[SPOILER] Shaka of Inca - gingereagle1969 & Sandover

[gingereagle1969]

Almost thought the turn had come around fast, but no it was a response from Tredje:

Salve Gingereagle,

Indeed, it's been too long. I am happy to tell you that Byzantium is doing fine at the moment. So far it has been a peaceful existence in this forested world of ours. I can assure you that you need not alert your garrisons on my account. My Cataphracts have no intention of marching in your direction to test the mettle of your garrisons, and I am sure they are impressive. Your offer to play an assisting role in any upcoming battle, however, is appreciated. Right now I have no such plans, but I will keep it in mind.

I would be happy to send one of my Hindu missionaries to enlighten the people of the Shakirite empire. As soon as I can spare one, and have him fitted with a suitable escort, I will send you a message.

How are things on your end? Is the Shakirite empire developing as you had hoped? How is your relationship with your neighbors? I can tell you that my immediate neighbors are Kyan, Nakor/Gaspar and Whosit, and that so far we have all gotten along peacefully.

- Tredje

I'll compile a reply tomorrow

This'll do:

Sanibona Tredje

Glad to hear that, I see you're managing to keep pace with, and indeed, at times, exceed The Lord's Men [Kyan/Peter of India]

Fair enough regarding the Missionary, hopefully he won't have to travel too far as I hope to add more cities on my south and western border [I think that's the general direction you are from me]. Of course, if you have a culture border with Whovus, and/or Nakor/Gaspar, you could send it through their lands as our cultures meet up around the same lake.

To be honest, the early tussle with Whovus, over said lake, didn't help. Unfortunately he recovered quicker than me, guess that's a sign of my lack of experience in multi-player games, and we've been in a kind of arms-race ever since. However, one, or more, have nipped ahead of us, so bang goes my initial plan for a two-power-standard. I wonder if you have sufficient information to enlighten me, although this slip to 4th in a category I was once leading comfortably may be due more to my slow tech-rate rather than raw unit numbers. But that is slightly improving, it's weird but I can still complete necessary research on 0% tech, due to employing Scientists in key cities.

Of course a Wonder, or two, would help, but I seem to lose out mainly to you and Kyan - I got my workers in position to start chopping the Pyramids, as we discussed previously, only to see it fall to Kyan! Oh well.

Sobanana

Amb. GingerEagle

[gingereagle1969]

turn 84 finally come around

Barbarians are becoming a pain in the 'arris again, so we'll need to expand to flush them out of our square - I pity anyone whose not built many cities at this stage! But this is balanced by good news, we landed Monarchy at end of this turn [@ 50% tech!], which means the happy-cap bar will be raised a lot higher in our core cities once we switch to Hereditary Rule [those garrisons are going to pay their way now]. We also built our first 'Offiah' at end of turn too - this can patrol our culture quicker than taking units in/out of cities.

As we've now raised the 100G, will have to see if the Work-Boat offer is still on the table from Whovus. Will try to negotiate it down to 75G though.

Sanibona Whovus

How goes it in the Crazy Empire?

I was wondering if the Work-Boat offer was still on the table? And whether there was some room for negotiation? I would like to offer you the following:

*75G up front and 1G/turn
*Extend our NAP to turn 125
*Open Borders [can close again after the Work-Boat is passed over if you like]

Sobanana

Amb. GingerEagle

[gingereagle1969]

Response in from Whovus, in his customary timely manner:

I am conferring with my advisers (lurkers). As soon as they respond, I will let you know what I have decided.

-Whosit

Hmmm ... why can't he make the decision himself? He made the original offer, or did he not expect me to make the request?

[gingereagle1969]

after what seems like an eternity, turn 85 comes around

so what's happened

YES!! Monarchy completed & went through anarchy to have Hereditary Rule, happy, happy, happy cities

Damn these Barbarians [now got wandering Archers near my cities!] ... I wanted to concentrate on the economy, and expand, but will have to churn out units to deal with them, better tech Feudalism next to keep ahead of the Barbarian arms race [small chance it'll make matters worse, but meh] ... hmmm, how about "BigWayne" for the Longbowmen?

[gingereagle1969]

Turn 86

Damned Barbarians Archers!!! Tupac06 killed 1 easily ... but I had to sacrifice Shabba05, so Offiah01 could dispatch the 2nd.

Apart from that, all quiet on the Shakirite front.

[gingereagle1969]

Turn 87

Another turn & another 2 Barbarian Archers are lurking near my culture!! Gah!!!

I notice the lurker thread has not had any activity for a long while, are they getting bored? Would a war liven things up? When the NAPs end, who should I attack?

Whovus?
Too obvious, he's probably been building up forces to attack me anyway, so it would be long & drawn-out affair.

Nakor/Gaspar?
Less obvious, but they are likely to be ahead in some key techs which could mean a stalemate. Tempting though.

Kyan?
It's unlikely that he has any military yet, but he probbaly has the techs in place. I could nick a few of those Fast Workers though ... very, very tempting.

Tredje?
He assures me that his Cataphracts won't be coming my way, do I believe him? Like Kyan, he probably has a lot of key techs ... like Nakor/Gaspar, tempting.

Malakai?
Need to find his lands first, but he could be the softest target after Kyan.

Hmmmm ... decisions, decisions.

[Mardoc]

Would a war liven things up? When the NAPs end, who should I attack?

Yes, and is All Of The Above an option?

Can't give a serious answer, I might know something that is spoilerish.

[gingereagle1969]

and is All Of The Above an option?

yeah ... right ... can't see that back-firing at all

[Bruindane]

I'm mostly following this thread as it tends to be the most entertaining. You need to declare war and go down fighting if need be.

And you don't want to go alone, bring in somebody, anybody into the fight, and you might just grab a nice land advantage. Now the goal is to get land, and those other unfortunates not contending for the lead don't particularly need to hold onto to theirs.

[gingereagle1969]

I'm mostly following this thread as it tends to be the most entertaining. You need to declare war and go down fighting if need be.

And you don't want to go alone, bring in somebody, anybody into the fight, and you might just grab a nice land advantage. Now the goal is to get land, and those other unfortunates not contending for the lead don't particularly need to hold onto to theirs.

yeah, but who out of Whosit, Malakai, or Nakor/Gaspar do I go after?

regarding the latter-mentioned, this just in:

Hey GE,

(Sorry, going to drop the RP part for now due to time issues)

Good to see we finally have that road connection in place.
May there be a river of gold going to flow between our two civs.

We'd like to warn you about a possible attack coming from the east. Unless you have good pacts there.

How is the game going so far?

Kind regards,
Nakor

WTF?!? The east!?! Kyan? Better bolster my forces in SheWolf then.

OK, turn in [well, some hours ago] so I'd better play it.


Turn 88 played ... apart from the death of yet another Barbarian Archer, not much to report

Replied to Nakor:

Greetings Nakor

(no worries, it was getting a tad old anyway ... might as well put 'HIM' on hold ... lol)

From the east? I was kind of expecting something from the north and/or south, so ... what have you heard? I have NAPs until t100 with both Kyan & Malakai, and from what I observed in PBEM4 (until the start of this game) neither of them are prone to breaking them, so I have time to build up my defences.

Not too bad now I've got Hereditary Rule ... I have 'super-happiness' in my cities due to my garrisons installed in case of a surprise attack (see above).

Ummm ... I have approached Whosit regarding his previous offer of a Work-Boat for 100G. I've offered 75G, 1G/turn, extend the NAP to T125 (to match the one with you) and to Open Borders. If you still have any leverage over him, maybe you can persuade him it's a good deal, or, at least make a counter-offer?

Regards

GingerEagle

at least I haven't got to get 'into character' again