RPB3 SPOILERS Bismarck of India (regoarrarr, darrelljs, sooooo, sunrise089)

[darrelljs]

E-mail from Byz:

Greetings,


Attached is a screencap with our proposed line of settlement; you don't place anything above it, or us below it. Let us know what you think. From what I can tell our (future) borders will include the most fertile terrain on the entire map, so I suppose we're rather blessed in that regard. Some teams are so unfortunate to have only grassland to their south and north, if you can imagine such a thing.

Regarding tech trades, that's heartening news! Your idea of helping sport us to cataphracts more or less exactly mirrors my team's thoughts and the unspecified "plans" I mentioned in my previous missive; I believe that such a deal would be mutually beneficial, and we're very eager to give our UU some "field tests". It's not as though this map lacks for targets, after all If/when we start sending you shipments of uberknights, there are a couple civs we'd rather you not overrun, but we can save that discussion for another time. Right now my civ is still playing catch-up for some needed military techs, but after that we would be more than happy to coordinate research with you guys to unlock guilds. As noted above, the land surrounding my civ is rather good, so given enough time to expand we should have several excellent production spots set up to pump out a stream of 'phracts, with enough commerce locations to carry our own weight for teching/financing. The issue, of course, is getting to that point.

As for Rome, I can honestly state that to the best of my knowledge they have no intention of attacking you or your civ. I think that they're convinced that Portugal is about to declare war on them in order to wipe them out before praets can hit the scene in numbers, which I suspect is a rather accurate assessment on Rome's part. If Portugal does not wish for conflict with Rome, it would probably be in their best interests to make their intentions clear. Since you seem to have no interest in declaring on Rome yourselves, would you mind if I passed that on to them? They would probably also prefer that you not gift an army to Portugal. I'd be happy to make your intentions for peaceful relations known; I'm sure that Rome would prefer to avoid a 2 v 1 situation.


For the Spectre Council,

-Bobchillingworth

Image:



I'm pretty okay with that line actually. We want the Pigs/Floodplains spot for NE, and the Gems spot for sick commerce. The other spots are clearly closer to them than to us.

Darrell

[regoarrarr]

I'm okay with that line though I'm a little unclear as to where exactly their borders are. But if you're okay I'm okay.

The only thing I'd request clarification on (and I assume that they are on the same page) is that the resources on the right side of "the line" belong with that power.

For example, I'm sure they would nto be amused if we settled to grab the western gems, nor would we appreciate it if they settled 1N of the eastern gems.

[darrelljs]

Okay, draft reply for to Byzantium:

Well, the border isn't precisely where we would have drawn it but it does give us the two cites we wanted and discussed via IM and we don't see any reason to quibble when as you say the land is so fertile. We did want to make one clarification. It is our understanding that resources are also divided by the line. So for example we would not be allowed to settle west of the Cows and claim your Gems tile? As long as that undestanding is correct, you've got our signature on this deal :-).

Regarding Rome, we don't see any harm in you discussing our message with them. Please don't over sell it though, we are trying to be up front in our relations with teams. While are current plans are full out builder mode, if we think the AGG Praet's next target is India we'd have to think long and hard on how to best protect ourselves.

Okay...so secret mode ON! We have some ideas on tech paths, that also involve the Mayans. They aren't fully fleshed out yet but it should be possible for both your teams to find holes in the CAN trades, fill those holes, and setup bilateral trades to keep up while angling for Guilds. We took a first setp in that direction with Maya taking over Metal Casting duties from us. We are certainly willing to help you pick techs that will maximize your ability to trade. This is probably best done via chat, we'll look for you online. Secret mode off :-).

PARTY ON!
DJ Civ
India

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Okay, so we've got our near term goals and they are pretty simple. Build Fast Workers, grow our cities, repair our economy. We've got to really start thinking more about our mid-term strategy. I've a few ideas on how to handle some of the situations developing:

1. We have a massive beaker deficit to CAN members. That's going to be come due, and I suggest we pay it off by nailing the HG, popping out a fast Forge, and using the Great Engineer to pop Machinery (40 turns).

2. Machinery is nice because it is on the way to Guilds. I think we can get some free Cataphracts by helping Byzantium setup bi-lateral tech trades, and by giving them the techs we contribute to CAN. It is free for us essentially, we have to research those techs anyway.

3. The big problem right now is the Rome vs. Portugal war. We can't just abandon Portugal, that would be wrong IMO. At the same time this war buys us pretty much nothing. In 54 turns we will have access to Crossbows, so the ideal situation is that Portugal at least holds their own until then. The reality is we are going to probably be obliged to provide them with help but I've been thinking, why should India bear the burden of another war effort while e.g. Mali (who came late to CAN) stays idle? So I think we need to widen the scope, by making it clear that our ability to contribute is going to be limited.

4. Planning our next conflict. We have tons of land available to us right now, so we might not need a war of expansion for quite some time. I'd really like to get your opinion on this one sunrise, in SP I'd go the drafting route but maybe there is a better approach.

Thoughts?

Darrell

[sunrise089]

Re; HRE Email - I'm nervous about talk the cartel is unsustainable. Civs with CANT neighbors should like the idea of having maces when the defender still has axes, and civs without CANT neighbors should like the idea of safe expansion (assuming people gets NAPs in the post-France-backstab world).

Re: Ruff Email - My only thought is that the teams that are saving gold need to get some sort of agreement in place to distribute the gold post-currency to the researchers. Even then, obviously the gold savers have the ability to free ride, but either working hammer tiles or by using the EP slider.

Re: Gameplan - Sounds good to me Darrell. Until the land is filled in though I'd still like us to go a little military-heavy because: 1) Having a stack of HAs lets us cover our cities quite well from opportunistic Maya-like attacks, 2) CAN is less likely to turn on us if we have a credible army, and 3) depending on how the diplo evolves we may want to send aid to our nearby allies.

Also, as long as we can still build warriors (and hopefully that isn't too long - we want axes way before Rome can march to us through the ashes of Portugal if that war goes poorly) we may want to build about 10 and get a big sentry net out. I'm not 100% convinced its worth the hammers, but as long as we have fog pretty much in a full circle around us we risk an opportunistic city or worker grab.

[darrelljs]

My guess is that Ruff is going to say:

1) There are now more than twice as many CAN members as alliance members.

2) There are too few members left in CANT, so CAN members are going to run out of enemies. I think France has to at least partially be this.

Sent the Byz e-mail.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Message from Ruff, primarily for sunrise I guess:

DJCiv,

I have a 0.3 health warrior to your south that is looking for Portugal. Here are his intended moves over the next 3 turns. You should note that there is a barbarian warrior following him. Let me know if you want me to take a slightly different route.

Ruff

Darrell

[darrelljs]

The turn has now rolled.

You may now log in

I logged in but this is a turn we already played...sunrise089 I think you need to play this one to make sure we do the exact same moves.

Darrell

[sunrise089]

I logged in but this is a turn we already played...sunrise089 I think you need to play this one to make sure we do the exact same moves.

Darrell

Right - logged in and killed Yaz again, and moved our military units as I did last turn. I need to think for a bit about how to move our pair of workers (forgot what I did - will check this thread) and I know there is some city micro that needs redoing.

[darrelljs]

Pretty sure you moved them to chop forests for the HG. There was some city micro as well, you want me to do that (I am pretty sure I know what it was)?

Darrell