[SPOILERS] Seven Isabellas of India

[Rowain]

No Diplomacy going on (besides your offer to athlete)?

[SevenSpirits]

There has been a bit. I asked Rev what was up, and he said he was mostly trying to spice things up and maybe get a small concession. However it seems the war is over with no shots fired - I think Nakor's defenses were just too strong. (He has Crossbows... I remember quite a while ago, I suggested to him he get them to defend vs Jowy instead of Longbows.)

I also asked Nakor what was up, and whether he thought Ruff might attack him too. He said he was fine, but might need help if Ruff also declared, which Rev had claimed would happen. I told him I might be able to help if Ruff did attack him.

I also asked Ruff what was going on, but haven't heard back yet. Presumably nothing, since the war is now over.

It would be pretty cool if Ruff/Rev both are (or stay) enemies of Nakor. That would let me and Athlete keep ourselves as the only allied neighbor pair, and essentially put us in a 3v2 vs Ruff/Rev.

[SevenSpirits]

It would be pretty cool if Ruff/Rev both are (or stay) enemies of Nakor. That would let me and Athlete keep ourselves as the only allied neighbor pair, and essentially put us in a 3v2 vs Ruff/Rev.

Guess not - Ruff just cancelled our NAP. (War may not be declared for 8 more turns.) Wow, his diplomacy messages have been really weird, I wonder what he is thinking when composing them. The only rational explanation is he wants me to dislike him and to waste time building up troops to defend against him... but neither of those is to his benefit.

Not as much time as I would have liked (no Galleons), but plenty time to whip out some Macemen. And Ruff doesn't get a warning about my intent to attack him later.

The main situation I need to avoid right now is multiple opponents attacking me at once. I can only hope that Nakor or Rev haven't gotten any wild ideas.

[SevenSpirits]

The game is officially "interesting". At least, for a moment.

Rev apparently declared war on Athlete. (I talked with Athlete.) It seems pretty clear that him, Ruff, and Nakor are all working together. The main thing I can't tell is if Nakor is tacitly supporting it, or plans to declare too. (Probably the latter.) Couple comments on all of it:

- It's unfortunate that these games tend to devolve into lopsided team wars. But I'm not sure what could be done about it. Anyway, I took it as a given when I signed up.

- I finally realized one reason Ruff's position went so far downhill. It looks like he's whipped four courthouses! I'm pretty sure those do not have a good cost/benefit ratio yet.

- I learned today that Athlete does not have any kind of a NAP with Rev. And... he's been lagging way behind Rev in power for a while. And has cities practically adjacent to their shared border. Now I don't know the whole situation, but that sounds quite imprudent to me.

- Next turn I finish Optics. And then I have a dilemma - I really want to send a caravel N or S to get cirumnavigation (we have vertical-only wrap). I also may need ships for defense against galleys. And I'd also like to send one over near Ruff. AND I want to see if I can locate a hidden landmass out in the ocean. Man. I may have to build several of those things. But I also need another galley, and lots of ground troops.

- The turn after finishing Optics, I think I'm going to dump all my commerce for a turn as EP onto Ruff, as this will give me visibility of his research and cities.

- I have also of course offered my limited services to athlete in fending off rev, as I think we live or die together. So far this means a small loan so he can get Civil Service (for berserkers) a turn earlier.

[Bobchillingworth]

Any chance for an update? Empire pics, thoughts on the Rev / Lew war, thoughts on any new map info you have... =)

[SevenSpirits]

Sure.

It's currently t143, but let's go back a bit. I took some shots on t134...




As you can tell by looking at the relative positions of the purple lines, I have built up quite a strong military in the past few turns, thanks in large part to Comet Zone, which has my Heroic Epic, had some forests a few turns ago, and thus produced a unit a turn for a good while. The best part is that almost all my units have 5xp, from Vassalage.

Next, new land, discovered by my Caravels. Sadly no huts were present, so no chance of popping astronomy for free. Basically this is worth a good seafood city, and two happiness resources. It's too bad we banned war elephants; that ivory would actually be useful vs cataphracts!



Since I had counted about 40 missing land tiles and this island is 8, there are pretty clearly 5 of them (one per player).

Astronomy came in 3 turns earlier than predicted by this shot, due to a) being repayed by Lewwyn [who replaced Athlete], b) revolting back to bureaucracy for a bit, and c) borrowing some gold from Lewwyn. And that was despite running espionage slider part-time to keep Ruff and Nakor from seeing my research. I believe I was successful with that, though I admit I'm not that confident of how EP costs work.

So here is turn 140:



Galleons are already on the way, and in some cases, here! Like I said, I've played t143 already, but you're going to have to wait for t146 (IIRC) for the next update.

Meanwhile, in foreign policy...

I've been communicating extensively with Lewwyn who immediately seemed to have the right attitude (good at fighting & cooperative). I'm sure his thread is good, and I'm sure you're already reading it. My woodsman axe and workboat have been scouting out TRD's territory and forces for Lewwyn in their war, helping him know when it's safe to advance. So far he has recaptured his own city (which athlete lost the moment before he retired) and one more of TRD's, and he pretty much destroyed TRD's standing army this last turn. Barring any surprises, TRD is going to lose several more cities and be pretty much out of it from that point. As a nail in the coffin, Lewwyn will have increased mobility soon with Engineering finishing and the possibility of gifted Galleons.

Ruff is pretty much screwed, details to be presented on the turn of screwing.

Nakor is still something of an enigma, though it seems clear he wants to get Cataphracts. According to him he is planning to attack Ruff with them. As of the previous update, I had suggested a mutual defense pact to Nakor with regard to Ruff, and he did not respond to this for over a week, which I took as a sign of enmity. But more recently I asked him again and he agreed. So we now have a short-term NAP, with a few other clauses that will probably not come up. I'm happy about this because even with galleons, my mostly-mace army shouldn't really be attacking someone who has been building lots of crossbows anyway. To fight Nakor, I should really get muskets or better, ideally rifles, first.

[novice]

Ruff is pretty much screwed, details to be presented on the turn of screwing.

Looking forward to it.

Bit odd that TRD hasn't cancelled OB with you?

[SevenSpirits]

Looking forward to it.

Bit odd that TRD hasn't cancelled OB with you?

Yeah, surprising (lack of a) move by him. Though he hasn't shown much competence in other aspects of the war, either.

[Bobchillingworth]

Thanks for the update! It's frustrating to lurk this game after having created the map and only getting info from one player (even as excellent as Lew's reports are).



Are you sure that War Elephants are banned? I don't think I ever read anything about that in the tech thread.

[SevenSpirits]

Thanks for the update! It's frustrating to lurk this game after having created the map and only getting info from one player (even as excellent as Lew's reports are).



Are you sure that War Elephants are banned? I don't think I ever read anything about that in the tech thread.

Funny, I know I checked, but I must have looked in the wrong tech thread or something! Looking now, there doesn't seem to be any mention of ivory, WEs, eles, elephants in the thread.

Awesome.

Thanks again for the map, I am really like the balance of naval vs land warfare in this game.