RB PBEM #1 - Mehmed (SPOILERS!)

[Dreylin]

Hi Dreylin,

I'd just like to say a "thanks! " for the detail you have gone into when reciting your accounts of this game. It is really interesting and I have learnt a lot!

I have a question about how you plan to win this game and if you intend on turning on Ruff?

You'll have noticed that I haven't reported on many events here; it's not for want of trying, but I tend to get bogged down both in recording the game and then in composing reports. This game has given me an opportunity to spend a little time each day keeping my thoughts on the game and its progress up to date, and I've really enjoyed it. (although I admit that it has made it even less likely that I play/report another event, and I know I've been pretty disappointing keeping up in the Pitboss1).

Anyway, I must admit that I haven't thought much about the ultimate end of this game at all - be concentrating on DeTOG'ing the world.

Once athlete has been eliminated, Ruff and I could of course conspire for a cheesy AP victory but I'm sure we won't do that. I'm fully committed to our agreement, and if Ruff was going to betray me he would have done it already - his massive force in DV could romp through the Eastern half of my empire without breaking a sweat right now.

So it'll come down to what happens once mh and sooooo have been removed. I should have territorial superiority by that point, but his cities will probably still be more developed than mine as I will have been at war for longer. We will still have very small borders, so it will come down to whether either of us can gain military superiority for a strike, or whether we peacefully tech our way to Space while undermining each other's efforts to get a Cultural victory. On that note, the Sistine Chapel is still un-built so I might try and pick that up in the lull between wars....

[Krill]

SC makes sense :b:

[Dreylin]

t134 - feel that this might be a quick turn.

Bursa: Cannon - Cannon.
Diyarbakir: Lighthouse - Conf. Monastery
Baghdad: Revolt - Forge

mh has cancelled our Wines - Sugar trade (will need to look at happiness), and athlete suicided his Cannon onto the stack advancing towards Najran. Not much point in that really, but there you go.

Stack is somewhat bruised, but moves next to the empty city.

Seems like mh has decided that War is inevitable - personally, I think I'm going to let him come to me this time. New Damascus is pretty vulnerable right now with HRE culture up aganst the walls, so most healed forces are heading there. Baghdad will only need a skeleton garrison since the lake blocks direct attack from Medina, and Mecca is far enough away that a swift nick of culture will give it a decent defense (most troops are still healing here anyway).

Bursa, of course, is receiving the bulk of the reinforcements, though Konya is keeping enough around to minimise any boating opportunity. Of course Ironclads will help with that considerably.

I've been pushing some infrastructure builds through recently, but as those come to an end the maturer cities will switch back to mostly military.

A couple of cities have slipped back into unhapiness with the loss of Wine & build-up of WW. I'll put 10% back on the culture slider to see them through the next 2t.

70% Research will complete Economics this turn, and with the 10% Culture, that means we'll lose 70g this turn. Ruff took 120g at start of turn, so that will leave 78g for start of next. So even 60-70g from capturing Najran should be enough to keep Ruff going.

EPs going at mh; if he's not directing all of his against me, then I should see his research soon. Actually, running a turn of EPs against him should give me visibility on all his cities, which would save a bit of time wandering Spies around to monitor his troop movements. I currently have one covering the ground between Prague, Florence & Aachen, with a second positioned between Medina & Vienna. The third is on her way back to the front after the success at Mecca.

Kayseri gets Confucian spread after EOT.

[Dreylin]

t135 - Ruff takes Economics, and I request Railroad in return.

I'd forgotten that Constitution is required for Corporation; I set research to Astronomy as a placeholder until I can discuss with Ruff the likelihood of mh fulfilling his pledge to gift me Const.

Najran is still empty, so Pikeman walks in to capture:



Forge, Courthouse & Grocer intact, 3Pop & 68g pillaged.

And the Arabian civlisation is destroyed - sorry athlete!

But unfortunately the WW won't wear off until next turn, so have to maintain the 10% slider for another turn.

Pike will stay as MP, rest of stack moves back into Mecca with Cortes to heal.

mh has been reinforcing his Island city; it now contains 2Rifles, with a third sitting in the nearby forest. Not that I'm planning on boating the Island, but it does keep a few of his units tied up there rather than on the front-lines in Medina or Vienna.

Getting my Galley trapped was a pain, but it does allow me to keep an eye on his Northern coastal approaches, so I know that he hasn't got a hidden Galley fleet there. The first Ironclad arrives from Sarmatian, but Iwon't be able to fully prevent a Galley boating of Konya without 4 in place around it. Sarmatian has just finished No2, and is moving on to produce its own Ironclad defender to deter sooooo.

Istanbul - Cavalry, Gaziantep - Cavalry, Sarmatian - Ironclad, New Damascus - Theatre.

Draft: Edirne, Sarmatian, Konya.

I offer my gold to Ruff again just incase (this time with map trade).

[Dreylin]

Send a quick note to athlete to let him know a few things and invite him to stop by:

Hey Taylor,

Just thought I'd send you a note and let you know that I have taken Najran and destroyed your civ, so the turn has gone directly to mh.

I'd like to invite you to drop by my thread and read about our dealings from the other side of the fence, but before you do I feel I should comment on what you said in the public forum. I think you're half-right that you breaking our NAP was the best thing that happened, because it wouldn't have been nearly so good if mh hadn't also accepted the Peace deal we had worked out.

mh had come to me the turn before you attacked and offered me a Peace deal; I was in two minds whether or not to accept, but I had the feeling from our discussions and your troop maneuvering that you were about to join in on his side which encouraged me to take the offer. At that point I took a calculated gamble and deliberately didn't tell you that we had agreed a deal, hoping that you would get involved in the war and that mh would stick to the Peace deal we'd made. If you and mh had been in touch, then no harm done and we'd all be at peace and I could plan to attack you once our NAP expired. The risk, of course was that if you did attack then perhaps mh would stay at war and also attack ... of course as you know things turned out perfectly for me and mh was fixed into a new NAP that won't expire for another 5t - long enough for me to heal and re-position my army.

I wasn't very happy about Medina changing hands with my army parked outside, but most of my disappointment is with mh for accepting the city from you. It made perfect tactical sene for you to get rid of it, even if it was a cheesy move that irritated me no end! I have to say that when I mh and I signed Peace I had hopes that we could start to work together, but that really just hasn't happened at all. Ah well, I guess I'll have another war on my hands soon enough.

Andy.

[Dreylin]

It also gives me a good excuse to ping mh:

mh,

Thought I'd send a quick note to let you know that I've sent the turn on to you; you mentioned having some problems with the PBEM tracker, and I figured it may throw a wobbly the first time it has to skip athlete.

I'm guessing from your lack of reply to my previous message that you have no interest in negotiating for a new NAP deal, so I also wanted to ask whether and when you would be fulfilling your commitment to supply me with Constitution?

Regards,

Dreylin II.

If he's not going to negotiate for a new NAP, then I'm going to hold him to his offer of Constitution ... of course he's not actually researching it since he's been spendng all his gold on upgrades. I am very willing to negotiate a new NAP with him, although obviously my starting price of Medina is not something he likes. I'd probably be prepared to accept Stuttgart (the island city) instead, and am still willing to offer a reasonable price in additon to the NAP. But I think he's bent on war anyway, so probably just won't respond to my message....

[Dreylin]

Also touch base with Ruff to discuss our tech plans:

Ruff,

I see that you completed RR, excellent! I offered my gold reserves at EOT (~145g) but I saw that you have 170 on hand anyway, so if you won't need them I'm happy to hold onto it and run a few upgrades. I plan to upgrade a selection of my Janns to Rifles (probably the half-dozen or so which have >5xp), so I'm now back to 100% gold (well 90% fo another turn until the Arabian WW disappears).

What are our tech plans from here? You mentioned switching over teching duties to me, but I haven't been able to get Oxford online yet, so maybe you should continue with that duty; I have another Bank due online soon and am working on fitting in the final Uni I need, but I need to replenish my forces somewhat for when mh declares on me.

Our next goal is Assembly Line, but the next tech in that route is Constitution which mh has promised to me. I don't really expect him to fulfill that commitment in a timely manner though, but I have just pinged him about it anyway. I parked my research on Astro for now, and intend to run at 0% for a couple of turns anyway, so we have a bit of time to find out the lay of the land and discuss where to go next.

Oh, and athlete is dead.

Dreylin.

[Dreylin]

Hi Taylor!

Hey Andy,

Thanks for the heads up. I plan on reading everybody else's threads when I get the time, and was toiling on the decision to start with yours, so I guess this seals it, I will! When you say "from the other side of the fence" I got a feeling of not necessarily ill-will, just an unsettling feeling so I hope through the course of our diplomacy there was never any ill-will. Even if it was sometimes to lead you on, (or maybe vice-versa) the only thing that ever wrankled with me was the spy bomb which at best was questionably aggressive, whereas my outright breaking of our NAP was an outright breach. I always figured my emails to you were probably viewed as "what the hell is he trying to do", as if I was some type of crazy person, cause I think that's what it would have appeared to me if I had been in your shoes and had your civ experience etc... I suppose me breaking the NAP alone was not enough to warrant it "being the best thing" for you, I understand that, just everything fell into place perfectly for you at the time. As you said if MH and I had been in closer communication then it probably never would have happened.

Regardless I hope you know breaking our NAP wasn't an easy decision, which led me to wait to long and shot myself in the foot in the end (Karma, you know ). I was loathe to do it but felt it would be better to come to the aid of a long term ally rather than stay at peace with a (then) short term friend. I hold no ill-will for my destruction, mainly as I blame myself. More importantly I had tons of fun playing and getting to know the MP game better, members of the RB community and everybody in the game. I do wish I had had more diplomacy with Ruff, but RL time constraints limited the time I could put into this and the structure of the game didn't really demand it. That's why I'm in RBPB#2 .

Oh and about the city gifting, I wasn't really keen on that, but tacticly it made sense, and MH was pushing for it so I agreed. The only thing I do wish is that he had outright closed borders (which was something I had asked for, along with more gold but whatever no biggie) so your main force would have been thrown way back to the East. Not that it really mattered and you would probably be in a better position to hit MH if that had happened now.

So thanks again for the game, and the introduction into warfare! Enjoy the rest of it and best of luck to you Andy!

Taylor

Taylor,

No ill will at all; I'd certainly have liked to go to war with you rather than against you, but in the scheme of things this has worked out in my favour so far. I'm not sure how much I've commented on the various diplomacy efforts - probably more so at first than later - and I probably made some comments about your inexperience ... but you suspected that right! 9-)

Andy.

OK, now let me return to this comment:

Oh and about the city gifting, I wasn't really keen on that, but tacticly it made sense, and MH was pushing for it so I agreed.

Riiiiight, so mh hs been talking bollocks to me for quite a while. <sigh> I guess I'm disappointed about this, but given how thoroughly it seems he's been plotting against me since he signed the Peace deal, it surprises me even more that he actually did sign the deal.

[Dreylin]

Dreylin,

I am going to knock off Divine Right next turn and then take a good look at the tech situation. I agree that our next target is Assembly Line. My major concern is Sooooo getting Machine Guns. He is researching Steam Power and I expect that he will head towards Railroads after that. With mh feeding him gold (mh is spending his gold on something and sooooo is accumulating gold somehow so that looks like it is already happening), he could have RR in 8 to 10 turns. I will be my hammers in to getting my army in position to take Corinth during those 8 to 10 turns (back to drafting, etc) so my tech will slow down.

Ruff

Ruff,

fair enough, I'll take on teching duty then. I sent mh an e-mail this morning asking about Constitution, but I don't expect him to come through. I suspect that he is trying to drive me into declaring war on him, but I don't think I'll oblige. If he wants a war, then he can start it and be on the offensive at first.

I'll switch to Con in a couple of turns once I've run my upgrades and am ready to kick off research again ... that should keep them guessing for a while.

Oh, and been chatting with athlete and he sent me this nugget: "Oh and about the city gifting, I wasn't really keen on that, but tacticly it made sense, and MH was pushing for it so I agreed." (emphasis mine). So, yeah.

Dreylin

[Dreylin]

Bah!

Hi Dreylin,

occ: PBEM Tracker seems to work fine again.
ic:

My clerks seem to have misplaced the relevant correspondence.
Would you please be so kind and point me to your statement accepting my offer?

All we can find here is this:

"I may be willing to trade the city for the tech once you have it in hand, but a speculative trade with no firm date for fulfillment is really not in my interests."
"I guess you'll find out next turn, won't you."
"Well you can't really be surprised that I cancelled our NAP after you stole a city from me, can you?"
"I'm prepared to pay you what you gave athlete (plus suitable commission) for Medina as a starting point for negotiation."

Cheers
mh

mh,

My scribes found this:

"I am happy to gift to you Constitution once I got it, should athlete agree to cede Medina to me and you are set to attack it regardless of the color of the flag."

Since I did not attack Medina once you held the city, that concludes my side of the bargain you proposed above.

Oh, and I see that you've again ignored my offer to negotiate a new NAP; guess you're more interested in another war between us than I am.

Regards,

Dreylin II.

I'll be damned if I'm going to satisfy him by declaring war ... unless there's a really strong strategic reason to do so, of course!