SPOILERS-Tatan's PBEM10 Thread

[Ilios]

Hey Tatan!


Just went through your highly enjoyable thread, you and Adlain seem made for each other, keep up the good work!


Those East Indiamen are indeed very nice for this kind of map. I'll be looking forward to see you making good use of them...

[Tatan]

Editor's Note: Fair warning, I was kind of what you might call "high on life" when I wrote this, so be aware that it is pretty screwed up.

Thanks Ilios! Indeed, East Indiamen are something I am simply dying to take advantage of; how humiliating for the other players to say something like, "I was totally trampled by the Dutch! No, seriously! Quit laughing!".


Good news, Meatbalz actually sent me an email, and it wasn't "Time 2 die nao"!

We all make mistakes, I've made many myself in this game as you'll see once it's all over and we check each other's spoiler threads :-D

I don't agree supplying Serdoa with iron = him buying an army from me, not at all. He did all the building etc himself, and like I said, it's a much more advantageous situation for me than for you, since I actually got something from my iron. Not to mention we'd had the agreement in place for several turns and were just waiting for me to hook it up.

Anyway, I saw you and Serdoa made peace last turn, so congrats on that. The more time one spends at peace in Civ, the better. I hope I had something to do with that in alerting you to CH/AH relations. Obviously from a selfish perspective I'm very happy since the longer the balance of power is maintained over on your part of the world, the more time I have to catch up from my TT-induced city loss and subsequent military build at the expense of my infrastructure.

I'm a pragmatist. We've clearly not worked well together (or at all) so far, but circumstances can change in a heartbeat. If you ever become willing to open borders, I'd clearly welcome that. Otherwise, I hope you'll agree to keep the lines of communication open at least (although FYI the last few days have been hectic and I won't be overly active over Thanksgiving either so my replies may take some time)

MB

Interesting.

Things to take away from this: Meatbalz really, really wants allies against Cyneheard. Maybe I'm mis-interpreting this, but that's sure what it seems like. Anyway, here is my response:

Indeed. You might find a particularly... pertinent mistake I made early in the game when you read my spoiler thread.

I admit that my anger is also significantly lessened if you really did have a pre-existing deal in place. As a gesture to make amends, I would like to propose opening borders between our nations, with a "no scouting with land units" clause in place. You definitely stand to benefit the most from it, seeing as I already have plenty of trade routes for myself. There's not exactly much else we can collaborate on for the moment, but know that I am open to cooperation.

-Tatan

Do I trust Meatbalz? As far as I can toss a Camel Archer. Do I desire to work with him? Sure, anything to make me a less lucrative target. Open borders really are pretty symbolic; I already have Sumeria, Greece, and Carthage [plus Russia for a bit] to rely on.


Haven't shown a good pic of the ol' empire for a while, so here we go:



Explanations
-The "Rally Point" signs are where I keep mini-stacks that can immediately reinforce/counterattack nearby cities. I have at least one catapult in each.
-Aren is now official Moai site, because it could really use more productive tiles.
-The settler/ax/trireme in Darujhistan/Genabaris/Mott are being used not to settle the last spot on the home island, but instead for settling this...



Notice my trireme scouting around for a good city site. Hey, more land=good, and if I can get away with this... . Of course, it may turn out that MB/Serdoa beats me there, or that there's no good place with little overlap with existing cities. But if there IS a good place, I have no qualms about taking it. If Serdoa wants to fight me again, it's his own funeral, and if Meatbalz wants to fight over it, than at least I may give Twinkletoes an opening to strike.



Map Talk
My opinion of the map? I like the concept, quite a lot; plenty of naval action without the frustrating logistics of Tiny Islands. However... the balance, frankly, is pretty horrible. Putting aside completely the strategic resource placement, look at this:



Okay, kids, let's play the counting game! We'll see how far it is from the "Oh, so beautiful..." sign to each home island!

Okay, go!

...

Done yet? No? Okay.

...

Alright, you should be done now--what?! C'mon, this isn't that hard. What, you lost your glasses? Here, let me... no, sit still... screw it, take the damn answers:

To me: 15
To Twinkletoes: 15 [yes, I know you can't tell this from the picture; just trust me]
To Serdoa: 11
To Cyneheard: 11
To Meatbalz: 10
To Ad Hoc: 9

Keep in mind that for myself, TT, and Serdoa, you actually have to cut through a friggin' island in order to get there in the minimal amount of tiles. Here, let me do a side-by-side comparison for emphasis:

To me: 15 [only, in reality MORE]
To Ad Hoc: 9 [NINE!]

What the -blam!-?! Even if you put Ad Hoc's capital on the other side of his island and put my capital on the side nearest to the center, he would STILL be closer due to the fact that by the time people began settling other places they would have filled in at least half of the main island! Realistically, I had very little chance of making it over there; and if I did, it would slay me in maintenance. Seriously.

Not to pull a Krill and spend the rest of the game bitching about the map, but honestly I fail to see how Kyan couldn't make everyone's islands start equidistant to the center.

Other than that, though, map's fine.


Conspiracy Theory Time!
So I was thinking about the historical Napoleon recently, when something occurred to me: just like Napoleon, I launched an assault on Russia that got totally stalled out! So I started looking into who could potentially cause my Waterloo; so I thought, who defeated Napoleon in the battle? The Duke of Wellington, naturally. What country was he from? England. And WHO was on the team playing as England in Pitboss 3?

Wait, where did he come from? Okay, let's try that again:
And WHO was on the team playing as England in Pitboss 3?

CYNEHEARD. So obviously, Cyneheard is the re-incarnated form of the Duke of Wellington sent to ensure Napoleon's eternal defeat! Need more proof? Fine.

What is Cyneheard's naming theme? C's. And WHAT exactly is England famous for? Its domination of the seas! Which sounds exactly like "C's"! IT CAN'T BE A COINCIDENCE. What's more, if you look at the names Cyneheard and Cyrus, they both contain the first two letters "cy-". What is the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of "cy-"? Cysts. And I just HAPPEN to know someone who has a lot of cysts on his face. And guess where he just happens to be from? BRI-actually, I don't know, but he sure SEEMS British. WHAT MORE PROOF COULD YOU POSSIBLY NEED?!

Now, you may ask, "Then why didn't Cyneheard play as England and select Churchill or something?" Because, you FOOL, that would be too obvious! Seriously, WAKE UP, SHEEPLE. There coming four you!

And don't even get me STARTED on Twinkletoes and the robot-skeleton-zombies.

[Adlain]

Ahh, you do remember I am British don't you

As for you actual worries over cyneheard (I never remember how to spell his name) he is def a top player in this game, but don't let meatbalz twist your head too much into his direction, else we will be unprepared for somone else to attack us on our blindside.

My thoughts on the ge is ether settle or more pref. Build a free wonder of our choice.

I will try and post more latter, I'm on my phone and was not able to log in yesterday due to some family issues.

[Krill]

Not to pull a Krill and spend the rest of the game bitching about the map, but honestly I fail to see how Kyan couldn't make everyone's islands start equidistant to the center.

*shrug* You're justified.

[Tatan]

Ahem. Blame the internet. Anyway, update time.

Where were we? Ah, yes, trying to kiss-up to Meatbalz, raving madly about British people [a favorite hobby of mine], and conspiring to steal a city site.

So how did the first one go?

Agreed, and accepted with many thanks. I've offered OBs in game.

And since we are on the path to cautious cooperation, let me unveil some of my totally awesome diplo style you've been missing out on.

It's kicking off over to my West, AH declared on TT this turn. I don't have first-hand visibility into what's going on there but from the power graphs I'd say AH has the upper hand (although not as much as you did over Serdoa - gotta admire his cojones for declaring on you like that! - and you came out there clear winner there)

Last turn TT told me he popped a metal source, AH told me "he was reliably informed" TT popped both copper and iron (!!!!). From the trade screen I can see TT has iron hooked up, talk about a lucky break. I'm not sure whether it's enough to save him though.

Especially given this little tidbit - I opened up the game and got an in-game request from TT for my stone (I owe him 10T access as part of our peace deal). Now, why he would want stone at a time like this is beyond me, but I fear he might be over-run by AH. We'll have to wait and see.

Congrats again on your war with Serdoa; short & sweet, you got a GG & city out of it, can reassemble troops, resume building infrastructure... really a best-case scenario for you. Well played.

Regards

MB

Yes, my forthcoming-ness is already paying off in information! Sure enough, in the event log Ad Hoc as declared on TT. And sure enough:



Lucky bastard! And I checked the trade screen and he DOES have iron! Well I'll be dunked in a barrel of mud and named Horatio... I certainly feel a lot better about my attack on Serdoa now!

Anyways:

Wow, that's pretty damn lucky on TT's part! My exploratory workboat from thousands of years ago actually saw the copper mine while sailing past, TT is still roading it.

I don't have Ad Hoc's graphs either, but unless TT is unexpectedly brilliant at building up military Ad Hoc is currently the one with the Top Soldier Count [he passed me a couple of turns ago]. Hopefully, though, the new metals will allow TT to at least give some form of resistance [although, his asking for stone is mildly worrying, I don't understand why he would do that].

Things didn't actually go as good in my own war as you might think, I came pretty close to taking on of Serdoa's core cities, but some RNG luck saved him. Regardless, it did turn out pretty well for me, I agree.

-Tatan

Information reciprocation.

I also made sure to sent best wishes to both Ad Hoc and Twinkletoes against the other. Only the wishes to TT were actually sincere, of course.


Moving on to my settler plan... on further reflection I have decided against it. I really don't want to destroy my fledging relations with Meatbalz, although relations with Serdoa would be no big loss.

My thoughts on the ge is ether settle or more pref. Build a free wonder of our choice.

Problem with rushing a wonder, though, is I don't really have anything to rush at the moment. The Aesthetics line isn't one I want to go up, and I can't even think of another wonder coming up any time soon besides Notre Dame, which is not a particularly good wonder for this map. So I guess I'll settle him in Mott or Daru.

[Tatan]

Gold tributing from Serdoa starts. I just realized that as long as we are doing these, there will be a game-enforced peace treaty with Serdoa; clever.

The barb galley suicided on one of TT's galleys, depriving me of free exp.


Since there is not a lot going on this turn, I thought I would post a mini-overview of my state relative to the world's right now.

My Own Cities


Focus: Infrastructure, with a side of Garrison Units and Workers. As you may notice from the massive build time for the forge in A&A, many of my colonies have pretty much no production right now. It's not as bad in the south right now, due to the forests I'm having to work right now because of the short worker supply cottage [and also Aren will have Moai in ~6 turns]. The west, however, is going whole-hog on the cottages and will require whipping to be the primary form of production. Forges will be invaluable in this. I'll post a pic soon of my beautiful land once it's completely developed [Turn 100 mega-reports, anyone? ].


Tha D3m0gr4phix


I'm pretty happy with these right now. Despite my warring, most of these are pretty good.

GNP
My tradition weakness throughout this game, this is the thing that is really worrying me. Of course, it is screwed up because people like Serdoa went and built 743 wonders, and also unlike most people I don't run binary science, but it still needs to be improved. My plan? Cottages, all over the fricking place. The western island is already mostly covered, and the south is getting there. The question is, should I also try to cottage over the main island? Almost every grassland tile already has one, but there are several good plains tiles nearby... but on the other hand, it's probably best if I just farmed those. Blah, so many options.

And I suppose Org-boosted Courthouses will help, too; there's just so much else to build ATM that they really aren't too much of a priority.

Production
Actually not as weak as it seems, because I'm pretty neck and neck with the other top two people. Not nearly as much variation here between people as with some of the other categories.

Food
Yeah, number one! Woot! By a pretty significant margin, too. This is probably due to the massive whipping that has been going on [Cyneheard and Meatbalz have been cranking out garrisons, Twinkletoes and Ad Hoc are at WAR, and Serdoa is a measly dwarf anyway]. So don't tack this one up to me, tack this one up to everyone else. Still feels good, though.

Soldiers
Ad Hoc is super cereal, apparently. My large soldier count will probably allow me to avoid training too many maces/xbows; I'll simply coast to knights, unless of course Cyneheard gets frisky.

Land Area
Not claiming the center is probably going to hurt me unless I take some more land relatively soon.

Population
See: Food

Approval Rate
I'm starting to grow into my happy cap, but fortunately I am beginning to build Buddhist Temples and Colosseum.

Life Expectancy
Oh noes!

Exports/Imports
Holy shiatz, 117?!


All those other n00bs who happen to be playing
I think there are three fairly distinct tiers in this game, exemplified rather well by the city count:

Meatbalz: 13
Cyneheard: 13

Me: 11 [+1 in two turns]
Ad Hoc: 11

Twinkletoes: 10
Qin: 8

Honestly, I'm a bit worried about Cyneheard's 13 cities. I mean, even with me completely controlling the home island, completely controlling the southern island, and controlling exactly half of the western island [and the iron island], I only have 12 cities. How he managed to cram in an EXTRA city while controlling LESS land is beyond me, unless Kyan added an extra island somewhere that I don't know about. Meatbalz's 13 is more understandable, considering he has a city on the center island.

The biggest danger, right now, is that I am left behind in tech by Cyneheard and/or Meatbalz. GNP is key. [it rhymes so it must be true]


One last aside: as of the end of turn, with the discovery of Machinery, I am top of the scoreboard!

:2dance:

[Tatan]

Addendum:

TT responded to my note that, essentially, he was not overly worried. I REALLY hope he's right for once. Pardon me when you eventually read this, Twinkletoes, but your track record in wars so far has not exactly been spectacular.

[Adlain]

I have very limited time at the mo, however I will say that we are doing better than I thought, however we must be very careful as I see us as around 4th at best tbh due to our poor techrate. Our war with serdoa has actualy helped us I believe by gaining us a decent city, little cost and (I beleive) show us capable of keeping our word and even managing, to a point, to restart some diplo with meatbalz.

With war erupting to our west, we now must be prepared for a attack from cyneheard. He is no fool and with 2 of his neibours engaged in war, now could be a great opportunity to try and give us a bloody nose with little threat on his flank. Naps are, afterall, non inforceable and one can never fully trust them.

That said, I certainly don't think we are weak, if we get a chance to tech to east Indiamen ( aka the bloody boat uu that I cannot remember the name of) then we will certainly have an opportunity to do somthing useful laterone in this game.

[Tatan]

What a coincidence, Adlain, I don't have much time right now, either. So here's a small nugget from the turn.

Daru finishes worker, starts market.

(I told you it was small! Maybe I should have said tiny. Or diminutive. Anyway, Tatan out.)

[Tatan]

There comes a time in every man's life when he get's lazy, when he hangs in the saloon all day smoking pipes and shooting cards. But son, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And what you need to do right now is get up off yer bum, get out there, and update that thread.

I blame lethargy. But screw sleep, let's roll!

With war erupting to our west, we now must be prepared for a attack from cyneheard. He is no fool and with 2 of his neibours engaged in war, now could be a great opportunity to try and give us a bloody nose with little threat on his flank. Naps are, afterall, non inforceable and one can never fully trust them.

I admit I have a bit of a paranoid streak, but I don't think he'll break the NAP [Cyneheard seems honest, if sly, and plus my power rating is still significantly higher]. And if he does, than I will literally bend ever inch of my power towards getting revenge for it; as a great Frenchie once said, "You have chosen unwisely."

Now on to...

[SIZE="5"]Turn 91![/SIZE]



Woot.



Alright, let's go for Circumnavigation! Honestly, if someone else is actually trying for this, I doubt we'll get the bonus, but I'm hoping that others have had different tech priorities.




Galley: "time 2 die"



Trireme: "no u"




Most. Incompetent. General. Ever. He didn't even grow to be see his first birthday!

Joking aside, TT emailed me after playing his turn and said that he eliminated a substantial Greek stack; apparently, Ad Hoc struck back, hard. I am still waiting for further news on the subject.


And now on to...

[SIZE="5"]Turn 92, bay-bay![/SIZE]



Number of cities=maxed out. For now.

Since I won't be getting any new cities for a while, have a good look at what I'll have to work with:




Speaking of founding cities:



Who knows how he'll hold these if Meatbalz/Ad Hoc/Anybody else actually comes for them.


First mace!



Forge is necessary, because it means 25% more hammers per population slaved, and slaving is literally the only way Monopoly ever produces ANYTHING. At all. I plan to have at least one xbow in there soon, in addition to another mace and a longbow. I am very protective of my precious iron.


of the week. So remember how I said I was going to cottage the hell out of Axis and Allies? Well, my 3-worker stack rolls in, 1 turn cottages a riverside grassland... and the VERY NEXT TURN the tile flips to Cyneheard's control. That shows me for not paying any attention at all to where I am cottage-spamming.


Serdoa's at it again:



ROFL. This is going to be a pain for TT and Ad Hoc.


And I have to give TT credit for trying. I am now third in power, and here are what the graphs look like:



Therefore, the 1st and 2nd powers have to be Twinkletoes and Ad Hoc [although probably not in that order]. Here's to a long and healthy war! More worrying, though, is Meatbalz's sudden growth in power. As I have said before, I suspect a sneak-attack on an otherwise occupied TT...

Only time will tell. Too bad time is an inanimate personification of a natural phenomenon, so I can't bribe it.


EDIT [kinda]: 250th post in this thread, huzzah!