RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

Well, I didn't even need to get in contact with Luddite... he got in contact with me. Seems pretty certain his sights are set on Mackoti and not us.

Luddite: hey
me: Hi there
Luddite: what's up?
me: not much
just founding new cities, nothing ground-breaking...
how about yourself?
Luddite: well
i guess you've seen my power graph lately?
me: indeed
looks like you're planning something there
Luddite: yeah
me: I presume Mackoti can see your demographics too
Luddite: i decided it's just not going to work, playing defense all the time against mackoti
so i need to go on the offense
me: Sounds fair enough
It's pretty much impossible to coexist with an aggressive/untrustworthy neighbour
Luddite: yeah that's what i figured
also, if he takes all that land, i'm dead in the long term
me: Yeah... you need to secure a decent chunk for survival in the long run
I presume he's not letting you have much or any of it?
Luddite: haha, no
me: heh
Luddite: pretty hard to share it anyway
me: ah well, luckily you have a UU extremely relevant to a war now, while he doesn't at all. Plus of course the whole massive production thing...
Yeah, I guess so
Luddite: yeah
well it'll be interesting to see how the vultures do
in some cases they're a liability, you know
me: Yeah, I haven't used them much myself, but I know that unpromoted they lose in the open field against axes
using terrain/promotions to your advantage should fix things though
Luddite: right
me: I'll be interested to see how it goes, don't know if I've ever actually seen them in action. People don't often pick Sumeria to play with...
At least in the games I've played so far
Luddite: yeah i'm not used to using sumeria either
me: (MP)
Luddite: anyway, i just wanted to ask you if you would be willing to use your warrior as a scout for me
me: Yeah, I could help out there
There's one Axe of Mackoti's just to the west of your land down there, not sure if you can see it
That's all I've seen so far
Luddite: i'm aware of it
he has a chariot there somewhere, too
i think that's basically his entire military for right now
so i mean, unless he starts whipping immediately, he's got no chance
me: seems like it... his power isn't very high
indeed
should be nice and easy, at least at first... and that should at least claim the chokepoint, if not more
Luddite: yeah
well anyway, any information you can give me would be much appreciated
me: Ok, I'll keep you informed
Luddite: and, i mean, not giving any information to mackoti
i'll try to repay you at some point in the future, since you've helped me so much
me: Of course, I won't pass anything on to Mackoti. My loyalties lie with you, and I wouldn't want to support a NAP breaker anyway.
Luddite: haha, thanks
me: Cool
I think I'll have Currency sometime around turn 101 or thereabouts, so we'll be able to trade gold from that point onwards (if not before).
Luddite: ok
me: Not sure if it'll be useful or needed, but figured I'd mention it anyway

[Lord Parkin]

Chatted with Rego, and he seemed happy with the NAP to turn 140. He tried to put a lot of pressure on me to give some "small concession" in return for not competing with our first-ring Clam site... although his idea of that was opening borders. (Sure, 10-20+ free gold per turn to you is an appropriate concession for letting us settle our own first ring city spot. Yeah right. )

Anyway, I eventually managed to talk him down on the Clam spot, so all seems to be good. Looks like the "islands" between us are the only issues that remain to be sorted out. I did mention we may be able to work out an open borders deal in the future if it was at least partly balanced.

[Lord Parkin]

Oh, and forgot to mention, I notified all the other Industrious nations that we're going for the Temple of Artemis. No-one cared, as expected. It's not exactly a first-tier wonder, after all... but it's useful enough for us since we want to grow our capital to size 12 and it's something handy to build while we do.

[Lord Parkin]

Screenshot from up north. Our silver city is currently set to be founded on turn 97, with the Silver hooked up on turn 99 (just in time for growth to size 12 at the capital).



Decided to work on the Moai Statues for now in Magadan. We can switch over to a Lighthouse or Granary later if we want, with no real loss - we won't be working sea or growing for a while anyway. The wonder will be finished in about 13 turns with the 3 chops (accounting for switching the Gold tile over to Evermore when the Library's in place and we're at 100% research). I still feel like we're not at maximum efficiency there... perhaps some whipping needs to be considered. Then again, growing beyond size 6 is useless if it's only into non-Financial, non-Moai coast, so getting Moai out ASAP and then getting the rest shortly afterwards seems like a reasonable plan.



First Ivory improved down south, just needs a road and it'll be connected up to the empire - just in time for our capital's growth to size 10.



As for Leo down south, once that city reaches size 2 it'll switch to building another Worker, as it won't be useful to grow that city further until more tiles are improved beyond the Pig and Gold.

[Lord Parkin]

Confirmed with Rego that our NAP is indeed in place, along with sorting out smaller issues.

Rego: ok
logging in
btw did we officially agree to anything?
i'm going to settle the clams city this turn
(but not the one on your side ;-D )
me: Heh
I think we agreed to NAP to 140, you kindly letting me have first-ring clam spot, and neither of us settling any of the "islands" until we discuss them later... is that what you understood?
Rego: yes
me: Ok, cool... think we're agreed then
Rego: i just wanted to make sure that we officially agreed to it
me: No worries
I guess it doesn't seem as "official" if it's in chat rather than email form
But yes, we're agreed now
Rego: oh i'm ok with doing it in a chat
just wanted to make sure we both were on the same page
but whatever i
i agree we're agreed
me: Cool
I was going to check too actually, so good that you brought it up

That completes the set of neighbours we have staggered NAPs with.

Rego - 140
Luddite - 150
Nakor - 160
Plako - 180

Looking good for a nice ~50 turn period of super-expansion and growth ahead.

[Lord Parkin]

Very weird message from WarriorKnight just now... I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. For one thing, we don't have Currency, and for another, why would I ever offer a rival free gold? I don't see how he ever interpreted anything like that.

Maybe he's got me confused with someone else? In which case, who is offering WK free gold?

EDIT: Ah, I got the gold currency confused with the Gold resource (which I always capitalise myself to distinguish it). I think I did offer him the Gold resource in return for some goodwill (Plako took his apparently), so I guess we can do that. Everyone else seems to have that resource anyway so it's not much use for trading to anyone else.

Hi Lord Parkin

So apparently we have a trade route now. I'm not entirely sure how though (along with you, I got connected with SM and luddite this turn, so maybe I defogged a tile which lead to the northern hemisphere somehow?).

Anyway, the reason I'm sending you this is because I recall you offering your spare gold to me in a chat if we ever got connected. Are you still interested in doing that? I don't have any spare luxuries to send to you in exchange unfortunately (I didn't check for surplus health resources but I would be willing to send you one of those instead if it helps).

Regards,
WarriorKnight

[Lord Parkin]

Nakor's stated he doesn't want to take the canal city south of our Pig-Gold city. Seems like a bit of an odd move... maybe he's intending to play us off against plako there or something? In any event, that spot isn't good enough to warrant us settling it anytime too soon, so we'll just keep it in mind and maybe go for it later if it's still open.

Hey Lord Parkin,

We've been a bit quiet while strugging through the initial moves of this game. Sorry for that.
We'd like to let you know that we WON'T be setting the land-bridge south of your gold/pigs city.
For us it's an spot that we can't really defend, so we'll just keep it open for either you or Plako to settle.

Do you know what's up with Luddite's power spike? Is he going after Mackoti or after you?

On our side of the world things are very quiet, so that's good. We're still scouting a lot of the map for later use.

Kind regards,
Nakor

[Lord Parkin]

Sent Gold to WarriorKnight, since we have a spare one anyway and every single other person in the game seems to have the resource. Should get us a bit of goodwill, although not sure if WK will remain around long enough in the game for it to pay off. Ah well, never mind.

Also, Luddite got in contact via chat... apparently the war with Mackoti is imminent and (from the sounds of things) starting next turn. Should be interesting to watch how that progresses.

[Irgy]

Should be interesting. Have you considered naming a warrior "popcorn" and sending him along to watch?

[Lord Parkin]

I've got a Warrior nearby, although I get the feeling this may be a quick war so we won't even see much by the time we arrive.

War's definitely started though... logged in this turn to see that Luddite had declared on Mackoti as he said he would. Luddite mentioned they'd been negotiating with him, but apparently that didn't work out. Will be interesting to see how it turns out.