RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

Christianity was founded in Evermore, by the way. Pretty good location, fairly central in our empire so I'm reasonably happy. Our free missionary is heading to the capital now.

Code of Laws next. Will need to do 2 revolts in a couple of turns, one for religion and one for civics.

[Ellimist]

Lord: although that requires OB
regoarrarr: well a trade mission does too, right?
Lord: I thought I read somewhere that Great Merchants can move through borders regardless... But I might be wrong.

Some useful info on great merchants and OB:
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....count=2113

[Lord Parkin]

Some useful info on great merchants and OB:
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....count=2113

Yes, that's where I read it. Don't worry, I'm aware of the borders thing with Great Merchants. If Rego tries to sneak one through without agreeing to the terms we've proposed, war is always an option.

[Lord Parkin]

Reply from Rego.

Hi there,

Sunrise and I had an interesting conversation about the dynamics of this whole merchant situation. I know you think that I just use him as the "bad cop" but he really does exist, even if he doesn't really post in the thread :-)

The reason that it was especially interesting is that what he does in "real life" is somehow related to economics / game theory and so he said it's a particularly interesting dynamic for him to study.

First of all, my analysis agrees with yours - it would be a 200 gold difference. The variable part is 100 gold * what a trade route with your city and my capital would be worth - most cities are 2gpt trade routes while Parkistani I think would be 4gpt (it may only be 3 though due to some of the other factors).

Anyways, sunrise was pointing out that proper econ theory says that we SHOULD offer you like 199 gold (assuming it's a 200g difference). But then there is also the psychological effect of things given that the stakes are relatively low (it is, after all, just a game) :-). The other question for you is whether costing one of your nine rivals (and in fact the one that is in last place) 150 gold is worth losing 50 gold yourself.

But, having said that, I'm not opposed to splitting the merchant payoff extra amount with you. I don't think I like the you get 100 gold and we get the rest, since I think it's a max of 200 and may only be 150 depending on the value of a trade route with Parkistani. But I would be willing to do a 50/50 split, as well as extend our current NAP, if we could come up with a proper settling agreement, which is probably necessary somewhat soon as well.

If I recall, our current settling arrangement had us conceding building our original city at the clams site in exchange for the low low price of errr nothing ;-), as well as both of us agreeing to not settle the "islands" until we further discussed it.

We are probably getting close to wanting to settle at least some of those areas. I don't know if you are also, but probably before too terribly long. So my proposal is that we split the merchant gold 50/50, and the Zulus take the odd number "picks" of those "island" sites (so 1st, 3rd, 5th, etc) and the Parkinstanians take the even picks (2nd, 4th, 6th). What do you think?

dan.
regoarrarr
zulu

I'm most certainly not willing to give him first pick in city sites for a mere 100 gold (which he'll get too). Especially when several of those sites are adjacent to our borders already and we're in a better position to settle them sooner. And I don't believe him that it'll be any less than 200 extra gold for his Great Merchant, because my testing was pretty thorough.

I'll try to chat with him later today, rather than drafting an email response, I think.

[Lord Parkin]

Our GNP is even higher now that we're researching a tech with two prerequisites (COL). We're starting to get numbers up near 300, and we're not even using binary research. That's good, but also slightly concerning - as it may start to make us a target.

We're beginning our double revolt this turn - we've switched to Christianity, and will switch civics next turn. That will at least postpone the issue of the high GNP. Maybe someone will catch up with us somewhat over those two turns, we'll see.

[Lord Parkin]

Our free missionary spread Christianity in the capital. Christianity also spread naturally to Magadan, which is nice since that city could really use a bit of a boost to build times. Perfect timing too, with a chop for the Granary just coming in.

A new city at the Horse-Clam-Pig site west of Felidae will be founded next turn.

[Lord Parkin]

Well, had a reasonably productive chat with Rego. Went on for a while so I'll just post the summary:

- Agreed that he'll give me 100 gold in return for the trade mission. The trade mission will go through in 4-5 turns (could have been 3-4 but he moved his Galley before I could give him directions).

- Agreed to a NAP extension until turn 170 (1100 AD). Nice.

- Agreed on the settling of the "island" spots. We got everything we wanted: rights to the Horse island to the south of our capital, and the Sheep island to the north of Tigris. In return he got the island east of Tigris, and another island further south between the latitudes of Pardus and Leo (off the east coast), which according to him may or may not have any food. (I actually didn't even know there was another island until he mentioned it - he just assumed we knew, which ended up working very well for us in terms of our bargaining position. )

All in all I'm pretty happy with this... we got everything we wanted without really making any meaningful concessions. Then again, he probably thinks the same thing about us, so I guess it's a win-win situation.

[Lord Parkin]

Anarchy this turn and next while we switch religion and civics.

Our Galley has explored up north and found another Fish resource, which could perhaps allow for a half-decent north pole city on that island. I've marked out the city spots I'm intending on settling there.

The Sheep-Fish spot just above Tigris I'll be settling with the next Settler out of that city. We may have some competition with Rego for that easternmost Fish, but since we should be settling first and with Stonehenge, it should remain ours for the forseeable future.



Overview of cities south of the capital, showing the Horse island we've now got rights to settle.



I'll be settling the Pig-Clam-Horse city west of Felidae next turn. Decided to move it 1NE so that I can slot in an extra city further south.

You can also see the western coast of that Horse island a bit better in this screenshot.



And here's the southern part of the empire. Once we have Iron Working I'll be settling those 3 jungle city spots on the eastern coast very quickly.

[Lord Parkin]

Switched to Organized Religion and Slavery. Founded the Clam-Pig-Horse city. Not much else to say this turn, still in Anarchy.

[Senseless]

While there's downtime, what are your thoughts on the war between WarriorKnight and Plako? From what I gather from the UN thread, WK declared on Plako. This seems strange, since WK doesn't seem to have a sufficient enough force do do anything besides hold off an offensive from Plako. Maybe I'm missing something?

Also, do you intend to start building the AP immediately after getting out of anarchy?