[Spoiler] RB Pitboss #2 - Shaka of Rome

[Whosit]

OK, I never actually go to sleep. I messed around in WB and figured out the OB issue. Sent Inca an OB request, because I need to go through them to get to everyone else.

Also, another Axeman showed up in P'yongyang. Pain. Also just realized I messed up and forgot to give one of my Praetorians Shock. If plako attacks out of the city, he'll have 35% odds to kill one of my troops. I should have given one Shock to discourage that. Oh well. It would be against the rules to give a promotion now, though.

On the plus side, when the 3rd Axeman pops, plako shouldn't be able to log in an give it a promotion. One benefit of going first.

[Whosit]

Whoo, more boosting my post count . . . .

Did some more sims. 15 total, will do more later. Average losses: 0.86. I will probably lose 1 Praetorian to an Axeman, though if I'm lucky, I'll have no losses. It could happen. If I'm unlucky, two losses. Or more if I get the dung end of probability.

I'm also trying to anticipate how quickly plako can counter-attack. It will take him 3 turns to reach the city from either Seoul or Wonsan. Speaking of, the Axemen in Wonsan are no longer visible to me. They will also have to cross a river to attack it, which is good for me. I am pretty sure that I can take the city and keep it without fearing a major counter attack on the next turn. I could be mistaken, though. Plako may have units within 1 turn of the city that are out of my visibility. I'll just have to risk it.

I'm hoping to make my Axeman a Medic, by the way.

[Kyan]

you would need either a road/river connection to his civ or to defog the entire coastline for traderoutes to become available matey.

[Whosit]

you would need either a road/river connection to his civ or to defog the entire coastline for traderoutes to become available matey.

Awww. Well, I asked dsplaisted for Open Borders, so I suppose I could always double back and scout his coastline if he accepts.

[regoarrarr]

Hey Whosit, out of curiosity - what's your total soldier count before you attack?

[Whosit]

Hey Whosit, out of curiosity - what's your total soldier count before you attack?

Hi regoarrarr. Glad to see you're making use of your ability to thread-lurk now. Anyway, I believe my soldier count is 132000. I should be ranked 1st, as well. It's like the only thing I'm ranked 1st in, aside from production.

[sunrise089]

Hi regoarrarr. Glad to see you're making use of your ability to thread-lurk now. Anyway, I believe my soldier count is 132000. I should be ranked 1st, as well. It's like the only thing I'm ranked 1st in, aside from production.

I'll take production and soldier count over life expectancy and imports/exports any day

[Whosit]

I'll take production and soldier count over life expectancy and imports/exports any day

Hee hee, perhaps. But combine that with being dead last in GNP, and the question arises of how long I could maintain either lead. Hence my Korean Gambit. I need a commercial base oh so badly. If I pick up 3 new cities, I wonder if the maintenance will kill me before I can get the production up. If I'm lucky, I'll earn some cash from conquering the cities. Is that based on size? If so, P'yongyang won't yield much (size 2).

[Whosit]

Email from Nakor and then my reply:

[quote = Nakor]Dear Whosit,

I had a good New Year, although with two kids, everything is a bit busy.
We're building our army as we speak, and we're aware of India's scouting warrior.
I hope your war with Korea will be a swift one and that you will be able to send troops to India soon.
Korea did ask for our help. I told them we'll try to see what we can do. But of course we don't plan on sending forces to Korea's aid.
We don't have units nearby, so we won't be able to help you in that war.
Are you planning on taking all 3 landbased cities from Korea?

We're working on CoL, though it's an expensive effort. We just hope India won't get there sooner. Thankfully, research should go faster soon.
I'll talk to DMOC about the missionary. It sounds like a good plan to send him to a trusted ally.
Talking about that, would you be willing to sign a long term NAP with our civ?

Hope your 7 preats win the day at Pyongyang!

Regards,
Nakor of HRE[/quote]

Dear Nakor and DMOC,

Well, it's interesting to hear that Korea asked you for help. I wonder if they've asked anyone else. Let me know if you see any mean stacks marching through your territory. I hope to take all three of Korea's core cities, preferably swiftly. I have good odds to take P'yongyang at the start of next turn, though if for some reason my troops underperform, I may have to take it the turn after. I anticipate needing about 3 turns to heal my troops, whereupon I'll head for Seoul. I'm not sure how I'll crack Wonsan, but I may try to train a new division and attack out of Imperial Center. Because they have Copper, I know that I won't be able to finish them before the war with the Killer Angels starts. Right now, I will have Kuat start building the fleet. Once I have enough boats, I'll probably redeploy what troops I have and hunker down until I can attack Korea again. So, basically, I will disengage from Korea in order to attack the Coalition's target, but I still can't do that until I have enough boats. Unlike the Ottomans, I don't have Horses connected yet, so my ground troops can't move very fast. Hopefully that plan sounds acceptable.

I hope that you make in to Code of Laws first. Maybe you should keep in contact with Jowy since he has tabs on Sullla's research? Best of luck speeding up the research.

Now, then, a NAP you say? Well, I will say upfront that I dislike NAPs in concept because I don't see them as good tools for really forging a bond. For example, Korea and I had a NAP for awhile (signed by LiPing, my predecessor), but it didn't really make us friendlier. I favor more proactive tools, like trade agreements, mutual defense plans, and even economic assistence plans when appropriate. That said, I'm not turning down a NAP proposal; I'm just letting you know where I stand on it. And despite all I just said, I think a NAP might be a good idea anyway, though I'd like to include additional proactive clauses to our agreement.

One thought I had hinges on whether or not you found Confucianism. I would still like the Missionary of course, but suppose I helped you spread the faith (both to myself and those with which I have Open Borders), and supposing you get a Shrine, I wonder if I could get a small cut for being such a good hypothetical helper. Other ideas include more mundane resource trades, although I think most civs have very similar resources, and unit sales/trades. If you have any exotic ideas of your own, please let me know. I would also like a mutual defense (or mutual assistance, if you prefer) clause, though we could discuss that at a later date. Since we will probably be direct neighbors in the near future, we will be close enough to render assistance to the other in case either are attacked by a third party. Also let me know how many turns a "long-term" NAP would mean.

On a closing note, there is one other thing I'd like to work out, though I imagine that we are still many turns away from this. I plan to do some exploring of the central island. In fact, I might even drop off an Axeman or something with my first boat to start exploring. I was hoping that you would help me settle the island. As much as I'd like to, I imagine that it is far too large for me to gobble up myself, and it would be nice to have some friends there, too.

I imagine that I have given you enough to chew on for now. Until your next message.


Best regards,

Whosit, Galactic Emperor

Hopefully I wasn't too confusing with all the talk about the NAP. I almost feel like it was double talk since I kind of went back on what I said, but it's not really. But since Kalin/Athlete, Jowy and I are forming a Triple Alliance (final name is not decided), I imagine that it would be a bad idea to form an actual alliance with Nakor/DMOC. So a more traditional NAP might have to do. I almost feel like I'm playing a dangerous game here, but that's so melodramatic. I'm not sure how to start drawing close to Jowy just yet, but I definitely want Nakor in my court. Unless there are other deals going down that I am unaware of, dsplaisted and danstski are probably going to be the ones left out in the cold, while the Ottomans, Greeks, Holy Romans, and the Galactic Empire become the big four players.

I also want Holy Rome on the central island for reasons which I hope are obvious and not flawed. Come the day that I have to fight the Ottomans (and maybe even Greece if I played a poor diplomatic hand), I don't want to be overwhelmed. Of course, there's the chance that Kalin will get Nakor on his side, but in that case, I'm probably screwed anyway. Ha ha.

[Whosit]

So wow. Wow. I won the battle of P'yongyang with zero losses! I can't believe it. I mean, yeah, the odds were heavily in my favor, but if you haven't guessed by now, I'm the kind of guy who expects the worst.

Korean losses: 3 Axemen, 3 Archers.
Imperial losses: None.

Korean losses in hammers: 180.

So not too shabby if I do say so myself. Anyway, as promised, I have pictures.

This is what I was up against:



So no surprises there. Honestly, I got the best result with no losses. Now, some of the highlights of battle in all its Civ IV goodness.







I got myself some much needed cash. I will burn through it all to get Writing in 3 turns, but it should be worth it. Better than 8+ turns.

And what this revealed:



I haven't ended my turn. In fact, I am going to go to sleep. Hopefully I will not oversleep and miss the cut-off. That would be very sad. The Chariot there is a bit of surprise, but it shouldn't pose a problem. Why is it there? To cover the Worker, I imagine. Or maybe they hoped to pick off a weakened soldier? Fortunately, very fortunately, the soldier who took the city (can't remember his designation off-hand, but they're all the same!) took no damage. I have one Praet left to move, as well as the Axeman. The other troops who fought have taken serious damage.

I will move the Axeman (promoted Medic) into the city, and leave the other uninjured Praet to cover the wounded stack. I do not think that plako has more troops in attack range right now, but if he does, I'll have to rely on the river to give extra defense to my troops. Should be enough, as I imagine that Korea would have at most 2 Axemen able to attack next turn. The Chariot is a non-factor: It can't touch my Praetorians.

I plan to change the name of P'yongyang, but I haven't picked an appropriate planet name out yet. Either way, I'll wait until it is out of revolt. Also, I'm no expert on maintenance, but considering the fact that I went from +1 gpt to -2 gpt when I took the city, I'm guessing that the extra city is already factored in to the maint' costs of my existing cities? I know that I don't pay for cities while they are in revolt. Hmm. Hopefully I can win the race on making this productive. It will be dangerous for my Workers to do stuff around here.

Looking at the map, I think I will want to cut the roads 1SE and 1SW of the hill south of the city. Got that? But it might be hard to do both. 1SE is the priority, since it connects to Wonsan, too.

Hopefully I can move out by T88. I should have a few more Praets at home that can join the fray, but not enough to take Wonsan on their own. They might actually have to go overseas, darn it. I'll need 6-8 Praets to take Wonsan since it's on a hill. Well, maybe not that many, but I want to be careful.

OK, to bed with me! Don't want to oversleep the end of my turn . . . . Things are looking good, though.

Hopefully plako won't bother destroying P'yongyang's farm, but he might. Anyway, I'll cottage the one tile that's closest to my territory, and I'll mine the Iron so P'yongyang can contribute a few troops to the cause, as well. 4 turns 'till it's out of revolt, so I'll plan on that. Oh, and I gotta connect it by road.