RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

Luddite just got ~250 gold from somewhere - after chatting to him it seems he double-built the Colossus. A smart move I guess, although probably a little abusive (nearly 3 gold per hammer!). He opened discussion about future wonders, so it's possible that he's planning on doing a similar thing with some of the Aesthetics wonders (as he's on his way to Literature).

[Lord Parkin]

Heh... was browsing Wikipedia, and this seemed sort of relevant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox

Not a perfect match to the situation, but close.

Basically, right now Locke and WarriorKnight are the only ones who really seem keen on this idea of mass closing borders with Plako. Most of the rest of us seem to be lukewarm at best, having reservations of some sort or another about the idea. Yet it's possible everyone might end up going along with the plan even though most aren't particularly keen on it, just because no-one wants to be seen as "rocking the boat".

Hmm, perhaps I'll talk privately to some of the people who seemed to be uncertain, and suggest that we don't have to go along with the "groupthink" that's going on. Perhaps that'll work... we'll see I guess.

[nabaxo]

Although, you might want to send out that very ambivalent and vaguely rejecting note to everyone first anyway.

[Lord Parkin]

Yeah, probably a good idea. The shorter the better, I think. I'll get on to it soon.

[Lord Parkin]

Okay, here's what I came up with.

The basic plan does seem like a good one, though I can understand why some may have reservations about it.

The fact is simply that the nature of this plan does require everyone to first agree in order for it to have any effect on Plako. If not all of us are willing to boycott him by closing borders simultaneously, then those who do close borders are not going to have much (if any) effect on him.

Basically, there's not much point in only partly or half-heartedly going through with a plan like this - we do need a firm decision either way.

- Lord Parkin

[Lord Parkin]

Quick update - we've hit 100 in production. Not bad.

[Lord Parkin]

Locke's sent through two new messages. What can I say except... thank goodness for Adlain. I have no idea what his motive is for opposing this, since he's (arguably) in the weakest position in the game right now, but I'm not complaining.

So what is it going to be? Are we gonna do this? I try to convince teams. Not getting much enthusiasm. mackoti never respond, Adlain not interested. Are you watching plako Demos? He is building large army now. Will soon overtake luddite in power. He is probably going to attak WarriorKnight soon. He slowly pull away with game while everyone sit around doing nothing.
I'm at least trying to do something. Maybe it will not work but it better than doing nothing. Its in no one interest to trade with runaway civ. Simple idea. Why some of you resisting I dont know.

Time to do something is now before team gets too far ahead. I ask for last time on this to boycott plako. It is pointless if only some teams close borders. Need everyone to make it work.
Locke

Latest message just now:

Well it sounds like teams are not interested. So I guess we are not doing this. WarriorKnight, I try my best to help you out. Sorry.
Locke

So, it seems we've managed to get through this without annoying either Locke or Plako, when I was starting to become concerned that we'd have no choice but to piss off one of them. Phew.

A good lesson learned too: be very careful about what you say to Locke, because apparently his "brutal honesty" policy does mean that he sometimes views things you say in confidence as fair game for passing on to others. Of course, I'm sure other players sometimes do that too, it's just been a wake up call in general for us.

[Lord Parkin]

Message from Rego:

Hi LP,

Haven't seen you around much lately. I did see that you pinged me last night but I was already asleep (or not at my computer anyways). I had been meaning to email you for awhile, but just hadn't gotten around to it.

So what do you think of this whole anti-plako sentiment? My guess is that part of you would be for it, given that he's your top competition, but part of you is nervous about this, since you're trying to not broadcast the fact that YOU are the one in first place now :-). Setting a precedent of "close borders with the leader" is probably not one that you want to get started, right?

Frankly, we kind of feel the same way, given that we're probably the civ most susceptible to people closing borders, as you well know.

So, we'll be getting a Great Merchant in the next few turns from our build of GLH. We've discussed a few things for him but one of the things on the table is a trade mission. As the owner of the Temple of Artemis, we're definitely interested in talking with you, if that is the direction that we go. Is that something that you might be willing to do?

Hope to hear from you soon

dan.
regoarrarr
zulu

The first part is a bit irrelevant now; I discussed the proposed boycott briefly with Rego in a chat and he said he wasn't overly keen on the idea. That doesn't matter now that it's not happening anyway though.

The Great Merchant he mentioned was just born this turn. I had a chat with him earlier where we started discussing the possibilities. There's been talk of specifically what will be gained by going to my capital, and discussion about potentially loaning a Galley for transport. After doing some testing of my own, it seems that Rego will get at least 200 extra gold from a trade mission at our capital compared to anywhere else in the world (due to the Temple of Artemis).

I'm planning to offer him a deal where we split the difference - he gives us 100 gold and keeps the rest from the trade mission with us. If he's not interested, he's welcome to send his Great Merchant somewhere else and get a lower yield at a delayed date. However, given that the 100+ extra gold would be more useful for him than the 100 extra gold would be for us, I'm reasonably confident he'll agree. I'll see if I can tie in a NAP extension as well, so that we can potentially do the same deal in reverse if we happen to get a Great Merchant later (and also because a NAP extension would be good anyway).

Probably time to open up discussion about island city spots soon, too. There are two island spots that I'm already considering settling in the near future.

[Lord Parkin]

Been a while since I posted an overview, so here we go.

We'll almost certainly found Christianity next turn, so that's nice. COL and CS are next on the tech table.

The second Deer is being improved at Lynx, and we'll complete a Granary there shortly. We'll start growing the city to at least size 5 soon.

Acinonyx is finishing off that Lighthouse, and will then shift into fast-growth mode. We should quite easily get beyond size 10 once those five 3-food coast tiles get online.

Pantherinae is working on a Settler for the Sheep-Rice city to the west, then perhaps another Settler for some other city - maybe the Fish-Crab to the north.



The capital is finishing off a Market, then will finish its half-built Axeman, then possibly begin on the Apostolic Palace.

Tigris is building two Settlers, one for the Clam city to the south and one intended for the overlapping island spot to the north.

Magadan is looking much better with its Lighthouse, and will finish the Granary soon thanks to a forest chop.

Onca is building a Library, then may build a Settler - potentially for the overlapping island spot to the south.



Evermore is just about done with a Settler for the southwestern Horse-Pig-Clam spot, then will probably grow while building a Market.

Felidae has reached its max happy cap of 11 (for now), so will chop out a Settler before continuing with growth again. Not sure where to head this one, either the Fish-Copper spot to the northwest (after talking with Luddite) or the Fish-Copper spot to the east.

Pardus built a Barracks a while ago, and is now spamming out War Chariots - both for defence and as the cheapest available military police right now.



We'll soon chop out a Library at Leo, then probably chop/whip a Courthouse as soon as we get Code of Laws.



Demographics are still good. Our GNP is fluctuating but seems to be maintaining a slight lead at the moment. Production is a bit low in comparison to Plako, but we're still second in the world. Food is looking pretty good, especially considering Plako now has 4 more cities than us. (That particular situation will of course be rectified soon, with six settlers already planned for the near future.)

[Lord Parkin]

Didn't get the chance to talk to Rego in chat yesterday, so he sent a follow-up message.

Hi Lord Parkin,

Guess the time zone difference is not working out for us today. I'll be going offline here in an hour or so but should be back in about 4-5 hours later tonight (for me).

Congratulations on Christianity! At least according to what Adlain has told me - I haven't actually been in-game yet. I was actually wondering the other day if you had / what your religion plans were. I figured with Henge and ToA you probably had some! Too bad your long slow trek to Civil Service will be a bit longer ;-) I assume you still have your Stonehenge prophet around for the shrine? And if I'm continuing along down the road of guesswork, I'd say you have plans to built the AP?

We had entertained some thoughts of going after Christianity but I kind of figured, like Confucianism, that it would fall long before we got around to going that way. We may look for one of the remaining 2 religions (but again, they'll probably go before we get there), but if not, we are looking for someone to partner with for a religion. Some sort of profit-sharing mechanism where we make money for your shrine by spreading the religion to our cities, perhaps somewhat similar to our ToA discussions. Adlain has already given us a Buddhist missionary but if you're interested in some sort of arrangement like that, let me know.

Speaking of the ToA discusssions :-), did you get a chance to run any kinds of simulations to see the different yields? As you probably saw, our GM was apparently born last turn. I'd like to get something ironed out this turn, as if we can't come to an agreement, "Hanno" is at a crossroads where he needs to head elsewhere. Hopefully you've had some thoughts and you can either email or catch me on chat later today

Talk to you later!

dan.
regoarrarr
zulu

I apologised for the delay and sent a reply proposing the Great Merchant deal.

Hi Rego,

I've finally had the chance to do some testing of the Great Merchant scenario. It seems that my capital will indeed net your Great Merchant at least 200 more gold than anywhere else in the world at this point in the game. My proposition is that we go with what seems most fair - i.e. we split the difference between us. Actually, let's make it simpler than that - if you send us 100 gold (at most half the difference), you can keep the other 100 (or more) extra gold for yourself. How does that sound?

If you'd rather not go for that, you're welcome to send the Great Merchant elsewhere in the world and go with a lower payoff. I really don't mind, as I'm sure the extra income won't be as useful for us as it will be for you anyway. However, as you know, the benefit of going with the proposition above is that (a) you get a greater overall payoff by at least 100 gold, and (b) that larger payoff comes sooner in the game than it otherwise would, due to the conveniently close proximity of our capital. So it's up to you, really.

It's quite possible we'll be getting a Great Merchant of our own at some point in the future, due to the Temple of Artemis and new Markets. If you're keen on agreeing to the proposition above and sending the Great Merchant our way, I'd also like to leave open the chance for us to send a future Great Merchant of ours your way. We'd of course be willing to split any difference from a trade mission in your cities with you, or if there's no difference we could still send a minimum portion (say 50 gold?) your way to show our appreciation of the convenience. In order to leave open the possibility of this future deal, we'd need an extention of our NAP - since as I'm sure you know wartime tends to cancel all agreements. An extension to turn 170 or 190 seems like it would give us a reasonable chance to see a Great Merchant and gain the possibility to return the favour in that time period. Let me know what you think, anyway.

Regards,
Lord Parkin