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

[DMOC]

1 last nice thing ... only 4 teams have threads with more posts than us ... and hopefully 1 will be eliminated soon (seriously how did byzantium get 800+ posts and india get 50,000+ views???)

[Krill]

There isn't anything to stop you posting you thoughts in this thread, as a time capsule to look on later in the game. Not every post has to be used for communication purposes to your partner either, it could just be a collection of pictures from your empire for lurkers to look at (TBH doing this every 10 turns is really useful for lurkers to look at and comment on in the NO Players thread, so we are really thankful for any team that does this).

I tend to find stuff like that helps me think clearly about my objectives in a game.

Interesting discussion about children here. I assume I am the youngest one competing in this game?

Yeah, young folk are in the serious minority in CIV MP, so you are probably the youngest. Age doesn't really have much to do with skill though, but experience in these sorts of games does help.

[DMOC]

Good idea, Krill. I'll think of logging in the game at the next multiple-of-ten interval and taking screenshots.

Hopefully there will be some civ fans in college. (I'm still in high school.)

[Nakor]

Off to some more diplomacy...

Here's the message we got from Dantski:

Hi HRE's

Right now I do not have the resources on hand to raze the barb city, I am relatively happy for them to stay there and offer up regular sacrifices to my axes/skirmishes.

India's progression has certainly been well discussed with other players and having sent a scout north to meet the last 2 undiscovered I have seen impressive improvements to their land at the cost of minimal military. As for city placement, you will notice if you go to the Romali/Indian border that my first 2 cities were both sent in their direction, these cities seriously hinder India's ability to expand south (much in the same way that Krondor hinders me!). Also you have no doubt noticed that one of your neighbours looks like they are about to face a horde of Praets, while the other hasn't settled towards you. Seems like settling towards Spulla again and letting you grab the lions share of the land would be a tad foolish on my part.

While I clearly have no obligation to do so, in the spirit of continued cooperation I will inform you that I intend to settle 3N of the barb city once the current turn resumes, I would also like a city a little east (and possibly north, I don't have a map available right now) or Krondor. Of course it's possible you may seal off that position first though.

Hope you had a great Xmas and have a happy new year

-Dantski

And our reply:

[COLOR="Orange"]Hi Dantski,

Christmas was nice! How was yours?

Thanks for the note regarding your next settlement. We feel that that city won't inflict with our plans for expansion. We'd like to hear where you'd like to settle east/north of Krondor. Is that anywhere near the sheep we discussed?

Regarding the barb city, we want it gone and will act accordingly. We hope you understand that we don't want a barbarian city 4 tiles from our capital.

It's good to hear that you have settled near India with your first two cities. We do believe that they have more land up north to expand to, but are currently exploring there. We still don't think that Krondor was that aggressive an settlement since it gave is the only copper in a reachable place for us at the moment, and we all need copper. We hope our civs can overcome this issue and promise we won't settle north of Krondor for a very long time, if ever.
Regarding Korea and Rome... yes, things will heat up there eventually and we might be able to put a few cities near Korea due to their lack of city building. But talking of that, IKZ and Rome have even more room for expansion due to the demise of Zululand...,
We do feel that all the islands around are very interesting places to settle, so you/we might want to try for those as well.

Regarding India... we know their progress has been well disussed. We're very interested to know how your relationship with India is at the moment. We could aid you in times ahead if trouble arrises there. Have you seen their weakly defended gold city?

Well, we hope to hear from you soon!

Regards,
Nakor of HRE[/COLOR]

[Nakor]

Message to Whosit:

[COLOR="Orange"]Dear Whosit,

If it's what we both want, our prediction regading Korea's future will come true.

Great to have you in on the CoW. DMOC heard that Mali was on board as well, but I haven't heard that myself.
It would be great to have them in on the project as well.
Now let's hope Greece will join in and we'll have a nice team to do some damage.

Can you move your armies through Korea or can you go around them?
It would be good for you to have a NAP for the turns of the war with India, wouldn't it?
Maybe then they would feel a bit safer regarding your preats. You can always tell them that you're buidling them to take that barb town.
We'll back your claim regading that city and our destroyed warrior is it's necissary (how do you spell that? ).

I'll talk some more in the CoW mail but wanted to share this with you.

Regards,
Nakor of HRE
[/COLOR]

Message to Kalin/Athlete:

[COLOR="orange"]Dear Friends,

It was nice to talk to Kalin a bit yesterday. Unfortunately both our kids didn't want us to talk to long.... but maybe there will be another chance in the future.

Don't worry about Byzantium. We haven't met them yet and maybe we'll never meet them (if we read your mails correcty).

How are the talks with Greece going? I heard from DMOC that you've enlisted Dantski. I hope this is true cause in the mails I got from him he's very non-commiting. If he's in league, we'd like to aid him in trying to get a city from India. That might make our relation a bit better. He does feels that we've settled a bit aggressively towards him.

I do believe that Inca is to far away to be of interest in this war, but their units an always help. The do need to start moving around turn 85 to be in time, though...

Well, more in the CoW threat. I just liked to clarify our troubled relation with Dantski a bit more...

Kind regards,
Nakor of HRE
[/COLOR]

[Nakor]

And a short message to the CoW.

[COLOR="Orange"]Hello Willing!

I heard that Dantski is in as well? Is this true? That would be great!
How are talks with Greece proceeding? Jowy just got back, right? I think he'll jump in as well.

Let's hope we can start planning soon! We do need to start thinking about building that stack between our other plans, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Hope to hear more news soon!

Nakor of HRE[/COLOR]

[Nakor]

So, and finally we can get back to the game.

I'd like us to get to 6 cities in the next 10-12 turns, leaving us another 10 turns to build that army for the CoW.

City 1 (Crydee) should be the barb city. We can take that in 2 turns after this one.
City 2 (La Mut) will be the production city build with the settler from Krondor (due in 6 turns)
City 3 (Stardock) should be the city east of Krondor near the coast. We can use a settler from Rolan for that city, we can build it after the Granary and whip again for 2 pop to get the settler done after about 8 turns from now.

How does that sound?

Our other cities should focus on military and maybe squeeze in a few workers.

Do we need a library in Rolan soon?

This expansion will delay our ETA of CoL though... but then again, gold will be connected soon as well, so that should help...

[Nakor]

Ended the turn!

Dantski build his city:



That's pretty close.

I had a nice that with Dantski.

1. He and Jowy had plans to attack India soon (before turn 100) and he's building roads to connect then. He's awaiting Jowy's reply before they join (or not) the CoW.

2. He's not ready before t90 to make a huge army.

3. We can take barb city IF we aid him in taking one of India's citys. I agreed to that, since it was what I had planned to offer him for joining CoW. So we're free to take barb city (will be done by t77).

4. We discussed a city of him on the east coast, east of Krondor (2N 1E of sheep there). I didn't see a lot of problems there (yet), so I agreed. Must keep him friendly. Since our city there will be our number 6, we'll have it way sooner then him, so he might want to reconsider then.

5. He's planning on building 2 more cities north towards India.

6. He hasn't seen Marble/Stone so far during scouting...

7.We renegotiate our NAP once he joins CoW.

All in all, a nice chat with some good prospects.

Do you remeber untill when we have a NAP with Korea?

[Nakor]

Had a nice chat with Kalin.

He told me Jowy is on board as well, so the five of us can start discussing tactics.

Got this confirmation mail:

Dear Friends of the CoW

I am very happy the CoW is coming together. If nothing comes out of it, at least we'll hopefully have fun and we'll become better friends in the process. I am however quite confident that our action will be successful.

I have some pretty good news. I chatted with Dantski and he's pretty much on board. He said he will send an email to all of us soon. I am also quite confident that Jowy of Greece will join (a discrete hint from Dantski), which I think completes the coalition. I don't expect Inca to participate. To be honest, I don't even expect them to respond, as Kodii is looking for a replacement in RBP1, and out of their 3-people team (now 2 with Zeviz retiring) only him has been playing the turns recently. I suspect he has little time for diplomacy.

Here's a quote from the chat with Dantski:


Luke: you can tell them i have 2 roads to india
so we can attack multiple cities

The good news is that Dantski seems to have pretty good info on India's lands and he's scouting them right now. He'll hopefully give us all the details when he emails us.


Since several people expressed interest in hearing about our plans with Byzantium, here's what we can say. We believe with high confidence that we will eliminate Byzantium by turn 85, and possibly a couple of turns earlier, depending a bit on what they do. We trust you will not pass this along

One thing for you to know. We have a NAP with India until turn 80. It was a 20-turn NAP. We have the option to either renew it and it will most likely need to be for another 20 turns, otherwise it will look suspicious, or to pretend to forget about it. I think we may renew it so that we won't arise suspicions, but it will depend on the details of the plan. We should try to iron all the details by then (T80). Let us know your opinion.


I strongly suggest that in the CoW, we should all be equals and everybody's opinion would count the same.


Now, how to proceed? Both DMOC and me are new to pitboss, so we'd like to hear how the pro's think things should go.

I (Kalin) am also quite new to MP and don't consider myself a pro. While I participated in RBP1, Dreylin my team mate has run 90% of the show there. Judging from our discussions, I believe we are all at a very similar level of skill in the game. We should all express opinions and work out some plan.

I suggest we all start by computing how many troops you can build and by what turn. After that, let's compute by what turn we will be able to reach India's territory. This information should greatly help in putting together a common plan. For example, in our case I believe we'll have a minimum of 4 HAs and 4 chariots that will reach Greece's territory by turn 90. Note that we'll only bring mounted units as we are quite far and otherwise it will take us too long otherwise. We will need to coordinate with Jowy.

I think that's it for now

Best,
Kalin for Team A/K of the Ottomans

P.S.: Since this email was started we received confirmation that Jowy of Greece is on board, just as we expected. The CoW now officially consists of (in alphabetical order ) HRE, Greece, Mali, the Ottomans, and Rome. From now on all emails should go to all members. Jowy/Dantski I added you to this email...

Some thing Kalin mentioned in our chat:

* Could we declare war on Dantski to "explain" the arms buildup to India? Dont know about that since I believe that India will take sides in that conflict and start building arms as well.

* Do we declare all at the same time or one side first?

What do you (and the lurkers) think?

[Bobchillingworth]

If you declare war on Dantski you won't be able to use his roads to move troops quickly to the front.