Lizzy's rise to greatness

[mzprox]

This time i was in amore aggressive mood while i was writng an answer to them:

Dear Mayans:

1, the fact that we have more developed and more overlapping cities doesn't give you the right to steal all the land and get all the future benefit from it.

2, it is still a fact that our land is smaller than yours and i can assure you ours is also full of deserts an lacking in rivers. (we have a good look at your land now thanks to the Aztec's map. They are not happy with your landtaking without negotiations either btw)

3, this is the most important:
What exactly your proposed border? where do you want to settle? I can not believe you want the "Atlas mountain" as border. it is extremely close to our core land while about 18 steps away from you capital. how would you expect peacefull coexistence if you don't want a fair split of the land?
The most fair would be if the border was in equal distance from our capitals, but we've already agreed to let you come closer.
The land in question is not particulary good. Not much food, no stratetgic resource. That's why we haven't settled it yet. but it has a strategic importance for us. We can't allow you to cut so deep into our empire. we also can not allow you to choke Izmir ( a city which is also closer to our core than it is to yours). And i mean we can't allow to choke it further as you are already doing it with your newest city..
So again our proposition is this:

We give up our claim to have the N/S border on the level of Izmir, but the west side of the river east of Izmir should belong to us. see our previously sent screenshot.

we really don't see why you cant accept a fair split of the land below 'Atlas' where the land next to Izmir belongs to us and the landmore close to the coast belongs to you.

We would really wish to hear very soon what is your final decision in this matter and where do you want to settle your city.
unless we had misunderstood something we have to interpret your answer that you refused our proposal and you still want to take all the land below Atlas and that as we had expressed already is unacceptable. We know if we let you build a city there now then that land is lost to us and weakend our positions greatly. we will do anything necessary to avoid that.


MZ.


----

About the possiblities of his war: right now we have more soldiers in the area. Our goal is to destroy ther settlers and the escort and try to defend with whatever we got.
yes we could lose izmir.. very likely outcome, but hopefully we will be able to fortify it.

i really want to avoid this war.. from the maya we receive a luxury for almost free, we get extra trade income from their big cities. also we would need to allocate resources to slaving, different research project it's bad... But shall we left their stubborn greediness go unpunished? really?

[Dinner]

Some observations:

-Hunter has a warrior in position to take Konya in 2 turns and the city is completely undefended without even the possibility of moving a unit to cover it. Maybe we could slave a unit in time or then again maybe we couldn't but that situation makes me uncomfortable especially if he decides to help out the Maya by razing one of our cities.

-Right now every city but one is building something else besides military units. This is unacceptable and stupid. BUILD SOME GOD DAMNED MILITARY UNITS! Do it BEFORE you go picking a fight. I've said this is multiple posts over several days and like everything else you're ignoring me and everyone else and I'm getting pissed off by it. I know you're a good player but this isn't your personal game, it is a democracy game, so when every other active member tells you they want more military units and a few military techs you don't have the right to just ignore us. You're coming across as really arrogant to me right now, I know you're trying to help and you're doing what you think is best, but this isn't a dictatorship and you actually have to take what the rest of us want into account as well.

Build some damn military units will you? Stop giving excuses and just do it already. We've heard your objections and we've decided we want them built any way. Do you understand that? So far we have three active players with two of them saying they want more military units, you've lost the vote, so just do it.

[mzprox]

I think you should find your manners or I will start answering you in he same kind...

If you think about a bit you would see Konya is not in danger.

There will be 4 new military unirts near the front builded in 3 turns. We finished one last turn. Archery is already being researched as you wanted.

And I'm sorry but you guys gave me an impression that you sometimes miss even some basic civ4 game mechanics and still you are the one calling me 'stupid, moron, and retarded' So our civ either tries to be competitve even by taking a considerable risk or I leave it to you and you can mess with it as much you want.

[Dinner]

No, I did not call you any of those names. What I did say is starting a war without bothering to build an army is stupid, moronic, and retarded. It's the action I'm calling stupid not a person. English is fundamental.

BTW you are welcome to stay or not stay, as you please. What you are not welcome to continue to do is ignore everyone else and just do what ever you please. This is a democracy game and it is run democratically even if the vote goes against what you wish.

[mzprox]

Yes, but consciously doing stupid things would make someone stupid, wouldn't it?

anyway: during these time please always consult with civstats when you log in. If war starts then we must watch turn order. in this case we want maya to be the second in turn, so we should not log in after they had finished or else we can't start the next tun with war.

bacl to the situation at hand:
As i have said I'm still unsure what is the best to do, but basically there are two paths.
We either let them build a city there nad try to strengthen our friendship despite they ignored us or we take out that city. I believe that taking the city would be much cheaper now than it would be later,
Still I1m hopng to have a peacefull solution, by now they know we are serious about our threats.

[Dinner]

You need to remember your Sun Tzu: Successful generals win first and then go to war while unsuccessful generals go to war first and then seek to win. We don't have an army worth the name so certainly haven't won first. Sure, we have a reasonable chance of destroying one settler but we'll likely lose 1-2 cities in short order. That is not what I'd call a successful strategy.

[Dinner]

I honestly don't even know what it is I am supposed to check on civstats.

[mzprox]

Ok, but what do you guys want in the current situation?
I still haven1t heard your thoughts except that we need more soldiers-which is a valid point, we are building more soldiers, but right now I don't sacrifice too much economic power to it.

So what should we do and why?

1-Let them settle+friendship, love

2-let the settle, lie about friendship and attack later (I believe they will fortify their city a big time)

3-Threaten with war as much as possible to make them rethink, but not going into war (similar in result than 1, but with much less love)

4-attack them now if they won1t accept our proposal

5-other.

note that in case of war (either 2 or 4) I don1t mean a full scale war but to get that region and defend from that point. There are optios for full scale war, but I don't think we should try it... right now they are much bigger and stronger than us.

[mzprox]

I honestly don't even know what it is I am supposed to check on civstats.

You can see there who is played, have they finished their turn, how much time left on the timers and there are some other subtle info as well. it's important to check before logging in especially during times of war or possible war.

[Hercules]

Can our allies bring any influence to bear on the Mayans?

What can we offer?

[Ben Kenobi]

No one wants war while one of the civs is running away. The cheap universities thanks to our philosophy trait and then building the Oxford early will give us an edge. Those techs you are mentioning would just hold us back.

Which is why we need to figure out what we are doing before we go to war. Are we going to continue pursuing the path all the way to Janisseries and skip the older techs? Then we focus on that and ignore the Maya for now.

This half-assed maybe go into war, maybe not go into war isn't going to accomplish anything. If we're going to consciously gun for the techs and ignore war for now - then we need to stick with that.

Also we will see if we still have a shot on liberalism, it would be nice to take it from RB.

We don't have the game in front of us. Do we still have a shot at liberalism?

And about military techs: if we were in danger at the moment we could get the techs for maceme in 2-3 turns. we are closest to the required technology among all the civs. And after we have Education: it opens up gunpowder with that we get the strongest unit if the era, our unique unit, the janissaries.

but it is also the most usefull technology for us in the moment.

So then we need to do what we can to pacify the Maya and forgo expansion for the moment.

[Ben Kenobi]

right now they are much bigger and stronger than us.

What is your plan for rectifying this?

[Dinner]

Can our allies bring any influence to bear on the Mayans?

What can we offer?

A good question. Maybe one of their neighbors (the Aztecs or something) can tell them how they support us and want the two of us to solve our problems peacefully so we can jointly deal with RB.

[mzprox]

I answer here to both thread:

1, I think it was months ago when i posted that i'm getting fed up with you guys and anyone who is a little bit expert in civ could take over.. no one answered there. I'm even more fed now than then.

2, What type of help I get from my team? I've asked to do the diplomacy, to make screenshots, to make analysis of our rivals.. did you do anything? NO. From Ben I usually get a one liner and from Dinner an insult. Despite I'm not getting any help I still spend hours a day doing everything including reports.

3, I'm getting tired that I tell you about the plans and situations but apparently you don't follow it. You kept asking about what technologies we have, what resources we have, are we in a certain civics.. etc.. but if you had followed the thread all those questions could had been answered. I've told you why education was good for us. I told about what I think about wars and military. Don't confuse a full scale war with a border rivalization. The defender has a big advantage and none of the civilizations is really ready to take on an other.. it's so easy to slave a cheap archer army.

Now to answer some questions:

The Maya is bigger and stronger because they don't unilize slaving as much as we do and have the creative trait. They need most of their soldiers as police units. Our cities are smaller but much more developed: we have courthouses, forges, religious buildings, hammams (aqueducts) the Maya has zero of those things

I have talked both with india and the Aztec about the situation.
Aztec has no army whatsoever and their main rival is RB. They are abit angry with the mayans as they have taken land from them too.
India said they would help, but not now. they are occupied with the zulu war.

Both suggest that we shouldn't start a war right now as it would strengthen Rb's position.

I told this many time: I will only swith technology path, city production etc if I get a thoughtfull analysis why is that path is better than the current one. Our main diplomacy is however up to voting. I offered some options, none of you has voted yet. So I make a simplier now there is about 8-10 hours to vote:


A-We go to war now

B. We don't go to war now

This is assuming we don't get an acceptable answer from the Maya

I vote 'A'.

My reasoning: I found the maya from their letters and action to be untrustworthy, sneaky and most of all greedy. They want everything and don't want to negotiate about it. They used the time to stall the decision while they have brought more troops.
The realities of the war: if we strike first we have a good chance killing 3 of their units without losses (axemen, spearman, settler)
then we can fortify Izmir with archers, axemen etc. it's a city on hill we could hold it while we are trying to find a way out of the war. We don't want to defeat the MAya, we can't do that as defenders have the advantage, and we want to be the defenders after our inital attack.

This war would cost us losing the sugar we get from them, and the trade income from their big cities. We would need to slave soldiers, so we would lose population.
What we gain: we punish the Maya for the arrogance, we weaken them. We protect Izmir from being choked. and build a much better shaped border towrds the Maya.

If we don't go war then we will have a neighbour with more land and more power. choked cites from their creative cities close to our core land.

[Hercules]

Ok I vote A.

You make a good case for a limited war now.

Try to avoid slaving if you can, so as to maintain our momentum to macemen.