SPOILERS-Tatan's PBEM10 Thread

[Tatan]

So, as is common knowledge via the tech-thread, Cyneheard AP-forced peace with Mackoti. Funnily enough, I have literally no memory of voting on the resolution. Maybe the PBEM mechanics skipped me? Or do I just have a horrible memory? Either way, my vote was pointless, though.


Gunpowder was discovered this turn! But meanwhile, in the real world:



Waaaaat. Wow, Mackoti managed to get through Steel AND Steam Power when I wasn't looking; I suspect a recent Great Scientist might have helped in that regard. This is an extremely dangerous development; if Mackoti gets machine-gunners, he will be INVINCIBLE.


However, I did manage to finally accomplish something impressive:



Roaded every tile, baby! Hot damn!

[Mr. Yellow]

You're missing a spot 2S from Stratego.

[Hesmyrr]

You can't even see things right
Overall thought your thread was amazing introduction to PBEM10, really appreciate how you kept constant updates throughout the game.

[Tatan]

You're missing a spot 2S from Stratego.

Nooo!



There, that's better. Now my workers get to sit around until I get dissatisfied with an improvement or Replaceable Parts gets researched. Yaaay.

You can't even see things right

I'm just going to subtly ignore this comment. Seriously, though, I suspect sneaky barbarian bandits pillaged the road. Only logical explanation.

Overall thought your thread was amazing introduction to PBEM10, really appreciate how you kept constant updates throughout the game.

Thanks! Looking back, I do wish I had posted more during the war with Cyneheard, but other than that my thread has [if I say so myself] been relatively consistent.


I wish I could post more now, but I'm really not doing much in-game. For the past ten or so turns it has quite literally been nothing but infrastructure; the only units built were Buddhist missionaries. And it has helped my economy tremendously; last turn I actually pretty much tied Cyneheard in GNP [he mentioned he was at 100%, too]. Problem is, my economy is still a dwarf in comparison everyone else, and that's not even taking into account my miserable production and population. Still, enough consolidation and hopefully I won't be as much of a push-over as TT turned out to be. Of course, the problem is that I need to actually start a military sometime in the future.

Anyway, that was a long-winded way of saying that I'll be buffing my military... right after I build enough universities for Oxford.

[Tatan]

And Mackoti got Railroads. And can research Combustion in like, what, 2-4 turns if previous research times are any indication. Only Serdoa is even CLOSE to Mackoti in GNP, and Serdoa has apparently been forced to run mass amounts of specialists to do it [his production and food both just took a nose-dive]. Damn. I hate to say this, but Mackoti's pretty much won. At least it was in a game I personally had already lost.

[Tatan]

My mind is dazed from having just finished Dust of Dreams, but I'll try to cobble something together.

Nationalism discovered, but I held off revolting for now; I figured that I may as well milk the economic bonus from Bureaucracy for as long as possible. Rifling and various associated techs will be discovered in ~12 turns.


Meanwhile, some good ol' fashioned schemin' has been taking place.

Hi Cyneheard, Ad Hoc, Tatan

I have discovered Physics as you probably all know anyway. There is ONE source of Uranium and that is in the middle of the island in the middle. I don't want nukes flying around - especially if mackoti is probably the one sending them (TT is a non-issue at this point and the only other one with cities there is mackoti if I am right).

I can't do much because I not only have a NAP but I need the Iron from him. Come T150 my NAP will have run out, he will probably cancel Iron and then I will simply be overrun.

Not sure what to do but I am frustrated by that Uranium and thought I let you all know. If someone has an idea what to do, let me know.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

TT's cities there are gone; he's just a backwater on his triangle.

I have one non-negotiable condition on supporting joint action:
Whoever ends up with the uranium refuses to build nukes or trade the uranium.

Other details, of course, depend on what we decide to do.

Talk to ad hoc about iron; he has two sources, and TT doesn't need the spare.

Cyneheard,

I am fully ok not to build nukes. Heck, I am even ok if we agree to divide the I think 2 sources of Silver and 2 sources of Gold between the 4 of us. I just don't want nukes flying around because I don't feel that it is fun to get the civ you have built up nuked back into the stone age without much if anything to do against. From my point of view we can even agree not to war with each other for the remaining game. I had fun with this game already, it is a interesting map (with some shortcomings unfortunately) and I can live with not winning. I just want everyone to accept that all my wonder-whoring was not as bad as some made it out to be :P

Kind regards,
Serdoa

Hehe on the wonder spamming. Yeah, granted there: it has worked. It was risky (if Meatbalz hadn't been so anti-Twinkletoes, you'd have been a dead man, and the first round of you vs. Tatan was expensive for you).

I don't have a problem with sharing the golds and silvers among the four of us if we do secure that island, regardless of who does what when.

Except for the strategic resource placement, this has been an interesting map.

i agree that nukes are not in anyone's interest, depending on what we do we could either share the golds/silvers or just leave the central isle unsettled.

Serdoa, if you're worried about Mackoti cutting you off from iron i'll arrange to get my spare resource to you.

i've enjoyed the map as well although it has made the GLighthouse super powerful

ad hoc

I'm willing to agree to both a no-nukes agreement and a joint-operations attack on Mackoti. However, to be Devil's Advocate, any realistic attack on Mackoti has to occur very soon, he's only going to get more machine gunners and other advanced units. So will this even be possible? Keep in mind that while I'm fully committed to this if everyone else is, my military is both obsolete and tiny right now, and I'm still a ways away from Industrial Era units, so I'd probably only be contributing East Indiamen.

Also, being tied up by NAPs shouldn't be an issue right now. At the very least, we could use me as a proxy, seeing as my own NAP just expired with Mackoti [I forgot to renew it, and hopefully Mackoti forgot about it as well].

Finally, while I fully appreciate the irony of this, an embargo should probably be put in place very soon as well.

Feel free to ignore anything I say, though, considering that I'm almost as irrelevant as TT at this point.

-Tatan

And this time, I don't plan on whispering in Mackoti's ear.

NINJA-EDIT: Oh, and for the record, I'm pretty sure this whole thing is doomed to failure. Just going ahead and calling it.

[Tatan]

Hey more email dump:

1) My NAP, as well as Ad Hoc's, expire on T140. I won't be able to do anything serious on T140, but NAPs won't be an issue on our ends.
Pitboss 4 Spoiler:

2) Mackoti is not trustworthy. He's openly breaking a NAP there.

3) I will be cutting OBs with him as soon as the NAP expires, and will request OBs with Serdoa.
4) Can we all agree on at least a T200 NAP? I'm reticent to sign game-long deals.
5) Naval superiority is going to be an issue; Mackoti has Combustion, and with it Destroyers if he's got oil connected. Heck, his transports will need to be 2v1 or 3v1d, and are faster than anything we've got.
6) Given that, I'd rather have East Indias than any other unit right now; all of our fleets are obsolete against Str-30 8-movers. Tactically, my ships are going to be spending essentially all their time inside ports, and never spend any time out to sea while loaded; it worked well enough on defense, but could be harder on offense.

Does anyone of you have sight on his island cities and know which and how many troops he has there? The cities next to me are defended mostly by warriors and archers, so I am inclined to gift my troops to Tatan (I cannot attack on my own till T150 due to a NAP with him) and have him raze them and let you take care of the island. Losing the island + 3-4 cities next to me should hurt.

1) naval superiority: Let me get the game back and I let you all know how long I need to get to Destroyers on my own.
2) NAP till T200: Agreed.
3) OBs are agreed as well Cyneheard. I cannot cut mine with him without giving away my intentions and I would like to keep them hidden till Tatan can be in position.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

No worries on when you cut your borders; surprise is key. I'll see what I can do for scouting his northern island cities this turn.

Agreed on four-way NAP until Turn 200. On naval superiority, fast will be most important obviously. Most of my existing navy of EIs is only four or five movement, but if I revolt to Vassalage one of my cities can train EIs with 8xp [=6 movement] out of the gate. As I said previously, my actual army sucks, so I can loan out my EIs as transports.

-Tatan

Bonus largely redundant conversation with Serdoa:

Also, sorry to spam you, but I don't suppose you're going for Sid's Sushi? You're pretty much the only one who has any chance of grabbing it at this point before Mackoti, and it would be quite a nice boon to whoever gets it.

Anyway, just curious. As for myself, well, I just discovered Nationalism.

-Tatan

I lack experience with the corporations. I never used them till now. I had always put them away as don't help on a big map if you do not have enough of their resources. Not true?

Bonus from resources don't scale with map size, AFAIK. I count about 17 Sid's Sushi resources [fish, crab, clam, and rice] between the two of us, so that would be 8 food for each of your cities with Sid's--enough to run four more citizens for very little cost to yourself, provided you put the headquarters in a city with a bank and build a few courthouses elsewhere. And you might even be able to get a few resources out of Cyneheard and co. So corps wouldn't save you from being squashed by Mackoti, but they would still be enormously helpful if you can safely pick them up. Anyway, just a thought, military's probably more important right now anyway.

-Tatan

Thanks Tatan, Corps are really not my thing till now, so I am grateful for any information I get on them. I consider it, though I do have a GS and a GE saved, but no GM (which I think is needed for Sids). I'll probably try to generate one though, just to see if we can get it.

As for the war-stuff: My target is to get Ad Hoc and Cyneheard into this war and have them raze the island-cities. I myself will move several of my troops to you to gift them. I think about having you moving them back, and attacking his cities next to mine. I have looked at it and I think we could possibly get 4 of his cities in the first turn of the war, if he keeps defending them with warriors. And I assume he will till T150. Have to see when the game comes back to me sometimes.

Okay. Should I start moving East Indiamen down towards Mackoti next turn?

Also, I know I'm stating the obvious, but make sure Mackoti doesn't have work boats or anything wandering around in your territory.

-Tatan

[Kyan]

I crave updates

Your thread is too brilliant to go dormant.

[Tatan]

I crave updates

Your thread is too brilliant to go dormant.

Flattery will get you nowhere!



...okay, yes it will.


So it's currently Turn 141, a number of turns since last update, so let me fill in what happened in the mean-time.

Diplomaticly, a surpising lack of things have happened. Discussion on the conspiracy petered out [or they just decided to exclude me], so I actually have no idea who's attacking who when if at all.

Mackoti, however, was more talkative:

Hi,
Long time no chat.
Turn 140 is comming and the troble will beggin for me, so i am coming at you like friend and ask if you can give some intel about Cyneherd moves?
I already wrote yesterday to Serdoa, or 2 days ago dont remember exactly,and proposed to him a NAP until 170.I came to you with same offer.I know this will not a problem.
regards,
Mackoti

Crap. I had no idea how to respond to this; so I didn't. Soon enough...

So no answer?? ok then...If i see any of your ships i will declare and sunk anything so beter keep evithing away.Sorry about my paranoia but people are closing borders scounting my island and you dont answer nothing...
Regards,
Mackoti

Gah, diplomacy can be so frustrating sometimes. I've actually got on pretty well with Mackoti so far, and if the game were different we could get along great. But he is simply running away with the game, and I can't just sell out everyone else. I suppose I could have fed him false information or something, but that would have left too bad a taste in my mouth. Eventually I just sent this:

Err, well...

I really can't tell you anything, due to diplomatic commitments which I'm sure you can guess at. But I also don't want to just lie straight to your face, not only because that would leave a bad taste in my mouth but also because we have had a pretty good relationship until now. So my only real option left is to stay quiet and vague.

Diplomatic cables are still open, but don't expect anything useful out of me for a while. Sorry.

-Tatan

Mackoti, if/when you read this post-game, know that I was actually being pretty much entirely honest here.


Anyway. in terms of actual gameplay... pretty much nothing has happened. Cyneheard was going to DOW on T140, but for some reason [don't remember off the top of my head] decided to hold off. I might be supposed to be doing something, but I have no idea what that is.

And build-wise, I have continued my parade of infrastructure. War? What's war? I have no idea how to wage wars, or how else could have I lost so many of them?

Anyway, more interesting has been my teching, which has actually managed to pick up due to all those multiplier buildings. Specifically, this turn:



Yeah, woo-hoo, that's at least... 10 or so commerce, alright!


Tech Path:


Rifling is the first priority, obviously, for drafting shenanigans. The second priority is the all-holy Steam Power. Or did I not emphasize that enough?



[SIZE="7"]STEAM[/SIZE]

[SIZE="7"]POWER[/SIZE]


I had actually completely forgotten about Dikes until a couple turns ago, because I didn't expect to get to them at all. A Moai Statue in every city? MMM YES PLEASE. Still too late to really make much of a difference, but it will at least be fun.

Speaking of which, my Moai replacement has been doing quite well:



Actually, at this point Diplo is probably one of my best cities; if I can manage to get a Dike in all my cities before the game ends, I will end up happy. Okay, that's a lie, but it would still be really cool.


Meanwhile, other players continue teching upwards and outwards:



Well, at least I'm slightly beating TT! At first glance I appear to be beating Cyneheard as well, but I'm pretty sure he has both Chem and MilSci, and maybe even Steel.


And in the realm of current events, Cyneheard proposed an AP resolution to return a city from Mackoti to TT, primarily to irritate the former.



An unsurprising result, considering how few Hindu cities Mackoti has [although he did pick up the holy city].


Apparently, there is one Great Mother out there somewhere, because there have been a ton of Great People born lately.




Speaking of which:



Hopefully a GS for an Academy. A GM would be good as well, if not quite as much, but I could at least use him for a trade mission that could go towards upgrading and further teching. A GE, on the other hand, would be really irritating, especially since those points are only there because I accidentally ran an engineer for one turn a while back.

Now I guess is a good time to bring up the subject of my more major mistakes in this game. Here's one: this is my SECOND great person. Specialists and GP are a weakness in my microing anyway, and between the wars and the desperate teching I completely forgot about them this game. Alas, may as well make the best of it now.


Builds:


Yes, I'm still trying to get Oxford. A&A, Canasta, and Monopoly all literally have no production improvements outside a single gems mine between the three of them, so I'm going to have to figure out some whipping-overflow schemes or something. Wealth build in Darujhistan is probably pushing it, but, uh, I like pushing things?


And finally, a small collection I have entitled "I'm Envious Of Green." [Get it? It's like Green With- okay, yeah, doesn't really work, does it? Anyway.]

To quote Santa Claus, my predicament lacks its usual cheer. :\



|---------------------|
| BREAKING NEWS |
|---------------------|

An email dramatically titled "It Begins" made the rounds to all non-Arabian players.

I invaded Mackoti this turn, and burnt one of his three Treasure Isle cities. Another one of those cities has a good chance of falling next turn, with the other one dying as soon as I can get my troops over there. I killed 6 units, deleted 3 workers, and only lost 4 of my own. Not bad for off-the-boat attacks with inferior tech.

His naval superiority is a problem, but one that lots of Navigation promotions and willingness to sacrifice Frigates/SotL can't at least tolerate.

Tatan: Either help reinforce Treasure Isle, or find a target that you can hit on Mackoti's green island.
Serdoa: NAP'ped until T150. Your troops are very helpful, and will see some action soon.
Ad Hoc: Not sure what your plans are. Could you let me/us know?
Twinkletoes: If I were you, I'd only declare if I saw an opportunity. But not my call. However, please inform us all if you do something.

Mackoti's got Rifling, Railroad, and Combustion, all he needs is Corp and Assembly Line for Infantry (shudder), or Mil Trad for Cav.

Can Cyneheard master
one whose ships are faster?
All seems very well,
but only time will tell
who comes out the last. ...-er.

[novice]

Can Cyneheard master
one whose ships are faster?
All seems very well,
but only time will tell
who comes out the last. ...-er.

A Carthaginian leader from Persia
Went after the game's top researcher
As history shows
He will bloody his nose
It's the lack of destroyers that hurts ya