RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Senseless]

Are you concerned at all about breaking our NAP with Luddite on T180, (or ~190) as you've indicated that you will do to Mackoti/Ioan? I realize that Luddite has broken the letter of the agreement with his latest aggressive settlement, but will other civs see it that way? Depending on who gets their story out first or who other civs find more trustworthy, our DOW before the agreed expiration date of the NAP could have some future diplomatic repercussions.

[Lord Parkin]

I'm seriously considering it, but nothing has been set in stone yet. I don't have much intention of declaring war before at least Rifling and/or Steel, as it'd be far too costly otherwise. You're right that either way though, we need to consider how the rest of the world would perceive our actions. Luddite would no doubt spin it as if we were the bad guys - and perhaps we would be in some respects, but he sure as hell did a lot of provoking earlier on.

Anyway, plenty of time yet to think about it, and there's always the option to delay a bit if it turns out not to be convenient for us. Thanks for weighing in though, good to have a fresh opinion.

[Lord Parkin]

We got our Great Prophet!

The Countdown:

T148 (2 turns): Mausoleum + Shrine + Islam
T149 (3 turns): Parthenon + Sankore

Assuming no major wonder sniping happens in the next couple of turns, it looks like we'll be doing rather well for ourselves very shortly.

[Lord Parkin]

Short chat with Rego:

me: Hi there
Dan: good morning?
me: almost! Just turned afternoon
Dan: doesn't seem that long since we last talked
timezones are weird
me: heh
Dan: i'm actually about to go watch a movie on this fine friday night (for me).
i do want to talk to you more about nap extension
but i think that it needs to be in conjunction with some of our future plans
whether that's war with a 3rd party or elsewhere
me: hmm, ok
Dan: i also wanted to see if you were interested in some sort of deal where i spread christianity for your shrine in exchange for something
me: nah, not interested sorry
Dan: ok
me: that's a losing proposition for me
Dan: why's that?
me: given the +2 hammer buildings
I'm giving more than I'm getting with just the missionary, let alone paying you :P
Dan: well i meant that i'd supply the missionaries
well i guess one possibility would be that you provide a missionary
me: ok, you're still getting more out of it than me though
Dan: that doesn't mean you're not getting anything out of it
classic win win!
me: you're welcome to spread Christianity (or not), it doesn't bother me
Dan: you seem very focused on not wanting to help other players
me: but I'm not interested in paying you to do so
Dan: (just an observation which may be wrong)
in any case, i'm off to teh movies
ttyl
me: Eh? Surely you can see that me paying you to build missionaries only helps you
I'm not against helping other players, I just want it to be mutual
Ok, see you around then

Let me get this straight... he's annoyed because we won't pay him to spread our religion in his lands? Uh, ok...

What exactly is supposed to be in that for us? If he wants to spread the most powerful religion in the game (AP bonus buildings) around his lands, that's up to him. Why does he think we'd pay him for helping himself out though? It seems he sometimes has a little trouble understanding how things look from someone else's perspective.

If he didn't have our religion in any of his cities, I might be open to sending him just one missionary to get him started. But he does, so he can certainly build his own missionaries.

[Lord Parkin]

Sent a message to Mackoti, trying to reel him back just slightly. The problem I've been having is that he seems to get more and more enthusiastic and ambitious with each message. Which is good in some respects, but not so good in others. Initially it looked like our latest date for war would have been ~200-210, which would have been perfect. Then Mackoti wanted somewhere around 190, then he talked about 180, and now he's mentioned doing it before 180. I'm all for working with the guy, but I think we need to establish some slightly more realistic time frames.

Hi Mackoti,

I'm okay with a "forever NAP" between us if that's what you want. It makes a lot of sense, since then we don't need to worry about getting attacked by the other person while we rebuild after warring with Luddite. So if you're happy with a permanent NAP/alliance, it seems we have an agreement.

Building up an army only a few turns before warring is probably the best idea, I agree. That way we avoid giving away too much advanced notice of our intentions with rises in the power graph. I'll probably do the same thing myself when the time comes.

I'm still not sure if I'll be quite ready as early as turn 180, as that probably puts me just before some critical military techs which I'd really like to have first. But if like you say it's just a rough estimate and we can delay or go faster as necessary, then that seems fine. If you want make a decision about what to concentrate on right now, I'd suggest cottages rather than farms as it'll probably be a bit after 180 when I'm ready. Actually, to me cottages seem the better option than farms even if we're warring at turn 180, as that's still 35 turns down the line. That's unless you want to go to war yourself sometime before turn 180 for the element of surprise, with me following a few turns later.

Happy to chat to come up with a good strategy for war if you'd like. As we'll be attacking from opposite sides we won't have to worry too much about coordinating our troops initially, aside from declaring war on the same turn. Giving each other updates on troops of Luddite's that we see and kill seems like one potentially good idea, though, so we can keep track of roughly how many he has left. And once our armies get closer to one another near the middle of Luddite's lands, then further coordination will probably be useful so we know who's going for which cities. Anyway, I guess we'll talk more later. Look forward to it.

Kind regards,
Lord Parkin

[Lord Parkin]

We just got research visibility on Adlain... he's going for Machinery. Can't tell how long it'll take him at the moment as he's in anarchy (switched to Organized Religion).

Only one turn from the Mausoleum, now. Looks like it should be ours for the taking. Here's hoping, anyway.

[Lord Parkin]

By the way, I had a reasonably long in-game chat with Mackoti earlier on. Seems like we're a bit more on the same page now. He's pretty keen for us to declare war earlier (as expected), but acknowledges that he can't offer us anything that would make it worth our while to speed it up. I said we'll think about it anyway. He's keen for the (supposedly) indefinite NAP, too.

[Lord Parkin]

Six whips this turn, coupled with two last turn. We're at 23 cities now - one behind Rego, and one ahead of Plako.

We'll have 16 Christian Monasteries and 16 Christian Temples built as of next turn. That's 32 buildings from which we'll be getting +2 science as soon as Sankore is completed in 2 turns. That corresponds to 64 base science, not accounting for any multiplier buildings. Nice.

Divine Right next turn too (haven't adjusted the slider back in the screenshots).

One minor decision to discuss - where should the Cow-Clam city down south be placed? I've marked out the two locations I'm considering below. The SW one has more tile overlap, but can use more land tiles (especially hills for hammers). The NE one has less tile overlap, but is very coastal and rather limited in its access to land tiles (especially hills).



Demographics...

[bato]

I would go with the NE placement. Not sure but I think it has 2 hills which is enough. Most importantly though you have a very long coast on both sides which makes you susceptible to a naval invasion, therefore having visibility as far from your coast as you can is a good thing.

[nabaxo]

I say the SW one. More overlap is not a bad price to pay for more production.