RB Pitboss #1 SPOILER - Hatshepsut / India

[regoarrarr]

And an email exchange from shadyforce of Persia

I've met a wandering Carthage warrior. He lives off to the west, not much further than you are from me (at most 20 warrior turns). He has met the Mali who live on the island just south of our land-mass. Or at least, it doesn't look like there is a land bridge to it, but you never know. So that accounts for 6 of the 11 civs. It looks like this map has plenty of weird winding continents seperated by narrow seas/channels.

Have you seen any indications of polar terrain in your northern travels? Could it be that we're on a toroidal map?

What is with all you aggressive rushing punks with your early UUs being all my neighbors?!?!? :-D

So, when you say he lives off to the west, are you thinking that he is to my south? Because I thought I was to your west. Or am I getting my directions messed up again?

I have not seen any polar terrain, but I've definitely seen tundra. I have also seen (briefly) a north coast of our continent. I'm not sure what toroidal means? Is that where it wraps in all directions?

The thought of worldwrap in all directions is kind of cool.

My thoughts with shadyforce are that I want to play nice with him but don't really want too strong of an alliance. I am leaning towards joining up with sunrise. The news about ANOTHER early UU on my landmass is annoying.

I'm also worried that it means that I might have competition for that copper spot. I may need to send Bob to the south to see what I can find. I am hoping to detail out a more detailed plan for my units here before too long

[regoarrarr]

And my reply to sunrise's proposal, which I think I posted earlier

In principle that sounds good to me. A few spots of clarification - you are asking that I not discover Monotheism before T56? Also, for the NAP, what are typical / good renewal clauses?

I'm happy to trade for some fast workers at some point in the future - I'm sure we can figure out some compensation.

And finally, as a bit of information, shadyforce has informed me that he has met a wandering Carthaginian warrior. He said it was to his west (which is where I am also). So I'm not clear as to whether that means that Carthage is to my south, or if one or both of us have our cardinal directions messed up. But another early UU on my landmass, woohoo! :-(

Persia also told me that Carthage had made contact with Mali off to the south of him, on another landmass (similar to what you and I have, I assume).

Annnnd, I met Imhotep (another early UU!) to my far north / east. At least he is somewhat far away - at least 20-25 tiles to the NE.

I will get with you soon to determine on what turn I can have a warrior on the summit hill.

Like I said in the last post, I am definitely wanting to cultivate a friendship / alliance with sunrise. Agreeing not to research Mono before T56 is a nobrainer to me because I think I need to get Agriculture / Fishing / Wheel and Pottery as my next 4 techs, and after that I'd rather tech things like Sailing, An. Husb, and Iron Working.

I'm already trying to figure out what "my" tech can be in the first round of Alphabet tech trading. Iron Working seems like a logical choice, since I have early Bronze, but IW is 300 beakers compared to 450 for Alpha.

[regoarrarr]

Email from shadyforce - and my reply, inline

him: We have to keep you on your toes. Better whip a few archers before you get your first settler out. I can't speak for the rest but my immortals will be sniffing around. :P


me: He says, with the unit that gets 50% vs. archery units.... :-) Guess I better settle for spearmen then...


him; Toroidal is where the map wraps NS as well as EW. Keep going north and you'll eventually wrap round to the south. I've only played a couple of games on it. Takes a bit of getting used to.


me: Interesting. I wonder how we'll be able to tell if that is the case? And as if I didn't have enough problems keeping my directions straight!


him: I am to your South-East (bottom right) and Carthage is to your South-West (bottom left). Although I haven't seen ZPV's capital so I'm sure exactly where. And Mali is to my south, seperated by water. So Imhotep is to your North (top) and Sunrise is to your West (left) seperated by water. Is that accurate?


me: Correct, except Imhotep is not separated by water, at least not from me. He may be separated by water from you to your north. He's more to my northeast, and to your north, I think.

So, while talking about maps is fun, what do you think about tech trading? How do you see that working? Seems that, once somebody researches Alphabet, that it would make sense for us to not research the same things, right? You had mentioned that you were heading towards Mathematics, right?

And finally, what are your opinions on signing a NAP between our 2 nations? It seems that kidding aside, the distances between our 2 civs makes an early rush less desirable, right? I mean one of us might get a surprise attack going, but you'd have to raze, and by the time it happens, they'll probably have a 2nd city anyways, which just means that it will make both of us lose, something I don't think either one of us wants. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that

[regoarrarr]

Okay - been a busy day. Diplo conversations with sunrise and shadyforce, that I will document here in a sec.

On the domestic front, I had mentioned earlier that I was going to end up 1 beaker short of Agriculture on T26, which was going to throw off my whole worker plan. I have since figured out that because I will grow to size 3 on T24, and each of my 3 tiles (camped ivory, rice and FP) have 1 commerce each, I will squeak by with 1 beaker overflow. So that's good.

Plan is to sign the deal with sunrise to not go after Monotheism, which he expects to have before T56, and instead go Ag, Wheel, Fishing, Pottery. I believe I have it mapped out so that I will get Ag on T26, Wheel on T33, and Fishing on T37. I shave one turn off of Fishing because when I meet Dreylin and sunrise on T28, I will gain 1bpt from knowing them, since they and shady have Fishing already.

That coincidentally lines perfectly up with my founding city #2 (which I have named Green Township on T37.

Attached is a very rough tentative dot map. That has Green Twp at the 1SE spot. It could be moved 1N or 1E of that location (analysis coming soon). Keeping it where it is (as opposed to 1N) allows founding of a filler city in between Cincinnati and Green Twp, maybe 1N or 1NE of the southern ivory. Very likely to found cow town 1N of the dot in the picture, depending on what is up there.

I do have to decide if I want to send Bob the warrior clockwise or counterclockwise.

Charlie the warrior will be born on T24 and head directly to the summit hill, which he will reach on T28, and then follow the coast towards Green Twp where he will escort the settler and then serve as MP.

[regoarrarr]

Exchange with shadyforce

Ok, kidding aside:

Maths would be useful for all the chopping but certainly not number 1 priority. I have no plans to beeline anything at this early stage, other than to grab the worker techs I need. I'd like to tell you more that we may choose different paths to avoid clashing. Well, I suppose I can tell you that I'm not going near the religious techs. But that's all I have decided just yet.

Before Alphabet has arrived, I will know more. We will no doubt keep in plenty of contact and most of the time it should be easy to not duplicate research and trade what we have. However, there is one concern that I was thinking of. There may come a time when one of us is going for a wonder, or planning on rushing someone and avoiding duplication may mean disclosing "sensitive" information. Have you any thoughts about how to handle a situation like that? And if you have a more formal trade pact in mind, then let me know what you think. I'm very much open to such a proposal.

Regarding NAP: You are correct that we are far enough away from each other to make an early rush suboptimal. You may consider your capital safe from an early Persian rush. On the other hand, if you made some crazy aggresive settlement on my doorstep, I could make no such guarantee. Because I'm on the south-east coast, the only direction for me to expand in the early game phase is into the area between us. And if I were to run into Indian cities then I would have an expansion problem. I would be forced to either settle much further west, stringing cities along the south coast, isolated from my core and far from my capital, or I would have to violate an NAP to take those cities near me to attempt to stay competitive, or I would accept my lesser role in the game and play the small part. But none of those options really appeal to me.

That is why I would be reluctant to sign an NAP before there was a guarantee that there would be no need to violate that NAP, which means ensuring we both have land to expand into, which in turn means continuing our exploration to learn more about what land is nearby.

For example, I understand that you have a choice between settling north and settling south. If (hypothetically) you were to not settle south and expand north instead, then because acquiring territory north of the fjord would be logistically silly, I'd have approximately zero reason to ever invade and I'd happily sign any NAP. If you wanted to settle some cities south then we'd have to come to some sort of border agreement.

I hope I'm not sounding too militaristic or anything. I'm just trying to be honest and upfront about the reasons why I am reluctant to sign NAPs. But I don't want you thinking I'm not signing one because I'm planning an early rush. Does that make sense?

If you want reassurance that Persia is not going to rush your capital, then you've got it.

First I gave him crap about him being last for this turn (T21) and then

Okay. You make some good points. I don't know how much MP Civ you play or have seen. Personally, I've seen very little, so I'm still trying to figure out how the whole NAP thing works. Though I guess in talking to some folks that most MP games are played Always War or in teams, so maybe even if I had a lot of MP experience I wouldn't be that familiar with it anyways.

As for an NAP, your concerns about settling and border agreements make sense (more on borders shortly). Maybe we should do something like a NAP till T40 or so? Something early that a) kind of solidifies the leanings that we both have not to rush and b) sets us up for future cooperation down the road. I think that would be short enough that you could still whup me if you needed to, right? :-)

So... borders. I have no desire to get any "Our close borders spark tension" bad points with you. Since you have probably scouted more of the land between us, have you seen any kind of natural border areas that might work? I will say that Cincinnati my capital is not likely to be my southernmost city, i.e. I'm probably not going to settle all to the north. For instance, there is a cow on the east of John Nolan Fjord that will be in my capital's borders when they expand here in a few turns. So my plan was to settle a city over there. But in reading your email, it seemed to me that it is not these types of cities (i.e. 1st ring to my capital) that you are worried about, it's the cities 1-2 rings east of them, right? Am I reading you correctly? It seems odd that you would want to found a city that would be competing culturally with my capital, but let me know if I'm misunderstanding you.

Then there's Carthage. It seems to me that between the 3 of us (and the Zulu are a wildcard), we either will sign 3-way NAPs and turn into a big lovefest, or 2 of us will try to take out the 3rd. It seems that it is in both of our best interests to make sure that we are not on the receiving end of a 2v1 beatdown, no? So in that case, it would make sense that it would be us v. Carthage. Now I'm not proposing anything concrete necessarily - it's probably way too early for that. But it is something to start thinking about, I think. And I think it's another reason to start with maybe a small / short NAP, so that we can use that as a building block for something bigger.

And let me thank you for being so open about this. I find that it is far too easy for people, when faced with something that maybe they don't want to do, to either do it grudgingly, or agree to it and not follow through. I think that good communication is the key to any kind of relationship, and a Civ one is no different. If we are able to work things through, and talk about our differences until we can reach a truly acceptable common ground, we will be far ahead of the other civs.

My hope is that I can get the "real" alliance with sunrise, and then use Shadyforce as kind of a backup, working with him to neutralize / eliminate ZPV but then being way bigger / more advanced than him.

I do plan on settling 2-3 cities towards him (Green Twp as #2, and then the cow one and maybe one in between the two), but I am sincere in thinking that most of the rest of the land between us can be for him.

There are on average 250 tiles for each civ, so I will do my best to get 300 or so peacefully. I'll have to try and count up how many tiles I can peacefully grab to my south.

Oh - one other thing. I originally in my reply added something about the city I'm going to found near "some resources" 5 tiles south of my capital, but decided I didn't want to risk that knowledge getting passed to Carthage, since I'm not sure how close we are to them.

[regoarrarr]

(11:39) me: good/
(11:39) me: ?
(11:39) sunrise089: works
(11:39) me: excellent
(11:40) me: this is probably the best way to grab me
(11:40) me: though if you see me on gmail that can work as a backup
(11:40) me: annoyingly work blocks regular google talk chat
(11:40) me: so you have to do it through the gmail window
(11:40) sunrise089: ok, though I may forget who you are - I've been renaming my google chat contacts to their civ names so I can keep track when there are 10 different chats going on at once
(11:41) me: heh
(11:41) sunrise089: right, my work doesnt block anything, but I still use the gmail window - it works pretty well for my purposes
(11:41) me: in any case i am pretty sure that i can have a unit on the summit hill on T28
(11:41) me: (7 turns from now)
(11:42) sunrise089: ok, good. Dreylin declared war last turn, so he should have plenty of time to make it to the hill, while scouting my land
(11:42) me: so you have more than just the 1 warrior don't you?
(11:42) me: don't you start with a warrior?
(11:43) sunrise089: yes, I started with one and built a second one
(11:44) me: so anything in particular going on?
(11:44) sunrise089: ok, official responses to your email - you not discovering Mono before T56 should be fine for our purposes, but I expect to get the tech quite a bit earlier once I work some commerce tiles
(11:45) me: ok
(11:45) sunrise089: also, in the demogame and PBEM games some of the clauses inserted into NAPs might be relevant to us...
(11:46) sunrise089: specifically we can arange an auto-renewel clause that ticks in X turns before the NAP expires and automatically renews for X+Y turns
(11:46) me: yeah
(11:46) me: i think that makes sense
(11:47) sunrise089: ok, obviously the practical result is it always provides a warning before any possible hostilities
(11:49) me: so something like 20 turns before the NAP expires, it renews for an additional 10 turns?
(11:49) me: so if we say for now NAP to T60
(11:49) me: then on T40, assuming neither of us give notice, it renews to T70
(11:49) me: then on T50 it renews to T80, etc
(11:50) sunrise089: ok, I'm fine with that. FYI that is a very large cushion, so it should make both of us quite safe.
(11:50) me: what would be a "normal" cushion?
(11:51) sunrise089: 10 turns, 10 turns out seems pretty typical, so on T50 it would renew to T70
(11:52) sunrise089: but to tell you the trust, even 5 turns warning is quite a bit IMHO, so I'm not too worried over the details
(11:53) me: ok
(11:53) me: well let's do the original one then
(11:53) me: to be frank and to put all (most?) my cards on the table
(11:53) me: i am not interested in a war at you
(11:53) me: probably ever
(11:53) me: and really, i'd like to explore even more of a relationship with you
(11:53) me: but before "jumping into bed with you" i figured it would be good to take it slow
(11:54) me: as i think i said yesterday, 2 (or possibly more) civs that make an early, strong alliance
(11:54) me: are going to be head and shoulders above anyone that doesn't
(11:54) me: and i think that our civs are ideally suited for such an endeavor
(11:54) me: a) close
(11:54) me: b) but on different landmasses)
(11:54) me: c) complementing traits
(11:55) me: d) strong mid-to-long term traits
(11:55) me: and to give you an e) you're probably a much better player than me, so it's in your best interests to bring me along because you can probably out-produce me and/or kill me in the end-game anyways, if it comes to that
(12:02) sunrise089: well I'm happy with a-d, e remains to be seen (wait until you see my less-than-impressive This Is Sparta report)
(12:03) me: ah, but wait until you DON'T see mine,

And now you won't! Sulla edit to remove spoilers.

(12:04) me: so, do you have 1 warrior heading out exploring still?
(12:05) sunrise089: yes, I have one warrior exploring forward, but he hasnt made it more than a few tiles yet. My borders will pop soon and give me more info than the warrior has so far
(12:06) sunrise089: I continue to be surprised by the number of other civs on each landmass - I assumed the number was 1 and then 2 and now apparently it's several more according to your email.
(12:06) me: yeah
(12:06) me: i'm wondering if it's not all one big landmass eventually?
(12:06) me: also, have you ever played on a toroidal map?
(12:06) me: shadyforce made that suggestions
(12:07) sunrise089: Dreylin said he hasnt met anyone else, but that he sent his warrior straight east
(12:07) me: but i don't know one way or the other
(12:07) sunrise089: yes, we play torodial sometimes in MP
(12:09) me: what's that like?
(12:18) sunrise089: it wrapps both ways, so you just have to be able to defend against units coming down through the tundra at the top
(12:18) sunrise089: for our purposes, playing team always war games, it just means the player on the bottom cant build up in peace
(12:19) me: ah
(12:19) sunrise089: ok, so between you and I, we've met or heard about 6 of the 11 civs, and accounted for 1-2 landmasses, depending on whether there is a bridge, correct?
(12:19) me: right
(12:20) me: that is my understanding
(12:20) me: on my landmass, there's me, imhotep to my far NE
(12:20) me: shadyforce to my SE
(12:20) me: and ZPV to my S or SW
(12:20) me: 2-3 landmasses actually
(12:20) me: because S of ZPV there are teh Mali on another landmass
(12:20) me: well 1-3 i guess
(12:20) me: on yours there's you and then dreylin to the west
(12:21) me: so 7 of the 11
(12:21) sunrise089: ok, sounds right
(12:22) sunrise089: so Sumeria+Spain, India+Persia+Carthage+Zulu, and Mali alone
(12:22) me: right
(12:22) sunrise089: which suggests I have 1-2 other civs on my landmass, and Mali has 2-3, if there are three landmasses
(12:22) me: the real test will be once one of us gets sailing, do we get 1 or 2 cpt trade routes
(12:23) sunrise089: heh, good thinking
(12:25) me: so you're not looking to get sailing any earlier than say T60, right?
(12:25) me: and just one of us has to have it right?
(12:28) sunrise089: I definately won't have sailing earlier than T60, and I'm not sure of the trade route mechanics

Highlights:
We have agreed in principle to an NAP till T50, and at 20 turns to expiry, it auto-renews by 10 turns.

Also we have agreed that he will send me a free missionary in exchange for not discovering Mono by T56.

[regoarrarr]

A demographic update. I got a bit confused with the land points. I was expecting people to get the same amount of points as tiles held (in the first ring of the capital), but I guess with the Huge map, it is multiplied by 2/3. Which makes sense, since everything else is (well everything else is multiplied by 3/2 but same thing)

So:
6 land points = 9 land tiles: sunrise, dreylin, dsplaisted, ruff, imhotep and m_h.
5 land points = 7 or 8 land tiles: shadyforce, ZPV, broker and krill
4 land points = 6 land tiles: me.

I'm still not sure about that analysis, because it seems like there should be more coastal capitals - I guess this means that there may be civs that are 1 off the coast. But it does jive with my analysis back in post #32.

Anyways,

T20: Broker with a tech
T21: dsplaisted and m_h - tech, dsplaisted and ruff - pop
T22: ZPV - pop, imhotep - pop and tech.

Imhotep's tech is clearly Bronze Working, which should be confirmed when I check soldier points when I get home. That also would confirm that his last tech, which was on T8, was Mining.

m_h last discovered a tech on T17, only 4 turns ago! He's not financial and is only size 1, so I'm going to have to go with Hunting with some overflow.

Dsplaisted: 7 turns since his last tech. He did also go up 2000 soldier points (he's the "best"), but I think 7 turns is too long for Hunting, so I'm going to say Warrior and Agriculture

Broker: 11 turns and at least some soldier points - I will go with Animal Husbandry

Also somehow the min soldier points is 4000, and so I'm guessing someone must have had a bad dice roll and lost a warrior because that's the only way I can see it happening. Definitely some problems reconciling the soldier count - must be some warriors getting built.

[regoarrarr]

Regarding the NAP, it doesn't really address my concern, which is an aggresive Indian settlement to the south. I see the cows city site. There isn't much further east you can go. So after that, you're heading south and that's what worries me. I don't really know what is south of your city or indeed anything further west from your capital's line of longitude. But to the east of that, there is no obvious border marker to speak of (except the fjord itself). And I can't yet see metal or horses. So we are really negotiating blind with regards to border lines.

I propose that you agree to settle your first city to the north. You have scouted more of the north already, haven't you? That will alleviate my concern about an aggresive setttlement in the south and gives us time to scout the region to properly evaluate who should get what. And I'll agree to a 40 turn NAP.

Regarding Carthage, it does seem too early to make such plans since I don't even know where there city is and you haven't even met them! But I will keep that in mind, and you and I are doing plenty of talking. The good ally tends to be the one who is most communicative.

This is worrying. Perhaps there is not as much to the east as I was expecting.

I definitely need that city site with the copper and fish. I'd probably be willing to move it 1E of the copper (instead of 1SE) if that would work for a border agreement. I guess what I really need to know is how close he is.

But what I really need to do is stall. So I will hold on to this email, and respond tomorrow. Current plan is that the settler is produced on T33 and settles on T37. Then builds workboat at max food, then spear, barracks and some more military (slipping in a granary at some point). At size 2 with the fish and copper, it makes +3 fpt and 7hpt. At the happy cap of 5 (with ivory), working fish, copper, ivory and 2 grass hills, it makes +1fpt and 15hpt.

I have to say that I am doubly glad that I edited out that part about wanting that settlement to the south (copper) from my first email

[regoarrarr]

Question for the lurkers

* Any suggestions for improving my report? - I know a lot of times you can't really comment on what I'm saying due to having too many spoilers, and really most of the times I'm just putting things down on paper for my benefit, but just wondering if anyone has any suggestions for improvement

* Is pasting in conversations I have useful? I am trying to put in summaries at the bottom since I know it can be a lot to read (and not to mention the 10 other threads to read)

* Anything else?

* On what exact turn will shadyforce or ZPV try to settle that copper / fish spot?

[Sullla]

* Any suggestions for improving my report? - I know a lot of times you can't really comment on what I'm saying due to having too many spoilers, and really most of the times I'm just putting things down on paper for my benefit, but just wondering if anyone has any suggestions for improvement

I don't think anything needs to be added. This thread has everything that I would look for: discussions with other players, thoughts about potential city spots to found, some Demographics speculations, and enough screenshots to follow everything with ease. Keep up the good work!

Well, aside from the spoilers on the Epic, which I had to edit out above.

* On what exact turn will shadyforce or ZPV try to settle that copper / fish spot?

Yeah, good luck with that fishing attempt!