Yeah, that's Elimist. I'll think of more diplomatic plans once I have better information about where he is and if I see anyone else to the south. What's unfortunate is that there is a very strong chance he and I won't meet anyone else for a while, which puts me in some danger (both of us used our mobility scouts to find each other, and shortly I expect the world to become very closed off from one another.
Basically I want a little more information before I commit to any plans with him.
We made contact last turn and I sent you a message in game. That method is quick and convenient for short messages, but email is more reliable, and sometimes the trade screen messages don't work properly. So it's possible that that you replied to it and I failed to receive it this turn, or that you didn't receive my initial message.
I don't really have anything to add this turn, except that on turn 6 there was a bear 3E1S of your scout. You should be able to avoid(or find) him pretty easily, but be careful if you decide to explore the forests in that direction.
Anyway, I know there isn't a lot to discuss this early on, but feel free to share any ideas on ways that we can help each other.
(The message he sent in game was the generic Calabim greeting.) I responded:
Quote:"To the Calabim lordship,
I am please to formally contact the Calabim. We have heard tales of your power back on the main land, and look forward to our survival in this new land. As you may have seen the land is lush and expansive, with plenty of room to grow as our empires develop.
This is particularly beneficial, as while I would hate to impede on your empire my expansion is very limited to the south, necessitating that I expand towards you. How fortunate, then, that there is so much land between us that firm borders will not be necessary for quite some time.
We would naturally enjoy working together. As you may know, we Sidar have always enjoyed our isolation from the world, and we see this new land as a great opportunity to further remove ourselves from the petty squabbling that so plagues the mortal races. I'm sure you can understand our situation more than most, given your effective immortality. While it is early to be signing any formal documents, rest assured that we are quite looking forward to working together with a fellow long-lived race such as yourselves.
As for the dangers of this land, we appreciate your warning about the bear. Nasty creatures, although luckily we have been mostly spared from dangers in our little corner of this land. To your southwest you will find a bear den, although when we observed there were no bears at the time. Other than that there were no great dangers that we passed by.
Hmmm, I'm thinking of just going Agriculture->Mysticism and then something else. I don't really have any benefits from going Calender right now, since the close calender resources are forested. I might even want to go Mysticism->Crafting->Mining->Way of the Earthmother to help fuel some expansion. (After experimentation I kinda like RoK - it gives gold, happiness, and specialist slots. I keep running into the problem of lacking gold, so it could help.)
I think I'm going to go Mysticism next unless someone puts up a good argument at the very least.
Put a turn into mysticism, training a warrior while working as much food as I can, started a farm, lost my warrior to a Giant Spider (right outside my borders too, which sucks), and I found Calabim lands to my north, and expect that there's a good chance they'll find my lands soon as well.
No contact with anyone else so far. I'll probably get some screenshots with some dotmapping some time soon.
There are two ways to do it, depending on whether you're using an attachment or using a link.
If you're doing a link, it's just [img] Image URL here [/img]
If you're doing an attachment, then look after you've finished uploading. There's a button that you click to place the attachment into the post. It's labeled "insert into post."
So the method is: select your file, click "add attachment", and then use "insert into post" for wherever you want to put the picture. Like so:
(I wrap these in spoiler tags usually as well. Just use [spoiler] and [*/spoiler] (without the "*")
I also have one that I did not insert to show the difference.
Are you farming the riverside grassland before the rice? If so, why?
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.