[SPOILERS] Tales from the Enchanted Forest - Thessa of the Ljosalfar

[Nyktorion]

Turn 114

Events: WarriorKnight got a "technological breakthrough" event, and another goblin is marching towards Hyll.

Domestic stuff: Evermore finished its disciple, which will spread FoL into F.Destination. It is now training another priest. The two priests currently trained in Evermore and Hyll are supposed to build temples in the two island cities. Speaking of the island cities:



The settler should be landing in two turns, and the next city should be founded in three turns.

My southern hunter is continuing his quest to find the Lanun. He has exited Elohim territory this turn, proceeding rather cautiously into the gargoyle/giant infested lands:



From this picture, it also follows that WarriorKnight already has Sanitation (his flood plains farms give 5f despite him being in Aristocracy).

Another note: I see many Malakim cultists sniffing around my borders (or rather, the areas previously occupied by Bannor culture). Given that this level of scouting is only natural (heck, my hunters are sniffing around in Elohim lands, as well), I'm not too alarmed yet, though.

Yonna has finished its mage guild, and is now training an adept, as well. My plan is to have two kinds of mages: one of them will be pure combat mages specialised in fireballs. They just get Fire, Spell Extension, and Combat promotions. The second kind will do combat via maelstrom, and learn as many useful (useful without combat promotions, that is) spell spheres as possible. For instance, water would be a good example of such a sphere: spring can both protect my lovely ancient forests from burning down, and turn all those deserts around Yonna, Pink Dot, and F.Destination into the more useful plains. Since Water I give me that immediate use of improving my lands in the west, I plan my first adepts to become such utility mages.

Diplo:

I got this from Irgy:

Either gold or gems is all the same to me. Does this mean you have an
alternative source of gold on the way though then? As I notice you now have
cotton for trade, so I could also simply offer gems for cotton as well.

Congratulations too on your successful campaign. As sad as it is to be on the
bottom of the scoreboard, I can at least rest assured that I'll at finish in
the top 5 now

Some other news that may interest you, I found a disciple of your leafy
obsession stuck in a barrow southwest of Tongurstaad. I'm frankly not entirely
sure what it is I want to do with him though. I'll probably just keep him
around to draw some nice forest art and bring a city out of revolt some time
in the future, but any other suggestions are welcome.

Best regards,
Irgy Arbandi

So, I have quite a few trades to arrange. First, based on Irgy's message and ther trade with Thoth that started last turn, I'd like to change my Sheep <-> Gold trade with Irgy and my Cotton <-> Gold trade with Thoth into Cotton <-> Gems and Silk <-> Gold, respectively. Also, as mentioned, I'd somehow like to get my hands on WarriorKnight's water mana. Based on that, I wrote the following messages. To Thoth:

Hi Thoth,

as you certainly already noticed, Gilden Silveric and his company of priests and archers were able to conclude our campaign against the Bannor quite quickly. The majority of my own losses were just tigers; other than those, only three archers died in the battle for F.Destination. My people are still celebrating this glorious victory!

As promised before the war, I have already shared some of the spoils (cotton) with you in exchange for gold. While I had previously gotten gold from Irgy, giving me gems instead would be quite the same for him, so getting gold in return is indeed fine for me. However, I'd be interested in changing my own part in this deal once the first 10 turns are up: would you mind waiving your "first dibs right" on my surplus cotton in return for getting the same right on my surplus silk instead? The cotton would suit me much better for other trades for other trades than the silk would.

best regards,
Nyktorion

To WarriorKnight:

Hi WarriorKnight,

as you have certainly seen, my campaign against the Bannor has come to a quick finish now. With tigers taking the brunt of the Bannor warriors' defensive force, my army was able to take the Bannor cities pretty smoothly. As intended and announced, I was able to take both remaining Bannor cities for myself.

The actual reason I am writing to you concerns mana. A few turns ago, I have researched Knowledge of the Ether, and my first adepts will be coming out soon. Water (whose mana is provided by your palace) would be one of the magic schools that I'd like my adepts to have. I see that you are currently trading your water mana to Irgy, but since water is one of the kinds of magic that is only really needed at the moment of giving your adepts the Water I promotion (unless you wish to summon water elementals), I think that a three-way sharing of this resource should work out; for now, a 10 turn period of having water mana, ideally starting about 5 turns from now, would suffice for my needs. What I could offer you in return? If you are getting some adepts of your own, then a similar 10-turn borrowing of my air mana as soon as you need it would be an obvious possibility.

best regards,
Nyktorion

To Irgy:

Hi Irgy,

indeed, I am getting another source of gold now, in return for my surplus cotton. However, since you have told me that you'd like to have my cotton too, I'm trying to get the cotton in this deal switched to silk. If that works out, I'll be happy to replace our sheep <-> gold trade with a cotton <-> gems deal as soon as the initial 10-turn period of the sheep <-> gold trade is up.

Nice to hear that there are disciples of the only real religion around in other parts of the world, too Given our distance and my own ability to train this disciples rather quickly (currently, I have one more of them in my queues), I don't see any real opportunities for cooperation here, though.

On another note: I see that you are currently getting water mana from WarriorKnight. I would be interested in training some of my adepts in water magic, as well. Since water mana is only really needed at the very point of giving your adepts the Water I promotion (unless on wants to summon water elementals, for instance), I believe that might work out. Would you mind if WarriorKnight gave his water mana to me for a 10 turn period soon?

best regards,
Nyktorion

[Nyktorion]

Turn 115

First some global news: WarriorKnight has trained the first Order hero (Str 8, mounted) in Glens of Killybegs!



Being out of the Elohim territory, my southern hunter continues his journey towards Mardoc with his hawk. We find a few new interesting things. First, there's the Tomb of Succellus, and a barbarian city next to it:



Second, there's the Ruins of Patria, guarded by the three-gargoyles landmark. Thoth has both his adventurer and General Martok (in the west) down there, too:



More news: another goblin is ready to run into my archer near Hyll, and Thoth's cultist will soon find my little island:



Last, Thoth got the Trade tech; therefore we can now see some nice information about his teching situation in the foreign advisor (and he sees everyone...)



From scrolling through what he can research, I inferred that Thoth currently has the following techs.

Ancient techs: everything except Cartography, Hunting, and Seafaring.

Classical techs: Archery, Bronze Working, Code of Laws, Horseback Riding, Knowledge of the Ether, Message from the Deep, Military Strategy, Philosophy, Priesthood, Sailing, Trade, Warfare, Way of the Earthmother, Writing

No real military surprises here; the last thing here was Military Strategy, which I noticed from the free great commander. With trade, he might be going for the empyrean religion quite soon. I wonder why he has Knowledge of the Ether, though. His palace mana does not seem to be too great for level 1 spellcasting...

As a last bit of foreign information, here is a close-up shot of Golden Shack:



So, the great commander went into a command post, and there's the heroic epic in the same city. So, if I ever go to war with Thoth, I should note this city as a major military target.

Diplo:

First, messages from Thoth, WarriorKnight, and Irgy:

Hi Nyktorion,

Congrats on your swift victory over the Bannor.

I am willing to swap the cotton-gold trade for a silk-gold trade once the current deal runs out. Thanks to agreeing to it. I played that turn while somewhat over tired and didn't notice you were already getting gold.

I'll have ale available for trade on t116, if you want I can trade you that for either silks or furs until you get your own brewery built. I could then change the ale to wheat to boost the output of your brewery.

Thoth

Hi Nyktorion

Congrats on eliminating the Bannor! Those 2 cities you conquered should be a nice addition to your empire.

I would be happy to lend you my Water mana. Since Irgy has finished using it, there won't be any problems sending it to you instead. However I'm not that interested in borrowing Air mana in exchange, and I'm afraid that Life and Earth mana don't hold much interest to me either (I already have Nature). Are you planning to get Alteration soon? If so and you plan to build either an Enchantment or Body node, I would be interested in borrowing either one of those in the near future. If that's not the case, let me know and we can figure this out some other way. (the other mana that I'm interested in the short term is Entropy, but I'm not sure how high Necromancy is on your tech path).

Regards,
WarriorKnight

> indeed, I am getting another source of gold now, in return for my surplus
> cotton. However, since you have told me that you'd like to have my cotton
> too, I'm trying to get the cotton in this deal switched to silk. If that
> works out, I'll be happy to replace our sheep <-> gold trade with a cotton
> <-> gems deal as soon as the initial 10-turn period of the sheep <-> gold
> trade is up.

Ok, well let me know how you go with that then I guess.

> Nice to hear that there are disciples of the only real religion around in
> other parts of the world, too Given our distance and my own ability to
> train this disciples rather quickly (currently, I have one more of them in
> my queues), I don't see any real opportunities for cooperation here, though.

No I didn't really think it'd be much use to you but thought you'd be
interested to know anyway.

> On another note: I see that you are currently getting water mana from
> WarriorKnight. I would be interested in training some of my adepts in water
> magic, as well. Since water mana is only really needed at the very point of
> giving your adepts the Water I promotion (unless on wants to summon water
> elementals, for instance), I believe that might work out. Would you mind if
> WarriorKnight gave his water mana to me for a 10 turn period soon?

The water deal is already scheduled to be cancelled as soon as it's possible
to do so, which must be fairly soon I think as I'm sure I've used spring on
close to 10 desert tiles by now. You'll have to talk to him about an actual
trade of course, but I certainly don't need it myself any more.

Best regards,
Irgy Arbandi

On the happiness resource side, everything seems to be going smooth, so I'll just do some confirmation. If Thoth wants to trade away his ale, I'll also happily take that instead of the gold.

I don't know what to do about WarriorKnight, though. Due to the location of my raw mana node, I really don't want to found that city too soon if I can help it. I'm also unsure what mana type I should convert that node into. All three mana types considered by WarriorKnight seem useful to me (for haste, flaming arrows, and rust, respectively), but I could also imagine going for sun mana (blinding light!) or metamagic (dispelling blinding light, which Thoth will certainly get, and dispelling the mana node once I have enough dispellers). Anyway, I'm not really sure what I can offer WarriorKnight for his water mana, maybe he has a good idea. I try suggesting the death mana from the sepulcher, which he hasn't mentioned yet. My responses:

Hi Thoth,

thanks for your willingness to change our trade!

Concerning your other offers: after all the trade changes I had in mind, all my surplus happiness resources will be used up, so I can't really give you anything in return for your additional offers anymore. However, since I'm not in the process of getting my own brewery yet, I could take the ale instead of the gold if you prefer that.

best regards,
Nyktorion

Hi WarriorKnight,

congratulations as well, I just saw that you now also have a hero!

I'm a bit surprised that you don't want air mana, since I thought that maelstrom is a quite good spell. But I guess that you're rather interested in good level 1 spells for now.

I have still not decided what mana I want on top of my fixed mana yet, but your three suggestions do sound good (other mana types I am considering would be sun or meta). However, I am not really sure how fast I will actually connect that mana. My raw mana node is a bit outside my borders, and won't be claimed by natural border extensions anytime soon. I will have to build a city specifically next to it, but since it's situated on a thin stretch of tundra between peaks and coast, it will take some time until I settle that city.

Hence, I think it is best to find another way for me to compensate. One possibility would be the death mana of the broken sepulcher for skeletons; I just finished getting Necromancy in order to connect it. I will mostly be trading it to Irgy for stronger specters, but I'm certain that we can find a 10-turn window for borrowing it to you in the soon future that fits all three of us well. What do you think about that? Or are there any others way I can pay for the water mana?

best regards,
Nyktorion

Hi Irgy,

it looks like my second source of cotton will be freed up soon. So I'll be happy to implement our new cotton <-> gems trade as soon as our initial trade can be cancelled.

I saw that WarriorKnight got his water mana back already; thanks for telling that I'm free to trade with WarriorKnight now; in the former Bannor territory, there are quite a few desert tiles to use spring on, too

best regards,
Nyktorion

[Nyktorion]

Turn 116

Necromany is researched! The next tech will be Writing, those libraries should give a nice economical boost. After that, I plan to finally backfill Crafting and mining, so I can make those plains hills more productive.

Here's a picture of my hawk in F.Destination:



And here's a picture of the south:



So, Thoth's strong units are quite scattered around. His cultists are scouting around my lands, and General Martok and his adventurer are busy with the barbarians in this southern area.

Basically, everything is going along as planned this turn. My priests are busy planting forests, and Dendrom will be settled next turn. I did a 3-pop whip in Bruti this turn in order to get out the second island settler, and thus found Eaca quicker. There's just one more detail I want to show of this turn:



The Order has spread to Golden Cave. According to the tech screen, Thoth doesn't have Orders from Heaven yet. So either he found an acolyte in a dungeon, or this was simply due to auto spread.

Diplo:

WarriorKnight doesn't like my death mana. Looks like he can live with a delay in my part of the deal, though.

Hi Nyktorion

Thanks for the congrats, Valin took a while to build but I'm glad he's finished now.

Maelstrom is indeed a good spell, but since it's a mage spell and I'm not arcane, I won't be able to use it for a long time. Air doesn't have any other appeals, hence it's not very useful for me. Death mana can be quite powerful if you build a strategy around it, but since skeletons are lackluster I'll pass on that too.

I might not have been specific enough before, so I'd be happy with a future loan of either Enchantment, Body or Entropy provided that I haven't already acquired a source myself by the time your ready to trade. If that doesn't work, some Priest forced FoL temples would be acceptable as well, although trying to figure out how to even the trade would be difficult (comparing production to research and a saved mana node), thus for simplicity I would prefer the future mana loan. Would either of those be acceptable to you?

Regards,
WarriorKnight

I have been thinking about my mana node. Mobility is indeed what my army is currently lacking the most, therefore, Body would seem like a good sphere for my mana node.

Apart from that, Irgy has started a three-way discussion with WarriorKnight and myself. Here are the messages by WarriorKnight and Irgy in this discussion:

Just letting you both know, in case you haven't been watching the tech trading
screen: The Malakim have researched trade in the last couple of turns, so we
can all see their technology situation. I have attached their list of "can be
researched" technologies for your convenience. Not actully as bad as I might
have thought, but still concerning.

Best regards,
Irgy Arbandi

Attached picture:

That's interesting, now at least we can see where he's at tech wise.

While his tech list isn't as bad as it could be, we're talking about the guy with 10 cities and a huge army. Given that he's also Financial, I think it will only keep getting worse.

What do you guys think?

WarriorKnight

> That's interesting, now at least we can see where he's at tech wise.
>
> While his tech list isn't as bad as it could be, we're talking about the guy
> with 10 cities and a huge army. Given that he's also Financial, I think it
> will only keep getting worse.
>
> What do you guys think?

The thing that concerns me most is his good position in combination with the
boost he's likely to get from the Bone Palace and Great Library, neither of
which he can be far from building by now. Unless one of you two is nearly
finished them, but I know I'm not. None of us have seen any marble from what I
can tell, but he appears to have a source (I can see one in his area, and he's
not likely to have built the Heron Throne without it).

Of course, what exactly I plan to do about it is beyond me. I don't yet have a
significant military force. At least the Elohim lands are an impenetrable
buffer between myself and the Malakim, otherwise I'd be quite concerned about
being the next target.

I'm interested to know where Mardoc stands on all this. Have either of you
made contact yet? He was apparently sending a workboat my way, but I should
have seen it by now. Mardoc having only one contact means the two of them are
likely to be getting along quite well by now...

Irgy

>The thing that concerns me most is his good position in combination with the
>boost he's likely to get from the Bone Palace and Great Library, neither of
>which he can be far from building by now.

Yeah, that's a problem. I'm not building either of them, and I wouldn't be surprised if he one or both in a few turns or so. Are you building either of them nyktorion?


>I'm interested to know where Mardoc stands on all this. Have either of you
>made contact yet? He was apparently sending a workboat my way, but I should
>have seen it by now. Mardoc having only one contact means the two of them are
>likely to be getting along quite well by now...

I have contact with him. He isn't getting along that well with the Malakim as he's paranoid that he'll be their next target. Since both nyktorion and I can use our worldspells for defence and you don't border him Irgy, it seems logical that Mardoc would be the Malakim's next target and after using Religious Ferver to receive 10 cultists, I don't see how Mardoc can easily fend the Malakim off.

BTW Irgy, the workboat Mardoc was sending to contact you got eaten by a griffon, so unless you send something in Mardoc's direction you won't be making contact with him anytime soon unfortunately.

WarriorKnight

Looks like an alliance is forming against Thoth. Since being on Thoth's side would forfeit any chance to win the game (even if we come out of the conflict as the winner, Thoth will be the winer of the game then), and what did to Mr. Yellow won't succeed so easily against WarriorKnight or Irgy, I'll definitely be on their side in this conflict.

[Nyktorion]

Turn 117

Goblins are infesting the area between Hyll and Yonna again. However, my archer will hold the northern goblin off Hyll's BFC, while the southern goblin is being stopped by the terrain itself:



Looks like that goblin was unlucky enough to spawn a treant in one of my ancient forests :neenernee

Since my southern hawk has noticed three rows of coast/ocean tiles with yields, I decided to have a look into the south:



So Thoth has another island in reserve, and he's already busy exploring it. He'll need a ship that can enter ocean tiles, or a coastal city with three cultural circles to settle that island, though.

Speaking of Thoth, the tech trading screen shows that he has researched Construction this turn, giving him the ability to build some catapults of his own. He already has a siege workshop in Golden Igloo, which he must have inherited from the Bannor.

A tiger of mine has reached Evermore, where it was taken into a cage in order to make the population there even more happy. The settler in Bruti has climbed upon its ship this turn, and will found Eaca at T119. The other settler founded Dendrom right now:



Since I want to bring my economy back to strength, I'll start with the elder council and the market in the new cities.

Diplo:

My answer to WarriorKnight:

Dear WarriorKnight,

as I said, it'll take some time for me to get my raw mana node going. If that delay in my part of the deal is no problem for you, though, then I'd be happy to fix that my node will be turned into one of these three speres, and to give you a loan of that mana type in the future (as soon as I have claimed the mana node). It is not yet fixed which of these three spheres this node will become; this will partially depend on what Irgy has available (see my message in our three-way discussion). I'm currently inclined towards turning the node into a body node, since my own troops could use the added mobility from haste very well, too.

best regards,
Nyktorion

Further Three-way discussion:

Hi there,

sorry for not responding earlier; T116 was another turn I played rather late at night (though not at 4am, like T112 ), so didn't deal with diplomacy at that time anymore.

Yes, Thoth is quite strong right now. I think he's not at the point of being a runaway yet, but he'll be in the long-term if we don't do anything about. So even though I was on Thoth's side in the Bannor war, I definitely want to do something against Thoth running away now. Due to WarriorKnight sanctuary and Irgy's distance to myself, it should also be clear that I have no motivation to just try absorbing you (like Mr. Yellow) in order to get better chances relative to Thoth

For your convenience, here is some concrete information I have about Thoth:

- according to what I see in the tech trading screen, he currently has a total of 12 ancient era techs, and he got his 15th classical era tech this turn: Construction
- sorry, I am currently not building any wonder, so I won't have any realistic chance at contesting his Great Library and Bone Palace
- Thoth has a city right on top of his marble source; it's Golden Yurt (formerly: Tentatio-onis, Mr. Yellow's border city to Thoth, and the first city to fall in the war)
- from city-zooming, I can see Thoth already has the heroic epic, and a command post (certainly from the Military Strategy great commander) in the same city; that city is Golden Shack, his border city to Mr. Yellow before the war
- besides the cultists, there are two Malakim my hawks have spotted that we should be particularly aware of: first, there's General Martok, the slayer of Orthus, currently a swordsman with Combat V, Drill I, Mobility I, Bronze Weapons, Orthus' Axe, and Shield of Faith; second, there's an adventurer, currently a warrior with Bronze Weapons, Mobility I, and Combat II
- my hawks have spotted both of these hero-like units in the area around the Remnants of Patria; I can also see 5 cultists exploring in various directions; based on that, I believe that an attack on Mardoc is not imminent yet

In order to stop Thoth's rise, I think that we have to do a military strike against him at some point. However, I don't believe that this point is right now; while my hero, archeres and tiger priests sufficed to take Pink Dot and F.Destination, I doubt they could do serious damage to Thoth at this point. In my opinion, a better time would be when Irgy and I get mages for specters and fireball/maelstrom, respectively, and WarriorKnight's hero has collected some levels. Another good opportunity would be the time when Thoth decides to hit Mardoc. The perfect scenario would be if those two times coincide

Another point I'd like to raise here are our trading relations. I have had negotiations about mana trades with both WarriorKnight and Irgy now; it seems that all three of us would like to use magic in the near future (WarriorKnight on the adept level, and Irgy and myself at the mage level). What do you think of sharing these negotiations in our circle of three instead of doing them bilaterally? I think this would ease our cooperation here.

Last, I'd like to ask Irgy: what are your plans concerning Ashen Veil? First, are you planning to get the Stigmata of the Unborn in the near future? The availability of the entropy mana from this shrine might affect the above mentioned mana trades. Similarly, I would be interested in whether you plan to switch to Hyborem once you summon him; in that case, we should remember to keep mana deals involving you to be rather short-term (and maybe already start considering future deals with Hyborem, instead?), as I'm unsure how much your successor would feel bound by such deals.

best regards,
Nyktorion

Thanks for that info Nyktorion.

I certainly agree that mages are a better time to go after the Malakim, but I
have my doubts that we'd be ready before he goes after Mardoc. We'll see I
guess. Either way the best thing for me to be doing now is to continue
expanding and trying to catch up in population to everyone else. So that when
something start's to happen I can actually contribute significantly. I'll at
least have Rosier soon though.

As for three way mana trading, I'm happy to do it that way, but I'm not
convinced it will be any less complicated.

I will indeed build the AV shrine, I want entropy mana as much as anyone else.
The required great sage will take a while though yet, unfortunately. I won't
research Infernal Pact for a good while, and there's no way I'm switching to
Hyborem when I do in any case.

Irgy Arbandi

Well, if an earlier attack occurs against Mardoc, we'll have to see whether he is committed to that attack enough to leave him open for a non-mage strike. At least, I still have my victorious troops from the Bannor, maybe those can discourage him from going at Mardoc's throat too quickly and too all-out.

My plan is to take some more low-hanging economic fruit for now, and then go for sorcery. I estimate I'll get Sorcery between turns 135 and 140, and I'll have to see when my adepts start hitting the 10XP mark after that.

Concerning our trades, it's good to hear that one of us three will have entropy mana available in the medium term. The actual reason I wanted to do our mana trades among all three is to have some coordination concerning our raw mana nodes. Actually, my negotiations with WarriorKnight might determine what mana kind I will get for one of my nodes, that's why I wanted to extend those negotiations to all three of us. What I also wanted to do for that very reason (but unfortunately, I didn't manage to reflect that in my last message) is to share my current state of mana tarde negotiations between WarriorKnight and myself with Irgy, and vice versa. Would that be okay for everyone?

best regards,
Nyktorion

[Nyktorion]

I'm sorry for not updating yet; lots of diplo has taken up my free time today (and tomorrow I'll probably only have time for playing itself and a small bit of diplo, too), but I've got all the information about the turns I'm not reporting on in safekeeping, so I can catch up on that when the time has come.

Just a short summary for now: I've met Mardoc (who is quite grown with 10 cities, too), and the WarriorKnight-Irgy-Nyktorion alliance is thinking about adding in Mardoc.

Just when I thought I'd be getting more and more ready for a strike against Thoth some time after T140, I get into an interesting chat with Thoth. He inquires about an NAP extension, about which I am reluctant, of course. While talking about my reasoning (I fear he's too large, he'd simply swallow somebody else), he comes up with a very interesting offer: it seems he is planning to attack WarriorKnight, taking some land in an alpha strike before sanctuary is fired (and the rest after sanctuary ends). The land split he is offering is the interesting part: he would claim Ballinasloe and Cafes, while I'd be getting everything else. While I am not really convinced about the alpha strike tactics, I do like the split a lot

So, I now have to decide between three options: I can either join Thoth once again (my NAP with WarriorKnight runs out at T125, after all), or I can sit on the fence and watch Thoth try (in my opinion unsuccessfully) to strike before sanctuary hits, or I can try to take down Thoth in an alliance, as planned. I told Thoth I'd decide about the NAP and joining in the Elohim war until T124.

For now, I did promise him to keep the content of this discussion a secret after he requested it (reardless of what my NAP/war decision will be). While I may have been a bit sneaky towards Mr. Yellow in this game, signed treaties, or discussions which are explicitly requested to be confidential form the line I am ready to cross now.

[Nyktorion]

Turn 118

Writing has been researched this turn! This gives me access to libraries, and I'm immediately starting one in Evermore (with lots of overflow from a priest). A look and a click in the event log reveal that Irgy has trained Rosier the Fallen in Grottiburg this turn. With that, all three of our little group are having a hero now.



In the meant, my treant has killed the second goblin walking around Hyll.

My southern hunter had his hawk scout to the west this turn, this established contact with Mardoc:



Here are his resources:



and his cities:



He seems to be quite a bit better off than his score suggests. Probably, the high fraction of water in his land is hiding part of the score he actually deserves. With that contact established, that leaves the Irgy <-> Mardoc connection as the only unestablished connection in the game.

In the meantime, Thoth has settled yet another city. My hunter/hawk combo west of F.Dstination got to take a nice picture of it:



With all contacts established, that's a good opportunity to look at the graphs. Unfortunately, I'm not looking too good anymore, with only Irgy behind me in some categories, and additionally Mardoc behind me in some more. What the Bannor war has gained me in land, it seems to have cost me in development (and that was still a very quick and profitable war; just imagine what a long, drawn out war with no clear winner could cost... ).

GNP:



Hammers:



Food:



Soldier count (my score is currently inflated by the goblin-spawned treant):



Culture:



Diplo dump:

Further WarriorKnight/Irgy/Nyktorion discussion plotting against Thoth:

> Concerning our trades, it's good to hear that one of us three will have
> entropy mana available in the medium term. The actual reason I wanted to do
> our mana trades among all three is to have some coordination concerning our
> raw mana nodes. Actually, my negotiations with WarriorKnight might determine
> what mana kind I will get for one of my nodes, that's why I wanted to extend
> those negotiations to all three of us. What I also wanted to do for that
> very reason (but unfortunately, I didn't manage to reflect that in my last
> message) is to share my current state of mana tarde negotiations between
> WarriorKnight and myself with Irgy, and vice versa. Would that be okay for
> everyone?

Ok, I understand you now. WarriorKnight's (very indirectly) already
effectively said they're not confidential, so I think I can tell you without
waiting for him to wake up. We have two deals so far, both made partly in
relation to border agreements:
* An agreement to share the ice mana.
* An agreement for WarriorKnight to loan me one mana of my choice. This was
previously water, will be nature at some point, but otherwise death once it's
available.

I plan to leave one of my nodes unimproved until Sorcery, so as to get
metamagic. Once I have metamagic I plan to be very fluid with the use of my
mana nodes. I can at that stage make short term loans of any type of mana I
have the technology for, which I plan to be necromancy and alteration at least
in the short term. Until then, I'll have one node I can improve earlier, and I
could be talked into a few different things. I won't have the technologies for
a few turns yet though as I also plan to pick up some missing economy techs first.

Irgy Arbandi

Sorry for the delay, I was busy last night and unable to civ, let alone do diplo.

Mardoc has a NAP with Thoth until T140. Whether or not anything will actually happen then is unknown at the moment, but it's probably for the best if we assume the worst case scenario that Thoth will invade then. It sounds like nyktorion will have just have reached sorcery by that time, but whether you'll have a decent number of mages by then is unknown. Since I won't be relying on arcane units, I should have a decent force ready by then. While waiting longer for more mages is an option, although we have to remember that waiting will only inevitably help Thoth since he's the leader right now, plus if he gets to sorcery all of his mages can summon Sand Lions (6 strength, 3 move summons that gets +60% desert strength) which with the amount of desert he has will be very scary. Therefore I propose that we pencil in T140 for now, although as I don't know how ready the two of you will be by then I'm open to other suggestions.

In any case, I agree that a 3 way mana deal would be beneficial to all of us and would avoid confusion since we appear to have several deals between ourselves anyway. Irgy's already mentioned the mana deals between ourselves, and so far I only have one mana trade with nyktorion which is:

*A 10 turn loan of water mana starting around T120 or so in exchange for a future loan of Entropy, Enchantment or Body mana.

Now, nyktorion getting Entropy mana won't be very effective since Irgy will get a source of his own from the AV shrine eventually. Since we'll all probably want spells from those spheres at some point (Body, Enchantment and Entropy), and since we're sharing our mana plans around, how about the three of each acquire a source and trade it to each other for the other types of mana? (so for example I get Enchantment and trade it to Irgy for Entropy and trade it to nyktorion for Body, and the two of you trade Entropy for Body also).

Granted, there will be a few problems to work around (you can only trade a resource to one person at a time and the two of you might have an trade for those mana types already (It doesn't clash with my mana deals with Irgy, nyktorion how would you feel about building a FoL temple or two with a Priest in exchange for water mana?)) but since it will give all of us some very useful spells and save us time I hope that we can work things out. If it doesn't work out and either of you have any alternative suggestions for mana trades between the three of us I'd be happy to hear them.

Regards,
WarriorKnight

So, I had a look in game, and I should just barely be able to get a
sage/priest for Entropy mana in time for T140, if I push it (which I've now
started to do). At most a few turns later. It's probably worth pushing for
anyway, it changes my plans somewhat but I like the new plans better anyway I
think.

If you want to know how long it'll take your adepts to get to
mages, I had a play around in excel a while back and came up with the
following plot. Basically, you'll have half of them ready in 28 turns and all
ready in 45 turns after they're built. That's assuming of course no starting
xp, take a bit less than 1/10th of the time off for each xp you start with.

Irgy Arbandi

Attached picture:

By the way, just a thought; if Thoth has any sense, he'd offer Mardoc an NAP
to T200 or something, then come after one of you two (or build some ships and
take me out). Mardoc would snap it up, and Thoth would then have at least one
safe border, if not an ally. If he gets a sniff of the fact that we're all
co-operating here in the east he might well figure out that's what he should
do. That Mardoc is afraid of attack is good, but that it means he'd be keen to
snap up an NAP if it was offered is bad.

Not particularly sure what this means we should do though, just making the
point. It's hard when I can't talk to Mardoc myself.

As you can probably tell I'm a bit less busy this weekend, so I have time to
worry about everything : )

Irgy

Hi,

as WarriorKnight already said, I'm currently negotiating a deal with him where I get water mana for a future loan of body, enchantment, or entropy mana. My choice would then be to make the one raw mana I have (once I claim it with a filler city) into a body node.

@WarriorKnight: my first adepts will be coming out at T120, so would it be okay if I asked for your water mana next turn in-game?

With Irgy, I currently agreed to give him a second source of death mana (from my broken sepulcher) i return for the fire mana from his palace. This should give fireballs to me, and stronger specters to Irgy. We also had the vague idea that he would be teching Alteration in the future, and I'll go for Divination spheres; however, with me and WarriorKnight planning to fill up the Alteration spheres, I think it makes sense to change this plan.

Even though Thoth's NAP with Mardoc ends at T140, I don't think that that should be the time of our attack. Unless Thoth really goes for Mardoc right then, I'd rather get our mages ready before.

I had a chat with WarriorKnight right now, and he mentioned those sand lions (and Thoth's ability to pump out instant mages once he has sorcery) there. One conclusion was that since we all are going to have some water adepts, it would be wise to bring some of them into an attack against Thoth; that could negate the 85% attack bonus they would get into desert tiles. Still, disposable str 6 attackers (with 3 movement!) are still quite a threat to soften up attacking stacks (I already saw the effectiveness of throwing away str 4 tigers into a defending stack against Mr. Yellow).

On another note, I made contact with Mardoc thanks to a hawk of mine this turn. Of course, I intend for Thoth to already be an important talking point during our initial discussion.

best regards,
Nyktorion

I also had a chat with WarriorKnight that day. Essentially, we were discussing similar topics as in this mail; we already covered things like me having met Mardoc, my own mana in the future being okay as a payment for water mana right now, and those sand lions being a possible weapon of Thoth. Sadly, I didn't store the log of this chat, and I can't remember all ponts anymore, but what was covered in the emails was also the most important part of that chat.

I also sent an initial message to Mardoc, of course thinking of Thoth already:

Dear Mardoc,

it is my pleasure to finally meet you in-game; a hawk of mine has established our contact this turn.

The Ljosalfar already have quite some history behind them. I have had Bannor cities settled quite aggressively against me (the second Bannor city - Vallus/Pink Dot - was 10 tiles from their capital, straight into our direction), and as a consequence, I had joined Thoth in conquering the Bannor empire. Still, I am aware of the tremendous growth of the Malakim empire, and that they might just be running away if we don't watch it.

With WarriorKnight having his world spell in reserve, Irgy being behind WarriorKnight, and myself having another good defensive world spell, plus some troops left from my conquest of the Bannor empire, I believe that this leaves you as the most attractive next target for Thoth. However, WarriorKnight, Irgy, and myself are currently discussing how we could stop a possible runaway Thoth (and in particular prevent him from just swallowing you, and thus becoming unstoppable).

Concerning immediate things we can do to benefit both of us: what do you think about starting with an open borders agreement?

best regards,
Nyktorion of the Ljosalfar

And finally, there's another message of Thoth about our happiness resource trade:

Hi Nyktorion,

I would prefer to keep the gold/silk trade as it is. I can trade my ale to Mardoc instead.

If you move your southern Hunter SW/SW/SW and then fly a hawk mission due West you will be able to make contact with Mardoc.

A while back we were discussing the idea of swapping FoL temples for RoK temples. Are you still interested?

Best regards, Thoth.

The deal change is fine with me. However, I have too much else to put my hammers into at the moment (Elder Councils/Markets/Libraries, units for my new island, and adepts for our future war), so I respond:

Hi Thoth,

making our trade a gold/silk one is fine with me.

Thanks for the directions for my hunter; I even managed to establish contact with Mardoc already right now

Concerning the trade of religious spread: of course, getting some additional religions like that is a nice thing, but it seems I underestimated a bit how much my cities would be busy with catching up on the economic side after the Bannor war. So right now, I have some other things I'd rather invest my hammers into than what will effectively become Kilmorph temples. However, later on, I might be interested in returning to this idea.

best regards,
Nyktorion

[Nyktorion]

Turn 119

The turn started with two offers by Mardoc:





I happily accepted the open borders. However, the silk is already reserved for the moment where I'd change my deal with Thoth (and this deal was included in our deal against the Bannor). Therefore, I declined it.

On my island, a (non-poison) goblin moved up to Dendrom. I just shot it down with my dexterous archer:



As you can also see on this picture, my settling troop in the north is ready to found Eaca this turn. Moreover, I moved the hawk from F.Destination to the island in order to scout the rest of it. I have to say that I quite like this island. It provides space for two more cities, and there's another mana node, which should make those mana deals within our alliance a bit easier.

The other hawk stays near the Malakim/Lanun border:



So Thoth is sending out *yet another* settler, probably to claim the remnants of Patria! It seems more and more like a good thing to unite against the Malakim.

Diplo:

Some solo message exchange with Mardoc, some trading discussions, and hinting a bit more to get him into our alliance:

Nyktorion,

Thank you for establishing contact; that leaves Irgy as my last uncontacted civ.

I'd also be interested in hearing more about the world as a whole; with my restricted contacts, my information on the world has mostly been what Thoth and Mr. Yellow have told me; I only heard recently that the Bannor had done anything aggressive at all, for instance, aside from potentially being able to launch a Crusade and being vulnerable.

I agree that Thoth is the elephant in the room, and that he makes me quite nervous. With him having cast his World Spell for cultists, that makes my empire quite vulnerable. I have an NAP with him until T140, but am currently building an army for deterrence purposes anyway. I would be happy to discuss potentially more effective means of securing my northern border. I expect this discussion to be held secret from Thoth (usually a good assumption, but I feel it's worth clarifying anyway).

At the same time, precisely because of Thoth's power, I'm not interested in engaging in anything unilaterally or poorly coordinated, or small; I've been simultaneously trying to tie him down with peaceful exchanges that would hurt to give up, and if we launch a failed dogpile attempt, I'm sure I'm the one he'd punish first.

On a happier note, I would be glad to open borders with you. I'd also like to discuss possible resource exchanges; I have both Pearls and Pigs in excess, or will shortly. Feel free to check in game for other likely trades that I may be forgetting about. Mana loans also tempt me; I have acquired Sun mana in addition to my palace water, air, and chaos mana.

- Mardoc

Hi Mardoc,

concerning Thoth: as I said, WarriorKnight, Irgy and myself are currently planning ways to stop Irgy. We are currently discussing plans for efficient three-way sharing of mana. While air and water mana already exist within our trading pool (and Irgy also has chaos in his palace, but we haven't really considered that yet), your sun mana could be a welcome addition to our pool. We are also considering the the possibility of a joint military strike against him when we have the necessary weapons for that.

Concerning your ingame trade proposals: I gladly accept open borders, the additional trade will surely benefit both of us. However, I'm afraid that I can't accept your resource trade proposals at this time. I am already trading my surplus cotton and silk to Irgy and Thoth (as you said, resource deals are one way to motivate peacefulness; also, the trade of one happiness resource - initially the cotton next to one of the former Bannor cities - was part our agreement when we warred against the Bannor).

best regards,
Nyktorion

I knew when I proposed the silk trade that it might already be committed elsewhere, but I hadn't known what you had until then. It doesn't look like you have anything else to trade for Pearls at the present time? If that changes, let me know, I'd be happy to trade.

- Mardoc

Hi,

I just got an idea for another trade we could do to benefit both of us. Since both of us have air mana, it might be a good idea for one of us to have both at times where he either builds a lot of adepts at the same time, or is upgrading adepts into mages; this would give us the opportunity to get free Air I promotions for our adepts/mages. So, what do you think of a deal where each of us loans his air mana to the other one at a time the recipient of the mana specifies?

best regards,
Nyktorion

Ooh, I like that one; Fair Winds is definitely going to be a handy promotion for me to have along in my ships. As you can probably see, I don't have Knowledge of the Ether yet, so I can gift the Air anytime you're ready for it.

- Mardoc

Very well

I'm planning to take my period with two Air manas for when I start doing mage upgrades, then, so it will be some time until that point.

The more significant discussions with Mardoc, where we were really getting to talk about the anti-Malakim alliance was another three-way round of messages, which included WarriorKnight as the third participant:

Gentlemen,

I've gotten an offer from Thoth to significantly extend my NAP with him. I'm quite tempted to take him up on it, although that would put me out of position to do much of anything to rein him in as part of a coalition; I still have a lot of infrastructure and a fair number of cities to build, and I'm not really in a good position for war just yet.

I need to answer him shortly, so I thought I'd check with both of you and see if you have any arguments/details on your proposed war that can answer my nervousness to join in. In particular, the pieces I'm concerned about are what size of army you can supply, and how I can be certain that you'll participate, without leaving me on my own with an angry but undamaged Malakim neighbor.

Again, I promise not to pass on anything to Thoth from this discussion.

Finally - if I do sign an NAP with Thoth, are you interested in signing one with me as well?

- Mardoc

Hi,

you might be interested in the fact that Thoth also approached me with an offer of an NAP extension. Our current NAP (from the Bannor war) lasts until T130, and the extension proposal is until T150. Mardoc, what time frame is Thoth considering in his NAP proposal? WarriorKnight, what is your own NAP situation with Mardoc? If we collect this information, we might be able to figure out what Thoth is planning to use the NAPs for. I wonder whether he wants to use the NAPs as a cover for an attack on an isolated WarriorKnight or Irgy, or just wants to use peace (and his large territory) to tech up and/or build wonder undisturbed.

So Mardoc, why should you be trusting the team of 3 that is building up there rather than a long-term NAP with Thoth? I'll answer that just for my own part for now:

- Motivation: you can be sure that I won't just sit back and watch Thoth swallow the Lanun; that would guarantee that Thoth will be the winner of this game, and I'd still like to have a shot at that position myself (for the same reason, I think it would be bad for you to lean back if Thoth wants to swallow anyone else during that time)

- Force: as you can see in the power graph, the soldier counts of Thoth and myself are relatively evenly matched at this moment. This includes a highly promoted Gilden Silveric, whom I strongly believe to be the most powerful player controlled single unit in the game currently. In particular, he could easily defeat either one of General Martok and Thoth's adventurer warrior in a 1 on 1. In expanding this army throughout the near future, I plan to focus adepts; their upgrade to mages attacking with fireballs and maelstroms (thus giving my Bannor war veterans some good collateral damage) would mark the ideal moment to strike Thoth for me. If he would indeed attack you at T140 already, my Bannor war veterans (maybe already including 1 or 2 mages with lucky levelups) would at least force him to keep a large part of his forces towards the east of his empire.

best regards,
Nyktorion

Thoth proposed that I name a date; he suggested T160-170, but is open to longer if I am.

I do realize that you have the highest power in the game, and an army composition that's pretty decent as well. It's the motivation bit that makes me nervous - how do I know I'm not another Mr. Yellow? Frankly, you did intervene there to limit Thoth's growth, but not in a way that I'd be happy with if you did it to me .

If T140 is early to be planning an attack (and if you won't have any collateral until then, it probably is), maybe I should go ahead and sign an NAP anyway, and that'll leave us more time to plan our campaign for when it expires.

- Mardoc

There are geographic and diplomatic reasons why you are a very different case than Mr. Yellow.

Geographically, there is a large stretch of Malakim territory between us (actually, all three of Irgy, WarriorKnight, and myself are at the eastern part of our land mass, in order from south to north). If Thoth and I (and maybe others) divided your lands between ourselves, it should be obvious that Thoth will benefit from any of your cities much more . Also, those of your cities that do not go to Thoth would be pretty hard to defend against him after such a war against you. I could not see how I would profit from such an alliance against you even remotely as much as Thoth would (and thus, why I should ally with Thoth against you).

Diplomatically, I think that WarriorKnight and Irgy would be much unhappier with a move of myself against you than against Mr. Yellow for two reasons. First, other than you, Mr. Yellow would have been doomed anyway without significant interference from outside against Thoth. Second, other than in the Bannor war, a conquest of your lands would probably decide the game. Also, with my army needing to march through Malakim lands in order to reach you, I would essentially have to have Thoth's full cooperation here, and thus have to accept his terms if I "wanted a pice of the Lanun cake". With that and and the prospect two angry civs at my back (is that prospect correct, WarriorKnight? ), I again do not see how I should be able to profit from a war against you.

Well, essentially, I was trying to give a salestalk here. However, I really believed in the thing I was selling here: I think such an alliance would indeed be the best way for each of us four to get a better chance at victory.

Next, the continuation of the other three-way discussion:

> With Irgy, I currently agreed to give him a second source of death mana
> (from my broken sepulcher) i return for the fire mana from his palace. This
> should give fireballs to me, and stronger specters to Irgy. We also had the
> vague idea that he would be teching Alteration in the future, and I'll go
> for Divination spheres; however, with me and WarriorKnight planning to fill
> up the Alteration spheres, I think it makes sense to change this plan.

That would make sense, however I actually had an intention to build the
Alteration Tower, which requires the technology anyway. I can adjust this plan
if needs be, but an alternative is that I get both Body and Enchantment, give
them to both of you, and get whatever Divination spheres people are after in
trade. If I can trade for Metamagic from Nyktorion, then I can afford to
improve both my nodes before Sorcery without them being stuck.

> Even though Thoth's NAP with Mardoc ends at T140, I don't think that that
> should be the time of our attack. Unless Thoth really goes for Mardoc right
> then, I'd rather get our mages ready before.

Honestly I think he'll be highly likely to attack on exactly that turn. If he
does attack, it's important to put some pressure on his back sooner rather
than later. That might not mean launching a successful attack, it might just
mean poaching a city or two at most but primarily just forcing him to relocate
his units away from Mardoc.

> I had a chat with WarriorKnight right now, and he mentioned those sand lions
> (and Thoth's ability to pump out instant mages once he has sorcery) there.
> One conclusion was that since we all are going to have some water adepts, it
> would be wise to bring some of them into an attack against Thoth; that could
> negate the 85% attack bonus they would get into desert tiles. Still,
> disposable str 6 attackers (with 3 movement!) are still quite a threat to
> soften up attacking stacks (I already saw the effectiveness of throwing away
> str 4 tigers into a defending stack against Mr. Yellow).

One other way to avoid sand lions, related to my previous point, is not to go
into the desert. By which I mean, for all that taking his land would be ideal,
threatening it is still quite useful. If he has to divert a large stack of
sand-lion-mages to defend his territory from potential attack, then that's a
large stack of mages that isn't hammering Mardoc. If the best we can do is
confine him to his desert and force him to pay exorbatant unit upkeep costs, I
think we should still be able to deal with him in the long run.

Not the ideal solution but at least on option worth being aware of.

> On another note, I made contact with Mardoc thanks to a hawk of mine this
> turn. Of course, I intend for Thoth to already be an important talking point
> during our initial discussion.

Great!

Irgy

Regarding mana, oh boy this is complicated...

Irgy, I realize that you would prefer to get both Enchantment and Body so you can go for the ToA, but then that would give you 3 mana that you need to gift to both of us in the near future and that should surely trigger alarm bells in both Thoth and Mardoc. Now, Thoth might sniff out the attack anyway given the amount of mana trade we'll be doing around the time we attack, but we need to ensure Mardoc is with us before doing any more mana deals in case he fraks out and switches sides. Therefore, I'd like to hold off on figuring out mana trades until we get the Mardoc situation sorted (plus maybe include him in some deals once everyone has full contact to get him in our group).

T140 is only the date when Mardoc's NAP expires. My own NAP with Thoth expires on T135, and I doubt he'd sign a 5 turn extension so depending on the circumstances I might attack him then as my units don't get passive experience with time (although I haven't decided for sure if I'll attack yet or not). Irgy, I don't think simply threatening him will work, as he already has a high army with 11 cities and is still 1st in GNP.

Speaking of Sand Lions, I've thought about it and the best counter I can think of is the high strength units with Drill promotions. Since the lions are 1 turn summons, Thoth will have the turn when Sand Lions are in combat and thus we'll be defending. Therefore, we'll have to tank against them, and Drill promotions are the best bet for that. Now that Irgy has Rosier (congrats on that BTW) we all have a hero that can get to Drill IV. I would prefer it if there was an easier way to counter, but I can't think of any other counter we can realistically get to in 20 turns or so. Fortunately Thoth needs sorcery and 5 sources of exp before he can get them out the gate, and since it costs him a lot of gold for each upgrade it will take another while to mass them, but with the Bannor gone they seem to be the biggest threat in the mid-late game, and we need a reliable counter to that. Also I'm sure you both know this, but thanks to Nomad and the penalty for defending on desert, a couple of spring adepts will be essential for any offensive stack.

Regards,
WarriorKnight

First, I'd like to tell you that I have a second raw mana node within my range. It turned out that an island I'm settling right now is better than I initially thought

WarriorKnight, I'm getting my first adepts out right now, so I'd already have some immediate use for water mana. Since I'd currently be happy to turn one of my nodes into a body node, with the second one maybe becoming meta?. Since there's effectively a 10 turn cooldown on these deals (unless we want to ruin our trade routes by a (phony) war declaration), and Haste should be nice for all of us, I'll propose to loan you body mana as soon as that is ready. That would be a first plan. This proposal is with the understanding that my obligation to loan you body mana can be changed at any time as long as both of us agree to it, so starting this deal right now won't hurt our abilities to continue the trading plans we have started.

Concerning holding off on mana deals: is switching around mana really going to rise that much suspicion? At least for the deals we had started negotiating before (such as the water deal I talked about above ), I'd of course still be happy to do them.

About Mardoc: he got an offer from Thoth to significantly extend his NAP with him (he did not specify for how long exactly), and he shared this info with WarriorKnight and myself. He said he's considering taking up Thoth on his offer, but he'd like us to convince him to join us, so asked us to provide him some more information about our war preparations. What do you think, should we fully integrate him into our mana deal and war plans? Since he is not in the best position for swallowing one of us in cooperation with Thoth, and Thoth swallowing one of us uncontested would hurt his chances to win, too, I think this would not really hurt us. Anyway, for now I've restricted myself to advertising my own army (I mentioned that Gilden is highly promoted, that my soldier count roughly matches Thoth's, and that I plan to go for adepts -> fireball/maelstrom mages in addition).

You might also be interested in knowing that Mardoc has some sun mana (in my opinion the most interesting of the divination spheres) available. This might be a good starting point to integrate him into our little mana trading circle.

Some more NAP stuff: I currently have an NAP with Thoth that lasts until T130, and he proposed an extension to T150 this turn. Combining this with his NAP extension offer to Mardoc, I wonder what he's up to. WarriorKnight, Irgy, what is your own NAP (extension) situation with Thoth? Collecting this information might help us figure out what Thoth is up to.

best regards,
Nyktorion

Thoth also wrote me another response. It contained a NAP extension offer, which I was of course reluctant about:

Hi Nyktorion,

No problem about the religious swapping. Perhaps later on once we've both had a chance to build up a bit (and tech Cartography ).

Our current NAP is due to run out on turn 130. Would you be interested in a 20 turn extension (until t150) ?

best regards,

Thoth

After all this, the above mentioned chat with Thoth came (I didn't answer his offer until then). His offer did shake my previous picture of the world: obtaining a large portion of the Elohim lands for myself might indeed be an alternative for giving me a chance to win. Here's the whole log of the chat:

22:29 Charles: Hi, have you got a few minutes to chat about RB FFHIII?
22:31 Ich: Hi
Sure
22:32 Charles: How do you feel about a NAP extension?
22:33 Ich: I have to say, I'm not really sure about that yet
I'm currently trying to get a bit more of a feel of global politics
I know that our previous collaboration in the Bannor war has been quite good
22:34 Charles: Fair enough. I'm currently concerned about the possibility of having Hyborem show up in someone's backyard.
Ich: However, I also see that you're currently by far the largest player in the game
Charles: I also enjoyed our co-operation during the Bannor war.
22:35 Ich: So I'm just a little paranoid about possible scenarios like everybody but one civ having a NAP with you, if you understand what I mean
Charles: I'm currently large, but Mardoc has some very good downstream potential.
22:36 So far, the only civ I don't have a NAP with is Irgy (Sheam). I don't think anyone would have an objection to having the AC raising civ nerfed a bit.
He's a long way from my borders, so I don't have any intention of grabbing land from him. (even if I could...)
22:37 Ich: And that paranoia of mine is the reason I'm trying to get a feel for global politics first right now (and that I've met everyone now)
Hmm, Irgy?
RIght, you mentioned him once before
22:38 Frankly, of the three other civs, he's actually the one I'm least afraid of
Charles: Irgy worries me. He's in a position to summon Hyborem. Hell terrain has very nasty effects on both flood plains and forests.
Ich: Okay, Irgy himself is probably the weakest at the moment anyway
22:39 Hyborem, of course...
Charles: Mardoc and I are in the position of being able to seriously fuck each other up to very little gain for either side. WarriorKnight I don't trust in the slightest.
Ich: Well, I've seen that your empires have similar sizes
22:40 But your military is a lot stronger, of course
I'm a bit surprised that you think he could f you up
22:41 Charles: For the moment....I need to do some serious upgrading if I want to fend off a possible dogpile.
Ich: Ah ok
You mean he could f you up diplomatically
22:42 With everyone seeing your score rise up, I can see that, of course
Charles: Cultists vs Cultists = mutual destruction. Tsunami destroys coastal/shoreline improvements. I think I could hold him off, but it would be ugly for both of us.
Ich: Ah, so he already got a number of cultists on his own?
22:43 Charles: I'd feel a lot better if I had at least one border secured by a NAP with someone dependable.
Ich: Ah right, with everyone getting trade, I should have noticed that in the tech trade screen
Charles: Yes, he's got at least one Cultist up and running. Not a big surprise, I'm sure he's aware of how much damage a Cultist can do.
22:47 How are your relations with WK? He's got that annoying worldspell, but I could get behind an alpha strike on him + land split between us.
Ich: About Cultists
22:48 I just thought you wouldn't be vulnerable anyway; then I looked and noticed Golden Igloo, Golden Yurt, and the Heron Throne city
hmm...
22:49 My relationship with WarriorKnight is actually quite good
22:50 Though I wonder how many cities such an alpha strike could take
Even with mobility, I think anything with at least 3 cultural circles is off limits from the world spell?
22:51 Anyway, concerning NAPs
22:52 I wonder, what is the NAP and extension situation with WarriorKnight and Mardoc, then?
Would they be included with an NAP to T150, as well?
22:57 Charles: I'm currently in negoitiations with Mardoc on NAP extensions. I don't have much interest in extending my NAP with WK. My NAP with Mardoc runs until eot 140. I'm willing to extend it if he is.
5 Minuten
23:03 Charles: AFAIK, the Elohim world spell stops foriegn units from entering their lands for 20 turns. If he gets hit hard and fast he could loose several cities before he could respond. I'd be willing to make the first move, but he plays after me in the turn order and so could trigger his WS if he got hit with a Malakim FS. If you hit him from the North while I hit him from the West we could cripple him before he triggers Sanctuary.
I'd likely be the recipient of his counter attack
16 Minuten
23:20 Ich: Hmm, I wouldn't have thought of that... Still, I'm not really convinced how profitable this would really become. I just had a look at the map of our game; he has one city that I might be able to take out with a naval strike (his border city towards me), but that's also already the only coastal city of him I know of. The only city I see that might be within your striking range would be Ballinasloe, his border city towards you. Then, your cultists might be able to attack coastal cities, but the border city I mentioned is the only Elohim coastal city I know. And with WarriorKnight having hunting (hawks!), and us cancelling NAPs, I somehow doubt that sneaking up on those cities unnoticed (so he won't fire his worldspell beforehand) will be easy...
23:22 Concerning our NAP: I still need to decide what I want to do with that
5 Minuten
23:27 Ich: If you indeed decide to attack WarriorKnight (or Irgy), I might very well decide that sitting on the fence might be the best option for me
23:28 Charles: Having you sit on the fence is fine by me.
Ich: Since it's currently T119, and and our NAP runs out at T130, there's still really some time to decide that (more really than there was with Mr. Yellow, anyway )
Charles: I don't think WK would fire his worldspell just because there are some forces on his borders.
23:29 Ich: Not even some forces which belong to a person who just cancelled a NAP, and which would be strong enough to take the city? ^^
23:30 I mean, not even for those forces?
Charles: I don't know. But I do know that I have a Cultist on the East coast who could support your troops if needs be.
23:32 So far I'm the "bad guy" in this game. If WK sees me coming for him, he isn't likely to come after you.
23:35 I'd be willing to consider a division of WK's territory along the same lines as we divided Mr. Yellow's territory. IE: a line more or less straight south of Golden Igloo, with you getting everything East of that line and me getting everything West. (I think he has cities on that line, but I'm willing to negotiate over who gets what. )
23:37 Ich: Now THAT's starting to get interesting
Since even his border city to you (Ballinasloe) is east of Golden Igloo, along with his 5 other cities
his 5 other cities that I see
23:38
23:39 Charles: hmmm. I don't have the game in front of me, but I'm interested in his westernmost 2 cities. The rest of them have little interest to me.
23:44 Ich: Hmm, so that would be a 5me-2you split, then, with you claiming Ballinsloe and Cafes
Okay, so now I have not two, but three possibilities to consider
23:45 Charles: I'm ok with that. Those border cities are annoying to me and WK's other lands are not of interest to me. If you want them you can have them.
23:48 Ich: Okay, now that sounds quite interesting; still, with the high stakes in this decision I hope you'll understand I take some of the plenty of time we have to ponder over it; let's say I can give you a definitive decision on how to proceed with both our NAP and an involvement in an Elohim war by T124 at the very latest, probably before that
23:49 Would that be fine timewise, or is there some earlier decision point where you need the information?
10 Minuten
23:59 Charles: I'm ok with you taking some time to ponder your decision. Turn 124 would be ok for a timeframe. I would appreciate it if you kept these discussions confidential regardless of your eventual decision.
00:01 Ich: Okay, that would be fine by me
8 Minuten
00:09 Ich: What I can sign as a promise right now is: even I my decision eventually ends up as siding against you, in diplomacy with others I will restrict myself only to information I had without our chat
00:10 So in particular, that would leave out WarriorKnight as a concrete target and "alpha strike" plans, for instance
00:11 Or rather, that promise forbids me from hinting about these two things
Charles: I appreciate your discretion, and I will extent the same courtesy to you even if we do wind up on opposing sides on the battlefield. You have proven a trustworthy ally so far, and I presume an honourable opponent if worst comes to worst.
00:12 Ich: Thanks
00:13 Charles: No worries. It's just a game after all.
Though I do appreciate your honesty so far.
9 Minuten
00:23 Ich: Okay, it's quite late for me already
Time to go to sleep now
Good night
00:32 Charles: Good night.

Note that I was playing dumb concerning the NAP situation with the others, I already knew about the extension proposal to Mardoc and the NAP with WK until T135 here. However, I did not want to signal him about the information sharing between us 4 already. Also, I hoped to draw out some additional information along with that, which I readily got with the attack plan against WarriorKnight.

Here, I really mean it when I say that I want to think about his proposal. All three options (backstabbing WarriorKnight in return for the lion's share of the spoils of war, sitting back while the two duke it out with no real winner, and immediately stepping in to keep Thoth back) are seeming realistic to me here.

On another note: with that much diplo to do, I'm now really glad I never gave in to the temptation to start a second PBEM in parallel. Those rather quick turns (even with the C&D work I did) in the beginning are certainly deceiving about the time one can invest into the game later on.

[Nyktorion]

Turn 119, Addendum

I forgot writing about two (diplomatic ingame) actions I did in T119. First, I asked WarriorKnight for his water mana, since my adepts were coming out next turn:



Second, I requested the planned Gems/Cotton deal from Irgy, with the stated intention to cancel our current Gold/Sheep deal next turn. Oh, and on Irgy's trade screen, his seventh city (Vargstad) has become visible.

[Nyktorion]

Turn 120

The turn started with a popup of Irgy stating that our new deal is okay:



You can also see that Irgy has founded yet another city (Skadistad)! I like this balance-of-power wise: Irgy is getting stronger, but remains weaker than I am. On the other hand, WarriorKnight's space is getting restricted, so he doesn't threaten to sail away in the long term too much (if we can cripple Thoth, that is).

Since I researched Writing, I have been holding research at 0%, thus accumulating some gold. Next turn, Evermore and Hyll (thanks to a 3 pop whipping) will finish libraries, and that's when I plan to turn up research again. The current research project is - as planned - Crafting, followed by Mining and Trade.

Yonna and Kabhalg produced my first two adepts this turn, and they are working on another pair now. The adept of Kabhalg is improving the death node of the broken sepulcher, while the other adept immediately springs a desert hill southwest of Yonna.

Since I'm not really showing any other pictures this turn, I think this is a great opportunity to show another overview of my empire, including a preliminary distribution of city sites on my island:









Diplo:

Conclusion of trade banter with Mardoc:

Fair enough. Just so long as you give me enough warning that I'm not counting on the Air mana at the same time myself.

The other thing that occurs to me is Tigers - any way I could buy some off you? I think you would have to move them into my cities for me for it to work, so it may be impractical, but they'd certainly be worth having.

- Mardoc

About the tiger deal: as far as I know, direct gifting of units is disabled in the world editor. However, I might be able to bild a tiger cage in your city, but I'd have to try that out in the world editor some time. And then, there's of course the factor that my tigers would have to cross Malakim territory in order to reach a city of yours; given how global politics are standing at the moment, that might be a problem, as well.

If there's a way we can get these two hurdles out of the way, I'd be interested in figuring out a deal in that direction, though.

best regards,
Nyktorion

Some more three-way chat in the Mardoc/WarriorKnight/Nyktorion corner:

Greetings all

My own NAP woth Thoth lasts until T135. I personally don't expect him to try and extend it, as our relations have been relatively quiet until recently where I turned down two deals with him, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, as for the reason you should join us, I'll just add on to what nyktorion has already said:

Motivation: Sitting back watching Thoth gain more land somewhere will undoubtedly lead to his victory, which none of us want to see. If Thoth decides to attack one of us, I'll definitely intervene against Thoth to help out.

Force: While my power graph is rather low at the moment, I plan to fix that very shortly as I finally have enough production to start building an army. My main force will primarily consist of Monks, who will be quite strong compared to what everyone else can get for a while. I do plan to use some adepts as well, and in addition to Valin I'm hoping that I can get Corlindale before the war starts who, being a heroic archmage should cause a lot of damage.

Geographically: It would be unreasonable for anyone but the Malakim to profit from Lanun lands, as the rest of us are all the way on the eastern side of the landmass and any cities that we could convince Thoth to part with would be long way from our core lands and would be extremely vulnerable.

Diplomatically: I wouldn't be thrilled at the idea of nyktorion going after you, and I'm sure if I went after you, nyktorion wouldn't be pleased either. Mr. Yellow was a different case, as from what I could tell he didn't have much of a chance against Thoth in the first place, and would have eventually lost to Thoth even if nyktorion didn't get involved.

I won't have any problems signing a NAP with you Mardoc, as like nyktorion said, attacking you would require complete co-operation with Thoth and he would undoubtedly gain more from any conquest of your lands.

BTW Mardoc, if you want to meet the Sheaim and plan to get Hunting soon, I wouldn't have any problems with you sending a hawk into my lands to meet the Sheaim (avoiding all the barbarians in the process) provided we also swap maps.

Regards,
WarriorKnight

I can see the arguments for why you won't invade me, anyway, and why you'd prefer Thoth not to invade me either. And I definitely see the argument that Thoth is ahead and likely to stay there.

I guess the main question becomes timing. If I sign an NAP until T170, for instance, is that mutually exclusive with joining you in a war? I'm not really in good shape for trying for a war at T140; I've got too many pieces that I need to acquire first, like Hawks and mages and collateral.

Alternately, would signing a mutual defense pact and containing Thoth be enough, or do we need to actually take him down? I could be wrong about this, but my current thinking is that he's near his maximum, while the rest of us still have room to grow.

I'll have to think about the map/Hawk-contact offer; I have been considering sending a military boat instead of a work boat, and that might be enough to get through. I do intend to acquire Hunting soon, although there'll be a delay while I construct a Hunting Lodge. I will probably pass on screenshots of Thoth's land, though, whether or not I reveal my own (post-Hawk)

- Mardoc

Timing will be difficult to figure out. None of us are ready for a war and won't be for a while. On the other hand every turn we wait gives Thoth a bigger lead. The 4 of us will need to discuss together to decide the right time to attack.

I'm not sure containing Thoth will be enough. Thanks to the Bannor war he has quite a lot of land, and I can't be sure if he's finished settling it yet. He has a huge food lead (he's got something like 270 food and none of us can really compete with that right now) and I don't think he's near the happy cap yet so he can still grow as much as the rest of us.

WarriorKnight

Quite simply, I'm still undecided. But I need to at least respond to Thoth by tomorrow. If we can agree on T170 as the potential D-Day (or T180, or T200), then I can remain available and persuadable.

- Mardoc

Ok, I went for the short end of the range; I extended my NAP with Thoth until end of T170. If we can work out a solid plan to hit him on T171, I'm almost certainly in for that.

- Mardoc

Okay, Mardoc has been noted as not really committed to our attack. I know that preparing for such a war takes time, but T170 is really long. Also, in the offer of Thoth, he had the option to select T160 as the NAP ending date, too...

On to the Irgy/WarriorKnight/Nyktorion corner:

I really think we need to bring Mardoc on board with everything, on an equal
footing. If he feels that he's going to be the odd one out of the four of us and
therefore the next target if the Malakim are defeated, he's not going to want to
side with us. In that regard, I'm going to write a message to him myself, using
one of you two as an intermediary.

Convincing him that this won't just be another attack like the pitboss2 attack on
Speaker/Sulla is important too, but I'll leave that to the two of you.

Given Thoth has already made a long NAP offer to Mardoc, I think on the whole
it really doesn't matter what Thoth thinks now. It would no doubt help him a little
to know our specific plans, but at this stage his realising that we might be
colluding against him will have little consequence.

For what it's worth, I have no current NAP nor other deals with Thoth. We don't
have a border though, so there was never a strong case for one.

Irgy Arbandi

I've sent the water mana, nyktorion. Keep in mind that I will be cancelling it on T130 (as I desperately need to spring a few tiles myself but don't have the adepts out yet) so make sure that your done with it by then. I agree with the body mana deal in exchange (you send me it as soon as it's hooked up (do you have a ETA for the body mana? because if it's too early then I might not be able to use it), deal can be changed by mutual agreement).

I might have acted a bit paranoid when requesting to hold off the mana talks. I was just concerned that the three of us would sort everything out mana wise leaving Mardoc with nothing to contribute. It makes sense to tell him about our mana plans, although we seem to have already discussed with him quite a bit without mentioning mana at all. Perhaps someone should bring it up?

My NAP with Thoth ends on T135, and I'm unsure yet if he wants to extend it. Assuming the worst case scenario, I should have enough forces to hold him off by then.

Anyway, I'm tired, so I'll finish saying that our first priority should be getting Mardoc on board. Once that happens, we can start finalizing mana/attack date/anything else etc.

WK

> I might have acted a bit paranoid when requesting to hold off the mana
> talks. I was just concerned that the three of us would sort everything out
> mana wise leaving Mardoc with nothing to contribute. It makes sense to tell
> him about our mana plans, although we seem to have already discussed with
> him quite a bit without mentioning mana at all. Perhaps someone should bring
> it up?

I thought you were worried about Thoth seeing a lot of mana trades and getting
worried about our level of co-operation, rather than Mardoc feeling left out.
I agree someone should bring it up, and it's probably not going to be me as
aside from no direct communication I can't trade with him yet either.

You can see at least; does he have Knowledge of the Aether? Does he actually
want any mana? His palace has three mana which we've already got, so at best
some of us might trade it from him rather than one of the others. I might want
his air mana for instance. But we've all got water already and no-one seems to
want my Chaos mana (probably because it's fairly useless). Mana is possibly a
bigger deal to us than him in the first place.

Some other sorts resource trades might be a good idea though in either case.

> Anyway, I'm tired, so I'll finish saying that our first priority should be
> getting Mardoc on board. Once that happens, we can start finalizing
> mana/attack date/anything else etc.

Agreed.

Best regards,
Irgy Arbandi

Hi,

looks to me a bit like Mardoc is not really on board with our attack (T170 seems quite late to me, even if we have to wait for our adepts to become mages), but at least, we wont have to worry about Thoth expanding to his west for a long time now. I did do a little bit of mana trading with him though: we agreed to share our air manas with each other once each, in order to get some free Air I promotions (that might a good idea for other mana spheres we have in doubles, too). Also Mardoc doesn't have Knowledge of the Aether yet, but his acceptance to this deal signals that he is going to get it not too long from now.

Concerning our attack date: I again want to state that our attack should not be coming just as fast as possible. We should rather choose the time where we are at our peak relative to Thoth (and I have the hope that us getting some specters/fireballs/monks is such a time) - of course, we shouldn't miss that time, either Also, we should make sure that we are at least ready to defend (and that's where I agree with the containment idea, at least until our peak time comes). With Mardoc in a NAP with Thoth, that last point is of course alleviated a bit.

I'm actually starting to wonder whether I should take Thoth up on his NAP offer until T150, as well; at least, that would be about the point where I really expect my mages to start coming in, so it would be optimal and it would make Thoth less worried about an incoming dogpile, too. Of course, there's the question whether you two (whose NAP with Thoth situation is quite a bit lighter) would feel to be in actual danger until that point in time?

Last, concerning our Body Mana deal: I'm not at all sure yet, but as an estimation, I'm rather confident I'm getting the mana node on my island by T140 or so. The cancellation of your current water mana gift by T130 is not at all a problem for me, either; I just wanted a few spring adepts for my deserts, so I'll be getting all the Water I adepts I want until that point.

best regards,
Nyktorion

As hinted in the last message by me, I'm not really eager to immediately pressure Thoth anymore. The most endangered target is now in a NAP with him. I know, he is planning to attack WarriorKnight, but actually, I'd like to see Thoth try out his "alpha strike", fail (I even spelled out why I think he'd fail to Thoth! And I really think that with his hawks and playing experience, WarrirorKnight will hit sanctuary before he loses any city. But I doubt that'll stop Thoth from trying...), and then by in a state of constantly having to watch a border. Thoth might anger Irgy a bit with cultists, too, but all he can do there is of a destructive nature, he can't really hope to hold any Sheaim cities (and make them profitable additions to his empire) for geographic reasons.

So I don't really have to stop Thoth right now, and his cultist at my island is worrying me some. Other than my galleys, he can enter ocean squares, so he can harass me from a safe distance. I think I can prevent him from taking those cities (put in more city defenders than he has cultists around the area, and strike back with buccaneer crew galleys - who can wait in safe distance - if he moves in to kill the redlined defenders), that would tie up unreasonably large amounts of resources, and still make me suffer some choking.

I don't want to join Thoth against WarriorKnight right now, either. With Thoth having that island in his south, and the remnants of Patria area, I think those 5 cities would not suffice to match his growth, which will be rather unhindered while I collect my share of the Elohim cities. Also, I'd have to break my body mana deal for that, and Irgy probably wouldn't give me fire mana after something like that.

Thus, I'll probably answer Thoth that I'd like to sit on the fence (i.e. I won't join the attack on WarriorKnight, but I'll sign the NAP until T150).

[Nyktorion]

Turn 121

The turn starts with a nice event:



Too bad I'm only researching Crafting at the moment, and even there, only less than half is left. Still, better than a bad event

My island is starting to get some work. I have unloaded two workers near Dendrom now, which are farming the corn there and will improve the other tiles after that. Also, a priest has founded a temple of leaves in Dendrom now. Here's another shot of a hawk run:



Both Yonna and Kabhalg were already growing beyond their real usefulness right now, and they both had put a turn into another adept each. So I 3-whipped both of them to get some more potential mages for that T150.

My libraries are finished, so I'm activating research again. as visible from the above picture, I've changed my plans. My GNP is rather bad, and in particular, my costs are already quite high (over -100gpt at 100% research). So I decided to do something in that department first. Since my empire is rather lagre already (9 cities), it's time to switch to another government civic than God King. Since I have already quite a number of agrarianistic farms (more than I'd have expected from playing the cottage forest civ; I've got quite a number of flood plains from Mr. Yellow, and I've also farmed a considerable number of riverside tiles in Bruti and Kabhalg), I decided that Aristocracy fits me better than City States. Therefore, I changed my research to Code of Laws. For GNP reasons, I'm also playing with the thought of moving Trade in front of Crafting/Mining in my research queue.

Last, I'll show the top 5 cities this time; showing another aspect of the Malakim superiority in this game:



Diplo:

More three-way discussions between Irgy, WarriorKnight, and myself:

So, what it looks like is WarriorKnight will be prepared by T135 (or at
least may need to be), Nyktorion by T150, Mardoc by T170. I can be ready
to make at least some contribution at an earlier date, but realistically
I'd put myself in the T170 camp as well. I'm held up by development
rather than tech. I can get something prepared earlier, and I can at
least contribute some useful mana sooner, but realisically that is the
sort of date at which I'll be able to make a significantly useful
military contribution. At least it should be worth the wait though.

If Mardoc can't realistically contribute until T170, it might not really
be that bad an idea for him to have an NAP until then.

The question is, what's Thoth going to have by T170? I can only imagine
quite a lot. What do we want to do then in the mean time? Can
WarriorKnight do any more than defend himself at T135? Can the two of
you do more than just keep Thoth distracted and busy at T150? Will
either of you have anything significantly better at T170? Personally I'd
guess our combined peak is going to come at around that T170 mark, as
much as I fear the consequences of waiting that long. But it depends a
little on what each of you can do in that time.

I'm basically all in a muddle about what's best to do though on the
whole. I'll just do my best to contribute as much as I can when needed,
whatever we end up doing.

This might be easier to sort out by chat. Does gmail do 3-way chat? It
is hard though to arrange us all together, and my wife is at something
of a local peak of complaints about my time spent on the computer at the
moment as well. I can try and be around at least for a little while
though any time between 06:30(GMT) and 14:00(GMT), if I have some warning.

Irgy Arbandi

I should be able to defend myself from Thoth on T135 but I doubt I'll have enough to start an offensive without some support. Whether nyktorion and I will have enough to attack Thoth by ourselves on T150 is unknown right now, the two of us will need to figure out what we can get by then. Waiting 20 more turns until Mardoc is free from his NAP and Irgy has a reasonable force will of course increase our numbers, but Thoth will surely have prepared for us and have a significant force ready by then.

Anyway, sorting this out on chat might be easier. G-mail does allow 3-way chat (or 4-way if Mardoc gets more involved). I'm also available around the times that Irgy suggested (although I would prefer a time around 9am-1pm GMT) although I won't be available today.

WK

I don't know what Thoth is going to have by T150, but I know that with WarriorKnight and magic at T150, the chances against whatever Thoth has by then look better than the chances my army from the Bannor war would have on the attack against Thoth's cities (almost zero). On the other hand, whether our relative power against Thoth will be better at T150 or T170, I can't really estimate yet.

For my part, I'm starting to pump out some adepts now, so that they can become mages in a reasonable time frame; at the same time, I'm also finishing the claim of my remaining land (including my raw mana nodes).

Concerning the chat porposal: being in a significantly different time zone than the two of you makes it quite hard to find a good meeting on non-weekend days. As expected, the times that would work for me (about 4pm-10pm GMT) strongly differ. However, for the weekend, the times you posted look a lot better to me. What do you think about having a 3-way chat this Saturday, 9am GMT?

best regards,
Nyktorion

It seems that extending my Malakim NAP to T150 is acceptable to the alliance, as well; another reason for me to choose the "sit on the fence" route. I hope I can get a considerable amount of growth and fire/air mages till then.

Thoth seems to really want us to extend our NAP:

Hi Nyktorion,

I don't mean to pressure you, but while you are deliberating on which side of the fence to sit on, there have been some recent developments that may affect your choice.

Mardoc and I have concluded a long running NAP, so WK's notion of a 4x1 dogpile isn't going to work.

I'll have both the tech and the units to defeat a 3x1 dogpile on the board by t130, let alone t135.

I'm not looking to expand into your area (Marching Trees are a very fine deterrent) but I will be expanding my military forces as a deterrent to others (ie WK/Irgy) in the near future.



If I tech Cartography, would you be interested in an Open Borders agreement? I would ask for a "no scouting" clause in such an agreement, but the trade routes would be welcome.
(as an aside: Your southern Hunter is about to be trapped by my next city's borders. I am willing to make an exception to the "no scouting" clause in order to let it escape). If you have designs on The Pact of the Nilihorn, I'm willing to sign a "no compete" agreement.

Thoth.

No need to tell him already about my plans (and why I'm getting more and more confident in my inclination, I'm really not sure yet, either). OB seems fine if I get a real use out of it, too (I really don't care about the hunter getting boxed in, his hawk is really in a nice position, I think). I don't answer the Pact of Nilhorn part. While I don't have plans for it, I don't feel the need to explicitly share this piece of military information with him, either. So, I respond:

Thanks for your updates; while my I'm not quite finished on my decision yet, I'm already getting a quite good idea on it. Anyway, you have made me a bit curious about the "tech and troops" you are mentioning, which would both work to defeat a possible dogpile, or in an alpha strike against WarriorKnight (at least in the foreign advisor tech screen, I'm just noticing the techs for swords, priests, adepts, archers, and horsemen yet, but I'd guess something is still in the pipeline there...)

Concerning open borders: right now, my current OB agreements suffice to make all of my trade routes lucrative, and I think my hunter is having a great view from his current position. However, I'm planning to get Trade not too far from now, which will open up additional trade route slots in my cities to be filled; depending on how these routes turn out, I might be qite happy about the added opportunity of trade routes with your cities (of course, I'd be happy with a no scouting clause), then.

best regards,
Nyktorion

So, about my current inclination concering the NAP: if Thoth indeed tries an alpha strike on WarriorKnight and fails, I think that would be perfect. The #1 and #2 on the scoreboard get into an arms race, while I let my adepts level and finish expanding into my free space! And with WarriroKnight santuaried, me in a NAP, and the Sheaim cities not being keepable, he won't have any lucrative (or destructive against me personally) targets for the next 20 turns. And right before sanctuary runs out, I get another opportunity to choose my side. And if I side against Thoth, and the alliance is successful, then the now sanctuary-less WarriorKnight would be more vulnerable in the post-Malakim environment!

However, all this sounds a bit too good to be true, so I'd rather think through that some more before I decide what to answer to Thoth. Anyway, I now don't think I'll even need the full thinking time until T124 that I negotiated with him...