[Spoilers] SleepingMoogle's thread

[SleepingMoogle]

Emperor Moogle,

It has not escaped the attention of my scouts and military advisors of the significant gathering of troops on my northern borders. Whilst I must say you have disappointed me immensly, I am not prepared to cut all cords immediately as I believe there is time for us to crawl back from this problem we encounter right now.

I still think it is unwise for us to be engaging in hostilities whilst we hold an advantage over the other two players. They had to war early and set back their development at the most crucial time. Do you think that a war between us will do anything other than weaken us both and let them, in turn, get the advantage back over us with their extra land? I shall also inform you that I am expecting to complete the Statue of Zeus next turn so declaring on me along with losing a lot if not all of your units will put you in a large amount of unhappiness which will in time cripple you as once you declare, there will be no peace and I will do my utmost to take you down even if it takes me down too. There are better targets than myself, and ones I dare say less prepared for your assault.

In short, I am prepared to make a significant offer to secure the peace, should you offer terms. I will listen to all suggestions, but I am not amenable to blind extortion, as my defenses are not as weak as you may imagine. Perhaps a large tithe of gold to further your lead will suffice? Assistance in a war with scooter?

I will hold the save until we have come to an agreement one way or the other,

TT

The Statue of Zeus? Really?

I'm sorry Twinkletoes, but when you're reading this, you really should have invested those hammers in your military. Happiness is not an issue for me at al, and I doubt this war will long enough for it to become a problem.

Since he did request terms though, I demanded his three northern cities. I doubt he'll agree to that, but you never know.

[SleepingMoogle]

Well, time for the Malazan emperor to be a sneaky bastard. Not unlike his counterpart from the books.

Twinkletoes seemed quite intent on avoiding war, to the point of ceding two of the three northern cities, along with some other provisions. Basically:

*TT will give me the eastern and western coastal cities and keeps the middle one. He will get a small gold per turn figure in return, but since I'd make like three times that simply by having control of the Hindu shrine (never mind the city), that won't affect me much.
*TT and me will cooperate and prepare for a war on scooter in ~20 turns. TT will aid by focussing on getting gunpowder and training Jannisaries to help in the conflict. We agreed that for each two of scooter's cities we capture, I'll return one of the two ceded cities back to Ottoman control. Given that this will almost certainly let me trade the Hindu shrine for the Great Lighthouse, I'm sure that I can live with that.
*We will be bound by a long-term NAP which basically prevents us from further hostilities towards one another until long after the war against scooter.

And this hasn't cost me anything except some muscle-flexing.

Now, in how far the above treaty will work out depends a lot on what Serdoa will do once he finds out I'm withdrawing from the war before it started. But whatever he does, I will stand to benefit from it. If he presses the attack, it will be a long time (if ever) before we capture scooter's cities, and in that time I'll have two cities to do with as I please. And if the war goes well, TT may just vassilize himself to me completely. If he backs off instead, it'll let TT and me focus on attacking scooter, and I may end up adding Incan cities to my empire pretty soon. And TT will continue to provide a nice buffer between the Indian empire and me.

I'm guessing I'll have lost Serdoa as a potential ally for the remainder of this game. In the end though, I think it'll be worth it.

Sneaky? Oh yes. But Serdoa is familiar with the series as well. He should have seen something like this coming.

[Tatan]

Just watch out for any female assassins in your employ...

[SleepingMoogle]

Time for a small rant. During work time no less.

I'm not going to paste here what has been going on via mails over the last few hours. Maybe one of the other players will post it in their spoiler thread, so look if you're really interested, but right now just thinking about them makes my blood boil, and I need to get something off of my chest.

Ever since the agreement with Twinkletoes, I have been deluged (and I'm sure TT has been as well) with complaints from both scooter and Serdoa, all written in that silly diplomatic doublespeak bullshit. Yes, I'm very much aware I am using it as well and the irony of that statement is indeed delicious and sweet, but did I ever mention that I hate it?

When I negotiated with TT, I actively tried to avoid him vassalizing myself to me, because I wasn't keen on a repeat of PBEM3. It would be worse in this game actually, since it would change the game balance even more from one turn to another. No, instead I decided to be gentle and opt for a scenario where TT, while weakened, would still be able to participate, and my own empire, while stronger, would not be the automatic victor. Apparently that was the wrong decision, because I've since been called an asshole for accepting such a deal in one message, and then weak for not forcing the complete capitulation of the Ottoman empire in the next.

I suppose that in the end, I am more disappointed than angry by how the game has developed over the last 24 hours. I don't play to win. I play and give it my best shot, but it's more important to me that everyone has a good time. And right now the game is quickly turning into something that isn't fun anymore. I simply can't enjoy a game where player's are at each other's throats like this.

I am hoping we can work this out in a manner that is satisfactory to everyone. If that can't be done, I'll probably resign. I'd rather leave this game in the hands of someone that still enjoys it and who can put some heart in it. I'm not certain whether I can do that anymore.

If I am to commit to another game in the future, it will probably have to be CTON or AW. I'm just about done with diplomacy in Civ. No matter what light you put them in, every player, in every game, seems to a carbon copy of everyone else; out to win, and not above screwing over the other players along the way. It's frustrating to commit to anything and to know this in advance. And while that may be the accepted standard fine towards winning, I'm tired of it.

Hopefully I'll feel better about this in the morning.

[SleepingMoogle]

A number of deep breaths and a good night worth of sleep later..

Twinkletoes has decided to stand and fight, and Serdoa has declared war on him. In response, I declared on Serdoa and started moving my forces south. I am confident that between the two of us, TT and me can at least prevent the core Ottoman cities from being captured.

Whether this will be a good long-term decision remains to be seen. I feel good about it though, and that's what counts right now.

[SleepingMoogle]

Well, the war has finally started for real now. Up until now Serdoa has had his fun picking on Twinkletoes, who keeps putting his stacks out in the open for some reason. That has cost him at least one stack so far, and my attempts to coach him seem to be rather ineffective. He has mentioned a slow-moving stack of axes, spears and cats is visibile somewhere, but despite repeated messages, I still don't know on which tile it is.

Anyway, Serdoa attacked and captured Alesia this turn. I had expected this and put my own Horse Archers in a position where they could counterattack, and they did with a vengeance. Alesia is now in Malazan hands, and Serdoa has lost 5 HA's and his GG in the process. His mounted forces are now reduced to 4 wounded HA's just outside of the city. He may decide to try and recapture (or more likely raze) the city since there's only one HA in there on defense. But since that would almost certainly cost him his remaining mounted forces, I expect him to withdraw and recuperate.

Over in the eastern sea, I attacked two of his Galleys with Triremes and sank them. Twinkletoes can now sink his remaining Galleys on his turn, which should hopefully give us command of the sea.

I decided to use the opportunity to throw Serdoa's earlier taunt back in his teeth, and demanded that he return Silarus Springs to TT. I doubt he will, but I Serdoa definitely is not as strong as he was a few turns ago.

Somewhat more worryingly, scooter has transferred a substantial amount of gold from his recent great merchant to Serdoa. I confronted him about it, and to his credit he did not try to deny it. Maybe I am the runaway power now, but what does that make India if Serdoa were to completely absorb the Ottoman empire?

[SleepingMoogle]

I realized that I probably should have documented and reported on the battle. I loaded up the save and tried to replay the battle, but the results varied this time around. Whether that is because I attacked with different units this time around (they were all identical, unpromoted units before the attack and the order may have been different), or because a random seed is used, I'm not sure. The next major battle will receive a full report.

Anyway, there were 6 Horse archers guarding Alesia. One was a Medic 3 GG, the other ones were regular horse archers, most of which were C1/Shock promoted. All but one of them were wounded though.

Since it was definitely possible to retake the city, and both kill Serdoa's medic 3 GG and cripple his mounted forces in the process, I decided to attack. A path was available to move the Horse archers to the tile north of the city, where they could attack without having to cross the nearby river. The goal was to take care of the Great general first, so I sent in a flanking 2 HA to try and soften him up.

Flanking 2 HA vs Medic 3 GG HA: Withdrew redlined, but left the GG at around 1,5 health

Pretty much what I hoped for. There was only one other healthy HA which had a Sentry promotion rather than combat ones. I sent another Flanking 2 unit against it (I like doing this for softening up enemy defenders while preserving my own units):

Flanking 2 HA against Sentry HA: Won but redlined in the battle

At that point the rest was pretty much a done deal. I won three battles against wounded C1/Shock HA's using Combat 2 units in 75, 85 and 90+% battles. A Combat 1/Medic HA took out the GG, and a Flanking 2 HA removed the last defender without sustaining damage and captured the town.

There are now 4 Indian Horse Archers left on the tile SE of the city, across the river. However, one is wounded and the other three are redlined. Serdoa might be able to retake or even raze Alesia, but this would require multiple HA's and some luck on his part and would certainly leave him without mobile forces. Just to make sure he won't try to attack my stack and get lucky, I covered the wounded HA stack with a fresh Knight that was just out of attack range. I'm expecting Serdoa to retreat back into Indian lands and recuperate instead though. Losing the remaining Horse Archers would cripple him.

On the eastern coast, Serdoa had a stack of 4 Galleys. Using the circumnavigation bonus, I was able to attack the stack from out of his reach. One Trireme sank a Galley but was redlined (ouch!) and the other was also succesful and merely wounded (better). Twinkletoes has another Trireme and two Galleys within striking distance, and he should be able to destroy the remnants of the stack. I'm not sure if that constitutes the remainder of Serdoa's naval forces, but I have a third Trireme on the way, and Twinkletoes and me should be able to start pillaging his coastline soon.

All in all, a good turn. Serdoa will have to withdraw his slow-moving stack or I'll be able to threaten either Silarus River or his capital. All things considered, requesting the return of Silarus River to Twinkletoes for peace is a fair demand.

[SleepingMoogle]

Well, it's official now. Serdoa will have to go. Rather than withdraw, he attacked and razed Alesia (it looks like there were some combat modifiers that I was unaware of), but I'm more annoyed with the accompanied 500 gold demand for peace, along with some random insults.

Even Twinkletoes, whom I bulled into giving up two cities a half dozen turns ago, agrees that Serdoa is behaving like an ass and needs to be taught a lesson. Since I doubt either of us will be backing down, I guess this means we'll settle down for an extended war.

Congratulations on the victory scooter.

[SleepingMoogle]

Scooter and I have been in contact for a few days now, not so much about the game itself, but discussing the metagame instead. In the last message, I noted that if Serdoa goes for full-out war against Twinkletoes and me, the game is all but won for him. He sent me this response:

SleepingMoogle,

I found myself really confused at that last message. How is razing an enemy city a dumb tactical decision? That sounds like the kind of comment Sullla used to make in PB2 that we all groaned at . If it hurt you enough to complain about it, then maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all. If I were him, giving up a few units to raze a city I couldn't hold sounds like a good decision to me. Especially since if TT gets it back, the cultural borders magically re-appear. That's GOOD tactics. I think you know that though, which is why I'm confused as to why you said it the way you did.

Also, how is this handing me the game? Are you forgetting that you are destroying me in every relevant demographic?

I guess I say all that to say this - I think you're jumping to a lot of conclusions, none of which seem to be true.

scooter

I'm a bit unsure whether he tried to apply a lot of spin to this message, or whether he's genuinely unaware of the situation. Yes, I am ahead in the demographics right now. However, scooter has caught up quite a bit over the last couple of turns and as long as I have to divert hammers into military and bear their maintenance cost, he can continue to focus on growth and eventually out-expand me. So invoke Sulla all you wish scooter; if this goes on for long enough, you will pull ahead soon enough. And that's ignoring the fact that I'll most likely have two fronts to worry about once the current NAP expires.


Anyway, plans.

I don't think TT and me can brute-force our way towards Silarus River. Instead, I'm considering a little Sirian doctrine and drop a bunch of forces behind the front lines. Optics research just came in, and a bunch of Caravels will be queued up soon. 4-move Caravels should be able to outmanouver the Indian navy. Right now, I have two stacks (one mixed cats/melee, one mixed melee/mounted) brandishing weapons near the Indian border to keep Serdoa on his toes. The first stack is near the eastern sea coast. The idea is for my Triremes to clear a path and allow and let the stack to hop aboard a bunch of Caravels, drop near his capital, and raze it before he can recall his forces there. Whether or not that will work remains to be seen, but it definitely feels more likely to succeed than marching on a culture bombed Silarus River.

Other than that, most cities have spent a turn on infrastructure (Harbors/Grocers mostly), and several cities were whipped with the overflow going into Caravels. Then it's back to more units. I'll need to ensure that taking units from the frontline will have replacements waiting for them.

T100 report coming soon?

[SleepingMoogle]

As Twinkletoes pointed out in one of our messages, Caravels are not in actuality Galleons. I can hope that once I'm out of the current night shift, I stop making silly errors like that but something tells me that's just wishful thinking. So instead of Caravels, we'll have a load of Galleys doing the transporting instead. Caravels are still the top naval unit right now and Optics also gave me added visibility and Whale boats, so it wasn't a wasted investment. Nor is there any reason to change the plan, since the Sirian doctrine still has more chances of success than marching straight into Serdoa's recently whipped Knights.

Here is the current situation at the front:



The current forces aren't enough to decisively strike against Serdoa's cities, but enough to prevent him from going on the offensive again. The stalemate allows me to send over Galleys for the planned naval strike, which will hopefully cascade into Serdoa's defeat.

Twinkletoes has been bombing Serdoa with espionage points over the last few turns, and now has visibility on his cities (and by extension his unit stacks). From this, I know that Serdoa is whipping himself into the ground in order to deny me victory. I can't say I enjoy that style of play (similar episodes in the Pitboss 2 game almost ruined lurking there), but it's what we'll have to live with. Once Serdoa is done, he'll have an army that I can match by keeping my cities at their current size, and when the combination of whipping anger and war weariness prevents him from growing his cities again, he'll be overrun.

Once the Galleys are in place, I'll probably upgrade the Holkans in the eastern stack to Pikes and load them, along with the Maces and some Catapults and send them south. The remainder of the stack will merge with my mounted stack in the center of the landmass, ready to counter Serdoa if he decides to go on the offensive. If he sniffs out my plans and moves forces to his capital, I'll be free to move on Silarus River. The units in the Galleys can always opt to land on Serdoa's island instead and wreck the cities there.

That leaves scooter. I sent him a threatening message yesterday, demanding that he would allow me to move forces through his land to open a second front at India's southern border. The idea here was to get his attention, and depending on how much he and India buddied up, spook Serdoa into pulling units off of the front line. I had no intention of actually going through with than plan (not enough units for that), but it should be interesting if scooter were to share the contents of that message.

Since a response to that message didn't arrive until now, I sent him a second one, basically closing my borders and blaming his cheap tactics for that decision. I also warned him that I'd consider our current NAP void if he continued supporting Serdoa. And it looks like that one got his attention. (If you read this later scooter, there were no hard feelings there. I basically wanted to get you worried and perhaps force you to abandon the rapid growth you've been focussing on).

Anyway, he mentioned that he had been unable to return a message until now, and that his funding of Serdoa was a payment for an earlier deal. I'm sure that RL intervened, it's not something to be dishonest about, but the timing in the funding seems a little too convenient to take his word without actual evidence. That probably will remain a mystery until the game's over and I can peruse the other spoiler threads. Scooter has had a sudden wakeup call in any case. What he'll do now is unclear, and it may actually be bad for me if he starts pumping out military as well (He can train Knights as well now), but I couldn't really do nothing. My glowering may very well keep him from fully focussing on expanding, so I wouldn't be behind when India is taken down.

For now, this is what my forces look like. Most of the older units are currently guarding cities, rather than fight on the frontline:




You might have noticed in the previous screenshot that I'm currently researching Aesthetics. Originally I was going for Alphabet this turn, to open up Printing Press. Considering the amoung of villages and towns I have, that would be a major economy boost. As I was taking screenshots for this report though, I noticed I was pretty close to spawning a Great General. Since my Triremes in the eastern sea were pretty much healed up again and joined by a fresh one, I decided to see if I could cause some damage and managed to sink two Indian Triremes (the end of that battle can be seen in the lower right of the screenshot) which was enough to spawn him. I attached the GG to a Knight on his way to the front and made him a Medic 3. As this gives me a 10XP unit, a quick beeline to Literature will allow me to make the Heroic Epic, which should help the war production greatly.

Here's the rest of the tech tree. I have everything to the left sans Meditation, and Guilds and Paper to the right:



I'll probably resume course to Printing Press after Literature, but after that it will depend on game developments. I have research visibility on both scooter and Serdoa, and know that Serdoa is researching Gunpowder. It'll take him a long time to reach it with the current state of his economy, but if scooter decided to fund him again, I may have to pick up Gunpowder myself to counter his muskets. Other ideas include a Liberalism - Nationalism grab, or a quick beeline to Rifling and Astronomy.

Here is a quick technical question to any lurker btw: Does me researching Astronomy obsolete scooter's Great Lighthouse, or will he need to research it himself before the wonder is gone? It might be amusing to deliberately tank scooter's economy.

Now for a quick look at the empire itself. Here are the basic numbers at turn 100:

100% - 496 beakers, -220 gold
50% (break even) - 253 beakers, +3 gold
0% - 10 beakers, +226 gold

I mostly stay at break even since most techs are researched in 1-3 turns anyway. I may have to dump research at some point to free up gold for promotions, but right now the active units are generally in good shape already.



The mainland is all but completely settled now. Every tile is improved, and the Workers are now placing roads to improve transportation of units to the front line, and making sure every hill is roaded as well. There's not too much more to say really. The cities are grown to the point that they'll need technologies to further improve, and are in great shape for repeated emergency whips should the need arise.

Unta - Basically building only military now. It runs some Merchant specialists when it can, but the war efforts make that an irregular occurence. I may want to place the National epic here if time allows.

Li Heng - I built a stables here to make the city my secondary producer of mounted units. It will spawn a Great Engineer next turn, which I haven't really decided a use for. I may keep him to rush the Taj if I focus on Nationalism, but I could use him for a regular Golden age as well if the need arises. Pyramids might also be an option, but I really need a Golden age before I'd consider switching civics as long as I'm at war.

Quon Tali - My science city, complete with Academy. I'm keeping the city on a science focus for the moment rather than a military once as it doesn't have great production potential. Instead, most of its hills are borrowed by other cities who are focussing on units instead. Definitely the place for Oxford later on.

Cawn - Main military producer, and the target city for the Heroic epic. I sometimes want to hit myself because I didn't build the city on a river for later levee action, but the game will probably have been decided by then anyhow. It currently trains Knights every two turns or so.

Belade & Falair - My two west coast cities. Both are currently focused on military, with occasional infrastructure whips. If allowed to, Belade will eventually focus on commerce while Falair will switch to production. There are a number of plains Cottages next to the city which I rarely ever use. Swapping those for Workshops feels like a better investment.

Philipi & Actium - The cities that TT ceded to me. They are not included in the screenshot, but are both on permanent military production (currently Pikes to counter Serdoa's Knights). Both also have pretty bad cultural issues, so they won't be functioning at peak efficiency for a while either.


The island:



Like the mainland, it's pretty much settled now. A single Worker remains to road the remaining tiles, but that's about it.

Malaz City - The city is working on the Moai statues, but keeps being distracted by other builds. Next turn it will swap to a military unit, whip it to completion, and let the overflow go back into the Statues. The city will have pretty decent production potential once the water tiles get their extra hammer.

Aren - Aren will probably serve as my forward Settler city. I don't want to ignore expansion altogether, and there's always more places to settle, but at the same time the city has the production to switch to military if needed.

Ubaryd - A filler city that will probably never do much of anything. I'm letting it build som infrastructure to improve its output, and occasionally whip out some units.

Ehrlitan - Ehrlitan has pretty decent commerce potential, but has trained missionaries for a while now to spread Hinduism throughout the empire. It will probably switch to military now, with the occasional infrastructure whip.


Finally the far east:



Both Letheras and Bluerose are still young cities, and knocking out some basic infrastructure. For now they are not involved in military production, but I am considering Letheras (the southern city in the screenshot) as the location to build the Forbidden Palace later on.

I turned the resource indicator on to show the next city locations. Red dot will be a good place for the Globe theater since it has little going for it other than the three Fish resources. The other island is also due for settling since Gems are an additional +2 happiness throughout the empire, and I don't have a Crab resource as of yet.

End of turn demographics:



Still looking good, but scooter has done a lot of catching up as of late. I'll need to find a way to deal with that sooner or later.