For fun, we might want to replace "protect your workers very closely" to "protect your farm animals very closely" in the message to Menagerie. Maybe we can drop a SH hint into a future message, but I don't think we need it in this one.
I think the message to the Trolls is spot on, I wouldn't change anything. It's not pushy at all, imo.
Okay, I will send the messages to the Trolls and to TEAM now.
Edit: Sent
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
I went ahead and sent the message to Menagerie, including Yossarian's suggestion of changing workers -> farm animals. I also added a smiley face just because it seemed appropriate.
Trolls Wrote:We are indeed working on our reply. Basically the problem we are in is that our micro plans already revolve around settling a city in your direction. Our opening is...unconventional to say the least and we have not found a great alternate plan. The silver lining we are trying to emphasize is that the city is well within our sphere of influence. To prove our intentions we'd be happy to work out a mutually acceptable border agreement, would that satisfy?
I had a quick chat with Darrell to figure out if they're aiming for gold. I know you all hate chat logs, but this is short so do read.
chat Wrote:scooter: Hey Darrell. quick question about the demogame if you have a second? Darrell:: sure what's up?
is this RB demogame or CFC demogame? scooter: RB demogame
I'm on Gillette
Got your last email. the idea is possibly ok with us, but are very curious if you're aiming at the gold or not.
cards on the table: we're not opposed to you guys getting that gold. but that seemed like the location you'd be most likely to reach for that would be fairly close to us Darrell:: Given that we are the only non-FIN team your hypothesis is most reasonable
We've basically sacrificed a lot to get that spot pretty fast, so we can try and keep up in tech scooter: Ok. we're not necessarily enthusiastic about it being your first spot Darrell:: Yeah, that's why we came up with a border agreement (coupled with a NAP makes sense) proposal scooter: but we aren't too surprised or upset either. Darrell:: we figure that would be the best path forward scooter: right Darrell:: so that you had goo assurances we weren't going to just spam in your direction etc. scooter: right, that's what we're mostly interested in. Darrell:: That's what took so long in the reply, lots of discussion on where your head was at and what would be a good balanced reply
Good to see our conclusion was accurate scooter: right, yeah we figured that was the case Darrell:: how about we draw up a border agreement then? or conversely you can take the lead on it, if you prefer. We'd also need to discuss NAP duration based around it. scooter: yeah, that's what we'd like to explore next. I can't really make an offer now without talking with the team more, but up to this point we only theorized you were aiming for gold but didn't know for sure Darrell:: okay, well I'll post this chat log in our forum scooter: where are you planning to plant it? Darrell:: we haven't done any discussion on the border either because we weren't sure where you head was at
unfortunately I don't recall exactly, I'll check with novice/plako (as you can imagine they are the micro team).
Assume its the optimal spot, wherever that might be scooter: ok Darrell:: I think they posted shot of it upthread too, if I can't reach them I'll dig around our forum and try and find it scooter: ok. yeah if you could get that to me that'd be great. that way we can see where that would fit into a potential border agreement Darrell:: sounds good, I'm actually in a meeting right now so it might not be until after lunch
Hope I didn't say too much. Anyways, they're aiming for the gold plant first. This is ok, and we have a window here of leverage to possibly work it into a favorable border agreement. Darrell is not sure of the location (novice/plako are the wizards over there apparently which is no surprise), but he'll let us know ASAP. My one fear though is, well:
WHere would you plant if you were them? I really hope they do 2E on the plains hill (surely they have food there), but what we don't want is 2N of the gold. That would be really bad. I can't see any border agreement that makes up for them stealing all 3 resources that are between us. At minimum, the deer is very clearly ours. So that's where we are right now. Waiting to see what we hear from them.
Thanks for finding Darrell, that chat answers a lot of questions. They said their next city would be well within their sphere of influence, and 2N of the gold is certainly in contested territory. Should we send them a message letting them know they can have the gold, but the city cannot take the Deer?
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