RB PBEM #2 - Justinian (SPOILERS!)

[novice]

Galley deposits first Longbow on Island of Ni! (so named because first two cities start with "Ni" and I'm British) then heads back for next.

Pity you can't build knights to defend that island.

[Rowain]

Pity you can't build knights to defend that island.

Yeah and Cataphracts who say Ni doesn't sound that well

[Dreylin]

Pity you can't build knights to defend that island.

Yeah and Cataphracts who say Ni doesn't sound that well

Ouch!

[Dreylin]

OK, diplo-stuff is hotting up; this was waiting for me from Ruff:

Hi Guys,

I've been thinking about this game post Yaz. Krill is totally running away with every stat in the game (sorry guys - but it is true). Darrell just flipped me his GNP graph and it is scary. I know that Darrell feels indebted to Krill because of the copper trade during the Yaz incursion. So, I think that they are working together to lib-fling Steel (a tech that will rock on this map with its drydock building).

To get there, they need to clear Engineering, Paper, Philo, Education, Gunpowder, Chem and Liberalism. That is a bunch of techs, but doable working together.

I am going to discuss this with Darrell and see if he will flip the techs we need to get us to steel (or at least Steel). If he will only flip Steel, then we need to research the techs to clear steel ourselves and by pass the other techs as not militarily critical. Japan sucks at tech at the moment, but I am in a position to provide funding to others who might be interested in picking up the techs we need. After that, one of us techs Astronomy (other 2 funding?) and we can then all build some water defense.

Any interest?

Ruff

Then this morning SL sent me this:

Hi Dreylinian I,

Hope you had a good holiday! Feels like an age since I played a turn! ;-) I just thought I would drop you a mail to help summarise a couple of things that have transpired while you were away.

You will have seen the email from Ruff. I would also like to point this chat I had with Darrell in your direction:

me: Hey Darrell - can you remember when Dreylin is back?
Seems like ages since we played!

Darrelljs: hold on let me check
I did want to talk to you about something before the game resumed...

me: go on

Darrelljs: He returns tomorrow!

me: cool

Darrelljs: My item is a bit of a delicate situation...

me: still wet the bed? ;-)

Darrelljs: Basically I've been roped into something and I am trying to level the playing field before Krill runs away with the game
hah-hah...not that bad

me: ok - how does this concern the native americans?

Darrelljs: Well its got a lot of upside for the native americans actually.

me: ooo - I promise to be discrete then

Darrelljs: You could get in trade Liberalism and Steel for the low low price of nothing .
or Astronomy perhaps.
So our current trade is I still owe you Optics/Engineering and you owe me Philosophy. I also owe Dreylin Optics for Paper. That squares me up with everyone and vice versa.

me: I realise that no-one else is going to get to Lib without trading with Krill - or it being Krill... he has already finished Edu!

Darrelljs: I know

me: ok

Darrelljs: So I have lined up a deal where Krill feeds me Education, Gunpwoder and Chemistry for Liberalisms, Steel, Optics, and Engineering.

me: who actually techs lib - steel?

Darrelljs: I would like to trade you and Dreyling Liberalism and Steel for Guilds and Astronomy. It means you guys need to research Gunpowder and Chemistry on your own cause Krill is not going to give you those.
I think Ruff has figured most of this out and I get the impression he would liek to gold fund for now given his economic state.
I have not approached Dreylin at all, but I think you guys are chums.

me: Ok - this sounds interesting.
So what is your motivation? Why not cuddle up to krill?

Darrelljs: Well from a strict beaker perspective you have three teams teching less than I am giving
Because Krill is going to get Drydocks, Frigates and kill you all.
And I don't want to see that happen.
And Cannon

me: Ok - can i discuss this all with Dreylin and Ruff - or does ruff already know?

Darrelljs: Ruff has guessed a lot of it, maybe all of it

me: Also - have you requested gold from ruff or need it to complete your teching obligations?

Darrelljs: Feel free to discuss it plainly with Ruff, what he hasn't figured out yet it is best you clear up with him.
No, I have explicity NOT done that as you guys need to get Guilds and Chemistry.
One final thing...do the math and if you can't get Astronomy in time, I will go Astronomy next and take a beaker credit.
I'm not sure where everyone's GNP is except Krill's (I have his graphs)

me: sorry - i just had some one come see me - quick minimise...

Darrelljs: no worries

me: I will have a chat with Ruff and Dreylin when he gets back and see what we can work out.
I am currently not trading Philo to Krill

Darrelljs: That is key...that is why I am teching Liberalism and why I will be able to trade Steel.
So you guys need to pick up Guilds, Gunpowder, Chemistry between the three of you, and unfortunately they are serial techs.

me: ok

Darrelljs: You'll want to fund your best techer I guess. The second best can put the leftover beakers into Astronomy.

me: I can crank my civ for tech and be funded by ruff - Dreylin techs pretty good too so hopefully we will be ok.

Darrelljs: Cool .
Do the math and I will do the math on my ETA for Liberalism.

me: I plan on swapping to Caste and running something like 6-7 sci specialists in my cap (Lib & Academy) - man - landing the Pyramids would have been cool...
That will give me some more GS to play with...

Darrelljs: education discounts gunpowder, maybe if dreylin is going guilds you go education then wait for gunpowder, especially if you can part bulb it
in fact you do need education to get liberalism as well

me: yeah - that is what i am thinking...

Sorry if it is difficult to read.

I have forwarded this to Ruff also.

The 3 of us should discuss farily soon what we should do - if we all want to work together that is - but I think that is what we need to do... Krill already has Education.

Anyway - I'll let you settle back into it.

Cheers,
Sitting Bull of the Native Americans

Wow, so Darrell decided to join with the forces of Evil (aka Krill) and then try to also join the forces of Good (i.e. me!). That's great for him if he can get it to work I guess...

I also had a chat with Ruff, which I'll stick in a separate post with more thoughts.

[Dreylin]

Ruff.Hi: morning

me: yes, it is.

Ruff.Hi: did you see that email from me to you and SL?

me: yes

Ruff.Hi: re Darrell / Krill and the steel sling
interested in teching to catch up?

me: oh yes indeedy

Ruff.Hi: great
I'll email you and SL about it later this morning

me: you, me & SL need to plot
cool

Ruff.Hi: I should have a stack of gold shortly to help
Yaz's capital is going down next turn

me: he & I have been talking about plotting, but I haven't had time to organise anything yet
you're committed to killing him?

Ruff.Hi: he = SL?

me: yes

Ruff.Hi: and him = Krill

me: nah, Yaz

Ruff.Hi: oh
yes
he napstabbed me

me: 4v2 is better than 3v2

Ruff.Hi: I cannot let him live

me: yeah, I had a feeling that would be the case


Ruff.Hi: and if I don't, Darrell will

me: well, your army could join with Yaz to prevent that

Ruff.Hi: not possible without breaking my Darrell NAP

me: hrm
even troop gifting?

Ruff.Hi: nope
just consider him dead and move on

me: Ah well

Ruff.Hi: I have invested too much to not get that reward

me: I thought Darrell would be getting that chunk of land?
(guessed)

Ruff.Hi: he gets capital and land to the NW, I get the balance

me: so no incentive for you to take Cap, right?

Ruff.Hi: apart from the $

me: What if Yaz paid you the $

Ruff.Hi: why do you want yaz alive?

me: because Darrell gets his developed land
and because 4v2 is better than 3v2

Ruff.Hi: wait a minute
who is the 2 in the 'v2'?

me: Also, once Darrell has that base on your island, it will make it possible for him to run a land war against you
Krill & Darrell

Ruff.Hi: nono
Darrell has a strong treaty with others in the game
not Krill

me: ahem

Ruff.Hi: but he is involved in a tech trade deal that nets krill and him steel

me: Darrell is playing both sides rather blatantly

Ruff.Hi: totally!

me: so why should we let him?

Ruff.Hi: he talks to everyone and that is his downfall
well - the be blunt - he is already in with me and SL
but he got himself in a mess with Krill and doesn't want to see Krill get too strong killing off you, sl and me

me: you know how he got Krill's Copper to save his Cap from Yaz?

Ruff.Hi: and he has said he will not attack Krill because of that copper deal

me: Then why is he committed to helping Krill get Steel!?!?!?!

Ruff.Hi: because he gets it
and he got talked into it
and he talks to too many people

me: <sigh>

Ruff.Hi: so he is trying to get everyone steel at or about the same time
yes
totally
not like good old pbem1 at all!

me: so why do we want to ally with him?
heh
BTW, we could get Liberalism in <12t

Ruff.Hi: well - lets get the steel tech cleared and see how things shake down

me: I disagree, I think that helps them too much
I think we should just run at Lib
force them to take Nat
that gives us more time w/o Drydocks

Ruff.Hi: and the downside if they completely out tech us?

me: aren't we going to lose anyway
with Darrell helping Krill?

Ruff.Hi: let me send you and SL that email
so that I can try and get it all down on paper

me: OK
But with Darrell committed to Optics & Engineering before going for Lib, that does give us a window...

So this plan of Darrell's to shunt us Steel just seems to me to benefit one person ... Darrell. It makes certain that the world stays in (roughly) status quo, whilst encouraging us (everyone non-Krill) to war with Krill and ignore Darrell's Culture run in the middle.

I can grab Education in 7t, so Lib would probably be ~5t beyond that. 12t; I wonder how long Darrell's going to be finishing Optics & Engineering before starting on Lib?

I guess I'll wait for Ruff's e-mail.

[Dreylin]

OK, since SL has the turn I sent him this:

Hey SL,

Had a great time and didn't miss Civ at all ... well maybe once. 9-)

Well, I guess Darrell's not as reliable as I'd hoped. I have to say that I don't like this plan very much; seems to benefit Darrell much more than the rest of us and lets him (continue to) not choose a side. I don't know about you, but I can knock off Education in 7t with gold support, so Liberalism would probably be an additional 5t beyond that. How long is it going to take Darrell to finish Optics & Engineering to fulfill his side of your trade agreement ... my bet is that it can't be much shorter than 7t, so why don't we just pool our resources and make a run straight at Lib ourselves? I think we can beat them there, or at least force Krill to research Philo and "only" be able to bulb Astro.

Please don't trade Philo to Darrell until we've had a chance to discuss this; Ruff's putting together an e-mail, but I think he favours the help-Darrell & Krill plan so we may need time to discuss.

Cheers,

Dreylin.

If he trades Philo to Darrell then there's basically no chance of beating "them" to Liberalism, however if we hold Philo and can mask what's going on with our research (need to check EP numbers vs. Krill) then I think there's a chance we can ninja it out from under them.

EDIT: Krill/me EPS are 100/57 after EOT. Using formula for research visibility (0.75*(100+EPs)) says that Krill would need ~118EPs against me, so he cannot currently see my research.

[Dreylin]

t96 - no word yet from Ruff, which is a bit disappointing.

Thessalonica: Market - Forge
Adrianople: Longbow - Courthouse
Nicomedia: Buddhist Monastery - Lighthouse

Not much going on; nothing needs whipping, and the Workers are all gainfully employed. I note that Darrell has Optics and I consider offering the Paper-Optics trade, however that gives him the use of the tech before me (as well as being able to request Education from Krill) so I'll let him propose the trade.

EOT, and I get ... my Prophet.

[Rowain]

EOT, and I get ... my Prophet.

Pity that now a Scientist bulbing into Edu would be sooo nice

[Dreylin]

In the absence of word from Ruff, SL & I are left to conspire on our own:

Hi Dreylin,

No word from Ruff yet.

I have the save atm but cannot play for ~ 12 hours so we have some time. I will be around most of the day for diplo though.

What GP did you get? If it was a Scientist then I would propose you go for Education. Otherwise I can fire my GA - start Education and bulb the rest but i will need funding from somewhere - Ruff most likely. It will then be straight onto Lib. Should be able to knock out both in 8-9t.

I have full ep's on Krill to prevent him seeing my research - hopefully we can nab Lib from under his nose - he still needs Philo to research Lib and might be concerntrating on Gunpowder atm if we are lucky!

If we do manage to get Lib - what should we bulb? Nationalism? it would open up Military Tradition for us to research (Ship of the Line) We could even get a little ahead of ourselves and research Nationalism then bulb Mil Trad... Depends if ruff can support both of us with gold for long...

Cheers,
Sitting Bull

Hey SL,

Yeah, bit disappointing that Ruff hasn't got in touch yet; maybe I pushed a bit hard yesterday by suggesting that he should spare Yaz so that it would be 4v2 ... or maybe he's just busy.

Anyway, my feeling is that the only way that Krill/Darrell get to bulb as high as Steel is if we allow them to do it. I really think that sooooo made a mistake not challenging our Liberalism run in PBEM#1, and I don't think we should do the same. That they (lumping Darrell & Krill together despite Ruff's pleas to the contrary) have a much higher combined GNP than the remaining 3 of us means it makes even less sense to let them advance unopposed.

I got the 90%+ Prophet, which gave me surprising mixed feelings considering he'll net me a base of 12gpt from next turn. So if you're up for making the run to Edu, I'll support any way I can. I'm currently 3t from Guilds with sufficient gold in the bank to fund it, but that can be put on hold if Ruff can't/won't supply the funds. If you need gold for next turn I'd suggest you request it from Ruff, but if you also let me know how much you'd need then I'll offer the sum myself ... that way if Ruff comes through you can refuse the offer, otherwise accept it if needed.

The EP formula for seeing research is: 0.75 * (100 + Our EP against them) Krill can't see mine at the moment, but he has run the EP slider against me in the past so there's no telling if/when he'd do it again. Anyway, it won't matter for long; as soon as he sees the Scientist born he'll know what we're up to and then it'll just be a question of whether we can win the race.

Ship of the Line is from MilSci (off Chem) not MilTrad, and I don't know that we'd have time to research anything big before popping Lib, so I'd suggest we just grab Astronomy and get a head start on building our fleets.

Cheers,

Dreylin.

[Dreylin]

and here's the diplo-train you may (or may not) have seen with the three of us:

Guys,

I've chatted to Dreylin and SquareLeg about this. I think the consensus is race Darrell / Krill for Lib. My fear is that they will beat us and we won't get anything.

Basically, Darrell has said that he will share Steel with us as soon as we can receive it. To do that, there is a limited number of techs we would need to clear (I don't have civ in front of me so I cannot tell you what they are). We wouldn't need some like Education as it isn't a pre-req for Steel.

On the other hand, we could race them for Lib.

Japan is willing to set itself up as a $ provider to do this.

Longer term, Darrell has firmly planted himself in every single camp and as a result, isn't such a strong partner with anyone. I have a NAP with him so I cannot attack him directly. He has also stated that he will not start an assault on Krill but he will defend himself.

So, what do you want to do? Either way, Japan will supply you with funds for the teching. You options are to grab the pre-reqs for steel and get the tech from Darrell or to race both Krill and Darrell for Liberalism.

Ruff

Ruff,

Pre-reqs for Steel:

Engineering (Darrell is researching and will probably trade)
Gunpowder
either Education or Guilds
Chemistry

... we would also need to research Astronomy for Darrell's suggested trade.


Thoughts:

The biggest winner in Darrell's proposed trade is ... Darrell <shock> as basically everyone is researching for - and trading with - him.
Guilds will finish in a couple of turns, but skipping Education as a faster research route is pretty self-defeating since we delay access to Universities (and SL gets them cheap) to accelerate our teching; be assured that Krill is pulling further ahead even now as he builds them.
The current Darrell/Krill research plan is for Darrell to trade for Philo from SL and then start on Liberalism, however he needs Engineering first to get that trade going. He finished Optics last turn, so has only just started Eng (though I'm guessing Krill is funding the research?). This is our window.
GNP graphs say that Darrell, myself and SL are at around the same level (though mine - and SL's to a lesser extent - are likely skewed by recent Wonders and my abundance of religious buildings). This suggests that we could keep at least close to his research rate.

Overall, I dislike having my tech path dictated by my "opposition" and to feel like I'm chasing them to try and keep level. I think we have a good chance of giving them a real race for the tech, primarily since Darrell is going to be the one going for it.

The worst-case possibility IMO is that D/K spot what we are doing, at which point their best way to beat us is for Krill to turn his monstrous research engine on first Philo and then Lib. I think that having him duplicate Philo research with only a 1 player discount is still not a bad result, and even if we are forced to invest beakers into Liberalism only to lose it, at least they only grab for Astronomy and not all the way down to Steel. (Krill having 1-way Ironclad access to my East coast is not something I'd relish!) Plus we get Education, and don't fall even further behind on the research pyramid.

I say lets race.

Dreylin.

Hello Both,

I sided on racing too to be honest and have just uploaded the turn. I have initiated a GA and will now have a very strong chance of a GS in 3t who will bulb inot Education - max overflow into Lib...

I can then run straight to Liberalism with the remaining golden age turns. I'd estimate that Liberalism will take 6t so we are looking at landing Lib in 9t hopefully. Krill did run ep's against me last turn but cannot see my research yet.

Darrell had offered Optics - Philo trade but i declined - I'll write to him and ask that we wait until he has Engineering in before finalising the deal.

So here goes guys!

Ruff - I have requested 400g and offered you Feudalism in return - that should see me through for a bit but I am eating gold at 70gpt...

Cheers,
Sitting Bull

I think I've laid my position out pretty clearly here in my e-mail, but as always please ask if you want any clarification. Be as general as you need to avoid spoilers, I can probably waffle on long enough to at least touch on your real question...