[SPOILERS] naufragar and Rusten get nickel-and-dimed

[Rusten]

I don't have my screenshots to check, but I think that Superdeath actually deleted the horse archers (and axe) that killed our samurai...? Read into that what you will.

Yup. That was my understanding when logging in as well. So that trade wasn't so bad for us, and we clearly won the previous one.

I'm sure you'll realize which area I'm talking about when you log in. It's very fruitful.

[Rusten]

Maybe the formation samurai (on ivory) can move onto the hill tile 1SE for vision to see what's left. He can't trade well with it anyway given the terrain and promo. Would've liked a spear to guard it as well, but it will do.

edit: MS has silver, doesn't he? How about a gems for silver trade to become friends? We can replace the lost gems with the unimproved one when Scylla's border pops. MS doesn't lose anything from it.

[naufragar]

Maybe the formation samurai (on ivory) can move onto the hill tile 1SE for vision to see what's left. He can't trade well with it anyway given the terrain and promo. Would've liked a spear to guard it as well, but it will do.

Good idea. That hill will also give vision on his reinforcements coming from the east.

edit: MS has silver, doesn't he? How about a gems for silver trade to become friends? We can replace the lost gems with the unimproved one when Scylla's border pops. MS doesn't lose anything from it.

He's got some sort of metal I think. And here you go talking friendship when I was all ready to assassinate his scout.

[Rusten]

He's got some sort of metal I think. And here you go talking friendship when I was all ready to assassinate his scout.  

Clearly you are the warmonger of the two of us.

I'm all about peace and love. Never expect any danger from me, dear future pitboss opponents friends. Nope. Nuh-uh. Never. 

[Rusten]

We got a GS so the coinflip streak continues. Sorry to bring my bad luck in here and ruin your chances.

[naufragar]

We got a GS so the coinflip streak continues. Sorry to bring my bad luck in here and ruin your chances.

Hey now! We're guaranteed Taoism! We got Plato and it would be thematically appropriate to bulb Philosophy. Might be better to use a golden age to swap into Org Rel. and a religion. Maybe Hereditary Rule if it doesn't take too long. Either way, the Scientist is going to nap for a while.

I opened the turn up to this offer from Mr. Cairo:


I don't think we need horses right now. On the other hand, I know for a fact we need every last gold coin to limp to Currency. I sent him back a copper for copper just to be friendly. If he wants to play the vulture with Superdeath's cities on his border, that's fine by me. I'll trade a few less cities for a quicker end to the war. I also sent an open borders offer to Magic Science as well as a separate gold for gems trade. He has open borders with Superdeath. So open borders with MS would also be another blow in the war.

Cairo and our empire should be strong allies. Here's why:


His Crop Yield is worse than us who have been whipping roughly a samurai per turn for the past 100 turns. His GNP is fantastic and if he can get to Cho-ko-nus he'll have a little fortress. My read is that he'll be happy to tech up, so hopefully we can together contain Mr. Science.

Here's the power, while I'm showing demos screens.





 The flower of two nations' youth, annihilated in an instant. If you look, you can see our earlier Superdeath war on the graph. A lighthearted tussle by comparison.  

Here's the area Rusten was referring to:


I've put a couple dots down in red. I like the hill plant more because it's a hill. The flat land plant invalidates some more MSCC cities. They're Creative, so they could try to plant on either the black dot or 1W of that and try to eat our lunch steal our second gems. I can trip whip the cap next turn for a settler. Not sure if I want to triple or double whip. Cap's unhappy and unhealthy at size 7. We'll see. I think a 1 samurai garrison will be enough to keep the hill plant safe until SD is dead.

Here's the front:


I've marked a dangerous tile. I'd be annoyed if I let a samurai or, heaven forbid, a treb get sniped by a kamikaze horse archer. That's why I've held up two c1 samurai in the forest. They'll escort the treb to the hill 1E of Draft Dodger. After I took this pic, I also promoted our lone samurai lookout to Combat 2 just to be safe. Maybe that's overcautious, but that's kind of my brand. I don't think those units in Superdeath's cap are actually unpromoted. I think they've just been shipped in from all over his empire. I know he has one city without a barracks, but I'd expect more barracks from him rather than fewer. I like that I don't see a stream of reinforcements coming from the east. I suspect, however, he might have a couple cities south of his capital.

By the way, Draft Dodgers is a great size 1 city. Founded on a plains hill iron and working a plains sheep, it is +4 food and 4 hammers per turn at size one! There's a few things we could do with this city, but my plan is a touch conservative. I plan to whip a spear to free up its samurai guard, overflow into a barracks, and then either samurai or crossbows. It can absolutely churn out crossbows at size one. Samurai are a little harder, but doable at size two with a borders pop.

Pseudo-edit: I allowed myself to get a little hopeful. We have many, many city spots still available. If we can conquer Superdeath and if we can hold off Magic after we're worn out from fighting, there's land for us. For example, there's a fish that Superdeath hadn't yet settled for that we can grab by founding 1SW of his horse.

[Rusten]

-Triple whip the settler. The sooner that city is settled the less stressed I am. I'd be gutted if MS settles it and in my desperation I may convince you to do very nasty things. Furthermore the capital will grow very quickly now that it's not running specialists so happy cap could be a concern again. I would send Scylla's spear there as well to guard the city from random horse archers. Scylla doesn't need it right now.
-SD's capital isn't scary at all! Great news!
-Maybe I'm missing something but I see no reason to build xbows for the war against superdeath. Samurai are so much better against what he has.
-Golden age later to adopt religion and 2-3 civics sounds good. Keep running the engineer in Lander IMO, we'll appreciate that GPP later and it has tons of food.
-Is Cairo still at war with MS? If yes then that copper for copper trade is a little dishonest.

[naufragar]

-Triple whip the settler. The sooner that city is settled the less stressed I am. I'd be gutted if MS settles it and in my desperation I may convince you to do very nasty things. Furthermore the capital will grow very quickly now that it's not running specialists so happy cap could be a concern again. I would send Scylla's spear there as well to guard the city from random horse archers. Scylla doesn't need it right now.
-SD's capital isn't scary at all! Great news!
-Maybe I'm missing something but I see no reason to build xbows for the war against superdeath. Samurai are so much better against what he has.
-Golden age later to adopt religion and 2-3 civics sounds good. Keep running the engineer in Lander IMO, we'll appreciate that GPP later and it has tons of food.
-Is Cairo still at war with MS? If yes then that copper for copper trade is a little dishonest.

-Sounds good. Would hate to do very nasty things.  
- Mhm! (I still shouldn't have moved three samurai to the mine 1E of DD. Unnecessary.)
-You're right. I was just trying to get more units ASAP.
-Ok. I've had to whip it away occasionally, but it's always the first hammer "tile" to grow back. With the forge, it's practically always 3h. Speaking of, we'll get a trireme from Lander next turn. I really don't think SD's galley is loaded, because he didn't kill our Medic, but he could always be lulling me into a false sense of security.
-Hmm. I had thought they made peace, but I guess I should've double checked. Actually, I care enough to do that now. Be right back.

Edit: Rats. They are at war. I thought they had made peace.

[Rusten]

Ever the diplomat, eh?
You're the turnplayer, you're supposed to be reminding me about these things!

Check every turn to see if superdeath is getting horse from someone else.

[naufragar]

Ever the diplomat, eh?
You're the turnplayer, you're supposed to be reminding me about these things!

And I even checked the Foreign Relations screen this turn to see that MSCC and SD had open borders!