RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[RefSteel]

As far as I can see, I was actually right the first time.

Absolutely spot-on! If there's a better way to do it (without going back in a time machine and keeping Yalara home for Red Dot defense) I don't know what it is.

The big catch, of course, is that if there IS a wolf or panther on the gold hill, the fp 1E of it, or the plains tile 1N of it, we CAN'T move our workers onto the neutral-ground river grassland, and have to modify our microplan on the fly. But there shouldn't be anyone there, and we'll know for sure before we move them, so long as they move LAST (after our other units, not talking about other civs).

I also 100% support your decision to give info to our future friends. It's the sort of thing that close-to-the-chest teams would never do, but it's also the sort of thing that honestly can't hurt us in any meaningful way, and can potentially help a lot ... if only by showing we're not playing close-to-the-chest with them!

[Maniac Marshall]

I was watching for you on gmail. I actually think we were best off leaving Jassana on her current tile this turn, just to decrease the chance of a barb spawning near the sugar, but if you moved her to the flood plain, we're probably still ok.

[RefSteel]

Other notes: Yes, I am now a world expert on unit teleportation: I now know that what I posted above is slightly wrong; I'll fix it later, and provide some fun teleportation saves for people to try out themselves.

I'd like to propose a name for Red Dot, since it'll be coming up soon: Temminck! (See also this page.)

Thoughts?

AND FINALLY: Turn finished; Jasana moved per Maniac's plan.

The latest from Prrsha:



She'll be on flatland (1E) next turn, but be able to move into a forest again (1NE) the following turn. Also notice the brown borders to the west, meaning they founded their third city in the original planned location.

The latest from Yalara:



We're heading north, where hopefully we can contact another nation outside of the Five of Us Who Only Know of Each Other.

[RefSteel]

Last and least, we haven't posted an overview map in a while.
So here's an awful low-resolution one that's still too big.



We'll do a better one of our core from Turn 50 or 51 later.
(Whenever one of us gets around to uploading the pics)
And hopefully I'll eventually have time to build a big composite map.
(Read: A map whose parts you can actually see.)

Also, I added a sign in-game, not visible in this image. For flavor only.

[RefSteel]

I log into my e-mail this morning, and...

Hi Kittens!

You mentioned in your initial email that you were thinking of going for one of Mathematics or IW as your first 'trade' tech. From our discussions with Babylon it looks like Mathematics would be a good fit with the plans of Babylon, Byzantium, England and ourselves. These discussions are still provisional (and it doesn't help that we've not all met each other in game) but we think we should be able to figure something out that leads to us all getting IW, Maths, Alpha, Monarchy, and HBR in a trade round.

It would be a good idea - if you haven't done so already - for you to suggest to Byzantium that you'd like to research Maths (as we've not met them yet).

Best Wishes

Emperor Capac

Did I mention in this thread, or only to Maniac, that I wanted to go for Math rather than any other tech in the first-tech-trade tier? It should have the most trade value (highly desirable for obvious reasons, lots of beakers - e.g. in comparison with IW - and everyone needs it, unlike Alpha; you can get by without the latter as long as everyone ELSE has it!) ... plus of course our chop value is increased a bit sooner. I like the way this is shaping up. Maniac is replying as we speak, in accordance with our "reply as we can and don't worry about sending a perfect message" policy, and we'll send something Byzantium's way in accordance with the same principles shortly.

[RefSteel]

More notes because I enjoy quintuple-posting or whatever:

- Teleport rules updated and now (I think) complete. I also attached some saves you can play around with if you want to see some serious (and not-as-improbable-as-you-think) teleporting insanity. They should also help explain what's really going on when units get "bumped" (NOT an accurate term! "Teleportation" gives a much better sense for what actually happens). See this post, further back in our thread.

- Maniac played our turn, and will hopefully post an update later today.

- And there's a new turn up, but I can't play it - have to get back to work!

[Maniac Marshall]

Big update coming after the hockey game.

[Maniac Marshall]

OK, here's how the day at civ went.

I woke up this morning to this message from Mali:

Hi Kittens!

You mentioned in your initial email that you were thinking of going for one of Mathematics or IW as your first 'trade' tech. From our discussions with Babylon it looks like Mathematics would be a good fit with the plans of Babylon, Byzantium, England and ourselves. These discussions are still provisional (and it doesn't help that we've not all met each other in game) but we think we should be able to figure something out that leads to us all getting IW, Maths, Alpha, Monarchy, and HBR in a trade round.

It would be a good idea - if you haven't done so already - for you to suggest to Byzantium that you'd like to research Maths (as we've not met them yet).

Best Wishes

Emperor Capac

I read this as I was playing the turn (53) and was typing up a response when RefSteel contacted me via gchat. Together, we typed up this response to them.

Hello Emperor Capac

Good morning, or a good whatever time it is in your lands when you read this!

We were comming to that conclusion regarding Mathematics ourselves from what we had heard from Byz. We have already advised Byz that that was our preferred path and will, of course, advise them that you preliminarily agree. We're supposed to sit down with them and have milk and crackers later this afternoon.

We're finishing up Pottery now, it will be done on turn 55 (in 2 turns as I write this). After that, our tech path will depend in part on when trades can start happening. Soon is good for all of us, obviously! Ref is going to try and get exact ETAs on Mathematics for different tech paths and microplans, and we'll let you know what we've got as soon as we know ourselves; super-rough estimate right now is sometime in the ballpark of turn 80-85, but that's a VERY rough estimate; could be sooner or later depending on what we do and whether I remember things correctly. (If it's needed sooner, we'll find a way!)


In the meantime, any estimates we can get on the other techs' ETAs (even crazy rough ones like ours) would be extremely helpful, to help us plan our empire accordingly.


On another note, Byz was trying to arrange contact between us and Bab/UK. However, from talking to Byz, we think that Babs have settled towards you initially? If so, we've come to the conclusion that we'll meet Babylon (and therefore England) much faster with our warrior near you than we will with our one near Byz. Could you please advise them of her location and that she's the one that will be comming to meet them, not our warrior near Byz.

Thanks again for all your help so far, and thanks in advance for all your future help!

ManiCat Marshall and Ref Eriksson for King Ragnar Lodbrok.

A few minutes later, I had a chat with (I presume) Chillingsworth.

1:30 PM me: You're "green" again. Are you around now?
1:31 PM rbpitboss3spectres: howdy, just got back from errands
will be heading out again shortly, tho
we've met them, but no actual contact
sent an email, and invited them to chat
no response yet, they're probably busy
1:32 PM me: well, we just wanted to let you know that after talking with Mali, we're inclined to follow the Mathematics path
rbpitboss3spectres: k... sorry, which is?
:|
me: similar to alpha but goes to math.
1:35 PM Pottery done in 2, then Writing, then Math
1:36 PM it's 50 beakers cheaper than alpha, but steroids all our chops, and we're of the understanding that someone else is going to alpha anyhow
rbpitboss3spectres: yeah I think babylon will be alpha
my team is going ironworking
then something
maybe masonry
1:37 PM Moogle is sort of in charge of the tech stuff :P
me: we think England is going down the hunting/archery path, but that's just conjecture at this point because that's the path we don't see anyone else doing.
1:39 PM rbpitboss3spectres: have you met them?
hmmm I see Cyrne is online at RB... but I guess not signed into chat
bah
probably will message me right as I head out again :P
1:40 PM me: We're going to found our 3rd city in 2 turns, and will get you an updated picture then.
1:41 PM I think our 2nd city will pop its boarders in about 5 turns, will give you an exact time when we send the picture
1:42 PM Oh, and, I almost forgot!
1:44 PM We've nearly cleared Mali and can head NE from them next turn. Since it seems Babs settled that direction first, we're 99.9% sure we'll contact them that way in about 5 turns, or, much faster than with our warrior near you
1:45 PM When you contact England and Babylon, can you inform them of such? (We asked Mali to as well, but two messages about this is better than none, right?
1:46 PM rbpitboss3spectres: sure; but you will still be sending the warrior on our border toward babylon as well?
1:47 PM me: And, with this in mind, Yalara is going to head north, and we'll advise you periodically of what we find.
Well, we've counted tiles, and unless a warrior kills us out of the fog.... we don't think there is a reason to
1:48 PM Unless England wants us to
If they do, then we could change plans. There's just an awful lot of no cover ground between you and Babylon, so we'd prefer not to have to
1:50 PM Like I said, though, if this is extrememly convenient for England, we can do so. We just think we'll meet them much faster from the other side.
1:53 PM We thought it might be more useful for everyone if we could explore north with the warrior near you, since neither of us has done much exploring north.
1:54 PM rbpitboss3spectres: that works just fine, I'll pass on to babylon not to waste time moving north with their warrior
england too, when they contact me back
1:57 PM me: England's best rote to meet us would probably be to double back towards Mali

And then, not long after, we received another email from Mali.

Dear Friendly Kittens


It's a blustery evening in this part of the Mali empire!


Good to hear that you've had positive feedback from Byzantium (whom we've not yet met). We propose to supply Monarchy in this round of trades and our current forecast gives an ETA of T85. This is, of course, a very rough estimate. We'll need to up our tech rate to achieve this but we'll soon be merrily cottaging, so we hope we won't let anyone down with our tech pace.


Moving on to diplomacy & contacts, our understanding is that Byzantium & England have warriors headed to meet us. The rendez-vous is the woods north of the barb in the screenshot we sent out recently. Furthermore, you'll soon meet Babylon's culture: the 2nd ring of their city takes in the marble in the same screenshot, and they are aware that you are on your way, and look forward to meeting you.


Best Wishes


Emperor Capac

More next email.

[Maniac Marshall]

Oh, I nearly forgot, we got this email from Byz late last night. Just the picture.



Of course, as we now know, there is no need to use this picture to actually meet anyone. It is, nevertheless, highly useful, and, I think, vindicates the dicision to show them the overhead from turn 25. More to follow soon.

[Cull]

That screenshot of Byz reveals a LOT, such as city placement, level of devolpment, resources, etc.