SPOILER - PBEM10 Serdoas Thread

[Serdoa]

Well, I am talking with Cyneheard:

How bad is it?

Well, you have lost most of your stack next to A&A. I guess Tatan hasn't played till now so not sure what he did on top of that.

I doubt he can do much with what he's got: Crossbows should hold just fine against his men. But, yeah, I should be out ~12 units between the knight kills and the flanking

Yeah, pretty much.

[COLOR="Yellow"]The AP deal? Seriously? I had a Great Engineer, and had a few options:
1) Use him on the AP. Since I didn't have a religion of my own, I'd have to use someone else's. I didn't really care at the time who it was, and so offered the choice of AP hammers (and me choosing that religion) to the highest bidder. I actually thought it was a fair price, since my price didn't actually hurt the person getting the AP boost: it's only the shrine income for my cities, which would only be the case if that was my religion.
2) Save for a later wonder, but that's a LONG wait: a GE isn't worth it for MoM. Taj? Sankore? Sankore only makes sense if I've got the AP so I'm building those buildings...
3) Burn on a GA: Yuck. Not worth it for a Great Engineer.
4) Settle? Doesn't really pay for itself for a long time that way, either.

The embargo, yeah, granted. I messed up that one.

Considering that you broke a deal to declare war on Tatan, I don't think you're one to talk about that. There were no deals between me and him. While you owed Tatan gold, and by declaring war cut off a payment that should be forcing peace on you.[/COLOR]

I understand what you mean Cyneheard. And I openly agree that it was not the finest thing I did with that gold-deal. But I didn't break the deal in my opinion. We never agreed to stay at peace. And if I would have to implicitly accept that I will never declare war on Tatan because of this gold-deal then it is only a short way from capitulating. Something I would surely not have done in the situation I was in.

Well, how long did the gold deal last?

Not sure to be honest. 10 Turns maybe? I really would have to look it up though, it simply took sooo long for some turns. At least, that would be better with one less player, I am sure

[COLOR="Yellow"]Please. If you think you can eliminate me without getting at least Ad-Hoc on board (no one else has the access to be truly dangerous, although they'd make things worse, that's for sure), and I've got a NAP to cover me there for a non-zero length of time, you're crazy.

And if all you had to do was wait for 10t? That's not a "forced capitulation." That's "attacking a neighbor when it's convenient."[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Red"]Maybe we misunderstood us - the gold deal should have latest forever (to be exact, not specified how long it will last). I simply ended it earlier then that.

And who says I want to eliminate you Cyneheard? Why is everyone always thinking in terms of "total annihilation of those who oppose us!"? You could vassalize for example [/COLOR]

[Serdoa]

We have played another turn (yeah, nearly one week till it reached me again but I've sent it along already, so hopefully we will now be a little bit quicker).

What happened? Not much. Cyneheard traded 1 Trireme for 1 Caravel, 2 Galleys of mine. I knowed that that would happen but I simply didn't have other forces there and could only choose between saving the 2 galleys and the caravel or getting the 4 Knights which were loaded onto the island which we fight about. As one of those Knights was my GG-medic my choice was clear. Though I probably could have saved the Caravel - but using it made pretty sure that he would need all 4 Triremes to hit the stack.

Anyway, I now traded another Galley for 1 of his Triremes. And hopefully (if Tatan does as I asked him too) he will lose another Trireme when Tatan plays. That will leave him with one 0.5 strenght Trireme. As Tatan will attack with an East Indiamen Cyneheard can not hope to save this Trireme (nowhere to move where the EI couldn't reach him) so he will probably use it to hit my 1.6 strenght galley. I hope to win that fight - especially as it would make it so that I have traded 1 Caravel, 3 Galleys for 4 Triremes. Nearly same hammercount. Not great, but also nothing I can do about - it will be Tatans part to win on the seas.

Overview of the island where we currently fight our war:



As you can see I moved my Knight stack to the tile 1E of Covenant. I asked Tatan to move his Maces, LB and Cats there as well. This means obviously that we have to agree to peace first. I have offered it to him and I hope he accepts and does not tell me now some stuff why he doesn't and then my stack gets bombarded and annihilated. If everythings works according to plan I will have to decide if I attack next turn or if I wait for Tatan to bombard - probably will decide that after I see what Cyneheard does on his turn. But my request for Tatans troops was not only for bombarding the defenses or doing collateral but also so that they work as deterrent against Cyneheards spears.

If you wonder what my Knight stack consists of:



11 Knights with 5 more to land soon and 8 more waiting to get over there. And some more in the pipeline.

[Serdoa]

Diplo:

I don't post all the diplo-messages, most of it is not really relevant anyway. But this one I got from Tatan and I want to comment it. Backstory to it is that I asked Tatan if he had heard from mackoti because he has gone silent for me ever since I told him that I am at war with Cyneheard.

[COLOR="Orange"]Actually, Mackoti hasn't talked to me for a while; I'll try and send him a "what's going on" message and chat him up.

But who I HAVE heard from is Cyneheard; he sent me an email a couple days ago [while he was holding the save]:

"Tatan,

I want to negotiate with you, and you alone. Serdoa is a backstabber who's stabbed Twinkletoes in PBEM7, and you and me in this one. That's ridiculous, and you know he'll find some way to stab you in the back again if it suits his purposes. And he'll run away with the game if Mackoti stays too scared of him to not give him iron, and if you're bound to not go against him yourself. My primary goal in this game now is to do better than Serdoa. Everything else is secondary. Thou shalt not suffer a backstabber to live.

I'm aggressive, but also follow my treaties and promises. I thought I saw an opportunity to expand, and took it (this isn't a friendly game, but it's supposed to be an honest one, though. Big difference.). Of course, Serdoa saw an even greater opportunity for himself, so here I am.

However, before we can negotiate terms, I cannot be negotiating blindly. I will keep any information provided confidential. What I'd need before the two of us (and only the two of us) could start talking:
1) The terms of your first peace treaty between you and him. I want to see how he broke that deal with you. And I can't trust a word that comes out of his mouth.
2) The terms of your current deal: I can't talk to you if he gets either veto power or a cut of any deal signed between the two of us, or what all is off limits for negotiation. Obviously, sensitive tactical information can be removed from whatever you send me.

I'm not going to touch the turn any more until I hear a "yay" or "nay" on whether or not you want to talk.

Cyneheard"

So, uh, watch out for Cyneheard! Because apparently you're now his mortal enemy. I obviously declined to share any information.

As for the rest of the stuff, sounds good to me, not that I've seen the save yet, though.

-Tatan[/COLOR]

I was shocked how he tried to convince Tatan to work with him. From my point of view, I did not backstab Tatan in this game (no NAP ever agreed upon) and I think Tatan feels the same, at least we had some emails when I started the war with him which showed that he is not angry at me, I did not backstab Cyneheard (I stayed at war with Tatan till T111 as we agreed) and no matter that he might be right in regards to PBEM7 (imo TT betrayed me first) bringing it to the table now is in my eyes bad style. And reading his email I really feel that he tries to discredit me as person. Well, I am not good enough in English so I want discuss that with him. Just hope that he calms down sometimes...

Another thing which I noticed is that Tatan didn't write that he declined the offer but only that he "obviously declined to share any information". Not the same thing but nothing I can do about it. Though as Tatan and I have agreed to a gamelong NAP I would call that really backstabbing. Anyway, we'll see. For now I answered Tatan the following

[COLOR="Red"]Wow... he seems pissed. Not sure why he thinks I stabbed him. I told him I would stay with you at war till at least T111 - and so I did. And we two never agreed to a NAP, so I don't feel I broke an agreement. PBEM7 though... well, thats another story. I have (somehow) stabbed TT and being in the same situation I would do it again. Anyway, thank you for declining to share any information.

As for the game itself:

- I offered you peace. Please accept it on the start of your turn. I also requested your World Map but could not put mine up for trade. Request mine please after you accepted my offer (by clicking Offer Trade [guess thats obvious, but as this is really important I rather write it down]). Only affected units on my side should be 2 cats and 1 Knight. Fine by me, putting our stacks together does help more then those 3 units for sure.
- I moved my Knights next to Covenant. Please move at least your 2 Maces, 1 LB and 6 Cats on it as well. Maybe 1 of the Pikes as well. That should be enough of a deterrent that he does not attack with his 4 spears (his crossbows should move against my Knights and have bad odds, so we should all be pretty save except for if he has several catapults ready, but I do not see any)
- I have sunk 1 of Cyneheards Triremes SW of A&A. 2 more are remaining which you can reach with your EI which is east of Canasta. Please do so and kill the 1.7 Trireme. The 0.5 should then be no threat for my galleys there (thats also really important because my galleys are loaded and I would like to not lose the units).
- Look out for his Knights. I am pretty sure he will load them and try to ferry them over. We absolutely have to kill them on the Galleons, that would make our war a 100x easier.
- I've attached a screenshot. You should see most of the area with your troops anyway so I didn't put overviews of the troop composition into it. The city garrison of Covenant will be visible when you move your troops near (4 spears, some X-Bows and LBs), the troops you can see 1NW and 2N of the city are (I believe) a damaged sword and Longbows+X-Bows. Nothing spectacular to be honest and probably nothing you have to think about for this turn anyway.

I cannot think of anything else right now, though if something comes up, please ask.

Kind regards,
Serdoa[/COLOR]

[Serdoa]

More diplo:

[COLOR="Orange"]Alright, peace accepted! I also went ahead and offered you Ehrlitan, too; next turn, I can gift you my sword there as a garrison, if you want [I have no immediate use for him].

Cyneheard sent me an email offering peace once again, using the Apostolic Palace as cover so that I could deny to you that it was my decision. Since Hinduism is only present in my capital, I went ahead and defied the resolution in order to prevent any chance of getting peace. I'll email you the results [since I assume you don't have any Hindu cities?], it will be interesting to see whether TT and Ad Hoc slavishly voted alongside Cyneheard.

I moved in several maces, pikes, and a longbow in to cover your stack, along with the catapults. Do you plan to attack next turn? If not, I can bombard the defenses down to 0% [or close enough] next turn.

I killed the appropriate trireme, and will have several other units nearby if further cover will be needed next turn. You said you were tight on galleys; I have a spare galley or two I am not using at the moment [and don't have the gold to upgrade], which I can gift to you, if you like.

I now have an East Indiaman in position that can spy on Cyneheard's city every turn and then immediately retreat, so I will know when the knight stack starts moving. Right now it is still sitting there, along with ~four galleys and two galleons. One of the galleons has Navigation 1, which means Canasta can [and will] be razed at Cyneheard's whim, and I suspect he may try to upgrade the other galleys to galleons for further irritation. :\

BTW, my work boat in Ad Hoc's territory has noticed galleons, so we might have to beware a sudden attack in the side. And he also has a caravel right outside of my territory; should I threaten him in an email or something about it? A spy on my military operations around Monopoly would be most irksome.

-Tatan[/COLOR]

And my answer:

[COLOR="Red"]Hey Tatan,

interesting that Cyneheard is really trying so hard. Especially as you can now easily gift me EI, he cannot move directly in my territory and I could move my troops back in yours (which he can, without open borders and a working peace treaty, not step on). Well, anyway. As for your question: Last time I looked I didn't have any Hindu city. I got extremely lucky all game with spreads and nearly every city had latest at its 3rd turn of existence already Buddishm in it.

As for my Knight stack and your galleys: I haven't really decided what to do. When I have the turn I will take a look and think about what best to do. But gifting the galleys probably would be great.

Regarding Ad Hoc I would do the following: Tell him you are unhappy with the caravel there because of the war. Obviously you would feel differently if he would go to war with Cyneheard as well. Try to find out if we have any chances to get him to attack from the other side - it would be his best opportunity after all. And he can take TT whenever he wants, so no need to rush there.

Kind regards,
Serdoa[/COLOR]

[Serdoa]

War is going on with Cyneheard. He got his Knights into Covenant and attacked our stack. Well, he lost 4 Knights and I lost 2. He got unlucky with the attacks. And he took of course some Catapults with him.

He wrote me 5 kills + 2flanked cats for 4 deaths though. So I guess he took 3 units from Tatan as well. I really can't say it because it took so long to get the save that I can't remember what the situation looked like 1 turn ago...

Anyway, we have other news as well:

I started a GA.
I finished Angkor Wat.
I finished University of Sankore EOT.
I finished Education last turn.
I finished Lib (researched in 1 turn with some overflow) EOT.

My GNP from last turn:



I wonder if someone will go nuts over it

[Rowain]

You just have to tell everyone that that is just the culture from your wonders and has absolutly nothing to do with your research-capability

[Serdoa]

Well, interesting move. Picked off a knight, at least

Yeah. Not sure why you would take the risk of losing a highly promoted Knight in an unnecessary 67% battle though... won't say more on that topic.

[Serdoa]

Another turn played.

As for the war:



2 Catapults, 2 Knights, 1 X-Bow = 226 hammer for
5 Knights, 2 Pike, 4 LB, 1 X-Bow, 1 Spear = 575 hammer



Tatan will hopefully be able to take the GG-LB out (it should be the top defender with around 6.5 whereas Tatans Mace will have 8.8 str). Obviously my forces are damaged as well, but it showed 3 turns to heal them completely and some were down to 1.x. And 4 are still at 10 str. And several promotions are incoming as well. So I think we are in good shape here now (something I doubted only one turn ago).

I received a mail from Tatan

[COLOR="Orange"]Yeah, I don't think Cyneheard is planning on rolling over to play dead, and as you said the turn order kind of screws us over. We might consider having one of us gift their units over temporarily to the other for a turn if an opportunity for counter-attack ever arises [not that it probably will soon].

I landed a stack on Cyneheard's iron mine this turn, and can pillage it next turn. It probably won't have much of an effect beyond being obnoxious, though, because afterwords I realized that Ad Hoc has two irons and can give one to Cyneheard anyway. :\

Actually, do you think we should try and get peace? Headway in the war might be possible with East Indiamen, but not much, and Cyneheard's galleons are a constant risk to my core; and it seems best to try for peace before Cyneheard does something to get an advantage. I'm not actually sure if stopping the war is a good idea; just putting it out there.

-Tatan[/COLOR]

I had not thought he would roll over - guess Tatan feels I should not have built two wonders when we are at war... Anyway, I answered him

[COLOR="Red"]Uh, Tatan, I had thought about begging for peace as well, but you know what, I had two catapults next to his city this turn so I used them and attacked then. I think you will see that several of his troops disappeared all of a sudden... He has left there an archer, 2 damaged LBs (3.6, 2.5), 1 damaged Pike (1.9), 1 Catapult and 4 damaged Spears (3.5). I would ask you to see how the odds for attack with your 2 Maces and LB are. Dont throw them away, but maybe you can kill his GG-LB? It should have 6.5 Str with all its promotions and therefore be the top defender against your 8.8 Mace.

As he cannot attack A&A in one move (no Knights left) I would request that you move your 4 Macemen and maybe also your 2 Chariots at our stack. The catapults as well I guess. We may have a chance to take this city next turn.

Regarding his Galleons: I have started to upgrade my galleys to Galleons as well - not as highly promoted but the best I can do as of now. How many EI have you left? I guess (by the naming of his troops) that Cyneheard won several fights he was supposed to lose?

And one last, but important, thing: He had several more troops in the area last turn. He might still have them in the other city on this island - I have no visibility on it and I guess it is the same for you - but I somehow don't believe that. If he would have them here still it would have been smarter to get them into Covenant. And he is smart. So he maybe has pulled them onto his Galleons and ferried them over to Cornwall. That means he could at the start of next turn bring them into his Iron city, unload them there and attack your troops. I think you have mostly Pikes there yes? He had mostly X-Bows which are missing now, so... ouch. :/ Try to save whatever you can and try to bring some X-Bows and LBs in your iron city (if you haven't already).

Btw: Look at the graphs - GNP and MfG

Kind regards,
Serdoa[/COLOR]

I think the really interesting part is: Where are those X-Bows I have seen last turn and which got me to retreat my Knights? Thinking about it, there are several possibilities:

- still in the city on the island: If so, he will probably move them into Covenant

- on Galleons which are waiting in Cornwall: If so, he has two options:

1) Move them into his Iron city and attack Tatans troops which are on the iron tile 1SE of the city. As I have no clue what Tatan does have there, I don't know if it is feasible for Cyneheard to do that. Tatan said he would move his Pikes and pillage the iron tile, so it might very well be a smart move to try to kill them with X-Bows. Or it was. Because now if he does that, he might lose Covenant. That leads to option

2) Move them back into the city on the NW end of the island and from there into Covenant. They would arrive next turn (so before I have to move again) and would save the city for now.

I am really not sure which option is the better - I don't know enough about the troop compositions elsewhere. So, lets wait and see.

Btw: I showed it only two posts ago, but that spike in my GNP is just to much fun

and because of that, I did it with MfG as well

Thats in a GA though. And a GA means I also have to focus on GP - so I will generate one end of next turn. I still have a Great Artist available as well and researched Theology this turn. I probably will use him to part-bulb Divine Right next turn and build the Spiral Minaret then - and try to get all those religious buildings build everywhere. Or at least Monasteries... yes, I know that I am in a war with one of the top dogs of this game.

Btw: I can get Engineering, Gunpowder and Chemistry in a total of 4 turns if I really want too. That would up my production even more and would make Frigates available. And it is on the way to Biology.

[Rowain]

Btw: I can get Engineering, Gunpowder and Chemistry in a total of 4 turns if I really want too. That would up my production even more and would make Frigates available. And it is on the way to Biology.

Nice

[Serdoa]

I have to say, I have never realized how strong Rep+Farms/Workshops is. You can switch so easily from full research to powerhouse production by simply taking science specs away and put them on workshops. If I would play with more then ... 8 or so workers, I could even switch tiles around easily. One has to think more about his cities as with cottages I feel, but at least on this map (no that many rivers) I think it is worth it.