RB PBEM #1 - Mehmed (SPOILERS!)

[Dreylin]

Hi,
lets see, I asked you twice whether you would honor our NAP when I accepted Medina from athlete.
To this I attached my offer of giving you Constitution.
However, I only received a rather unpleasant:

"I guess you'll find out next turn, won't you."

Which forced me to take certain precautions, I would not have taken otherwise.
Not sure whether this is normal business behaviour in Ottoman country, but here a reply like this says: "no deal"

So to make it clear, as we seemed to suffered from diplomacy misunderstandings in the past:
I am not giving you Constitution for your delayed decision to spare Medina.

I am also convinced that this does not come as a surprise to you.

As for the NAP.
As far as I understand, you offered me a NAP (of yet to be determined length) if I agree to sell you Medina for a certain amount of money? That amount of money should be equal or similar to the amount I paid athlete. Correct?

Since I never paid money to athlete for Medina, we would have to agree on a different approach.
Furthermore, I am not sure what a new NAP brings me, apart from loosing Medina and be spared for a bit longer?
I assume the length will be set sufficiently long for you and Ruff to finish off soooooo.
So I have a slim chance of finishing third rather than fourth.

Not very appealing.

Regards
mh

ps: Dreylin, you must be pretty annoyed by the diplomacy with me. Sorry for that. As I realized in my short involvements in other MP games, I am rather irritated by the human-human diplomacy. I'd probably prefer a game with no out-of-game interaction, but switching to that now would be more than rude. Anyway, I am convinced that a conflict between us in the PBEM#1 is inevitable, I'd prefer to get it over with sooner rather than later. Especially, since I won't have much time from December onwards due to huge change in my job situation. So lets cross swords ingame and have some fun before dragging things out further. By now you realized that the middle island holds nothing exceptional, which basically means I am out of incentives to play on for much longer. Cheers.

mh,

Actually what you said was:

"What I want from you is a statement whether you intend to break the NAP we have over the city of Medina.
My ETA for Constitution is 8-9 turns if all goes according to plan."

That doesn't look to me as an attached offer of Constitution, just a statement of your ETA. Following this you also said:

"All I need to know from you is:
Are you going to honor the NAP or not if I accept Medina?"

Which following the initial demand for a statement of intent, felt more like you wanting to know whether you had to take precautions to defend from a potential attack. I decided that I would let you draw your own conclusions as to my intent, as a way of assessing your view of me, and so I could see what sort of precautions you might take. I did not "delay my decision", merely make it at the first time I had all the facts; on my turn.

You're correct that I am not surprised by your decision not to fullfill that commitment.

I really didn't expect you to accept the NAP offer as-is, but since I proposed it as a starting point for negotiation (and stated such), I had hoped that you would at least make some sort of counter-offer. Ah well, if you feel that war is inevitable then I guess there's nothing to negotiate.

I am interested that you claim not to have paid athlete any money for Medina. My Indian colleague has been monitoring the gold levels for quite a while, and there was definitely a transfer of funds to athlete around that time. Furthermore, in my recent conversation with athlete he indicated that he had received money in exchange for the city ... maybe he misunderstood the arrangement?

Dreylin II.

PS: yeah, diplo with you has been pretty frustrating....

Well, if war is inevitable, then I can definitely afford to sit back and wait for him to come to me.

[athlete4life10]

If your name is Ruff, sooooo, mostly_harmless, or athlete4life, you'd better not be reading this thread!

Well I am now!!! :neenernee

[Square Leg]

Well I am now!!! :neenernee

Its going to take days to read all the threads! have fun!

[Dreylin]

Dreylin,

Divine Right is a 2 turn tech for me. After that, I will be starting on Constitution (3), Corporation (3) and then Assembly Line (8). Those numbers assume that I stay in Bureaucracy. I am thinking of swapping out of Bureau so that I can draft again. I would like do make that swap in 3 or 4 turns from now. How about we plan that you take over tech duties after I finish Constitution, leaving you to pick up Corp and AssLine.

Ruff

We have a tech plan.

[Dreylin]

t136 - OK, RR from Ruff and 100g to him.

So I've got 214g to play with this turn; and since Arabia no longer exists, WW disappears and I can run 100% gold for 204gpt.

mh has been using his gold to promote Muskets (2 in Vienna), so I promote a couple of Janns.

Quiet turn really, juggling units around and tweaking builds, etc.

Bursa - Machine Gun, Konya - University.

Draft: Ankara, Samsun, Diyarbakir.

[Dreylin]

t137 - no missives since yesterday.

Ruff takes 180g.

Only completed build this turn is Edirne: Bank - Levee. Mecca also comes out of revolt and builds Culture for a turn to pop the 2nd Ring (wrong religions). The first border expansion did net me Silks for an extra Happy (+2 in Ankara, the only city with a Market), so that's useful.

Lots of shuffling troops to the front going on right now; I'll summarise the opposing forces later in the post. The second Ironclad reaches Konya, and I hide the first in the lake 1S of the city for now.

Workers are still a bit unfocused, but are starting to work on improving the transport routes by laying down railroads. First priority is to upgrade the route from Bursa to New Damascus that runs around the South of Banana Lake via Konya. This will enable foces to switch theatres of operation at relatively short notice, and will also allow me to keep reserves away from easy visibility at the frontlines.

OK, mh's forces are as follows:

Medina: 4Rifles, 2Muskets, 2Cavalry, Landsknecht & Catapult
Vienna: GG Rifleman, 8Rifles, 4Cavalry, 5Cannon

A new Cannon is on its way and a Rifle 2t out; not sure which city they're heading for.

Coastal Forces: 2Caravel, 1Galley
Mainz (mainland): 2Rifles
Strassburg (island): 3Rifles

Based on previous troop movements, I think there's another Rifle in-transit to the Island on the Galley.


An the glorious Ottoman armies:


Western Front -
Mecca garrison: Rifle, Jann (+1healing Rifle)
Baghdad garrison: Jannissary
Baghdad Mounted reserves: 5Cavalry, GG HA.
New Damascus: 4Rifles, 5Janns (2 to be promoted when cash available), Cannon, Cat
In-transit between Mecca and New Damascus: 3Jann, 2Cannon
Reinforcemens: 2Rifles 3-4t away.


Eastern Front -
Bursa: 4Rifles, Jann, 3Cav, 4Cannon, Axe, Archer.
Reinforcemnts: 2Rifles & Cat 1t away, Rifle 2t away.

Coastal Forces: 2Ironclad, Galley(stuck North of Mainz)
Konya: 2Rifles


So with my forces split, I can't really make an all-out thrust at either of mh's cities, but neither can he make an equivalent thrust at me without also exposing his flank. Since the units in the area are rougly equivalent,the aggressoris going to suffer for making the attack, hower in that respect I ammore vulnerable because of the cultural situation around New Damascus and Medina.

Whip Konya's University for 4Pop; Samsun's will also complete next turn, and Istanbul will complete its build and be able to start on Oxford Uni. Konya will also get 37h overflow into next build and immediately re-grow a pop.

Tweak the tiles at Gaziantep & Izmir to complete their builds a turn earlier; since Izmir's is it's Levee, the extra turn is well worth it.

1pop whip the Theatre into New Damascus to get it in place 2t faster.

I decide not to double-down on Draft anger at this stage, but since Arabia is gone I can draft from Kufah. That's an extra Rifle for ND.

Making sme of thse distant cities smaller actually helps with economic situation by reducing maintenance costs.

Oh, and Istabul is due for a Great Person in 4t; current odds are 43% Artist, 23% Prophet, 21% Scientist, 13% Engineer. I am hoping for anything other than an Artist so I can combine with my stacked Artist to kick off my 2-person Golden Age; however if the Artist prevails I'll first see if Ruff has any interest in trading for his next GP, then look at my options for bombing either Mecca or New Damascus to grab the border territory from mh.

[athlete4life10]

Well I finally did it and got caught up to date here. Very interesting read to get here. I did skip over a lot of boring stuff (atleast for me) about troop #'s and what not. It was the diplomacy that I found very interesting. It does appear you and Ruff were aligned almost from the get go, even if not officially right away.

Also I might have imbellished slightly that MH "pushed" for the Medina city. It was all definitely his idea, and gold definitely exchanged hands, though it's possible it came from Soooo with MH owing him or planning to owe him or just from MH to Soooo to me, I can't remember. So in that respect, Ruff is correct money changed hands. Pushed might be the right word, might not be but he was atleast very eager for it. I did also expect some more gold which never occurred, and I never bothered asking as they could probably do better with it than I could at that point. I had also wanted closed borders between MH and yourself as your main stack should have been teleported back to Bursa or thereabouts, giving me much more time. Anyways that probably doesn't really make you feel better .

There's more I wanted to comment on but after steady reading of this my brain is complete mush and I need to hit the sack early tonight. Thanks for the lesson in warfare, and by reading your thread diplomacy. I'll be hard pressed to believe anybody else has conducted themselves as well as yourself.

Athlete

[Dreylin]

@athlete: thanks for the insight, but you might want to be circumspect in how much info you share in here; after all sooooo and mh might have secrets they'd rather you didn't reveal.

Since mh hasn't replied to my last e-mail, I'm going to go with my general theory of his diplo-style - that he just doesn't want to talk about it. Whether that's just his general aversion to diplomacy, or a more-specific aversion to some of the particulars in the topics covered; who can say.

As for Ruff and I; as soon as I'd worked out the shape of the map I knew I had to try to secure an ally on one of my flanks. Ruff and I had some good dealings straight away, and then started chatting on a semi-regular basis. Anyway, I think that again from his POV it was important to secure one of his flanks, but if he were allied with sooooo, then sooooo would be virtually unthreatened in his area so it was natural for him to ally with me.

I would have liked to secure an ally on both of my flanks, but the way both you and mh expanded slower than the rest of us left it far more natural for you to end up on the same side.

[Dreylin]

t138 - Ruff takes 200g to finish Constitution, leaving me with 81g - enough for another Jann upgrade.


Istanbul: Cavalry - Oxford Uni. (6t w/Stone)

Ankara: Levee - Sistine Chapel (slow build w/o Marble, but Ankara is probably the best place to do it since it has all infra in place already)

Bursa: Machine Gun - Machine Gun (the first will head around to New Damascus, the second will stay in Bursa)

Konya: Uni. - Ironclad

Samsun: Uni. - Cannon (need to build some units, right!)

Gaziantep: Cavalry - Cavalry

Diyarbakir: Conf. Monastery - Conf. Missionary (will knock out 2 for Mecca and Najran)

Sarmatian: Ironclad - Library

Izmir: Levee - Ironworks (city is Farms, Windmills & Mines only and has 11 Levee riverside tiles. It will be a Monster)

New Damascus: Theatre - Conf. Monastery (added Culture & Hammers)

Mecca: Border Pop - Granary

Kayseri: Granary - Conf. Monastery (want it before SciMeth, and added Hammers & Research are useful)

OK, lots of builds completed this turn!


Anything in the logs; hmmmm, mh has completed the Statue of Zeus in ... ugh, Augsburg (his South-Westernmost city), that'll be a slog to reach.

What's the word on mh's reinforcements:

Looks like I was on the money with the Rifle on the Galley; a second is now resident in the Island forest. He has also sent a Caravel SE from the Island towards Kayseri. Will keep an eye on it with my new Ironclad from Sarmatian.

The in-transit Cannon is actually now camped out on the hill 2E of the city - that's probably where mh is going to maintain his reinforcements. One of the Muskets in Medina was upgraded to a Rifle, but no new troops there; Vienna has added another Cavalry. There are 2Rilfes & a Cannon within 2t of his frontline cities.

With Ruff set for gold for the remained of Constitution, I decide to run break-even (60%) EPs against mh. That will give me a total of 500, with city visibility needing 515-615, so well within reach in a couple of turns. Once I have city visibility, I will be able to move my Spies into the gaps to keep track of troop movements.

[Dreylin]

t139 - Lost one of my Spies on the inter-turn.

After last turn's extravaganza, there's only one build complete this turn:

Diyarbakir: Conf. Missionary - Conf. Missionary
Najran is out of revolt an starts Granary

Plot out my Railway connection and it looks like it'll take around 5-6t to have the majority of my cities connected up - that's with all 2 Workers on it full-time. Looks like I could do with a few more when I get a chance....

Review cities, but not much to see right now; odd tweak here or there.

EPs; looks like mh ran a few against me last turn as well - now 406/500 ratio. Cheapest city visibility (Vienna) is 540, I get 30EPpt at 0%, so I'll bump it up a bit. 100% Science is -158gpt, so I'd like to have that in the bank by the time I have to start Corp. 20% EPs gets me 100EP this turn, and +146g. It should also gain me visibility on ~half of mh's cities ... depending what he spends.