RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Speaker and Sullla

[Sullla]

Yep, agreed. We were heading for that hill tile, only we got ambushed halfway! So long as we live, that's where Chamberlain will go.

Let's try this for a response to Dantski:

Greetings once more, Dantski!

Thank you for your very kind and informative followup letter. Since you were so forthcoming with information, we're responding by passing on everything we've found out about the map so far. [1]

You are the second team that we have contacted thus far. We met Jowy and Yaz of Greece a little while back while exploring. We haven't found their capital's exact location yet, but we believe it to be somewhere to the northeast of our start. In our exploring we have seen lots and lots of grassland tiles and rivers. It looks like we're on a pretty fertile map here.

OK, now for some guessing about the overall map and script. Be warned that this could be totally wrong! Our best guess is that all of the teams started on the coast, probably each with a seafood resource of some kind. There also seems to be another coast to the east; if your warrior continued moving east, you would run into it eventually. Because you started directly south of us, and Jowy/Jaz are northeast of our start, and DMOC/Nakor southeast of you, we may be looking at a big circle for the overall map. Possibly something like this:



That would make sense of the spacing of the teams, and it would be a pretty fair way to design a map for a game like this. Then the other six teams would be located at the "X" marks on the map, evenly spaced out around the edge of the circle. Now this could be totally wrong, but it's our best guess based on what we know so far. [2]

We can tell you that we have no plans to pursue a religion at this point in time. If we would get one down the road, we'd be happy to spread it to you though! Since no one has gone for a religion yet, they all seem to be ripe for the taking still. If you choose to go after a religion, we'd be interested in a missionary. [3]

In closing, we appreciate the signs of friendship and goodwill you've displayed thus far. Hopefully we can continue to share some information back and forth, so please stay in touch regularly! If you would be interested in closer cooperation, such as moving towards the signing of a Non-Aggression Pact (NAP), we'd be happy to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Until we speak again,
Speaker and Sullla
The Killer Angels

[1] OK, not everything!

[2] These paragraphs give away a lot of information. But Dantski let us know a lot about his start too, and I think we should reciprocate in turn. Plus it all helps build trust and signals peaceful intentions, which is what we want.

[3] Yeah, no. We'd love to see Dantski waste time pursuing a religion; this paragraph is a nudge in that direction. I think we'll have a strong chance of lightbulbing Philosophy and landing Taoism eventually.

Overall, I think we should try to cultivate Dantski as our main ally in this game, at least for the immediate future. He's got a leader and civ with very poor economic abilities (Imp/Org... ugh!) who we can almost certainly outresearch over the long haul. Jowy/Yaz have Pacal, which is simply a lot more dangerous at teching. Furthermore, Dantski has played a conservative opening, and he's not likely to be one of the game's major powers. We could form a strong partnership, as the clear big brother in the alliance, and go after other teams with a secure flank later on. I was also impressed by how open Dantski was with information, a nice contrast to the recent silence from Jowy.

Any thoughts, Speaker? About the diplo or about my map guessing? I'll try to run some sims on the Ring script later on, and see how they match up to our observations thus far.

[Krill]

That Haiku is wrong.

[m4gill4]

That Haiku is wrong.

Don't panic, we can fix this. All we need to do is fix the first line and then promote Sulla to captain, or perhaps Baron, as in:

Until the next time
Speaker and Captain Sulla :aar:
The Killer Angels

[Speaker]

I agree with your thoughts on Dantski vs Jowy et al 100%. Dantski is more of a known quantity, with a stronger civ (short term) and a weaker leader (long term), so it makes more sense to cultivate him as a strong ally.

As for your guess on the map, I don't feel like I know enough to wager a guess, so I'll withhold judgment for now.

[Sullla]

With no complaints, I went ahead and sent off the message above to Dantski. We also got a short message from Jowy:

Cheers. We'll let you know when we meet someone. We are still discussing the NAP, and we are possibly going to come up with a slightly modified deal, but with the same principle. More about that in a couple of days when we're ready

~ Jowy

I sent them a quick "message received" response. Looks like we're done for this turn.

EDIT: Yep, we really are. Turn has ticked over, time to go find out if Chamberlain survived...

[Sullla]

Chamberlain lives!!!



And he was barely even scratched, only took one hit and has 1.6 out of 2 health remaining. What's the plan for Chamberlain next turn? Do we promote to Woody I, or save the promotion? Remain in the field or head back to guard the capital? I'm open to suggestions here.

Dantski's warrior still remains hidden, after moving again already, so my guess is that it's either heading due east or circling back south to the capital. Good news either way. We probably don't have to do the chopping micro, but hey, better safe than sorry. It's not like it slows our development plan at all.

Dantski was in-game when I logged in, and we chatted a bit. I won't bother with a chat log (those things are super-boring to read), here's a summary of what we covered:

- At south the "river" opens into the ocean

- Geography "almost looks like the Apolyton map"

- "Lots of peaks but not huge numbers of hills"

- Dantski and DMOC both have fur in the capital. When asked, I said that we did too.

- Dantski asked if other teams could see signs on the map, and I answered honestly that they can't.

I have no idea what this "river" means; apparently it's one to the south of us that we haven't even spotted yet. Nor do I understand the Apolyton map comment, maybe it will make sense later on (?) However, it's useful to know that everyone got furs at the capital, and that Dantski apparently has a lot of peaks near him. We certainly don't!

Boringest turn yet in the Demographics. No score changes, no pop increases, no military increases. Nada.

[Speaker]

Either SE-SE or SW-SW with the warrior I think. Keep him unpromoted for now I think, not that it really matters either way.

It sounds like Dantski's land isn't nearly as nice as ours.

[Dr. Nomadic]

Lurker's Comments:

So I take it that religion is highly useless in MP, and the same goes for early wonders. Man, this is starting to remind me of...oh, here:

"Wonders are good for team games, but not one-on-one or two-on-two. They take too long to build and cost too much. All that time and effort could be going into attacking the enemy."

-REDLINE

The guy made this comment on Empire Earth, but it obvioulsy very much applies here! Of course, if you have friends nearby in Civ4 THEN you could commit effort into building wonders rather than a standing army, but eh. I HAVE managed to build both the Pyramids and Great Wall and still have time to rush an enemy with 5 praetorians. Though I take it that on a higher difficulty or with a different civ my time would've run out.

And I have to say it again, THIS IS TAKING TOO LONG!!!

[Speaker]

Some wonders have more use than others. I'd love to have the Stonehenge, but I'd rather have two settlers. Early in this thread we talked a little bit about which wonders we'd like to have.

By the way, if you build the Pyramids, which are insanely expensive, and the Great Wall, which is completely useless, your 5-praetorian attack is definitely not a rush.

Whoops, just realized I logged into the game with another name again. Sorry about that! EvanLongoria is me too. Yeah, I have a lot of different names I use when I'm playing online...

[Dr. Nomadic]

Except that my 5 praetorian attack managed to take Ragnar's second city (I got lucky and had two praets win at about 30% odds in a row!), and then they were augmented by axemen after that. Of course, I sat with 5-6 cities for a long time after I finished Rag off, so...whatever.

Off Topic: BTW in that earlier Chinese game I mentioned, I founded Buddhism, and ISABELLA and WANG KON were in the game. Yet I beat them to it as a non-spiritual leader that didn't start with mysticism. Then again, I believe my thinking went: "I start with the two most basic worker techs, so maybe I can go worker first WHILST chasing religion. THAT will surprise all the RB folks!" So it was BUDDHISM and not Christianity that I spread to all those neighbors. Naturally I was allowed to build in peace for a good long time as a result of that, though I once sent a token force to assist Ragnar and Fred with the attack on some Korean city (and I got the honor of razing the city! Hooray!). Oddly enough in that game Wang wasn't even allowed to capitulate; he just exited the game, with his civ destroyed.