Office of the Foreign Affair Consul

[Robi D]

At the moment the main topic is the war with TNT, so i'll kick off my term on this subject. We will need everyones ideas and input to win this war which will be difficult but it is possible. Firstly I'll start with my long term vision.

1. We will need two spearmen per city for defence.

2. We will need at least one group of 6-8 defenders consisting of archers and swordsman that will float around, to be dispatched to whichever city comes under attack.

3.We will need a number of warriors to act as an advance warning system of incoming attacks.

4. We will need 4 groups of around 5 mounted warriors. These will act as both defence and attack.

This way, the warriors will give us an idea where the attacks coming from, so our group of archers/swords can go to the city under attack. The Mounted warriors using their speed can harrass and damage incoming attacks without sustaining any losses. If at this point the attacking formation makes it to the city then the archer provide a free shot in defence and the swords boost the defences and provide the counter attack against any surviving units along with the MW.

When on the offensive we can coordinate the groups of MW's to conduct quick in and out raids on TNT territory, hitting different point at the same time. In these raids we will destory improvement and stop workers from doing their jobs and if the oppertunity presents itself take a city from TNT. If we do take a city we will not try to hold it, it should be razed immediatly. As you can see the strategy i am proposing centres around taking minimum casulties while doing constant damange to TNT. Everyone is welcome to have their say on this.

Now short term we are very limited, so for the time being we should continue to produce warriors to send north and to keep our cites safe, they can always be upgraded to swords when the time comes. Also we need to start getting spearmen into the production cycle asap and also we need to keep growing and founding new cities. As our trade is taking longer than expected with MIA i propose we change the research to wheel at max now.

 

[Nobody]

i agree your strategy seems sound. Is there anyhope of negoating with TNT. we should just send out peacefellers even if we have no intention of make peace, just to see if they want to contintue and if they are sincerer. (they said we could make peace) If they dont have a source of iron they might be willing to negoiate. so i say we try and make a embassy there or ask MIA to make a embassy. (if they know them) i dont think this is breaking the rules, if we both know them surely we Exchange intellegency as real nations do. Also we need the tech for horsemen right away. So i say we make contact and ask what we can trade for this.

 

[Robi D]

i agree your strategy seems sound. Is there anyhope of negoating with TNT. we should just send out peacefellers even if we have no intention of make peace, just to see if they want to contintue and if they are sincerer. (they said we could make peace) If they dont have a source of iron they might be willing to negoiate. so i say we try and make a embassy there or ask MIA to make a embassy. (if they know them) i dont think this is breaking the rules, if we both know them surely we Exchange intellegency as real nations do. Also we need the tech for horsemen right away. So i say we make contact and ask what we can trade for this.

Well when i sent the query about the peace offer whivh was an f4 bug, they were quite blunt that they wanted sometihng for peace. Now if people agree i can send out a letter asking what they want, but my problem is even if we give it to them whats stopping them continuing on the current course, and just breaking the treaty we they get another oppertunity, thats my problem with it.

 

[zyxy]

Good to get this started .

It seems your plan will take about 25 turns to realize (4 techs to research, some upgrades, etc). We may or may not have enough time, so it might be good to divide it in stages.
I would prefer fewer spear and more attackers. A fortified veteran spear on grassland only has a 30% survival chance against a veteran immortal. (This increases to 45% if the spear is in a walled town, but we need Masonry for that.)
A veteran archer attacking a veteran unfortified immortal has 45% win rate, better than the spear. A veteran sword has 66% win chance, pretty decent. A Mounted Warrior has 60% win, 20% loss, 20% draw, even better. They can skirmish, which is tactically nice.

A cheap option which will give us some attack power right away is Warrior Code. No resources needed for archers, and we can research it in 4 turns. Archers can deal with Persian and barbarian warriors much easier than our current forces. After that, we can either go for Wheel or Iron Working. I would choose Iron Working if the power balance indicates Persia has immortals, and Wheel otherwise.
The main drawback of postponing Wheel is that we delay seeing where the horses are.

Whatever we can trade for with MIA or KISS (once met) is nice. But I think we should start making our own plans.

 

[Robi D]

Thank you for your responses on the military plan, it will take some time to get it ready so we are still open to attack. Keep the ideas coming in.

This lead me to the other main topic atm, whether or not to wait for a trade with MIA before continuing research.

My vote for this is no, we have waited long enough and still could not get a deal for writing, which they say they are now close to finishing in research. In my opinon this means they are probably 2 or 3 turns before having it. So if we wait these 2-3 turns before negotiations begin, and remember so far the two negotiations we have have with them have both taken another 3 or so turns, we are looking at waiting another 6 turns for an agreement, and an agreement is not certain either.

Now ive looked at the save and done some numbers;
We have 102 gold.
These are the gpt with research at the following %
@ 100% = -3gpt
@ 90% = -1
@ 80% = +2
@ 70% = +4

Turns to research wheel and WC

@ 100% = Wh-4 turns WC-4 turns
@ 90% = Wh-5 WC-4
@ 80% = Wh-5 WC-4
@ 70% = Wh-6 WC-4, (at 60%, WC is 5 turns)

My proposal is we reseach wheel at 100% straight away, since it will allow us to see where the horses are and start connecting them, then research WC at 70%, thereby negating any loss in gold from researching wheel at max.
Obviously, these can change slightly with new cities, ect. so we should keep an eye on it throughout.

All this will take 8 turns, which is a similar amount of time it will take to do a deal with MIA. We can always do a deal with MIA along the lines of a CoL for IW swap or look at combined research ect. Again all ideas welcome

 

[Robi D]

Well its been a busy night in the foriegn affairs department.

Firstly i have arranged a chat tomorrow morning (wed 12/10 +9.5h GMT) with MIA to discuss the trade offer. I have also started a poll on whether or not we should except there offer of wheel and WC for Philo. and CoL in case thats there final position.

Next, with our meeting of KISS this turn I have sent the following message

Greetings to the people of KISS,

Our Curragh has spotted a fine band of your warriors on the shore fine tuning their fighting skills. We come with the hand of friendship extended. We are willing to trade some of our fine technologies for some of yours. We welcome you to come and sit down with us so we can discuss the possibility of a trade. We look forward to hearing from you

Robi D

Foreign Affairs Consul, Team Doughnut

And finally, just to see were TNT stand at the moment i sent them this little message.

To the government of TNT,

Aside from goats, which you seem particularly fond of, is their anything else you had in mind that would be an exceptable peace settlement

Robi D

Foreign Affairs Consul, Team Doughnut

I'm sure they will want something out of the question but i think this is a good oppertunity to see what their thinking is.

Thats all for now, all the replys will be in the relavent negotiation threads

 

[Nobody]

If we have peace negoations in a messanger, can i come? also if i cant can you start the proceedings with "how have things come so far" (this is what vitto corleone said at the peace confrence in the godfather)

 

[Robi D]

Ok another busy day, chatted to KISS, things went really well. They have accepted a deal on offer (see Nego. with KISS thread) and i believe we should too.

Chatted to MIA (at the same time, Neg. with MIA thread) no final answer yet, but it seems the offer i sent back in response to their's has claused an big split about what to do (hehe). Should be an interesting time in MIA when we tell them no, we have a better offer elsewhere.


Finally as fun as it is to juggle work and two conversations at the same time, it would be good to have an ambassador for each one to keep the lines of communication open in between trades and so forth. So if your interested in being a ambassador to MIA or KISS, voulenteer your services here, i can handle TNT on my own (im having too much fun trading diplomatic barbs and insults so i dont want to share )

Remember put your opinion down in the KISS thread so i can sign off on the deal asap.

 

[Robi D]

Well a lots been happening recently on the dipomacy front so i thought it might help to summerise it all in this thread. Also I would like to get a bit of a discussion going on what we think the other teams are trying to do.

Firstly whats happened since the last post here.

Agree to the trade with KISS CoL+Philo for IW+WC+CB+Myst, and it all went through without any problems.

As a result MIA deal wasn't fell through since we got WC and researched wheel, but we still are looking at new trade options.

Sent out a little message to TNT just to see what they want for peace, and got back a ridiculous response, but got some decent info about them too. Sent a second letter which was answered with a futher tripe (they want us to basically hand over everything every 20 turns, haha)

Got another trade offer with KISS up for debate Rep+Mason for HBR+Math+Curr+gold but gold could be removed for another tech swap which slightly favour KISS.


So that the summary, now these are just my thoughts, i'm just interpreting what the other teams are trying to do (so expect a bit of rambling ), so feel free to add your options too, because you can never have too many ideas.


Lets start with our favorite punching bag TNT. There two letters in the "peace talks" have been fairly valuable in giving us a bit of an insight into their affairs, so thanks to Nobody for that suggestion. We know they don't have writing, whic probably means they have researched maths for cataputs (would be the most logical choice) or an outside possiblity is they are going for monarchy. As for their demands they are either very overconfident of success or are trying to bluff a bit. I think its more bluff because if Zyxy can go into the save and see what techs everyone has, then surely one of them can do the same thing, and they would see that we have gotten ahead in techs. They are currently negotiating with KISS over masonry, so i would be surprised if KISS gives them writing to get masonry and some gold. This last turn their military went from average to stong compared to ours, so they have built one or two immortals that turn, nothing to panic about just yet, as they are at least 25 squares away from us, so we wont be seeing large stacks of immortals just yet, but they might send one or two to try to disrupt us so have to be careful.

Moving on to KISS, they have certainly got the edge at the moment, with our last trade we both have shot ahead of the other two in techs, but they arn't at war with MIA and MIA don't have an offensive unit to worry them to much. I think there are two reasons they have been helpful to us so far, firstly then don't want TNT to have it too easy in trying to wipe us out, because that would leave TNT with the continent to themselves, and secondly want a tech advantage over MIA so they can wipe them out easily and have a whole continent to themselves. It wouldn't surprise me at all if we were to start doing serious damage to TNT that they might feel the need to help them out. All in all they are in the box seat right now.

Finally MIA, the last deal they got a bit big for their boots, but we still need to maintain good relations with them and above all we need to trade with them, again two reasons, one we want to stay ahead of KISS, because it will be easier for them to keep a fast research pace, since they don't have to worry about TNT atm, and secondly we don't want them to be able to take out MIA easily, because they they would be unbeatable, so we need MIA to be competative.

As for what the other teams think of us, i think all 3 of them arn't givig us much hope against TNT and their immortals, but i believe we are atleast 50-50 if not better, because we can out build TNT and our MW are twice as fast, and MP are more important the attack values in our situation where there is a great distance between us. Anyway if the other teams choose to underestimate us then all the better, because they wont see us coming then.

 

[admiral-bell]

MR.minister I fully back all your plans

 

[Nobody]

I think things are going ok. We just to start pumping Mounted warriors. Do we have any buliding yet?

 

[admiral-bell]

MW must come NOW. otherwise we will be Crushed

 

[Nobody]

"Peace will come when Tnt love their children more than they hate us"

 

[Robi D]

First, sorry if i've been not posting as regularly lately but i've got uni exams at the moment, which will be finished soon. Now maybe its that my mind isn't at full capacity at the moment or its just seriously warped from all the studying and lack of sleep but i've been thinking about our approach to the war with TNT and i came up with an alterative plan of action.

Firstly, for the time being, focus only on defence using MW's to hit incoming immo's in hit and run strikes, swords to in cities to take a shot at them when they get there and everything else to defend.

We swap with KISS or MIA for masonry, then we research Lit. In the meantime we get our settler to start a city on the spot sw of springfield (see turn 54+ thread) and immediatly start pre build for GL and throw every resource we can spare into it.

We know TNT is looking at getting GL to catch up on techs, if we can take the GL away from them they are in big trouble since they are so far behind in techs, they have nothing to trade to catch up. There only shot would be to kill us off with immo's but we have the advantage that they have to come a fair distance to reach us. From this point we can quickly get to feaudlism and chivalry and pound them with med inf and knights while having pikes in defence.

I know its an unconventional tactic, maybe its only making sense to me because i've gone around the twist from studying for exams, but then again maybe something unconventional is what we need to win this war. Tell me what all of you are thinking

 

[Robi D]

I've chats today with whomp and fe3333au. It would seem KISS are waivering a bit on the republic deal, from what whomp said the team is fairly evenly split on whether to go through with it or not.

My chat with fe3333au was even more interesting. Firstly MIA will have Lit in 10 turns, so it gives us a bit of leeway with researching maths. During the rest of the talk though we shared a bit of intel on KISS. It appears that we were not the only ones to have embassies established by them and if MIA and ourselves got it, then there is a good bet TNT got one as well, not a cheap exercise. The main thing that MIA is worried about is that KISS has started spamming the continent with settlers and are quickly expanding the land area.

It would seem that with TNT taking themselves and us with then with the war out of the winning equation, KISS is trying to put some space between themselves and MIA, knowing that MIA don't have an offensive unit to hurt them, they are expanding at a hectic pace. This explains why MIA are all of a sudden willing to do some proper deals with us.

This places us in an interesting position, obviously we wont trade KISS for the Rep, and since they are doing a slow rep, should we try to beat them by researching Rep ourselves at max science. The other problem is that with the ammount of units we have it could hurt us financially to switch to it at the moment. We could possibly go the Monarchy route, but we still wont be able to keep up with KISS. Maybe the best way to go about winning the game is a cultural victory as this war will be dragging us down for a while to come.

 

[DaveShack]

Hmm, culture in a PBEM? Don't know if that's feasible...

I'm not so sure the GL is a good idea. If we could pay someone to investigate the TNT GL city, then we'd know right away if we have a snowball's chance of getting there first. Building it could be a feint to get us to try to beat them to it, while they use their high shield cities to build immos.

 

[Robi D]

Hmm, culture in a PBEM? Don't know if that's feasible...

I'm not so sure the GL is a good idea. If we could pay someone to investigate the TNT GL city, then we'd know right away if we have a snowball's chance of getting there first. Building it could be a feint to get us to try to beat them to it, while they use their high shield cities to build immos.

I know culture a long shot, it would have to be a city one. We can't investigate their cities because we can build or use an embassy during wartime. If they are trying to fake us out with the GL, then why would they not continue research. As for building immos we can always keep an eye on the military advisor. There military is average compared to ours. Now one thing i can't remember is whether or not its possible to get great leader (military or scientific), they could build a wonder in a hurry. Also don't forget TNT have to get both writing and lit for the GL.

 

[zyxy]

The other civs can see a 20K attempt coming from miles away, I do not see it work. Also, the game will probably end by conquest long before you get even close. We probably do not have a serious shot at the GLib, even if we tried hard. Actually, I don't really think a wonder is worth the investment at this point, we need to expand more than anything else.

KISS is apparently doing republic at min, so they'll have a lot of money, hence the embassies. We can probably also expect a mass upgrade of warriors at some point.

KISS has had a 4 turn settler factory for a long time now, and maybe more than one. Obviously they are trying to settle a lot of land, it is the sure road to victory. I don't think there is much anyone can do about that, it was clear very early on that KISS would win. The only remedy would be a joint effort by all other teams, and the war declaration by TNT has made that virtually impossible.

For future installments of this event: it is not a good idea to have one team made up of dedicated SG players, and all the other teams of demogame people and passers-by. No offense intended, but the difference in play level is just too big .

 

[RegentMan]

Now one thing i can't remember is whether or not its possible to get great leader (military or scientific), they could build a wonder in a hurry.

From the Deadline Checklist thread, scientific and military great leaders are on.

For future installments of this event: it is not a good idea to have one team made up of dedicated SG players, and all the other teams of demogame people and passers-by. No offense intended, but the difference in play level is just too big .

I can see where you're coming from. However, the flip side is that some of these guys are good friends and want to play the game together. Imagine us (Ginger_Ale and myself) saying that sign-ups can only be randomly assigned. I'm not too sure that would go over well. Maybe one of us MTDGers can find a better way of putting teams together. Each team only having a set amount of requests, perhaps?

 

[Ginger_Ale]

I agree some of the teams are a tad bit overpowered in one aspect or another, or have all the same strengths, a uniform pattern. But I would rather keep people together if they want to be, and not force them to be on random ones if that is against their wish.

RegentMan: regarding '# of requests', who would decide how many requests? Who gets to request? It'd be too complicated and wouldn't please people...