RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

Here's the chat we've had with Rego so far. Seems like he genuinely wants to be friendly, which I guess is no surprise for someone with only two cities at present.

superdoubledan: congrats on your 2.5 times more cities than us
me: heh, yeah
well I've been spamming out settlers
hasn't exactly done wonders for my economy
superdoubledan: if i ignore you at any point i'm also watching march madness on my laptop
me: unfortunately you've caught me at a tricky time, going out in a few minutes...
no worries
I'll be back in a few hours though
What time is it over there?
It's 11.25am here
superdoubledan: 6:25 pm
me: I presume afternoon sometime?
superdoubledan: where are you?
me: ok, evening
Christchurch, New Zealand
superdoubledan: only 7 hours difference?
me: land of quakes at the moment
superdoubledan: that seems like much less than i'd have thought
me: Well, it's over a quarter of the way around the world
we're not Australia
superdoubledan: like 7/24 of the way? ;-)
me: indeed
Anyway, nice to meet my eastern neighbour across the sea at last
Presume you guys will be interested in the usual NAP stuff?
Quite happy to go fairly long-term if you want... doesn't seem we're exactly right across the water from one another right now
Not like we can attack each other for ages anyway
superdoubledan: we go back and forth on the worth of actual piece of paper naps
but yes i agree that we want peace and a good relationship with you
it is my personal opinion that post count is a good correlator of game success
and on that regard, i like to ally with folks that re going to do well
rather than folks that i have to "carry", if that makes sense
speaking of post count, have you seen who's #1 right now? :-P
me: Yeah, makes sense... I agree with that
I've had games where I've allied with weak players and games where I've allied with strong players, and the strong players have universally been more helpful.
superdoubledan: right
me: Yeah, you're #1 there
for now
superdoubledan: it's been a long hard road...
me: my lurkers have been rather quiet lately, so I blame them
I've been posting just as much (if not more) than usual
superdoubledan: so as for actual NAPs unless you feel strongly about it, i'd tend to just build a relationshpi based on mutual trust - working together towards common goals, etc
i don't know
i don't want to come off like i am secrety trying to stab you in the back
because that's not what i feel like
and i'd be happy to sign something to prevent attacks of opportunity (worker steals, city razes, etc)
i don't know
me: but not full-scale war?
superdoubledan: well that's what i mean
i don't want it to come off like i am trying to build up to war vs. you
i think war in this game is going to take a long time
since everyone's so far away
me: I tend to find two civs can work together much more effectively when they're reasonably confident the other isn't going to invade them. Allows, for one thing, a greater percentage of units to be sent into other campaigns (like, for example, quelling the plako monster a bit ), rather than worrying about being stabbed in the back at home
anyway, that stuff's a while off
but once we actually find each other across the water, I'd definitely be more keen to have some solid agreement
superdoubledan: ok
i'm okay with that
and yes curbing the plako monster is in the back of my mind for sure
me: Yeah, no disagreements... war isn't going to be easy in this game regardless
superdoubledan: so do you have some eastern "peak blocker" tiles to your east?
me: Sure we've caught up to him in cities (briefly), but he's far in the lead in both food and production, and about even in gold from what we can tell, so that's not going to last
I do have one
superdoubledan: clams and whales?
me: It's almost like there were intended to be islands, but they were joined to the mainland via peaks instead
Hooboy, a whole tonne of whales
Clams around the place too, yeah
superdoubledan: i meant is your peak blocker near clams and whales
2 peaks N-S of each other
me: um... whales and fish I think
sounds like we're not talking about exactly the same place
superdoubledan: hm
me: average E-W distance between civs seems to be 15-20 tiles, give or take a few, so we should be in that ballpark I guess
superdoubledan: interesting
maybe you're right
it's an island
and i see the clams and whales on the south / east side of things
and you have fish and whales on the north side?
do you have a number of tiles direction from sleepingmoogle's city?
going west
?
me: well, not sure how far north we're talking about here
but yeah, the "peak blocker" is NW of my capital
*NE rather
You mean SleepingMoogle through you to me?
superdoubledan: yeah
or is that all fog for you
me: No, haven't completed the circuit of the world yet
superdoubledan: speaking of that - can i find luddite if my scout continues east?
me: Unlike some people (*cough* plako *cough*), I had a wall to my east so couldn't explore that way
superdoubledan: yeah
i have a wall to my west
the same wall, as a matter of fact :-D
me: (By the way, wasn't pleased that he got that... as if he needed another bonus )
superdoubledan: yeah
me: yep
superdoubledan: seemed awful early too!
me: indeed
superdoubledan: so were you going for GLH at all?
me: nah, figured either you or mackoti would get it
you with your coastal start and mackoti with his Ind/Org
superdoubledan: yeah i'm kind of surprised we got it with 4 (!) ind civs in it
me: plus we were kind of behind after mackoti jerked us around with Stonehenge, so we had to focus on expansion
superdoubledan: what happened there?
me: Oh, long story short he delayed replying to our greeting for 2 weeks just because he wanted to try and sneak out Stonehenge from us (we told him upfront we were going for it)
superdoubledan: lol
they're interesting characters
i'm not sure if it's just the language / cultural difference or something else
same with locke
me: That then forced us to go for it sooner than we otherwise would have and delayed our second city for a long time (good thing too as we would have lost it if we hadn't shifted it forward)
Anyway, water under the bridge now
superdoubledan: yea
me: Lol, yeah, they're definitely characters
They're from Romania
superdoubledan: right'
me: Dunno about Locke, haven't met him yet
Apparently we only beat them by 1 turn, according to them
superdoubledan: ah
me: anyway, gotta go out
will be back in a few hours
good to meet you, again, and looking forward to working together with you in future
superdoubledan: likewise
me: ok, see you later
me: Hi again... backReading through our chat log earlier, I noticed you asked a question I missed while I was in a hurry before
Luddite's to the east of your scout, but you'll need Open Borders with Mackoti to get through
Mackoti founded a city which blocks off a choke point just after my Warrior got through
Failing that, you can come up through the arm to my south... it starts NE of Nakor and NW of Plako. If you go right up the top then turn west, you'll meet luddite that way
From what I understand, there's no N-S connection directly south of him... he's one of the odd ones out in that respect
Do you have any scouts near Nakor/Plako?

[fluffyflyingpig]

Seems like another good time to ask: any new speculations on the map, now that you've seen more of it and heard Reggo's thoughts re blocking peaks?

[Lord Parkin]

Not really, I think my earlier deduction still holds (lakes/snaky continents with a maze theme). Oh, the thought did occur to me that perhaps all these "peak blockers" all over the place may be connecting what might once have been islands to the mainland (to make the map one big pangaea). Aside from that though, no particularly new thoughts. Seems like most of the civs in the north and south are connected via land in the E-W direction (with the obvious exception of Rego and myself). There are obviously a few N-S land bridges connecting civs too, though apparently not everyone has them (luddite for instance). That's about it.

[Lord Parkin]

Sent a message to Luddite to let him know that I've met Rego and he's interested in meeting up with him.

Think I need to establish contact with Plako again at some point as well... seems like he's the one guy I've had the least contact with so far. We don't have particularly large grounds for cooperation right now, but who knows what might happen later in the game. Best not to let a diplomatic line wither away from lack of contact regardless.

[Lord Parkin]

Turn 65's arrived. Plako got Writing this turn (Open Borders are available with him).

Writing is now 1 turn away for us, along with that Settler. Corn roaded at Tigris.

Warrior done at Magadan and heading south to Felidae. Figure we need the most defence around there at the moment. The Warrior from Evermore will probably head up to provide military police for the capital as it grows. (Planning on building a Granary then Library in the capital, starting next turn after the Settler for city #6 is completed.)



Moved Workers onto the forest tile 1S of Felidae to build a road next turn. They'll then move onto the Gems tile just before the borders expand. Two Warriors will be guarding them with a third heading down, so they'll be safe from harm out there. (There was no point in roading the Deer tile because we already have a source connected, as will everyone else in the game due to identical starts... thus Deer is worthless for trade in this game, along with Cows.)



Joe moved onto the road down south in preparation for open borders with Nakor next turn.



According to SleepingMoogle, Adlain has a Scout 3W of our Warrior (Bob). SleepingMoogle said he'd direct him our way; let's hope he gets the message.

[Lord Parkin]

Greeting received from Adlain:

Greetings Lord Parkin,

It is good to Finally meet you, I hope i Find you well, my Scout has met yours just south of Sleeping Moogles borders.

If you would like to chat, Feel free to Email me at this address or grab me on Gchat when you see me online (dont worry if you see an away symbol, try anyways i am sometimes still on the pc doing other things)

Kind Regards,
Adlain

He's met us near SleepingMoogle's lands.

Checking in-game, Adlain has 3 cities, and doesn't even have the excuse of building a wonder or being in a war (as far as I know). Geez, he is seriously far behind. He's got to be in the worst shape of anyone apart from WarriorKnight, and that's definitely not good. Looks like he'll be a tasty treat for Locke to roll over at some point, and not much more. Ouch.

Man, why do the two strongest players down south get the benefit of much weaker players on their borders? (In WK's case it's WarlordDR's fault, but that doesn't remove the bad position.) Doesn't seem to be any such luck up north. It does unbalance the game slightly when the skill disparity happens to be concentrated in one part of the map.

[Lord Parkin]

Message sent to Nakor:

Hi Nakor,

Just a quick note to let you know we've met Rego and Adlain, and are hopefully closing in on WarriorKnight. We'll have Writing for Open Borders next turn, so it'd be great if you could sign them right away so we can meet Locke. (Once I complete the set I can start spamming in the UN thread, which is of course what most of this is about. )

We've just got Plako's graphs, and it's scary to see how fast and how high his food and production has grown. At least it does seem that you've ahead of him in power - technically the same according to the graph, but plako's power will be made up of more population points and possibly techs, whereas yours presumably consists of more units. Anyway, you may already be aware of this, but I just thought I'd give you a heads up anyway.

How are your negotiations going with Plako so far? Let us know if we can help in some way - although right now I imagine we're a bit far away to do much. However, over time our borders will naturally get closer, so more options will of course become available.

Kind regards,
Lord Parkin

Basically I'm still trying to get out feelers for how his relationship with plako is developing, and whether there's any possibility of war between those two. A war of anyone against plako would be good for us right now, since it'd slow him down in expanding north towards us. Just as long as the people at war are competent enough to hold out for a while... obviously I think anyone fighting solo against plako would be doomed at some point, but if they didn't crumble immediately they could cause him some damage.

If Nakor's interested in war but not right away, perhaps we could consider helping out further down the track. I've already heard echoes of agreement for a potential "plako dogpile" from Luddite and Rego. If Nakor's in with that, I'm sure we could easily talk WarriorKnight in too, and then we'd potentially have quite a force to take him down with. Anyway, this is all just speculation at this point, but good to know some people are worried and willing to do something about it.

[Lord Parkin]

Sent to SleepingMoogle:

Hi again,

Thanks for the contacts - I've now met both Rego and Adlain. Only WarriorKnight and Locke to go now. Let me know if I need any change from my SW-movement plan in order to bump into WarriorKnight... otherwise, will be good to meet him soon.

Interesting to see that Rego only has two cities at present. Guess that opening Great Lighthouse gambit really hurt his early expansion... not entirely sure that was a wise strategy, though I'm sure he wouldn't do anything without a good reason. I notice that you've already signed Open Borders with Rego, by the way - I'd be careful with that. As I'm sure you know, with the Great Lighthouse he gets many times more out of trade routes than you will. Just something to bear in mind anyway. I'm know I'm going to be carefully weighing up my own situation before signing Open Borders with Rego once trade routes become available.

In other news, I just got graphs on Plako, and his growth curves are quite scary - especially for food and production. Still a little concerned about that guy... anyway, guess we'll see how it plays out.

Regards,
Lord Parkin

In reality, I'm actually more concerned about SleepingMoogle than Rego right now. If he's getting trade route income, then that's going to push him towards Maths and Masonry (and consequently the Hanging Gardens) faster. I doubt there's anything I could say that would convince him to drop the Open Borders right now, at least while Rego is still near-last in score, but I figured I'd put feelers out anyway.

[Lord Parkin]

Sent to Mackoti:

Hi Mackoti and Ioan76,

Just thought I'd drop you a line to let you know that I've met Rego and Adlain. I notice you haven't met Adlain yet - if you'd like I can direct you to a scout of his (currently located SW of SleepingMoogle). Just let me know.

Congratulations on reaching five cities, by the way. It's good to see someone else trying to compete with Plako in terms of city numbers. Unfortunately, it seems Plako's still maintaining a massive lead in both food and production, as well as keeping ahead in gold. I just got graphs on him this turn, and his growth curves are somewhat alarming. We may need to do something about that at some point. Anyway, just a thought.

Hope all's going well in your empire. Good luck with the Pyramids.

Kind regards,
Lord Parkin

[Lord Parkin]

Sent to Adlain:

Greetings Adlain,

It's good to meet you at last. Things are indeed going reasonably well in my lands, although nothing compared to the developing monster of Plako. (Just got graphs on him this turn... food and production numbers from him are a bit worrying!)

Let us know if there's anyone we can help you to meet. We've just got Locke and WarriorKnight to go.

I've accepted your Gmail chat invite (I think), so I look forward to chatting with you at some point in the future.

Kind regards,
Lord Parkin