[SPOILERS-PBEM14] Sandover(phi/spi) of Egypt

[Sandover]

With the crab up there your double clam citysite looks even better.

I doubt that scooter will settle the deserthill soon (he has a lot of nice green lands to fill)

He can get it with a city close to the capital as well though, so I can't exactly count on claiming it unless he decide to not challenge me for some reason.

Shows that Candyland was quite an aggressive and far reaching build.

Yeah, but it's also clearly in his sphere of influense. I just hope he won't found judaism in there and be smart enough to change state religion for the extra cultural pressure.

[Sandover]

Your Dark Lordship, Pharaoh Sandover,


I agree scooter is the favorite, but not as much due to anything he's done, as to simply the fact that the Lewwyn-Serdoa conflict benefits him most directly, and that we're not in a position to impact it. Regardless, we'll definitely have to keep an eye on that situation. My fear of him sending units is simply because I can tell I've particularly irritated him in diplomacy. I agree that it would be foolish on his part, and he couldn't possibly threaten me this early with the distance between us.


I don't intend to go after the Great Library unless something really changes. I suspect I'm going to leave the next batch of wonders to other players unless I get the opportunity to chop something useful out quite quickly, the opening I've played means I really need to spend the next bit of time building settlers, workers and military units, and leave everything but essential infra til later. Not saying I wouldn't consider it if its still sitting there in 50 turns, but its not on my agenda. I'm happy to keep discussing these sorts of plans ahead of time so neither of us wastes hammers. With the current world situation, I think it even more important we maintain a good working relationship - no reason to give those dirty capitalists any more advantages. I'm sure both scooter and Lewwyn would love nothing more than to see the two of us compete.


I suspect the marble site will remain unsettled for a while, as it is miserable terrain. I won't be able to get a settler there for some time yet - better cities closer to home is far more important right now than land grabs, and if the Serdoa-Lewwyn conflict drags out as I suspect it might, Lewwyn won't be in any position to landgrab. I will attack him if he settles there, though. I need the outlet to be able to impact the rest of the proceedings.


Techwise, I'm polishing off the last of the worker techs right now, and I'm currently quite indecisive about my next steps. I'll Oracle bulb MC next turn, then normally I'd go Writing next, but I won't be building any libraries for a little bit yet, so I'm debating going Masonry -> Poly -> Mono for OR first, as I really won't need anything else to build for the near term. Probably I'll do that, then head after Writing and Mathematics. I'm sure I'll change my mind 7 or 8 times before all is said and done regardless.


What made you change your settling plans, if you don't mind me asking? Anything interesting?


Prophet Gaspar

Prophet Gaspar,

You're quite right in everything you say. I'll settle for that rather than writing a wall-of-text.

I simply feel I can grab more land with Lewwyn being busy elsewhere, which has me shifting the dots around somewhat.

His Dark Lordship, Pharaoh Sandover

[Ichabod]

Makes me glad I'm far away exploring

Unfortunately, I don't have the same luck...

[Sandover]

Turn 43

Overview shot today:



I have a worker teasing scooter about our NAP. I have no doubt he can resist the temptation, but it's still somewhat fun to build improvements right under his nose in neutral territory knowing full well there's nothing he can do about it without completely ruining his reputation.

The purpose of that worker is to connect a road from Sandoria all the way ontop of that hill. That will shave one turn off founding my third city, and I'll have all of my three workers in that region shortly to quickly improve the area and place roads further east.

I'm 3-pop slaving the settler at Sandoria as I said I would. That will give me 19 hammers overflow. Adding that and some production into another settler the following turn and spending one turn growing after that will let me slave 2 settlers in 4 turns, so I reckon that's what I'll do. After that Sandoria can spend some time slow-building a worker or two while the whip penalty wears off, before repeating the process to found cities in my backline probably.

This means it will actually be Satet's job to build the forge. I also want to get a war chariot out of there however, once horse are connected, but I can probably afford to do both as I won't have any competition for the Pyramids. Best way to build the forge should be placing 20 hammers into it and 3-pop slaving it at size 6. Then Satet will probably serve as a production site after that, making sure I have some war chariots to throw at Lewwyn if needed be (or if Serdoa pays me to do so, more on this later).

City count:

Scooter: 4
Lewwyn: 4
Serdoa: 3
Sandover: 2
Gaspar: 2

The goal is to reach 4 cities before scooter has 6, and to keep even steps with him after that. I'm not sure I can make that considering I want to get that forge up and running, but if I can I'll be very satisfied with my position this game. Scooter is gonna have to fix his economy at some point but his being financial and having a lot of riverside grasslands at his capital has me thinking it won't take much effort for him to do so.

There was a hindu spread into Candy Land so scooter is generating 2 culture/turn in there now. He's going to have his third ring before too long, but the Pyramids should still beat that even if he place a library in there.

[Sandover]

Things keep moving in the right direction with Serdoa:

Sandover,

I certainly would be grateful if you would send a chariot his way, though I am uncertain how exactly I could make it worth your while, as I am getting attacked right now. I am willing to pay for it and depending on how the war evolves and how much it helps I am even willing to pay quite some amount. Though I have to stay alive for that first. If you have anything specific in mind, please let me know. I will also keep you updated on the war, so as that you do not help a lost cause - wouldn't make sense for you to get involved in something if it won't change the outcome I feel.

Speaking of an update: Lewwyn moved an Axe and a warrior next to my second city. It is currently defended by 3 warriors only, so I expect to have lost one next turn. But then it will have 2 archers in it with the third coming the next turn (yeah, I have managed building and whipping in a way that I will produce 2 archers in 2 turns in a size 1 city and I am PROUD of it ). As this city is on a hill, he is not going to take it, not with one axe, not with 2 axes and not with 3 axes either - and I still only have seen 2 axes from him. I have also produced another archer in the capital and will be able to produce two axes in the next 3 turns there, maybe even 3 in 4 turns, haven't checked the exact numbers. The copper city was settled this turn and will be defended by an archer in 2 turns and by 2 archers in the next 3-4 turns. It is not on a hill unfortunately but will get walls if necessary.

So, I think my defenses will be completed in around 3 to 4 turns and then it will be whipping and growing to get some axes going as well as another city on the horses for Keshik - HBR is 7 turns away.

I am keeping this conversation to myself and I expect as well that you are keeping this conversation to yourself.

Serdoa,

Yes, I'll keep quiet.

Gold would certainly work out as compensation. The question of how much, as you say, will probably depend on what the situation looks like ahead in time. I suggest we hold off on discussing the matter until I'm closer to actually being able to do something, for that reason. Nevertheless, I'd like to point out that I could also consider more map knowledge as part of such payment.

I'm now 99% sure Lewwyn hasn't placed a city for his horses. There's still an off chance that one of his cities is a crappy one with horses in the second ring trying to grow off jungle sugar, but I find that extremelly unlikely.

With so many archers and aggressive axes joining the field I fail to see how anyone is going to dislodge them prior to catapults, so good job on that one. Why Lewwyn is picking a fight with aggressive Mongolia in the ancient era is beyond me really.

How's your diplomacy with other civs going so far?

His Dark Lordship, Pharaoh Sandover

[novice]

What was the wording of your not-a-nap? Sniping workers in neutral territory does not equal invading...

[Sandover]

I'm looking into that chat I had with scooter. Easiest will be to just lift out the most interesting parts rather than try to clean up the whole thing, so that's what I'll do.

how many cities do you think you can reach peacefully with that war going on?
scooter: hard to say...

Question dodged! What a surprise.

i laughed pretty good when i found out you picked egypt again. i was considering taking egypt and i figured they'd be on the board because "no way sandover takes egypt twice in a row"

Owned.

[COLOR="Gray"]i could have had 2 chariots in your land within 5 turns, and i'm curious if that would have actually caused severe problems or just minor ones
err, more like 7 turns[/COLOR]

He made it pretty obvious I was right to worry about him attacking me, because that's clearly what he had in mind. Note how looking at the power graph every turn is always worthwhile.

[COLOR="Gray"]i'm sending a chariot over there just for fun
dk if i'll get involved or not... but if one of them wants to buy it i'd think about it[/COLOR]
you almost had me thinking you were heading out to force some concession from an unlucky neighbour
[COLOR="Gray"]i might do that.
havent decided[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Yellow"]exactly
you might do that[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Gray"]you did it and it looked fun
haha[/COLOR]
with me it wouldn't be a doubt in my mind
[COLOR="Gray"]basically i have land to my east that needs unfogging
so i'll go unfog and if i can cause problems, who knows.[/COLOR]

Reading this part again I realise I should warn Serdoa about it. I don't think scooter is actually going to war dec someone, because he's always so concerned about diplomatic relations, but it's probably worth a heads up nevertheless. I wouldn't like Serdoa handing gold over to scooter in exchange for units, so I don't exactly want to help setting that up, but Serdoa ending up in a 1vs2 with two of my neighbours... Yeah, that's definitly not to my advantage. Gonna dial him up once I'm done with this.

9 times out of 10 I end up cancelling military plans simply because they weren't any good
I usually make that 1 out of 10 count for something though
haha you are nuts sometimes

This is after I told him about the warrior rush I had in mind some time ago. He's right about me being nuts.

I'm refusing to bulb metal casting with oracle just because I rather not spend hammers on that
[COLOR="Gray"]oracle could sit for awhile then
ewwyn/serrdoa sure wont be building it
i had no plans for it... dont have priest yet and its not a priority
i dont think gaspars crazy enough to go for oracle AND henge this early[/COLOR]
I bet you're wrong
[COLOR="Gray"]really?
on which one?[/COLOR]
just look at pbem3
wait you think gaspar is trying to impersonate sleepingmoogle?
[COLOR="Yellow"]ind tt: wonder hunt
ind bob: wonder hunt
marble moogle: wonder hunt[/COLOR]
actually yeah, people who take Ind seem to get stuck on the fact that they must build wonders to leverage it
even you built a wonder because you though you should when you found stone!
hahaha it is hard to have a resource like that and not use it

This is me trying to hide the fact Gaspar's told me about his plans without having to lie about it (which I'm not willing to do). Don't know if I was successful.

going for org rel?
thats the plan

He told me he was researching masonry, and this is what came out of it. He's going to get judaism, but I'm a lot less worried about it being founded in Candy Land now that hinduism spread there.

[COLOR="yellow"]by the way
if you find one of your pigs missing
that's rowain trying to frame me as he's passing by[/COLOR]

Yeah, that was very important to point out!

We mentioned quite a lot of stuff that wasn't game related, and a lot of the game related stuff is too general to even mention here really. The chat was some odd 430 words, but this is all I found worthy of posting.

Also, I had my lunch at the computer and decided to read up on PBEM16 (the one trying out the mod). I went into Dazed's thread, who's a dedlurker for scooter this game, and found this:

You shouldn't post such things or at least mark them clearly for what game they are spoilers.
I thought its a picture/demos or such opened it and now know things I as a ded lurker of sandover in PBEM 14 should not know.

Edit: meaning the spoiler in post 77

Dazed corrected the spoiler Rowain is talking about, so now I missed it! Pure treason is what it is!!!

[Sandover]

What was the wording of your not-a-nap? Sniping workers in neutral territory does not equal invading...

The initial version was about invading (as in not sending particular units into one's territory) but I revised that and the term used was "offensive wars". He's not allowed to fight an offensive war against me using warriors, and he has to declare war to snipe the worker, so I'm fine unless he decides to backstabb me (again). I checked the particular sections before sending my worker there. I'll go find them for you.

[Sandover]

Me:

I'm game for avoiding an ancient era war, but I'd like to formulate it differently for a number of reasons. I suggest that no ancient units can be used in an offensive war against the other party prior to having researched either feudalism or machinery.

Scooter:

Agreed on all points

There's some talking in between but nothing altering my initial formulation. You just gave me an excuse to send an email to scooter pointing out I was right about Gaspar's Oracle build without looking too obvious, however, so thank you for that.

[Sandover]

Sent two messages:

Scooter,

Novice had some concern regarding the formulation of our deal. Myself I do not have any such concerns, as I was careful about using the term "offensive wars" rather than use territory as a limit. I figured I might remind you about this anyway though, so you don't snipe my worker and try to blame it on having a bad memory or something. Last time you broke a deal with me bad karma was apparantly a valid enough reason for you, so I think you can understand why I feel the need to clarify this with you.

Also, I was right about Gaspar and the Oracle, wasn't I?

Bragging? Me? Oh, no, not at all.

His Dark Lordship, Pharaoh Sandover

Serdoa,

Scooter mentioned sending a chariot (possibly two) east to explore/offer for sale/go on a rampage. I doubt you're very vulnerable to it while having archers as city garrisons, and I don't see scooter moving in on you or Lewwyn unless he has significant gains to make, but I better mention it anyway.

Scooter told me this on the assumption I'm not talking to you (as that was true for a period of time) and I'd prefer, for general usefulness, if you could somehow handle this without calling him out on it - because it will be obvious who you got the info from. I'm letting you decide how to approach this on your own, however, as it's enough of a security risk to you to justify downgrading my relations with scooter. Just remember that you owe me a favour at some point if I have a falling out with scooter because of this.

Also, please update me on any contact you have with scooter as a result of receiving this information so I know what to expect.

His Dark Lordship, Pharaoh Sandover

Part of me feels really stupid that I didn't point this out to Serdoa earlier. I had the chat with scooter in the middle of the night and was simply waaaaaay too tired yesterday to even think about it while not having slept for two days. In case anyone is wondering, the chat was a result of me not being able to sleep and not the opposite way around.

However, part of me is also wondering why scooter would tell me about the chariots if he had aggressive intentions. I'm willing to bet he did that just to make himself look more aggressive to me for future reference (to be used for bluffing and such), because I've been known to look down on him as someone who is inferior to me in the warfare department. Having Serdoa owe me a favour can't be a bad thing though, and I don't really mind that much if my relations with scooter go sour because I have both Gaspar and Serdoa lined up as possible allies right now.