[SPOILERS - PBEM16] Dazedroyalty - Gilgamesh of Babylon

[Ichabod]

Wow, interesting diplo updates!

It's going to be key not to fall on Krill's bad side. At least you haven't told him any lies during the attempted choke. The problem is that scooter is too far away from Krill to be a good target. How well do bowmen fare against Praetorians, I wonder... Not so much, I'm guessing, and they can only defend.

Iron working + going to Machinery (maybe bulbing with a GE) for crossbows would be the quickest reliable counter. But you'd be neglecting a lot of important techs to make a beeline like this (delaying an academy, too)...

Well, keep expanding seems to be the best thing to do. Krill has some very nice land avaiable to him, so we need quantity to triumph over quality. Lots of workers and settlers. But you have to be careful not to expand too much into scooter's face. The world diplomatic situation is at a state where a scooter + Krill alliance against you is not something that you could disregard.

[dazedroyalty]

Wow, interesting diplo updates!

It's going to be key not to fall on Krill's bad side. At least you haven't told him any lies during the attempted choke. The problem is that scooter is too far away from Krill to be a good target. How well do bowmen fare against Praetorians, I wonder... Not so much, I'm guessing, and they can only defend.

Iron working + going to Machinery (maybe bulbing with a GE) for crossbows would be the quickest reliable counter. But you'd be neglecting a lot of important techs to make a beeline like this (delaying an academy, too)...

Well, keep expanding seems to be the best thing to do. Krill has some very nice land avaiable to him, so we need quantity to triumph over quality. Lots of workers and settlers. But you have to be careful not to expand too much into scooter's face. The world diplomatic situation is at a state where a scooter + Krill alliance against you is not something that you could disregard.

I agree that Krill + Scooter would be terrible, but Krill has communicated to me through chat that his general reaction to this whole thing is something along the lines of that was predictable, we were never a threat, we didn't slow him down and it's been amusing to watch. That is a paraphrase but fairly close to what he said. I don't know how much of that is factual and how much is bravado but the point is he said it won't affect our future diplomacy. I don't believe that in the sense that there will be an effect on the psychology of our negotiations but I am trusting that it does mean he's not pronouncing vendetta. I remain fairly confident that his biggest target is still Serdoa. If he comes at me, I'll eat my words and be very surprised.

Serdoa sent a message to both scooter and me:

So that you both know, I told Krill what happened in reality when this choke was talked about. I pondered about that a little bit at first, but not even hearing back anything after all the talks of Bowmen and Impi coming his way just made me see that as best option. You probably feel differently, but I don't think it is fair that I get to take Krills aggression alone whereas you two simply disappear. I don't think there is much to talk about that anymore, we are probably all disappointed about how that went down anyway.

Regards,
Serdoa

I understand his frustration but he broke an agreement not to share these messages so that's annoying. The entire conversation started under the directions "even if you're not interested, you'll keep this message quiet from Krill." Now, Serdoa never explicitly wrote me a message confirming the secrecy of the messages and I'm sure others will interpret it differently, but I feel that if you get a message like that and don't indicate otherwise, you're agreeing. The only alternative is to turn all diplomacy into an exercise in lawyering.

Honestly, though, whatever. I don't really care that Serdoa shared the messages because it broke our trust. The real issue is that Serdoa is not thinking this through all the way. He's understandably upset that he's the one still at war with Krill while scooter and I got off with peace. I'd be upset too. The problem is that by sharing those messages he's back stabbing both Scooter and me without guaranteeing peace with Krill either. Even if he gets peace with krill, he's now got three civs that are at least midly irked with him.

If I had realized that Krill wasn't going to give him peace (I just assumed he would since he seemed fine with granting me peace with no direct fallout), I would have explained more in depth to Serdoa the logic behind peace. I did send him a message explaining that my warrior and his Quechua alone weren't enough to hurt Krill so I had negotiated peace. I actually left it open for future choking but did encourage him to get peace himself.

In retrospect, Scooter and I did lure Serdoa in under the assumption of Impis and Bowmen. I feel bad about that and will own up to my inexperience in MP choking that led to not realizing what it would take to choke Krill effectively. So, Serdoa, when you read this, I am genuinely sorry for the way it worked out. However, I still think that your diplomatic response was not the one best for you civ.

My plan moving forward is to expand as much and quick as possible while paying close attention to power graphs and what not to ensure against invasion. PBEM7 would have been totally different if I'd been checking power graphs. I had to learn the hard way how important that is in MP!

[dazedroyalty]

I responded to Serdoa's message:

Serdoa,

I'm sorry that you got left with the short end of the stick after the Krill choke attempt. As I mentioned in my last email to you, I was totally surprised by Krill's unwillingness to make peace with you. It was my hope that we'd be able to effectively pull of a choke but, given the terrain and Krill's military units -- both of which we did not know until we moved in -- the only result of keeping our warrior/Quechua in his lands would have been death before any bowmen or impis could have arrived. I explained that to you in a previous email so I'm not sure what you mean about "not hearing back." The message I sent you right after making peace let you know why I made that decision. At that time, you did not offer any objections or seek any clarification. If I had not done that, your Quechua would have died from Krill's attacks! I was trying to protect you from dying needlessly. I'm not thrilled that your response was to share messages that I sent you in good faith with Krill. Especially since Scooter specifically mentioned that these messages were to be kept quiet from Scooter. From now on, I have no choice but to assume that anything I send you is being shared freely with others when it suits your purposes. I still hope and expect that our future negotiations will go well but we will need to be more explicit in our expectations before we make any agreements.

Dazed

So I didn't really make the deal with Krill to benefit Serdoa but it's true that if I hadn't made the deal then it would have resulted in his Quechua dying needlessly. Also, I did explain the reasoning for it in an email so I don't know why he's saying he never heard from me. He definitely never expressed his frustration to me (or Scooter to my knowledge). As to tone, I wanted to try to be sympathetic to his situation but still call him out on the way he handled it. Not sure how well I pulled that off.

[Sandover]

You shouldn't post such things or at least mark them clearly for what game they are spoilers.
I thought its a picture/demos or such opened it and now know things I as a ded lurker of sandover in PBEM 14 should not know.

Edit: meaning the spoiler in post 77

Damnit Rowain! Now you made me miss it.

[dazedroyalty]

Things are going well--i think. I have some diplo updates and other stuff coming but for now I have a question I need answered before the next turn comes around:



You can see my settler in place to settle my next city. My question is about connections based on rivers--the mechanics of which I'm foggy about. What is the fewest number of roads I need to connect these cities? I don't have sailing and it's not on the docket for any time soon.

[Sandover]

No border pop: you need to road all the way.
With a border pop in the new city: roading two tiles will do.
With a border pop in Bile Jean: no road required.
With sailing: no road or border pops required.

I'm pretty sure I got that right. My understanding is that you shouldn't be able to use the full extent of the river without sailing since parts of it aren't within (or on) your border. Once borders expand at the new city a road connecting Bile Jean with the hill tile 1NE of the sheep (where one of your workers are standing) should do the trick.

[Mardoc]

Rowain, sorry about that, I didn't mean to be problematic for you. In fact, I honestly didn't think anyone but Ichabod read this thread! :D

I may not have anything to say, but I'm reading along too.

[darrelljs]

+1.

Darrell

[dazedroyalty]

Got a response from mh:

Hi,

I draw some fun out of the early exploration phase.

I have chatted to Krill now and then. Nothing formal about long lasting peace or such.

mh

This is the kind of message that leaves me with no idea where to go or how to move forward with him. Fortunately he's on the other side of the world so it's not a huge concern to me. If he was a neighbor, I'd be a bit more worried. In fact, Serdoa told me that he is worried because of messages like this from mh. I don't know mh well enough to know if this is just his style or if he's playing a particular strategy in this game. It's totally conjecture but I wouldn't be surprised if krill and mh end up working together.

I have more to update, but a work meeting just came up. Leave it to work to get in the way of Civ!

[dazedroyalty]

This may be too meta, but Krill and I were just discussing if novice's post in the RB Mod thread (about eliminating metal pops) means that someone just popped a metal in this game. I don't actually think metal pops need to be eliminated but i hope that no one popped one in this game!

Anyway, back to diplo. I sent mh a similarly short response:

mh,

Exploring is fun! I will concede that I miss the joys of popping huts--but only when I get the huts! Its not fun when your opponent pops HBR on turn 18!

Dazed

Serdoa, on the other hand, sent me a more interesting response to my last message:

Dazed,

sorry that I haven't answered earlier but I was very busy with PBEM14 and I felt that there was not much to add anyway. Just one thing I want to make clear: I do not and will not share freely with others what is sent to me as long as I do not feel getting betrayed. I accept the blame for not talking that through with scooter and you before acting but on the other hand, if you two sold me out any discussion would not have helped much.

I know that this has hurt my reputation for this game (and probably for others as well) but I thought at that time that it would be the best course of action. At least we all are talking again with each other. And hey, I am still at war with Krill and killed a warrior of his. So I feel that I did my part in this war, didn't I? Like I said, I accept that I get blamed for sharing those emails but I also feel that I have stayed true to our targets - namely hurting Krill.

I would also hope that we would work together in the future but I agree that we have to be much more explicit about what we except from each other. Especially in a shared war.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

Basically, he seems to feel bad for going behind our backs to tell Krill but also seems to believe that he was justified. I'm not really pissed with him but just disappointed. I didn't have anything profound to reply so I just sent this:

Serdoa,

I understand how upsetting it must have been to feel betrayed. I ask is that in the future you always communicate with me before assuming I've betrayed you. I think i've already explained why I was not betraying you in this game, so I won't rehash that issue.

As to hurting Krill, I'd love to find a way to do that still, but I can't get bowmen faster than he will have metal so that's not gonna be that helpful in and of itself. Hopefully, we can find another way to hurt him.

Thanks,
Dazed

Separately, I offered to trade Serdoa my composite world map for an update on his exploring. (I really want to know where mh is at). Honestly, since I've already traded my map with him and haven't really done much scouting since, it doesn't hurts me at all to trade it to him while it hopefully gets me big gains--both in scouting and seeing more accurately what he's done with his land. He agreed with the caveat that I don't shared it with Krill--which is fine with me. Krill already owes me a scouting screen shot so I don't need to trade him anything new.

Scooter is reacting a little more frustrated with Serdoa for turning over the messages to Krill. not unreasonably so, but he has considered an impi choke on Serdoa just to hassle him. It'd be great except that Serdoa just settled his copper site (after beating Krill on a 25% odds quechua attack that was quite... unexpected). I had been trying to convince Serdoa to settle horses first (which would be useless against impis) based on Krill's warrior lurking by the copper. Unfortunately, now that he beat krill i can't suggest it. Honestly, the horse site is a better 2nd city because of the food available but the copper is a better strategic resource for him.

I decided to pursue IW next instead of Writing. I may end up regretting it but I would really like to get a jump on the jungle lands between me and Scooter. If I get there first, since I'm also CRE, it'll be really good. Unfortunately, I won't get an academy for a long time. But honestly, that's good because my GP farm site isn't a top priority to settle anytime soon.

Here's the most recent demos:

I'm a bit behind on GNP which isn't thrilling but am significantly ahead on MFG and strong lead on Food (which will jump up A LOT when the borders of my third city pop since all (EDIT) FIVE! of it's resources are in the second ring! My entire army is warriors but it feels good to have the most cities and the most "power"--at least for now!