RBP4 [SPOILERS] - Shaka of Zulu (sunrise089, regoarrarr, and friends)

[regoarrarr]

Okay Turn 81 and 82 played and I screwed up . I had meant to swap the overflow at Montgomery from a (fairly worthless) monument into a settler. But in the haste of playing last, I forgot. Grr

In better news, we founded the city of Hamilton



And what have we here? It's Lord Parkin's borders!

I asked him too about the section north of those peak tiles - he said that there isn't a connection to his land. So it may be that those are just peninsulas. We have had the discussion that those may have been originally island tiles that the mapmaker connected to the mainland with peak tiles so as to nerf the owner of the Great Lighthouse (boo)

See also here - to the SW of our lands



We had thought that the blocking tile near the gems led to someone else's lands, but recent exploration seems to indicate that that too may be a peninsula. So that's intriguing.

[Krill]

We have had the discussion that those may have been originally island tiles that the mapmaker connected to the mainland with peak tiles so as to nerf the owner of the Great Lighthouse (boo)

If that's true then the map maker is an absolute bastard.

[regoarrarr]

And that is insulting! Crash them now with..., with..... ah nevermind

I can see a problem to divide the land to satisfy both parties. A nice clams+gems+cow site is out of question than?
That will be a shame.
This could be a very nice commerce city which nicely fits to your dot map....

I think we'll have a decent border agreement which include us getting that city. I'll keep you posted

[regoarrarr]

If that's true then the map maker is an absolute bastard.

Well I think that goes without saying

[regoarrarr]

We got a response back from WarriorKnight about map height

I counted 22 tiles from the copper tile to the south of the map (excluding the copper tile, since you included it in your count). So that should map the map 52 tiles high.

WK

So 52 tiles high - still need to figure out the East-West size, which I could probably do if/when I feel like it.

[regoarrarr]

Chat with Lord Parkin where we talk about some stuff

lordparkin: Righto, no problem
Figured I'd finally get to responding to the other bits of your email, may as well do it in chat
regoarrarr: sounds good
lordparkin: I haven't seen any stone or marble anywhere either, and no-one I've talked to has
Looks like it's an even situation for everyone, apart from the Industrious nations
regoarrarr: right
lordparkin: Pyramids were quite early, yeah. Mackoti doesn't seem to be much behind in expansion either (in fact, he's heading towards being one of the leaders)
regoarrarr: right
lordparkin: I'm sure he'll do quite well out of Representation
Think I mentioned that Plako founded Judaism... you've probably heard already anyway
regoarrarr: yes i had heard that
lordparkin: Not much else of interest going on I think, everyone's just expanding into the land at their various rates (some faster than others)
regoarrarr: ouch!!
lordparkin: Ouch?
regoarrarr: at my slow expansion rate
lordparkin: Not intended to be a poke at you
regoarrarr: yeah i know
lordparkin: You're doing very well considering the early GLH build
and I'm sure now that the trade routes have kicked in you'll be catching up to the leaders in no time
regoarrarr: perhaps
still 10th food 10th prod
lordparkin: How about GNP? Can't be bad
regoarrarr: only middle
lordparkin: Settler spam will fix the other two
regoarrarr: maybe 6th i think?
lordparkin: Ok
On 0%?
regoarrarr: no
lordparkin: I seem to recall something about you saying you were high up in GNP a while back
regoarrarr: yeah
when we were researching pottery
with 2 prereqs
lordparkin: Anyway, I'd be surprised if you didn't catch up eventually. GLH is exceptionally powerful after all.
Ok
regoarrarr: ok going in
lordparkin: cool
regoarrarr: ooh ooh 9th in prod!
Sent at 21:30 on Wednesday
lordparkin: heh, awesome
I think I'm in the middle of the table there
4th or 5th or something
regoarrarr: you're pink?
i think i see your borders then
lordparkin: ah, neat
so we're not too far away?
regoarrarr: well blocked by those peak tiles
turn flipped
lordparkin: are they the two peaks in a line N-S?
regoarrarr: yes
those are the ones
just founded a city there
i'd feel better about my 9th place 21 prod
if someone else didn't have 53
regoarrarrgit
i screwed up
Sent at 21:39 on Wednesday
lordparkin: back
ah, guess I'll see you when I log in then
maybe
regoarrarr: cool
lordparkin: how did you screw up?
not settling in the wrong place, I hope
regoarrarr: i forgot to change whip overflow
i was going to overflow into something else
lordparkin: ah, ok
regoarrarr: but forgot to change it
lordparkin: ah, bummer
regoarrarr: yah
Sent at 21:45 on Wednesday
regoarrarr: so do you have a land connection to those 2 peak tiles?
Sent at 21:52 on Wednesday
lordparkin: nope, it's across the sea as far as I can tell
regoarrarr: interesting
lordparkin: seems like a peninsula of sorts jutting out
Logging in now, will double check it
Ah yep, I spy Zulu borders
regoarrarr: the pale azure blue of zulu
lordparkin: Indeed
I would have been majestic yellow, but Krill made me pansy pink. :P
regoarrarr: who are you?
lordparkin: Egypt
regoarrarr: ah
lordparkin: Never mind, the pink is easier on the eyes I guess
At least it's Spain pink rather than China pink
regoarrarr: yeah
lordparkin: But ah well, it's fun to play dress-ups with colours once in a while, I suppose.
Perhaps it'll help me get in touch with my feminine side
Sent at 22:07 on Wednesday
regoarrarr: you're in game right?
lordparkin: yep
regoarrarr: there's a peak tile 8 SW of the clam tile near our border
can you see that?
lordparkin: not quite, but I can see a couple of tiles of land near it
regoarrarr: grass forest 1N and grass 1NE?
lordparkin: Yep, indeedy
regoarrarr: so does that lead to your lands ?
lordparkin: Nope, no path through
Except via sea
regoarrarr: hmm
2E of that peak there's anothe rpeak
that blocks my lands from anywhere west
and i can see land to the S of the first peak we were talking about
lordparkin: Yeah, I can see that too
regoarrarr: do you think that goes anywhere?
lordparkin: Can you see the other clam 3SW, 1S of that one at your new city?
regoarrarr: yes
lordparkin: Not sure
regoarrarr: ?
lordparkin: Ok, would appreciate if you don't claim it with a city, since it's closer to my land mass.
I meant, not sure, I can't see the land south of the initial peak
regoarrarr: oh ok
as for that clam
our initial dot map did have a city site 2E of that clam
i do understand where you're coming from
though
lordparkin: Yeah, we have a city spot marked there too
regoarrarr: (when we dotmapped originally we had no idea who was where or anything)
and who might be on the other side of things
lordparkin: I mean, we could just settle right next to it and out-culture you anyway, but would be inefficient.
regoarrarr: i guess at some point we're going to need to have some discussions as to things like that
lordparkin: Yeah, no problem
regoarrarr: discuss via the chat or the impi :-D
lordparkin: Indeed. For now peaks seem to provide a fairly natural boundary
regoarrarr: but i will agree to not settle there before we talk it over if you will also agree to that
lordparkin: Heh
Sure thing, that's ok with me
I think it'd be in both of our interests to focus on expansion in our own areas right now. War this early is simply counterproductive.
regoarrarr: i agree
lordparkin: Since we've now figured out where we are relative to one another, do you want to get back to that talk about a NAP?
regoarrarr: yes
lordparkin: Ok. Any suggestions as to a length? I'm thinking we'll both want plenty of time to fill out our own areas
regoarrarr: so what does an nap mean to you?
lordparkin: Before bothering to think about potential hostilities
To me, a NAP means that neither of us will attack the other directly or indirectly for the duration. Obviously war is out of the question, but sneaky stuff like helping third parties by letting them get through your land to invade is also out. (In other words, being passive-aggressive is nearly as bad in my books as being directly aggressive.)
What does it mean to you?
Or gifting a strategic resource to an enemy of the other civ, etc
regoarrarr: to me an nap should be a natural extension of good relations
rather than a means to it
and i think it needs to be discussed in terms of a border agreement as well
i mean you would not like it, i assumem, if we agreed to a nap and then settled that clams city
lordparkin: Aggressively settling would also be a form of aggression
regoarrarr: right
so yes, i agree to the idea of a nap
lordparkin: Sure thing, I think we agree
regoarrarr: but since i have a teammate, it would probably be best if you were to email something to consider
that i coudl check with sunrise on
lordparkin: Ok. Or you and sunrise could come up with something and send it too
Either way
regoarrarr: right
no slavery for you?
lordparkin: Will have to check, but as a rough idea I'm thinking something like 60 turns or more as a reasonable length
Not at present
Sent at 22:28 on Wednesday
lordparkin: Is that sort of length more or less than what you'd be willing to consider?
regoarrarr: yes i'd think so
lordparkin: ok
Sent at 22:32 on Wednesday
regoarrarr: ok i'm off to bed
lordparkin: Righto, see you later

I especially love the part where my search and replace of dan -> regoarrarr had unintended and hilarious consequences.

One of the other things that we talked about of much consequence was a clam city site



In the old dotmap, it's black dot. He requested we not settle there, since that clam tile is closer to "his" landmass. I agreed to NOTHING, but I do think it's probably reasonable to agree to that, shift our dots around, in exchange for say, settling rights on the "peninsula" north of Hamilton. We certainly can't afford to have him have the ability to launch galleon (or transport) attacks in our backlines from a city over there.

He also wanted a NAP. I suggested that he send us a proposal, but I think I'm amenable to the general concept of it. I mean we don't want to fight him and/or worry about his galleys. Note that because his culture crosses the ocean, he can galley attack us, while we can not do likewise.

[regoarrarr]

So if luddite is posting in the UN thread, then we apparently must have met in-game? I can't get in-game right now to check but I sent him a brief message just to check if we have indeed met or not

[regoarrarr]

Okay I confirmed in-game that we've met luddite (in fact everyone has now met everyone), but I am not clear HOW or WHERE we met.

In any case, I sent him the following

Okay then! Greetings to the first place team (non-plako division) from us suckers in last place (non-WK division)!

It's good to (finally) meet you! Can I make any more sentences end in exclamation points?! No!

Okay but really. It is good to meet you. I've confirmed in-game that we have met, but I still don't see WHERE it is we met??!? Anyways it's nice to finally join the UN - we spent the first 50 or so odd turns having not met anyone. Meanwhile, wars were apparently being fought around the globe, religions were being founded, wonders being built, all the while we were just plodding along. We were actually starting to wonder if we were completely isolated from everyone when we ran into a mackoti scout. Even after that it was another 10-15 turns before we found anyone else, and after that it seemed like we were meeting a new team every turn! Except you guys who somehow managed to evade our detection! But it's good to be able to finally post in the UN, and I'm sure you feel the same way.

So what's going on? I do have to say that you gave us the biggest scare when we were building the GLH. That was when we were still tracking things with CivStats and we knew that you had a high pop coastal 2nd city, and of course you're Industrious, so the turn that you built the Oracle I checked CivStats and saw that you had a 16 point (wonder) increase and I thought well there it went. I couldn't log in right then but I just knew it was all over. It was only a bit later when I realized it was the Oracle! I'm sure that you're pleased with that and your (I assume) early Metal Casting for cheap forges. And then Hinduism (again, educated guessing) a few turns later. Definitely solid play.

Over here we are still trying to play catchup. Of course we did land GLH which will hopefully help, but that set back our development a LONG way. We only have 5 cities (and the 5th only planted last turn) while some people already have 8! I don't know how many you have but I bet it's more than 5 :-).

So what's next? What do we do from here? We're friendly folk over here (don't mind those Impi - they're just looking, I promise!) - but as I've been finding, it's kind of hard to really DO anything friendly in a non-tech trading game. I mean I guess we could open borders, or talk of a NAP (though we're awfully far away), or in some cases you can leverage traits by doing things like trading cheap workers for cheap settlers (though we're both expansive and I'm not sure you could really give us cheap forges or wonders very easily!). So what do we do? Just vague talks of "friendly relations"? Huge dogpiles of Lord Parkin? :-)

Any thoughts on the map? It seems by this point everyone pretty much has a pretty good idea of how the map looks - 5 civs on top, 5 civs on bottom, sea between us and Lord Parkin and nakor and plako (I think? I forget where it is in the south). We had been intrigued by the concept of "peak blocking" tiles potentially separating civs, but further exploration seems to indicate that they are just peninsulas (maybe islands that were joined to the mainland by the mapmaker?)

Anyways I seem to have written quite the novel (but hey, it's me! What else would you expect?) - hope to hear from you soon.

[Ellimist]

You can use the military advisor to locate visible units belonging to another team.

[regoarrarr]

You can use the military advisor to locate visible units belonging to another team.

Yeah I know. But when I went there, there weren't any units showing from him?