RB PBEM #1 - Mehmed (SPOILERS!)

[Dreylin]

Got a response from Ruff this morning:

Dreylin,

Personally, I hope my NAP with sooooo runs the whole game. Anyway, my current NAP (including right of passage, etc) is 15 turns minimum with a 15 turn non-renewal period. That means, the NAP runs for at least 15 turns and each of us must give the other a minimum of 15 turns before it expires. To some extent, the NAPs we tried to organize in the demo game didn't really run as I expected them to (30 + 20 renewal etc) because you could always say ... "no, not renewing" on turn 29 or 30.

Hey - thinking about it, do we have a NAP? We do, don't we? Did we really skip that part? Just in case I am losing my mind and we did skip that part ... What sort of NAP terms would you be looking for?

I think the whole 'renaming of the valley' is for the lurkers - I am going to keep calling it DV but I will probably throw in some adjectives. Looking again at the city I am founding there - I think I gave too much away to sooooo. His city site is a really good defensive holding and mine is toast if things go wrong. As such, I am planning on making my city 1 E of DV my main military blocker. If sooooo does declare on me and moves on DV, then you might find yourself the new owner of a corn / spice city quick smart. I hope that doesn't happen bit it would be fun if it does.

I keep on missing some of your questions - if I do - just ask again. I'll tell you if I don't want to tell you. Re research - good for them. A bit of a mistake by mh, but there you go. mh isn't going to get much for it - who are you picking up monarchy from?

Ruff

So I have just replied:

Ruff,

Yeah, we did seem to skip over the NAP part of our cooperation. Personally I like the auto-renewal clauses that kick in half-way through the period and renew for the full length: e.g. 30t NAP with a 15t/30t auto-renewal clause. So were we to sign one now (on t43) it would be in place until the end of t73, however if neither of us indicate a desire to cancel before the end of t58 it would then renew for 30t - to t88. I guess the only difference from your deal with sooooo is that with him the 15t cool-off can be invoked on any turn, rather than at set increments.

I don't think the new site is entirely indefensible - at least it's on a hill now, so should be pretty secure once you have Longbows. The only way he can approach it without completely exposing his stack would be from the hills to the East, and they can also be covered by Longbows. With an absolute minimum of 30t before he can strike at you, seems like there's plenty of time to secure the area ... of course I wouldn't complain about receiving the city! 9-)

Well I've been negotiating with athlete about Monarchy for a while now, so I'll probably finish hammering out a deal with him while mh is still away. I tell you what, if we go back to our previous 2turn per day schedule, things are going to get pretty hectic with diplomacy and research/trades, etc.!

Dreylin II.

[Dreylin]

NAP negotiations with Ruff:

Dreylin,

I prefer the minimum cooling off approach as the other one only has a single turn trigger - thus concentrating the pressure of maintaining or calling it off in that single turn. This could actually lead to a worse outcome that a fixed duration cooling off period.

Using your figures below, T58 becomes critical if an agressive act is anywhere in the future ... and I have to be able to look forward to T88. This, paradoxically, could lead me to calling off the NAP as the window is large (30 turns) while keeping the NAP if the window was only 15 turns. Does that make sense?

I would prefer to keep my NAP with you and the one with Sooooo on an equal functional footing. Would you be happy with a 30 turn minimum NAP, 15 turn cooling off period activated at any time after 15 turns? Thus the earliest cancellation turn would be T43+30 or T73.

Ruff

I'm delaying a bit with this reply, and I'll explain a bit more about that at the end.

Ruff,

I see what you mean about the trigger times focusing things a bit more, and I am fine with the arrangement you suggest for the instant-trigger cooling off period. Two things I've been thinking about though:

1) Timing of the cancellation. If we do expiry based on a particular turn number, you would always be able to make the first offensive action due to the turn order. There should be a scenario which would allow me to make the first offensive action against you - and it should probably be if you decide to cancel. (and vice versa if I cancel, you are free first)

Let me see if I can get it into words that make sense: Notification of cancellation must be made by diplo-screen in-game (guarantees delivery). The phase that the notification is received (e.g. my turn) starts the first of the cooling off "turns", and a "turn" now consists of my phase, then your phase. At the end of 15 of each of our phases, offensive action can be made. Or more graphically:

t100® - Ruff decides to cancel NAP, sends diplo notification to Dreylin
t100(d) - Dreylin receives notification & starts cooling off period (c0.5)
t101® - (c1.0)
t101(d) - (c1.5)
.
<skip to the end>
.
t114® - (c14.0)
t114(d) - (c14.5)
t115® - (c15 - NAP expires at end of turn)
t115(d) - Dreylin is free to make offensive moves.
t116® - Ruff is free to make offensive moves.

Does that sounds like a lot of anal retentive rules-lawyering to you? But of course you are in the same situation re: your NAP with sooooo if you are using absolute turns.

2) Duration of the cooling-off period. I don't have a good handle on Quick speed, but does 15t cooling off seem like a long time to you?

3) (yes I know I said two) Open Borders: are guaranteed for the duration of the NAP unless mutual agreement is reached to cancel.

4) (OK, OK) Spies: presumably sabotage missions would be forbidden?


Dreylin II.

So even though we have been cooperating quite well so far, it has always been in a limited capacity and when I have made intimations about formalising our relationship further Ruff has rebuffed or diverted the thread away from such. Clearly he is not ready to throw his eggs in with mine just yet. As such, I think I need to maintain a certain distance and ensure that should it come to it, it will be he who next approaches the sugject of cooperation.

"So how does that relate to NAPs?", I hear you ask. Well, Ruff has successfully negotiated territorial agreements with both of his neighbours so there's no land-grab. He has arranged a long(ish) term NAP with one of his neighbours and has built a NAP (of sorts) with the Barbs. Should he secure a NAP with his remaining neighbour (i.e. me) he would be able to spend the next phase of the game expanding like a jackrabbit; with minimal military for escort and MP duty only.

So, much as I want to be secure on my Eastern borders so I can land-grab West, part of me wonders whether that leaves Ruff in too strong of a position. Hmmmmm.

[Dreylin]

An ongoing conversation, that reaches a conclusion:

Dreylin,

Gees - I said ask and I would answer .. but, so many questions.

1) yes - way to lawyerly ... but ok re NAP. Suggest that the 'I hate this NAP' statement include a 'but will not attack until my turn X' which means that you will not wake up on turn X to find that I have taken all of your cities. That will occur on turn X+1 (as you play after me). You can say the same but you should say 'will not attack until my turn Y' and the first time I see you attacking is Y+1 (ie the results of your attack on Y).

Is that what you said below?

To be honest, if one of us gets the NAP wrong by 1 turn, then I will not be sweating it. It is close enough to an 'honest' attack - if you know what I mean.

2) 15 turns on quick is enough for 3 techs and a bunch of units. It is actually a bit too long.

3) Agreed

4) Sooooo and I have a 'no harmful spy missions' clause. You ok with that?

Ruff

Ruff,

1) I like the addition of the "I will not attack until X" and think it covers the whole yadda yadda from my previous message! 8-)

2) Would you agree that 10t would be more appropriate?

4) Agreed

Dreylin,

NO. I will not agree to 10 turns cooling off. I don't want to fight you so I don't want to give you a reason to fight me. I don't want to fight soooo either if it comes to that but I can see that happening in the future. I suppose I am (oh so slowly) feeling out the Ottoman empire regarding longer term plans vis-a-vie India. Now don't get in front of your self - as Clint Eastwood says in Heart Break Ridge, "we an't jumping into bed together". I suppose we are just seeing how this friendship develops.

Ruff

Ruff,

Fair enough; I'm pretty sure I didn't want it to be just 10t either, but I did want to ask the question...

NAP between India & Ottoman Empire commencing t43.
Indefinite until cancelled; upon notification of cancellation, a 15t cooling-off period will commence.
15t minimum before notification of cancellation can be sent.
Open Borders to remain in effect for the duration of NAP & cooling-off period unless mutual agreement is reached to cancel.
Offensive Spy action is forbidden during NAP & cooling-off period.

(not sure about the tone of this one from Ruff...?)

Yeah - ok. Guess you are just summarizing for fun. Noticed you changed it to no 'offensive' spy actions. Not sure what the difference between that and 'no harmful' spy actions is - but ok.

Ruff

Well, just making sure we are completely on the same page. No intended
difference between the two wordings, I can change it back if you'd
prefer....

Dreylin.

So I did agree in the end, so I guess we'll see what happens....

[kalin]

Hello,

Pretty quiet around here.

I saw that you plan to get CoL from the Oracle (if you get it) and I was thinking that courthouses will give you espionage which may allow you some jumpstart on the other players. Any plans to do anything with that? Also, Chichen Itza may be interesting for you given you may get stone and you need prophets for the 3 religions. Any plans there?

K

[Dreylin]

Hello,

Pretty quiet around here.

I saw that you plan to get CoL from the Oracle (if you get it) and I was thinking that courthouses will give you espionage which may allow you some jumpstart on the other players. Any plans to do anything with that? Also, Chichen Itza may be interesting for you given you may get stone and you need prophets for the 3 religions. Any plans there?

K

Yeah, the diplomacy seems to have slowed considerably right now. I've sent another message to athlete to try and get some commitment to a deal for HBR so that I can approach sooooo with a proposal. If I don't hear back today though, I'm going to send sooooo something anyway, because I need to follow up on my implication that I haven't really chatted with him because I've been wrapped up in Ruff diplomacy.

Anyway, CoL is(was?) top of my list principally for the courthouses - cheap, Organised courthouses - to support a rapid expansion without cratering my economy. Chichen Itza would certainly be an option in that case, however if I did get my third religion the Wonder I would be looking at may actually be Shwedagon Paya to enable an early switch to Free Religion for three-Religion happiness and the research boost.

Espionage is not actually something I had considered, and really I'm not too familiar/comfortable with it's usage beyond enabling the demographics. It can also create a diplomatic issue if you concentrate on a particular opponent (which of course becomes obvious). <shrug> I guess we'll see how things develop.

Oh, and I plan to get around to re-examining my dotmap this evening, so there should be something to see later/tomorrow.

[darrelljs]

I plan to get around to re-examining my dotmap this evening, so there should be something to see later/tomorrow.

Good! The diplo stuff is fun but I'd rather it be 20% of the thread than 80% . I like seeing how you guys are planning expansion and prioritizing all the various stuff that needs to get done, but can't due to lack of hammers.

Darrell

[Dreylin]

So I sent a quick note to athlete this morning:

Hey Athlete,

I haven't heard from you in a couple of days, so I thought I'd just send a quick message and ask what you thought of my proposed trade of:

Horseback Riding & Archery for Monarchy

I'd like to get a firm agreement reached before we get started again, since I have to define my research path next turn.

Cheers,

Andy.

and apparently I signed it with my real name!?!?!? What was I thinking!

Andy,

That's absolutely fine by me. I'll touch base again soon. Sorry for the delay...just really busy right now...the break couldn't have come at a better time for me.

Taylor

Got a positive reply! OK, Archery->HBR is the research path in front of me.

[Dreylin]

With an HBR deal firmed up with athlete, it's time to get back to sooooo.

Hey sooooo,

I gather from Ruff you managed to reach a settling agreement for Death Valley. He let me know that his city would be moving a bit from our agreement, but it only picks up a Plains tile from our "neutral zone" so no issues. I think I need to explore a bit further to my NE, but I suspect we will need to discuss a similar arrangement at some point up there...

Anyway, seems like I've finally decided on my next tech choice and will be pursuing Horseback Riding. Obviously I'll be offering a sweetener to accompany it in a Alphabet trade; I have Archery for Horse Archers, or could offer any of the religious techs you might need as pre-reqs for Monarchy. Let me know what your preference is.

Dreylin II.

[Dreylin]

Well, here's a new dotmap:



So let's start with Red & Orange Dots: the trade-off here is the Grass Hill (under Red) verses an additional Coast. So Orange is clearly stronger, however it also grabs tiles nearer to the Western coast, and that might fight with mh(?) if he settles in the vicinity.

Yellow & Orange dot in the South are the two best potential sites to pick up the second Pigs. Orange works better with Grey dot (Banana&Stone) and also leaves the potential to keep the Barb city (unlikely), put a blocker 1S, or on the Jungle River Grass at the South end of Banana Lake.

Purple and Violet would be potentials for the Western city to get the Pigs & Horses and block off from athlete & mh. Unfortunately there's not a hill to put the city on per Swiss...

The two blue cities in the NE would be potentials to grab the Sheep, but I need to do a bit more exploring up there first.

White dot in the SE is the best place to put a city to grab the two remaining Floodplains and (maybe) culturally claim the incense.

Maroon dots are filler cities to the West & East - I guess less so the Sugar city to the East - while Brown dots are potentials for sharing Ankara's Wheat in the centre. Their founding will depend on the development in the NE, as well as (potentially) where Iron is revealed.

Red/Orange is first, and based on what can be seen on the way and what diplo can be got going, Purple/Violet would follow. In the SW, Yellow/Orange is the obvious first step. No idea about the NE at the moment, and the SE is not a great priority with settling agreements in place.

[kalin]

Very nice dot map. Here are a few comments:

* Orange dot can be founded before you deal with the barb city which may take a while with all the settling you need to do. I guess its problem is that it won't have good tiles to work until it expands.

* You are leaving quite a few grasslands around capital and Edirne with the maroon dot around the sugars, and on this map they may be worth more than in general. Wouldn't it be better to rethink a bit the dot map to make sure you are using them?

* Your negotiation skills paid off nicely in your treaty with ruff! With the full dot map, I just realized how nice it is that you don't have to rush to settle the east. Good job!

What's the ETA of the oracle?

K