Long Bow

I had a guy with a level 4 town blockade one of my colonies yesterday. He was attempting to blockade a lvl 7 colony. I have a lvl 10 capital and lvl 3 third colony. My army and navy is not large but its enough.

Anyway this sent me into a fit, I went to defcon 5 and sent re-enforcements to protect my colony, fired off a friendly message to him to cease or I would repay the favour 10 fold and I planned his dimise

I get a note back from him saying "sorry, I was just trying to buy some of your wine. Last time someone bought it from you first, I was just trying to blockade it until I could load up".

I told him it was fine but next time let me know its coming.

I found this to be both an interesting idea and a completely retarded one all at once. First you can't pull something like this with out telling the guy first, second you could potentially steal resources this way without meaning to and thirdly you could bring a world of hurt on yourself. In this guys case I could easily muster an offence to stomp his town into the ground (and frankly my trigger finger is getting itchy after playing nice neighbour for so long). If had done this and then logged of for an hour I could have had a full on war at his doorstep and he would be screwed.

Regardless has anyone else tried this or think its a viable way to secure trade?

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geologist

Haven't tried it, and think it could backfire in interesting ways. On the other hand, if a lvl 4 is blockading you...

/runs off to check distances to Long Bow
//launches 8 hour 'cades
///profit

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Farkarian

Tarenth

Someone actually mentioned profiteering like this before.

Have one person put sales/purchase orders on the Trading Post for ridiculous amounts (Buying marble for 100 gold or selling Sulfur at 2g) and have a friend blockade your port. When people try to buy/sell with you their cargo ships will get caught up and you'll, supposedly, get the goods.

In general I'd say that first off you should have a harbor defense against stupid off island attackers.
Second blockading to 'secure goods' is a stupid excuse since cargo ships travel twice the speed of ram ships (20 cargo and 10 ram) which are the fastest warships. If they just sent the trade as usual then it would get there in half the time as the blockade. Furthermore if you did have a harbor defense (see first point) then the blockade would've either failed or caused ships to sink demanding just compensation for the losses.

I say blockade his harbor and then send in the marines to visit.
Tell him you sent some of your rowdier citizens to act as merchants and if they 'forgot' to pay for the goods and went on a pillaging spree that it was an 'honest mistake' and you wanted to make sure he didn't sell the goods to someone else first. ^_^

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My sanity is not in question...
It was a confirmed casualty some time ago.

RedTalon

Actually all stupidity aside (which is a lot) there is a even greater stupidity. The original reason is to assure your trade, meaning stopping people from getting there before you. Well your attack ships travel waaaaaay slower then your trade ships, so by blockading to assume your trade you are actually more likely to be beat out to it. Not to mention spending money to send out war ships, and so many other thing. Really the more I think about it, either A) this guy is a danger to himself via stupidity B) he was trying to attack you, had a change of heart with the threat, then made up some lie. I personally am going to go with option B, mainly because I like to keep some sanity and faith in the human race.

Long Bow

I did give him the benefit of the doubt as it did sound like a reasonable but stupid explanation. Damn I have lost a good reason to go and pound on a city thats actually active. I just don't have the heart to go and turn his little world upside down, shake out all his resources and leave.

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