[spoilers] Gaspar and Commodore welcome you to the islands, mon!

[Gaspar]

My thoughts went like this...

On one hand, who is he to treat us as equals? On the other hand, he didn't have to tell us at all. On one hand, we could really use a treasure island. On the other hand, he could really use one even more.

Sure, we can race him, I guess. Should be fun if nothing else. Let's firm up the terms though so it's fair*.


[SIZE="1"]*How fair a race between an IMP civ and a civ with significantly more and faster boats is entirely open to interpretation. [/SIZE]

[Commodore]

Okay, so I sent this:

[COLOR="Orange"]Hey Yuri,

That seems like a fair enough proposal. If you can give us a shot of the island we can agree to a simple straight-up settling race, with a couple wrinkles; whoever gets it, if there is a (silver?) pop elsewhere in our empire the other gets first dibs for trading.

Which reminds me, our second whales should get hooked up in two turns, by all means request them when you see them if we forget to offer.

Cheers,[/COLOR]

I've got the turn open now, I can go ahead and play with moves, or the whole thing, either way is fine. One kind of big thing is this, though; we need Paper for Printing Press (SciMeth) and Education (Liberalism -> Communism). Now we could go Civil Service -> Paper as most do, but Bureau is just sad for our setup, and there would literally be just two farms that are helped. Slightly cheaper is the Poly -> Mono -> Theo -> Paper route, actually. I'd say having OR and Theocracy as options are better, but if you have objections, please, speak up.

[Commodore]

Oh, and by the way, I spent some time looking at the map's patterns. If you count spices as a "bonus", then there is one treasure island per player (Rego owns Sian's too). No silver around, so it's the slightly weaker Silverlode Island down there more likely. This race we ought to be able to win, it's all a question of risk I think. We're about to finish a galleon from Zuldazar, which can promote to Nav1 and move six...now I can dry-whip Sen'Jin for 5 pop (ow) and get the settler on the ship next turn as well, and then the turn after disembark for silver. We can wait an extra turn, too, but that might get risky.



What say you, Gaspar?

Also, Rego is a pestilence.



I say 5-pop whip, I'm tired of getting beat on these races.

[Commodore]

In other news, this is a quote from the 17 Rego thread:

That's twice now though that the most exciting thing about my thread is defense. I'd prefer to be on offense once or twice....

Relevantly, here's why we are glad, in the end, we took the NAP/4 city option even if he's all settling on our faces:



Yeah, he's teching dang fast, glad we've at least got some time to work on pushing that monster lead. Let's not let someone else get one of those awesome treasure islands though, eh?



At least part two of our scientist-slot booster plan is online now. Four-pop whip, 3 scientists, roll in sweet sweet Representation beakers. The jungle south of bananas should probably get a workshop considering where we are right now, soon Chem will basically make it a grass hill mine.



Up to you if you want to fish about a bit, but absent input the save is sent along.

[Commodore]

Diplo dumpage. Firstly, Yuri responded, I was right about the island location.

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hey Commodore,

I'm afraid I don't have a good screenshot right now, and would have to
replay the turn to get one. I see you already played this turn, so it
shouldn't matter much. Here's the screenshot I have, please let me
know if you need a better one. One of the Galleys on the screenshot
carries a Worker, the other is empty

I agree to the clause re silver

I will be getting my own whales next turn, so the trade is not
necessary anymore. I'm not cancelling the sugar trade, feel free to
keep it as long as you need

Cheers

Yuri[/COLOR]

Good guy.

Meanwhile, Rego was annoyed by out passive-aggressive naming gesture.

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]So what are we doing here? Obviously our relationship hasn't been that great in this game, for a variety of reasons, which I think we both know about.

I actually have been trying to not be annoying. When we made our deal, we didn't talk about any kind of other land borders. So while there's nothing that would stop me, I wasn't trying to just settle up on you and take advantage of our NAP. For instance, I didn't settle the dyes city between us. I didn't really feel that was the case for a city just off my starting island, 8 tiles from my capital and like 15-20 from yours.

I hear that you are "deeply unhappy" :-). I guess it's a matter of what we're doing. Would you rather just declare "pre-war" to be executed 20-something turns from now? I wasn't ready for that but if that's how you feel, I guess we could at least do so like civilized folk ;-).

Your Mom.[/COLOR]

Yeah, thanks Rego! We appreciate you not taking that terrible no-food dye spot when you have another source in your own territory. Thanks!

Bit of a martyr, he...

[Commodore]

I probably shouldn't talk to Rego, but here's my reply:

[COLOR="Orange"]What we're doing here, in regards to the miffed reaction to the settle, is probably being unduly belated about something we should have worked out earlier. I suppose we should be grateful you avoided settling a no-food site to garner a second source of a weak luxury resource like dyes, so yes, thank you for not being deliberately annoying.

The thing is, obviously we managed to royally tank our economy fighting an unbelievably determined enemy for fifty turns who decided forty turns ago to throw away any and all chances he had remaining to drag us down with him out of spite. So, despite that, we did beat him and we are behind but recovering. It is the position of the Troll empire that ex-Azteca and the islands within 1-turn boating range of the mainland are rightfully ours, earned in an unbelievably long war of attrition. We're not claiming the entire Aztec natural sphere of influence, of which you still hold the lion's share, but we do feel like we've earned the nearby area pretty solidly.

I'd think that the pragmatism we've shown should actually reassure you, we're not declaring "pre-war" or something daft like that to grant victory to your probably-ascendant client state over you, although the "olive branch of iron" kind of double-dealing means that certain elements of Troll leadership have a hard time finding the motivation to convince other elements not to declare permanent vendetta.

So, give us an insight from Your Mom's side, what are we doing here?

-Gaspodore[/COLOR]

The next-to-last bit made me feel a trifle bit schizophrenic to write.

[Commodore]

Right, I was trapped on chat so I had to speak to duder.

Regoarar: hey there
2:24 PM
Commodore: Salut
2:25 PM
Regoarar: so it seems that we have some pretty dysfunctional communication this game

Commodore: Evidence would suggest that.
2:26 PM
Regoarar: you guys aren't playing any kind of communication variant are you?


2:27 PM
Commodore: Not really, seems within one sigma of our norm.

Regoarar: heh

i didn't think so
2:28 PM
so i take my share of blame for that
2:29 PM
i had been meaning to get with you for many turns

about where you thought our borders should end up

then we had the whole "diplomacy by other means"

and we didn't really talk about it during that

and then here we are
2:30 PM
Commodore: Makes sense.

You can see how it looks from our perspective, we fight a slog while you silently profit from the vast tracts of open space.

Regoarar: yes
2:31 PM
and from my perspective you're fighting me (bullying me?) into getting a site that's 2-3 times closer to me than it is to you

i mean i do understand your side of things as laid out in your email

really id o
2:34 PM
Commodore: There's no bullying, we're not threatening NAP-bust or anything.

Regoarar: i know

but it does feel like our relations keep deteriorating
2:35 PM
which is not something i really enjoy
2:39 PM
Commodore: Sorry, working the phones on 24, spider sense tingled just a bit ago.

Regoarar: oh yeah?
2:40 PM
Commodore: Mackoti is NAP'd with me until T165, looks like he's massing against me early, I'm making sure things are still copacetic.
6 minutes
2:46 PM
Regoarar: so what's the compromise here?

is it just i settle it, you hate me,

you settle it, i hate you?

what i would really prefer is that my main island / so skinny are out of range of you 1 turn boating me
2:47 PM
should it come to that
2:49 PM
Commodore: Ah, that would require us to give up the isle of contention, Zabra'Jin, and the artist formerly known as BC.
2:50 PM
You have three good cities you'd be interested in swapping?
2:52 PM
Regoarar: is zabrajin the one tile copper city?
2:54 PM
Commodore: No, the ex-Aztec wheat city.
2:55 PM
I, um, think...next time, naming scheme with less apostrophes.

Regoarar: yeah

it's something wow related, right?

i looked it up at one point

Commodore: Trolls
2:56 PM
Just, in general, Troll villages and cities for cities, unit types and spells for craft, famous trolls for units.

Regoarar: ah

never played much myself
3:00 PM
for the record, i don't have a source of dyes

so it was a no food spot for my ONLY copy of a resource
3:02 PM
Commodore: Ah well, then, massively reevaluating the spot.
7 minutes
3:09 PM
Regoarar: totally
9 minutes
3:18 PM
Regoarar: do you remember what the BC city has in it still?
3:20 PM
Commodore: Everything, up to and including sugar, spice, all that is nice.

Regoarar: ooh la la

your silly k-nigg-et is in the way of my tile gazing
3:23 PM
unfortunately i don't know that i have any other cities i can give you

can i 'buy' BC off of you?

Commodore: Undoubtedly.

Regoarar: for?

Commodore: The price Gaspar and I'd have to discuss.
3:24 PM
It'd probably be exorbitant, though, really nice city.

Even without the mines.
3:25 PM
Regoarar: really? 2 seafood 1 grassland costing you ~15gpt?

i mean it's okay

but not what i'd call "really nice"
3:26 PM
Commodore: We're not so spoiled for sites, I think.
3:27 PM
Regoarar: well you've got 25 some cities
3:31 PM
Commodore: Many 1-fooders.

Like I said, I'll run it by the team.
3:32 PM
Regoarar: ok

How much we need to ask for it? I'd say...952 gold and +27gpt for the next twenty turns, but that might be way too small.

[Commodore]

More dull Rego wires.

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]The other thing we should probably discuss (while we're on the subject of improving our dysfunctional / limited communication) is whether our open borders agreement includes right of passage for ships and units and such. I had assumed not, since in my experience they typically don't unless specified. I had noticed that you seemed to be stationing your units in a sentry position but outside my borders, which further reinforced this belief.

I did move a galley of mine through your waters near Tor'Watha to pick up 2 longbowmen of mine that were stranded on an island when we had war / peace but have moved it back out along the fastest path possible. Similarly if your caravel near So Greasy is just passing through towards Pindicator, no problem.

In any case, I thought it was worth just making sure we were both on the same page.

Your Mom.[/COLOR]

I told him okay. Terse is good.

[NobleHelium]

Never underestimate the value of terseness.

[Commodore]

Got it, moved along.