RB Pitboss #3 [SPOILERS]- Suryavarman II of England

[haphazard1]

OK, sent the messages to France, HRE (with ASM's suggested modification), and Babylon (with screenshot).

Anything else we need to do for diplo? Mali has not responded to Cyneheard's message yet, not sure if we should poke them again this soon.

I suppose we could communicate with Carthage about the barb warrior there, but they should be able to see him as he is within 2 of their border. They get lucky, he will probably die attacking us rather than go after their gold mine.

I put a few signs up in game for next turn, mostly for the workers and our exploring units. Note our choppers near BR have been stopped, to make sure we get the settler swapped in before completing the chops.

[antisocialmunky]

Greetings Avalon,

We understand from the HRE that we are all joining a noble allience and that you would direct us to the other members who have scouts in the area, or even direct their scouts to us. We consider this an urgent matter and appreciate your assitance.

We met last turn Mukha & Dantski of the Cath Bruig Empire and expect to meet Rome anytime - they are not part of our group as i understand and we will be dealing with them very carefully.

Can you confirm that you will be recieving alphabet on turn 63/64? Our team has been hoarding gold for many turns now and are ready to research more expensive techs, however we are concerned about delays etc through not meeting enough allience members in time.

With reagrds to settling, as sullla had created the map it was my thoughts that moving the starting settler would give a superiour spot, this was the case, but I sent the settler in the wrong direction, a real cock up live and learn

We are really looking forward working with all our partners, please let us know if we can be of any assitance.

Morgan
Liz of Anglo-French

I wonder about France though. I think we should send:

Bon-hello Anglo-Franks,

We would be glad to help. However we can see no scouting units in the area especially now that the barbs are out in earnest. Carthage is on the other side of us and the Cartel leader is West of HRE. We are on our way to meet him and will have Alpha in the next few turns but we can't give you an exact turn number. We can ask him to send someone your way to half the meeting time when we find him. We would also appreciate your assistance in meeting Mukha & Dantski in return if that's not too much to ask. Are they too part of our alliance?(remove if we already know)

To be honest, we were somewhat alarmed to find you so close. No doubt you are aware of a certain site around where we ran into your warrior. We have been in negotiations with the HRE for it since they say it is within their borders but they for whatever reasons neglected to inform us of your very close proximity. So we were curious whether or not you agreed to a border split already or are they giving away land they don't really have a claim to? We just want to make sure our negotiations are with all parties involved so our settler won't cause any trouble.

*Standard Sign Off*

Obviously modify once we get the response back form HRE.

[Cyneheard]

I'm back now.

Lords of Avalon,

Now, as you may be aware, i am English by birth and actually moved south to fine Genesis as a child.

Therefore i know better than most about the nobility of the fine English people. Not to mention their hospitality to guests. However, your map doesn't particularly fill me with hope going forward. I appreciate those two food resouces are nearer your capital than ours and it is not your fault that the map-making Gods deigned to put none of the resources much nearer us than yourself.

With this in mind, i don't really mind conceding the two named sites as they are considerable nearer yourselves anyway. The cow site though, i think perhaps we should negotiate further? It is feasibly our only worthwhile city site in a northern direction and any give here would be seen favourably by ourselves.

Also, would you have any problems with me forwarding this to Mali also? The land in question arguably affects them more than us and i would like to make sure we crease out any potential obstacles before they occur?

Your friends,

Kyan
Kysit's Periwinkles

1) I have 0 problems with forwarding to Mali.
2) Letting them have the cows, but not the floodplain, would be fine (we can even tell them that we'd be using a sugar tile farther north).
3) Mali's going to be SOL with getting decent sites to the north. Sorry. They simply don't exist.

[antisocialmunky]

You mean Babylon.

[Cyneheard]

No, definitely Mali. Babylon gets a 1-cow city. That's it.

And the IT Thread suggests that the Maya (Cull) are in a war. I'll post a rather lazy chat with Byzantium when we're done, mostly just shooting the breeze. Not sure if it's going to go anywhere truly useful. Byzantium said they don't know anything about the Maya war.

[Cyneheard]

Well, it pays to chat up our neighbors. I gave some data about our lands, but got at least as useful in return. No proposals to discuss with them, so didn't try.

Key things:
1) According to Byzantium, Babylon is horse-less. And Babylon's copper is on the border with Byzantium. And Byzantium's going for it, as well. So that's why Babylon wanted a deal now. However, even us vs. Mali would be trouble in the near-term, we need to grow & tech.
2) Byzantium has gold, gems, and horses. And floodplains. Sullla, you didn't fully balance the non-capitals; what we know of Babylon suggests that they're quite a bit worse off than Byzantium, who's probably got one of the stronger sets of land on the map. And when our nearest copper is at least 8x8 from our starting position (yes, we moved 1SE, but even from our initial spot, that's pretty far), you're not giving everyone a fair shake on strategic resources.
3) I made it clear that we had horses already, and implied that copper wasn't an issue. And food isn't our problem.

me: quick question: Any clue who the Maya are fighting? According to the IT thread, Cull is claiming half a turn, but not saying who they're against
Spectres: oh hey long time no ... type? [RE: Maya] not sure, suppose we'll hear soon enough. things are pretty complicated in our corner of the world
me: aye, our closest warrior to them got eaten by a bear. they're complicated in everyone's part of the world
Spectres: No doubt. We'd like to meet some other players, but contact has been slow
me: We've met 6 civs total. France is to our east, so your northwest. Carthage is to our west, so quite far to the NE for you, they're between Maya and Mali
HRE is to our north, and then we've met the others on your row but Maya.
you guys? Us, Mali, Maya, Babylon.
The Inca and Aztec should be fairly nearby
Spectres: hmm. We're hoping to meet france soon. met mali last turn, actually, mostly just exchanged greetings
me: but the Inca and Aztec are in the row south of you. I'm not 100% certain where E-W. did you guys know that this is a 64x64 basically all-land map?
Spectres: yeah. I hear the aztec and Inca are fighting- ruff's been surprisingly public about it, for posts in the tech thread. will be interesting to actually meet one of them.
me: Aye. Inca are the #1 power civ
Spectres: I haven't seen any major score decrease for either of them, although I haven't been very active in checking, so I assume nothing major has occured yet
me: Ruff's whipped constantly, 4 whips last 10 turns
Spectres: He might be in trouble if he doesn't have metal or horses; archers won't help vs. Inca
me: If that's the case, then he's in trouble [OOC: Crap, Ruff's in trouble]
it would be amazing if this is the first time that the lowly Quechua actually gets use in one of these
Qs are much better vs. AIs, who start with all archers
normally it's warrior --> chariot or axe
Spectres: yup, although since they start with combat 1, they aren't terrible vs. warriors
me: Sure, Krill got some use out of the Quechua in his game, but not a ton over a regular warrior (or a regular Agg warrior, really)
Spectres: if you have a barracks
me: true, but that's 3 quechua.

[USEFUL STUFF BEGINS HERE]
me: You guys having any luck with land? It seems as though all our neighbors have settled towards us, at least a little bit, and there's so much crappy land on this map
Spectres: actually we've been fairly lucky in that regard, the south is very rich, we can settle a few sites that are almost all FP
me: Nice. I think we have like 2 FP in our whole empire
Spectres: and there's a gold and gems resource we intend to claim. ah. That's unfortunate. we're having some border disputes with babylon tho, which is regrettable. had hoped to work very closley with them
me: yeah, we'd heard about that, but they didn't volunteer too much.
Spectres: actually, personally I was under the impression that we had everything worked out, but apparently not
me: we're trying to settle a border between us and them, and the problem is that the land just south of us is fine, but the land just north of them is crap
Spectres: I think we'll still reach an agreement eventually, tho- we really need to be working together for tech purposes and not building troops in prep for war
me: so you've got the whole set of mining happys? Since it seems we're all jungled silver
Spectres: yeah, although none hooked up. what! none in view, even?
me: no, I meant, every civ started with a jungle silver
Spectres: well, yes, obviously. I mean, you don't have visible gold? or gems?
me: Well, the first gold we saw was HRE's first city, at first ring to their capital, so, no, not really. We have a fur.
Spectres: I assume you're okay for horses / copper?
me: that's not been the issue, it's commerce
Spectres: Right, just curious if you're strapped for multiple resources. to be best of my knowledge, the Babylonians never were given a source of horses, which seems like a major map oversight, was wondering if something similar was the case for you, but apologies if it seems that I was prying
me: no worries. I mean, if you guys have gold, gems, horses, and copper, then that's a really good start, but we'll take 2/4
Spectres: oh, no doubt, hah. just wish the scouting / contacts situation was a bit better
me: barbs are coming out in force, we've lost 2 warriors already
Spectres: ! I suppose time to scout with chariots
me: Lion vs. Forested warrior
Spectres: if you have horses
me: and then a bear ate a warrior that was next to Mali. We got horses with our 1st city, only because we'd lost our early warrior; it delayed our 2nd city while we built replacements and AH came in. I assume you guys have horses/copper that are clearly yours?
Spectres: We we have the horses secured. copper is the issue with the babs, it's on our border with them. I'm afraid I should be fairly circumspect regarding the issue, national security, and all that.
me: true
Spectres: I'm going to log off- gotta head to bed, but good talking to you
me: ok, good luck
Spectres: thanks- night!
me: night

[Cyneheard]

Well, so much for getting the copper city without a war:



Let's not move TUO immediately when the turn rolls. Or we can be really evil and move N immediately. This would prevent their settler from meeting their warrior next turn. Do not believe that would be a good idea.

[Cyneheard]

T62, the turn we meet Krill.

The Oracle did not fall this turn. I guess Krill's finishing the Oracle end of this turn.

Let's see:
The Unready One is unmoved. We need to talk about what to do there.

Gulliver moved 1S, I was trying to avoid getting caught on flatland against barbs. Saw into Leviticus:



Wait. Leviticus, the book that spells out all the "eat not the unclean animals", etc. etc., has a PIG? This necessitated a response. Also, I think I goofed: Leviticus' borders pop next turn. So they're going to kick Gulliver back a tile, unless we sign OBs with them. We signed a no-scouting clause, so we can ask if Gulliver can just move E next turn; I didn't think to check for borders popping before moving.



Demogs:

[Cyneheard]

So, sent Babylon a quick e-mail requesting OBs. Trying to keep Gulliver from being tossed around like a limp herring. I thought we formally accepted a separation of OBs from the NAP, but trying to remember what's been agreed to and what's been proposed...my head spins.

Not sure if the chained chats worked properly, so we're just writing a quick e-mail. We didn't realize when moving that Leviticus' borders were about to pop, and would appreciate not losing extra time on moving Gulliver (such as towards a meeting with the Maya). Since both sides agreed to a no-scouting clause, we would move E or SE next turn, as you wish.

We haven't had time to talk as a team (sorry, Cyneheard was gone most of the weekend) re: your settlement response, but do not object to your forwarding anything to Mali; this was meant to be a joint negotiation.

Congratulations on founding Writing. Byzantium settled their 3rd city early this turn, and we're still wondering why Leviticus, of all the books, is eating bacon. It is delicious though; Animal Farm is overflowing with bounty, having the pigs in charge of the place.

[haphazard1]

Good to have you back, Cyneheard. Hope you had a good weekend.

From the IT thread, sounds like Maya and India? Interesting to see these wars so early, but also worrisome. Especially with literally everyone on our borders settling towards us. And us with no metal.

Agree on your comments about Mali and Babylon. As for France...ack. Unless we want war I think they get the copper site. And with as little military force as we have, I do not think war is a good idea.

At this rate, we are going to have to consider ourselves lucky to get our first ring.

So no Oracle yet, no Alpha...and we are sitting here lacking all kinds of useful techs. Something needs to develop real soon or we are going to come to a very unfortunate (and very early) end. No copper, no gold, no gems...at least we have horses.