[Spoilers] Ceterum Peter censet Carthaginem fore triumphatrix - Adrien + Miguelito

[Miguelito]

Everything good here and I'll happily leave the turns to Adrien for a while more
Just some comments
-can't the units at hulk be hit by knights from hermitage if THH doesn't want that peace and takes hulk back? I suppose we'll know next turn
-aren't spies banned ?
- the Thh runaway remark is very true and it should definitely impulse us towards confronting him, I just felt that before engineering there wasn't much we could do about him , also mardoc's not a pushover certainly.
- Al has knights now, so just numids probably won't do. I wil suck to defend there though against knights, although zone defense will get way easier there with 3move roads. Btw we have zero cats around there, should change that, maybe with units from the island.
- yes to 2triremes (from pfeffi?) At emerald. This war we've been getting boated. Maybe even hide them behind the city tile. Also note we have ti replace those crab workboat

[Miguelito]

Also Perrier is quite strong reg culture, will be more with university.

[AdrienIer]

Well either THH really wanted peace in exchange for Hulk or he wouldn't have sent the offer. So I don't see how he would suddenly change his mind and take the city back now. Also he could only raze it because there are like 10 units just north of it (and I don't expect him to have that many knights in this region).
"Spies only for spying; no espionage missions" is what's written in the tech thread, so no they aren't banned.
THH vs Mardoc right now is not a complete massacre but Mardoc can't win, and will lose the battles eventually. We can do something about it by threatening him with strength 9 muskets which are nothing to sneeze at.
I want to play this as full spears (well add a few axes and numids for mace defense) until engineering and then 2 or 3 pikes per city should be enough to show him that it's not going to be an easy conquest.
A trireme or two wouldn't hurt but I'll have to think about when to get the forges done.

[Dreylin]

Er, yeah. Sooooo. Not really sure what we do now:

[AdrienIer]

Shit

[AdrienIer]

Ok I'm pretty angry now. I didn't get this save, so I guess AlHazard thought I wasn't going to play the turns anymore, I'll have to PM him. But even without contemplating the whole situation this is pretty bad.
A few days ago Miguelito told me he was wondering if THH hadn't sent us the peace offer knowing we couldn't accept it, to make us be less on our guard and do a trick like this on us. I called him paranoid, and still do. I think THH made a genuine mistake, and really meant it when he said

Uh, just ignore [the offer] and it'll be fine, I guess.

Except we played with that offer in mind, of course (just saying ignore it doesn't take away the psychological effect that goes with the offer). And instead of being wary of a trap last turn after he left Hulk empty I plunged right through it and lost pretty much our whole stack. Now THH will have no problem to take TOS and our whole mainland.

There are two possibilities, if he decided to do this trap to us after he realized his offer was illegal I'm going to call him all kinds of names in front of my computers (and imply them in this thread) because that's just f-ing someone up with illegal diplomacy in a no-diplo game (he couldn't have planned it before that because the 10t peace treaty would have let us reinforce the city before he could pull this through). This is basically "I'm ok with giving you peace and your city back" "sorry I lied". Which is fine in a full diplo game (I play Diplomacy, I know how these things work) but the kind of things forbidden by the rules of the game. Miguelito copied a post by Alhazard in the tech thread that was super clear about it, and that we all agreed on. And we couldn't "just ignore" his offer because his actions were consistent with it.

Or he could have gotten angry at our 75g demand for peace. Which makes me puzzled. Just reoffer white peace if you don't want to pay. But at least it's kinda ok to do that (in light of the "don't be a dick" rule), I don't really mind, especially because it's a winning move for him. Well we were still lured in by his peace offer, and handed him our stack on a plate because of that, but it's on the good side of the line I think.

In any case I intend to keep playing (and then Dreylin after me, and Miguelito when he comes back) if the others don't want to concede. But with TOS lost a concession is probably in order.

[Dreylin]

I've forwarded the save to you. Looking in the e-mail from Al, he mentioned having tried to get it to you but it bouncing. Let me know if you don't get it and I'll look for another way around, I guess!

[Dreylin]

As to why he's turned around, /something/ is up on the Mardoc border; the piles of Mardoc's Knights, etc. have disappeared from the view of the Chariot stationed there. I didn't move it around to look for them since I don't expect to be playing the turn and don't want to tie you into particular moves.

Mardoc plays before THH, right? If he withdrew for some reason, THH could see that as an opportunity to turn back around and hit us instead.

[AdrienIer]

Got the save, thanks

[AdrienIer]

We have less than half of THH's power now. I'm ready to concede right now, but the other players won't see the power drop right away.