RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

By the way, here are the demographics for this turn. We're not doing too badly at all - #1 in GNP, #2 in MFG, average in food. Even though some of our GNP is due to Stonehenge, we're still amongst the top few, and that position should only improve with the Gold and Gems to be hooked up soon (plus cottages). Food is the main concern at the moment... part of the reason we're only average is because we've spent time building Stonehenge as opposed to new cities, but it's also partly because our capital is concentrating on hammers for churning out Workers and Settlers. Suffice it to say that I expect our position to improve here markedly once we get out our planned 8 cities in the next couple of dozen turns.

[Lord Parkin]

Had a brief chat with Plako. Slightly exaggerated the condition of my land up north, although it's true the stuff directly west of the capital isn't particularly amazing.

Main thing revealed was a lot of the reasoning behind the WarlordDR war. Apparently he wasn't a very nice person, let alone not a very good player. At least according to plako.

Plako: hi

me: Hi there

Plako: you see my non-protected settling party

me: Yes, it was rather enticing but I'm a man of my word, I didn't touch it

Plako: Do you see any bad guys behind the hill?

me: No

Plako: and thank you for that
thx

me: Can update you next turn as well once I move a turn further back

Plako: I've an axe 1turn behind, but thank you for offer

me: Hope you've got a defender coming soon though
Ah, right
But your Worker won't complete the road next turn, so unless you're settling out in the gold I presume your settler will be out in the open...
at least for one turn
Damned good spot that, by the way

Plako: yes 1T
But it is safe unless you see something now

me: Can't believe you have such an awesome one so close to your capital. The land around my capital up north completely stinks...
Ah, right

Plako: this is no totally balanced
Warlord was unlucky with copper

me: Unless someone moves first next turn and declares first the following turn... seems unlikely though
Unlucky as in he didn't have any?

Plako: he has, but hemade a misake with ssetttling also
settled toward me and not copper

me: Yeah, I've noticed it's not completely balanced. I've had a really tough time making new contacts due to the geography around me (huge number of dead ends and seas), whereas many of the people I've met have met almost everyone already

Plako: I've met all but REgo/Sunrise
btw. have seen them?

me: Wait, so he didn't settle Copper earlier when he could have? Bit of a stupid move on the part of WarlordDR then...
No, I haven't seen them
I've heard they're across the sea to my east, but I haven't made contact

Plako: yes it was reckless especially when he had been hostile

me: Seems almost everyone else has connections in 3 directions (E/W/N or E/W/S), whereas I only have two (W/S)

Plako: Warlord did have only 2
also

me: Hostile? How so?
Hmm, ok, interesting to know
It's not all bad... makes it a little easier to expand (or at least more obvious directions) when you're up against a sea. Still, not sure it's worth the lack of early contacts though

Plako: Practically no communiction at 1st so I declared when I got opportunity and then mainly insults and threats. It was fun while it lasted WarriorKnight is much more civil

me: Made it safe for me to build Stonehenge earlier due to only 1 near neighbour, though I suspect with distances on this map anyone would have been safe early on... except WarlordDR
Really? Doesn't sound like particularly nice behaviour
Sounds like you had good grounds then

Plako: He didn't even have his own spoiler thread so we never know what was he planning

me: Bizarre that he'd be so hostile without preparing properly for war though. Reeks of one of those players who's all talk but doesn't actually know much.
Yeah, I noticed that... seems a bit odd to join a community where everyone posts lots about what they're doing, and then completely ignore the community once you sign up (a month before the game starts)

Plako: yeah I think he never signes back on RB after 1st few messages

me: Anyway, glad WarriorKnight is more civil, though it seems he may have been critically gutted upon arrival into the game

Plako: Private messages at least didn't go through

me: Doesn't surprise me...

Plako: It is not too bad for him though he has 3 cities

me: Still, quite a good situation for you, arguably strongest position in the game and with two of the weakest neighbours in the game (one which you've already partly subdued)

Hmm, ok, perhaps he'll manage a comeback then, who knows

Plako: Gaspar/Nakor hsould be alright
players

me: I guess so. Mainly basing my opinion on their rather dubious civ/leader pick and their near-bottom of the scoreboard position

Plako: I know Nakor pretty well
He is good at emire building
*empire

me: I've read about Nakor's play in PB2, seemed reasonable but not particularly amazing
Yeah, you would have known him from that game
You were kind of in WK's position there, now you get to be in the other position this time around
Maybe I'm judging too harshly though, time will tell

Plako: true at 1st I had a deja-vu, but it turned around

me: Hehe

Plako: i.e WarringgWarlord in place of Aggressive praets

me: Yeah
Well luckily you got the best of him this time around

Plako: And Nakor on the other side

me: Yep

Plako: yeah.
Alright had to be going

me: Ok, sure
Nice chatting
See you later

Plako: cya

[Lord Parkin]

Our Settler will arrive at the Gems spot next turn, founding the city on the following turn. The Worker at Evermore has moved onto the Gold tile to build a 2-turn road before the borders expand on turn 59, at which point he'll build a 2-turn mine along with the other Worker that's heading down from the capital.

We have a Warrior from Nakor that'll be heading up into that area in the next few turns, but we have a NAP so I'm not too worried. More to the point, we have 3 Warriors guarding the area already, and another 2 that can be produced at a moment's notice, so I'm not at all concerned about security for now.

Started another Settler in the capital after finishing the Worker. It'll be done in 3 turns thanks to two more forest chops. This Settler will head for the Copper city spot (#5). After that we'll build another Worker and a Settler for the Fur spot (#6).



No other resources revealed yet at that Sheep-Rice-Whale spot we found to our west.



This turn again I had the option of killing Plako's undefended Worker and Settler pair, but again I decided to leave it. He's certainly taking a pretty big risk though... I wouldn't do that myself, even with someone I'd just signed a NAP with. I'm not that trusting, and I think many people would take advantage of the situation. Anyway, his choice, but a dubious one.



Bob continues exploring in the west... I think he'll head around the north of that city of SleepingMoogle's, then see what the options are from there.



There's also the matter of the new Gems and Pig-Gold sites down to the south, which I'll discuss in a separate post.

[Lord Parkin]

With James the Scout confirming that there's no seafood in the immediate vicinity of that southern Rice, that pretty much locks in the location of a future city site (a second Gems site). Of course, there's no point in settling it until after Iron Working, and it'll require Calendar and Civil Service to get to its full potential. Initially it'll be a basic Rice-Gems city with only 2 food to spare, but it'll evolve into a healthy commerce city with 6+ food per turn working irrigated Rice and 3 Spices.

Also, I had a thought about that proposed Pig-Gold city further south. Assuming we want to go for it, we probably need to rearrange our future city plan to make sure we get there as soon as possible. Otherwise plako or Nakor may well take it before we can (it's slightly closer to them after all - 15/16 tiles from plako's capital compared to 19/20 tiles from ours). The earliest I think we can sensibly settle it is with city #8, assuming we settle the Corn-Ivory-Ivory spot for city #7 as a gateway. This means sacrificing the Horse and Silver cities until later (which were previously planned as cities #7 and #8 ).

I think on the whole this is a good idea. Sure, it costs us more maintenance-wise, but otherwise we don't lose out on anything. The Ivory spot is better than the Horse spot, the Gold gives us more commerce than the Silver would, and the lack of happiness from Gold compared to Silver is made up by gaining Ivory earlier.

I don't even think it's that risky a site if we switch it to the hill 1E of the Pigs. That gives us an extra defensive bonus and puts it within 3-turn range of the Ivory city by road (instead of 4-turn range). By this time we should have Axemen and Spearmen around, so if we chuck a couple of each in a city on a hill, nobody's going to be taking that particularly fast.

What do the lurkers think?

[Lord Parkin]

Just got demographics on Nakor this turn. Man, things aren't looking too good for him.

GNP-wise, he's a long way behind the pack. Seriously, that looks pretty bad. Maybe he's hooking up a commerce resource in a few turns... I sure hope so for his sake.



In terms of production he's not doing that well either, on par with Luddite who had fewer cities than him until last turn.



The only thing that's looking up for him is food, but even so, he's only a couple of points ahead of us - not a considerable lead considering his poor hammer and commerce situation.



Maybe I'm worrying over nothing, but I'm concerned that Nakor is developing into a soft secondary target for Plako. Man, why did that guy get all the luck with having two (seemingly) pushover civs as his immediate neighbours. Perhaps they'll prove me wrong and make a comeback, though. But it's not looking good so far...

[Lord Parkin]

Received a reply from SleepingMoogle. Apparently he's intending on going for the Hanging Gardens... hmm, we were quite keen on that too. Perhaps the best thing here is to not mention it for now and see what happens. No sense alarming him now and making him try to build HG faster, if we end up wanting it ourselves.

Greetings Lord Parkin,

On behalf of my people I bid you welcome to our lands. The list of Civs to meet is slowly reducing for us now, which is always a good thing indeed. :-)

Having the Industrious Civs in one long row is an interesting coincidence, but I'm not too concerned that might make us a target in the future. Warfare is much more likely to be caused by border tensions and alliances, both of which are not that close quite yet. Anyway, we are considering the Hanging Gardens right now (being Babylon and all), so it doesn't look like we'll be competing for wonders anytime soon. Your guess about Stonehenge was correct as well; we never seriously considered it. A belated congratulations on landing it by the way. :-)

Plako does appear to be someone to keep an eye on. I actually was unaware he commited to an early war (this probably happened while I was on holiday heh), but that would explain his jump in score. We're still in an early enough stage though that it is possible for everyone to catch up. More likely than not, alliances will be what will produce the eventual winner, and plako will at the very least have strained relations with one of his neighbors for the remainder of the game. On the other hand, as two Civs who are unlikely to compete for anything for a long time we have every reason to cooperate for mutual benefit.

As an example, I'm curious what you think of the map so far. From what our scouts have uncovered so far, a Lakes script appears to have been used, and as you mentioned, Civs are positioned in two rows of five. There's still a number of features that are yet to be explained though, and I welcome the chance to discuss them further. :-)

Pleasant dreams,
-SleepingMoogle
Patriarch of the first tribe of Somnus

[Lord Parkin]

Sent to SleepingMoogle:

Greetings again SleepingMoogle,

I agree that it's too early to tell for sure how alliances will develop. Still, if I had to put my money on an early runaway at this point, it'd be Plako. But we'll see.

I didn't realise you were unaware of Plako's early war. The target was WarriorKnight, in case you hadn't already heard. Plako was apparently the aggressor and received a gifted city in return for peace, although who knows how long that'll last. With a crippled neighbour on his doorstep and (presumably) a lion's share of the land between them, Plako definitely looks to have set himself up well for an early lead. Anyway, hope that information's useful to you.

Other information we can share is the full layout of players on the map, which we determined a while ago. You may already be aware of most of this if you've met a lot of players already, but just in case I'll share it in good faith anyway. The layout is:

--- SleepingMoogle --- Mackoti --- Luddite --- Lord Parkin ------ Sunrise ------
------- Adlain --------- Locke ---- Nakor ------- Plako ------ WarriorKnight ---

I've met Luddite but not Sunrise because there's a big ocean to my immediate east, apparently running right down the map. Thus I never really had a shot at circumnavigation, and found it difficult to make new contacts. However, all is not bad, and I'm doing what I can with the hand I've been dealt.

Any other information we can share about the map at the moment? Well, like you, we're pretty sure that this is some kind of lakes or perhaps snaky continents layout. There seems to be a bit of a "maze" theme thrown in as well - at least, I've found it tricky to get around with multiple dead ends when exploring. That's about all I can think of at the moment. Oh, I've noticed that the central land seems to be a bit more resource-rich than the land around the players... but maybe that's just me. A lot of the land around my start is fairly poor, but exploring near plako's capital he seems to have a whole heap of great land right next door to him, so maybe I'm the odd one out. Not sure.

I agree with you that as we're two civs unlikely to be competing for anything in the forseeable future, we have every reason to cooperate for our mutual benefit. If you're interested, I'd be happy for us to start things off along this road with a long-term non-aggression pact - for instance to 1 AD, or later if you'd like. Our borders are miles apart and we have no reason whatsoever to be aggressive towards one another in the forseeable future, so such a deal seems to make a lot of sense. Let me know what you think, anyway.

<Removed personal stuff>

Regards,
Lord Parkin

[Lord Parkin]

Going out of binary research just for this turn, so Pottery is finished in time for next turn when we want to start a Granary in our new Gems city. One of the few situations where going out of binary research seems worth it.

Settler for the Copper city will be produced in 2 turns.



Joe's heading towards the bottom of the map so we can get an exact north-south tile count on this map. Not particularly important, just something I'm interested in to see how close my earlier guess was.



Bob continues west. Wonder if we can get around SleepingMoogle's city... guess we should ask him.

[Lord Parkin]

Message received from SleepingMoogle:

Hey there Lord Parkin,

Thanks for the info about Plako. For now I'll keep an eye on it, but we are so far apart from each other that's likely to be all that I can do for a good while to come.

The layout that you included matches my own guestimate. The band of jungle along the equator seems to be a fairly continuous feature, but not everyone is linked horizontally. Regoarrar (whom I met a few turns ago) actually noted being blocked off from the west as well, and also mentioned the dead ends. This is something I haven't seen a whole lot of myself, but the bodies of water around my starting position seem to be doing a fair job already. It may be that peak tiles were added in specific locations to give the map a maze-like quality, but it's not something I can personally vouch for. Other than the mirrored starting positions (two deer and a cow), much of the map feels fairly natural. The terrain does indeed look better around the equator though.

I'm happy to sign a NAP until 1AD if you are. When the calendar turns we can always consider extending it further. :-)

Pleasant dreams,
-SleepingMoogle
Patriarch of the first tribe of Somnus

[Lord Parkin]

Sent a reply to SleepingMoogle.

Hi SleepingMoogle,

Yeah, you're definitely too far from Plako right now to be able to do much - just something to bear in mind for the distant future perhaps. Heck, even I'm miles from him (something like 40 tiles capital to capital), and he's supposedly my southern "neighbour". It'll be quite a while before our borders even get close, that's for sure.

Thanks for the added info about the map. We also noticed the mirrored starting positions, which seems to extend to all tiles in the fat cross being identical, including forests and rivers. Beyond that, things differ between the starts. The only people that will have got a different start would have been Sunrise and Regoarrarr, and that'd only be because they didn't settle in the place (moving to the coast from what we could tell from the demographics, perhaps for an attempt at the Great Lighthouse or just because they found some nice seafood).

One thing you might be able to do for us - can you let us know if there's any way around the city of yours our Warrior is next to? We're quite keen to head further west to finally encounter Sunrise/Rego, who we're fairly sure are our eastern neighbours across the sea. If you can help us out with a point in the right direction, that would be much appreciated. Don't want to run into any more dead ends if we can help it.

<Removed irrelevant chat>

Kind regards,
Lord Parkin