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

[regoarrarr]

The other way to do it is Total beakers researched:

Locke: 12033
Lord Parkin: 10274
Nakor: 8825
Luddite: 8119
Adlain: 7945
Plako: 7859
Ioan: 7153
regoarrarr: 7135
Moogle: 6531
WK: 2756

We do a little better if you subtract out techs with first to discover benefits, and other "wasted" beakers that I'd call stupid techs (my list is Alphabet, Music, Theology but maybe I'm just trying to make us look better )

[regoarrarr]

Some comments:

1. I'm surprised that Plako is that far behind.
2. I'm also surprised that Moogle is even further behind (behind US!). I actually thought that he was doing pretty well (he's ahead of us in score FWIW). When Adlain got Alphabet I surmised in an email to Moogle that he was probably a bit ahead of Adlain in beakers, and he confirmed that he was. So either he doesn't know how to calculate this (or didn't bother), or he's lyin.
3. We're doing okay on Classical Techs, and it probably makes sense to continue to follow in folks footsteps on tech research. There's nothing out there really that we have a pressing need for. I guess our next research should be Code of Laws (which we could get in 1t at 100%, which we have enough money for)
4. Woo Compass monopoly!!!!
5. Lord Parkin is definitely supplanting plako as the "boogeyman" IMO.

[regoarrarr]

Locke now has paper as we saw and offered to trade maps.

I replied

Hi there. You certainly seem to be teching up a storm! As for Paper, I declined for right now but would be interested in discussing it. We already feel like we have a pretty good idea of the map, so we don't really need any more map information.

I'd feel more comfortable trading maps with you if I knew where they might end up. For instance, while I don't really mind you having some of our map information, I'm a little more nervous about it possibly ending up in the hands of future enemies of ours (whoever those might be...)

Anyway, those are my thoughts - what do you think?

[Ellimist]

Did anybody manage to scout your lands?

[regoarrarr]

Did anybody manage to scout your lands?

Yeah there's a few folks - Locke luddite and Ioan have units in our lands currently and I haven't been strict on telling them to take a hike.

[Krill]

How much do you think they know of your lands?

[regoarrarr]

How much do you think they know of your lands?

Eh probably between everyone they probably know most of it excpet maybe the far north.

[NobleHelium]

Well at least you know LP hasn't been scouting your lands.

[regoarrarr]

Chat with LP

Lord: Hi there
Me: good morning?
Lord: almost! Just turned afternoon
Me: doesn't seem that long since we last talked
timezones are weird
Lord: heh
Me: i'm actually about to go watch a movie on this fine friday night (for me).
i do want to talk to you more about nap extension
but i think that it needs to be in conjunction with some of our future plans
whether that's war with a 3rd party or elsewhere
Lord: hmm, ok
Me: i also wanted to see if you were interested in some sort of deal where i spread christianity for your shrine in exchange for something
Lord: nah, not interested sorry
Me: ok
Lord: that's a losing proposition for me
Me: why's that?
Lord: given the +2 hammer buildings
I'm giving more than I'm getting with just the missionary, let alone paying you :P
Me: well i meant that i'd supply the missionaries
well i guess one possibility would be that you provide a missionary
Lord: ok, you're still getting more out of it than me though
Me: that doesn't mean you're not getting anything out of it
classic win win!
Lord: you're welcome to spread Christianity (or not), it doesn't bother me
Me: you seem very focused on not wanting to help other players
Lord: but I'm not interested in paying you to do so
Me: (just an observation which may be wrong)
in any case, i'm off to teh movies
ttyl
Lord: Eh? Surely you can see that me paying you to build missionaries only helps you
I'm not against helping other players, I just want it to be mutual
Ok, see you around then

I liked the sticking it to him at the end

[regoarrarr]

Another chat with LP

Lord: Hi there
Me: hi
and nowwwwwwwww it's morning for me ;-)
but i've got all the kids here with me
Lord: heh
Me: so i might be off and on
Lord: ok, no worries
can come back later if it's an issue
how are you doing for foreign trade routes at the moment?
last time we talked I think we were both full so we decided there wasn't much point in OB
may have changed though, you've been founding new cities like mad... and that's me talking, lol
you're 1 ahead of us I think
yeah, 24 to our 23 last time I checked
unless you've founded more since then, heh
Me: we are all set on foreign trade routes as it stands right now
if we had ob with you we may get a coin or two from your big cities
Lord: ah, ok
basically, I've been thinking some more about closer cooperation in the future
like you were talking about
Me: ok
Lord: I think we basically have four main options right now
first - don't change anything or make any new deals. Our NAP remains until turn 170, then expires. It'd probably be implicitly understood that we weren't expecting on working together much in the future.
second - basic 20-turn extension of our NAP to turn 190, like we were talking about.
third - the Open Borders for gpt deal I talked about earlier, probably something like 2 gpt initially and increasing 1 gpt every 10 turns or so, in return for a longer cooperation - say NAP to 210
Sent at 08:35 on Saturday
Lord: fourth - a serious commitment to a much longer term alliance. We'd supply you with open borders for free, giving you a decent amount of free gold right now and a huge amount post-Economics. We'd also start to seriously contemplate plans for a combined invasion of Plako. I'd require a much firmer agreement for this though - e.g. NAP to 250 - to make sure you wouldn't just turn around and use all the freebies against us.
thoughts?
with option 4, I'd also be happy to talk about resource gifts when and where needed
Me: ok
Lord: as that'd obviously make great sense for allies
Me: my first thought is that i'm about to leave to go grocery shopping ;-)
Lord: lol
Me: but i do want to give you some initial thoughts
Lord: plenty to think about around the supermarket then ;0

sure
Me: well it's hard to think when you're also trying to wrangle 5 kids around
but yeah ;-)
so of all the options i'm looking a little more towards option 4
i think that we are closely coming to the point of time in the game where everyone is running out of land
we had some wars in the early going on
but most people were just content to build up and fill up their land
but now we're running out of that
so i think it makes some sense to try and coordinate with other folks to ensure that we are not on the receiving end of a dogpile
Lord: indeed
Me: and i'm sure you feel the same way
Lord: absolutely
Me: the main thing that is worrying me right nwo about a closer alliance with you
Lord: so covering each others' flank makes a lot of sense
Me: is that i'm starting to feel like it's YOU, not plako, that is the real threat in this game
now, there are plenty of reasons NOT to think that as well
we've talked about plako's land advantage
which is true
but i don't think he even has basic economic techs like calendar and IW
Lord: yeah, in the end land trumps pretty much everything
Me: while you ahve CS and paper already
Lord: right, but you could argue the same thing about Locke
Me: yes i agree
Lord: more so, even. He's way ahead of us.
Me: right
Lord: We can't compete with him for Lib if he beelines now
Me: you don't need to defend yourself here necessarily - i'm not trying to attack you
Lord: which he probably will
Me: i know that there are lots of reasons why NOT to think that too
like the ones you've mentioned
Lord: yeah, I understand that
Me: but, even it that is true
there are some reasons why it STILL would make sense to ally with you
1) all things being equal, i prefer to ally with stronger players, because allying with doofuses is annoying
you always have to worry about them making some stupid mistake and screwing everything up
Lord: right, absolutely true
Me: 2) geographically it doesn't make sense to attack you now if ever
Lord: I've had too much experience with allies that turn out to be useless...
Me: 3) we've already had some cooperation to build on
Lord: absolutely agreed there too, it'd be immensely tricky for us to attack one another
indeed, we have
well, it seems we have a pretty similar mindset then
which is good
Me: ok
i really gotta run now
Lord: righto
will you be back later?
(just wondering how long/if I should stay up )
Sent at 08:49 on Saturday
Lord: hi ther
*there
are you back?
Me: for a bit
yes
Lord: ok, sure
So I think where we left off last time we were thinking along pretty much the same lines
Do you want to make it official? I think so far we discussed:
- Open Borders
- Future agreement to work together against Plako
- Resource gifts
- NAP to 250
anything I missed, or you can think of that should be added?
Me: we're on what turn now?
145 ish?
Lord: 147
so it's a while away, but still well before the expected end of the game
basically my preference for NAP lengths runs on a sliding scale. The closer cooperation and more freebies that are offered, the more I want confirmation that we're both in it for the long haul
Me: agreed
Lord: personally I think you'd be the ideal long term partner, as a strong and competent player... really just comes down to how keen you are to work with me
happy to begin OB as soon as we reach an agreement, even this turn if you want
Me: i will post this in the thread and get sunrise's thoughts
Lord: resources too if you need them, though I suspect you don't right now
Me: yeah we're good on resources
that's what happens when all your cities are size 5 or lower
Lord: hehe, yeah
your time of growth is coming though
no doubt you'll be shooting through the roof in pop soon enough
Me: that's the plan
we'll see if it's enough
Lord: righto
will look forward to hearing back from you
I'm heading to bed shortly... don't know how soon sunrise is likely to be on. If you've reached a decision by the morning then let me know
Me: okay
sounds good
Lord: Haven't ended turn yet, so I can still send OB if a decision is reached in time
Me: ok
Lord: if not then next turn I guess
Me: if it happens that's fine
otherwise next turn is fine
plako is running lots of ep on us
Lord: hmm, ok
how much is lots?
seems fairly aggressive anyway
Me: i didn't check exactly what it iwas
last turn
but i want to say somewhere in the 50s
this turn is 79
Lord: hmm, definitely a lot then
Me: probably no slider
but all his EPs
Lord: suggests suspicious intentions
yeah, using the slider this early would be fairly silly
Me: indeed
Lord: I imagine he has a tonne of Courthouses though
with all that conquered land
Me: right
Lord: I'll probably put some EP on Plako soon myself, will let you know when/if I get his tech info
Me: okay
Lord: have tech info on Mackoti and Adlain so far, both on Machinery at the moment
Me: ok
Lord: not sure if you have tech info on folks or not
Me: no
Lord: we'll have Moogle's soon, dunno if you're interested in it
can keep you updated if you want
Me: ok
Lord: righto
anything else for now? Might head to bed if not
Me: yeah
sounds good
Lord: ok then, will chat later
Me: ttyl
Lord: look forward to potentially working with you in the long term
see you around

We need to decide if we want to take things to the next level with him. I think probably yes.