[Spoilers] Biggus Decius and the Sucking Vampires (Bobchillingworth / Calabim)

[Bobchillingworth]

Okay. I'll vassalize Sareln immediately, because it's no secret that he's working for/with me anyway, but I'll hold off with Cull at least until I have a more mobile army.


Got this email from PB:

[COLOR="Plum"]Hello Bob,



As Supreme ruler of the Kuriotates, I must learn to be tolerant of all this world’s creatures, even the intolerable.

So I accept your apology and pardon you.



Look, you have a steadily rising power level, a super-unit on the horizon, and the Raiders trait. You have deals with almost every other player in the game, but the only gesture of cooperation you've ever shown my civilization was to send an email trying to set up an alliance against another player. Do you not think that makes me wonder how many “kill Pb” mass emails you’ve sent out in the intervening silence?



As for the claims of killing a Scout, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

The only Calabim Scout I know of is the one that I had to let through my borders after you blackmailed me with the threat of exploring a lair -within- my borders.

So yes, I can see your policy on exploring lairs is really clear cut.



In short, convince ME you horrible blood-sucker.



Regards,

Pb, Magellan Boy-King[/COLOR]

Oh my how clever, he totally turned my own words around on me there! This is pretty lame, even for him. I have no intention of dignifying it with a response. Plus some of his criticisms are actually fairly accurate

[DaveV]

Pb, Magellan Boy-King

Hmm, does that mean he's got circumnavigation?

[Bobchillingworth]

I've checked the event log every turn and it doesn't show anything, so not sure. Sounds like he's def. pursuing the naval path, though. Or at least that's what he wants me to think



This is the email I sent to Iskender yesterday:

(are the color-coded replies obnoxious? I'll revert back to black & white if so)

[COLOR="Red"]Okay, so when last we chatted you had mentioned that you might be up for some preemptive action against PB. I would like to take you up on that offer in about 20 turns. There are a few compelling reasons for us to take action. First, PB's increasingly aggressive settlements cannot be allowed to go unpunished. He has cut off your expansion to the North / Northeast and stolen your resources. He recently stole a city spot from Sareln, and he has even threatened in email to take my remaining unsettled land in the south (presumably using settlers from caravels). His expansion has been deliberately provocative and often outright insulting. Second, PB has also obviously been setting himself up to invade one of us (there is literally no use for raiders except offensive warfare), and I have no intention of allowing him to strike either of us first. Finally, there's quite a bit of reward in it for both you and I if we attack PB- you get several new city locations, and I aim to vastly increase my wealth by pillaging his towns and razing his cities.


So, are you in? I came up with the figure of 20 turns prep time because it's a nice round figure and I should have a fairly large force of vamps by then. I'm certainly amenable to adjusting the invasion date, though. If you're interested, we should probably start picking out individual targets and discussing force compositions soon. You also may wish to research Cartography, so that Sareln can use his hawks to give you a better idea of PB's border garrisons and warn you if or where he's building up. I think we should also amend our NAP so that it continues after turn 200, with a 5 or 10 turn cool-down. The reason is so that we can concentrate on our mutual foes, without having to waste time and manpower covering our own backs.


Please let me know your thoughts on this matter. Thanks,


-Bobchillingworth[/COLOR]

(There was a paragraph about confidentiality at the start which I've cut)



His reply, which I just recently received:

[COLOR="Lime"]Hi there

Let me begin with the details: attacking the Kuriotates is not going
to be easy. He's got a defensive settlement close to the gems that
prevents easy entry into his land. Recently he's begun surrounding his
borders with deserts making it hard for the enemy to enter his lands
and easy for him to launch a counter-strike. I don't know how many
vampires you could get in 20 turns, but I think it's not going to be
enough. I for sure won't be able to gather strong enough offensive
force in 20 turns, 30 is more likely.

Iskender[/COLOR]

Sounds like he's in, which is good, although I'll want to confirm that with my reply. 30 turns seems like an awful lot of prep time, but I guess I'll at least be able to build a large army by then. Should I press him on that figure? He can build HA already, I'm not sure what else he's waiting for or needs.

He also didn't mention the NAP amendment I suggested, so I'll bring that up again later to make sure we're on the same page.

[Rowain]

(are the color-coded replies obnoxious? I'll revert back to black & white if so)

They make it easier to see who said what and are (imo) better than black&white especially if there are many diplo-messages in one post.

[DaveV]

Maybe you could talk Iskender into being poised to take advantage of any distraction of PB's forces, or to let you use OB to move through his territory into position for some pillaging? The best thing he could do is (getting repetitive here, but it really would make a difference) close borders with PB.

Another idea to mess with PB: he has a pretty skimpy road network (presumably out of fear of your Raiders trait), and you could isolate his capital by cutting a couple roads. This would cause crippling health and happiness problems in his huge cities.

[Bobchillingworth]

Well, Feudalism is in. Out of curiosity I checked, and vampires are draftable. I don't have Warfare researched yet, but I can in two turns whenever I feel like it. If the other players were going to stop me, they should have acted a while ago. Most of my cities can build a vamp in 3-4 turns, so in 30 turns or so I should have... a lot.


I've had some more diplo correspondence with Iskender and a couple messages with Selrahc. The Selrahc chats were just me asking him if he knew why we apparently aren't connected for trade routes, and asking if he wanted OB once we are. In short, he has no idea why we can't trade, and he's cool for OB and some resource deals once we can. I have stared at the map, and I'm pretty sure we have a road connection, so I'm clueless as to why there's no official route. I'll probably just end up manually controlling a couple workers to build an alternate path. The OB will be great news, because I'll be able to get a level 14 vamp onto bridgit without having to declare (I think the Ring is in his territory now).


As for Iskender, he's going for Chalid and Ratha for his army. Interesting choice, 4-move ratha will be dangerous, but he might be pretty low on actual muscle, since he lacks copper and sun mana. Maybe he'll supplant them with HA or something. Regarding the NAP amendment I suggested, he first wants a "framework" regarding future issues akin to the barb city I razed as a precondition. I sent him some promises that I wouldn't do anything else in his "sphere of influence" without asking him first, honestly I'm not sure what else he really wants from me. There aren't any other barbarian cities close to his borders, and Sareln and I aren't going to settle anything else near him. I haven't heard back yet, but I'm really not too worried. If he outright refuses to extend the NAP past turn 200, then that's really going to be his loss. I think that I have been more than accommodating lately, considering that he's an awfully tempting target, but my friendship does have limits.



Question for whoever: how exactly is cultural control determined between a Master and Vassal civ for contested tiles? Does the Master automatically win any tile where he has a percent, or only tiles in the BFC of one of his cities? I think it's the later, but I'm not entirely sure. I ask because I want to vassalize Sareln very soon, but I don't want to totally gimp his cities.

[T-hawk]

Does the Master automatically win any tile where he has a percent, or only tiles in the BFC of one of his cities?

Only the BFC.

[DaveV]

Well, Feudalism is in.

:dancing5::cake:

The OB will be great news, because I'll be able to get a level 14 vamp onto bridgit without having to declare (I think the Ring is in his territory now).

Level 15. I was thinking of Adonais as a designated feasting city, since it has a lot of good food tiles.

As for Iskender, he's going for Chalid and Ratha for his army. Interesting choice, 4-move ratha will be dangerous, but he might be pretty low on actual muscle, since he lacks copper and sun mana.

Chalid is worth building for Pillar of Fire even without any sun mana, and it sounds as though PB must have at least one sun node if he's scorching tiles on his border with Iskender. Plus, Blinding Light can be a real pain: you'll have to avoid stacking too many units together.

I'd recommend going out of your way to keep Iskender on your side. For now, a dogpile is the only thing I see as a danger to you. Not to put any pressure on you (), but the game is yours to lose now.

If neither Iskender nor PB has Way of the Wicked yet, I think you should beeline for Deception and Nox Noctis (making you pretty much untouchable in your territory), then pick up any other religion. Once you can build disciples, bring one along for each city you capture to culture bomb it: then you can feast away any starving population and gain instant Nox Noctis protection. Until then, I think you'll mostly be razing settlements, so make sure you crank out a few settlers to fill in the gaps. And don't forget the Royal Guards!

[Bobchillingworth]

PB has sun mana from his palace.



So Iskender apparently has saved up all of his words for today:

[COLOR="Lime"]Hi there

I think I know what Pb's weapon of choice is going to be. Airships.
This may sound lame, but imagine a couple of these hovering over the
peak NW of Nubia, each carrying 6 centaur archers with commando that
can disembark without losing movement. I'm sure you see what it
implies, but let me say it - with Airships Pb could threaten every
city in the enemy civ at once. For me its a kind of threat an order of
magnitude greater than, say, Archmages. If we fail to prevent it we're
dead.

That's actually the reason why I've decided to cooperate with you. I'd
like to extend our NAP or set a cooldown period, but first we need to
sort some issues that might impede our cooperation:

You are going Ashen Veil. How much of a priority is getting the
Infernal Grimoire for you? I'm asking because there might be a
conflict of interest here. I plan to switch to AV soon and get the
Infernal Pact within a golden age and probably switch back to Empy
(the exact plan depends on what Pb does). I'd like us to avoid a
possible straining race for the Grimoire. To get a free tech we can
(and should!) arrange mana trade for the Tower of Divination - with
Sareln's Mind mana, your Law and two free nodes we have just enough
mana to get it.

The above is possibly a non-issue though, as i think Pb wants to get
the Grimoire for himself. If that's the case there's nothing you or I
can do about it, I'd just stick with Empy and get Chalid or maybe go
Esus for Gibbon Goetia.

As for the goblin fort - Sareln promised me to let me farm the for
within his borders. We can arrange it the way thay you get to farm
Sareln's fort and I get the one in between. It'd actually be simpler
that way.

I'm going to research cartography at some point, but I think it'd be
better if I just researched Hunting. There's a way for Sareln to enter
my teritorry w/o open borders though - he could use his world spell.
It'd be a huge giveaway for Pb though - the story I'm spinning for him
is that I'm still angry at Sareln for settling in the south.

Iskender[/COLOR]

Heavy stuff. He's pretty eloquent when writing emails, I suppose that's why he prefers them so much over chats.


I'm going to need some time to mull over this one, but a couple initial impressions:


* I've evidently got him locked up as an ally, which is great. Only PB and Selrahc now directly threaten me, and Selrahc seems more interested in trade at the moment.


* I guess he wants the Grimoire for Monotheism? I'm not sure that way of the wicked -> corruption of the spirit -> infernal pact is any quicker than just researching Mono outright. I'd like it for myself of course, but right now Esus is my priority, so he's free to take it if he can get there quickly enough.


* Obviously I'm going to need to set him straight regarding Esus. I'll research it first, anyhow. Ratha work a lot better for him anyway.


* (Solid Snake voice): Airships, huh? That fits with what I know of PB's tech path. Can units really disembark from them and them immediately move? I've never built one in-game before. Using them seems really risky too, I think they have very low combat strength. I'm not sure what the make of them, honestly- are they as much of a danger as Iskender suggests?


* I'm not incredibly comfortable with having like half the players spontaneously decide to start lying to the others on my behalf. My diplomacy in this game hasn't exuded raw charisma, so I'm clueless as to where this phenomenon is coming from. I can be a real jerk in diplo if I want to, but I don't think that I've actually outright lied to anyone yet. Oh well, I guess this is just more reason to avoid talking to PB, so that I don't contradict the others.

[DaveV]

Wow. As I said at the very beginning of the game, I've never played the Kurios. But I found [url=]this thread[/url] at CivFanatics, which had the following interesting tidbit:

Meanwhile, I had quite a bit of fun with my airships. I found out that units can attack from airships, and will stay inside the airships after attacking. If they attacked from over the ocean, they took the 50% combat penalty and lost all their movement after one attack, so I stopped doing that. I did find out that if I attacked from a mountain, they took no combat penalty and it only took up one movement. This meant I could have my Blitzed centaurs attack 5 times a turn, have an airship ferry them 6 tiles away, then assault another city the next turn.

I don't think it's quite as desperate as Iskender implies: he'll run out of centaur archers eventually because they have roughly 50% odds against fortified warriors in a city - worse if the city is on a hill or walled. This scheme also doesn't protect his cities and settlements. A quick check of the manual indicates he needs iron or mithril for airships, so that means building the Mines or researching a couple very expensive techs. I don't see this as a near-term threat, but if it persuades Iskender into attacking PB, that's a good thing.