RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Irgy]

Oh and yeah, the pigs not the road surely.

[Lord Parkin]

Fair points, Senseless, and good to bear in mind for the future.

I think part of the problem was that SleepingMoogle's initial reply was just so unexpectedly vicious that it completely caught me off guard, and probably made me a little more hostile than I should have been in my counter-replies to him. After all, it's a little hard to refrain from biting back at least a little when someone insults and threatens you out of the blue.

I think another lesson learned is to always approach major discussions via real-time chat rather than via email. In a chat you can set the record straight and defuse any tricky situations before they start to cause much trouble, whereas via email things can stagnate and aggravate the person you're talking with given the wrong circumstances and wrong interpretation. (Though I have to say, no-one's ever given me quite that much grief so unexpectedly in an email exchange before.)

Anyway, hopefully we're at least on the way towards restored relations, even if Moogle still insists on acting emotionally rather than logically regarding his Hanging Gardens decision. I guess some people simply prefer role playing a situation in the way they think it should play out, even if it's against their interests in terms of trying to get ahead in the game.

[Lord Parkin]

Oh, and I do agree with Irgy that I don't think emoticons are automatically bad, although I do perhaps use them more than the average person. It's probably more a matter of personal taste though... some people may not mind them at all or find them useful (like me), but for others (like Senseless) they may be irritating or annoying. I guess I'll try to tone them down a little in future, although they're almost habit for me by now so it'll be tricky. (Yeah, that one was intentional...)

[Lord Parkin]

Glad everyone seems to agree on heading for the Pigs first rather than the road. I'm sending the Axe+Settler+Worker trio south together now. A Spear will join them shortly, and possibly another Axe.

[Irgy]

(Though I have to say, no-one's ever given me quite that much grief so unexpectedly in an email exchange before.)

So is it safe to guess that my reaction to the invasion of Rome/Netherlands was expected then? :P (sorry off topic again I'm sure)

Anyway, hopefully we're at least on the way towards restored relations, even if Moogle still insists on acting emotionally rather than logically regarding his Hanging Gardens decision. I guess some people simply prefer role playing a situation in the way they think it should play out, even if it's against their interests in terms of trying to get ahead in the game.

It's not entirely against his interests to be irrational here. At this stage giving in and letting you have what you wanted in the first place would be extremely weak and would mark him as an easily pushed around person, encouraging more people to do it in the future. Carrying on with the bad-for-both-parties approach out of spite is something you need to do sometimes. I don't think role playing comes into it, it's just psychology, but there's some sense behind it in a way too.

[Lord Parkin]

So is it safe to guess that my reaction to the invasion of Rome/Netherlands was expected then? :P (sorry off topic again I'm sure)

Heh, I'd forgotten about that. That was unexpected in some ways, though not in others. I knew I'd probably get a bit of a telling off for nabbing territory so close to your own land regardless, but I had no idea about the reason that got you more annoyed at the time (that Grant was your secret underling).

It's not entirely against his interests to be irrational here. At this stage giving in and letting you have what you wanted in the first place would be extremely weak and would mark him as an easily pushed around person, encouraging more people to do it in the future. Carrying on with the bad-for-both-parties approach out of spite is something you need to do sometimes. I don't think role playing comes into it, it's just psychology, but there's some sense behind it in a way too.

Yeah, I think that's the more appropriate word - psychology. I/we screwed up by not chatting with Moogle directly in real time at the first chance (although in fairness, he was never exactly readily available there - in fact it was a huge effort just to arrange that one short chat earlier today). Anyway, as a result, I/we got ourselves bogged down in a lengthy argument that ended up making Moogle want to build the wonder no matter what the cost, even if it was loss-loss for him regardless. An emotional and psychological reaction, no doubt. Certainly not critical and logical.

In future when we need to do major negotiations with both him and other civs, I'm darned well going to force them into a real-time chat right from the start to work it out, whether they like it or not. Not letting something like this happen again.

[Lord Parkin]

Point of interest - the Great Wall is now available. Should we attempt to build it at some point? Obviously it's nerfed a bit because barbarians are off and active espionage isn't permitted. The Great General boost in our borders is unlikely to be necessary if we can help it, but might prove useful at some point. The price is pretty dirt cheap - 100 hammers (with the Industrious bonus) isn't bad for +2 GPP's, at least while there's not much else to build anyway. The downside is that we wouldn't want a Great Spy too early, but later on it'd be good. The passive espionage benefit can be exceptionally useful once you start getting city visibility later on.

Thoughts? Worth it or not?

An alternative could be that we could build it to within a few hammers of completion and then wait for someone else to get it to get the gold. However, we could do that with any wonder, and there's no guarantee anyone else would want to build the Great Wall anytime soon on this map.

[DMOC]

I would recommend skipping the Great Wall and focusing on granaries, libraries, workers, settlers, military, etc. etc. etc. You can gain more GPP by growing your population and working extra specialists. A temple would probably help, if it's available.

[Ellimist]

So... Does this mean you're just going to race for the wonder? Or are you conceding it or something?

[Senseless]

I would skip the great wall. Investing that many hammers to get GP points we don't really want seems like a waste. I would favor building military, settlers/workers and libraries.

@Ellimist-
I think we're waiting on a more firm response from SleepingMoogle before deciding. Parkin seems to have convinced him that the HG is not beneficial for him to get, but he might still want it for other reasons.