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Gazzahk · May 24th, 2011, 02:10

HI LP,

You score indicates you are pulling away - do you have the same feeling?

Could you post all your <F> screens, especially some of the ones we have not seen much of, so that it would be possible to grasp a whole civ picture? Hope you don't mind.

Lord Parkin · May 24th, 2011, 06:54

Gazzahk Wrote:HI LP,

You score indicates you are pulling away - do you have the same feeling?

Sort of. There's still a long way to go, but I'll admit we're slowly edging ahead. However, Locke is still in front of us in terms of beakers (although, oddly, he hasn't finished Education yet - I guess a GS bulb only gets him partway there, assuming that's the way he went). Also, we are still fairly weak militarily. We could quite easily whip/build defenders in a hurry and hold our own in a 1v1, probably even a 2v1. A 3v1 and beyond would probably be pushing things, though could still be survivable. But even a 1v1 would hurt our economy fairly significantly and push us way back right now. We're still only in the very early stages of pulling ahead, after all.

Of course, the main thing covering our ass at the moment are our long NAPs. Providing our opponents are honourable and keep their word, we shouldn't be getting attacked before the point where we're more than capable of swatting most invasion forces away with ease. So much of the game really still depends on how trustworthy and decent our opponents turn out to be over the next few dozen turns. Providing that nothing major happens, though, I'm confident that our small lead will blossom into a much bigger one in the near future.

So I guess my answer is a hesitant "yes", but with several reservations. We're far from winning the game, but we're probably in the best position to make a shot at it right now. Of course, if everyone decided to break all their deals and dogpile us right now, we'd likely be toast. But that would be pretty seedy and low, to say the least. wink

Gazzahk Wrote:Could you post all your <F> screens, especially some of the ones we have not seen much of, so that it would be possible to grasp a whole civ picture? Hope you don't mind.

Will do so when I next get the chance, sure. smile

Lord Parkin · May 25th, 2011, 03:14

Just a quick update as I'm fairly busy.

Founded city #24 (Uncia) on our border with Luddite. City #25 is coming in a couple of turns (the Cow-Clam site down south which we were discussing earlier).

Spread Islam in the capital; only Buddhism to go and we'll have +50% research from Monasteries available. smile

Locke got Education this turn, so will almost certainly being on Liberalism now. Fortunately, Nationalism is only 1 turn away for us. jive

New thresholds hit in all three of the first categories - 1100+ for GNP, 300+ for MFG and 400+ for food. smile

Lord Parkin · May 26th, 2011, 01:01

So Locke sent us this message:

Quote:Hi I wanted to let you know that we will be spending EP against you soon. So you can spend against us to counter if you want. I am sorry to do it but we have to spend againts someone and you are in first after all. :D Apologies I thought I would let you know.

Locke

This was followed by a dump of 20 EP's (presumably his whole lot) on us this turn. Geez, from nothing to everything he's got in one turn. lol

Oh well, at least he's honest about his intentions towards us, even if they're not good. I'm thinking about how to respond.

Meanwhile, Nakor has not been so honest. He's dumped significant espionage into us this turn - not for the first time, nor the second, but the third. Both times in the past he claimed it was "accidental", but clearly that isn't so. He's clearly itching to spy on us but seems completely incapable of telling the truth about it. I think I'll send him a message along the lines of telling him to stop with the lame excuses and at least be upfront with us.

For all of Locke's idiosyncrasies, at least he does a good job of giving the impression that he's being upfront and honest. The same can't be said for Nakor (or indeed several other players in the game).

Lord Parkin · May 26th, 2011, 22:28

Chatted to Plako last night and then antisocialmunky hit me up for a chat this morning.

The chat with Plako went reasonably well - nothing concrete that we agreed to, but we both discussed our various reasons for being a bit unhappy with the present state of our arrangement and seemed to reach a bit of an understanding. Basically, the short version is that he isn't happy that we're the #1 partner now, and that's causing him to nitpick a whole bunch of tiny issues to try to find excuses for being somewhat antagonistic. When I called him on this, he admitted that many of the reasons weren't really particularly valid (such as the 1 turn delay on the Gems gift that was his own error). Nothing particularly revolutionary, but at least it's nice that we seem to have a bit more of an understanding of where we're both coming from. It's not much, but it's potentially a start to rebuilding our relationship.

On the other hand, antisocialmunky dived right into our chat in a very aggressive manner, hurling a whole bunch of questions and accusations our way. Reminded me a bit of the old way Rego did things with us, except even worse because the questions he was expecting answers to were things like "So, how many NAPs do you have?" (very first line of the chat, not even "hello")... and "do you have any spare units lying around? like what?". I could practically feel the naked aggression dripping through the screen. Honestly, who expects serious answers to such questions - especially when asked in such a hostile manner - and especially after 20-30 turns of acting coldly towards the target?

Not sure if ASM has much influence in calling the shots around Plako's civ, but if he does then we might need to start considering arming up soon. Take this little snippet from when we were discussing WK:

Quote:antisocialmunky: lets just say thismy thread would have a lot more posts if plako wasn't turn player
me: doing "banned" things, or breaking NAPs? :P
antisocialmunky: no I mean, I would have either forced mass archer whips
by breaking an NAP
or just kill him
(...)
me: ah, I see
antisocialmunky: like I'm trying to do to rego
(...)
me: right

...

I mean seriously, how do you respond to something like that? Obviously the NAP breaking hasn't happened because Plako was calling the shots, but... man, what a warmonger this guy seems to be. That or he just talks big. But it seriously sounds like he has absolutely no respect for existing deals, and judging from his naked aggression towards us in chats, it seems like he'd declare war in a heartbeat if he was calling the shots. Have to keep an eye on that one.

Lord Parkin · May 27th, 2011, 08:43

Rego keeps asking me in chat about paying him to spread our religion around. I'm not quite sure why. He doesn't seem to realise that while we get a measly 1.25 gold per turn for each spread, he gets:

- More votes in the AP, eventually enough to overthrow us with the help of others
- Access to extra happiness/research buildings
- Free 5 hammers per turn per city with both religious buildings and Forge

In return for giving himself all these benefits, he wants permanent access to half the Shrine income from his lands. You know - from the Shrine that I built, in the holy city that I spent the time and effort to found. In return for him doing what would be to his benefit anyway, regardless of any payment. Erm... nice try, I guess? But no.

Really though, a permanent 50/50 split in addition to all the other bonuses his way (and penalties our way)? Not quite sure how he doesn't see that that isn't tempting in the slightest. Perhaps I'm the odd one out, though... apparently Rego thinks the "normal" way to play is to pay your rivals to spread your religion. Doesn't sound enticing to me, at least as the AP owner.