RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Zara of the Ottomans

[WarriorKnight]

Finally from Krill:

OK guys,

just a heads up, but a lion has appeared and the Indians have had to create an alternate timetable for the meeting. This turn can you please move your chariot SW W, and then move it W NW on turn 53. This will get you contact next turn, one turn later, but the Indians won't move and risk their warrior on flatland next to the barb.

Thanks in advance,

Not really a problem.

T52:

Chops complete, Aquilonia switched to settler. Granary in Nemedia whipped. B starts roading (why do we need roads?)

Belit faced the bear that killed Conan and won without a scratch. Must be fate. I moved him N/NE



Sent a quick follow up to Ruff saying that Krill is 3S of his warrior. Also sent to Krill that they should head N or NE next turn.

Valeria faced a lion IBT and also won without a scratch. Copying Krill's instructions of SW/W:



Looks like we'll face another lion. Good news is that it is across a river, so we are practically guaranteed to win.

On that note, what promotion do we want for him? Sentry would be awesome, but that requires flanking 1, which is otherwise useless. Combat 1 would be useful but doesn't lead to sentry.

Demogs are in the usual place.

[WarriorKnight]

Ruff caught me into a chat and he sent an e-mail with the current situation:

Hi A4,

What does A4 stand for? Surely not paper size?

My feeling re an Inca attack just climbed from 80% to 85% (they double whipped again).

I've attached a pic of your chariot, my warrior, my second city and where that Q (unit name is HotDog) was and where I think it went. They met India this turn (T52) which would put them right on my yellow track (see pic). If they turn around and head back my way then my 85% above will climb to 95%. I haven't got time to chop that forest 1SW of my city so I am assuming that it will end up there. If they don't declare war, then you get to met the Inca ... but if they do then you get some experience by killing it. You won't be able to enter my territory without declaring on me but if that Q is in my territory then declare on both me and Inca and have at it.

Killing that Q will enable me to hook up my copper and to survive anything that the Inca can throw at me. I will also owe you a huge huge debt.

Anyway - I am really hoping that I am wrong but I am currently preparing as if I am right.

Cheers,

Ruff

With the following pic attached:



We also discussed the map a bit. He thinks that this is a green team battlefield map that has had its size edited to 64x64. This makes everyone 16 tiles apart from each other except Ruff's row where everyone is 13 tiles apart. This also fits into our Toroidal theory. Ruff also said that Exploit is W of India and Inca is E of Aztec. So I'll make a guess at how the teams are organized:

Exploit, India, Aztec, Inca, Rome
Dantski, Lobo, Us, DIM
France, Krill, Carthage, England
Maya, Byzantium, Mali, Babylon

However, this is a guess. We know that Mali and Babylon are near England somewhere otherwise they wouldn't have met yet. We haven't heard at all from Byzantium or Maya yet so I put them where we have no clue yet.

Still, it looks like Ruff is pre-occupied with the Inca so helping him out is in our interest. Since he admits that he owes us a huge debt if we kill the Q, I think that we could be in good shape to our N.

[WarriorKnight]

8 posts in a row

Ilios pmed me and ad for a chat (but ad left before he saw it so I took the call).

India have asked DIM and Ruff for an alliance when the cartel inevitably breaks after the first round. They weren't clear if we were invited or not but we can find out next turn. From the way they talked it sounds like we will be.

They also want an "alliance within an alliance" between us since they trust us more than they trust India or Ruff. Basically if/when the mini alliance breaks, we stick together.

Final note is that they are considering to try and bluff the Inca saying that 'if you attack, 3 teams will DOW you'. Worth considering is that Rome are to their E. If they do call us and attack, DIM said that Ruff will take the brunt of the attack and we don't have to risk anything. I don't really like this since DIM are willing to let Ruff get attacked, which given our friendly start with him seems like betrayal.

[WarriorKnight]

Message from Ruff to India, DIM and us

Greetings,

I am sending this to my three alliance members. Inca send me an email continuing my NAP discussion. I short back one that gave them 4 options (even down to a 10t one) and then caught them in chat where I offered a 5t one. Nakor was taking the line that he was only a messenger so I am calling their bluff.

The total dialog is here (http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....tcount=138) - that is a link to 1 single entry in my spoiler thread - you have my permission to view it (and only it <grin>).

Cheers,

Ruff

Ruff's bluff e-mail was . There are indeed a few 'surprises' up his sleeve. He thinks he has practically received a DOW from Inca. I would reply but we might as well wait until next turn when we have contact with India.

[Sockboy]

Hey, I'm back. Looks like Diplo has really taken off! Good thing I was the one away and not you WK

I've made the micro moves for turn 53, but haven't touched either chariot or Tarascus our warrior yet. The two chariots because I'm not sure where abouts we are with regards to the movement plans from Krill and Ruff and Tarascus because I'm not sure whether he's better off guarding our worker in side our boundaries or moving onto flatland and fogbusting for the settler. I think he should move onto the settlement site, but aren't sure.

Few replies re micro for WK:
We worked the spice tile to get 6/26 food in the box prior to the whip. After the whip we have 12/24 food, which is optimum for a granary as I understand. We also have a +6 food surplus at size 2, so we then get growth (and fill the granary) in two turns. Essentially we trade 3 hammers for an extra turn at size 3.

We're roading the tile Worker B is on as we need to send the settler/workers/city garrison to the gold through that tile later on. It saves us a worker turn not having to leave the tile and then re-road it later. On a related note, I'm not sure if roading the tile to the W is a great move (to be started next turn). I'd like a road on the tile, but it's not critical. Does anyone know what happens to turns spent cottaging on a forested tile if you later chop the forest (before the cottage is complete obviously?) If they get stored then it might be better to spend a turn or two cottaging the forest tile which will be shared between the silver city and Aquilonia. We can't chop straight off as it doesn't time with the next settler. Altenatively we could road the tile to the N of the road we just completed, although that will have our worker outside our boundaries without escort for 2 turns, not sure it's worth the risk.

Ok I'm off to catch up with C&D now

[Sockboy]

Ok so since we almost had miscommunication of micro over the weekend I thought I'd post what I see as our plan for the next 25 turns. I've pasted together a couple of old screenshots to try and get an overview of what we should be trying to do up to around the time we land HG.



So in the image lines represent roads to be tiled, M tiles to be mined, F tiles to be farmed, Q the stone to be quarried and X's tiles to be chopped for various reasons (Settlers, Hammam and HG the major ones). The dark brown roads already exist and the black X's have just been chopped. Next turn we'll have a settler complete in the capital.

Workers Alcazar and Castranno are roading towards yellow, farming and then roading the wheat, then hooking copper. Once they're done they both go to connect the stone, back to start roading a few tiles towards Orange and prechopping for HG. They also need to help farm a tile for Yellow to help it grow to size 4 so it can whip a settler before the HG completes. Yellow has two forests to be chopped, one for a granary and one for a settler (under the farm tile).

Worker B is heading to improve Green, but before he does he first needs to chop the tile 2E1N of Aquilonia to help get the settler out, then up to farm the wheat and then head back towards Aquilonia to help chop out the HG. If there's time he'll also need to road some tiles to help our units move around, depending on when we get IW he may also hook the silver.

Worker D (to be produced from Nemedia) and E (received from DIM) need to chop the forests around Nemedia (D to chop a library, E the spice woods for the Blue settler) Then they must road to Blue and start improving it.

We may have time to produce another worker from the capital, but I'm not sure yet. If so he can help road towards Orange/chop for HG.

[ad hoc]

Been in and finished our moves and finally met India



Valeria IMHO should continue moving north to do a bit more scouting.

Belit moved 2NW to the aid of Ruff and Tarascus stayed where he was, there was no need to fog bust because the settler will move and settle the same turn T55 i think, the next city is Zingara by the way

looking at your HG plan i'll trust in you C&D skills except i really am not happy with the silver city, 1 west of the wheat is a much better city place, it has generally less overlap with gold city and Aquilonia and can use in the end wheat, silver, four grassland cottages (2 riverside), three plains cottages and with machinery two windmilled grass hill

[ad hoc]

my revised dot map

[Sockboy]

That's probably a good call AH on the silver city I had that site marked a long time ago and hadn't really looked at moving it. We'll need to road the jungle tile N of the silver to ensure it's connected to our other cities. Ideally we'd do that before settling the city as afterwards we should be spending time improving the wheat. I think there's just time to fit it in between chopping the settler and settling. I think I also missed a chop needed for the HG, but we can sort that out a bit later. I've also assumed we want all new cities on granary first, but we can discuss if people think there's something more pressing needed.

I think I prefer the Fur city to the 1 tile to the NE but I think it's much of a muchness.

[WarriorKnight]

While checking e-mail's, Krill caught me as well as several other teams into a chat. (It was mostly Krill talking anyway)

Seems that what I feared has happened and the other teams are forming their own alliance.

6:49 AM new.mail.storage: ok, ottomans, portugal, HRE, some people haven;t met
so you can;t talk
but this is just a heads up to all of you
6:50 AM Right now we know that other teams are starting to research alphabet, and that new counter alliances are forming, even if they don;t know they are counter alliances
so this is a reminder that we need to be working together, not just in tech, but economically and militarily
we need to break Exploit hard
as he is the other player researching Alphabet
6:51 AM And we need to get as many friends as possible, not just caring about what tech they can provide, but where they can apply military force
right now we don;t even number half of the teams in the game
6:52 AM so we really need to bring in the teams that maybe only one or two of us knows
we need Rome, we need Carthage, We need England
If they reject our alliance than our alliance isn;t going to fly very far
6:53 AM so go and be nice, set up some regional wars on the "unbelievers", bind them in tight
oh, and the US members here
you guys suck at Hockey
6:54 AM darrelljs: no!
did they just score?
dman
new.mail.storage: Crosby, after sucking for hte first 3 periods
OK, that's my spiel done
but one addendum:
please don;t crash your economies, this is emp, and toroidal
6:55 AM DIM: expand and die
damn i talked...
6:56 AM new.mail.storage: yeah, disband the chatroom now...

Anyway, the only advantage we have is that we have (hopefully) oracled alphabet so its not too bad.

Talked to DIM a bit about Carthage:

DIM: did you guys explain the plan to Carthage yet?
me: we asked for a chat but they haven't responded yet
6:53 AM DIM: ok
me: we might just have to e-mail them about it though
6:54 AM DIM: better to explain in chat
6:55 AM me: i'll send them a follow up given the situation
DIM: ok
7:00 AM DIM: do Carthage still have that unit?
you might need to coordinate with them and Krill/India to meet up
7:01 AM me: it stills lives as far as i know
although it is halfway between the 2 of you
7:02 AM have you talked to Carthage yet?
7:03 AM DIM: they sent us a greeting, but I didn't want to say anything yet as you told us you wanted to be the ones inviting them
7:04 AM me: well, we could send them a combined e-mail between both of us
DIM: maybe just send them an email with us in cc
7:05 AM me: are England still following you?
DIM: no
but i will direct them north towards yuo
7:06 AM me: ok
will work on something to send to carthage
DIM: good

There is some good news too, DIM sent us a map:

Gents,

this is our rough understanding of the map. Based on the evidence we've gathered I'm assuming a 64x64 modified team battleground script. The locations aren't 100% accurate but they're directionally correct. Let me know if there's anything that doesn't match the info you currently have.

http://i47.tinypic.com/eao4up.jpg

Highest Regards

Meatbalz for DIM

Also Ruff sent some Goodies for free:

Guys,

Krill asked me for some map info and I put together this package. I've also included the demos that I can see (just got Inca).

Can you send me screenshots of your map? ... Ctrl-F for satellite view and Ctrl-B for Bare Map then zoom back just before the clouds turn up.

Ruff

It includes his demogs for T53 and his current map. If you want it you have to go to the ottomanzara account.

Also got a message from India:

Well met Ottomans! We have waylaid your chariot Valeria near Egyptian lands. Hopefully he won't have to sleep it off too many turns - we are known as a civ that knows how to PAR-TAY! You can see the 0.6/2 "hangover" our warrior Guinness has - someone must have spiked the lion stew we had!

So.... apparently we are already allies, though we have just now officially met in-game, right? :-)

It's my understanding that you guys are working on Pottery and planning on trading that around on the "Big Tech Trading Day" ™, is that right? And ruff has talked to you about working together a little closer within the larger tech group, right?

We hope to hear from you soon and PARTY ON!!!

DJ Civ

But it was not all good news though:

Guys,

I've been walking my dogs and thinking about my future. HRE are suggesting that we might be able to talk Inca off with a carrot (include in tech cartel) and stick (4v1 with shadow puppets at dawn). That might work, but I don't expect it to. Frankly, I don't want to reward such early aggression.

If they do attack, I don't see them capturing my capital with the first wave. If they walk straight past my capital, I expect they will be able to kill my second city just before the Tech Trade turn. Or they just choke my capital. Either way, I am out of the running re winning this game and my goals become KILL INCA and feed you guys money and military to KILL INCA. My civ can be set up to generate money (Shrine Income) and units (whip plus quick recovering time) so that might be my future.

DJCiv mentioned a goal of the initial encounter would be to not tip our hand re Chariots to the Inca - make them feel that they can safely bring wave after wave of axes. Then after Tech Trade day, we roll into my territory with Chariots and kill their units. As such and given that I can probably hold against the Q with 2 warriors in my 2nd city (until they walk an axe over), I don't think the Ottomans should declare on Inca ... just say hello, nice to meet you and send the chariot on a 5 to 8 turn tour - returning to Aztec lands in time for Tech Trade day.

Ruff