RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[Maniac Marshall]

I've got a sneaking suspicion that civ 5 is going to be crap, but I hope I'm wrong.

My obligation to play this game is to everyone who DOES want to keep playing, like Krill and sunrise and such, as well as to the community as a whole.

I'll try to keep diplomacy up, but I really don't want to play this game anymore. I'm willing to help play a few turns if no one else can, but that's it.

The game may have already had a permanent negative impact on the rest of my life that I'd rather not discuss, and I'm much happier doing other things. It's been nice not to have a 50 pound chain around my neck that prevents me from doing or enjoying anything else in life, and I'd prefer it stays that way.

[Maniac Marshall]

Morgan, if you have any questions or need help with anything, let me know.

[Morgan]

Thanks Manic,

1. More info on the planned war is good, what units are needed and where.
2. Need Steel for cannons where is that coming from?
3. Who is friend and foe at the moment

I assume fundementalism is Theocracy?

The food on the spreadsheet doesn't seem to match the game, sort of right on one but HV is off. tile allocations have been checked - they match the spead.

otherwise - all good.

[Maniac Marshall]

The war may or may not happen. We're drafting to keep up with Ruff, who triggered the cooldown to our NAP and drafted off a bunch of rifles, and also, because we're really awfully weak in general.

The only neighbor we don't have a NAP with or isn't in our alliance right now is Azteca (Ruff), so there will either be war there or nowhere for a while.

Steel for cannons should be coming from Ottos I think THIS turn. We were waiting for them to tell CUDDLE they were leaving. I've asked for it in game for you.

I didn't look at the 3 cities with spreadsheets. I'll leave that up to you and Ref. I did make some tile adj elsewhere.

Friends (PAT) - Babylon, Carthage, Egypt, Mali, England. Two teams just switched sides about a month/two turns ago, which are Ottomans and HRE. Ottos just let CUDDLE know they changed sides today, HRE have not told anyone yet, but will in a turn or two.

We have NAPS with Portugal, Inca, India, and Byzantium from CUDDLE (the other alliance).

This means that only Rome, and Azteca (who we still have 7-8 turns of cooldown left with) can attack us if they honor treaties.

One word of caution: If we decide to be the aggressor and initiate a war with Azteca, both Inca and India have the right to void the NAP, so keep that in mind. I really think Azteca will have to think 437 times before starting a war with us now, since they no longer have a safe southern front having just learned that Ottos have switched sides. We might not have even needed to draft the rifles in such a hurry, but, imo, better safe than sorrry.

Also, Ottos would like to coordinate a 2 front war on the Aztecs, I'll keep you informed.

I made a few tile adjustments, but thats on the other computer, so i'll post those from there, then I'm going to bed.

[Maniac Marshall]

I swapped from a Plains Farm to the Water Mill at PR. Extra Hammers and still grows in 3. I changed from a Cav to a Cat. We should have steel before the turn ends, so it should end up being a cannon prebuild. If not, well... then it's a 1 turn cat, which I'm sure we could still use.

I swapped off a cottage to the plains farm for ONE turn at Feng Shui to get the barracks done this turn, so you can start drafting from there right away if you need to. Be sure to swap back next turn.

At Kilrah, I rehired a couple of specialists. We're trying to get the GP out of there before the one at Smithsonian. This makes the GP due in 3.

I really wanted to double whip the library/barracks at Red Dwarf, but wasn't sure if that would upset your drafting plans, so I didn't do it. You might want to do this next turn.

Thats all from micro. I'll try to log in and help with this for a while if you want me to. Might make the transition easier for you.

EDIT" A university at Ornata might be insanity. Feel free to change that.

[Morgan]

Thanks Manic, good info and thanks for the adjustments in game. Yes, Red Draft as i think of it will be a good place to gain a few rifles.

A pre-emative strike might be a wise for Azteca, but the diplo situation muddys the waters, we shall see.

Would you explain the diplo situation and the way you feel things are going in the future, no rush just be useful to know your assement.

Do we want to draft as much as possible, but still be happy once we leave Hed Rule?

[Maniac Marshall]

I think your right on the drafting. I'm not feeling well. I'll have more to say tomorrow

BTW: 56/43 us at Savannah against 59/40 Byz at AB

[Maniac Marshall]

First off, you *DO* realize that there are 2 A's in ManiAc, right? The first 20 times you typed manic, I just figured they were typos.

Here's the diplo situation as I see it.

Ottos/HRE switching sides was probably the end of our hopes of winning the game. I was desperately hoping they would stay in CUDDLE, because the status quo benefitted us more than anyone else in the game imo.

The fact is, what we really have here at this point is a game of weakest link. Early on in the game, we were in danger of becomming mulch, because we were percieved as weak and useless before we pulled off the "let us research metal casting" coup. Our advanced teching speed got us seen in a new light (useful civ). The problem is, we kept working and working on our civ to the point that now we have the best civ in the game... And, just like in weakest link, there are 2 ways to go. Do you get rid of the weakling who keeps screwing up on all the questions, or do you get rid of the guy who never misses, because he's the big threat to you at the end. Right now, I think people are leaning towards #2 in our case.

I sent out some feelers in Krill's direction about what happens after PAT is done killing CUDDLE, which is a near certianty at this point, and basically I got the sort of dead fish, non commital answer that means that, right now, he'd prefer we get kicked to the curb.

I sent the same feelers out in England's direction, and Cynheard was pretty honest about it. Either us or Mali will almost certianlly be on the list of civs to be kicked to the curb at the next shift. Right now, probably us. because the general concensus of nearly every civ in the game is we're the biggest threat to win. *sigh*

However, that MIGHT change. Mali is closing fast on beakers/turn, is going to stay in bearocracy rather than nationalism which will further boost them, and, unless we get 2 engineers, they are almost a lock to get SoL.

I'm beginning to wonder if we wouldn't have been better off joining CUDDLE when the 2 sides formed way back when, but perhaps not. We were militarily weak then, and 3 of our neighbors had huge militaries from the French campaign...

Regardless, we went with PAT, and the question is: What do we do now?

We're not without allies in the world. Babylon/Kyan will be with us to the bitter end. It's a shame that we don't share a boarder...

I think Byzantium will side with us as well under most circumstances...

I think England would, all things equal, but, if things aren't equal, they'll go with their best chance to win.

We might still be able to curry some favor with India. We've been giving them gold all throughout everything, and I intend to email them in a bit letting them know that, regardless of the shift in the alliances, we have NO plans to cancel that deal... And I don't. The continued well being of India is in our best interests. As long as India stands, our prospects are much better.

Carthage? I dono.

Mali... Such a buisness like, craftsmanlike team. Hard to read. I know they are tight with Babylon, so I'm going to do my best to leverage that into them hanging with us.

Ottos/Rome/HRE/Portugal/Inca - Doubtful. They all appear to my eye to have far stronger ties with other nations that would preclude their alling with us (and/or they are useless as allies)

Krill... I think finding a way to stay one of the cool civs in Krill's block would be, by far, the preferred way for us to go, but I'm fairly pessimistic.

Aztecs... Well, here's the deal. Relations with ruff had been fairly good for several months, but Ruff triggered the NAP cooldown with us 3 turns ago with a message to the effect that he was getting pressure from within CUDDLE to do so... which sure sounds like crap to me. Who would be pressuring him to do that?

Ottos and HRE were about to change sides.
Inca had JUST SIGNED a NAP with us.
Byz? pfft. Byz is friendly to us and has been forever.
Rome? Rome doesn't even want to play the game nor care about his own empire, let alone anything else.
Portugal? Pffft. Dantski cared so much that he quit playing.
That leaves India, and I just can't believe that India did this. Possible, but doubtful.

No, Ruff canceled the NAP because he was going to draft/whip/upgrade a crapload of units and have a go at us. It's the only thing that makes sense. That being the case, it is *my opinion* (ie. feel free to disagree or ask for more information or discussion etc.) that we should probably help the Ottos make an Aztec sandwich for several reasons:

1) It sure seems like it was his intention to do us harm. Might as well be us doing the harming then.

2) It's unfortunate imo, but the game is about to switch to a footing where being at peace may be impossible going forward. I feel like we need to show that we're to be respected militarily, and that we're willing and able to work with other nations. If not, we run the risk of being percieved as worthless, or, at least, undesirable...

3) We're running out of land to expand into. Honestly, we could use 2-4 boarder cities. He's also running high food, so his cities fit our profile.

However, there are several dangers.

1) If we roll up several of his cities easily, it could certinally reinforce the "we must stop the Mayan's" mantra.

2) His capital is the Bhuddist holy city with shrine. Getting this would be awesome, except it almost guarantees that we're going to get dogpiled as the biggest threat.

3) If we attack Ruff, both India and Inca can cancel their NAPs without a cooldown, meaning we'd have to keep an eye on both Thundara and Ornata...

As you can see, the game is currently at a completely game altering tiping point for us. So many choices, so many variables. The optimal choices going forward are uncertian, clouded at best. There may not be a winning choice. As Gandalf once said "All choices may run ill." I just don't know.

I've been alliance diplomat in lots of hourly ticker games for many years, and I think I'm pretty good at diplomacy in general, but, obviously, I've never done this sort of thing in a Civ game. I generally trust my instincts on things, but they are NOT infallible...

OK, thats enough of this for now... Input from both of you would be greatly appreciated at this point.

RE: Drafting. I think that yes, for now we want to draft as much as we can while staying happy post HR (we'll have Rep post HR). That could change as the the turns play out depending on several factors, including which kind of GP we get. But for the next 3 turns at least, draft away!

A final note: If we decide to attack Aztecs with Ottos, I propose we propose the following to Ottos:

As you have troops from Carthage in your lands supporting you defensively, and, as we face the possibility of reprisals from both Inca and especially India if we launch an attack on Aztecs, we suggest that you launch the first attack, drawing off defenders and hopefully India's reinforcement/counterstrike, and we'll move in from the rear a couple of turns later. We'd certinally be amenable to sharing any gains made in the conquest as equally as possible, regardless of who takes what.

What do you think of that?

[darrelljs]

Excellent post...thanks for sharing your thoughts !

Darrell

[RefSteel]

It's not going to be unusual for me to be barely able to check the thread, and definitely unable to do much calculating for the game, for several days at a time. I already know that in the month of September, I might be able to count the number of times I can even log in on the fingers of one hand.

In case people forgot the reason I haven't been posting much lately. October might not be much easier though....

I logged in, canceled some worker actions (mostly just in case of emergency) and updated some signs. I also changed some cities around though:

- Contrary to report, HV's food *does* match its spreadsheet. For once. I changed nothing there.

- Smith was working a plains hill mine instead of a grassland farm. I switched it to match the spreadsheet. This won't delay the barracks, as we're going to whip it next turn.

- I fired the priest at Kilrah and took the citizen off the plains hill mine to have both of them work lumbermills. Hammer production for this turn is unchanged, Kilrah still gets its next GP sooner than Smith, and the city will grow (nowhere near its caps) in two turns this way.

Feel free to change any of the above if you so desire, of course.

- I've changed the microplan very, very slightly: Adventure Beach will work different tiles on [EDIT: turns 155 and 156]. This obviously wasn't something done in-game though.

- I left the game paused when I was done playing around.