Quote:
Originally Posted by Septimius Severus
You've done a bad thing Bogarus (by freezing the seas), although it was not unexpected. This has cost me much grief. It is almost tantamount to a declaration of war. But forgiveness can still be yours. Just make right your transgressions by taking down that global and surrender any remaining sea provinces. You know you've no business beneath the waves anyhow. No need to drag me into the war as well.
We should also probably vow to keep the Arcane Nexus down from now on. This is also a bad thing. Lets just slug it out and finish it.
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Now why exactly would I do either of those things? Playing your opponents game always results in a loss unless he doesn't understand his own game. Obviously, you've prepared a strategy which would be very good for a late game high-resource slugfest... If I were to try to play that game, I'd get creamed!
As far as I'm concerned, as soon as I put the Arcane Nexus up, I figured that you would consider that a declaration of war since most other people do. It's fine if you want to continue on with neutrality, but there's no way
I'm paying to remove the icy seas. As I mentioned after I cast it, it has a few purposes:
1: Prevent you from easily collaborating attacks with Ulm--you will remember that you parked a little army rather close to my coast on the turn I cast it.
2: Provides a convenient way to convert water gems back into astral pearls via the Nexus.
3: Forces you to expend pearls to get rid of it. (exchange your pearls for my water gems). This also has the bonus effect that if you do decide to try dispelling it, it will be that many more turns before you can try to dispel the Nexus again.
I consider it a very good move, and what you're suggesting would indeed be a very bad move.
The way I look at it, if you have somehow come up with a strategy to stop my Arcane Nexus, I might as well see what it is--even if I lose, what I gain in the experience is worth more than the game itself.
If you don't have a coherent strategy for destroying the Nexus (other than by some vain attempt at salesmanship), then it will go back up without any problems and you will be left still poorer in the gems I am actively spending to combat you.
I'm not going to follow your suggestions unless I feel they have some sort of concrete benefit to me. "Your Word" has no value at this stage in the game. I figure you don't attack me because you think you'll lose what you send or because you cannot find a suitable invasion route. Either one is fine with me. The more turns I get against Ulm one-on-one, the better. It's not like you're ever going to magically ally with me and attack Ulm... That would be rather crazy.
We could consider that to be your act of loyalty if you like. Take two of Ulm's castles--then I'll consider you an ally.