RB PBEM #1 - Gandhi [spoilers]

[Ruff_Hi]

Red Dot (now called Lal Qila) is founded but I don't know agriculture - (tech swapped from writing to Agriculture, due in 4). I start a cottage there instead. My capital starts a granary. My injured scout pops the hut for a tech - pls pls agriculture ... no, sailing.

[Ruff_Hi]

I've been swapping emails with MH (we have a Mutual Friendship Pact - what ever that means) and he gave me some directions to Athlete. From that, in game observations, some meta-gaming reasoning, I think this is the map layout ...



This is from F5 and I have assumed that Dreylin is in the middle bottom of the map. The whole pic represents my impression of the map (I got lazy, I should have blacked out the background - you will just have to imagine the fog extending the full width and height of the pic).

Anyway ...

• Sooooo to my North
• Mostlyharmless way off to the upper left
• Athlete in the South West
• Dreylin in the middle - is that good or bad?
• me in the South East - I am starting to feel crunched with Dreylin settling in my direction

[Ruff_Hi]

I'm starting my RNGod praise for a Great Spy. I had StoneHenge for 10 turns before finishing The Great Wall, so my probability of a Great Spy after 11 turns is / was 8% (1 in 12). At that stage, I had 2 more turns to go until my first Great Person so the probability of a Great Spy is 18.75% (3 in 16).

Oh, RNGod, here is my first sacrifice ...

[regoarrarr]

What kind of odds are you looking at for your 2nd GP, i.e. getting 2 prophets.

Do you plan on more wonders / GPs in the near future?

[Ruff_Hi]

What kind of odds are you looking at for your 2nd GP, i.e. getting 2 prophets.

The second GP will be a 50/50 chance between a Prophet and a Great Spy (assuming I don't spoil the pool by hiring a library driven scientist). The only problem with getting early GPs is it makes getting a Scientist for your academy harder.

Do you plan on more wonders / GPs in the near future?

I think I think that I have done pretty well to get a 2nd city while building 2 wonders. However, I think I am falling a little behind in the city hunt. Add to that my feeling that 'my land allotment' is slightly smaller than the others (don't actually have anything to base this on but there you go - look at the map above).

Look for me to push workers, settlers from my capital and some sort of military from my second city.

[Strow]

So now that you have an idea of what you think the map is do you see yourself making friends with anyone else other than MH? And on the flip side do you see yourself going to war with maybe one team that is seperated from everyone else or smack in the middle?

[Ruff_Hi]

This is my last email to mh ...

mh,

What I am really hoping for is to try and see how the 5 of us will match up and to see how (if) any pairings will come about. I know that sooooo is a strong player so I don't want to make him stronger - also, I have a feeling that he is close to me. I know that you will have lots of insight into the game and the opponents. Dreylin is in the middle which is either very good or very bad ... depending on how the game goes. I have no idea about Athlete but it seems that he is close to you.

So ...

I am hoping that we can build a tech conglomerate, freely trading tech and tech intentions between us. I don't think a 3rd party would suit either of us (Athlete might be too close to you, sooooo might be too close to me, Dreylin in the middle might run away with the game).

BTW: I will sign a Mutual Friendship Pact with you. What do you want in it?

To be honest, if there is war in my future, I would prefer to fight Dreylin than sooooo. However, I think that Dreylin could get dog piled and it would be a scramble for parts at that stage - thus meaning that I will be fighting sooooo regardless.

The other item that I need to balance is 'who to steal techs from?'. At this stage, I am leaning towards sooooo (but not by much) because I expect that he will tech pretty well and give me lots of techs to steal. You need to balance that against not wanting to anger him (too much). However, on the flip side ... Dreylin might find himself in multiple wars so he will not tech well (no techs to steal) and / or get eliminated (a waste of a EP bomb). Decisions, decisions.

Does that answer your question?

[Ruff_Hi]

MM'd agriculture down to 2 turns. Finished first cottage at red dot. Capital is on Granery and Red Dot is on warrior. Will put turn turns into road on horses, farm corn and then pasture / complete road on horses. Then I can get some chariots out to finish my mapping.

Dreylin has 3 cities - this guy is popping settlers like crazy. He might catch my scouts behind his lines. Both are on the other side of a huge mountain range - hoping to get 1 back to find Sooooo's cities and send the other off West to find Athlete.

Here is my second sacrifice to the RNGod ... Spy is 2/14 ...

[Ruff_Hi]

Agriculture is in, starting corn farm next turn, horses are roaded, ready for pasture once border pops. Started Barracks at capital.

Final sacrifice to RNGod ...

[Ruff_Hi]

I hit end of turn and ...



sigh - any suggestions? I am miles away from a religion.