The Quarterdeck - Turn Discussion Thread

[Cornflakes]

This will not be a purely military push, and if everything goes right we may not even need to whip our core. We'll mix diplomacy with weight-of-arms to get our desired outcomes: (1) raze the city, (2) NAP on our eastern border so that we may grow and expand.

The plan: (1) AFTER TEAM MOVES NEXT TURN: Send a diplomatic message similar to one I outline below. (2) On our turn, regardless or whether or not we receive a reply from TEAM, move in our military as I outlined above. Staging everything on the hill this turn, moving everything in on the cow next turn.

I propose sending the following message to the TEAM diplo gmail, Lewwyn (turn player, and we were told earlier that he is in charge of diplomacy) and another of their active big-name players to ensure that they get the message in a timely manner. (EDIT: I mistakenly wrote Old Harry as the TEAM turn player earlier, but he's on Gillette ... Lewwyn is turn player for TEAM)

EDIT2: spoilered this message because it is not current

Subject: Important RB Demogame Diplomacy

TEAM (sent in duplicate to ensure speedy delivery to your team)

We note your aggressive settling on our eastern border with great displeasure, and are prepared to assert our claim over that territory. On our turn we will DOW and move in a stack sufficient to ensure destruction of [name-of-the-new-city] (our stack is probably visible to you already in-game). We understand that long border-wars are counterproductive for both teams, and we therefore we propose the following alternative to full-scale war:

(1) You immediately evaccuate [Name-of-the-new-city] so that we may raze it without losses on either side.
(2) SEE ATTACHED SCREENSHOT: You agree not to settle north of the RED line, and allow us to settle either of the city sites outlined in BLUE at our option.
(3) We agree to a 30-turn NAP, during which time your agreement not to settle north of the RED line is binding. This is long enough to ensure both our teams a secure border for further development elsewhere but does not tie your hands for the remainder of the game.
(4) You must reply no later than 6-hours from the beginning of our turn (i.e. add 6 hours to the time we are notified via the Tech Thread that it is our turn).

You are currently well within contention for final victory in this game, and we have no desire to play "kingmaker"; instead we work to regain competitiveness and act according to our best interests. Your agressive plant puts you in potential 1-move-out-of-the-fog range of our current and future city sites, and therefore cannot be tolerated. If you do not agree to the proposal outlined above we are prepared to whip our cities into the ground in order to ensure our safety. If you do not reply before we whip our cities on our turn (ruining our economy) we will not stop at razing [Name-of-the-new-city] but will continue throwing our forces at your borders until you conquer us. Check the demographics ... we have nothing to loose.

Your fate is in your hands. We encourage you to choose the path of peace!

The Pirates

Accompanying screenshot regarding our border agreement. EDIT: NOTE: I purposely chose an outdated picture here.

[Cornflakes]

Now I'm not by any means advocating that if TEAM refuses we completely throw away the rest of our game in a war of attrition with TEAM. But they must understand that we have nothing to loose, and therefore will be more cautious.

In the next post I'll explain how we can whip out SEVEN axes in two turns (+ an 8th the following turn)! That will be enough to rocket our power graph into the sky

[Cornflakes]

I'm hoping we won't have to do this, but if TEAM is not reasonable I think that this is our best option for future competitiveness. I saw this strategy to building military outlined in one of the earlier games here (maybe Speaker/Sullla PB2??). We double-whip a first axe, overflowing into a second the following turn. For this we need to get 10+ hammers base in the three turns, but not more than 4 on the first turn.

In all PR, Barbados, and Santiago we need to get 4 or fewer hammers into an axe this turn. At PR this means switching off our copper mine for a turn, and at Santiago I need to work a forest-hill this turn and next plus another forest on the third turn to get enough hammers. Next turn we whip all three cities, overflowing about 31-34 hammers. The following turn we micro each city to make sure we have enough hammers to immediately complete the second axe in each city. Havana was just whipped and we need to grow another pop before we can double whip. This turn we'll put the overflow into the missionary, next turn we put 3-hammers into the axe (center + cows) and the following turn we double whip to those two axes will be a turn behind the ones from the other cities.

Again I really hope we don't have to do this, but we if TEAM does not reply quickly to this we can send them a generalized idea of what we're planning whip so they understand that we are serious.

[Cornflakes]

One final comment and then I'll let you tell me what you think ... maybe the overflow build at Santiago should be a spear for some diversity and protection against chariots.

I can be somewhat hot-headed at times, but I really don't think that we should let TEAM settle up on us with impunity, and I really do think that they'll agree to our proposal. (NOTE: be sure that we don't send the diplo to TEAM until AFTER they play their next turn).

[Cornflakes]

Ok, one last thing for real this time: I'm planning to play the rest of our turn at midnight eastern time (9pm pacific). If I do not hear a strong objection by then I'll keep PR, Barbados, and Santiago on axe builds so that we still have this option open. We can then send off the diplo after TEAM plays, and even if they don't agree we can decide not to attack on our turn and blow if off as "we were bluffing the whole time".

[Cornflakes]

After thinking this over for the afternoon I have persuaded myself that there is a better way to handle this. The reason I was in favor of remaining silent through this turn is because I was afraid that TEAM would whip out an army this turn, and silence would give us one extra turn to complete the attack. However I realized that an observant turn-player from TEAM will be able to spot our units on the hill 1E of San Juan anyway because of the culture after founding the new city. Therefore our "surprise" relies on TEAM not noticing our stack of units ... Not likely since it will appear out of the fog upon founding and stick out there on the hill.

Instead I think that we should move all three axes out of San Juan onto the gold hill so that they will be fully visible, and still move the axe down from the corn just in case. Then send the following message to TEAM at the end of our turn:

Subject: Important RB Demogame Diplomacy

TEAM (sent in duplicate to ensure speedy delivery to your team)

We note your aggressive settling on our eastern border with great displeasure, and are prepared to assert our claim over that territory. If you persist in settling your Aggressive City on our eastern border we will DOW on our turn and immediately move in a stack sufficient to ensure destruction of said Aggressive City (a preview of our army is visible on the Gold tile, but more are on the way). We understand that long border-wars are counterproductive for both teams, and we therefore we propose the following alternative to full-scale war:

(1) SEE ATTACHED SCREENSHOT: You agree not to settle north of the RED line, and allow us to settle either of the city sites outlined in BLUE at our option.
(2) You IMMEDIATELY withdraw your settler per the border agreement.
(3) We agree to a 30-turn NAP, during which time your agreement not to settle north of the RED line is binding and neither team will declare war. This is long enough to ensure both our teams a secure border for further development elsewhere but does not tie your hands for the remainder of the game.

You are currently well within contention for final victory in this game, and we have no desire to play "kingmaker"; instead we work to regain competitiveness and act according to our best interests. Your agressive plant puts you in potential 1-move-out-of-the-fog range of our current and future city sites, and therefore cannot be tolerated. If you do not agree to the proposal outlined above we are prepared to whip our cities into the ground in order to ensure our safety. If you persist in founding we shall be forced to whip our cities on our turn (ruining our economy) and we therefore will not stop at razing [Name-of-the-Aggressive-City] but will continue throwing our forces at your borders until your conquer us. Check the demographics ... we have nothing to loose.

Your fate is in your hands. We encourage you to choose the path of peace!

The Pirates

Same picture to be attached regarding our border agreement.

I am heading out in about an hour and I'll be home about midnight (9pm pacific). Please reply by then, or else i will move accordingly and send off this message.

[Cornflakes]

Ok, just as I was running out the door I realized one more problem: our NAP with M3 expires T130. We DO NOT want NAP's with our neighbors expiring at exactly the same time. That makes it too easy for them to coordinate an attack.

Let's change item (3) to 25-turn NAP.

[thestick]

Not really feeling another war here...

First of all, the purpose of war is to gain land. We already have land (haven't settled anything north of Barbados). Second, we can't keep that city, so we whip Axes for a city many turns down the line? Third, I think we'll be more prosperous if we just keep building infrastructure than if we attack.

Finally, that isn't even an 'aggressive' plant. It's 6 tiles from their capital and 10 tiles from ours, according to our Screenshots.

Open to be swayed, though.

[Cornflakes]

Well, just got home. I'll guess I'll hold off playing until the morning so we can talk this over some. Are you online now?

[Cornflakes]

If we allow this city plan we cannot keep Maracaibo in either of our current proposed locations. We'll be too vulnerable. As soon as TEAM get's knights they'll be able to fork our front (two flatland cities) while defending from a single hilled city.

You did point out one fact though which somehow escaped me earlier ... That red line I drew is outlining the culture of TEAM's capital ... it's essentially the line which M3 drew for us after defeating us in battle ... however as Sullla said in PB2, if we want to call it an aggressive plant then it's an aggressive plant.

I modified the proposal in TEAM's favor (although admittedly rather daring for our position). It is as close as we can allow TEAM to build up on us and still keep our plan for settling Maracaibo. If we don't send this then I suggest that we abandon our plan for settling Maracaibo and instead divert our settler to the SE Green-dot (1NW of furs). It is an incredibly strong location, although somewhat slower getting off the ground because we can't initially share the corn. If we want to stick with Maracaibo's current position we need to be prepared to push culture buildings here, getting up a library ASAP after the terrace (and also at San Juan). Also understand that knights will be knocking on our doorstep soon.

Here are the 2 options I see.
1) Put a bold face on, and try bluffing our way to some territory. If it works, great. If not, no big deal. We'll just move to green-dot instead. If our initial message doesn't evoke a quick response we can follow up with our plan to whip (although still bluffing, because whipping down for war will erase any hint of a chance we have remaining).
2) Sit by quietly and allow them to settle. Slowly getting squeezed in.

You choose (or propose another option). I favor (1) and will take responsibility for whatever happens, however if you would rather go for option (2) I will do so. Since you spoke up once already in favor of silence I will default to option (2), but please give me a final word if you get a chance.

Modified screenshot ...