[SPOILERS] scooter - Zara Yakob

[scooter]

Sandover declared war on Twinkletoes. He didn't tell me much, but he's going to give me the scoop tomorrow... Made up some lame excuse like "I want to show the lurkers first" or some garbage like that . TT hit me up on chat real quick to let me know as well - he seems kind of ticked.

*popcorn*

[scooter]

Slow turn so no pictures... I met Bob's warrior in TT's territory which was nice to finally complete the set of contacts.

I'm burning through a bunch of the religious techs at one turn apiece right now... I founded my 8th city (the modified stone/incense city) this turn, and my 9th (Timmy border city) and 10th (backfill iron + spices + dyes) will both be founded next turn. I'm heading to Monarchy because I'm badly in need of Hereditary Rule, so that's the thinking there.

[scooter]

Founded cities #9 and #10 this turn, which puts me even with Timmy and one ahead of Sandover. I'll post pictures later... Monarchy came in (!) so I can finally switch to Hereditary Rule next turn, which will help me immensely seeing as I'm capped at size 6/7 cities right now . By contrast, Sandover has cities of sizes 11 and 12.

Timmy founded a city that is somewhat in SleepingMoogle's face, stealing the spot I ceded to SleepingMoogle. I'm wondering if this will irritate him... Could be a potential 3v1 on Timmy...? I'll have to see what Moogle has to say. Might send him a chase-up email to feel him out on if that irritated him.

[scooter]

Actually I just typed one up real quick. Left it open-ended, but here's what I said:

SleepingMoogle,

I noticed Timmy founded a city in a spot that I assumed you would be founding... Did he tell you he was going to do that?? I saw that and first thing that went through my head was "oh SleepingMoogle's going to have a cow when he sees that..." What's your thoughts on that? Seems like awfully aggressive settling from Timmy... That land is WAY closer to you than him.

scooter

In a way I'm trying to stir up dissension, but I'm closer to Moogle than I am to Timmy so I also genuinely want to help him out here, or at least see what he's thinking. I feel bad that he lost the spot, though this is why I told him to hurry. If he wants to go to war over this, I may try to get a summit between him, myself, and Bob and see if I can talk Bob into whipping out some chariots. I have Catapults now, so I could easily whip a round of Catapults. I would be surprised if Timmy has Construction only because he has Calendar and he's GOT to have a struggling economy with the amount of cities he's founded. I may waste a couple turns grabbing Alphabet so I can find out what techs everyone has.

[scooter]

Alright so my 3 new cities... All 3 were built in a span of 2 turns, so it was quite a number jump. Amazingly this puts me at break-even at 60%... I swapped some screenshots with Sandover the other day and noticed he's losing money at 30%, and now I have more cities than him! Makes me feel good about the state of my economy, I've been heavily laying down cottages and it looks like it's really paying off. Here's the first city:



Here's the second one, on the northeastern border with Timmy. His archer there was fog-busting/sentry before I founded it, so that's why he's sitting there:



And here's the third, a nice backfill city:



Diplo update with SleepingMoogle coming in the next post.

[scooter]

I was going to contact you about this after my holiday but no, he didn't contact me despite having a scout next to my borders. He knew he was settling next to me, yet I was unaware of this until I saw the borders last turn. To say I'm displeased with this is an understatement, and I am wondering what your thoughts are on curbing Timmy's aggressive expansion towards us, and moving his borders back west a ways.

-SleepingMoogle

SleepingMoogle,

Actually from talking to him, Bobchillingworth has had some relatively aggressive plants in his direction as well... The two of us both agreed to leave the aggressive action option on the table if we ever needed to, and now that you are having to deal with this too, a little 3v1 to push him back might be effective...? I'm not necessarily talking about full-scale war if we don't want to, but if we pushed him back on our side and Bob hits him with some Praetorians, we could do a fair bit of damage and be able to keep him from concentrating forces on both sides.

Is this something that interests you at all? If so, let me know and I'll try to talk to Bob about it and see what he thinks... You have contact with him right?

scooter

Well things are getting...interesting. Timmy might be in a little bit of trouble, as he's managed to annoy Bob and Moogle and not really make any friends. The very limited times I've talked to him, he seems like a nice guy, but he just doesn't put any real effort into the diplomacy. Honestly the right play for him in this situation was probably to buddy up with SleepingMoogle and take me out with his help.

I know he's a very good player though, so if we do something it'll definitely take some work. I'm dead last in power right now, though I finished my first Catapult and I have a barracks in all my oldest cities now, so I could turn this into a whip-fest if I wanted. Should be interesting to watch unfold. If I get a response from Moogle it would be nice so I can talk with Bob about this over the break this week.

[scooter]

Well we are finally playing again after a week off. I finished Monarchy so I immediately revolted into Hereditary Rule. Sandover and TT are at peace and they have quite the peace arrangement... Sandover sent me a copy, but with how much he updates his thread (better than me!) I imagine he's posted it. If he hasn't, let me know and I'll post it here.

[scooter]

Timmy is probably going to be in a world of hurt in the future. Sorry, just a teaser post for now, but a full diplo update coming in a few hours.

[scooter]

So I was going to dump in here my chat with Bob, but it's messy and I'd have to edit out the occasional spoiler from other games that we talked about a little bit, so I'm only going to post the chat log if someone requests it. Here's a summary:

1. Bob is out of land, and his land is pretty subar
2. Timmy is *really* thin on defenses.
3. Bob has 5 War Chariots from Sandover or something along that line, and he's hoping to add that to around 11 Praetorians
4. Bob has two more cities he's going to settle before kicking into full war mode in about 6 turns.
5. I did a bit of deficit spending to get Paper one turn sooner, which I got at end of turn. We are going to exchange maps next turn.
6. I am going to try to talk SleepingMoogle into at least razing Timmy's aggressive Northeastern city.

So here's emails that I've sent out since then, to Sandover and SleepingMoogle:

Sandover,

Well I will for sure be getting Bobchillingworth's maps shortly, so I suspect of all people that might motivate you . And the reason for that... well how about I share that with you. I think you'll be interested to know...

So Bob hit me up on chat yesterday, and he wants to attack Timmy. He's run out of room to expand, and he's just about ready to swap over to military... So in the next half dozen turns or so he'll swap over to full-tilt Praetorian production, and he'll attack Timmy. I'm planning on joining him. It won't be a huge war of conquest for me - I'm planning on just taking one city (Loon Lake), but it will force Timmy to either fight on both sides or withdraw on one side to face the other. I'm going to contact SleepingMoogle and see if he wants to time the attack with me and raze the aggressive Timmy plant that I showed you the other day...

I have a proposal for you - though I won't be offended if you say no. How far away are those War Chariots from my land? If you would fore-go the SleepingMoogle assault and gift them to me, I'll research Alphabet next, and I'll give you a full report on the tech situation for everyone. Paper will be done in 2 turns, and Alphabet is only a 2 turn tech for me if I remember correctly, so you would get this update soon - probably before you can even get the War Chariots to me.

Also keep in mind, those War Chariots being gifted to me would actually benefit you indirectly. By giving them to me, they get used against Timmy, who is probably your top rival at the moment... So basically you get to chime in on the attack without the diplo hit of having declared war on him. So in summary:

I get:
-2 War Chariots (it's just 2 of them right)?

You get:
-tech info on everyone very soon - sooner than I planned
-to help knock your top rival down a peg
-to not have to pay unit support for 2 War Chariots

So..that's my sales pitch . Your thoughts?

scooter

Not sure if that will work or not..? Hopefully it will. Also sent one off to SleepingMoogle:

SleepingMoogle,

Just a quick chase-up on this topic... Bob hit me up on chat yesterday, and he would like to take some of Timmy's land. Bob ran out of land, so he would like to begin prepping for war soon. I am planning on joining him with the goal of capturing Timmy's city of Loon Lake. Are you interested in joining in? This would allow you to take the city that Timmy founded towards you, and you wouldn't have much fear of him re-inforcing it because I'd be going at Loon Lake (and Bob would be attacking him on his west front). Actually you may luck out and find Timmy just abandons the city .

So what's your thoughts?

scooter

I actually pasted in a message between myself and him in PBEM7 first... Total accident. I caught it right before hitting submit reply.

[scooter]

Paper is in, next Metal Casting -> Machinery -> Guilds. The war path. I made a map trade with Bobchillingworth, so here's a few screenshots of the known world:

Bob's Core:



Wow he is a bit cramped. I see why he feels the need to take out Timmy... Compare that with Timmy's land:



Much bigger and better. Finally here's a shot of the northeast, you can see Twinkletoes and a shell of Sandover's land:



Sandover seems set on not letting anyone else explore his core, which... I don't really care I guess..? Seems odd that he's making a big deal out of it, but that's his thing I guess. I'll do a diplo update in the next post, and you'll see what I mean.