[SPOILERS]PBEM14 - Serdoa (Fin/Agg Mongols)

[mackoti]

Any picks or plans?Please.Nice move anyway .

[Serdoa]

Sorry for no pics but as for plans:

I had planned to attack scooter with ~10-15 Keshiks on one spot and with another 2 at a tundra city. I have moved them in position this turn, forking two cities with the ~15 keshiks, one defended by a warrior, one defended by an axe. He couldn't have reinforced them as far as I can see from somewhere else and could have only whipped a spear in each at most. So I could have taken both cities if I wanted too. I probably could have razed his tundra city as well as I guess it does not have much food (if it is nearly the same as my tundra cities) and as it is not planted for long shouldn't have grown too much, probably not enough for the needed 2-pop-whip for a spear.

Anyway, I would have won the first battles but I don't think I would have ultimately had any chance to win the war. I mean, my break-even research is 23 beakers... in 1000 AD. Honestly, I would have ended this game for a long time already if it wouldn't be for scooter and Gaspar and probably Sandover (though I don't have his graphs).

However, plans have changed because scooter has - instead of threatening to raze my empire (which honestly wouldn't have been all that threatening as it was not a great empire anyway) - offered to help me defeat Lewwyn. Now, that is an offer I can't pass up, as I still remember very well Lewwyns email stating

Game on. War for the rest of the game sounds great to me. Though I don't think you'll live to see the end of the game.

Well, lets see who lives longer now :neenernee

(Lewwyn when you read this, I actually don't have anything against you and think you are a kind guy, maybe a little bit overaggressive, but uh, guess I am not the one to talk about that.)

[Serdoa]

Deal with scooter

1) We will agree to peace effective immediately. We will also re-sign open borders, as we could both use the trade routes right now. (Done)

2) We agree to an extremely lengthy NAP. It is currently T102 - so something like T180 minimum. I'm open to making it game-long if that is desired by you. Also add a clause that we will not declare war on each other if the other is already at war - for instance - if we agree to T180 and T181 rolls around and I'm at war with Sandover, the NAP is extended until I have finished that war. The same would apply to you.Agreed to T180

3) I will get to Guilds as quickly as is possible, and once that comes in my entire empire will be dedicated to Cataphract building. I'm estimating it will take 10T to get to Guilds, but it may be possible to shave a turn or two off of that. Dedication to Cataphract building will be complete - including upgrading units to Cataphracts once the tech is in.

4) Once forces are ready, we will attack Lewwyn, and all land captured will belong to Serdoa. I will supply Cataphracts, Serdoa will supply support units (Keshiks, Catapults, and whatever else he has). We hope to make this campaign quick, as it's quite possible Sandover could join in on the fray - either on Lewwyn's side, or he may see Lewwyn crumbling and grab a city or two for himself. Or he could do both - it's Sandover, so rule nothing out.

5) Until this war happens, we will keep cooperation between us completely silent. If word gets out that we are working together, we could end up with a fight on our hands from Sandover sooner than we'd like. Keeping him quiet for at least another dozen turns is vital, because if I'm forced to whip and push military to defend against him, it'll slow down the progress on Guilds. We need to figure out what our "story" will be as to why we made peace - Sandover will have seen your forces in my land and may get suspicious. Any ideas you have are welcome - probably just need to say something about buying you off and/or Cataphract threats that got you to reconsider your attack.

So, basically we will crush Lewwyn, I will get his land and scooter won't attack me till at least T180. Depending on if I can leverage this land at all I might at least be able to get a competetive military and turn on him with Sandover then. If Sandover would be willing to do that what I do not know as I didn't have any contact with him and am reluctant to contact him right now. I think it would be better to talk with him and let him take 2 of Lewwyns border cities, making it worth his while to stay out of this war. On the other hand, scooter is correct that Sandover might turn on him - but that could very well happen when he attacks anyway.

Anyway, we got another player who wants to be part of the fun: Gaspar, who did send the following to Lewwyn and me:

Hey guys,

This is me just throwing a shot in the dark, but I've been musing on this a bit in my thread so I thought I would come forth and discuss it here. I know you're both awfully stubborn, so I doubt you'll agree with me, but I'd remiss if I didn't discuss it with you.

Basically, I think scooter has been playing you both for suckers all game. You're both essentially in the stone age, with large standing armies that are about to obsolete while scooter has played a large farmer's gambit and grabbed up all the land between you, while only instigating your conflict. I know you have a lot of hostility towards each other, but I really think you should have hostility towards scooter, since he's the one benefitting from your blood feud. I saw that Serdoa declared on him last turn, but I'm sure he's been busy trying to negotiate his way out. Since clearly it would benefit me to see him under some real pressure, I've decided to make my own proposal, particularly now, as he does not have Guilds or Engineering yet, would seem like the best time to put him under said pressure

If you guys are willing to call a pause on your hositilities for a war against Byzantium, I'm willing to offer the following.

*I will pay each of your unit supply costs for being in Byzantine lands for the duration of the hositilities.
*I will gift you each a spare happiness resource (I have extra incense and wines)
*I will affirm that I will not enter into any hositilities with either of your nations for the duration of those with scooter.
*I will offer to upgrade troops to more advanced versions should they be necessary (I currently have access to maces, but not yet Knights or Pikes.)
*I will stay neutral if you guys decide to resume your blood feud after the scooter war for a duration of at least 25 turns.

All I ask from you is that you participate in a real hot war against scooter and don't fight each other for the duration, and that you let me know if you sign peace. I hope that you see that he's actually screwed the two of you at least as much if not more so than you've screwed each other, and he clearly has no loyalty to either of you. I'm willing to negotiate terms a bit if you're interested, but I'm not nearly as well off as scooter, so I can only provide so much. He might offer something better, but unlike him, I can be trusted to keep my word.

Regards,
Gaspar

I have sent it to scooter and asked how to react. After all for the foreseeable future he is my ally.

[Serdoa]

Got an offer from scooter to agree to peace with Lewwyn and have the two of them attack Sandover instead. As Sandover as of late showed no interest at all anymore (the same is true for me btw) I agreed to it as it seems it is the only possibility that scooter and Gaspar might fight it out "fair". Of course I still try to see an opening, even that I am not too interested in the game. And that might come after that war with Sandover - not that I am sure that scooter will actually win that. But if not then we can call it game sooner and if he does, then he might war sooner or later (after I got Lewwyns land) with Gaspar and give me the possibility to sneak into the pole-position.

Oh yeah, that surely happens... and surely the easter bunny actually exists as well!

[Serdoa]

Well, it seems that scooter will simply betray me. To give a short breakdown

1. Deal: Instead of razing several of scooters cities, I will accept peace and we will attack Lewwyn together as soon as scooter has Cataphracts. I will get all of Lewwyns land.

Interturn: scooter gets declared on by Sandover (who fights for Gaspar for whatever reason) and realizes that Gaspar is running away in GNP and asks Lewwyn and me to have peace with each other and go together against Sandover.

2. Deal: I will agree to peace with Lewwyn, they will crush Sandover and then we will kill Lewwyn, I'll get all his land + the city Risk from scooter.

Interturn: scooter realizes that he can't take Sandovers frontline city but finds out there is a direct way to several of Gaspars cities. Therefore he attacks there first - with all my Keshiks (20 or so) which are dead now. Died to raze several of Gaspars cities.

And from the looks of it, Lewwyn is expanding again - probably into that land formerly belonging to Gaspar. I remember something about him killing Lewwyn, not making him bigger. I mean, maybe I am doing scooter wrong and he intended to get Lewwyn bigger so that I would get more land when he finally crushes Lewwyn. Uh, I forgot, Sandover won't let him and Gaspar has tech parity with him and will surely help Sandover as best as he can (upgrade troops, gift troops etc.).

So basically, I invested 20 Keshiks and got nothing. scooter lied to me imo, but I am sure he will state that the conditions of our deals simply have not been met yet. Which is true in itself, but I am pretty sure he knew beforehand that he could never met those conditions. Basically he lives the agreements to the letter, not to the spirt. Uh, again who was it who gets accused of that all the time from certain people?

Ok, to not end this thread on such a note, I have something funny to show from the actual turn. Diplo-screen. Apparantly scooter and I are both at 0% research, accumulating gold



Yeah, thats indeed me making more gold then him despite having half his cities.

[mackoti]

Sorry to hear that Serdoa,Scooter not keeping his word but i was realy expecting that.Next time when you'll have advantage you'll use it.In the end its just a game and i think Scooter wants badly to win one.

[Serdoa]

Well, I have to backpedal on this one maybe. A day before I wrote that last post I had asked scooter by email whats going on. As I didn't receive an answer, I thought what I wrote above. But he answered now, that he leans to go with the original Lewwyn plan. Lets see - if he does indeed do that, then I might actually be able to get into second place in this game. Wouldn't that be fun?

[Serdoa]

You probably have seen that in other threads already, but if not, here is an overview of the world

Yeah, I am really the one with the 10 cities, 3 of them tundra junk, 3 of them coast junk. Nevertheless, I did get Paper -> Edu the last turns, will have next turn Printing Press and within the next 4 turns the needed universities and will then build Oxford in my research city. Won't help me all that much but I really am having a hard time seeing what else I could do.

Gaspar is down to 10 cities as well but due to Stonehenge, Oracle, Colossus, ToA, GLib as well as GLH, and no wars till recently, he could research faster then everyone else. He is getting Astronomy next turn (I have research visibility on everyone except Sandover), with scooter getting it in 5 turns. That should obsolete his Colossus and probably will make scooter once again the clear leader of this game.

Lewwyn shows as well only 10 cities, but he is settling that "island" which Gaspar used before, so should be up in cities soon. He is researching Optics currently.

Sandover I have no clue about what he is doing. I think simply trying to make scooter not win.

scooter has 15 cities or more. He lost some it seems on the coast next to Sandover and rebuilt them. He is researching Astronomy as well and - according to his last email - will attack Lewwyn. If that happens I have to make sure my borders are defended as I could see Lewwyn putting a hurt on me. Though if Lewwyn has to defend his holdings in the south against Gaspar on his own, that might work out.

Overall you can see that my cities are much smaller then those of the others. Thats partly because I started to late to settle them and partly because I gave away troops which I haven't rebuilding - therefore I don't have enough HR-units. And lastly because I simply played not that well. Still, I checked now and Lewwyn has only

Gold, Incense, Sugar, Spices

That should give with a Forge 5 happy. Add Charismatic and a monument for another 2. Gives 7. Plus 4 at this difficulty for free, gives 11. He is not in HR according to the Foreign Advisor. So, um, how does he make a size 17 city happy? He might have build a temple there for another happy. Gives still only 12. And according to the foreign advisor he has no trades for happy resources going. ... I think the Foreign Advisor is, for whatever reason, wrong. Lewwyn adopted Bureaucracy some time ago. He would have adopted HR as well if he was not in it at that time. Now I would like to know if someone knows why the Foreign Advisor is wrong?

[mackoti]

Globe teatre?

[Serdoa]

No, he has no Aesthetics.

Looking at the city, I can see

Library (+0)
Market (+0)
Monument (+1)
Lighthouse (+0)
Moai Statues (+0)
Barracks (+0)
Forge (+1 for Gold)
Granary (+0)
Hammam (+2)
Stable ?? (+0)
------------------
Total: +4

+4 for Incense, Spice, Sugar, Gold
+1 for Charismatic
+4 for Difficulty

Total: 13 Happy

And he has Monarchy since AD1420/30 but has not adopted HR yet. No clue why he has 17 pop then, if he simply grows in unhappiness or if I am missing something obvious. It's kinda sad because I have seen now several times that players had bigger cities then I managed but I could never find out how it was done.