[SPOILERS] Team SsS

[Sandover]

Exploit has found horses to his west and a large patch of wasteland to his north.

Exploit;

Dear Sandover,

Tech is happy to announce that a herd of wild horses have been discovered near Tech's borders to the west. Technicians are anxious to found the next city to tame these horses. More importantly from a strategic perspective, Tech is envisioning a force of chariots to defend its borders which means that researching Archery can be bypassed in favour of the original plan to research Alphabet next.

The land north of Tech is all desert and peaks. The desert extends 11 tiles wide and 5 deep so far without an obvious end in sight. The land would be completely useless if it were not for the Sand Peddler and Tech rivers that flow through the desert. No sign of northern neighbours yet.

Village Green responded to my diplomatic message saying that they were interested in open borders and future tech trades.Village Green also mentioned that they were going to research the Wheel and then Pottery next. My agents however tell me that instead Village Green has since reverted back to researching Archery, which will be complete on Turn 53. Either Ruff is waffling a lot or he is trying to misdirect my agents.

A wounded DJ warrior called Miller Lite is scouting my eastern border but that is fair since the Wood Scouts of Tech are scouting DJ's northern border.

Regards,
Exploit

[Sandover]

I would say I'd be interested in this if we can get Exploit included. That might be a big if though... We could accept this, and turn our attention to the southwest/west/northwest instead (Inca or whoever is there). My gut says to lay it out to them as - if Exploit is in, we are in. If Exploit is excluded, then we will not be in. We also need to keep Exploit informed.

Also, I think we need to verify that this isn't some game-long commitment. In other words, we acknowledge that probably mid-game this "alliance" will be mostly dissolved. If whoever is to our west is excluded, then I can deal with that.

Another thought - see if they know who is to our west.

Edit: also might want to find out who is teching alphabet, and what their ETA is. Exploit is already headed that direction...

I'm very sceptical about this whole thing. Not only is a 10 vs 6 alliance rather lame but it's also going to be a serious pain to organize properly. Personally I'd like to stay out of this alliance, find some other partners for us and Exploit to work with, kick some Cath Bruig-butt and then use the Spraetorians to steal some of DJ's land for Exploit if possible. That will teach them a lesson for trying to create a large trading bloc.

Here are our options on a more rational level however:

a) Joining the tech alliance together with Exploit, taking advantage of it as long as it benefits us, and attack with our Spraetorians in a different direction.
b) Publically announce the SsS/Tech alliance, stating that we do not which to join but are willing to trade with larger teching blocs.
c) Decline joining the alliance and carry out an attack on Cath Bruig.
d) Decline joining the alliance, forming a counter-bloc, and carry out an attack on Cath Bruig.
e) Trying to talk Cath Bruig into joining our alliance instead, and attack in a different direction.

I can come up with more than these, but they are the five most feasible ones in my opinion. I will present these options to Exploit as well, though I think that we still should come to an agreement on what we believe is the best for SsS. All options got their own positives and negatives, so I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

[Sandover]

Exploit has now been fully updated on the situation.

[scooter]

I do find the big tech bloc thing kind of lame, but I also find being left behind kind of lame too... As for the options, I basically see two routes on this, pretty much option a) and option d).

Option A
This might not even be feasible to be honest, as it hinges on Exploit being invited to this bloc as well. Option A would be fine, so long as it's over by midgame at the latest. The 10 teams will fizzle after not too long and I think everyone knows that. I'm torn, but I think i'm probably leaning about 60% in this direction. Basically this would entail a few things:

1. Getting Exploit on board with us on this - convincing him to go along with this option.
2. Getting Exploit into the group of 10. Telling India (I'd rather talk to them as I get the feeling they're the one's "pulling the strings" so to speak) that we are more than happy to join and provide IW, so long as Exploit gets in on it too.
3. Getting as much info about it as we can out of India - in other words finding out who all is in this group. Regoarrar is much more chatty than Dantski, so I think we can learn a lot from him if we are equally forthcoming.
4. Sending our Spraets to the west instead, most likely Inca or whoever is there. This is ideal to me, as I view the Inca team as the least trustworthy in the game. Athlete broke a NAP in PBEM1 and pretended to negotiate a NAP while chopping out an army in PB2. Nakor lied for weeks on end in PB2. And Jowy I've never been able to get a good read on really. So making these guys our target instead would be fine with me.

Option D
I could easily be talked into this even though I'm leaning towards A. The gist of it is, we work with Exploit to wipe out CBE and cripple India, while trying to negotiate trades with other players. Inca would be our next best option (unless of course they are in the tech bloc and then this whole thing unravels). They also have contact with Ruff and Babylon, so if either of those civs are not in the bloc, set up trades with them as well. Here's the list of things here:

1. Like I said, try to negotiate trades with 1-3 other civs outside this bloc.
2. Consider having Exploit chariot rush/choke India to cripple them.
3. Eventually take out CBE, which should not be that difficult I wouldn't think.
4. If we have iron, gift our copper to Exploit so we can field Vultures and Spraets. We can easily share troops with whoever needs it at the moment.


Now if we want to get really evil, we could consider a variation of Option D where we pretend to go along with this tech bloc. This might be sort of cheesy, but if we are included, I would guess we would be the supplier of Iron Working since we are Rome. If everyone is counting on us to pass around IW, then when trades start up, we don't give it away, thus denying IW to everyone for a good length of time, leaving some people vulnerable militarily. I mean if we're aiming to destroy the tech bloc, this would probably be the easiest way to wreak some havoc .

Like I said, I'm leaning towards A as I think that gives us the best longterm options, but Option D might be considerably more fun. And if they try to lock Exploit out, then it might be our only choice anyways.

[scooter]

I should clarify about getting info from India - basically I think we need to make it clear to them that we need to know 2 things before we would be willilng to join:

1. Can Exploit join too?
2. Who all is involved in this "bloc"?

If they really do want us in, I think they should be willing to answer us both of those things.

[Sandover]

Exploit's reaction;

Dear Sandover,

Well that message confirms my suspicions that the DJ alliance is intending to target me. There was nothing in that message that changes our previous working assumptions, except for possibly Krill being part of the DJ alliance. I doubt Krill will be overly committed to any alliance based upon his play in previous games.

I still like our original game plan and I feel more confident now that I have found horses so my recommendation would be option C or possibly D if we felt we needed extra support. With the relative civ positions I can pin down DJ's units from reinforcing Cath Bruig so your Spraetorians should be free to roll over Cath Bruig in a one on one fight. Tech could donate some chariots to the cause as long as we get some of the spoils (settlement rights for lands between Tech and Cath Bruig would probably be sufficient).

Before declining the offer though I would recommend that you try to find out exactly who is in the DJ alliance. I would also recommend that you delay the actual decline of the offer as long as possible to buy time for Iron Working research, unless you intended to attack before having Spraetorians.

Which option do you prefer?

Regards,
Exploit

[Sandover]

I agree with you that a) and d) makes most sense scooter, though I'm leaning more towards d). Exploit seems quite eager to get rid of his dual Cath Bruig/DJ border and I'm inclined to think that taking Cath Bruig out of business will do us a lot of good, both directly and indirectly by crippling this alliance. We really need to get hold of membership info as soon as possible. I'll try to work the diplo in that direction.

[scooter]

Okay, then yeah priority #1 is finding out who is involved in this bloc. I'm guessing they don't actually have 10 members yet (I would be very impressed if they did) given the size of the map... So we need to find out who is on board and who they are still working on. If we can somehow gain access to and convince those who are "on the edge" to back out of it, that would help us immensely. Especailly need to find out asap if Inca is involved, because if they aren't we need to try to gain friendly relations and filll them in on what's going on.

I feel the combo of us/Exploit can easily handle Portugal/India, so it's a matter of ensuring they don't gain additional allies.

[Sandover]

Turn 52:

Smash the Lion Killer is on his way NE between Tech and DJ territory. Stitch has reached the southern edge of Cath Bruig and will now explore the area south of us. If you'd like either of them to head in a different direction, now or in the future, speak up.

On the domestic front our Sworkers at Scooterville just finished the Wheat farm. The next order of business, at both cities, is to chop some forests and build more riverside cottages.

Diplo update coming later during the day.

[Sandover]

I just realised I've been spelling "reveal" as "reviel" for ages. Doh!