[PB70] Lurking under the tables

[Tarkeel]

Why would Bing want a city there? It's insanely exposed. You could also say it flanks like five of Scooter's cities, I guess...

Did you mean this city?


Besides the fact that it's firmly in "his" area, it also claims a silk for him. It is horribly exposed though, and will only (before cities start changing owners) have a plains-cow as food. It can also serve as a buffer to his core.

[Miguelito]

Mjmd should have taken the t150 or t200 NAP with Charriu and rolled up the map in the other direction imo.

[Tarkeel]

There's something hilarious taking place in the Diplo discord right now. Some time ago (April 26th), Mjmd made the following vague offer of support to Bing:

Mjmd: I need a couple techs but eventually I would consider offering you a 0% interest loan to get to currency yourself
BING_XI_LAO: That would be excellent.
Mjmd: mind you I am now very very poor, but let me know when you have math and we can figure it out

There has been no follow up to it, but Bing is milking this hard to demand 80g from each of the other three to close borders with Mjmd. Well played!

[El Grillo]

The diplo discord is interesting in that all the communication is 1:1, and any coordination beyond 2 people is going to involve a lot of repeated information, with the possibility that one person can start telling different things to different people. Ideally, not in a way that can be easily found out by the other two people, and without outright lying (though I’m curious to see if and when that starts happening as well).

[Tarkeel]

Yeah, this is the first point of the game where there's flowing rather intense messages in all directions, some of which are shading the truth a bit. Superdeath is telling Mjmd that he was forced into the embargo, when in fact he was one of the instigators. Although his initial idea wasn't an embargo, but breaking the NAP and attacking. (And he probably still wonders why I wouldn't sign a NAP with him in 67)

[El Grillo]

Tensions are definitely ratcheting up. Mjmd and Bing raised the possibility of doing a zero-interest loan via two one-time gold transfers, which for one is imo putting quite a bit of faith on the other party to pay it back, and also probably won't escape Charriu's notice anyway.

[Tarkeel]

So Charriu and Scooter organized / forced a trade embargo on me that included SD. 

I'm a little mad. Sure I did 8 cities into HG into MoM, but its not like they aren't doing powerful things. 

I don't blame SD for capitulating in the face of China military UU. In fact it forced me into teching MC JUST in case.

I wonder when Mjmd will find out that's not quite how it happened.

I am thankful Bing kept his trade routes open. They are worth a cool 12gpt which is about 1/5 of my per turn income.

I'm pretty sure that figure is *way* off. At this stage of the game, city size/distance isn't large enough to factor into to trade routes, making foreign and island the two relevant factors, for +1C each. Mjmd has five island cities, which is enough to fill internal 2C trade routes until airports and free market; the only improvement to this would be 3C foreign island routes. IIRC, Charriu and Scooter have 3 each and I think Superdeath might have settled his fourth by now. It's hard to tell for Bing, but I doubt he has more than two.

TL;DR is Bing is likely only supplying max 2C replacement over internal-route.

[Magic Science]

Mjmd might learn the truth, though he might not believe it, if he ever tells Charriu or Scooter what Superdeath told him about the embargo.

And I agree with you about BING's trade routes. WAIT what about Mjmd's 5 island cities? I think that does make +12.


Also, in Discord, Charriu is being astonishingly passive in reaction to Mjmd's attack. He is apparently just planning to give Mjmd 400 gold and Open Borders back in exchange for being allowed to resettle the city uncontested. Wow. My first instinct in Charrius's position would be to threaten to escalate the war to majorly unpleasant levels for both sides unless I am allowed to resettle the city for no payment at all.
But that instinct might be incorrect, and Charriu has been very good at quick practical forgiveness in past True AI diplomacy games.

[El Grillo]

Yeah that surprised me as well. 400g is a lot at this point in the game, and as mentioned completely reverses the impact of the embargo. I'm not sure what the situation looks like in terms of units in the area (how was the city razed with no warning, anyway?), but Charriu needs to be careful to make sure he does not end up being the weak civ being split up.

[Tarkeel]

And I agree with you about BING's trade routes. WAIT what about Mjmd's 5 island cities? I think that does make +12.

Mjmd's island cities won't give any foreign trade to himself; but they will make sure that the baseline traderoute in all his cities is 2C. Hence he needs a foreign island for 3C, but the game is most likely presenting him with several foreign 2C routes which are effectively the same as an internal route.