[SPOILERS] Margarita and the Lurkers

[Asterix]

I got a very promising response from Yuufo. He says he's interested in a NAP extension, and wishes to discuss a cooperative espionage agreement where he lets us use our EP to steal his techs in exchange for payment. I think we have good chances of obtaining generous NAP agreements which let us run a farmer's gambit for a prolonged period of time. That would be the case scenario here, as we have plenty growth potential without major warfare. We also have weak opponents to the south if we wish to seek territorial expansion.

Yes, my hope was actually we can get it for no payment whatsover - I was hoping to get out with offering him our extra happy resources - or perhaps a marble later (we could have 2, but I did not connect either yet so most people willnot know we have access to them). I even pointed to Yuufo that we are already sponsoring his economy - he even does not have 2 international traderoutes in some of his cities - if we would close borders with him, he would suffer . Suttocrats will gladly Open Borders with us, they were only afraid we will use Great Spy against them - at worst they would ask us not to still from them.

I actually think our civ is in a good position now - with some luck, we are in a good position to even win . We have a lot of things going on for us - we are #1 in research and are a budding espionage superpower + firts to buro + first to maces . Using Great Spy on Yuufo creates a subtle threathening each other situation. To attack us, Yuufo would have to make sure his other borders are safe. I believe Teddy KGB would sell us in no time - he already did once - but luckily, the #1 military superpower, Rome, is simple extremely non-talkative , so I am not sure Yuufo would ever be comfortable enough to attack us. I was actually considering attacking him, in the situation when we have an ear advantage of military and will be able to push our culture a bit further for 1-move attack. Yuufo also does not see our graphs - will likely never see them again this game :D - while we can see all his army movements. I think even without formal NAP he is not that likely to attack us soon - and his answer seems to confirm it. I would not pay him too much for peace, unless his attack is imminent. On the other hand, I think war with him at some point may be good for us - his approach "I would not make NAP with you until you pose a serious threat to me" would lead to a very costly arm race, like one that keeps Dinos and Rome in a gridlock.

In brief: If you have to choose between India and Byzantium, always choose friendship/NAP with India. Yuufo have been a ruthless player, but an honest and polite one. And an honest enemy is a much better than a fake friend - which has Byzantium been to us most of the time.

Btw, I have exaggerated an imminent threat of India's attack a bit - both for sympathy, help and simply to appear less threathening to others .

And last time I spoke with Rome they told me that they are moving their army towards India from their border with Dinos (England). But this is a superconfidential info, they did not even authorized me to tell Dinos yet.

Generally, it looks like we will be allowed to run farmer's gambit a bit longer - although it sure becomes more unnerving. Seems that our main problem in short term would be Suttree doing the same . They have been very nice and loyal towards us, so I will compete with them only very honorably, nothing underhanded

In terms of small micro, I do not know if you noticed, but since Market will be constructed in the capitol in ~3 turns, it is best to research Machinery 100% before it finishes, and then 100% gold. I was staying away frm a while form binary research, but suttree's so high now that we can afford it.

I was generally thinking to run hybrid espionage/normal reaserch economy and try for the space victory (somebody suspects we are going for cultural, but this is total bs, of course). After Machinery, I was thinking of going Aesthetics-Drama,, depending on teh ciscumstances stealing Aesthetics from suttree (and offering him a missionary or something to appease him?). We need Drama quick, we are CRE and get super-cheap Theathers, they would be very useful for culture wars with Yuufo, whenever we are defending or attacking.

Do not build Walls.They will give us only 50% defense and only until Gunpowder. Stone was only for Chitzen Itza. it is much better, +25% defense everywhere, and only us researching Rifling will cancel it. Since our UU are Janissaries, we can survive a long time without Rifling. Generally, the 1st 10 turns of Stone was to finish Chitzen Itza, the next one was to be asked to build Oxford. I was planning to more or less to beeline Gunpowder, depending on the situation to detour to Liberalism or to take Economics GM. Constitution (opening Jails and Corporations) will be a priority later. Suttree already took GA from Music, he has also MoM (but apparently no marble!).

Let me know if you have any specific questions, I was playng alone for a while, so most of these things are just in my head

[Catwalk]

Hi Asterix Nice of you to drop and let us know more about the state of the empire. Do you know why The Great Lighthouse and Colossus haven't been built yet? Do you know if anyone is planning to build them?

[B4ndit]

Hi Asterix

So your plan is basically stagnation in terms number of cities? We can't settle south in ice belt, we can't expand east and you want to cut off our expansion towards west? I really don't see a point in signing long lasting NAP with Yuufo. Till t140 _MAYBE_. After 10 turns from now we could think about prolonging it and in the mean time lets play with cooperative spionage but on our terms - we benefit more from this agreement than he will. So I wouldn't pay more then 100 gold for Monarchy.

Nevertheless, dog piling Yuufo would be my preferable option...

PS, Asterix you are from Poland, right? Jeśli tak, to witaj

[Asterix]

Hi Asterix Nice of you to drop and let us know more about the state of the empire. Do you know why The Great Lighthouse and Colossus haven't been built yet? Do you know if anyone is planning to build them?

LOL, I was asking myself the same . For TGL the most likely candidates would be Byzantium (Teddy said long time ago they would watch who would get it) and Suttocrats. Suttocrats have had Lighthouse in their capitol forever, as you may saw in the thread, when I saw they are building wonder there, i was convinced it is TGL, but turned out Moai. Both Suttocrats and Eggheads (Teddy/DMOC) are EXP so they got cheaper lighthouse.

I think the main reason nobody built TGL yet is that Orgynized (Arkipeller) should have built it ages ago - and everybody was afraid of getting mediocre failgold (teams started to switch to OR recently). I was joking about going for it, but I would rather not.

As for Colossus - I hope it would be us , if India situation will get under control. Until very recently (when I stole MC from India), India was the only team that could built Colossus, now it is just us and them. India has probably only 2 coastal cities - and they are generally very uniterested in coast, often settling cities one tile from it - I think they are not that likely to suddenly to start to built Colossus, especially if Rome is moving their army towards them, as Barteq told me some time ago.

I should be in-game note near one of our coastal cities - i was planning to whip forger and then Colossus, just after spreading religion and perhaps some chops, do not remember details. Colossus is dirt cheap now, and with copper and likely OR even failgold will not be such a disaster - if we can get some short-term NAP extension with Yuufo - or be convinced otherwise he would not attack us - I think we should go for it asap. We have a lot of coastal citifies - and we should now get a forge in every city asap anyway. I know that generally working coastal tiles is inferior to cottages, but in short term it can be better for us than TGL - cheaper and less risk - plus we will always work seafood tiles. Our capitol is also getting so big that we will have soon to work coastal tiles there - or specialist, but coast would be better for growth.

EDIT: ah, and the reason the only IND team did not build TGL or even researched MC? They changed leadership from Lord Parkin to Arkipeller, who is very nice and honorable guy, but sort of opposite to Lord Parkin in terms of civ experience

[Asterix]

Hi Asterix

So your plan is basically stagnation in terms number of cities? We can't settle south in ice belt, we can't expand east and you want to cut off our expansion towards west? I really don't see a point in signing long lasting NAP with Yuufo. Till t140 _MAYBE_. After 10 turns from now we could think about prolonging it and in the mean time lets play with cooperative spionage but on our terms - we benefit more from this agreement than he will. So I wouldn't pay more then 100 gold for Monarchy.

Nevertheless, dog piling Yuufo would be my preferable option...

PS, Asterix you are from Poland, right? Jeśli tak, to witaj

Well, we definitely need to get maces first whatever we plan - and get them asap. Then, ideally, I would keep a lean (in terms of units/maintenance costs) but very advanced army.

Anyway, we cannot advanced much more peacefully - we can settle one more good city to the North/East (near Pig) but that would require Iron working (either steal from Suttocrats or research in-between things). Later, we have to fight somebody.

There are two possible targets short term:

1) Classical Hero
2) Yuufo

Advantages of CH: should be easy, ton of lands, few cities, very unlikely that he would put up a competent defend - he has archers, but he is extremely backwards, and with so few cities, there is not that much he can do

Disadvantages of CH: maintenance costs, spread out empire (can fight that with courthouses (we would like them early anyway for espionage economy), Forbidden Palace, etc)

Advantages of Yuufo: close buy, could use espionage points for seeing what he is doing, sabotaging city defences or strategic resources, roads. His very aggressive city placement makes the current border rather inconvenient for either of us. I was also lasting for the longest time after his Holy City - is generally great, especially for espionage economy.

Disadvantages of fighting Yuufo: he has considerable army - if I remember my calculations, equivalent of 25 axes and perhaps couple chariots or spearmans. We do not see his stack because it must be somewhere near Roman border, but he has it. He is running Police State (+25% unit production, less War Weariness), he is also IMP, so get Great General easier from defending (so do we, thank to the Great Wall . And most importantly, Yuufo is a MP veteran, with at least several years of civ ladder play experience - I am sure he would defend very competently.

In summary, my clear preference would be to fight Classical Hero, especially that Dinosaurs would not compete with us in any way. My only concern with Yuufo is that it would be good for us to be able to opportunistically join others, if they would attack India. Most likely now, Rome would lead such an attack. From my previous experience, I would not make any plans of that kind with Byzantium - I would bet that would backfire. Just my 2 cents.

[Asterix]

I think that 100 gold for Monarchy sounds like a lot.

Most importantly, I do not think it is most important for us to "buy" techs from Yuufo - what we really want to "buy" from him is the peace of mind to build Wonders (Colossus, Parthenon in Save Our Souls after connecting marble) or peace of mind to conquer Classical Hero. On the other hand, it maybe a very clever idea for us to not to tell Yuufo that and play along. I was also considering just telling him that if he wants to permanently be behind us in techs - as he threatens - he is certainly welcome to do it. We do not really need Monarchy - we have an excellent UB which gives happiness and a lot of resources and building to make our citizens happy. The next civic I would pick would be Representation, not Hereditary Rule. I do not like Hereditary Rule, as it tempts you to build a lot of these cheap "happiness units", that incur huge maintenance costs.

Generally, I think we have to continue to try to walk this very thin line and try to preserve peace with Yuufo, but keeping our future options open. It would be also very interesting to hear what Yuufo really wants from us - or if he does even has any concrete demands. He kinda sounded somewhat happy about us stealing from him - he saw a potential for easy gold? He already has unhappiness in one of the cities we see, he can switch to Hereditary Rule through the Pyramid, but he need Monarchy for the good military technology.

Another concern is that if we are considering fighting with him in the near future - *paying* him to research Longbows (Feudalism) would feel silly .

I generally think he is bluffing in terms of not researching any technology we do not have unless we will pay him - unlike him, we can still many military technologies in just one turn - Iron Working from Suttocrats already, Construction from Dinos, if we put some more EP on them. If Yuufo would really do what he threatens - and will not make the NAP with us - then we could attack him having 3-4 military techs he does not .

[Asterix]

I hope you kept the cities that were building wealth on it ? The reason was I was saving that way chop or whip overflows that were to be used for wonders and such.

[B4ndit]

Plako played one turn. When I have logged in I have seen only one city producing wealth (Unruly Horses with only one hammer).

We have reached following conclusions with Catwalk:

• Prolong NAP with Yuufo until t140, after signing that lets try peaceful cooperation for as long as possible. Some cheap deal for stealing iron working/monarchy/catapults would be great.
  
• Concentrate on expansion to the south
  

Opening discussion about cities:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1icFy...sp=sharing

(You can leave comments inside the document)

[B4ndit]

So what are your proposals espinage/techonology cooperation with Yuufo? What should be our starting position? Gold? Btw, what are the regular "widely accepted" prices for units? Equivalent of their hammer production cost in gold? In other words, how much should I will be willing to pay for Fast Worker (60 hammers)? Or what price should I consider "good" for our spy unit (40 hammers)? One to one ratio hammers to gold?

[B4ndit]

2. Team Dinosaurs: Whiteye / Raptorous - Darius of England - dinosaurs.team [at] gmail.com
Info: South west of us, seems weak

* Either we will all fight India (Dinosaurs NAP with them expires T135 and Rome was also interested in being part of it, although communication with Rome is very slow)
OR
* We would fight India and they would fight Rome, also no reason for either of us to rish 2-front war
* They will not settle or capture barbarian or Classical Hero's cities beyond NS line going more or less through our capitol
* We won't settle the silver between us

Lol, did you notice that DT has already captured that barbarian city? Isn't that violation of our deal?



(After clicking this message, game centers map on this barbarian city!)