Niccolò Machiavelli's Thread

[plako]

Chat after spotting Old Harry in game. This happened couple of days ago. Nothing too meaningful so I didn't even intend to send it here. However Tasunke is again taking full timer so some new material is not that bad idea while waiting

...some even more irrelevant stuff edited out
rboldharry: Would you guess this is my second MP war ever?
Doesn't look like we're going to achieve what we set out to...

me: Doing ok - Built up the army nicely. Couple of mistakes, but nothing major

rboldharry: (my first one I lost half an empire though so its an improvement)
Splitting off the knights was dumb, but couldn't really think
of anything better to do than pillage

me: Might have worked - in case we didn't have enough cats or RNG would have hated us

rboldharry: Yeah, I now think that we should have tried to send the knights to Bloody Mary and the 1-movers to WIFOM
The terrain and culture just meant it took us too long to get to WIFOM

me: Possibly. However Knights alone won't break Castles

rboldharry: I was wondering what was going on when you built the walls - then saw the castle and realised
You had your maces halfway between - so you could have put as many as you wanted in either?

me: y

rboldharry: We scouted the turn we declared and only saw 8 maces, I guess the rest were in transit
Ah well I'll get on and work out what our options are now...

me: well had to wait until we see where you were heading

rboldharry: Worked pretty well
Okay, speak later

I was hoping for some mention concerning peace from them. I wasn't not gonna mention it myself.

[plako]

Yesterday I tried to chat with Old Harry. Just said we're threatening Katana and we're upt to peace talk. Now I got this:

Hi Plako, sorry I missed your message yesterday. For some reason we are now interested in peace. While you're in a good position to get Katana we think we have a chance of taking WIFOM still, so how about calling it a score draw and you gifting us that marble again?

Naturally not acceptable and they really can't take WIFOM without lot of luck and grazy amount of casualties. Even if they get lucky they would lose most of their stack causing yet another batch of doubled War weariness.

So how to respond? I would suggest they gift Katana+island city to us + NAP e.g. to turn 180.

[zakalwe]

Longer NAP, I think. Or rolling, with a long cool down. We could also demand to get all their iron resources while we are at peace. Just to start high. And we could ask for furs.

I wonder why they want marble?

[plako]

Chat with Old Harry. Not sure this is good enough. This is definately better than continuing the war, but might be too good for Gillette. It is pretty good if we want to go against Tasunke/3M, but I'm not sure we want to do that. So your opinions are needed now.

rboldharry: Hows it going?

me: ok - Your suggestions isn't good enough. You're also highly unlikely to get WIFOM

rboldharry: Yeah, thought it'd be better to ask too much than too little
What is your suggestion?

me: Katana+Island city+longish NAP (need to verify these with the team, but this would enough to me)
Our economy is totally wasted because of all the drafting

rboldharry: I don't think that works for us. You can have the island city, but losing Katana hurts too much. If we sign peace you can roll over TEAM with your new army, so I don't think your economy will be down for long...

me: New war won't be helping our economy

rboldharry: It'll save you on unit costs...

me:

rboldharry:

me: You're techincally correct in case we lose

rboldharry: You wouldn't plan for that though, so I can see your dilemma

me: Well we can also raze Katana and continue. Neither of us gets anything and rest of the world continues to catch up
Jemmy won't be easy to keep after that either

rboldharry: Sorry I'm distracted by football

me: np

rboldharry: Its not going well...

me: you mean football

rboldharry: Among other things...
Its true our chances of taking WIFOM are lower than yours of taking Katana. (Well okay you're certain to take Katana). So how about something else? Units? we can't offer catapults, but I have a few knights we don't necessarily need.

me: That could work. How many?
You don't have that many I presume

rboldharry: Not any more

me: You don't have much more than those 4

rboldharry: How about three of the four in your territory?

me: I need to talk to the team, but that sounds a bit too little. Maybe couple of galleys with 4 Berserkers alongside with those would make it
We would also need to get temporarily your furs to fight against unhappiness in case we don't get Katana

rboldharry: Furs isn't a problem. I don't like the idea of giving up so many units though.
I think a couple of galleys and four zerks instead of the knights would be okay for us. Plus furs.

me: Well that soe not sound quite enough. Maybe replacing the captured workers and razed city would be enough. That would be at least something I could suggest to the team. Naturally the island city too

rboldharry: They are +1 movement galleys - pretty special. Yeah, forgot the island city, all yours.

me: 2* workers (immediately)+settler (e.g. within 10T) + 2*galleys+4*zerks+island city + furs for 30T. This sounds something I could present to the team
NAP up to T190?

rboldharry: Scratch the settler and I think our team could be interested. Long NAP is acceptable.
We like Katana, but we're always going to have the problem of it being crushed by your culture, so I think that lot outweighs it.

me: It is good city as is. All the resources are there.

rboldharry: I'll put the suggestion to the team and see what they say. Not sure when the server will be back up, so will try to get back to you tonight or tomorrow

me: I'll do likewise and we'll see what happens

rboldharry: Okay, I'll see what the team says, but we still remember how nicely you arranged our borders out of our last negotiation, so don't be surprised if they don't go for it...

me: Might be that our team don't like this too much either.
Not sure we really want to continue fighting and this deal is decent only in that case
when we want to do that

rboldharry: Yeah, but they know how good you are at negotiating

me: Not so sure about that. The dealcurrently dicussed does not feel that great after wasting so much efforts to raise army

rboldharry: So I should quit while I'm ahead?
Okay
Better go...

[novice]

Peace is very valuable. I wouldn't oppose this deal, I wouldn't oppose rejecting it either. Plako gets the final say as far as I'm concerned.

We could take out TEAM (probably easier said than done) and keep rolling into the pirates.

Main reason Plako gets the final say is that I'm unsure on the state of our economy atm.

[darrelljs]

I'm with novice (i.e. I defer to plako)!

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Hi Plako

We've discussed it and the settler is difficult as we too will be
rebuilding our economy after some frankly despotic leadership. Can we
instead offer two more Zerks, as 140 hammers is greater than 100. That
makes the peace deal:

- 6 Berzerkers
- 2 galleys
- 2 workers
- Island city
- 30 turns of fur
- NAP to t200

I didn't want to offer in game until we'd thrashed out the details. We
understand that your golden age is due to end soon though and that
Katana is at risk, so if you can catch me on chat tomorrow to confirm
or negotiate further then I can log in and accept and let you play the
rest of your turn normally.

I would agree to this.

Darrell

[plako]

I agree. We should take this and see, if we can do something on Tasunke or 3M border. Tasunke has brought his Knights on display. He does not have Engineering so can't reach Ramune in 1T from there.

[pling]

I'm happy with the decision of the guy who knows what's going on. Sounds a good time to get peace, just before the other front of the war opens

Do we want to clarify that we want a NAP to mean no gifting of units to be used against us, as well? Or does that just potentially open a can of worms (if Gillette/TEAM have a NAP would that make them withdraw the beserkers bit of the deal ...)?


In terms of potential TEAM units - I think they can have a maximum of 18 Knights, but I haven't really accounted for the Longbows & Crossbows we've seen. So that's probably them all in that screenshot. I also have them down as having 8 Macemen, but see caveat about LB & CB. My numbers for TEAM are a lot vaguer than the numbers for Gillette No Construction unless they got it in the last couple of turns so no Cats unless gifted & no signs of gifting.

[pling]

I think they can have a maximum of 18 Knights

They have 19 in that picture.

Must've missed the (4) when I looked at it earlier coz I counted 16

Oh well, more than 18, but no space for more than 24. Probably