Turn 128, 10BC

[notyoueither]

We need to decide if we accept thos cities in advance of having a ratified treaty.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Arnelos has reported to me that it will take 24 to 48 hours for RP to ratify the Treaty.

What do we want to do?

Sigh. Can't they get their act together. We've been playing with this treaty for a couple days now, you would think they would have some idea.

Can you get some assurances from them so we can go ahead and play the turn, 24 hrs is too long to hold it now, IMHO.

This could be a trap...

[Aeson]

I'd go with the landing only if GoW has already declared war on us. Otherwise we probably want them going for RP cities... cause RP can just give those cities to us whenever GoW is in range.. and GoW becomes rather insignificant while we focus on ND.

[Aeson]

I'm ok with going ahead with plans before it's ratified. I'm sure they realize they are dead if they backstab us.

[nbarclay]

Hurricane needs to finish its harbor for when it runs out of food to keep working both mountains. With a harbor, it can cycle back and forth between a 15-shield pike production mode with positive food (yielding a tile or two to Sandstorm) and a 20-shield MedInf production mode with negative food. Without a harbor, it can't give up any tiles that generate two food even when those tiles won't help it finish its builds faster, and it's not in a good position to store food part of the time in order to run at 20 shields per turn the rest of the time.

I also want to finish Monsoon's harbor since we can probably leverage the extra food there into extra production (and with it two turns from completion, we'd waste a few shields switching to a knight anyhow). Typhoon could also take advantage of a harbor to let us plant and work an extra forest if we want to. But harbors in Tornado and Bolderberg won't make a difference in our overall production capacity any time in the near future, since they don't have access to whales. I'd wanted those harbors more so we could increase the cities' populations for increased wealth, but we have more immediate concerns now. O.G. is another place where we could get a little extra long-term production with a harbor, although that's a longer-term proposition since it would probably take at least twelve turns to finish a harbor there.

[notyoueither]

I get the sense we are being stalled. I am not certain, but maybe it would be better if we sit. This is a critical time for us, just as it was for RP.

[DeepO]

24 to 48 hours? Sigh... you'd suspect them to be faster.

I say we saddle up, and start shipping. If they outright refuse it and this turns out to have been a stall (I can't imagine, but it is RP we're dealing with after all), we invade them anyway. Just keep a MI or 3 close to Inchon, so that we can take those 2 horsies down if we need to, and we should have our bases covered.

The warriors plan won't be so easy to perform: we need to break a lot of roads to have a decent amount of warrior cities, and pillage the harbor in Wittlch city. But there is always the other option: start building knights in high production cities, and pillage all of our iron resources. This could make all our cities into horse/warrior cities for 5-10 turns, while not totally abandoning knight builds.

DeepO

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I get the sense we are being stalled. I am not certain, but maybe it would be better if we sit. This is a critical time for us, just as it was for RP.

They are notorious for stalling tactics. Perhaps they have recieved a better offer. Perhaps GoW backed off from toledo because they are moving back against ND.

A lot of comments in the main forum have discussed "true friends" I wonder if that means something...

[nbarclay]

Regarding what units to send, I'm inclined toward pure slow-movers in the first wave and almost all fast-movers in the second. That way the fast-movers can catch up with the slow-movers and we can consolidate the two waves into the largest stack in the world to throw at whichever rival we need to target. Unfortunately, it's going to be difficult to include much in the way of pikes. The most pikes we can send without slowing down galleys (beyond what picking up a settler will slow one of them down anyhow) is five (one of them elite), and that includes the two pikes in the galley we had scouting toward RP's south.

The mix I'm thinking in terms of (counting the southern pikes already on a ship) is:

5 pikes (1 elite, 4 vet)
1 settler
6 vet MedInfs
4 cats

or we could trade MedInfs for additional cats if we want to. The second wave would include probably ten knights (eight from horsemen, including the three already upgraded, and two from WCs) and assorted slow-movers.

By the way, the settler won't unload until the third turn (counting the current turn as the first), but he'll unload directly on NM 3-3 so he'll be able to found a city at the same time he could if he'd unloaded a turn earlier in a different location. The galley picking him up had to make a slight detour.

[Theseus]

Let's f*cking tell them then... we are executing on the plan, in all good faith. If they betray us, they die.

And yes, I say let's go for it. I haven't seen the save yet (can it be sent please?), but it seems to me that worst case, we lose the Cats and our first wave... we will have the opportunity to re-direct subsequent troops as need be.

Nathan, as far as I am concerned, use your discretion on the harbors and other economics.

[asleepathewheel]

Do we have any ideas for a PR campaign once the turn ships out?

It would probably be better to be on the offensive pr wise, than on the defensive this time. Better to start threads than just respond to the GoW and ND ones.

To that end, what is our message?

a few ideas
-we are peacekeepers installed in RP border cities
-we, as victims of a similar backstab feel sympathy
-Stormian Catholics are a powerful minority in our senate
-Protectors of the Church, have to go through us

(ooh, what about making this a crusade to drive the moors out of spain?)

Who is going to make the posts, the first round should be limited I think, to a few people, Frater Ralphus included.

Thoughts, suggestions?

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Theseus
Let's f*cking tell them then... we are executing on the plan, in all good faith. If they betray us, they die.

And yes, I say let's go for it. I haven't seen the save yet (can it be sent please?), but it seems to me that worst case, we lose the Cats and our first wave... we will have the opportunity to re-direct subsequent troops as need be.

If they screw us, then we can abandon santiago and bilba, assuming they aren't captured. We can take out Inchon's two horses relatively easily, I would say. What would be a ***** is if they disbanded the cats right then. No, I don't trust them, maybe this is a set up to get a three way gangbang on us going, but I hope they would have a little more characterthan that.

Originally posted by Theseus

Nathan, as far as I am concerned, use your discretion on the harbors and other economics.

[DeepO]

don't agree on not sending knights this turn, Nathan. But I'm no general... it's just that we probably can use them to pick off troops and return to safety before the second wave arrives to the front.

Further, do we need cats in the first wave? I would use them to supplement if there are still spots open, otherwise concentrate on killers (instead of damagers).

As to the harbors and things: I fully trust Nathan to make the right decision, however some plans would be nice to discuss in front. No matter how good you are, you can always use more opinions / ideas.

Oh, and what about pillaging all our iron in let's say 3 turns? Is that feasable (having enough workers nearby to rebuild mines)? Is it worth it? Building prebuilds should mean we don't lose knight capability if we keep it unconnected for e.g. 5 turns if timed right..

DeepO

[Theseus]

Coupla things:

I'm not a huge fan of pillaging resources, although obviously MP includes many many tactics that are not applicable in SP.

I find it hard to believe that the roleplaying faction of RP would go so far as the latest PM to Sir Ralph... yeah, I'm paranoid about a gangbanging on us too, but...

I shot a PM to Vel... I think he'd like all this, even if only to what / understand the dynamics.

I think General Theseus is about to convert to Catholicism (even though I am Scottish (er, Jewish) myself ).

I think General Theseus is, for

[DeepO]

One more thing we can ask for in the future is that RP sends us their WM every turn, so that we at least can see the state of their improvements. I'm not sure if it was fixed already that getting their WM also updates new improvements of any land we have previously seen, but it might help.

As to pillaging resources in MP: in SP it is kind of an exploit, but here? Nah... Vox already did it, in a smart way.

DeepO