[SPOILERS] - scooter's thread

[Bobchillingworth]

Potbelly's is a hot sub chain fairly common throughout Northern Virginia / the DC area, but I think it might originally be from somewhere on the West Coast.


It's good! WaWa and Wegman's subs are also okay, although not as great. I readily admit that Subway is far better than Quiznos (is Quiznos even still around anymore?)



Civilization subs usually don't seem to be worth the cost and aren't very filling, although you can stuff them with missiles or spies (or priests if you're into that sort of thing). Attack subs or sentry subs have been known to spice up the occasional game. One sub I've always wanted to try, but never got around to creating, was one with a Great General included to see if I could get a 100% withdraw chance.


By far the best sub though is one that can competently play your turns on short notice for extended periods of time, while you're away on vacation or otherwise occupied.


In short, I think the point we can agree on is: subs!

[scooter]

Got a kick out of all the sub jokes. Funny stuff.

Alright those'll be the next two cheese cities. First one will have to be "JalapenoHavarti" with no spaces to placate the 15char limit, but it'll work.

Jimmy John's subs are pretty awesome too... I prefer Subway, but... Jimmy John's comes close. Not a fan of toasted subs in general...

[scooter]

Well my debt is all paid off to Serdoa, and I finished Animal Husbandry, which spawned horses on the expected location - the one tile the capital owns over on the island. I will most likely NOT use that tile for the capital, I think it'd be more useful on the island city. Now that I'm back to teching, I've got to explore my options for my next goal. I've got a turn to decide though, because I decided to grab Polytheism real quick which took one turn. Rationale for that was grabbing Temple of Artemis. My reasons for Temple of Artemis:

1. I have Great Lighthouse already, so there's some obvious synergy there on +100% trade route yield.
2. Great Merchant points - my capital would be a pure Great Merchant pool
3. I'm Industrious, so I can get it quite quickly despite lack of marble - 8-10ish turns without a chop/whip.

Gotta take a look at possible competition:
-Serdoa: I can just ask him and he'll let me know.
-Dazed:
-SleepingMoogle: Most likely competition. Just landed Hanging Gardens which would lean towards no wonders right now, but he also has expanded quite heavily which hints at taking a chacne to stop and grab something like the Temple. He also seems to be food heavy (the leader) but not so much in hammers (Serdoa is much higher), which doesn't mean a ton, but is still a (minor) factor.
-Twinkletoes: He already grabbed Stonehenge (nice move for him!), so that someone minimizes but doesn't eliminate the chances of going for an early wonder. He hasn't expanded as quickly as SleepingMoogle has, so I gotta think the odds of him tying up production in the Temple without Marble as less likely.

I haven't seen any marble on the map, and I probably have the best maps, so it's possibly there for the taking with my Industrious bonus. The only catch is Polytheism has been available for quite some time, so if someone got an early start on it, I will likely miss out on it.

I'm probably going to go with Metal Casting next to get some cheap forges going... Calendar (bananas), Iron Working, Aesthetics (open up Lit and Great Library) are all possibilities for next tech after that.

[scooter]

Well it is officially 1AD, so time for some pictures. First, I open up the save to see the Metal Casting splash screen:



This is the part where you ooh and aah and pretend like you've never seen that before. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I even bothered to take the picture, but I uploaded it already so I'm going to use it. Some domestic stuff, first, here's a settler in transit to the last location on my island:



He'll found the northwestern spot on the island, and then I'll have to turn
my attention to the smaller islands... Since we're at the capital, here's a look at my progress on Temple of Artemis:



Keep in mind, this was taken before I hit enter, so now there's one less turn remaining. I felt like building this was a no-brainer, as it nets me 12 BASE commerce/turn, in addition to all multipliers... I also get a free priest, AND I get 2 more Merchant points stacking with the Great Lighthouse. In the end, I expect this wonder to be worth around 2 Great Merchants, which is a pretty big deal. I'll be getting my first one in 4-5ish turns, which will probably be sent to Twinkletoes for a trade mission.

Quick look over to my newest city (which I apparently forgot to rename):



I had workers road their way over here ahead of time, and as soon as the city was founded I had them immediately chop that plains hill tile for a terrace, which completed this turn.

Next, here's a look at the Dazed situation:



Slightly complicated picture, and you'll notice I didn't bother to point out which unit was on which tile, which I felt was irrelevant... The units were previously scattered on top of his highest yield tiles, so they all just sorta converged. The catapults just came in from Serdoa, so I went ahead and moved in. I really don't know if I have enough to take the city next turn... I'm going to try out a simulation tonight. I could just suicide the cats (one can double promote for increased collateral) and then attack with 9 axes vs 6 archers, but I can't imagine that'll be enough. The best I can do is sit for a couple turns and plow away at city defenses until I get a third cat and an extra axe added in two turns. If all else fails... Not sure what to do. Probably back off, hope he tries to harass me with archers (killing them out of the city) and attack again with more cats. I'm researching Construction now, due in 3 turns, so I can build more soon.

Okay, here's the demos, brace yourself:



Well things aren't quite as bad as they look, but they aren't great either. First off, I'm behind in GNP, but it's deceiving... SleepingMoogle is leading, but he's got creative culture plus a wonder or two helping him out, so that inflates his GNP. Second, I have the Great Lighthouse, meaning my research capacity is a bit better than it appears there... I also suspect SleepingMoogle might be running 100% research right now, which further inflates that.

I'm behind in production, but the Rival Best indicates that it's not quite that bad. Food on the other hand, I'm definitely behind on, which does worry me... Just going to keep expanding and hoping I can get ahead on expansion due to Lighthouse funding. Quick note about my finances:



Notice unit costs - If I can kill Dazed next turn, I'll save a good bit of money... This has been hurting me somewhat, and Dazed really has been a thorn in my side. Not much I could have done about it though...

Quick word on the international front - SleepingMoogle and Serdoa are going to 2v1 Twinkletoes... Serdoa was apparently sworn to secrecy, but he sent me a few emails, intentionally dropping hints like crazy about it. Serdoa wanted me to attack SleepingMoogle after the war started and take advantage of his military being on the other side of his territory. I actually don't want that, I'd rather let them fight and whip while I (hopefully) finish Dazed and then peacefully expand, allowing me to catch up.

I pitched that idea to Serdoa and explained my reasoning, and he understood. If we gang up on SleepingMoogle immediately, there's two scenarios:

1. The war is successful and this game is effectively over in the early AD's
2. I fail (highly possible) and my game is effectively over in the early AD's

Neither scenario interests me honestly... I want this game to go a good bit longer... This game is too much fun to be more or less determined so quickly. That said though, Twinkletoes is definitely a goner. Once that happens, this is a 3 player game, at which point SleepingMoogle is outnumbered long-term.

Any questions?


---------------------------------

UPDATE

I wrote the above report yesterday when I didn't have internet access, and didn't expect to get in a second turn yesterday, which we did. I opened the save to discover Dazed now has 7 archers in his city... I figured right away that probably meant it wasn't falling yet... I threw together a sim which more or less confirmed my result, generally if I threw everything at it, there were 3-4 heavily wounded archers surviving.

So now what? Well for this turn, I sat there and bombarded the defenses a bit, which doensn't do a ton since neither are accuracy, but it's something to do while I wait. An extra cat and an axe or two are incoming in a couple turns, which hopefully will be before an 8th archer shows up. If I still don't have enough then, in a turn or two I'll have Construction, at which point I'll build several more of my own and finally finish him off. I think a 3rd cat might be enough though, since my two cats (one barrage, one not) was enough to knock each archer down to 2.1 in my sim, so that number would be 1.8ish with the extra cat, which might be just enough to get me much better odds. At 2.1, typical odds range from 35% to 45%.

[scooter]

So I had a tough decision to make this turn... I got two additional axes in range of Dazed's capital, and on top of that I've lowered the defenses from what they were last turn, but one more axe and one more cat are two turns away. By my estimate, Dazed will probably get an 8th archer in the next turn or two, or at least I say the odds of that happening are greater than 50%, which is a big risk.

There's the added problem that these units are costing me a fortune in support right now, and unhappiness is painful in Dazed's former cities.

So do I strike now or later? I put together a sim, which as far as I could tell, I was either going to barely win or I'd lose with one unit remaining (Ok fine I only ran the sim twice, but those were the two results). I mulled it over, and in the end I figured even if one or two barely survived, I could accept that, since I could quickly bring in more troops, whereas it'll take him ages to get several more archers. Also there'd be a strong chance that surviving troops could finish him next turn... So... here goes nothing.

The results were scary. I got the most ridiculous luck, to the point where some of you might ask if Memphus played the turn . Here's the results:

Barrage Cat vs Archer - 11%: loss
Unpromoted Cat vs Archer - 41%: withdraw
Axe vs Archer - 41%: win! (took 88HP damage)
Axe vs Archer - 36%: win! (took only 23HP damage!)
Axe vs Archer - 36%: win! (took 69HP damage)
Axe vs Archer - 40%: win! (took 22HP damage???)

Okay seriously? What kind of luck is that? Obviously that battle wasn't over, but this is just silly. I've seen players get stretches like this before, but never seen it myself.. Now the odds are in my favor...

Axe vs Archer - 62%: win!
Axe vs Archer - 84%: win!
Axe vs Archer - 99%: win!

(note: most of my axes were promoted and all of his archers were pretty wounded from collateral damage)

Ummm..... How? I still had 3 more axes to attack with that I didn't even use! I mean I can't complain, but this is the most ridiculous stretch of luck I've gotten before, so now I fully expect to be losing 90% battles for the remainder of the game. The kicker was those first four battles - I fully expected to win only 1 of those (2 if I got lucky), which meant those last 3 axes definitely would have seen action.

Sorry for lack of pictures (I'm in a hurry), I'll take some next turn to update on the current situation. I sent this message to Dazed informing him that his game was over:

Dazed,

Just a quick note to say you've been eliminated in PBEM7. I want to say thanks for the good game! Sorry you had to have an early exit in this one... Given the cramped setup, it was bound to happen for someone, although you sure did make it painful with the archer spam .

I went ahead and attacked this turn since I had a couple more axes than last turn and I had lowered the defenses a bit on your capital last turn... I expected to either barely win or barely lose, but I figured if I barely lost I could take it next turn, since I had more troops on the way. In the end, I actually had a ridiculous string of luck, which I'll be documenting in my thread sometime tonight...

By the way, if you'd like you can feel free to join me as somewhat of a teammate, although I fully understand if you're more interested in being a full lurker.

Thanks!
scooter

Well that's that. Time for me to catch up to the big two while they go into war mode. Forges are being built in 4-5 cities right now, Temple of Artemis completes next turn, and we are now down to 4 players. Interesting times ahead...

[scooter]

I've done a poor job of keeping you all updated on diplo stuff, so I'm going to post some correspondence here.

Final response from Dazed:

Finally!

I appreciate the offer for being a teammate. My initial reaction is that it would be good but my better part knows that I simply wouldn't have the time to really add anything productive to the team. Plus, I am pretty stoked to read all the threads when I find time.

It was a good game. Thanks for playing,

Dazed

Well the offer still stands until you pop open a thread created by someone other than me . If not, enjoy reading them all!

Next, SleepingMoogle sent me this three days ago (I just now got around to responding):

Greetings scooter,

Over the last turn or two, you will probably have noticed the Malazan Warrior approaching your northern border. The Warrior is on a scouting mission defog tiles and update Malazan charts. I had intended to send this message earlier, but my recent transition into night shifts have left me rather tired for the last few days. At this point the Warrior is just inside your borders, but I would like to request your approval before traveling any further south. Otherwise, I will move him out of your borders again on the next turn, and apologize for this rather unfortunate intrusion.

I understand if this appears as a not too peaceful action, but my intentions are peaceful. To further ensure this, I am be willing to sign a longer-term NAP between our nations if desired.

Sincerely,
-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

This was fine with me, although it took me awhile to write back... He went ahead and kept scouting despite not hearing back from me, which I don't blame him for. Honestly for the first turn I wasn't even sure where his warrior was at (turns out it was inside a city so he was harder to find). My response:

SleepingMoogle,

Well first, I'm really sorry it's taken me 3 days to get to this . Last couple days I've been planning for and finishing off Dazed, as well as trying to document it in my thread... all the while trying to post a good overview for the 1AD switchover, so this sorta got left behind. Obviously if your warrior scouting around was a problem, then I would have written back quite quickly, so obviously I have no issue with that.

I don't mind this action at all, so long as you don't mind if I do the same thing in the not-so-distant future... I have a Great Merchant that I'd like to send through your lands along the east coast (I'll probably send him to Twinkletoes, being the greatest distance away), and that would start next turn... You don't mind right? That's all I ask really, is that I don't mind if you don't mind.

Also, do you have any plans yet for settling islands further east than the one that we each have? How much have you scouted out that way? I'm considering pushing east, and I figured I would see if you're ok with following the same general principle on the islands as we did on land - checking with each other before founding cities near our border (naturally extending our border across the water).

Once again, I do apologize for how long it took me to get to this, and I hope to be much more timely in the future

Thanks!
scooter

Note that I ignored his NAP suggestion. We do already have a NAP, but it has a small cool-down... Serdoa brought up a good point that I might want to not give him total military security, just so he has to build a bit more military on the border between us (so he can't empty his cities to go after Twinkletoes). Speaking of Serdoa, here's a bunch of text between the two of us. This goes back to 7 days ago, when he was hinting at a war where he and SleepingMoogle dogpile the blissfully ignorant Twinkletoes:

scooter,

I do not think that waiting and hoping for the best will help. His GNP is clearly higher then mine and that with more cities and he does not take those deep dips I have to take when I go to 100% gold. Meaning that he probably can easily go on with expanding, conquering and still stay in the black. But - I do have a plan how this can be helped. I only have to be cautious how I phrase my sentences as I do have an agreement preventing me from speaking openly. Unfortunate but necessary. Anyway, lets say I think that it would be a good idea to prepare for a strike against our main competitor on or around T90. I am sure he will be away on the other side of his empire. Thats what I want to chat about with you.

Oh and on another note: I have gifted you 2 catapults this turn to be used against Dazed. Two more are coming within the next turns. Maybe we can finish him off before T90 so that those catapults can then be used for "something else"?

Kind regards,
Serdoa

I'm sorta picking up mid-conversation here (there's no good place to start), but that's in response to me wanting to take a "wait and see" approach with SleepingMoogle, while I'd rather expand peacefully while the two of them fight Twinkletoes. My response:

Serdoa,

First, if you want to chat I'll be around tomorrow morning my time... Instead of trying to remember the time difference, I'll just say it'll be a little less than 10 hours from right now (the timestamp on the message)... I'll be on for a couple hours around that time if you want to chat. If that doesn't work, I might be able to a few hours after that, but I'm less certain of that...

Hmm, maybe I have the wrong perspective, but I guess I have my doubts about going to war yet again that soon... Though I will definitely hear you out on this and see what you have to say. I guess from my perspective, if you guys wipe out Twinkletoes (and Dazed gets put out of his misery), then the rest of the players in the game is myself, you, and SleepingMoogle.

Sure he'll be a bit ahead of us, no denying that... But do you think he could beat both of us? I just think with the amount of naval action there would be in the mid to late game, he would have an incredibly hard time defending both fronts in the late game... Right now I'm in no great shape to field a great army, and his whipping power alone could probably hold me off pretty well if he did it right.

I guess here's what I"m trying to suggest - we hold off on that kind of war with him... Go through with your TT war, do your best to get the better end of the deal (bargain hard if you must), and try to come out having gained the upper hand on him. Once Dazed and TT are out of the picture, we have just three players in the game. Ideally try to get a complete kill on TT and not let him survive. Then lock him out longterm and wage war when we want to. Don't tip him off that we're allied obviously, but you know what I mean. I don't believe he'll be able to handle us both longterm.

What's your thoughts? Obviously if I catch you on chat we can talk then... Who knows, maybe I'm seeing this all wrong and you need to talk some sense into me .

scooter

After this I caught him on chat (finally) and talked it over, and in the end he was fine with me not fighting SleepingMoogle yet, for reasons I detailed earlier.

I sent him a message last night informing him of the war finally being finished, and we've had a little bit of correspondence back and forth... I'd paste it in here, but it's boring stuff - basically I'm just letting him know I'll be returning his two catapults and two axes that he let me use for the war. Actually on second thought, I'll go ahead and paste the most recent message in, since I've brought up the topic of Dazed's island, since I intend to keep founding cities across the islands over the next dozen or so turns:

Serdoa,

Yes, glad to finally be done . [this is referring to the war] The cats should be in your land in 5-6 turns (I sent them immediatley), that may cut down by a turn depending on road construction in my land. I know one of the axes was the shock axe, so I'm returning that, along with just a random axe that I believe is Combat 1 with 1 promo available. I thought the second axe you sent me was unpromoted, so hey, you get a tiny bit of an upgrade there .

I wanted to talk to you about the island that used to belong to Dazed... Have you scouted it at all? I was wondering if you had any ideas how to divide it... It has the same resources as what our islands have, so it's not like there's anything new there. The island could probably fit 4 city sites, so are you interested in doing a 2-2 split, or did you have anything in mind?

Thanks,
scooter

One last note, the Temple of Artemis finished this turn so that was nice... It didn't impact my trade routes quite as well as I expected unfortunately (I guess I didn't quite understand that mechanic, I rarely build this wonder), but it was still a noticeable boost. Great Merchant also finished, which will head towards Twinkletoes for a trade mission... Which I'm going to need permission for since he asked for no scouting each other.

Forges going up all over the place, which will be quite a boost...

[scooter]

Positive response from SleepingMoogle:

Greetings scooter,

No worries about the delay, and my thanks for scouting approval. Your great merchant is free to follow the eastern coast down south, although I would of course recommend the great city of Unta as his destination. :-)

The Malazan Empire does plan to continue expanding east, and has mapped some small islands suitable for settling. Expanding our current agreement further east sounds like a good idea to promote continued cooperation, so consider it agreed upon.

Sincerely,
-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

[scooter]

So something occurred to me today... Dazed getting knocked out is the earliest kill out of any of the MP games here that didn't involve walking into an empty capital with a warrior. Knocked out just two turns after 1AD... Earliest before that was Jowy getting KO'd in PB2, which was in the Mace/Horse Archer era.

I need to secure permission to send my merchant to Twinkletoes' capital, so I sent him a quick message:

Twinkletoes,

How are things in your part of the world? Anything exciting or interesting? Things are pretty slow up here, Dazedroyalty finally made an exit, so finally my nation is at peace after thousands of years of war. Hopefully I can catch up to the rest of you all now .

Part of trying to keep up is the Great Merchant that was just born to me a couple turns ago... I have a request of you, because we currently have open borders, but we have a clause that states no scouting without permission. I'd like to send the Great Merchant on a mission to your capital, which would result in some of your land being defogged, and would also require permission given our deal. Is this acceptable to you? I would head straight down the east coast to your capital (I got permission to pass through SleepingMoogle's land), so I wouldn't go out of my way to scout out your whole land or anything .

Is this acceptable for you? I'd be happy to reciprocate by allowing passage by one or more of your units (and letting them scout a bit inside my borders), but I don't want to do this without your permission, as I don't want to violate your trust - we've had a good relationship between our civs so far. If it is not acceptable, then I will understand.

Thank you,
scooter

Got a response:

Scooter,

Well in the less eventful side of the world (at least so far), things are going reasonably well. Congratulations on the final defeat of dazed, it must have been a bit of a gamble to go for him but its paid off for you (though I suppose Serdoa made it easier for you to join in!). It seems we are now at 2 Buddhist and 2 Hindu nations now so that is at least fair and equal (though we could class you and Serdoa as 3 civs given the spoils of Dazed's land)!

I would be happy to facilitate the housing of your Great Merchant, but instead of allowing a scout access at a later date, I would prefer a 'toll' of an amount of gold, preferably around 100. It is simply because you will receive a larger bounty through 'cashing in' at capital and I would like a tiny portion of that extra income for assisting you.

I am open to counter-offers, but only fair ones. I am also happy to discuss bringing this deal into a larger agreement - a 'Pact of Co-operation' if you'll excuse the Civ5 reference - if you deem it prudent.

Yours sincerely,

Twinkletoes

I actually was expecting something like this. I don't really like the idea of paying a toll, but I understand his reasoning. I will obviously get some land intel out of this deal, and I intended to not pass that on to SleepingMoogle/Serdoa, but now I'll consider selling off some of that intel if I have to pay a toll. Doesn't make me mad that he wants me to pay a toll, but it doesn't make me want to bend over backwards to help him out either . Here's what I wrote back, counter-offering somewhat:

Twinkletoes,

That is certainly a reasonable request, though I have a slightly different counter-offer for you. I don't know how much revenue I would receive from the mission, and SleepingMoogle already offered to cash it for free, although I'd like to cash it in your territory since I'll likely get more money from the longer trip. Thing is, it's been so long since I've used a great merchant that I have no idea what kinda of cash-out I'll get from it.

I'd like to know if you are okay with modifying it slightly, so that the amount you get is more like a percentage. I don't know if I'll get 600 gold or 1600 gold, so 100 gold is either nothing or a big deal in that case. Here's two ideas, let me know if either sounds good (or if both sounds good, which you prefer):

1. You get exactly 10% of what I get from the Merchant, so if I get 500, you get 50, if I get 1500, you get 150.
2. You get 10%, but with an upper and lower bounds of 80 and 120 gold. So if I get 1100 gold, you get 100. But if I get 500 gold, you get 80 (and if I get 1500, you get 120).

I'm fine with either of those two, so let me know your thoughts... I'm fairly flexible, so please don't feel like I'm pinning sending an ultimatum or something .

Thanks!
scooter

Obviously I'm expecting what I get to be under 1,000 (given the earliness of the game and the size of his city), otherwise I wouldn't be making this offer. Figured it sounds reasonable, and it might save me 20 gold.

Mechanics Question: Is there an easy way to calculate how much gold I will get?

[scooter]

I'd like to call this post "Was it worth it?"

When the deal was struck with Serdoa to try to eliminated Dazedroyalty, I knew I was making a deicision that would have a huge impact on my game. When I declared war, Dazed made a statement to me that he felt my attack wasn't worth it. That even if it succeeded, I was dooming myself longterm. He told me I was nuts for attacking him instead of grabbing the Great Lighthouse and expanding rapidly. What he didn't know was I was even more nuts - I was planning on doing both .

There was a major side-effect to this - I was dead last to 3 cities... See Serdoa had to contribute to this attack too, but he got his 3rd city first since Dazed handed it over to him in the peace deal. Me on the other hand, my third city was Dazed's capital, and by that point SleepingMoogle (or someone anyways) had 4 cities I believe. The other side effect is that I'm not Imperalistic like Serdoa, and SleepingMoogle has better expansion traits than me.

In the end, all of this would've still been okay, but I had two really bad breaks...

1. Dazed founded a city to his southwest, rather than his west or northwest. This meant when I took his capital, it bounced to my territory and away from Serdoa. Also, he founded it on a hill (this was before he knew there'd be a war, so it was either good foresight or a lucky break), which made it much harder to take without catapults.
2. #1 might not have mattered without #2... See, when I took his capital, I took away his access to all strategic resources (I have no idea where iron is though). This meant all he could build was warriors, and there was no reason to get archery yet. I pushed my axes over there as quick as I could, and the turn I got there his first archer appeared, rendering the city impregnable until catapults, as it would be constant archer spam. I was able to choke and pillage him to death, but couldn't kill him.

Because Dazed took so long to kill, this had three really bad effects on me:

1. I had to build more axes, when I needed to be building more workers and settlers.
2. Choking him was a necessity (to vastly limit his production ability), but it cost me quite a bit of gold in support costs
3. The two cities of his that I had were both under crippling unhappiness, both from "motherland" happinness, and then eventually a tinge of war weariness. This made this cities operate at a much lower capacity...

So, all these negative things aside... was it worth it? I have no idea. I feel like the answer is yes, since it gave me a long-term ally in Serdoa, more space from Dazed (have to take into consideration his islands and his land on the "terra" continent), and gave me a secure border on one side. Also, the Lighthouse could have gotten me dogpiled, but it isn't because I'm not way out in front. I think my lower score at the moment keeps me a little more under the radar, despite the fact that I can expand at will right now (I plopped down another city this turn and it didn't even hurt me at all, it was pure profit) when no one else can.

There's a good argument that could be made though to see I messed up... That I just should have built the Lighthouse and used that to get a good lead... I really don't know. The scoreboard and demos seem to indicate I lost out, that I should've gotten the lead and then dogpiled, like SleepingMoogle is doing. I guess after that war, we'll see what the end result is and it'll be easier to answer.

My question for the lurkers - what's your opinion now? It's not a spoiler now since it's done, so you can answer. What would you have done? Gone through with the attack, or stayed at peace? Do you think it hurt me in the end or helped me?

[scooter]

Very quick response back from Twinkletoes:

Scooter,

I am happy that you are amenable to this suggestion. I will be happy to settle for choice 1. I imagine you will get minimum 800 gold so option 2 just limits my chances of you getting very lucky and me getting lucky in the process!

Good luck!

TT

Works for me. I actually was kind of expecting him to take the other option because I figured there was a chance I'd get under 800 gold, but I might just be putting too much emphasis on city size...