[SPOILERS]Novice, Spacemanmf and Athlete4life10 are HUYANA CAPAC OF CHINA

[novice]

Demographics: TT discovered a tech, but rival power did not increase. Mysticism probably matches the research time. (It doesn't quite in the C&D spreadsheet, but I think some commerce that belongs to TT has been mistakenly assigned to Pegasus in the spreadsheet, during the turns where they were indistinguishable in the demographics.)

I spent fifteen minutes trying to make the rival average GNP work out before I realized Pegasus is getting a 1.4 multiplier from researching Animal Husbandry.

As previously mentioned Ruff is on Bronze Working and Ad Hoc is on Agriculture.

[spacemanmf]

Nice work. I presume Ruff sent his second warrior due east. That's where ad hoc is and so they are probably setting up the rendezvous on the other side of the map.

[novice]

Turn 26 played.

Ruff wants to be our parasite. I think we discussed this kind of symbiosis in our metagame analysis. I responded that we'll discuss between turns.



Next, I moved our warriors. Maybe it's time for Four to head home? I have no clear plan really. Seven needs to find Pegasus, at least.



Pocket Aces completed Barry (forgot to name him though) and is configured to grow in three turns.



Demographics:


Top 5 cities:


T-Hawk, are you lurking? I've seen you state that top 5 cities is determined solely on culture. That can't be right as Madrid is ranked third here. Pegasus's size three capital is ranked higher. I wonder what the formula is.

[novice]

Demographics analysis:
Based on chats with Ruff, he does have two warriors. Also he indicates that TT has a warrior, which he really should have by now. I don't know how the soldier points explain that - maybe someone lost a warrior at the same time as TT finished one. Or maybe TT has only built scouts.

Min GNP increased to 23, that's TT I suppose. It's hard to say what tech he's on as I'm no longer confident of what tiles are being worked, so I can't know for sure what research multiplier he's getting. He could be working wheat + copper, that should give him 16 base beakers, and if he's met Pegasus and Ad Hoc he would get 1.12 on The Wheel, which would bring him to 23. We'll go with that.

I don't think anything else of notice changed.

[spacemanmf]

Yep, credit where credit is due - you suggested this is an approach way back on page 1, before the game had even started. The starting position has therefore turned out rather well considering, especially when you consider we are shielded from TT. With any luck he will go crazy against his neighbours, particularly Pegasus...

An NAP to turn 150 or 200 - wow. That is some long-term deal. But really, that's how we would want to play a game like this, given the map layout. Secure one border and conquer the other way.

Nice to see we are finally working two farmed resources. Double chop next turn, right?

[novice]

EDIT: Crosspost.

Next turn we start chopping forests, and it would be good to have an idea where our second city is going. I'm voting for Cyan dot, although I'm not sure exactly where Cyan should go... Either as placed in my dotmap, or 1W of that location, perhaps. Also, with a peaceful Ruff in our east, how aggressively do we want to settle towards Pegasus? Will Cyan and bright green be our border cities, or will we push for Blue and Yellow?



Regardless of where we'll send the settler I think it's okay to start by chopping the two forested hills south and southeast of PA. We should probably not chop the forested hill 2E of PA just yet, we might want to save that forest for white dot.

With regards to Ruff's proposal: As he subtly points out we don't really have a choice in the matter, if he's going to be our parasite there's nothing we can do to stop it save wipe him out. We can steal the Great Wall from him to slow him down, but it sounds like a better deal to let him boost our development in a symbiotic relationship. That also sounds like a lot of fun. He's offering us a very favourable border agreement.

The endgame will be a royal PITA - we'll have to defeat Ruff in a space race, in a modern age war, or by culture, and his spies will be annoyances in all these cases. I guess we'll just hope to be able to outproduce him and outcommerce him.

Ruff strikes me as a player that it's better to have with you than against you. So I vote for instant gratification - let's have him with us now and against us later.

[novice]

Yep, credit where credit is due - you suggested this is an approach way back on page 1, before the game had even started. The starting position has therefore turned out rather well considering, especially when you consider we are shielded from TT. With any luck he will go crazy against his neighbours, particularly Pegasus...

An NAP to turn 150 or 200 - wow. That is some long-term deal. But really, that's how we would want to play a game like this, given the map layout. Secure one border and conquer the other way.

Yeah things aren't looking bad. I don't think we really want to start conquering until we've filled out our lands, or we have a definitive tech edge. If we squeeze Pegasus too badly we risk forcing his hand prematurely. How do we want to play this, and how do we play the diplo? I'm wide open to suggestions...

[spacemanmf]

Oh yes, I'm game too. Was going to say it will be a fun way to play.

I wasn't suggesting we go conquering just yet... I was talking in terms of the kind of period covered by the potential NAP with ruff. And of course hoping that we are doing well enough to fulfil our dreams of world domination.

We probably should send Four back (as you have done), but we still don't have a great picture of north of the wheat. Seven could perhaps scout this on the way to meeting Pegasus.

Which brings me neatly on to your final point. I'd like to play it fairly straight but necessarily non-committal about long-term peace. We're not too scared of Vultures really, are we. So maybe something like a turn 50 NAP first up.

With us being Financial and our UU not coming until Machinery there is no incentive for us to be abrasive or untrustworthy.

So we could open up with something like: "Hello there. We come in peace. Our warrior, Seven, is trying to get the lay of this repetitive land of ours and has no nefarious intentions. How is your game going so far?"

And the next turn we say something like: "We are looking to harness our Financial trait and wait until we have unlocked our Unique Unit before conquering you, so how about an NAP until then?"

Or maybe: "We would like to propose an NAP until, say, turn 50. What do you say?"

I'm all for keeping it simple. We should keep our long-term deal with ruff a secret, both the parasitic arrangement and the NAP. And we should continue to share as much information as possible with ruff. But with everyone else we will only give small bits of information, whilst keeping it honest.

I think I like cyan 1W of its current location. It gives it fresh water and a floodplains boost. We are definitely entitled to claim the western yellow dot, even if it is pushed 1W because of the new cyan dot. That grabs the sheep, right? Plus it gives lots of trees to chop it to a fast start.

We could then be generous to Pegasus by moving bright green 1E (or not by leaving where it is).

Ok, let's go for cyan first, since it also has lots of forests to chop early on.

Then white, natch.

One final thought. In order to avoid wasting tiles, we could perhaps put one city 2W1N of the red dot, and another 1SE.

[novice]

Oh yes, I'm game too. Was going to say it will be a fun way to play.

I wasn't suggesting we go conquering just yet... I was talking in terms of the kind of period covered by the potential NAP with ruff. And of course hoping that we are doing well enough to fulfil our dreams of world domination.

We probably should send Four back (as you have done), but we still don't have a great picture of north of the wheat. Seven could perhaps scout this on the way to meeting Pegasus.

Which brings me neatly on to your final point. I'd like to play it fairly straight but necessarily non-committal about long-term peace. We're not too scared of Vultures really, are we. So maybe something like a turn 50 NAP first up.

With us being Financial and our UU not coming until Machinery there is no incentive for us to be abrasive or untrustworthy.

So we could open up with something like: "Hello there. We come in peace. Our warrior, Seven, is trying to get the lay of this repetitive land of ours and has no nefarious intentions. How is your game going so far?"

And the next turn we say something like: "We are looking to harness our Financial trait and wait until we have unlocked our Unique Unit before conquering you, so how about an NAP until then?"

Or maybe: "We would like to propose an NAP until, say, turn 50. What do you say?"

I'm all for keeping it simple. We should keep our long-term deal with ruff a secret, both the parasitic arrangement and the NAP. And we should continue to share as much information as possible with ruff. But with everyone else we will only give small bits of information, whilst keeping it honest.

I think I like cyan 1W of its current location. It gives it fresh water and a floodplains boost. We are definitely entitled to claim the western yellow dot, even if it is pushed 1W because of the new cyan dot. That grabs the sheep, right? Plus it gives lots of trees to chop it to a fast start.

We could then be generous to Pegasus by moving bright green 1E (or not by leaving where it is).

Ok, let's go for cyan first, since it also has lots of forests to chop early on.

Then white, natch.

One final thought. In order to avoid wasting tiles, we could perhaps put one city 2W1N of the red dot, and another 1SE.

Why are we entitled to grab the sheep with yellow dot? It's in Pegasus half. But I agree the lay of the land kind of dictates it. Agree on bright green, that's a negotiating point. Red dot is kind of tentative anyway until we know if there's seafood down there. I would prefer Seven meets Pegasus and then scouts that area. The area north of the wheat isn't that important - we're not gonna steal Pegasus's area, and over towards Ruff isn't our first settling priority.

[SevenSpirits]

Seven, is trying to get the lay of this repetitive land of ours and has no nefarious intentions.

I couldn't agree more.