[SPOILERS-PBEM16] mostly_harmless - Zara of Germany

[mostly_harmless]

Little chat with Dazed, not much really.

Dazed: hey hey! you around?
mh: yes, but about to call it a day.
Dazed: np
mh: anything urgent?
At your current expanding speed, game will be over in a couple of days.
Dazed: eh?
nonsense
have you been chatting with krill?
mh: on and off, yes
Dazed: he's stuck on this idea that i'm way ahead
that isn't really true
mh: I am not the most skilful diplomat
Dazed: well krill is really skilled and like to bend truths for his purposes
mh: well, from what I can see here from the other end of the continent, you are pretty much ahead.
don't we all?
Dazed: I never bend the truth!
haha
mh: truth bends for you?
Dazed: remember, there is no spoon!
Gesendet am Donnerstag um 23:00 Uhr
mh: Well, stop expanding. You are pushing scooter, scooter is pushing Serdoa and I get stuck with those Quechas! And the only way I can run to is south towards Praetorians. :D
Dazed: naw, krill is at war with serdoa and won't even talk to him
so praets will be going that way
(he just built one b/c his Power spiked!)
Gesendet am Donnerstag um 23:02 Uhr
mh: aha.
Dazed: well it's at least IW
so if he's not finished one, it's on teh way
Gesendet am Donnerstag um 23:03 Uhr
mh: Yes, well, will take at least 10-15 turns until they show up at my or Serdoa's doorstep. Lets see.
Dazed: i doubt it will be you
it's serdoa
mh: ok, got to go now. past 11pm already.
Dazed: peace
have a good night
mh: bye

[Dicorion]

Good work with Serdoa. That solution seems the best for now.
Have you trade routes with Serdoa? I am just curious if he has city on the cost.

[mostly_harmless]

Good work with Serdoa. That solution seems the best for now.
Have you trade routes with Serdoa? I am just curious if he has city on the cost.

Yes, his 3rd city went to the coast and opened up the possibility for trade.
International trade routes now give me +2 commerce overall. +3 in 2 turns when gold city is up. And of course I am hoping for religion spread.

It is probably time for a updated screenshot. Will be up in a few hours.

mh

[mostly_harmless]

Well, took a few days for screenshots, actually.

Here is a shot of cultural borders (and cities). The dotted lines are border pops that are due in the next few turns.
The new holy city of Machu Picchu is particularly annoying as it will claim the pigs in 9 turns. If I want to have city work them I have to settle there shortly after.

Remember when Serdoa said he is pressured by scooter in the east?
How exactly? There are currently 9 tiles in between their borders.

I assume the coast runs from Serdoa's capital to scooters capital. (both had coastal starts according to my numbers).
Scooter could get into a tight spot if Dazed goes N of Bille Jean next (claiming the Ivory there?) and Serdoa goes for an eastern spot as well (double-whipped the capital lately).

mh

[mostly_harmless]

At the end of turn 49 lots of good stuff happened to my civ.

The hoped-for religion spread from Serdoa came in early. Buddhism in Wolgast. A city with happiness problems as well! A happy face is just one turn anarchy away. (I am holding back on that for now, though, as gold comes online next turn.)
And at least equally important:
Schwerin's border popped as expected. At the same time Iron Working was finished and Iron is within Schwerin's BFC!
It is actually the only Iron I can see. Krill claims he has found some, so I expect it's to his NE, E, SE. Seeing as there are only three ivories spaced exactly on the equator I wonder if Iron is equally sparse???

Krill also offered Open Borders as we are connected for trade now.
I accepted, although I don't have an immediate benefit from it, as I already have foreign trade routes with Serdoa.
But I want to come to a border agreement with Krill soon, so I want to stay friendly. Also I will have the option to close borders with Serdoa now, that I have a religion.

I somehow have to get Serdoa to go for Buddhism as his state religion soon, to get rid of the +5 culture in Machu Picchu (Hindu Holy City). Since Buddhism is already present in his Capital (Holy City) and Tiwanaku, he might go for it. Serdoa has no happy resources hooked up, yet and probably hits his happy cap already, at least in Cuzco with all the whipping.

Also tried my hand at a little diplo again:

Hi Scooter,

given the long distance between our civs there has been very little diplo.
However, since my scout is revealing more and more of the far away lands, I notice that you get quite some pressure south from Dazed.
Serdoa was claiming to me that you are in return moving west pressuring Serdoa.
I just ran some numbers and from what I can see, there is still plenty of space between you and Serdoa.

How is your standing with both of your neighbours?

Kind regards
mh

MH,

Yeah, there hasn't been lots to say given our distance. I'm sure we will be much more in touch as the world naturally gets smaller when the land rush stage kicks into high gear.

Yes - Dazed and I are very, very close, so we've had some mildly difficult land negotiations, but I think we've come to a fair split - at least for now - though there will definitely be more to discuss. My relations with him are pretty good so far, so that's been a positive thing.

Serdoa and I are a little further apart. It seems that you and him are very close together and Dazed and I are very close together. Relations with Serdoa started out pretty well, and then he forwarded an email of mine onto someone else that he explicitly agreed not to forward, so needless to say that strained things a little bit - as I'm not particularly happy when someone flippantly violates an agreement . I was practically ready to rashly retaliate when I came to my senses and diffused the situation, but I'll be honest and say I'm still pretty wary of Serdoa as a result.

What is your impression of him thus far? Have you figured how to split land with him or will it be a settling race?

scooter

hi,

well Serdoa was quite insistent on a border agreement. I thought to secure his flank in the conflict with Krill.
We are indeed quite close, although not as close as you and Dazed (but then you moved your Settler, didn't you?).
After some back and forth we ended up with a rather loose agreement not to settle beyond a certain line. Gives both of us some degree of freedom as far as city placement is concerned, but also potential for culutral conflict, of course.
Doubtless, you have seen the religion being founded by Serdoa as well. So I have a Holy City at my doorstep.

In general, I am trying to keep an open mind about all players, but clearly Serdoa's claim that you are pressuring him from the east is not true, but might stem from his lack of map awareness?
Depending on how quick Dazed keeps up his expansion, I will probably end up with Serdoa as my close eastern neighbour and Krill to my south.

Regards
mh

mh

[Dicorion]

Nice break of luck!
Iron will come handy in that map, I tell you

I am really confused about religion in MP. It is very useful in some circumstances, but maintain it well is costly (missionaries etc.). I found that having own religion (I mean Holy city) is not always that profitable as it may seem. So free spread of hinduism is most welcome.

I am also enjoying all the diplo exchange. Keep up the good work!

[mostly_harmless]

Here the overview and the cities for T50:
Empire:
Small and tiny. The smallest in the world actually.

Rostock:
Allround capital. Tasked to churn our settlers for now.

Wolgast:
Military pump, due to the barracks and high production.

Schwerin:
Providing luxury goods. Will take over military pump service once grown.

And the known lands:

Well that was T50. Then we played like mad and I struggled to keep up with the C&D. So the next pictures and comments are for T54.

mh

[mostly_harmless]

T54 Overview and comments:
Here the graphs, since I have all of them by now:
Score:

Dazed clearly in the lead with 260pts. And the rest of the pack closely together (Krill 203, scooter 195, mh 194, Serdoa 179). Or so it seems. Dazed gets a lot of points from land points, that he accumulates because he is ahead in cities, but largely because he is cultural and has an inland start.
Krill also got an inland start. While myself being cultural as well, but hugging the coast and overlapping cities are way behind in landpoints.
So once you strip away the landpoints and just consider the rest (pop and tech for now), the situation looks like this:
140 Dazed
136 mh
124 scooter
118 Krill
110 Serdoa

No surprise finding the two civs that are at war with each other at the end of the list. While Krill suffered from the war by being behind in techs, Serdoa suffered by being behind in population.

GNP:

Again twisted a bit by having Dazed and myself as cultural civs. But also Serdoa has at least 10cpt from two holy cities.
Tech leader at the moment myself, followed by Serdoa, scooter, Dazed and krill.
Production:

Doing quite good here.
Food:

Not doing too good here, but that is to be expected since I am the smallest empire and are a leader in production.
Power:

Due to my C&D I have a quite good idea about the power of each civ.
Serdoa appears behind, but then he is the only one left missing the 10k boost from Iron Working.
Again, if you strip techs and pop from the soldier points the resulting points assigned to units are much closer together, with Dazed somewhat in the lead followed by scooter, myself, Krill and Serdoa.
As far as I can tell there is only one Praet around yet.
Culture:

Nothing too excited here. Dazed and me slowly catching up to Serdoa who got 2 holy cities.
Espionage:

Some espionage slider madness between Krill and Serdoa. Not sure why that was necessary that early on.

Summary:
I think I am in a quite good shape. Both my neighbours have been weakening themselves so far. And I am on friendly terms with both of them. This should give me some room for more peaceful expansion.
Dazed is in the lead, but not yet as clear as the in-game points make it appear.
Long term projects are the Great Lighthouse (this is a game to test the mod).
Extreme long term project will be the Great Library, trying to leverage the marble I can see on the island off my coast.

mh

[mostly_harmless]

Recent diplo.
With Serdoa:

mh: yes
there is a Dazed Chariot around. south of your border, btw.
Serdoa: yeah, also a Krill warrior nearby... btw: have you thought about my NAP-offer
mh: I have thougth about it. I am undecided to be honest. As I said very early, I am not a big fan of those out of game agreements. How specific would you make it?
Serdoa: as much or as less as you want. I thought of simply agreeing to no hostile action (settling is governed already, so basically no war declaration or selling of troops to others if intended to hit the other) and that up to T90 or longer if you want.
mh: Let me mull that over some more. Just don't see me not agreeing as a hostile act. I'd rather build up ties by religion, resource trades, trade routes, etc.
Serdoa: I don't see it as a hostile act. Though I hope you understand that I am rather nervous if everyones power is rising and people don't sign NAPs - with me. Like krill - well, ok, he does not even sign peace...

With Krill:
This is what I proposed:

Hi,
What does Heu stand for?
Anyway, I still owe you my suggestion for a settling agreement. And Heu's founding seems like a good occasion.
Attached my suggestion.
Basically Heu and my city in the NW grabbing the Ivory are already in place.
I have pencilled in two more BFCs (in smaller lines) of cities I plan to settle.
I assume you have scouted the region by now, but there are two sugars I would like to grab. Seeing your two Silks a trade seems obvious.
And to not cram our cities in too much, I would ask for not settling on the green crosses.

Let me know what you think.

Regards
mh

It was a bit daring, but Krill has been setback a bit by his war with Serdoa, and I at least want to make sure I get a fair border with him.
And here the chat following that up.

Krill: ok
tbh
we need to talk about border cities

Krill: Because right now we see each others borderss
and this could get nasty if we don't work something out quickly
what with preats and all
Krill: ...and then I find your email
Krill: I'm also going to have to say that I'm going to haveto decline your request
those are the only horses near me
mh: So where do you want to settle to get the horses?
Krill hat Ihre Chat-Mitteilung nmht erhalten.
mh: So where do you want to settle to get the horses?
Krill: most likely horses would be second ring
I'm think 1E of the rice and I cede you the grass cow. depending on your food resource locations you could plant the sugar city 2E1N of hte curent location for 2 sugars as tiles and hte plains cow
be more tightly packed would have better tiles
Because of that city position being a pain to defend I'd be willing to offer an NAP, but that brings me to the second point
Serdoa
I was kind of in the middle of a plan to go and screw with him a bit
but that northern yellow city basically means I'm not going to be able to expand to more than one city north
my second city is 2S of that plains cow in the picture you sent
Simply put I'd have no reason to continue screwing with Serdoa.
If I'm not going to share a border with him he isn;t my problem
mh: ok, I see. What about the banana/ ivory spot. I would have expected you would want to go that direction? That would certainly put you next to Serdoa.
what was youre next northern city's position?
Krill: I was going to plant a couple right up on Serdoa north of the jungle with a few preats
then follow up with a few more preats
and give him no space
still hadm't decided on the locations
you have a map of the north of hte jungle?
mh: Since I am the only one with a scout, I would say I probably have scouted out the lands better than anyone else. But then anyone else probably traded screenshots.
Krill: yeah
about 20 turns ago
we all traded amongt ourselves
shrug
player diplomacy moved on a lot since PBEM1
mh: that is no problem. So you know what the lands look like between the two of us and Serdoa? Because two of your cities settle aggressively north (ie. at Serdoa's southern borders) would screw me over quite a bit in terms of grabbing a fair share of land.
Also I believe Serdoa still has tons of lands to settle towards scooter and Serdoa indicated he even has space towards his north!
Krill: Well, I'm willing to consider an either or deal
but with in that there is the obvious effect on my diplomacy
Krill: if I settle the horse spot I'm willing to not contest the jungle land with you, agree a long NAP with you, trade sugar for silks and also make peace with Serdoa because I'll have no reason to carry it on
Krill: or I'll cede you the horse site, you agree to gift me the horse in perpetuity (until I get a source of my own) and I get the northern sites. The most likely site I'd want to settle is the site 2N of hte western banana in your picture. And then I'd be progressing towards taking Serdoa out
ideally with your help because I don't want those lands to myself
and from what I know of Serdoas land (I have his map) he does have a fair amount of land
woot PBEM4 turn
mh: I think I prefer the first variant. I could move my sugar city 1W. You can have the horses. Got my own source. And I will get to settle my city to your north. If that makes you not going after Serdoa, then that's fine.
Krill: You do understand that is contingent on a long NAP?
mh: Yes, how long? And since diplo has moved on a lot since PBEM 1, what is the current morale on sticking to agreements?
Krill: Serdoa doesn't and you can't trust him an inch
whmh'll be fun for you.
because part of any NAP between us is that no one can use your land to attack me and now one can use my land to attack you
whmh is standard in all NAPs nowadays
mh: Well, I am generally not a big fan of out-of-game agreements, precisely because they can be broken without real in-game consequences. So I don't have any NAP with Serdoa, only a very loose settling agreement, that was obsolete by the time it was agreed on. Only because he really wanted all that stuff.
Sounds ok.

Well, I am ok with that. NAP with Krill (need to specify the duration). An agreed Sugar / Silk trade. And a fixed border.
His threat of "praets" around was a bit pre-mature. There are not that many around. Maybe 2 by now.
All in all, I got the feeling Krill knows not much about the lands between us. Given that the last screenshot trading was 20 turns around, and the only one that scouted my south was Dazed recently, I probably revealed some unknown tiles with my proposed map.

And a follow up from scooter:

Mh,

Hmm, sounds like Serdoa hasn't exactly been honest with you either. Something to think about anyways. He told me pretty early on that he knew he was much closer to you than me, so conflict for him was more likely to be in your direction than my direction. He didn't necessarily say he would attack you or anything (pretty unlikely now I guess given his "war" with Krill), but he seemed to know pretty clearly that he was much closer to you. He also pushed both me and Dazed for a NAP today from what I understand, as Dazed poked me on chat a little bit ago and also asked me about Serdoa. I didn't realize today was "ask scooter about Serdoa" day!

How is your relationship with Krill so far? Are you close to him like Serdoa or do you have more of a buffer there?

And here my recent reply:

Hi Scooter,
I still owe you an answer, I believe.
Given my non-involvement in the early beat-up-Krill action, I am on the good books with him.
He was set back a bit by the war with Serdoa, which allows me to be a bit more blunt in my settling demands towards him, given the presence of Praets.
Although I must say, I am not too scared of either of my neighbours at the moment, since I pretty know what they have.

How do you see long term relations develop? Given that we don't share a border there should be little friction.

Cheers
mh

mh

[mostly_harmless]

So where does that leave me.
Well here is my current dotmap.

Yellow cities are already settled.
Brown is Serdoa.
Red is Krill.

The big black vertical bar is the non-settling agreement with Serdoa.
The dotted black line in the south is the equi-distance line between Krill's and my capital. Kind of a natural border. Since I have an ok from with Krill to settle Orange and Blue, I am happy with that.

So it looks like 11 cities on the continent. And my recent scouting of the islands revealed that there are quite interesting locations as well.
Now I just have to put them into some sort of priority.
The dark purple in the north should be settled quickly, as Serdoa's culture already occupies the Pigs tile.
Currently my Priority list would be:
Pink
Dark Purple
Island
Blue

mh