Also of note this turn is that the Vikings finally got a score increase from a tech, bringing them up to 35 points like everyone else. Since they finished the tech on turn 11 and started with Fishing/Mining, the most likely options are either Agriculture or The Wheel, both of which would take 11 turns to research from scratch. There's also an outside chance they could have tried to trick people by going for Mysticism or Mining but waiting a couple of turns before finishing it. Seems unlikely, though... what reason would they have to bother?
Wonder what they'll be researching next. Could be just about anything, really.
Oh, and thanks to espionage, we now have the answer to one of our questions about luddite: he hasn't met anyone else. How do we know this for certain? We met him last turn after he played, and he didn't log in again that turn. (Actually he didn't log in before I played this turn either.) Thus, there's no way he could have adjusted espionage sliders as a result of meeting us - in fact he quite possibly still doesn't know yet that we've met, if he hasn't checked his email in the last 12 hours or so.
Checking in-game this turn, we see our espionage ratio with him is 4/4. If we saw anything less than 4 from him, we'd know for certain that he'd met someone else. As it is, given the fortunate lack of logins from him, we know for certain that he hasn't met anyone else - thus we're seeing all of his Palace espionage. If he'd met anyone else, he'd be showing 0-2 espionage against us this turn (depending on how or if he adjusted his sliders). But since he's showing 4 and didn't log in after we played, we're the first person he's met. Good to know.
This was pretty likely anyway, just from logical deduction. We were expecting about 15 tiles between capitals, and we moved for 10 turns to the west before we met. Presuming luddite took a slight detour, he would have been heading for 5-10 turns towards the east as well. Given that we're fairly confident of a 5x2 or 10x1 layout for civs, and it's reasonably likely that luddite went for a Worker first if he had any sense, then he probably only has one exploring unit, and it's been exploring towards us. No-one else could have met him from his west or the south, unless they had a Scout and moved exactly the right way.
So even without looking at the espionage numbers, we could have deduced that it was unlikely luddite would have met anyone else. However, the espionage numbers completely confirm it.
So, just had a rather decent chat with luddite. Managed to gather quite a few interesting tidbits of information, including:
- He went Hunting -> Mysticism
- He's planning for Stonehenge at turn 27
- We have identical starts (presumably along with everyone else)
So, it looks like all our hopes of Stonehenge are crushed.
Or are they?
You'll recall that luddite knew from my email that we were indeed going to be competing with him for early Stonehenge. The critical point came when he wanted to figure out exactly how early we were talking about. He knew we could potentially be getting the wonder at turn 27, and then it would be a coin flip for who got it. Obviously if I let on that we couldn't compete with turn 27 at this point, he'd have little reason not to build it. However, I didn't want to lie to him either.
Hence a carefully evaded question:
Quote:Luddite: haha you were teching mysticism too?
Lord Parkin: Obviously we're both pretty keen on the wonder
Misleading choice of words? Maybe. However, it seemed to worry him enough to start considering not competing for the wonder.
After many more lines of chat, we eventually agreed upon the following:
Quote:- Non-aggression pact to turn 60
- Luddite won't compete for Stonehenge
- I won't compete for one of the Oracle or the Great Lighthouse (his choice, to be determined later)
Potential stuff for later:
- Who to attack with our potential Vulture/War Chariot army?
- Where, if at all, do we work out a border agreement?
Quite a successful outcome for us, I think. We weren't really seriously considering the Great Lighthouse anyway, as the Zulu are probably going to provide fierce competition for that regardless. As for the Oracle, it'd be a shame to miss out on it, but we may not have the time to compete anyway given all the other stuff we have to research. Plus Stonehenge is more valuable for us with +1 happiness, +2 priest slot Obelisks. I guess if we really wanted to be dickish then we could just go for the Oracle even if he says he wants it, but the cost in diplomatic relations wouldn't be worth it so I wouldn't do that.
Keep in mind that we're not guaranteed Stonehenge by any means, since Roosevelt and Arabia are still out there. However, we at least seem to have removed one rival from the mix. Assuming, of course, that luddite isn't pulling a blinder on us by still intending to sneak out Stonehenge anyway. We'll have to wait and see, but I don't think it's too likely.
(Actually, a new thought - it's just possible that Luddite tricked us by pretending he was going for Stonehenge just to get us not to compete for another wonder he wanted, whereas really he wasn't going for Stonehenge at all. That seems plausible, thinking about it... if that's indeed the case, then well done Luddite. Brilliantly engineered. )
It's a bad sign mind you that he was going for T27, in some indirect sense it makes it all the more likely someone else is too. It'll be a losing trade if someone else picks it up T35 and you've traded away your shot at another wonder for nothing. When you don't get it until T40, is he going to think you were misleading him about your plans to get it as early as you gave the impression you were?
A good bit of negotiating nonetheless, good chance you've rescued yourself a useful wonder. Plus it's good to know what he's going for regardless, there's plenty more wonders in the game and you can save yourself some potentially wasted time on a failed Oracle beeline if he lets you know he's after it anyway.
Okay, well after some thought I've now managed to convince myself that luddite probably wasn't going for Stonehenge at all. He could well have just wanted to take advantage of the free shot at Oracle/Great Lighthouse we were offering. His original message to me was that he wanted to build Stonehenge but would like to delay it.
Maybe I'm just overanalysing things, but that suggests to me that luddite may not have actually been capable of finishing Stonehenge at turn 27 either. I guess only the lurkers will know either way. Oh well... at least we're still reasonably sure of one less competitor for Stonehenge. That's something, I suppose.
Doesn't matter really if he was or not. It sounds like you've both come out of it feeling very clever and having secured a good deal. But either way it's still a good deal for both of you.
Irgy Wrote:It's a bad sign mind you that he was going for T27, in some indirect sense it makes it all the more likely someone else is too.
I guess so, although it could also just mean that luddite is a player particularly inclined towards Stonehenge. Not really sure.
Irgy Wrote:It'll be a losing trade if someone else picks it up T35 and you've traded away your shot at another wonder for nothing.
That's quite a concern, yeah. It'll certainly be a bummer if that happens.
Irgy Wrote:When you don't get it until T40, is he going to think you were misleading him about your plans to get it as early as you gave the impression you were?
No, I'll go the same route he originally went with, talking about delaying the wonder to a better time when we knew we had less competition. It's logical, after all. I don't think he'll be concerned about that anyway - he's now netted himself an uncontested chance at a later wonder. It shouldn't be his concern when we get the wonder now, that's our problem.
Irgy Wrote:A good bit of negotiating nonetheless, good chance you've rescued yourself a useful wonder.
Yeah, hopefully so.
Irgy Wrote:Plus it's good to know what he's going for regardless, there's plenty more wonders in the game and you can save yourself some potentially wasted time on a failed Oracle beeline if he lets you know he's after it anyway.
That's true. Saving hammers on wonders we know we can't get is a good thing.
Irgy Wrote:Doesn't matter really if he was or not. It sounds like you've both come out of it feeling very clever and having secured a good deal. But either way it's still a good deal for both of you.
Yeah, you're right. Either way we both got something out of this, and will continue to both get stuff out of it in the future if we continue to cooperate.
Well, it seems we're finally starting to find more food resources... now that we're closer to luddite's territory than our own.
Shall we continue 1NW next turn as previously suggested, or shall we change our plans now that we we have a non-aggression pact with luddite for at least 60 turns? Advantage of heading NW towards luddite is we figure out what land he has around him, and gain the ability to start working out sort of division of the land between us.
Advantage of heading south is that we're probably more likely to find a civ quicker that way... although we should eventually find a civ going west too (assuming luddite's borders aren't blocking us off there), and it might be quite useful to know who the neighbour on luddite's other side is. After all, if things happen to head downhill with luddite later on, it would be handy to have contact with the neighbour on his other border. Not that I'm expecting relations to deteriorate that soon, but everyone knows a double front war is easier to fight than a single front war. I presume most other people in the game will be looking to gain contact with "other side" neighbours for the same reason, sooner or later.
Moving the warrior 1SE makes the most sense to me. Making contact earlier seems to be more important. We can always scout the area near luddite on the warrior's return trip. Given the NAP we have with him scouting him immediately isn't as important.
On a related note, anyone know how agreements between players work? I've never played an MP game at RB before so I'm not sure exactly how common it is for players to break explicit peace treaties.
He could well have just wanted to take advantage of the free shot at Oracle/Great Lighthouse we were offering. His original message to me was that he wanted to build Stonehenge but ![[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0784.jpg]](http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l323/LordParkin/Realms%20Beyond%20Pitboss%204/Civ4ScreenShot0784.jpg)