[Spoilers-PBEM14] Hannibal's Ottomans, Lewwyn and Luddite

[Lewwyn]

T48 HBR eta ~10T
T58 Archery 2T


I finished Hunting at the EOT. So next HBR and I should be able to get a stable up in Eureka before archery comes in and start HAs in Eureka with a Barracks and a stable. I can get horses as early as turn 62. Pardon the rough micro:

T47 Keystone pop 5 - warrior 9/10+5
T48 Settler 4/65 +10 worker starts mine eta 50
T49 Settler 14/65+11
T50 Settler 25/65+9 2 pop Whip – mine done
T51 Axe 9/23+2 – settler moves - worker to forest
T52 Horse City founded – monument 0/20 +4 - worker chop eta 54
T53 monument 4/20+4
T54 monument 8/20+17 done eot
T55 worker to jungle sugar - culture 1
T56 worker road - culture 2
T57 worker finish road – culture 3
T58 worker move to horse start road culture 4
T59 worker finish road, culture 5 border pop
T60 worker pasture – eta t62

So I would get the 5th city down on Turn 52, pop borders and get horses hooked up fast...

Esoteric finished a monument at EOT and grew to pop 3. At this point I have to decide whether to go worker or WB. If I go WB I'm committing myself to the 5 pop worker/settler cycle plan. If I go worker, I can get a worker in 4 turns...

T48 Pop 3 WB 1/20+5 culture 1 - worker starts farm eta T51
T49 Pop 3 WB 6/20+5 culture 2
T50 Pop 3 WB 11/20+5 culture 3
T51 Pop 4 Food 4/19 +8 WB 16/20+5 culture 4 - Work Farm
T52 Pop 4 Food 12/19+8 Granary - 1/40+5 culture 5 border pop - Start cottage on spice
T53 Pop 5 Worker 0/40 +16 - Fish hooked. Working fish
T54 - Cottage done and work that instead of farm for the forseeable future.

I don't need to work the farm to get the 16 hpt on settlers and workers. 15 is good enough and the extra commerce will be better than the farms 1 extra food. That's 6 turns to get the city to that point. And workers 3 turns after. I guess that WB is just the way to go. It gonna increase my score though. Man I do not want a dogpile. I am REALLY not flying under the radar here.

[Lewwyn]

Scooter wants out:

Lewwyn,

Exams are over, so I had some time tonight to stop and evaluate where I am at right now. I chatted with Dazed (my ded-lurker/adviser) and we felt that the wisest course of action would be for me to withdraw from the war and take peace (possibly a light NAP with strings attached) with Serdoa. Few reasons for this:

1. My goal wasn't necessarily for this war to be a dogpile - I was rather intending for it to be a quick run at denying him copper so you could get a quick victory. Since that seems to be out of the question, that's changed things dramatically.

2. My greatest fear right now is our cooperation being discovered so early in the game. Not necessarily by Serdoa, but by Sandover and Gaspar in particular. I've tried to give off the impression that I'm merely a mercenary who was bought into service, but if they catch on to our alliance, then it could easily turn into a 3v2 coalition against us to keep us from becoming too strong. This would defeat the purpose of our cooperation honestly - to each have a friend long-term when the game gets further developed. This reason is the biggest reason by the way.

3. Honestly, my chariot isn't going to do much against Serdoa other than pillage a road or two - all I'm doing is discouraging him into thinking he has nothing to play for, in which case he'd just whip himself even harder and play to spite you rather than to win if that makes sense. Pulling out of the war could lull him into a sense of security, making him think not all is lost. I've tried to get him to think I'm honestly interested in relations with him, so making peace could get that to happen... In which case he might relax a bit and get careless (like a lightly guarded settler party that I could whack).

So I wanted to run these things by you... Obviously I'm not going to suddenly hang you out to dry, so I wanted to bring this to you first. I'm proposing that I pillage the pigs road, and then back out of the war, signing peace with Serdoa. I'll pull my chariots back - and either bring them home (I'll need some military at home since I have warriors only at this point), or hang around to Serdoa's west looking for an opportunistic moment. I may have to sign some sort of NAP with Serdoa, but I'd likely try to keep it short.

So what's your thoughts? My feelings are that the above 3 things seem to outweigh the benefit of a single chariot running around pillaging a tile or two (which will be useless in a few turns when spears show up).

scooter

I haven't responded yet. I understand it, but his chariot is definitely holding down the west fort there. I really need him for horse city containment. My axe will get there in about 4-5 turns but if Serdoa comes with two agg axes I won't really be able to stop him from settling horses. I really hope I slow it down a lot though. I feel we are probably racing against each other for horses.

Here's a picture of the north:


You can see I'm provoking with the axe next to his capital and the one in the south is moving toward horses. Other than that not sure what his deal is.

In my core Serdoa's scout is moving around. Here's a picture:



Now, he cannot see my warrior there behind the hill. I believe he will move his scout to the hill to see more. Then I kill it. If he doesn't move there...


I've set Keystone to a settler build. To make my micro plan work I need to work the two forests for 3 yield tiles. My warrior didn't finish with over flow because hunting finished the same turn and it upgraded to a spear. Now actually that's good. I need that spear in my horse city because it will be close to Sandover. I might even need two there. In the meantime though to get the city built on time I need to stop working the cottages for 2 turns in order to get 25 hammers for a 2 pop whip of the settler. In Eureka I continued the axe, but I may switch to a barracks, whip it out and let the overflow finish the axe and then into the granary.

Esoteric is building its WB. the worker there is building the farm. The other worker near Keystone moved to the grass/hill and will start a mine next turn. The other is going to finish the mine on the gold next turn allowing Eureka to work it for 1-2 turns before whipping.

I'll work on a message to Scooter, and one to Sandover.

[Lewwyn]

Gaspar dialogue:

Hi Lewwyn,

No new jokes this time, just a general what's up? I've spoken to you in your lurker threads more recently than I have here, so thought I should give you a poke. How's the Mongol-Turkish hostilities treating you? Looks like you're still buildering okay behind it, so I trust all is well. Obviously, the situation doesn't impact me very much directly, so my curiosity is more of the idle kind. Nonetheless, never hurts to ask.

Funny that scooter got involved there, no? That he would have the same idea the same time as you is a pretty peculiar coincidence. You indicated your relationship with him was more of the neutral kind though, so I'll assume no coordination took place - is there a race to see who splits him first or have you figured out something amongst yourselves? I hope it works out for you, I definitely like you better if that counts for anything.

Not much going on in Maya. I'll be settling city 3 shortly and then stopping there. I think I can win an MP game with a 3CC, yes? No? Hmm. I'll have to rethink things. Kidding aside I think I'm in the "fairly normal and mundane builder turns" portion of the festivities, though I'm not neglecting to be prepared, I think this will turn out to be a much more... combustible game than we're used to round these parts. Anyway, I don't really have anything else to add but just wanted to keep the lines of communication open.

Regards,
Gaspar

And reply:

Well, that's the case. Right now things are sorta peaceful like. I'm not really pushing Serdoa too much. I found out Scooter had a chariots and persuaded him that it would beneficial if he could stop Serdoa from getting copper. We were a turn to late, plus Serdoa won some lucky battles (ie: .5% that the scenario worked out as it did.) However he had to whip archers in all his cities. Anyway, Scooters about to leave me alone in the battle because his only interest was if he could help me end Serdoa quickly. Now it looks like we'd need more force and Scooter's bailing. Doesn't matter too much, I'm guessing Serdoa and I will be in Cold War mode for the rest of the game. He's not going to declare peace unless I give him my city. And I can easily defend it so there's a pretty good stalemate brewing.

I actually had to expand faster than I planned because of Serdoa so my tech sucks. I'm still building military though.

Are you in tight quarters with Sandover? How is that going?

Gotta run.

Lew

[Lewwyn]

I responded to Scooter. I don't like it but its how it has to be. Gotta get that horse hooked upppp.

Scooter, yeah I understand. I'm going to try to get an axe out to his horse fast we'll see. Though he could get another 2 axes and negate it. Maybe I'll fortify it on a forest.

It's funny though... technically he declared on me, but I feel like the aggressor :D

He won't sign peace with me unless I give him Mt. Nebo and that's not happening. So we'll see if I can just grow with a Cold War.

You can tell anyone who asks that I owe you gold when I hit currency. I bought your chariot services for a set price per turn. I'll curse about your prices and how ineffective you were to Sandover and Gaspar.

Lewwyn

[Lewwyn]

Had an idea, sent Scooter a proposal.

Hey... Do you think you could gift me one of the chariots? You said you may need em at home, but since you have 2 mabe you could gift me one. Just the one would be great actually. If you think you could spare it, It'd be super helpful. You could pillage the road tile then move to the pigs. Then next turn move the chariot into Mt. Nebo and south along the road out of Serdoa's vision (To the rice tile). Gift it then I'd run it out west out of his vision so he wouldn't know and I could hold it in reserve to stop horses. If he thinks your chariots are gone he won't build spears. He'll send an axe or two with the settler and I can surprise him when he tries to settle.

What do you think? We can also say I bought it off you. More mercenary talk.

Lewwyn

[Lewwyn]

No turn today. But interesting diplo from Scooter and Gaspar. I have not responded to either yet.
Scooter:

Lewwyn,

I'm going to just pull out of the war and sign a NAP with Serdoa. I want to be neutral (from a game standpoint) in this war rather than play an active role... So I'm going to pull both my chariots home and make peace with Serdoa. When I sent the chariot to begin with, I offered for the purpose of helping you score the quick kill, but I never wanted to get involved in a long war... Therefore, I'm going to take a step back rather than be trapped in a war... I need to be able to settle cities without worrying about Serdoa's units coming out of the fog...

I'm just going to bring the chariots back because you are asking for me to gift you one and Serdoa's offering very large sums for a chariot (said he would buy them both for 120g or 40g + 2 workers), so I'm going to just do neither one and bring them home. One lurker joking said in my thread "how about you just sell one to each of them" and that's kind of the predicament I find myself in. I've just become trapped because on one hand I'm being asked to help you out as a favor for free while somehow convincing Serdoa that I'm a mercenary for you (when he has been making *very* lucrative offers to me), and it just feels awfully close to blowing up in my face. Obviously I want to see you come out ahead, but I can't "fight your war" if that makes sense, mostly since long-term, Sandover's shadow looms pretty ominously, and when the Sandover situation becomes more tense (which could happen literally any turn), I can't be having two hostile fronts.

Hope this makes sense.... any questions at all?

scooter

and Gaspar:

Hey Lewwyn,

Interesting. I do so enjoy the war reports, sparse as they may be. *hint, hint*

I guess everything is pretty much as expected. Serdoa's aggressive, you're aggressive, scooter's an opportunist, I'm playing a pretty weedy opening. Good to know everyone is performing as expected. Well, except Sandover, who's been unnaturally quiet for being Sandover. As for how he and I are doing, we really haven't interacted much lately. We had a positive start to relations but everything's gone pretty quiet since then. I suspect he considered briefly working with me, then decided I had no idea what I was doing and left me to be while he prepares the War Chariot onslaught...

... well probably not that bad, but honestly, I've just been keeping a pretty low profile. It goes without saying that I'd much rather just be left alone by everyone for a bit, given the start I decided to play. Ultimately, I'll need to be more involved than that, but its still very early. I suspect Sandover and I will approach tighter borders in the next 20 turns or so as we both expand, and that will force us towards some sort of agreement or war. I'm not really fussed either way, though as I said before, scooter and I didn't get off to the greatest of starts, and Serdoa doesn't look like a great candidate for mutually beneficial friendship, so I might be forced to dance alone long term. Hopefully the geography is enough in my favor there, or I can somehow learn to do diplo a little better. :P

Anyway, appreciate the heads-up. Let me know if you need anything.

Gaspar

[Lewwyn]

Played the turn earlier. I killed Serdoa's Scout which landed on that hill like I'd hoped.

Scooter made peace like he said and is gone. In the north I moved one axe towards the horse and found an archer and a spear up there... blah. When I saw that I checked the demos, and yeah I'm not #1 in Soldiers anymore. Thus I decided to move the axe that was headed towards Serdoa's capital back.



I think my axe has odds to survive an attack by Serdoa's archer and spear, but I'm not sure. Depends on the rolls.

I'm in for the long haul here. Containing Serdoa is all well and good, but my main objective has to be expansion, getting HAs, and seeing if I can take Serdoa out then. If not, the expansion helps growth and I simply need to keep it up and keep enough of a force to deter Serdoa. I don't believe we'll ever have peace, but hopefully I can get him to have more war weariness.

In Keystone I micro-ed out the tiles for 13 hammers this turn giving me the 25 I need to 2 pop whip the settler next turn.

Esoteric is doing its thing.

Eureka I switched from axe to barracks:



My plan here is to put one turn into the barracks(T49), 2 pop whip it at 9/33 for an overflow of 16+6=22(T50). That over flow goes into the axe which has 16/23+22+6= 44/23(T51). That overflows 21H next turn(T52). Now I can choose to build another axe in one turn or I can dump that overflow into the granary which is at 7+21+10 for the turns hammers. Then at (T53) I finish the granary 38/40+10.

So, next turn 2-pop whip barracks>1 turn axe>2 turn granary. That is a delay on axe production though which is why I brought the axe from Serdoa's capital back. I have 3 axes in Mt. Nebo in 2 turns. 4 in there at 3 turns. I think 4 axes(1 promoted) and 1 warrior can hold the fort while Eureka finishes a granary.

[Lewwyn]

Turns got backed up a bit... maybe we shouldn't have told Serdoa it was alright if he didn't play in the morning. Scooter said he was busy to so it was just a bit of a delay between the two. That's fine.

I'll write up some diplo I think this evening. I'm working on writing a Mid-Term for my students at the moment. Something ridiculously fun about creating tests. And also ridiculously a pain in the ass.

[Lewwyn]

I wrote diplo to Scooter and Gaspar
Scooter:

Hey, sorry I didn't respond earlier, pretty much have been busy doing stuff this weekend for work and fun with my wife, and all my free time has gone into writing reports for the games instead of the diplo.

No worries about peace. It would have given it away if you hadn't. We'll see what Serdoa does. I'm not worried I can handle anything he throws at me right now. I'm working on getting HAs. I may rush him with them. Don't tell him that though.

I'm going to write an emails to Sandover ad Gaspar too. Tell them that I used you for a bit but now that I've lost the chance to stop copper you've gone and left me high and dry, you bastard.

Lewwyn

Gaspar:

Man, seriously, this was two days ago? I kept putting it off for RL and when I did have time I spent it writing reports for my games and not doing diplo. So hopefully a response.

Yeah, everything is as expected... They just had to put Serdoa next to me! Kind of insane, but I don't think that the war will end until one of us is dead. He was able to stop me from stopping him from getting copper. And we haven't fought a battle since. Scooter's peaced out, cya never. Once he saw he couldn't help end Serdoa in a quick strike, his price went up and he buggered out. Which is fine.

I think its a cold war from here out. I don't want to incur anymore War Weariness so I'm pulling back and focusing on me. I'm just going to consider Serdoa a strong barbarian threat and keep enough units to deal with that. We'll see if he does the same or if he decided to launch a full attack. It will take him a while to build the forces though. He whipped out so many archers all his cities are 1 pop except his cap at like 2 pop. All good news for me. He's stunted I'm not. I should be able to out grow him and eventually put him down when I've teched up to cats or better.

Overall, no real war reports. And Luddite and I don't think you're too weedy given IND forges were what propelled him against mackoti in PB4. You just better leverage the hell out of it.

Lewwyn

short version: gotta keep em satisfied

I should write to Sandover too.

[Lewwyn]

Sent this to Sandover:

Hey Sandover,

Dang it's been 6 days since I responded? I think I just forgot to write back. I'm catching up on all my diplo right now. Just finished messages to Scooter and Gaspar as well since I left them hanging too. Serdoa... well haven't talked to him since the war began.

I think the war with Serdoa is going to be a Cold one. Long with no real action on either side. I'm not planning any assaults and my only real aggression is my attempt to stop Serdoa from settling horses, but I'm not sure how well that's working out. I think he might be getting them in the coming turns so, as a result I'm building spears in preparation for what I assume is coming. I'm going to attempt to out grow him and out tech for cats, but it will be a while. I'm trying to keep War Weariness down at this point until I can get actually take him out.

Scooter, well I sold him on the idea that he could end Serdoa if we stopped him from getting copper. With the RNG and Scooter getting there a bit late that's not going to happen. The price for Scooter staying in went up and he buggered out. My earlier comment referred to the fact that I had enlisted Scooter (for a price) before this whole thing even started. I was going to have copper and axes to take out his second city and I wanted some 2 mover support to ensure he couldn't get copper fast enough. Serdoa declaring war early saved him. That and 2 lucky breaks.

How about you? How is Gaspar as a neighbor? It doesn't seem he's hogging much of the land

Lewwyn

I wanted to let him know whats happening, propagate the idea that Scooter and I are not allied, and inform him I have spears. Just like the AI, "Fear my Spears!" "My numerous Spears will destroy you!" "If you try to War Chariot rush me you'll get stoned!"

We'll see if that takes.