Part 61: Lanka - Turn 6
Turn 6 - Diplomacy
Diplomacy is important. These happened between turn 5 and 6:
quote:
buildscharacter: Really? Because you know you have a southern neighbor too right?
TheDemon: I know I have dominion down there
TheDemon: who is it
TheDemon: do they own 29 yet
TheDemon: er, I know someone else has dominion down there rather
buildscharacter: Sauro/dawkish.
buildscharacter: And if not yes then it's in his cap circle.
TheDemon: hey I hear you are to my south in tbtf
Dawkish: yeah, I just heard that too
TheDemon: I just want to let you know I claim 38
TheDemon: unless it is next to your cap
Dawkish: is that across the bridge?
TheDemon: yes
TheDemon: my side of the bridge
Dawkish: ahh, ok, as long as it is north of the bridge that is fine
I note the "too", meaning someone (likely buildscharacter) has been telling people my location. And the info about "in his cap circle" is misinformation, although it's probably builds's assumption rather than a lie. Either way, Dawkish didn't seem willing to give me a province on his side of the bridge.
Metagame commentary:
Dawkish is a veteran player, but doesn't pay much attention to detail. I expect he knows a fair amount about battlemagic, research paths, thugs and SCs, but doesn't pay much attention to round-by-round scripting, placement, or movement traps.
Sauro is a very dangerous nation and in the running for my favorite in Early Age. They have decent recruit-anywhere communion-capable battlemages, recruitable thugs, spammable cavalry, superpowered archers (poison bows' poison ignores shields), quality sacreds, a pretty good SC chassis pretender (Gorgon), and an excellent cap-only mage with great endgame paths. If they have one weakness, it's that you need to pick early which of these assets you use. Sacreds and thugs don't do much good without a bless, cavalry can't be used with sloth scales, the Gorgon costs hundreds of points, archers and the cap-mages are both gold intensive, etc
Sauromatia, who worship President Skroob, played by Dawkish, has claimed the other side of the bridge. So that's it. 6 provinces, with chokepoints as borders. Out of provinces to expand to on turn 6. This is a map that's supposed to average 14.7 land provinces per player.
I'll note that we already restarted once because of awful starting positions (mine was much better last iteration, but still awful for a map this size). Reactions:
quote:
TheDemon: ok, just confirmed by diplo: a total of 6 provinces staying out of enemy cap circles
Lilli_Magic: just kill someone with palashankas
Dexanth: I vote you go with the kill your neighbors option
Dexanth: oh no I love my start
TheDemon: that's good
Dexanth: For one because it's nowhere near you :3
buildscharacter: Yeah, your position on this map is really really bad.
buildscharacter: Like it's silly how bad it is.
buildscharacter: My start is fine this time but I would be pretty unhappy with yours. You're like three or fewer provinces from three other players' caps and with literally nowhere to go that isn't a cap circle province for someone sls
Don't worry, I'll deal with it.
So, this turn's battle. I went in banish-scripted to a province filled with undead.
The undead in question.
No problem.
Truth be told I don't remember what message I sent in reply to TC, if any. I don't have one on file for this turn, but I could have composed it after I backed up my orders.
Regardless, I need to expand my borders, and that means war. I've tentatively picked TC as my target. I've heard via diplo that they're using sacreds, which are archer-vulnerable, so I've made some arrangements:
Atavi Archers are a backbone of the monkey nations. Simple, cheap, spammable short bows. Their one trick is that they're stealth-capable, so you can surprise someone with extra archers if you want to. But here I'm making them because I need volume of fire against his unshielded sacreds. A lot of players underestimate short bows; the protection / damage / critical hit formulas are highly in favor making small hits bigger, so short bows can be devastating even to armored targets. And one shot a round will also trigger morale checks frequently, as opposed to, say, cross bows with one shot every two rounds.
I've also placed what I hope to be a winning bid on the Farstrikers, a company of 30 Longbowmen. Longbowmen shoot once a round, but at higher range, better precision, and more damage than short bows. The Farstrikers are perhaps my 3rd favorite merc company; only The Ship Wreckers or the Skull Smashers exceed them.
Dhupala heads north with 18 demons, hopefully to be joined by 30 Longbowmen mercs.
This trick isn't worth much in the short term, but never forget that indep provinces have recruits. Here I'm recruiting 4 archers in the province I'm moving to.
Next turn: The 10 demons I have down south, my prophet, and the 30 archers I'm recruiting this turn head north.