RB PBEM #1 - Mehmed (SPOILERS!)

[Dreylin]

t118 - 3 Theatres and a Cannon complete.

MilTrad has come in from Ruff, so I dial up some Cuirassiers.

Well, athlete hasn't attacked my stack this turn, but he has packed Damascus with the fresh troops: 3Muskets & 3Cuirassiers join the same numbers of injured units.

Cats heal
Fresh CR2 Cannon attacks Musket @84% - withdraws
90hp Drill2 Cannon attacks Cuirassier @59% - withdraws
80hp Drill2,CR1 Cannon attacks Cuirassier @63% - withdraws
57hp Drill2 Cannon attacks Cuirassier @36% - dies

One Cannon left with worse odds, so send in the troops:

Fresh C2 Jann attacks Musket @50% - wins!
Fresh C1 Jann attacks Musket @71% - wins!
Fresh C1 Jann attacks Musket @89% - wins
Fresh G1 Jann attacks Musket @87% - dies!

Run some promos on the injured Janns, but best odds are 74%; what about the last Cannon:

41hp CR2 Cannon attacks Musket @87% - withdraws
88hp C1,Pinch Jann attacks Cuir @79% - wins
78hp C1,Pinch Jann attacks Cuir @78% - wins
52hp C2 Jann attacks Cuir @77% - wins
50hp C1,Pinch Jann attacks Musket @82% - wins
Jeanne d'Arc is born in Edirne ... heads towards Bursa to likely become a specialist.
65hp C2,Shock HeroicHA attacks Musket @78%(5%) - wins

And we're out of units again. One Cannon, 1Jann & GG HA are too injured to get any odds, so we call that another battle. A fresh Cannon & 2Janns move into position, with a single Jann a step behind.

Damascus now contains a single Musket & 3Cuirassiers all near death. There are an additional Musket & 2Cuirassiers able to reinforce this turn, and Damascus could be Drafted again - though the city is now unhappy from lost Garrison. Not that my forces are in very good shape, but I do have 5Janns & a Cannon moving up behind.

Down to Kufah, and we see that another Cuirassier has been whipped in. As I move the Pike/Jann reinforcements to join the stack, I notice that there is a hill-top route around the city to reach the Iron. I split off 4Janns as an expeditionary force to see how athlete will respond to the threat. That leaves 4Janns, 2Cannon & Pike - Cannon knocks the recovered 1% off the top of Kufah.

WW has started to spread, hitting Ankara - a passing Draftee pauses in the city for a turn to keep the Peace.

Draft: Bursa, Gaziantep & Sarmatian (Jann stays in last to reinforce guard against sooooo).

Research back down to 40% to complete Guilds @ +10gpt. Offer treasury of 27g to Ruff.

[Dreylin]

A Peace proposal:

Hey Andy,

Care to smoke a peacepipe with me :-)?

After giving it some thought and some lost forever arabian souls, perhaps it might be best to settle this with a pen then a gun. At the moment I still occupy both Damascus and Kufah, but if you would like, I'll hand them over peacefully next turn, economics and banking (unless you're getting banking from Ruff, I think he has it now). I would give all this in return for a 10 turn peace treaty. I will cancel all dealings with Soooo for the duration of the treaty and will open borders with you and ruff, and provide trading opportunities for you both. I've also got a gold resource you could have.

Any thoughts?

Taylor

... or maybe not ...

Hey Andy,

Hold that last email off. Let me sleep on it and I'll let you know tomorrow morning. (If you want to consider it, otherwise just do your worst :-)!)

Taylor

Well either he hasn't had a chance to play the turn, is holding on to it while he thinks, or he's forgotten to upload it again....

Hey Taylor,

Well I certainly can't attack you if you hold onto the save.... 9-)

I would be willing to consider Peace along the lines of the terms you suggested earlier, though I may want to niggle around with clause for trading with sooooo. Anyway, since the ball's still in your court I'll leave you to think about it.

Andy.

[Dreylin]

Looks like the conclusion is no, but still no counter-offer!

Hey Andy,

I think that MH has already left for the weekend, which sucks as I wanted to get another turn in before he left and it's my fault now :-(. That being said it means I don't have to make a decision anytime soon and after thinking about it I'm probably giving up too much in that initial offer. So if it happens that you get your turn before the end of the weekend as MH is able to play then consider us still at war. However if not and you'd like to discuss peace I'm open to listening. But at this point I think I've worn you down quite a bit without any strong losses yet, and while I've thrashed my economy to shreds eliminating me from any chance of winning, I was never going to win anyways. I don't hold much interest in playing a crippled civ so I might see this through to the end. I suspect you'll have to beat your civ down quite a bit if not as drasticly as I did to knock me out.

Let me know what you think,

Taylor

Taylor,

By my tally you've lost 12Cuirassiers, 5Muskets, a Longbow and two Cats - in addition to the forces you attacked me with originally - and with the exception of Mecca, your cities are in ruins ... if that's not a "strong loss" I'd hate to see what is! Now I'm not suggesting that I haven't also been suffering losses, however my cities are still in good shape and are now starting to churn out Cuirassiers of my own - to be swiftly followed by Rifles & Cavalry.

Anyway all bluster aside, my offer remains the same: Damascus, Kufah, RP & Economics for both Ruff and myself, and a trade embargo on sooooo. This is pretty-much the offer you almost accepted, and since I have yet to see a counter-offer, the ball remains in your court. If you want to negotiate, I am more than willing to listen to what you have to say, and I would certainly prefer Peace to continuing the war.

Andy.

EDIT: I do think that my demand is too high, but really he has yet to make a counter-offer. Yes I have had good results against his stack, however he can bring up fresh troops faster than I can for the next couple of turns, so this will grind on. If he countered with an offer of a single city then I would probably accept - though I am in two minds about which city I'd prefer to receive!

EDIT2:

Well I suppose you make some valid points. Let me think about it...

[Dreylin]

t119 - No further message from athlete; probably distracted by Pitboss2.

Banking from Ruff, followed by Guilds splash screen. Research Compass @0% - 11t. <Discussing with Ruff who'll be researching once Rifling is in ... he will since he has Oxford going>

OK, in a position to steal RP from athlete: 1002EPs (including full 50% stationary discount) with a 94% chance of success.

Successful and Spy returns to Istanbul unharmed!

But have lost visibility of athlete's cities. Would need 100-150EPs to re-gain, and could get that this turn by running 50% EP slider (@-3g/t) ... will think about it.

Check the logs and it seems that athlete did attack with the two Cuirassiers - a 50% odds win, and a 33% withdrawal <Sigh>. 3Cats & 3Cannon flanked out.

3Healthy Muskets guard Damascus, with an additional injured one and near-dead Cuirassiers. 2Muskets, 2Cuirassiers & GG in range for next turn, but I just can't press the attack right now. Only one Cannon is in a state to attack, and then there is only one un-injured Jannissary. It seems like my attack has run out of steam.

At Kufah, the stand-off continues, but 2 more Cannon are moving up as reinforcements, and the mini-stack moving after the Iron is making progress. If only I'd sent the stack straight around after it arrived I wouldn't be having to deal with any fresh Cuirs now.

Samsun starts on another Cannon, and Ankara (now at 2unhappy until Draft anger wears off next turn) switches to Bank. Will whip in a couple of turns since it will bring in 10gpt just from the Shrine income. Izmir is the only city where the Happy cap will allow a Draft.

[Dreylin]

I received a message from mh this morning:

Hi Dreylin,
quick offer:
I hold back on settling that little island and let your worker finish the forest chop.
Once he is done, I settle and you temporarily gift me the worker to improve the remaining land tile.
Once that's done, the worker will be sent back to you.
You refrain from bringing a settler to the island obviously.

What do you say?

Regards
mh

OK, so here's the region in question:

I've been intending to settle on the hill as soon as I can get a Settler built (I seem to have been distracted for some reason), and had a free Worker so had started to cut down the forest in preparation. It's only 8h, but better to use than lose, right?

The trade-off he's proposing is not great, but it's not too bad. I'm a bit disappointed about losing the site, however there's nothing I can really do about that now since he undoubtedly has a Settler in place. Guess I'll see if there's a chance of my getting anything out of it....

Hey mh,

Well I must confess that I hadn't been thinking about the ownership of that island really being up for question, but I gather you have/had a Settler on that boat?

Your offer to delay settling in return for a loan of the Worker is fair and I'm prepared to agree to it now, however I'm not entirely certain I'm comfortable relinquishing my claim to the land entirely for free. I'm aware that this is a very similar situation to that surrounding the settling of Bursa and of course that you have right of possession, however we have also just finished a fairly destructive conflict and I would like to avoid a repeat of any of the stages which lead to it.

My proposal is simple: in addition to the above Worker loan, you gift me the Fish resource for the remainder of the game.

I know there is a second Fish in the sphere of that Barb city, and I'm sure you will have an expeditionary force heading that way soon enough to have it netted before health becomes an issue for your cities.

I guess it's also coming onto the time when I need to think about renegotiating for the continued disposition of your surplus resources. I would like to continue to receive your spare Wines if possible, and can offer a Sugar in exchange. I know that Ruff has a spare Dye available, which I suspect he would offer directly in exchange for your Iron - allowing me to step out as middle-man!

Regards,

Dreylin II.

[Dreylin]

Well it seems not:

Hi,
fair points, however your proposal is not acceptable in its current form.
My settler is in place to settle now. I have workers on my own, which I can easily ship over there. That is not really an issue.
So my previous eMail was intended to show lots of good will, to let you reap those hammers from the chop.
I would be surprised if that island was top of your priority list. After all it is available for settling for quite some time now.
So I don't see you are relinquishing a claim here. At least not a more valid one than mine.

At the moment I am inclined to settle this turn and get the benefits of this island as planned. My initial offer is still on the table, though.

I will have a look at the resource/happiness situation when the game is back with me to check on the future of the wines and iron.

Regards
mh

mh,

Your e-mail did show good will, but that island has been top of my list of places to settle for a while now (my civ does have other things on it's plate at the moment) so I've got to re-order my mind somewhat to accommodate a foriegn city appearing there. You can hardly blame me for trying to get something out of it though!

Anyway, I've been trying to work out whether your proposal is even worthwhile for me to accept; in essence, you're asking me to trade away ~7Worker turns (I'm guessing Lumbermill) for just 8h. Even if you have a Worker immediately available to ferry over, it'd still take a few turns to get there and I'm sure there's something else he could be doing.

On reflection, it does seem to me that you're getting a lot more out of that arrangement then me; so I'll just go ahead and pull my Worker back.

Dreylin II.

[Dreylin]

t120 - Lost another Spy in Kufah!

But no more attacks from athlete so that's something, but with only 3 Cannon and mostly unhealthy Janns, I still can't afford to press the attack this turn - especially not with 7 healthy Muskets in the city. 4Janns join the stack this turn, with another 2 & Cannon a step behind.

Borders of Kufah have expanded as well ... which is going to slow reinforcements, but the pillaging party has now reached athlete's Iron supply and will disconnect it next turn. Another pair of Cannons and a Jann move to support.

Ah, Ruff has finished Rifling, so I can request it and run EPs this turn. Losing sight is a pain, but since I noted where all of his troops were last turn, I can account for anything that wasn't produced between turns. In addition to the 7Muskets & 7Cuirs in the city, I know of another of each somewhere. Plus whatever he could have produced last turn ... which isn't much. At 50% EPs (break-even) though, I gain the 143 necessary to restore visibility to all but Najran.

Jeanne d'Arc joins Bursa as an Instructor, and I pull the Worker back from mh's island.

Istanbul delays Cuirassier by a turn so it can pop as Cavalry. Bursa & Konya start Cannons. Izmir starts a Conf Monastery and Diyarbakir is Drafted again.

[Dreylin]

Ruff just sent me his recent correspondence with sooooo, and a comment that he may be declarin war soon. I'm not sure about that tbh, sooooo is in a strong position, but I can't tell if it'd get stronger or weaker over time. Either way, I'm not going to be of much support.

Hey Ruff,

Got your message about sooooo; he's basically re-quoting what I said to him when he wanted to trade a couple of turns ago ... which is pretty-much to be expected. Anyway, I won't be able to provide much support at the moment since I'm still tied up in the West.

He's researching SciMeth at the moment - probably on the way to Biology to amp up his specialist quotient. My suggestion for us would be Steam Power and then we decide on Railroad vs. Assembly Line - we've both got a couple of good candidate cities for Levees, and I think that if we emphasise production right now it should serve us well.

You've probably got a noticable lead on me in the bpt department - since you have Oxford up and running, while I do not - so it makes sense for you to run research and me gold at the moment. I'm making <100gpt though, so probably won't be able to fully support you right away. I've a Bank going into my Shrine city soon which will help, and I may be able to pull a couple of other cities back onto infrastructure in the near future.

Dreylin.

[DMOC]

Interesting game so far. I predict you will win.

[Dreylin]

Interesting game so far. I predict you will win.

Thanks, but I think it's still too early to early to be talking about winning.