[Spoilers] A more civilized age - Arendel of the Ljosalfar (Uberfish)

[uberfish]

So word is Sciz camped with barnaxus and his one high level warrior on a desert hill (not exactly great defensive terrain) somewhere in his territory and Mist burned 4 wolves to kill it. If that's going to be the level of defence, this war might be over faster than expected.

[uberfish]

Cotton Valley was captured by Mist this turn as per turn log, he kept the city as expected. Power graph pretty much tells the story here:



On computer turn my Subdual hunter unfortunately dies to the 2* bear defending in forest, probably at 90% or so odds. It's left at 0.8 health and the regular hunter finishes it off, unfortunately gaining only 1 xp. Promote to combat I to heal and transfer the Hawk out to him. Another non-promoted bear is nearby, hopefully I won't get unlucky with it too.

The main decision this turn was mining or festivals first. I'll go with mining in case it influences city placement, and it would be wise to get a couple more units out before building the carnival anyway. After the recent combat losses to neutrals, my standing army's down to 2 hunters, 3 warriors, Groo the Non-wandering Non-adventuring Adventurer, and the Evermore zoo. Not a great amount for 4 cities. The NE plains hill that's too close to the capital seems it might be the way to go just to increase security in the first ring, unless copper pops up somewhere weird.



This might be a possible low-overlap dotmap assuming I can get the entire east area which might be possible if Sciz is defeated. In this case I actually gain a tile overall by using the hill position that's close to the capital. The eastern cities wouldn't be on hills and I'd probably build a fort at the hill crossroads in the road plan to organize the regional defence.

[uberfish]

The second bear moved to the desert hill and I attacked at 77% odds defeating the bear for 4 XP. Hunter is on 2.3 health but will be able to take the subdue animal promotion next turn ready for the next bear (I'll check the odds before deciding to take that fight.)

Sent the hawk out and hit the jackpot:



Hi Amelia! She has a warrior that's obviously gotten rather lucky, having gotten a Bronze upgrade from a lair (I know it's from a lair because the other warriors have no bronze), a great commander (probably from another lair) and Orthus' axe. Two fully grown pirate ports are pulling in 4/2/7 each at Radiata City, and it appears that her Disciple from founding OO was used to spread culture in her third city rather than the capital. I note in passing that there's a potential 3 pirate port site just north of the Pig that she'd probably want, if she knows about it.

This recon flight gave formal contact with Amelia. For some reason I now have formal contact with Ilios too even though I still only have vision of third ring tiles in the city near Tomb of Sucellus. Weird.

Anyway we have proper demo graphs now!



Well I'm not sure I really wanted to see that, that's a disaster...



So is this...



And this.

Malakim need to die. Preferably right now. Unfortunately I don't have an army, and even if I did their closest city is 16 distance. Diplo time.

[uberfish]

pulling up the F4 diplo screen tells me this:

I have 6 contacts, Perpentach and Ilios have 4 each, the rest have 3. This is the information/diplomatic advantage from scouting first that I was talking about in a previous post.

See that green line between Ilios and Sciz? That's an open borders agreement meaning Ilios picked up cartography at some point. I asked Ilios if he was going to copy PB and build Pact of the Nilhorn, appealing to his pride a little, and he replied that cartography had a "specific purpose". This confirms that he intends to prop up Sciz with some units.

The fact that both Ilios' production and GNP spiked up in the last couple of turns is worrying though as I'd expect a shift to production to coincide with a fall in GNP.

I get this from Serdoa:

[COLOR="Orange"]Hi uberfish,

sorry for being a little bit late with my reply.

Yeah, Loki is really nice as a scout. I would have lost probably around 5+ units to get to you otherwise. Lizardman and Bears are roaming to your west quite frequently and there are so many mountains it is hard to bypass them. I really like this map in this regard, it does feel really interesting and not that easy to dotmap or scout. But I did rant much about my starting location I still believe I have the worst of all (desert hills, desert, plains, no real food-resource) and wouldn't my traits have changed I probably would not be able to compete anymore.

As for the settling, I guess "I have no current plans to settle in your direction beyond first ring" means first ring around your cap, not first ring around mine, eh? Anyway, free info for you: I am to your NW, separated by water in the NW, the Doviello in the North and the Calabim in the West. So I guess we should never have issues about settling. At least not till a much, much later point in the game.

Regarding my neighbours: Ilios is running away. He might tell that he fears the vampires and I agree, when they come into play they could be scary. Except for if we look at PBEM1, if someone runs away with the game then even a big force of vampires will simply get annihilated. And as I said, he is running away right now. Thats in my book much more scary - especially as he is not very talkative. Even after I gave him several time information he did not really reciprocate at all. That together with his high score, pop, food and GNP is not really making me happy.

The Calabim are kind in their diplomacy. Guess they don't want to get into a fight already now. Other then that, well, they do have an Axeman. I guess from a lair as they should have a Moroi normally. They do not have Bronze Working I believe but copper is near them.

Lastly, the Doviello. Not much talk with them and they seem to look into their east more then into their west. Fine with me to be honest.

Btw: Who are your other neighbours? I know of the Doviello and the Calabim, but who is to your NE and E?

Kind regards,
Serdoa[/COLOR]

So, both Ilios and Serdoa claim that the other's level of communication is low while they're the one making an effort to talk. This indicates one of two things; mutual suspicion or a secret alliance. I think mutual suspicion is the correct explanation as a reluctance to exchange information was exactly what took place between Calabim and myself when we considered each other to be rivals.

So I reply with:
[COLOR="Green"]
Thanks that clarifies quite a few things. My starting position was also bad and I've been complaining about it all game too. I do have food resources but no plantations, gold etc. I can tell you why Ilios is getting so far ahead, it's not because he's better than anyone else but because the map is imbalanced. He has floodplains + gold dye incense copper. Just switched to financial. But yes I agree Ilios is a much more immediate problem than vampires here and something needs to be done about it and preferably soon before he can rush some sort of tier 3 unit way before everyone else. PB scenario from the first game should not be allowed. I have full contact with everyone now and Ilios is a very clear #1 in all of food/production/GNP. Calabim have also been complaining about him. Last time I chatted with them they said they wanted to set up a three way chat between you, them, and me to discuss what to do about Ilios.

My northern neighbours are Mist and Sciz who are fighting. now I'm going to give you some interesting information which I trust you won't tell Ilios about...

Mist offered Sciz a deal whereby Mist would stop rushing him and attack Ilios again if Sciz paid him tribute. Ilios isn't happy about this and intends to send units to help prop up the dwarves. I don't know if he would push out further, but in any case his army would be out of position if attacked from the east. Calabim would likely cooperate. [/COLOR]

And yes, the subject came up a few times talking with Darrell so I'm quite happy to broker some negotiations at the moment.

Mist was concerned that Ilios would intervene and recapture Cotton Valley and offered to transfer the city to my control if it came to that, due to the poor connectivity of Cotton Valley to his lands. Not sure Ilios is intending to go that far. If he does, I wouldn't be able to defend the city without Archery or Bronze myself as no trees are nearby. Anyway something to look into as a possibility. I think this definitely sways me towards founding city #3 on the hill in case of unforeseen complications.

Funny conversation with Sciz:

me: i just got full graphs by contacting eveyrone and they're not pretty
Andreas: you have met everyone? :o
i want to meet people
me: loki paid a visit last turn and I just hawked amelia
Andreas: oh i thought you said you didnt get diplo contact on hawking
ingame that is
me: you do sometimes lol
Andreas: i know we allowed contact outside of game
me: the same flight contacted ilios
Andreas: lol
they're that close?
me: even though its still only revealing 3rd ring tiles
Makes no sense
Andreas: weird
me: yeah he's on top of her
Andreas: ilios is top gnp i guess?
me: wait that sounds bad...
Andreas: and crop?
me: top gnp top food top prod
all 3
Andreas: l
o
l
stupid mist
me: nice balanced map we have
Andreas: if he hadnt attacked me i'd killed ilios :<
was that ironic
me: yeah

[uberfish]

And the treasure chest is now guarded by a 3* griffon Epic quest I suppose!

[uberfish]

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Oh yeah, you got FoL =) It's times like this when i wish we were playing 5 turns a day, rather than 1.

Thanks for the contact, i'm basically isolated. It's not much fun when you start surrounded by Spiders, Ruins, Barrows (I had to explore 2 barrows already since they were right next to my capital) and the infamous 7 Gob Archer Fort.

Yes, Ilios is scary. I'm currently the second in GNP (might have changed) and... i have like 2/3 of his. =( Furthermore some of mine comes from OO Culture (and yours from FoL culture, heh).

I know about the Sciz / Mist war thanks to Wild Hunt and Barnaxus dying. How is it going, though?

And yet, i hope we can coexist peacefully. I have almost no intentions of going AV, so you don't have to worry about forest fires from my hand (Unless i get whacked really badly and need to escape =)).

Good luck in the coming turns![/COLOR][COLOR="Green"]

7 archers how annoying.

The way it looks currently, dwarves have lost a city but should be able to hold their capital although it will probably be pillaged, leaving them way behind. Ironically, Sciz said he was going to attack Ilios if he hadn't been rushed first.

I expected you would go OO actually, seems a very good choice with so much water around. Planning to build the heron throne and lighthouse too?[/COLOR]
[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]
Lighthouse is a must, due to all the wonderful coasts i have. Heron Throne... not really. I'm planning to use my isolated position to expand as quick as possible.

I'm also trying to rush for Empyrean, hopefully before some Malakim gets it =) I hope they're too busy doing other things to look back at it.

At the rate this is going, Ilios looks like a Pocketbeetle.[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Green"]
You aren't really that isolated. The way this map is set up, there's 4 civs in the northern hemisphere and 3 in the south. The terrain is pretty rough all around though, which probably works in your favour. Of the southern civs I'm the only one with two close northern neighbours, Ilios is directly north of your position, and Serdoa above calabim.

To be honest I don't think anyone can outrace Ilios to whichever religion he picks right now unless he gets involved in a war. Reason is he has all the good resources, floodplains gold incense dyes copper etc. Anyway I'm sure it will be Emp or AV. He wouldn't say which. Of course, PB only got so out of control in PBEM1 because the other players had poor diplomacy resulting in them not doing anything about it...

By the way how come Caesar has bronze and your other warriors don't? Some lair thing?[/COLOR]


Anyway, as you can see I'm taking a soft diplomacy approach so far this game. I'm not pushing anyone into anything. Just reinforcing already existing perceptions and encouraging/supporting them to do things that they wanted to do anyway which align with my interests. Now I've met everyone I'll do an update with impressions of the other players at some point.

Also Serdoa agreed it was a good idea to open a 3-way channel with Calabim and myself regarding stopping Ilios.

Mist asked if I wanted Cotton Valley and would settle him a city at his dyes and trade him for it. I declined on the basis that I couldn't defend the city and swapping the city ownership was an obvious ploy that wouldn't prevent Sciz declaring on me to recapture it.

[uberfish]

Ok so I did have the chat with Serdoa and Darrell discussing a possible attack on Ilios

from my point of view my issues are

- my current war readiness is very low
- assuming Ilios is researching ~100bpt (seems a reasonable guess as his GNP doesn't include culture now) he could reach AV+priesthood or empyrean in 20-25 turns. World spell spawned ritualists once grouped up, or blinding light, should stop an axe based rush
- large travel distance to Ilios. Darrell initially suggested sending 2-move hunters, but to be honest 4 str -20% city attack and inability to pillage makes them fairly poor contributors in a fight vs axes
- a better plan if this goes down, I think, would be for me to counter-intervene in the Sciz-Mist war on Mist's side to pull more Ilios forces west leaving him open to an attack in the east

Serdoa made the good point that without commitment/coordination from everyone involved the attack would fail.

Amelia's involvement would help but Darrell doesn't think she'll do it. Not really comfortable with this, as she's one of Ilios' direct neighbours and would certainly benefit from an attack on him...

[NobleHelium]

Would you reconsider the CV trade if you get directly involved in the current war?

[uberfish]

Would you reconsider the CV trade if you get directly involved in the current war?

Would work better to loan Mist copper (if I have it) and connect the city via the various rivers and roads so the axes there can be upgraded.

[uberfish]

Anyway since Amelia's internet appears to be dead in the water (pirate joke) we would have more time to plan things. Except of course, it's 1 turn before I find out whether I have copper or not which is a pretty big deal. Also, since the player we'd really like to get aboard ship (more pirate jokes) for an anti-Ilios campaign is Amelia...

If I do have copper I agreed to loan it to Mist in exchange for body mana access later, haste is a very important spell especially when fighting Empyrean units with immobilize ability and it'll save having to research early Alteration and tie up a mana node.

My impressions of the other players so far:

Mist: So far, a solid and reliable player who has done exactly what he said he would do, always a good trait to have in an ally. Tendency to come up with impractical plans though

Sciz: I feel he's been a bit naive diplomatically, and the very bad position he's currently in could have been completely avoided if he'd made an effort to contact Mist earlier and negotiate a mercenary contract against Ilios before the troops showed up.

Darrell/Sunrise: Good analysts and experienced MP players. Straight talkers. Still a medium to long term danger due to their civ having an overpowered UU. Relations improved following the signing of short term NAP and subsequent breakaway of Ilios.

Ilios: Trying to keep his cards close to his chest, but is talkative enough to let things slip. Clearly a skilled player who took good advantage of the best starting position. However, if he thinks he's going to be able to run the show diplomatically like Pocketbeetle did in PBEM1, he's mistaken.

Serdoa: Seems to have a good grasp of the game dynamics judging by his first email to me. Also unlikely our territorial ambitions will clash anytime soon, and therefore by default a good potential ally and counterweight to Ilios/Calabim.

Amelia: From what little I've gathered so far, I think she might be the type of player who likes to pick a plan and stick to it. If this is the right impression, the best way to handle such players is to make sure their plan doesn't involve attacking you