Gavagai is the last to open his thread

[Thorite]

Устроили скондал на ровном месте

A scandal out of the blue? 

[Gavagai]

Pindicator has not accepted my open borders offer. I think I should count him hostile.
Btw, none of my contacts wants OB with me.

[Gavagai]

Commodore keeps finding new and additional ways to piss me off.
Encouraged by the fact that he returned me fish for fish, I offered open borders again and got brushed off.
Now, you need to understand that OB is an absolutely essential element of building up trust and igniting demilitarizations spiral: you can see that your opponent is not massing up units on your border and you can show your opponent that you are responding in kind. You move away some your units, your neighbor moves away some of his. Eventually, you will end up with border cities guarded by lonely archers while your units are free to pursue aggressive foreign policy elsewhere.
And this is not some pacifist fantasy, this is what actually happens regularly in my games. In the previous game, I had such relationship with Krill. In the game before previous - with Barteq. But in this game it does not work with Commodore.
OK, but maybe Commodore does not want this? Maybe he is, in fact, preparing to attack me and this is why he does not want to give me OB? Or, possibly, he just wants to keep me in perpetual suspense?
All fair hypothesis but I can see his research. He teched Optics and is now showing Astronomy which he will presumably bulb. It only makes sense if he is planning some massive overseas play. Now, a million dollar question: how is he going to pull it off without having my situation defused? And I have an even better question: why create yourself problems on the mainland in the first place if your overall strategy is to sail away to the sun?
Extremely irritating. I have a spy ready whom I really want to send to Pindicator: it seems he got waken up from slumber by Lewwyn to find that he sits with no army in the middle of probably the most militarized place in the word and he now builds units like a maniac. But now my spy would have to go explore Commodore instead - a job which could be much better done by a sentry chariot.

[Gavagai]

Power graph. Notice how Plako's power flatlined. He is free-riding upon Pindicator's and Commodore's build-up, hoping that they will keep me put. A very smart play and I cannot punish him for this. Because...



I sent another OB request to Lewwyn. If he rejects, he may end up being exactly the person I attack when I am strong enough.

Some other images:



Plako's defenses in Vitcos. His stack is not particularly strong: Axes would be trashed by Catapults and after that he has Spears as best defenders and Swords will still have odds on them.



2SW from Mr. Unpronounceable should be Plako's zone defense stack, I will have a look at it in two turns.



Next turn I will uncover Commodore's city 1W from Corn and, most likely, will immediately gain Espionage visibility on it. After that I will be secure from a potential sneak attack from that direction.



THE STUPID CITY and my two-movers ready to raze it on my mark. I am running two artists in Uruk (!!!) and it will get its third ring in five turns. How can Plako be that smart and that stupid at the same time? If not for his insane insistence to have a city in the spot where I absolutely cannot accept it, I would be fully satisfied with our border. Why is it so valuable to him? As I have pointed out before, the only reason for it to exist is to plot an attack against me but Plako obviously is not doing it.



Northern army deployed against Commodore/Pindicator.



Southern one-mover stack, ready to move against Vitcos.



Demos. These clowns forced me into becoming top global power without planning any major offensive war.

[Gavagai]

Lewwyn has been sitting in game for hours and I have become so paranoid that I logged in to check if he has declared war at me. Of course, he has. I have twice his power but Lewwyn is exactly the guy who will be completely undeterred by that. He even built six galleys to drop a stack in the forest near my holy city. Also, Commodore is moving in his own units, his fish for fish meant nothing, I guess.
The question is now whether he would want to burn my shrine or to try to keep it. If he keeps it, then I'll take it back eventually - his army is not that impressive. If he were not on the forest, I would be able to kill it with what I have no in this are and I still have almost 30 two-movers in the south.
I understand that they hope for a dogpile, but this is a very bad judgment on their part: I would happily leave my south to Plako to defend my core.

[Gavagai]

But seriously, Commodore joining a dogpile just a couple turns after sending fish for fish? Fuck him for that.

[Bacchus]

What's.the battle plan?

[Gavagai]

What's.the battle plan?

Concentrate the army into one doomstack and deal with all three enemies one by one. It appears I have already intimidated Pindicator into taking peace, sadly, he is taking three Northern cities with him.

[Gavagai]

How soon will OT4E be able to relieve me? I have stuff to post in Commodore's thread.

[Gavagai]

Commodore took peace. Now I have ten turns to obliterate Plako.