SPOILER - Dazedroyalty's Thread

[dazedroyalty]

This was Serdoa's response to my offer:

Hi Dazed,

I had to take a look at the situation ingame first. I am ok with the deal, have accepted the city and we are at peace. Your settler will be whipped turn 28 (you see, I am serious when I do a deal, I never meant to let you wait some 20 turns for it), and should arrive turn 32 (if I haven't miscounted) within your borders.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

My latest to him:

Serdoa,

I'm glad that this conflict has finally ended! Hopefully both our empires will be able to take a sigh of relief and move forward in good faith.

Dazed

[dazedroyalty]

Scooter responded to my message to him and SleepingMoogle:

Dazed,

So what did you end up deciding? Sorry things have definitely not broken your way thus far... Fortunately there's lots of game left to go and I think you'll be fine long-term regardless of what you decide.

scooter

Scooter totally ignored the question of helping me out. Which is fine, I understand the deal, but I decided that warranted a low-on-detail response:

Scooter,

We have reached peace! It's not ideal but it's the best situation that could be arranged given the circumstances.

Dazed

Here's SleepingMoogle's response:

Greetings Dazedroyalty,

It is unfortunate to learn that luck has favored the other side in the conflict. From your words Serdoa took quite a gamble, and the situation might very well have looked very different indeed.

In any case, while this is a bitter pil to swallow, at this stage it would be better to look at the long-term survival of your civilization than plot to take revenge against the aggressor. It would in the end be better to agree to terms you oppose right now, and leave open the possibility of returning the favor later, than to submit your citizenry to a long period of war. While for obvious reasons I would prefer not to see Serdoa with three cities so early, it would be the wisest of options.

Once the dust settles, we can of course discuss possible future trades. The Malazan Empire prides itself on it's core of well-trained and motivated Workers, and we could always facilitate transferring them to distant lands if they so choose. All in all it would be quite the logistical operation though, and not cheap on resources. What sort of service would you be looking to provide in return?

Sincerely,
-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

SleepingMoogle's agreement to make the trade is either a sign that he truly thinks it is in my best interest and is being helpful OR he is got a strong relationship with Serdoa established and wants him to benefit. Theoretically, he could be trying to get buddy-buddy with Serdoa in order to press TT (who I still haven't met! I'm trying to get around Serdoa with my warrior).

I wrote a response:

SleepingMoogle,

Thanks for your response! I did choose to take the deal as there was no other option that would be beneficial. We'll see what plays out in the rest of the game. There is still lots of game to go.

As to a future trade for workers, I think that it would depend on what your needs are and what you would be interested in. As you mentioned, there is a logistical element that makes an immediate trade non-effective, but down the road I would be very glad to consider a trade that could turn out to be beneficial to both of us. Possible trades could be military units, gold, or diplomatic gains (hard to anticipate exactly at this point!).

I hope everything continues to go well for the Malazan Empire.

Dazed

[meatbalz]

dazed, what tech path are you leaning towards?

and just out of curiosity, what's a ballpark ETA to complete sailing->TW->archery->HBR?

[dazedroyalty]

Meatbalz, I'll have to look into that--I'll try to remember to check when I have access to the game. My original peace path plan had been a beeline towards CoL, but I'm not sure about that now. Perhaps that's still best. I can't decide if an immediate response or a well planned strike down the road when least expected will be best.

[meatbalz]

this is just a personal viewpoint but my priority now would be to claim as much of the surrounding islands as possible. i don't think you're currently in a position to race for coveted techs like CoL being a city down. you can live without early CoL, you can't live without making up some ground on the city front. look at how well korea did in pb2, and you have the added advantage of not having to face a team of the calibre of sulla+speaker in this one. the situation's definitely salvageable.

[pocketbeetle]

I am making it my goal to retake Aslan's How (or whatever silly name Serdoa is calling it now) before this game ends.

A sacrifice made willingly on a stone table? ^^

[dazedroyalty]

A sacrifice made willingly on a stone table? ^^

Hmmm... does that make Serdoa the White Witch?

[Ilios]

A witch! Burn her!!!!

[dazedroyalty]

Serdoa sent me this:

Dazed,

I am also glad that we could end that conflict and I would hope that we never have war again with each other. For that reason and to improve our relations, I thought about possibilities to work together and maybe help you in the process to catch up on city count. I think you researched Sailing last turn and I would certainly be interested to trade for a workboat and a galley from you, perhaps for another settler?

Let me know if that sounds interesting or maybe if you have another idea about such kind of a trade.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

I haven't gotten a chance to look up the hammer trade value there, but I'm very intrigued by the possibility of getting another settler....

[dazedroyalty]

I found this just now and it's great because you can change the settings and it will adjust the information on each page. Ingenious!

So, on quick speed, a settler costs me 67 hammers, but Serdoa only has to put in 45 hammers to get it.

A WB costs 20 hammers and a galley costs 33.

In essence, Serdoa is offering me a gain of 14 hammers while he gains 8.

I'm not sure that is worth the advantage of letting him get out to an island sooner than not. He said before he already has Fishing so the WB is simply to save him hammers. He does not have Sailing and I expect that he is not going to go that direction if I give him a galley, which also means he gets to research something else instead. That's not good.

I want to make a deal of some sort just to help put Serdoa at ease and leaving room for me to strike later without him expecting it (as much, at least). This is the second deal of this type with Serdoa. It does benefit me but I'm not sure it doesn't benefit him more--it's hard to say for sure.

In other news, I finished my first WB this turn and immediately built another. Instead of improving the fish since I was going to grow immediately anyway, I moved to explore the outer island. If there isn't much there to explore it'll come back. Otherwise, he's off for foreign lands.