[SPOILERS] Bismark of Sumeria (luddite + Atlas1998)

[luddite]

I still think that an NAP with the Dutch will help me a lot. If I'm going to be getting four wonders, there's no way I can fight a war early on. And with luck, I can persuade him to extend it until after their East Indiamen are obsolete.

Here's my proposal to them:

Hi again,

I've explored more of the map now. I would like to agree to your proposal of an NAP until turn 100. However, I cannot agree to not settle near the wines. That land is very close to my capital, and it is on my side of the sea between us. It is also good land for cities, and so far all the other land I've seen has been very bad. Therefore I will need to settle there. But, I can tell you in advance when and where I'm planning to settle cities.

It's tough trying to write a message that will sound friendly and diplomatic, but also keep it as simple as possible so that they'll understand the English.

[Kylearan]

Maybe I should be using German beers instead of Irish?

Please don't, I'd only get even more thirsty when reading your thread...

[luddite]

Here's what my scout has seen of the land south of my capital. Looks like great land for cottaging, but it might not connect to the east. This map continues to throw me curveballs.


Here's the new demographics, and I'm still first in food

Parkin grew his capital this turn, and I think Plako grew his second city. Someone still has just 2 pop... Perhaps Rego/Sunrise, trying to hurry a lighthouse?
edit: nevermind, I redid the math on this. Plako must have a size 3 capital, and a size 1 second city. Parkin and another civ have a size 4 capital. One civ (probably Locke, who grew really late, probably doing a worker worker build to take advantage of expansive + mining for early chopping) has a size 2 capital. Everyone else has a size 3 capital.

edit 2: I was trying to figure it out from life expectancy, but that will depend on the number of forests. My guess is that Locke chopped two forests, and hasn't yet hooked up the cows.


And I had another chat with Parkin (he swears that he's done moving now, so hopefully the game will go faster)
Here's the most important part:

luddite: by the way I've got a warrior scout that will be entering your land pretty soon
[1:12:10 PM] evilparkin: Ok
[1:12:13 PM] evilparkin: How close is he?
[1:12:37 PM] luddite: he's 2N of the horse tile right now
[1:14:08 PM] luddite: So how long do you want to extend the NAP for?
[1:14:23 PM] evilparkin: Ok
[1:14:52 PM] evilparkin: Not sure, what suits you? The longer the better from my perspective, I have no desire to war with you anytime soon
[1:15:14 PM] evilparkin: To 1AD, or turn 100, or something else?
[1:15:29 PM] luddite: Ok 1AD would work fine

So we've extended our NAP until 1AD, which is turn 115.

He also told me that he hasn't yet had any contact from the Dutch, so he's nervous that they're trying to build Stonehenge. He's going to send his warrior west to scout their land, which could help me a lot in my land negotiations with them (because I'll be able to prove that the wineland chokepoint is much closer to me than to them). Finally, I asked him if he would build the pyramids if I went for the Temple of Artemis, and he said he'd consider it.

[luddite]

I just got this message from Mackoti:

Looking at the map , yes its closer to you so ye its your right to setle there, but what i ask if its posible, to dont setle exactly the choke point(if its not posible its allright).The 100 turn nap its very good for our great nation to prosper. Congrats for your first city.
Regards,
Mackoti

English problems aside... Mackoti's not very good at negotiating

What he said was basically "could you please not settle on the chokepoint? But if you have to that's OK too". I'm tempted to respond with something like "yes the chokepoint is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to my plans, and I MUST settle there!" But I'll probably just settle the grass hill SE of the bottom wines, instead. That fits in nicely with my dot map, gives me a lot of good cottage land, and eventually lets me move ships across the wines If I need to reach that bottom sea.

Here's what I actually sent in reponse:

Thanks! I will not settle in the choke point. Instead I'll settle on the hill east of it. And, I can trade you wine later if you want it.

Are you planning on building another city, soon?

[luddite]

Not much going on this turn, so I'll just post this strange picture instead:

My worker is farming a wheat that's buried under a sheet of ice.

[luddite]

So apparently that is just a peninsula in the south:

That makes my initial diagram of the world almost completely wrong. This is a much less symetrical map than I orginally thought. It's kind of annoying because it gives me less land than I expected, but on the plus side, settling the hill near that choke point will give me complete control of the peninsula, and then I'll have very secure borders with just 2 peaceful neighbors.

[luddite]

So I've finished the wheat farm. Demographics are looking great

I'm a clear number 1 in food. Meanwhile the second place actually went down. Presumably that's Plako switching his second city to production so it can build a lighthouse.

I'm also number 1 in score, since mysticism finished this turn. To be honest I don't really understand why I'm doing so well. Ok yeah, expansive gives me a fast start, and I started with the most expensive techs while researching cheap ones (hunting and mysticism). But still, i wouldn't have thought I'd get such an early lead like this, especially while I'm cottaging over the cows.

Ioain/Mackoti are the only other civ besides me and Plako who have a second city so far. I got demographic data on them this turn, so I can see that they're not the civ with such strong production (almost certainly Plako).


My capital finished a warrior. I'm going to have it build stonehenge for just one turn, to get a little extra gold.

[luddite]

Not much going on this turn. Locke [strike]grew in population[/strike] built a new city. I'm still in the lead for both score and food, although someone else went up in food (probably Locke).

I could do more with C&D analysis, but I'm too tired from doing that in the werewolf game to do it here .

[luddite]

Parkin finished stonehenge this turn (finally!) which gives me a little extra gold. It pushes his score up too, but not as much as I thought it would. My granary got delayed slightly from the turn I worked on stonehenge, which will cost me a little food, but I think it's worth it.

Someone else has finally tied me at 19 food per turn, but I'll be growing two pop in the next two turns. And the cow cottage has turned into a cow hamlet .

[Nicolae Carpathia]

On a scale of 1-10, how bad are you going to feel when you tear down the hamlet for a pasture?