any friendly PAT members though this is unlikely. The only reason we need paper is that it becomes available with CS and it's above guilds in the tech preference list. So as soon as paper comes in whoever else ended up running merchants could then bulb Guilds, hopefully around t105-110.

Good aspects of this plan is that we get everything within a few turns of each other so there is very little warning for Byzantium's neighbours. I think Beaurocracy would be best for recovery for all the civs limited by their number of cities. I know some people here are aboslutely sick of war (ourselves included) so while this tech path has a powerful military goal it has very powerful developmental techs on the way for those who just want to build.

Let me know if you think this is feasible. As for ourselves we are now turning everything over to commerce.

Mukha
CBE

My reply:

That's some solid ideas!


Couple of points:

- We discover CoL T89. Assuming Krill doesn't bulb the tech with a Prophet before that date (he didn't take Monarchy from England for this reason), I suppose, in theory, we could ask for both Currency and Metal Casting from Babylon and Maya respectively. We met each other relatively late, and haven't had the time to establish cordial relations, so I'm not sure how likely it would be (Portugal somehow manages to get all the techs... )

- Does one really need Market/Currency to be able to run Merchant specialists in Caste System? The way I see it, you just need to revolt and you can basically run as many Scientists/Merchants/Artists as you like. (provided you have the food)
If that is the case, then we will probably be able to run 3-4 merchants by T95.

- While looking at the little map Ottomans drew of the teams' locations, I couldn't help but notice Krill's Egypt sits a bit exposed, surrounded by a lot of non-PAT members: India to its north, Ottomans to its north east, Byz to its south and Portugal to its northwest. I suppose a lightning strike is out the question, but I think that a 3-4 pronged attack on Egypt should sufficiently cripple our opponents' prime supplier of gold.

That's all I can think of for now, more to come though...


Ilios - DIM

So a question for lurkers:

The way I see it, you can run as many scientists/merchants/artists as you want under Caste System right?

So I'm not sure why Mukha wants us to whip a Market before starting to work the Merchants in a high food city...

Anyway, I've already singled out Singa Mati as the Merchant-Generator ™.

I'm going to 2-pop whip a settler there on T89, growing it back to size five on T91, and possibly size 6 the turn after (T93 at the latest). I'm not sure if I should start working 3 Merchants at size 6, or wait 2 turns to work 4 Merchants at size 7, but I'm guessing I'll get the Great Merchant faster if I start working three of them on T93. But I might need to hold off revolting until I finish a worker in DIM and Midas. I know, I should be waiting to revolt until I finish a settler, but in this case i think it's better to wait until the workers are finished so they can start improving the land while anarchy rages in the land.

I don't think I'll be able to switch to Hereditary Rule/Caste System/Organised Religion in one turn, so I'll have to switch to HR/CS for now. I'll swap back to Slavery/OR as soon as a couple of our cities have Confu (again, provided Krill doesn't steal it from under our nose), or I can just wait until Civil Service comes in and swap to Bureaucracy as well.

I will have to build a Confu Monastery to build those Missionaries though, but I suppose I can build that in Marble city or DIM. And it should spread naturally, naturally...

Good thing about Caste System is that Marble city will have access to that wet Wheat tile much sooner by forcing an Artist for 2 turns.

I'm thinking of building a Wonder. I've seen Ruff and Portugal have access to Marble, but they will be too busy either building more cities (Aztec) or expanding the economy (Portugal). India will have a monopoly on Aesthetics, at least for a while, so I'm considering either Parthenon or Swedagon Paya, since we have access to gold as well.
Parthenon would be nice, but I'm leaning towards SPaya at the moment, as it will allow us to switch to Pacifism.

Anyway, I'd only start building as soon OR and forges are online. Not sure if I should build from scratch or just do a massive forest chop in a new city location...

[Ilios]

Pah!

And now India thinks Byz has joined P.A.T.

If Mukha wasn't sure they'd join, why the hell did he include them in the email discussing our future plans?

We're so screwed...

[Ilios]

Prophet is born in far away lands... Game over...