[SPOILER] Asoka of the Vikings (Nakor & Gaspar)

[Gaspar]

Poked around with the save, decided you'd left enough instruction that I just went ahead and played. Little to say, other than I'm really looking forward to getting some sort of reasonable tech rate. Improvements this turn let us run 40% at breakeven, which will make CoL take 15t rather than 21. I do think Currency holds more immediate value than CoL, but allowing us to whip in some Courthouses/run Caste for border pops is probably worth the delay. Definitely pick up Math and Currency after CoL though.

[Nakor]

Looking good, Gaspar. I really like to speed of a PB game with all active players.

The other Pitboss I played and you looked into, I came in second after Exploit. He beat me to it with some screwd manipulation of the lesser powers (they nuked my while he build his spaceship and finished all items within 2 turns). Still an enjoyable game.

I'd like to hook up silver as well soon in this game to give us more happiness.
Luddite is going to war, have you seen his power spike? Could be interesting, he is next to Lord Parkin....

[Gaspar]

Yeah - he's crazy. I don't ever think its a good idea to sink that many hammers into classical units, especially with barbs off and diplo on. I assume he's going for Mackoti as some sort of retribution for whatever caused the reload a few turns ago, but I'd love it if he went after Lord Parkin for three reasons:

1. Lord Parkin is a neighbor, and if luddite took a chunk out of him, it'd save us some trouble down the road.
2. Lord Parkin is a douchebag, and if luddite took a chunk out of him, it'd make for entertaining reading in the spoiler threads after the game is over.
3. I kind of like mackoti. His English is terrible, so it makes for an entertaining bluntness in his spoiler threads and his diplo. Also, for my money he's about the best player on these boards nobody gives credit to. He's pretty much a runaway in both PBEMs he's in.

Its probably all moot, as I expect mackoti to be the target. I suspect it will just end up ruining both their games, as these early wars tend to. I don't know what luddites running, but I'd assume it to be a Vulture-based army since he's Sumeria. I suppose he could have construction and run cats and win by production, since he got early forges from Oracle, but I think mackoti is skilled enough to beat that back, particularly with the advantage that Civ affords the defender. Regardless, he's definitely going to put that army somewhere, nobody needs that much garrison, and the only thing more wasteful than a bunch of hammers wasted on classical military units is a bunch of hammers wasted on classical military units you never use.

Sorry to hear about you other PB game - looked like you played quite well in that game. Nukes really suck, they should really always be banned in MP, for reasons just like you said. If there's any sort of tech parity, it just means the winner is chosen by diplomacy rather than civ skill. Still think you can be pretty proud of your game there, from what I saw at least.

Actually, come to think of it, I've seen you play a few games... PB2, you finished 2nd or 3rd depending on who you ask, and you played a pretty good game. PBEM6 you seem to be playing pretty well, from the limited spoiler info we have. This game you're talking about, you played pretty well... where the hell is the Nakor magic when we play together?! I can't possibly be screwing you up that much, can I?

[Nakor]

Thanks for the praise, but don't overdo it. In PB2 DMOC and me didn't play that good a start, but due to good diplomacy, we managed to get back into the game. That's also true for these other games. Getting good deals will help you a lot in my opinion. And that's what we're working at in both our games.

This game is far from over and once our economy recovers and wars break out, a lot can happen for us!

EDIT: Send out a message to almost everyone in game.

[Gaspar]

I don't think we're toast, though I bet they do in the lurker thread. Screw you, lurkers!

All kidding aside, we're definitely behind a bit, but these large scale games, there's a lot of time to catch up, and it takes more than a good start to win. Diplo will have more of a part to play, and certainly how we manage in any future wars as well.

Anyway, if I wasn't freaking out over nothing, you'd be worried there was something wrong with me.

[DMOC]

Screw us??

If you don't mind, may I ask a question - have you guys built any monuments? I'm curious because a lot of cities don't seem to have border pops. I noticed that some libraries were in production, though.

[Nakor]

Hey DMOC, good to see you back! Everything going ok at college?

Gaspar "hates" monuments, so we decided to wait for Libraries for border pops and not put any hammers into monuments. Also since our cities can't grow that big and we made sure that all vital resources were first ring.

The future will tell us if this is a good gamble... I think it might prove to be ok, since we could put those hammers into faster expansion instead of monuments.

What is your opinion regarding monuments? I know (looking back) that we build to many in PB2...

[Gaspar]

Screw us??

If you don't mind, may I ask a question - have you guys built any monuments? I'm curious because a lot of cities don't seem to have border pops. I noticed that some libraries were in production, though.

Well, unless you're saying nice things about us over there.

Ultimately, the way we laid our cities out, I don't think the lack of border pops hurt us, and we would have focused on first ring anyway, since with our starting techs, mysticism was never going to be an early tech for us. It looks terrible, but I don't really think its made an impact yet. Time will tell though.

[Nakor]

Easy turn. Another Library is done, so onto another worker.
Nothing else to add.

Oh yeah, diplo is speeding up and Locke wants to extend our NAP. I think we should agree and keep friendly with everyone untill we get in a better shape...

[Gaspar]

Well... we clearly can't begin to think about war now, but if we're gonna catch up, eventually we're going to have to fight either plako, LP or Locke. I'd actually rather ally Locke of those 3, but that's just because I like his style. Nonetheless, we don't want to repeat PBEM12 by handcuffing ourselves with NAPs. I'm not saying we shouldn't sign with Locke, I'm saying we should figure out at what point we can think about an attack on someone and make sure we have options then.