[SPOILERS-PBEM14] scooter's thread - Mansa Musa

[scooter]

I think your response to Serdoa is totally fine, though I did laugh when you said you were trying not to lie and then opened by claiming you didn't want to get involved in case Sandover attacks you, even though you just signed a deal to make sure that won't happen! :neenernee

Yeah welll..... about that.

I mean for whatever it's worth, it was true a few turns ago .

And after he'd slapped me down for bringing the subject up, too

Do as I say and not as I do!

[pling]

And after he'd slapped me down for bringing the subject up, too

Do as I say and not as I do!

:neenernee

[scooter]

Turn 44 is in... Before I get back to the war front, quick look at the land between Sandover and I since I finally have it uncovered:



I gotta think the worker roading move is for the purpose of his third city... And unfortunately it may very well be coastal because of the clams. I think he will likely found on that grass hill tile, which could make the culture situation dicey. That grass hill to the west of my plains cow (borders are about to pop) will be an important tile to control (and will need a second border pop for me to control it). I should be able to pretty easily keep it though if he's going to found on the grass hill, as it's just as far away from him and I'll have a significant head start. Here's a message Sandover sent me about that worker:

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

Quick reply:

Sandover,

Sorry, the exact phrasing of the deal allows me to make such a move, so your worker is mine.

I'm kidding of course. Your worker is safe, as fun as it would be to snipe him. I was under the impression that our agreement was like you said - offensive wars - which would include worker swipes and such (even if one is in neutral territory).

Nice call on Gaspar. Though I'm calling shenanigans... I think you had inside info! Admit it - Gaspar already told you about him building Oracle . Either way, I'm guessing Gaspar will have the Great Wall and the Pyramids built within 20t at this rate.

Did you finally get some sleep?

scooter

The reference to Gaspar and the Oracle is from a chat I had with him the other night, which I need to update you all on sometime today only because there were a few interesting moments. I'd paste it all in, but it's over 400 lines according to Gmail which would get boring awfully quick.

Next, here's my chariots still on the approach:



What's the move here? Well I sent off a message to Lewwyn last night:

Thanks. I'm headed to bed now, but when you update me on whats going on, is it possible to include a screenshot of the situation at Beshbalik? It's just so I can 1) avoid mistakes on fogged land and 2) have a better idea of where his units are and such.

Obviously my lead chariot is headed to copper asap, but my trailing chariot (3 tiles behind) may be able to coincide with your axes to help take Beshbalik. If you want to time/coordinate that, let me know. Especially if he gets an axe in Beshbalik, my trailing chariot could be a clincher. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help.

scooter

Got this from Lewwyn overnight:

Here you go. This is the map. Once you're in front of the copper city, if he upgrades a spear you can cut the road and back up. I'll be moving my axe and cover you. Then we go and take it out. If he upgrades an axe in Besh to stop me from cutting the copper road, then you can raze the copper city. If he has enough money for both, we simply cut his copper lines and wait for reinforcements. Little cost to us, huge havoc for him. He will get at least one turn of copper, and I think two actually, so he can upgrade units and probably whip something in his capital. He won't be able to whip a new unit in Besh.

We'll see how it goes but I'm confident that whatever happens he won't have sustained copper.

Lew

And here's the picture with a status update on the plan:



Still no archers from Serdoa which is great... Though I'm guessing it's coming soon. Double checked and:



Hmmm. I think this means the settler founded ON the copper, which is what we expected but it's still disappointing. Or I supposed he could've founded 1SE of the copper, but that doesn't make tons of sense. Anyways, things are certainly heating up.

[scooter]

Ok, I'm going to try to summarize my chat with Sandover from the other night. There was definitely some noteworthy and/or humorous moments, so I'll summarize. If you want the messy chat log dump let me know, but it was very long.

1. Sandover told me he had been leaning towards war with three civs already in this game. Lewwyn, myself, and Serdoa. He even was kind enough to explain them. The whole conversation was very funny honestly.

Sandover stumbled unto Lewwyn's city awhile back. It was Lewwyn's newly founded (at the time) second city, with no border pop and it was defended with a settler. Sandover planned to move in on it the following turn. He called it off when a warrior showed up the next turn.

On the same turn (or something like that) he saw my borders of Candy Land (Constantinople at the time), and decided to rush warriors at it. Keep in mind, this was simultaneous with Lewwyn. He was going to declare on Lewwyn and use that as a smoke screen to rush me with warriors. He then saw on the next turn that I already had a warrior in Constantinople and it was on a hill, so he called that off too.

Finally, something happened when he met Serdoa - apparently Serdoa kinda blew him off or something... Whatever happened, it annoyed Sandover so Sandover tried to kill Serdoa's scout... and apparently he got away . Anyways, I thought it sounded very Sandover-like, and it was quite a funny conversation as he's telling me all these evil plans he had.


2. Apparently Gaspar routinely asks Sandover if he has any military plans just in case... Guess he's pretty smart after all.


3. Sandover feels he played his start poorly. Basically, when he moved towards floodplains, he didn't really have any forests... So his worker-worker start resulted in his workers building cottages instead of chopping and speeding up expansion. This is why he got a bit behind in the expansion game, however he also has some pretty solid commerce power as a result. Meh, I'll take the expansion over commerce. We're on Prince and no barbs after all.


4. I asked him who his ded-lurkers were, spawning this exchange:

Sandover: rowain and ges joined because they think I'm crazy
scooter: they have a point
Sandover: well... yes

Quickly followed by:

Sandover: by the way
if you find one of your pigs missing
that's rowain trying to frame me as he's passing by
scooter: you'd better warn him
those are wild boars
not pigs
so... little more dangerous.
rowains the scout right?
Sandover: yarr
and I'm gonna pass on giving a warning
he needs to learn a lesson
me: its his funeral

[scooter]

Alright, I'm a bit behind here, as I'm smack in the middle of final exams so I haven't spent much time on civ at all. I'm going to report T45 now (which was played about 24 hours ago) and I've got T46 sitting in my inbox to be played sometime tonight. Some interesting decisions will need to be made too... But I'm getting ahead of myself. First off, WARRRR



So I moved my chariot 1NE, but stopped real quick to see what's inside Beshbalik:



Well, Lewwyn won't be taking that city anytime soon. Apparently Serdoa killed one of his axes too by suiciding 3 warriors and then finishing it with an archer. Apparently Serdoa got quite lucky on the attack, spawning some (understandable) unhappy sentiment from Lewwyn. Anyways, it's pretty clear this could just devolve into Lewwyn choking Serdoa, but let's see what Turfan looks like:



Well, if it's like that in 2T it'll be easily razable, but I'm pretty sure it wont' be... So Serdoa might be safe after all. If it's just a warrior when I open the T46 save later today, I may go for it, otherwise I may withdraw and resort to some "zone defense" to the west of Serdoa's borders - basically trying to prevent him from settling cities while I gobble up all the land between us. May also try to do some mild pillaging, but spears will be online for him soon so that'll have a limited shelf-life. I may just gift the chariot to Lewwyn and let him use it how he sees fit. He's said a little bit by diplo and I'll fill you in on that...eventually. Basically though it looks like Lewwyn/Serdoa are going to be in a long war, which will be interesting. Gotta think they will wise up and make peace, but they both seem like the "hold a grudge" type, so that may not happen. Now I need to make sure I spam settlers east to capitalize on this . I moved my second chariot forward so that it'll be in position to do some damage should the opportunity arise:



I think this might actually be my strategy with Serdoa. Hide out in hard-to-see spots and try to ambush any settler parties that come. Finally, I took a quick overview shot of my core:

[dazedroyalty]

It looks like his road connects to Turfan but I can't quite tell for sure. If it doesn't he won't be able to get a archer there before you wipe it out! He can't build/whip a spear fast enough.

[scooter]

Alright, T48 is in and exams are done, so let's get some pictures in this thread! Here's a look at the Serdoa front:



I'm going to go into more detail (hopefully tonight) on what's happening on this front, but the short of it is that as of right now, I'm sticking one chariot on that tile 1S of Besh, and Lewwyn will pile his axe on top. The road will get pillaged, and then the chariot will head towards Serdoa's capital to meet up with his other axe and try to cause trouble that way. The other chariot will back off, probably roam Serdoa's west and/or come home. This is very subject to change, but that's a story for..... a few hours from now.

I'm gonna pop inside each of my cities, so time for a brief tour!



Just built a quick warrior to grow this up to size 4 (also warrior will cover new cities to be founded), and now it's onto a settler. A worker is chopping that settler, as you'll see at the end of this report. Working 2 cottages, and I have a 3rd ready. I'll probably work cottages and whip for production rather than work mines, as it just seems like the better way of operating right now. Next, Dominion:



This settler is nearly ready, and I'll probably build a quick warrior after this for military police. Candy Land:



I will likely try to do some whipping here for a bit until I get some more cottages up to work. I realize that the grassland river in the NE of the city radius is a better tile to cottage, but I had 2 workers next to the tile 1SW of the city, so I could cottage in 1T and swap from grass forest to cottage, so I did it. Finally, Catan:



This city should get a quick start. Three improved tiles available for use, as well as several forests, one of which is getting chopped right now. Finally, here's a look at the worker situation on the west side of my land:



Got a chop coming at Catan for the worker (end of next turn I think) and one at Mousetrap (same). Just finished a cottage at Mousetrap. Not sure what to do with that worker next honestly. May head towards the new city site, either that or chop another forest at Mousetrap.

[scooter]

Okay, I'm going to do some summarizing as to what's going on. Basically, I want out of the Lewwyn/Serdoa war. It's painfully clear to me that it will not be decided anytime soon, and I want to expand without fear of a Serdoa Keshik coming out of the fog to raze a city. Also, I sent the chariot to Lewwyn to help disconnect copper, not to choke for forever. I regret offering at this point. Serdoa was also trying to buy me out of the war, and he was making some honestly attractive offers. The difficulty is this:

1) Getting out of the war is very beneficial to me
2) Staying in the war is very, very likely to tip people off (Serdoa believes it already and Sandover suspects it, or suspected it at least from our interactions) that I am working with Lewwyn, which is NOT what I want - last thing I need is a coalition against us.

I mentioned peace to Serdoa as something I wanted. I have pushed the idea that I'm simply a mercenary here with no real care at all as to who wins. Serdoa then said he'd want a NAP, as peace with no NAP gives him nothing really. Here was his offer:

- T80 - or longer if you want
- Lands will be split so that you will have rights to all lands except for those up to 5W of Beshbalik (city not borders), meaning you get the marble and I get those corn and the two floodplains as well as my horses. I won't contest those lands with you. You are right that you probably can take it anyways - and even defend. But having to defend them, having to invest in armies, having to rebuild pillaged improvements is costly.

NAP does include not to help Lewwyn in any way, neither with units, map information, gold etc.

I would also like to propose that I will buy your two chariots. Each is 20 hammers, so I will pay 3 times in gold for 120 gold total for those. Paid till either T55 or when you have Currency (because before it is obviously not possible).

Difficulty here is that this doesn't really work with my alliance with Lewwyn. I brought this up to Dazed via chat, and his reaction was we needed to flip sides. My "alliance" with Lewwyn (it's more of an intel agreement with benefits) has no limit on when it can be canceled, the only deal is that it must be honored until then. So canceling it is perfectly acceptable, however Lewwyn wouldn't like it I'm sure. So from talking with him, I was pretty strongly considering Serdoa's deal... Then I thought about the geography. Remember, he said:

all lands except for those up to 5W of Beshbalik (city not borders), meaning you get the marble and I get those corn and the two floodplains as well as my horses

That's actually not such a great deal. Here's the old map from way back for reference here (spoilered for size)

You can see the corn and two floodplains next to it. He's saying everything east of the column with those two floodplains will belong to him, including the column. He's "ceding" everything else to me... The problem is that the middle between our capitals is like one column west of that... The marble is exactly dead in the middle, so really he's ceding 1 1/2 columns of land that he never had a prayer at settling before me anyways. Not such a great deal! All along my goal has been to get those floodplains... So I'm not giving them up. So I sent this off to Serdoa:

Serdoa,

I'm looking at the map pretty closely and carefully right now, and honestly the border terms is sort of a snag for me. Honestly, I want those floodplains quite a bit... And I think if I side with Lewwyn, I get to have those. The reality is, if you take Lewwyn's land AND you get all that land west of Beshbalik - shoot, you probably have more land than I do. I'm happy of course to let you found a horse city NW of Beshbalik, but I'm not so sure I actually like that settlement deal all that much... In reality all you are "ceding" is 1-2 tiles when you count tiles between our capitals, and it's 1-2 tiles that you never had a chance at settling. I feel like those land concessions aren't actually concessions honestly - it's not that great a deal for me. I'm pretty much as far south as I can go before hitting the Sandover/Lewwyn borders, but the north has some nice spots. If I take your deal, then I am actually giving up more land in the north...

scooter

I'm still wanting to get out of the war though, regardless of if I take the deal with Serdoa and back out of the alliance. So I sent this to Lewwyn:

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 think this explained it pretty well. He sent these two messages back:

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

Followed by:

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

I exchanged a couple emails with Serdoa. He thought he had no direct access to his horses other then going south around the peaks, which isn't actually true. See this old picture if you don't remember what I mean:

I cleared that up, then saw this message this morning:

scooter,

I would have liked it yeah because I thought it is my only land passage to the horses. But you are right it is not, so I am ok with conceding it to you. I would just like to ask that you settle it via the desert hill so that we have 5 tiles between our cities, therefore not getting any culture issues.

So I have three options. Getting out of the war is not optional, it will happen.

1. Stick with Lewwyn, gift/sell him my one chariot. Make peace with Serdoa, but don't bother with a NAP. Keep him on his toes a little bit.

Pros: I get a long-term ally. Their war continues inevitably, dragging them both down. I don't feel bad for canceling our agreement so quickly.

Cons: I have to deal with potential revenge from Serdoa. A potential coalition against us starts. May have settling races with Serdoa. I also think Serdoa might win the war honestly.

2. Cancel Lewwyn alliance, sign that deal with Serdoa. Chariot selling is optional.

Pros: This gets me a nice eastern deal. Serdoa feels he has no chance at winning, so he told me his goal would just be to kill Lewwyn and he'd be happy, and then he'd try to help me as best as he could. I believe him too, honestly.

Cons: I'd feel bad canceling on Lewwyn so quickly, though nothing would actually be violated. I can't really think of anything else at the moment...


3. Something in between. Neutrality is practically impossible though, because unless I cancel my Lewwyn deal AND refuse the Serdoa deal (bad move probably), then I can't be neutral really without violating my deal with Lewwyn.


So... any thoughts? I'm honestly stuck on which way to go here, which is slightly unusual.

[dazedroyalty]

I will only add that by the end of my chat my opinion had switched from "we should switch sides" to "we should keep an open door with both." Honestly, that's still my best advice if it is possible. I'm not sure if there is a way to do both though. I wouldn't worry too much about the anti-Scooter coalition just yet but it is a consideration.

[Bobchillingworth]

Simple- sell them each one chariot!