[SPOILERS] Team EggHeads: DMOC and TeddyKGB (Now Lurker-Friendly!)

[DMOC]

@DMOC
I agree with 7-9 scout next. I can't read the fog and don't want to login again, but its possible 8-9 would be faster to the N-NE by 1 turn, I guess.
But we could see something interesting if that lake not just one tile, so 7-9 it is. I'm ok with 8-9 as well, if you see it more suited.

Thx for info, I wasnt sure about how it works and was gonna just sim it.

Yup, we have 13 land tiles, and M&M got 15.
Its not that important, but could you please take F8 screenshot with victory conditions next turn too? So we could calculate total land on map more accurate.
(I'm banning myself from login for the next 24h, cuz I did login enough times on T0 already.) Its not important info, but we can speculate about the map a bit in the thread.

More depressing news, we are short one worker turn to road effective in the long run, but maybe its not bad at all, cuz we have +1 worker turn right now. Just had to put 2 worker turns in the road later. I'm assuming we plant city#2 on PH to share Pigs in this scenario, but we'll discuss city#2 after more scouting obv.

Now, I was wrong when suggest us to preroad city#2 to get it 1 turn faster, I can see now. Just at the time it seems like we have alot *free* turns to road whatever. So preroading city#2 will cost us 2-3 worker turns or 10h-15h in premath chops, so not worth it, imo.

I was gonna put a big post about changing micro, but lets see a bit more land and decide our city#2 location first.
I'm considering some options we could exploit to be in a better position overall, so right now I'm thinking of:

• No change in our original plan till T32 except worker roading different.
  
• 2nd worker before settler
  
• Fishing after AH and WB before settler
  
• Settler on T33 with big overflow going into work boat or 2nd worker
  

You dont have to sim it now, I'll try to put full report pretty soon.

Anyways, our micro is set till T12:

• Tech path Hunt>AH till T20
  
• Queue till T12. There is a very small chance we decide go scout after worker
  
• Tiles till T12. On T12-T14 we could change pig<->deer if needed
  
• Worker action till T16 when Camp done and worker ready to move
  

Okay, I will try to remind myself to take the F8 screenshot next turn. I don't use it very often during my single player games, but I can see how it is useful in a long-term multiplayer game.

My first thought was, like you, to settle the second city on the (currently forested) plains hill to share the pigs and also to get the cows. More scouting is definitely needed, and once it starts to become turn 9/10/11, we should definitely decide if we're sticking with the original micromanagement plan, or switching it.

What plans, if any, have you considered with regards to first contact with other civs? The diplomacy aspect of this type of game really interests and intrigues me - I love working with words.


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Thats a very good question, Dhalphir. Thx.
We can discuss how our first diplo exchange should look like. It could depend on certain neighbour, but we can discuss our possible diplo line in general now as well.

What you think?
How should we open our diplo exchange with 1st contact?
In your opinion, how our team should manage diplo to get us to knights in a good position?
What you think about NAPs in general?

I would suggest we be as friendly and honest as possible in our initial messages to all other teams, unless for some bizarre reason there's a 5v5 going on here.

NAPs will be important for us to survive to knights, so we should definitely try and get them. But remember: if an NAP benefits the other team more than you, why are you signing it?

Here's a template message:

Dear [team_member_1], [team_member_2], and [team_member_3] of Team [team_name]:

Greetings! As you probably know, our teams have just met in-game, so let's start off our diplomacy on a positive note. Here's a quick overview of our team:

1. We're playing as Suryavarman II (Creative/Expansive) of Byzantium (Hippodrome/Cataphract, Mysticism/Wheel).
2. Our "official" team members are dick76 and DMOC, with Dhalphir and TeddyKGB as dedicated lurkers.
3. Our team email for this game is dick76dmoc@gmail.com. We can talk via Google Chat if time permits.

Judging by where our scout met your [insert_contact_reason_here], we imagine you're located somewhere to our [insert_direction_here]. If you wouldn't mind telling us, is this the direction to your civilization? Don't worry, we'll also help you find us; if you go [insert_directions_here], you're likely to meet our civilization before long. At the moment, we're trying to make contact with as many teams as possible. Out of curiosity, how many contacts have you made, and do you have a general idea of the current world geography?

Meanwhile, we understand you may be cautious about us having a leader of Suryavarman II, who is known for rapid epansion, along with us having Cataphracts once Guilds comes in. Many would write that as a recipe for conflict one the Classical and Medieval eras arrive, but we believe that there's potential for a long-term alliance. In particular, we are extremely open to working together with by possibly performing the following tasks: (1) sharing wonder plans to minimize wasted production, (2) sharing gold to help speed up one's tech path or possibly to purchase units from one another, (3) negotiating an acceptable border agreement once we've explored the map in further detail, and (4) possibly combining our armies together to conquer lands for mutual benefits. In particular, (4) might be devastating once the Medieval era arrives and we can combine your army with our Cataphracts. Alternatively, if one of us gets attacked while in an alliance, we can have the other team help out in defense. Naturally, if there's any agreement between us that you'd like to be confidential, we're happy to honor that request, and we're flexible in other agreements not listed earlier.

Obviously, these aren't the only things we might do in the future. If you have suggestions, feel free to offer them, as we're fairly flexible and, again, eager to work with your team to mutually advance our performance in this game. As a sign of our cooperative intentions, we'd like to know if you're interested in a non-aggression pact with us, i.e. an agreement to avoid war. This has many benefits, with the important ones being that (1) neither of us has to waste military early in a (potential) war between us that would be nothing but good news for the other eight teams, and (2) we build up our trust among each other, which may lead to easier negotiations in the mid-stages of this game. Since it's turn [turn_number] now, we'd like to offer a (non-cancellable) non-aggression pact to turn [turn_number + 25], with the possibility for renewing it at any time as long as we both agree.

Since it's still early in this game, we don't have to commit to long-term goals just yet. We're just interested in knowing if you'd like to return our request for early cooperation. We look forward to hearing back from you.

Best regards,
DMOC [+ others who contribute to this writing]

Team EggHeads
Dhalphir, dick76, DMOC, and TeddyKGB

Just an idea/early draft ... and of course, this assumes that we're the ones sending the messages first.

[TeddyKGB]

I rly like you planning ahead and get a template already!

I agree with you, that we should be open and honest at first. Maybe add some screenshots of 2-4 tiles in advance, so other team don't need to scout it. Set up for more screenshots exchange in the future, so both our teams could explore different areas of map and get maximum info.

As for talking about our leader traits and UU, I dont like it much.
If they are competent enough, they'll understand it by themselfs. If they not, no need to teach them about our strategy.
Lets keep this till next exchange, not the first one, imo.

Since there are 7 FIN civs on the map, and there is a good chance our contact will be FIN, I would like we talk about their strong sides, not ours. Like talk about reseach in NTT game, not expansion and UU.

One more thing, I like your msg style, but someone else could see it different. We should think about adapt our diplo msg style to our current neighbour. As if their reply short, we should avoid long msg too. If they roleplay diplo, we could do a roleplay a bit. All I'm saying, we could adapt for ceirtain opponent, for better results in diplo.

Another thing we can offer, could be EP spending agreement. Its not important early, but we could mention it.

[Dhalphir]

I would not put so many of our cards on the table at once and try to speak in ways that don't reveal too much emotion or personality. Better to ask questions, and try to glean information from answers.

For example, something I would send would be along the lines of

Dear [team member] of the honourable [civilization],

As you may have noticed, we have met ingame. While we don't have a huge amount to say right now given the early stage of the game, we would like to send you this short note in advance of more serious diplomatic overtures.

For now, we are curious as to your intentions. We know your civilization benefits from [something about their unique unit or maybe their traits, eg Aggressive civ benefit from war], and we have our own preferences for the path this game would take. We would welcome cooperation, of course, when the opportunity for it arises.

Regards,

Team EggHeads.

[Dhalphir]

As for talking about our leader traits and UU, I dont like it much.
If they are competent enough, they'll understand it by themselfs. If they not, no need to teach them about our strategy.

yes, this is what I was trying to say too. If they haven't realised how strong we are at cataphracts, no need to tell them. It will make a lesser-skilled player feel patronised, and make a superior player on edge that we feel the need to remind them how strong we are.

[TeddyKGB]

I agree that you agree with me .

We are not strong now. We are very weak now in fact, as I see it. Its a long time till knights and we may not survive it well.
Our UU is one of the best in the game, as well as our traits. But we are starting behind and up against 7 FIN, its not looking good.

Back to domestics, these pics are made me rly sad somehow:

[DMOC]

And btw, I think our research path is set now with Agri after BW and Writing before Sailing. There could be some changes on Mining<->Fishing and Archery could be included in rare situations if we need it.
So, as I think right now, our techs will be Hunt>AH>?Mining>Fishing?>BW>Agri>Pottery>Writing>?Sailing?

And thats a suspicious looking tiles with desert and ice. I'd guess copper on desert and/or iron on ice?
Obv, we can settle on top of it freely, cuz desert/ice copper/iron possible mine isnt that great after all. And we would save some worker turns as well.

I like this tech path. After Sailing, we should probably consider either (1) Mathematics or (2) beelining to Monarchy.

I rly like you planning ahead and get a template already!

I agree with you, that we should be open and honest at first. Maybe add some screenshots of 2-4 tiles in advance, so other team don't need to scout it. Set up for more screenshots exchange in the future, so both our teams could explore different areas of map and get maximum info.

As for talking about our leader traits and UU, I dont like it much.
If they are competent enough, they'll understand it by themselfs. If they not, no need to teach them about our strategy.
Lets keep this till next exchange, not the first one, imo.

Since there are 7 FIN civs on the map, and there is a good chance our contact will be FIN, I would like we talk about their strong sides, not ours. Like talk about reseach in NTT game, not expansion and UU.

One more thing, I like your msg style, but someone else could see it different. We should think about adapt our diplo msg style to our current neighbour. As if their reply short, we should avoid long msg too. If they roleplay diplo, we could do a roleplay a bit. All I'm saying, we could adapt for ceirtain opponent, for better results in diplo.

Another thing we can offer, could be EP spending agreement. Its not important early, but we could mention it.

I wouldn't add in a screenshot right away ... probably need to wait until we build up our trust wiht each other. Or are you saying send those as a sign of our trust and willingness to work together? We'll definitely be cropping them.

The espionage agreement is fine. I would say that for now we'll spend enough to see your demographics, then reevaluate from there. (And allow them to spend the same in return.) We do need to keep track of espionage allocation carefully.

I would not put so many of our cards on the table at once and try to speak in ways that don't reveal too much emotion or personality. Better to ask questions, and try to glean information from answers.

For example, something I would send would be along the lines of

Dear [team member] of the honourable [civilization],

As you may have noticed, we have met ingame. While we don't have a huge amount to say right now given the early stage of the game, we would like to send you this short note in advance of more serious diplomatic overtures.

For now, we are curious as to your intentions. We know your civilization benefits from [something about their unique unit or maybe their traits, eg Aggressive civ benefit from war], and we have our own preferences for the path this game would take. We would welcome cooperation, of course, when the opportunity for it arises.

Regards,

Team EggHeads.

Yeah, this letter definitely gives less away. However, I'm not sure if we need to delay asking for a NAP until the next set of exchanges. Might as well get it now when they have little information about the map, and it avoids the unlikely scenario of anyone sending in 2 chariots to rush us. Of course, others could think of our strategy and decline the NAP, but that's just playing some mind games.

I agree that you agree with me .

We are not strong now. We are very weak now in fact, as I see it. Its a long time till knights and we may not survive it well.
Our UU is one of the best in the game, as well as our traits. But we are starting behind and up against 7 FIN, its not looking good.

Back to domestics, these pics are made me rly sad somehow:

One thing we might need to do is provide reasons why it would be best for other teams to work with us. And that's the gist of what I was hoping to capture with my longer email draft. But yeah, I probably should wait until after our first contact.

[DMOC]

Turn 4 - 3840 BC

Our scout moved 7-9 and found another nice food resource:



It seems like I was correct in that 8-9 last turn wouldn't help us get more tiles in the long run. I suggest our scout go 9, then 8, and after that there seems to be a flatland tile next to the hill that would permit another 2-move turn, if necessary.

The land we have explored thus far:



It looks like we'll have lots of lakes scattered within the landmass(es). While that's fine for freshwater, it means commerce is harder to come by. Actually, the lack of river tiles may actually benefit non-Financial civs, because the largest percentage increase in Financial vs non-Financial tiles comes with the 3C vs 2C riverside cottages.

The demographics, which shouldn't be too different from the previous turn:



Next turn will be different, though, due to the non-Creative teams getting border pops in their capitals. The Master & Margarita team apparently has 15 land tiles in their capital, compared to our 13.

And finally, as requested, the F8 screen. We have 0.60% of the land area.



Any thoughts?

[Dhalphir]

The reason I suggest we don't ask for a NAP immediately is that we are unlikely to encounter a civ already gearing up for war as our first contact. Given that, we don't really NEED the NAP immediately unless we plan to leave our cities ungarrisoned, and it may be helpful to us to keep them guessing about our intentions until the 3rd or 4th diplomatic exchange between us.

I'm not suggesting we forego NAPs with our first neighbour, but they don't know that, and if we get lucky and are next to a paranoid player, we might even influence them into building a warrior too many, or putting hammers into a barracks instead of a granary or something like that.

[Dhalphir]

unrelated question - would there be any reason not to use a Donut-Ocean script for my newbie succession game?

[DMOC]

Donut-Ocean is fine. The important thing is probably to get a script that correctly "cleans up" the capital by removing all bad tiles. Some maps, such as Custom Continents, don't do this, so they're not a good choice.

I'll think about the NAP a bit more.

Related note: I'm going to be traveling a bit in the next few day(s) to get to my new housing. I should be able to play turn 5 for sure, but turns 6 through 8 will likely need to be played by someone else. Can anyone else on the team verify that they will be able to play turns 6 though 8? At this point, it's just a bunch of scouting moves, with the micromanagement in the capital unchanged (and of course the switch to Animal Husbandry soon).