RP Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Darius I of the Holy Roman Empire

[Nakor]

Krill, care to enlighten me? Are you suggesting that we shouldn't build a spearman but just an axe? DMOC, what do you think?
I'm not that comfortable with early wars...

BobRoberts, I think we do (need to hear DMOC's thoughts). We told Dantski a few turns ago to raze it. He didn't do that yet. I even told him that our axe was going there. So he has had enough warnings and chances, I guess.
What's the point in razing and resettling one east? The barb city fits pretty nicely with our dotmap.

Still haven't ended the turn since we might want to change Sethanon from Spearman to Axe...

[Krill]

Oh, it was a reference to the MTDG over on CFC. One team had 3 axes, the other had 3 chariots. Somehow the axes out manouvred the chariots and managed to play zone defence to defend a barb town, killing several of hte chariots, before capturing the barb city.

[DMOC]

If we've got axes and they've got warriors, we'll cream them. No need for promotions intially. If someone wins at 98% odds they only get ~1 XP point, but less than that it's 2 XP or more. I say, don't promote them to city raider unless their odds are less than 95%. I thought dantski said that he would take the city last turn? Oh well, tough luck for him. I would wait until we have at least 2 axes here (you never know we might have bad luck). If we can get 2 axes on the same turn, and the other axe is 1 turn away, then those two there can win and the other axe can kill the other warrior and the other 2 axes that attacked the previous turn can attack any additional warriors.

Krill, I understand that axes can kill chariots (while attacking) but it's easy for a chariot to kill the axe especially with the 2 move advantage they have. I still support building a spear.

[DMOC]

Got a VERY interesting message from athlete/kalin. We do have to do something about speaker/sullla. their thread has a boatload of posts, probably due to spreadsheets or something. Obviously, I can't do this since I have a lot of homework but what we can do is try to slow down their development any way we can.

Hi DMOC/Nakor,

First I wanted to clarify a bit what happened with the open borders
and our exploring warrior. Athlete and I didn't communicate very well.
I thought you felt uncomfortable about us scouting your land, but
forgot to tell Athlete initially. As such, we haven't scouted your
capital although I was tempted to do it We would like to defog the
area between us so that we may get trade routes at some point.

I saw Nakor asked some time ago in chat about how the war was going,
and while logged in we were not around, so we thought we'd give you an
update. Byzantium got the Oracle last turn as you may have seen and it
appears they got IW with it. This explains their sudden jump in score,
however nothing much to worry about. We are still in a stalemate
situation but we are working on taking them out.

Finally, we'd like to talk about India. We are getting quite concerned
with their development. At the moment they are first in food/GNP
(their GNP this turn is 89!) while doing good in production. They just
got a great scientist and have 4 cities. We are both quite far from
them but I think we should try to do something about this situation.
Do you have any suggestions/ideas? We are thinking for now to just not
help them with anything, and maybe encourage people closer to them to
do something... Let us know what you think.

Out of excess of caution we'd like to gently remind you to not share
the above information with anybody.

Let's try to stay in touch more,
Kalin for Team A/K of the Ottomans

[DMOC]

A drafted message. I did not send this yet. What do you think?

Dear athlete/kalin,

Thank you for resolving the open borders dispute. I was quite startled at a previous email of yours so it's good to know that this was just a simple misunderstanding. You may defog our capital to get trade routes. (Just curious - do we both get the trade routes or do we have to defog the way to your capital?)

I still wish you the best of luck in your war. It seemed odd to me that Byzantium would actually build a wonder during a war, but I guess that's just the way things go. At the very least, they have denied the wonder to someone like the Speaker/Sullla team.

Speaking of that team, I am also concerned like you. It seems like they certainly did some extensive planning in the beginning of the game. Right now there isn't much we can do about them. They are to our north, but Dantski of Romalinese is in the way.

We will not share this information with any other team.

Sincerely,
DMOC of the DMOC/Nakor team for HRE

[Nakor]

Sounds like a good message! Just send it.
I agree that something needs to be done, but we're in no position.

Our powergraph did skyrocket ather the change of the turn! Kept Seth at a Spearman. Axe will attack Barb City next turn and the turn after it we've got 2 axes to attack and take it. I strongly suggest we KEEP the city.
Dantski didn't whip chariots since his power is stable.
Rolan grew to size 4, to 5 in 5 turns, Granary in 10t.

Time for the Christmas pauze, I think....

Krill: I'll take a look at the game!

[DMOC]

Nakor - yes we will be keeping the city if we take it.

I'll send the email

[DMOC]

Well Speaker/Sullla sent us a message.

Dear Nakor and DMOC of Holy Rome,


Thanks for agreeing to cap the Espionage spending once we can see each other's bar graphs. We'll go to 43 EP and stop there, as promised.

What can we tell from the Demographics? Probably the biggest tidbit is that athlete/kalin and Whosit have the largest armies at the moment - we're both lucky that neither one is next to us! We know a couple of other things, but we can't give away ALL of our secrets.

Happy Holidays!
Sullla
The Killer Angels

[Nakor]

Great that you're getting Civ on your own computer again!

Did you find anything of interest in the game?

I hope we can grow to 6 cities within the next 10-15 turns, that is, if we keep Barb city. I think our sixt city should be east of Krondor near the sheep/whale/fish.

I still believe CoL is the best option for us since it gives us a religion and brings Rathaus into play, once they're build, we get a far better gpt rate and that allows us to expand faster.

Sailing after that sounds good to, since there are a lot of islands, especially the one in the middle, that might contain some interesting resources.

Are you ok with me sending a few messages regarding sulla/speaker to the others? Trying to get someting going to stop them down a bit...

Merry Christmas!

[Nakor]

Merry Christmas all!

I got some interesting mails. First from Kalin:

Greetings friends DMOC and Nakor of the HRE,

Thank you for resolving the open borders "dispute." I was quite startled at a previous email of yours so it's good to know that this was just a simple misunderstanding. You may defog our capital to get trade routes. (Just curious - do we both get the trade routes or do we have to defog the way to your capital?)

I am glad we clarified then. On our side we were just confused. In the future, let's let each other know as much as possible about issues like this. We value our relationship and we don't want a misunderstanding to get in the way.

We will try to do defog to your capital, but now it may take a while, as our warrior will be heading N. I don't know if we both need to defog in order to get trade routes. Maybe we can ask the lurkers in our threads? In any case, I'll try to figure it out and let you know.

I still wish you the best of luck in your war. It seemed odd to me that Byzantium would actually build a wonder during a war, but I guess that's just the way things go. At the very least, they have denied the wonder to someone like the Speaker/Sullla team.

We also found it odd that they build the Oracle, but as you said better them than... some other team It is likely that they had started the wonder a while back, so they just finished it.

Speaking of that team, I am also concerned like you. It seems like they certainly did some extensive planning in the beginning of the game. Right now there isn't much we can do about them. They are to our north, but Dantski of Romalinese is in the way.

I will get straight to the point here I propose we try to gather a coalition... "of the willing" and go on an expedition to do something about them soon. I am thinking that if several teams send 4 to 6 or more units (a mix of spears, axes, chariots, maybe others) it will add up to quite a lot. The main objective of such an expedition would be to pillage as much as possible to even a little the field. A secondary objective would be to take/raze some cities. We would participate in such an endeavor if there is enough support. We believe that the action could start on turn 100 (25 turns from now) maybe even sooner. It is important to act as soon as possible, because if catapults come into play, things will get a lot harder!

The benefits of such an action is not only to slow down or even stop the strongest opponent by far. We would also get money from pillaging that we could all use to fund research, maybe capture some workers. The investment is not insignificant, but most of us now have 3/4 cities, so with a couple of whips per city one can get 6 units fast. Note that these units are not likely to die, so we would get to keep (hopefully) most of them. Another benefit is that it may create more space for the immediate neighbors, which in turn may translate into more land for the neighbors' neighbors

It is crucial to try to enlist the immediate neighbors in this action. We'd like to ask how are your relations with Dantski of Mali. We have good relations with Jowy of the Greeks. We are willing to engage both immediate neighbors on this and try to convince them that... there are WMD (weapons of mass destruction) next to them Since they stand to gain the most, I am hopeful that they may be willing to participate.

Let us know what you think about this. Of course, all this should stay between us.

Happy Holidays,

Kalin for Team A/K of the Ottomans

And from Whosit:

Dear DMOC and Nakor,

I apologize for not writing to you sooner; this time of the year has kept me quite busy. I wanted to say that I was glad to have a chance to speak with Nakor in real-time. If you will pardon my phraseology, I got good vibes from the conversation and I think that our two civilizations can definitely cooperate. Among other things, Nakor and I discussed the danger of India: They could very well run away with the game if no one opposes them. While I would not suggest doing anything drastic at this point in time, I do not think that it is too early to plan for the future. Perhaps there are other civilizations out there who share the same worries. In the meantime, the Empire would be happy to offer Holy Rome whatever assistance is possible, although I must confess that our resources are limited at this time. The best that I can offer right now is tactical advice, for what that's worth. My intelligence on the Romali (I hear that you are having some troubles with them) is limited at best, but if you still have the opportunity, it would be a good idea to scout out as much of their land as possible if you fear they are preparing for an attack--if only to glean what resources they might have. Also, if you did not already know, all Civilizations have access to Horses, so a few Spearmen might be a good investment.

Speaking of tense relations, it is probably no secret that the Empire and Korea are not on the best of terms. I imagine that you have open trade routes with the Koreans; I know that they have researched Sailing because I spotted one of their Galleys. At the moment, I think that we (the Koreans and I) are stuck in an arms race, but things are relatively equal. In the event that the Koreans make a request for aid, I would appreciate it very much if you refrain from trading to Korea any Strategic Resources because it would no doubt make the situation much more unpleasant. I hope that you do not object to this request.

I would also like to thank Nakor again for pointing out a roving Barbarian Axeman near my territory. I am simply sorry that one of your Warriors will have to pay the price for that information. The odds are not stacked in the Warrior's favor, I think. If you wish, I can describe what I know of the land to the east, although it is not especially spectacular from what I can tell. The ruins of the Zulu lie in that direction, however, and I think that the IKZ Interregnum has begun to expand into that region. I also think that the central island will be of particular interest, but I cannot explore that until I have learned Sailing.

I am sorry to have kept this brief, but I simply did not want to let our communications cool too much. Please get back to me as soon as is convenient for you as I would like to keep our dialogue open. On a final note: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or whatever else might be appropriate!

Best regards,

Whosit, Galactic Emperor

Interesting since both adres the same issue.
I'm off to a Christmas diner now, but will respond later.
I do think we should go for Kalin/Athlete's plan and try to get Dantski, Plako/Broker and Whosit in on this. If Kalin brings Jowy and maybe someone else, we could have an interesting army.

Maybe we could convince Dantski to let us keep Barb town for our assistane in getting a city from Sullla/Speaker for him... that should give him some room.

I do feel sorry for Sullla/Speaker, but they clearly are going to run away with the game if we don't take actions soon.

Thoughts?