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

[RefSteel]

I had issues accessing the forums earlier, so I wasn't able to post the updates I wanted to, and I now have to leave in short order, with a long day at work tomorrow. I can finish our turn in the morning (before it rolls) if needed. If either of you gets to it before me, we just have to rename Salthi (his new name is "Bhurak Starkiller") and move him in the direction of Operation Tuesday 65 - which for this turn means 2NW (to what I believe is a plains hill, generally in Sumeria/Exploit's direction). The new tentative microplan has been posted in its spot on the first page again, and we've followed it for this turn. I'm going to improve it some more if I can (the first changes to what's posted should come on T64) so don't take it as gospel.

Lurkers, I'm sorry for referring to a bunch of stuff you may never have heard of. We'll do my best to catch things up when we can.

Cull, I apologize for not answering more of your questions. I'll try to get to those tomorrow after I've played (assuming you or Maniac don't do it for me).

[EDIT: Oh, yeah: And Maniac's right. The only way we or anyone outside the Hydra will survive is if the Hydra seriously blows it. Satyagraha was probably at least as good a hope as the path we eventually took.]

[RefSteel]

I checked in-game, and I believe we've located Egypt! We're always just a little too late with these things. More (including pictures) as part of a general update if I can manage it.

[RefSteel]

Okay, I'll start with the current stuff and then catch up as best as (and when) I can.

Here's Yalara:



Look closely up in the corner almost directly north of her:



That's Egypt, right? We can have contact in a couple of turns if we want - which we probably don't; it might be better to use Yalara as a hidden sentry in the area until Krill spots her himself. If that's the plan, we should probably move her 1E to the plains hill forest.

Meanwhile, as everyone knows by now, we've been fighting.



More details on what led up to that when I can get them up. The upshot is, of course, that the city of T-Shirt Contest got auto-razed. Thus, the recent headlines (with some of the not-so-recent ones) look like this:



Expect to see "The Oracle has been BIDL" added to that next turn. (For real this time. What took them so long? I imagine they didn't want to reveal everything on civstats until they had more techs to trade around than just alpha. And Krill probably wanted more WCs to complete before he went all-out for oracle. And their C&D likely told him no one was going to beat them to it anyway, so....)

Just to close things out, I'll add a shot (in the next post) of the southern theater with lots of extra info on the side.

[RefSteel]

The South:

Note that our chariot has been renamed.
Salthi is the chariot; Bhurak is the charioteer.

[RefSteel]

You all know what's happened so far on Turn 63; it turns out my post six turns ago saw it coming a mile off instead of just-before-it-happened. It would have been so much more elegant if Krill had managed to finish the Oracle on the same turn he got Writing, but sometimes your land just won't cooperate. I haven't decided whether he built his entire game plan around proving how idiotic the voted-upon rules system really is or whether he just decided, "Well, if everybody's going to vote these rules in, I may as well exploit them to the max on my way to victory" - maybe a little bit of both. It would be interesting to learn whether he had this planned out only after he saw his place in the pick order ... or as soon as the last rules were voted in ... or part way through the voting process ... or before he made his first post (saying he'd play if there were 15+ players) in the planning thread! I suspect it was around the time the rules were finalized, but you never know.

So, let's go back to Turn 62 for more fun from info screens. I won't bother posting 'em since there are just one or two notes from each:

1) Sumeria isn't in Slavery yet. He's the one who's researching Alpha for us CANTers* and likely to be under attack moderately soon. As probably everyone on RBCiv knows already, Exploit is no Krill.
* - Yes, I'm using Krill's naming convention here. It's more accurate, and funnier. (As everyone knows who has read the immortal RB1 thread over at CF, the Hydra is the hero, and you need multiple religions in the same city to qualify.) Don't worry; I'll still say Hydra/Heracles in diplo e-mails.

2) We were second in the world in GNP (41 to 47) according to the demoscreen. That's with a total of 4 culture per turn across our entire civ. We don't even have any multiplier buildings yet. (On the other hand, now we probably never will.) We were also second in the world in hammers (18 to 20). Absolutely murdering the average in both cases. We were also above average in crop yield. If this game had been built with a half-sane ruleset, we'd have been doing great!

[RefSteel]

Answering some questions Cull posted:

Currently, Temerick (our third city) is working a 3 food, 3 commerce tile, but COULD be working a 4 food, 1 commerece tile instead (the farm right under our second city). The city then grows in 1-2 turns

The reasons we were working the cottage were: 1) The city would grow in 2 regardless of which tile we worked; 2) We need to squeeze out all the commerce we can, and 3) It's not just a 3/0/3 tile - it's a 3/03 cottage! Working it brings it one turn closer to becoming a hamlet, village, and then town.

India invites us to join the Hydra. Obviously the answer is NO, but I don't know how to respond. Say yes, and still declare war? Don't answer, declare war, or just plain out say no, and declare war? Not really important, but it affect the diplo message we send them.

We ended up declaring without answering, of course. (I sent them something later.) I wanted to talk to them first, but it doesn't really matter; the talk wouldn't have accomplished anything. I had hoped to lure them OUT of the Hydra when I sent my e-mail earlier in the day - but their e-mail made it clear that the Hydra was going to wipe the floor with Heracles*, that they were inextricably bound up with their alliance, and that losing a city would be NOTHING compared to losing their hydra participation. I still might have swung something utterly crazy (and complicated) that would satisfy both of our civs, but I doubt it, and anyway it's too late to worry about it either way.

Ref, I need to go soon, and won't be back until after the turn is over. I don't know where you are, so I'm going ahead and doing it now.

Sorry if this is sudden, but will still get the second half, and so...

Post soon for results!

This was posted while I was walking from the train to my apartment complex. I was literally five minutes (or less) away from having access to the forum and the game again when the attack went down! Of course, Cull didn't know that, and as noted above, I don't think it changed anything in the end. In the end, I think it's a bizarre, poetic, and even oddly beautiful coincidence.

I looked at the email account, and how do you find that Exploit would be under Non-Indian Agression?

That's why I don't do diplo..

India mentioned "other fish to fry" that would "get fried without us" but would "fry faster with our help" (quoting from memory, so I may be slightly off) and rego in particular told us to expect that - due to Tech Alliance actions - we should expect that promises made to us by non-Tech-Alliance civs would not be fulfilled successfully. Maybe he was blowing smoke (to use their phrase) but true or false, it's what they were saying.

Oops.. The chariot is not up for Shock, since it doesn't get the agg C1 bonus. I say c1 for the promo now.

Maniac and I agree, and (as you can see above) that's what I did this morning. I usually would give a Chariot Flanking (en route to Sentry) but this was a special case. (And C1 > Medic isn't bad for a chariot either if war is coming.)

*- If we knew then that the Hydra would defeat Heracles, WHY DIDN'T WE JOIN THEM?!?! Was it just because Cull attacked prematurely?

Um, no. First of all, we weren't going to betray our friends and allies. They might not have attacked us, but that just isn't the way I think we want to play the game. (It's not the way I wanted to play it anyway.) On top of that, we were never really invited into the Hydra. The "offer" they made was made under duress (Salthi threatening their city) - and at a time when they were the only Hydra civ we knew, a "VERY few" (quoting their e-mail) turns from getting alphabet - as we now know, "VERY few" meant TWO! We couldn't even have met enough civs in their alliance to get any kind of tech advantage in the first round. Was the chance of their offer being genuine - and that we could survive betraying our former friends - better than the odds of us winning now?

...

Eh, I guess, maybe? But I wouldn't have been willing to backstab Mali and Babylon and the Specters and Tech Peddle and subjugate our civ to the needs of a super-alliance, least of all when our first and main contact would be the DJ Civ whose friendship was "earned" under duress. Not for the odds we'd be facing, and not for any odds. That's my opinion, of course; take it for what it's worth.

(But wait, aren't we more or less subjugated to a smaller, weaker alliance now? Well, kinda. But it IS smaller and weaker, which gives us a lot more leeway, it's with friends instead of "the winning side," and I, for one, put a lot of stock in not betraying allies. And I still don't believe we'd have been a true part of the tech alliance.)

[RefSteel]

Finally: I can play tomorrow morning before the turn rolls if you want, though it's better (i.e. if I sleep in, we don't miss the turn) if you play. We'll hopefully have more news from our allies at that point. If it were me, I'd move Yalara 1E to the forest hill unless we'd somehow met Krill already by start of turn, move Prrsha 1NW to a forest hill unless there's a unit with which we're at war (or barb) in the way, follow the microplan for T63 on page 1 (post 8 in this thread) and move Bhurak Starkiller ... ... well, it will probably depend on what we here from our allies, but the threatening (and maybe pointlessly dangerous) move is 1W-1SW to a desert hill, and the safe/hidden move is 1NW-1W to the grassland. Because of their border pop, they'll know exactly where we are either way, of course. (The can't see the grassland tile, but they're not dumb.) Another option is to heal in place, but I want to meet Rome ASAP. I guess I slightly favor the northern path, but ... eh. I guess it depends among other things on whether other units are visible anyway.

If you're absolutely not sure, and REALLY don't want to decide, do everything except moving Bhurak, set him to heal, and if I'm awake in time to play the turn (I fully expect to be) I can leave him that way or move him wherever. But it's still your team - Maniac and I are still trying to be just dedicated lurkers in spite of the major roles we've been playing - and in the end, I think it's best if you make the best decisions you can. If Maniac or I or both disagree, we'll live.

[Cull]

Finally: I can play tomorrow morning before the turn rolls if you want, though it's better (i.e. if I sleep in, we don't miss the turn) if you play. We'll hopefully have more news from our allies at that point. If it were me, I'd move Yalara 1E to the forest hill unless we'd somehow met Krill already by start of turn, move Prrsha 1NW to a forest hill unless there's a unit with which we're at war (or barb) in the way, follow the microplan for T63 on page 1 (post 8 in this thread) and move Bhurak Starkiller ... ... well, it will probably depend on what we here from our allies, but the threatening (and maybe pointlessly dangerous) move is 1W-1SW to a desert hill, and the safe/hidden move is 1NW-1W to the grassland. Because of their border pop, they'll know exactly where we are either way, of course. (The can't see the grassland tile, but they're not dumb.) Another option is to heal in place, but I want to meet Rome ASAP. I guess I slightly favor the northern path, but ... eh. I guess it depends among other things on whether other units are visible anyway.

If you're absolutely not sure, and REALLY don't want to decide, do everything except moving Bhurak, set him to heal, and if I'm awake in time to play the turn (I fully expect to be) I can leave him that way or move him wherever. But it's still your team - Maniac and I are still trying to be just dedicated lurkers in spite of the major roles we've been playing - and in the end, I think it's best if you make the best decisions you can. If Maniac or I or both disagree, we'll live.

I woke up this morning and I realized I have 1 hour until the turn rolls.

So, I'll play the turn AFTER school, at around 6:00ish PM EST. Still gives me about 2 or so hours left to play, which is enough. Ref, if you want to play when you wake up, go ahead, but I WILL play. It might be like this for a while,

I personally would like to meet Rome in-game, and so I'll move it 1NW-1W into the grassland.

[Cull]

About the chariot move, I don't know what Exploit is referring to in the latest email, so I'll just leave the chariot untouched.

[RefSteel]

Right - Turn 64 played except for moving Yalara.



The bear is on one of the green dot tiles. I think I'd like to move Yalara 1S en route around the mountains to look for a better sentry location, but she's currently just fortified in place.

We also got to have a chariot fight again! No, not with India. Dralthi moved 1SW en route to making sure the gold hill was clear for Toulouse. But he spotted a barb warrior on flatland who was going to cause trouble if we let him. So I asked him to wait, sent Toulouse to the gold hill, saw that there were no units within two tiles of the hill (so he can't be attacked before our next move) and therefore...



Dralthi Medium Fighter vs. Guy with Club.



Yeah. Chmeee, a couple tiles away, is a spectator, having just finished his cottage. Since my screenshots don't have audio, you'll have to take my word for it that he's saying, "Why can't I be a fighter pilot?" The upshot is...



At 2.3 health, but with a promotion coming. I suggest Flanking, for future Sentry purposes.

We also made a couple cave paintings of Prrsha's area for Mali. Before:



And After:



Am I correct that Prrsha moves 1NE (continunig north, but doubling back east toward England) next turn?