RP Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Darius I of the Holy Roman Empire

[Nakor]

Due to Dantski's peace, our entire stack is killed.
We have no units in India left.

The only reasonable thing to do now is sign peace, I think.
And then KILL Dantksi....
But with what army....

[zakalwe]

Did you renew the NAP before he signed peace with India?

[Nakor]

Before and confirmed after.
He has an army, we don't...

[Nakor]

Time for some updates on the communication front.

Most interesting is the last message I got from The Empire:

Dear Nakor and DMOC,

It seems that our G-Chat was disrupted. I was hoping to give you some useful information, free of charge.

While I have not scouted the southwest of Centralia thoroughly, there appear to be two spots that may be of interest to you. The one that looks the most appealing is 5 tiles directly north of Stardock. It's a small cape jutting out from the main landmass. While most of the tiles are water, there are clams in the first ring, and fish, (dry) rice, and silver in the second ring. The other location is southeast of there, but you will need Calendar and Iron Working to make it productive: Sugars, Banana, jungle. Feel free to explore on your own, of course, but this might save you a little time.

Best regards,

Whosit, Galactic Emperor

That site sounds like THE place to go.
I suggest we send a chariot/axe/settler/worker there as soon as possible.
Stardock can start a Galley after the Workboat and speed it up with a chop.
Axe is ready, chariot is being build. Worker and settler need to be build yet, but we can get them.

Other interesting message with Whosit:

Dear Nakor and DMOC,

We understand your reluctance to give away your first Great Scientist, so we will accept the deal you have suggested. If we generate a Great Prophet with our first GP, we will send him directly to your territory. If you have any spare units to escort him, or to stand sentry in the wilderness between us, that would be appreciated. We may be able to make due ourselves if necessary. If we do not get a Prophet, we may try running a Priest specialist later when we are able to build Temples.

What sort of "bounty" are you offering for spreading Confucianism further? Any bonus would be much appreciated.

God may not roll dice, but Civilization does, so we'll see what happens in the next few turns.


Best regards,

Whosit, Galactic Emperor

Then for the end of the war:

Hi Guys,

I have made peace with India. While I don't expect you guys to be happy about it, I feel the war was hurting my civ's development too badly and even with the generous Ottoman offer in regards to finances I feel this will be far more beneficial.

I insisted on not giving away any CoW plans or unit info for the next 10- turns.

HRE I will be returning 2 axes to Krondor.

-Dantski

[COLOR="Orange"]Hey Dantski,

What is this?
I though this was THE WAY to get more room for your civilization.
I must say that I'm very dissapointed, since we were into this together and Whosit's troops just landed to join the attack.
Will you tell us what India offered you for peace?
I guess it's military support against HRE...

Is there a way we can get you to reconsider?

Nakor of HRE[/COLOR]

WoW! I must say this is very disappointing. This is not at all how I
expected peace discussions to go. We are in the drivers seat even if
we have to be careful. If you were interested in making peace you
should have discussed with us in advance. Rome has just landed and we
should have been threatening multiple locations but now only have some
units near Fredricksburg and are outnumbered. This isn't at all good,
hanging us out to dry. It's not really in our interest to be at war
but it's not in our interest to have India run away with the game
either.


Athlete for A/K
The Rebel Alliance

Dear members of CoW,

I'm deeply sorry. Dantski was the one who started the whole idea of attacking India, I never questioned his motives. I had my suspections early on that he was playing both sides, just like India was with myself and Dantski. Now wiser, I see that perhaps Dantski only ever wanted to attack India because he didn't know would India side with me or him once it's time for their expansion phase. So now that it's pretty much public knowledge that me and India are no longer in good terms, he pulls out of the war. That's my theory anyway, and I am also sending this to Dantski as I want to give him a chance to correct me and I wish not to talk behind his back regardless of this betrayal.

Honestly I don't know what should we do. We've achieved our goal in slowing India down, but if we retreat now then they'll easily be able to recover. We were very close to victory, soon I would have razed Hampton and without that missclick we could have razed Fredericksburg.
Dantski is just stupid if he's really making peace because of economy, as all of the economical threats in this game are in the war and they aren't doing any better than he is. On top of that, now he wasted all that time he used on military instead of techs. There must be another reason behind this, maybe what I speculated on in the first paragraph.

Dantski, how could you just throw in the towel like this? You're now siding with India, who just a while ago were trying to get HRE to attack you! And HRE didn't betray you even though they had the chance, but as a thanks you betray them?

~ Jowy

All I can say is I have not been playing both sides and I did provide info on India units and cities. Also when I signed peace I had at least half of CoW's offensive units, I think its unfair to suggest I've put less into the war than anyone.

As for being close to victory I completely disagree. It was only a matter of 3-4 turns before they eliminated our stacks with catapults.

And I'm not siding with India, I'm siding with myself. Me and HRE have a brand new NAP.

As for the personal remarks. well you should probably keep those to yourself.

Friends and Allies,

While I do not think that your logic is flawed, Dantski, realize that it does put a bad taste in our mouths that you have made peace unilaterally without discussing your concerns with us in advance. Had you done so, we may have either come up with a new plan, or perhaps even made a tactical withdrawl. Your actions have led to the destruction of Holy Rome's forces, left my own at the mercy of Speaker and Sullla, and quite possibly left Greece vulnerable to a counter-attack. If it would have been difficult to take one of the Killer Angel's cities before, it may be quite impossible now, since they can more easily concentrate their forces.

That said, I realize that you have been on the front lines of the war, and I commend the effort you have put into it. However, as you said, you chose to save yourself first and foremost. I respect that, but to do so suddenly, without discussion or warning, will make it more difficult to trust you in the future. The rest of us need to decide what to now. Making peace, or even a cease-fire, may be the best of several bad options.

-Whosit, Galactic Emperor

[COLOR="orange"]Friends,

I've thought things over and I must ask KA for a cease fire or peace.
Do we want get a peace deal for all of us together?
I'd be willing to do some negotiating.

Besides that, I do ssuggest that we keep close ties between our nations and try to help each other out when problem arrise.

Kind regards,
Nakor of HRE[/COLOR]

Hey guys,

I'm in favour of negotiating peace together instead of seperately. We have a better chance for me to get a peace deal together than if I attempt alone It's beneficial for us all that Killer Angels won't use all those units to invade my lands, although if it comes down to that I will put up a fight. Ultimately though they would win that fight. They might not want to invade me though, but instead work on resurrecting their economy. Anyway I still think it might be a better idea to negotiate a peace deal together if possible

I'm really dissapointed how this turned out, but it was definately worth a shot and I have no regrets. We still slowed them down, although especially myself and Dantski also slowed ourselves down. Most importantly I've befriended you guys. Although India dodged a bullet this time, it was very close and I doubt any of us would want to be - alone - in the same situation :P
Let's stay close. We now know we can work together and can trust eachother. That's a very good payoff for losing a couple of units.

~ Jowy

Dear Allies,

Athlete has asked me to draft a letter to the Killer Angels, so here it is:

"To the Honorable Speaker and Sullla,

While this may seem odd considering the message I sent you just the other day, I come asking for peace between the Killer Angels, myself, and the other civilizations with which you are at war.

Securing Romali's exit from the war was a masterful stroke, but the rest of us remain united. While we are willing to continue the fight to drag you down, a decisive victory may now elusive, so we believe that it would be in the interest of all parties to agree to peace. True, you would be able to hold the rest of us off for quite some time, but surely it will not do your economy any good. Therefore, we propose that you make peace with all belligerent civilizations. We are also willing to sign a NAP with your civilization, as well, so that you need not fear another strike.

Prolonging this conflict will help none of us, so we hope that you will respond with due haste.

Sincerely yours,

The Galactic Empire, the Greek Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Rebel Alliance"

We are in a difficult position. We are not really in a position of strength, but our proposal cannot sound weak. I have done my best to sound strong and committed while also acknowledging our position. Please feel free to suggest changes, though I would like to have this letter sent before the current turn ends. As for myself, I will be getting my troops back on the boats. Hopefully to go home, but I can give them to Jowy if it looks like Spullla is out for blood.

-Whosit, Galactic Emperor

Overall this is a good message and should be sent with haste. There
are a couple things though.

Grammar. This part of the sentance: "a decisive victory may now
elusive" should say "be elusive".

As for the NAP I believe we need to stand as if we will accept nothing
less, or atleast for Jowy's sake there needs to be somewhat of a
peaceful timeframe given. Say something like 20 turns or so?

So maybe say something like we would like a 20 turn peace period to
reinforce the agreement? Even the current wording is OK but we should
suggest an NAP of 20 turns rather than say we would even accept one.

Anybody else have thoughts?


Athlete for A/K
The Rebel Alliance

Received:


"Message received, Whosit. Speaker and I will discuss your proposal and get back to you once we have an answer.

Sullla
The Killer Angels"

Of course, no hints as to which way they will lean, but it's not an outright dismissal. I won't pretend to know either of them well enough to guess what they will do, so we must wait.

-Whosit

Now let's see what happens....

[DMOC]

Next target: Dantski, right?

Maybe we can even ask India to join us.

EDIT: For army, just build catapults for now. We can decide if we want to make more advanced troops later, but we get nowhere without catapults.

[DMOC]

Okay Nakor. How about we get a couple of troops up and attack Gao? That would be by far the easiest city for us to capture. It only takes one turn for our stack to be next to the city, and then in the second turn of the war, we attack. You can see that dantski has a forested deer there, so he won't be chopping the forest at all. We gain +50% defense! :neenernee



That's odd - very few wonders. We should get our marble hooked up and we might have time to fail-build a wonder and get +100% gold in return.



I think La Mut can build a barracks. What do you think about switching it to a barracks (7 turns, should be less once it grows) and then finishing the axe afterwards?



Our overall situation. Not bad, but not great either. We're about average in city count. What city is planning on building the next settler?



It's not a complete disaster. We only lost 5 troops.




Before I forget - Stardock, what to build there after the workboat? Granary? Galley? Crydee? An axeman? I'd probably build that, or a chariot.

EDIT: Okay, I am an idiot. :D Let's build a galley in stardock.

Last thing: We need 1 more turn of 0% research before we can finish Mathematics at 100% research. After that, construction, so we can have a catapult or two.

So my idea, if we follow the plan, is to make peace with India (hopefully we can convince them to agree to attack Dantski like before) and then tech Math - Constr, get about 2 catapults, 4 chariots, and 6 axemen and capture Gao (just to be on the safe side)? Ideally we'd like to keep the city.

I would like to draft a letter to India to apologize to them for lying to them earlier, would that be okay? And I'd like to sign it because it's been ages since I've written a message. High school life is kind of stressful.

[Nakor]

DMOC, great to hear that you're back!

Yes, I'd like to target Dantski, we might even get Whosit to help a bit with some Preatorians if we tell him in time.

Considering the new situation I would suggest teching Math - Masonry - Construction - Archery - Feudalism - Calender

We could use Longbows before the war with Dantski starts and we can probably just get to Feudalism within 25 turns.
Let's hope Dantski keeps his word regarding the two axes he promised to return.

Adressing your other points:
La Mut - I suggest a Settler after the Axe and a Barracks after that. We will have construcion by then and can build catapults there.
Stardock - Galley indeed
Crydee - Lightnouse?
Sethanon - Rathaus after Axe?
Krondor - Granary or military/worker after Library
Rolan - Worker/settler?

We need 2 settlers in my opinion.
One for the Yabon site and one for Centralia.

Feel free to draft a message, I'll take a look at it if that's ok with you before sending it. But let's wait untill we have official peace.

[COLOR="Magenta"]On the other hand, we really don't need to attack Dantski if we keep expaning the way we are. He won't be able to stay at an even footing tech-wise, so we can wait with attacking untill we have superior units.
I could probably live with that as well, but would suggest we tech to Feudalism before Construction then.[/COLOR]

[DMOC]

Does Crydee have any coastal resources? (I forgot). If so then it's useless for a lighthosue there. Perhaps a barracks (if not already there) or a unit if a barracks is there. A rathaus is just a big waste in a city that close to our capital.

You have a point on Dantski vs our tech rate. However, let's keep our options for war and peace open at the moment.

Rolan could indeed make more workers and settlers, but lets grow it to size 8 or 9 first.

I don't really know the best builds for the other cities - I'll tell you if anything pops up in mind.

[Nakor]

Crydee doesn't have any coastal resources, so I ordered a lighthouse, that should let Crydee grow and get a nice amount of research.

Nothing new this turn, still no peace with India.

Don't know what that means. If Dantski has signed Open Borders, they might come after us....
Feudalism will only take 10 turns, fewer when the Academy comes in and our cottages mature...

[Nakor]

Got some interesting mails, but still nothing from India regarding peace.

Kalin warns us that Dantski told him once that he was willing to break an NAP. And with his open borders to India, I don't really feel secure.

Therefore I once again would like to argue for going Feudalism first after Math.
What do you (or the lurkers) think?