RB PBEM #1 - Mehmed (SPOILERS!)

[Broker33]

The tile NW of the horses looks like a forested hill?

That is where I would put it. Culture war gotta fight someone.

[Dreylin]

Wouldn't 1N of horse be a much better defensive place, with hill to start with and also controling better the access to 'orange' dot and gap of rohan (ennemy stack will have to be in the flat-open (after cutting tree) while with 1S, you will have (more) trouble preventing ennemy stack to go through the hills NW & N of horse to reach your back.

If I was just trying to defend the access to the Gap of Rohan, then yes either of those spots is better defensively - even the Plains Hill 1E of the Settler is better.

Problem is that I'm not just trying to control the access East, but also South. ~4tiles directly South of the Horses is the pinch-point that controls access to the Banana Lake area; now there's no food in that Area, so any city that was founded just to control that pinch-point is dead on it's feet. See the last dotmap here: dotmap mk II

The aim of Purple is to command the entire valley and force any aggressor to either deal with the city, or expose their stack on flatland to attack. Note that there is no way to reach the Gap of Rohan without traversing flat land, note also the Stone tile & 1N are both flat to the same is true to the South.

Moving the city North may indeed control the approach to Orange & Ankara, but it cedes control of the approach to Stone.

[Dreylin]

I probably should have posted this earlier while I thought about how to reply, but as it is you get both at the same time:

Well, conflicting settling policies were bound to come up at some point.

Sorry to hear that you feel disappointed by my intent to settle that area.
Keep in mind I could say the same, as the area is no closer to your lands than it is to mine.

I think that the narrow gap in the mountain range 2S of the sheep is a natural choke point and already acts as a "single front".
Placing a city beyond that tile will make it more exposed, while it can only be reinforced by one route.
On the other hand an outpost like you intend to settle will put mine and athlete's land wide open to you.

This valley holds important resources, that my civ lack at the moment, but which are available to you in your northern hinterland.

So you see, this is my position.
What do you suggest we do about it?
Maybe the area can hold two cities, but they would be forever struggling in a cultural border conflict.
Are their any incentives I could offer that would have you back down from your plan?

mh

I really don't see what he can offer in the way of incentives, especially given that I'm pretty-well convinced that he can't beat me to either spot (though well see next turn). Hopefully he doesn't realised how close I am to being able to grab both spots! I also don't really fear him militarily; I can see from the Power numbers that like everyone else he's running a paper-thin military at this point. I also feel that with HA available, I can quickly respond if he starts a build-up of force.

mh,

This is certainly an unfortunate incident, and I do hope it will not end up colouring our future relations, but before we go any further I feel it necessary to comment on a few of the points you've made.

The NE does indeed possess these resources, however I have also seen Sheep, Fish (OK, not Clams) & Horses available in your hinterlands, and can direct you to them if necessary. I do agree that the land of yours I have seen looks less fertile than mine, but that is something to be taken up with the mapmaker. In return for more fertile land, I have to deal with being in the central position; the most vulnerable, and therefore needing to spend more on ensuring defense.

On that note, I do currently have two fronts in the area; the one you reference South of the Sheep, but also the one to the South of the Horses. Rather than turtle up behind two choke points, my intention was to create a single focal city which could defend both approaches into my land.

You say that would put both your and athlete's lands wide-open to me, but you both already hold the natural choke point access with your cities; there's no way that a force could circumvent them without exposure to attack.

Now you have my position as well. I'm not sure that I see an easy way to resolve the issue; about the only thing that comes to mind would be if we were both to agree not to settle the Horse Valley at all, but it doesn't seem a very satisfactory arrangement for either of us. Do you have any ideas?

Dreylin II.

Now my two concerns are that a) the Currency trade goes through as planned, and b) he doesn't realise how close I actually am to claiming the territory. Since the Purple Dot site (1S of Horses) is out of his sight, I may well stand the Settler there for a turn until after the trade has gone through before founding the city (as long as I am certain that I won't lose the site).

[Dreylin]

Managed to have a bit of a chat with Ruff. I wanted to follow up on a couple of things and also give him a bit of an FYI about the goings-on in the West:

me: Hey Ruff?

Ruff.Hi: hi

me: Any word back from athlete about the coupon?

Ruff.Hi: he was ok with it but he wanted to trade me Priesthood (game said he couldn't)
need to wait until he can trade IW to me for Cal and then I will trade the coupon to you for P and A

me: OK
I'm going to offer him a choice of Mono or the coupon for Sailing
Good deal for him either way
Gets rid of the paper


me: How're your Spy considerations going?

Ruff.Hi: going to bomb

me: sooooo?

Ruff.Hi: emailed sooooo and tried to set up chat - didn't happen
yes sooooo
will give me sensor net against him
so that it will be very difficult for him to surprise attack me

me: Sure
As an FYI, mh and I going to disagree about territory in the West

Ruff.Hi: I bet the lurkers are pleased

me: Well my thread is racking up posts...

Ruff.Hi: wow 8 posts in front
I was 10 posts up about 2 days ago

me: Yeah
only half of those were mine!
I'm hoping we can avoid things getting aggressive,but I don't see a way one or other of us is not going to end up unhappy

Ruff.Hi: the rest are people giving you insight?

me: Pointed questions, mostly
Not "Krill questions" though

[Dreylin]

Also now that I have the update from Ruff on the tech situation, I send athlete a quick note:

Hey Athlete,

I see you finished IW on the inter-turn, so I guess you're on the way to Sailing now ... do you have an ETA yet?

Ruff spoke to me about trading the 150b coupon that you will owe him across to me for a couple of techs, I hope that's OK. If it is, I'd be prepared to offer you a choice of deals for me to obtain Sailing from you:

Sailing for Monotheism (previously agreed)
Sailing for 150b IOU

I'm easy either way, so if you let me know which is your preference I will propose the deal as soon as I see you have Sailing.

Cheers,

Dreylin II.

I'd rather the paper was gone, but I expect that he will want to take the tech now rather than later. As I said to him, I'm easy either way.

[kalin]

When/if you have time, I'd like to see a screenshot with the demographics and/or the power graph (and even some of the others).

K

[Dreylin]

Ask, and ye shall receive. (got off work early for the holiday tomorrow)

Let me know if these are readable, and if there's anything else you'd like to see.

Of course we know that the Power graph is mostly illusionary - techs & Pop, etc. - but that is pretty-much true for all of us.

[Iamjohn]

You seem to be doing pretty well in the power graph (though as you said it's mostly tech), what's your prediction on m_h's reaction? Hopefully things start to get interesting...

[Dreylin]

You seem to be doing pretty well in the power graph (though as you said it's mostly tech), what's your prediction on m_h's reaction? Hopefully things start to get interesting...

Yeah, I suspect you have different hopes than I do!

I'm not really sure how he'll react - hopefully he's going to be reacting to a fait accompli where both cities are down. In that case, his recourses really are to cut off ties & trades (a good reason for him not to know before the Curr/CoL trade goes through), or go full military.

The first would be annoying, but can be dealt with - after all, there's bound to be some taking-sides going on soon.

I do have to make some preparations incase he moves towards a full-on military response, however I think that I'm well placed to do so. I've got HBR and my first HA on the way & Iron will be hooked up soon. I know mh has Iron in his Capital's borders, but he probably won't get IW from athlete until Currency is complete.

Of course short-term, I have the Chariot & Archer in the area and a second Archer on the way, longer term I'll be in Bureaucracy and able to easily out-produce him.

[Dreylin]

Athlete chose to get the paper cleared.

Hey Dreylin,

Only 2 more turns so I'll use it to get the IOU out of the way.

Athlete

Athlete,

OK, sounds good.

Dreylin II.