[Spoilers] GES, Roland & Friends (Mansa of Egypt)

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Chat with 7:

Ranamar: hi

me: Whats up?
I'm still at work, so I may be on and off a bit

Ranamar: hey! it's 7
ok

me: As always!

Ranamar: haha

me: Did Lewwyn laugh?

Ranamar: about what?

me: That I called him a war-mongering lunatic?

Ranamar: ah yeah

me: We go way back from our WW3 days

Ranamar: though he does wish to point out that he's only declared war once ever
every other time has been someone else declaring on him and subsequently being viciously pounded into irrelevance

me: I wanted to night kill him for days, but he got himself lynched for us

Ranamar: heh
so, we got your message and were going to wait to see the save
but I'm kind of impatient

me: Haha

Ranamar: where did you meet us? (which direction did you come from)

me: Not too much to see. You guys are on a land bridge to my peninsula so to speak
I am south of you.
If you keep going south, you end up at a dead end on the eastern portion of my land
if you cut SW, you end up at my cultural borders
with no tiles for passage

Ranamar: aha, ok
we, unsurprisingly are north of that land bridge
have you met anyone else yet?

me: Yeah, figured as much
Nope. I haven't branched out at all. Was scouting my own lands for now.
A few roving warriors.

Ranamar: ah, same
have you revealed your whole area yet?

me: Except for a few coastal tiles which will reveal when capital borders pop

Ranamar: same
so do you think we are all just in a loop?

me: I've been trying to visualize exactly. You are much better with map deduction than I am, based on 11
Do we know if toroidal or what?

Ranamar: this one's not a mirror so it's a bit different (harder)
nope

me: Scooter says the maintenance from the second city in a couple turns will tell us

Ranamar: oh I see

me: But I will have to find some article explaining that
I assume you guys were the 4 MFG for your EXP worker at the start?

Ranamar: do you have 2 land bridges, or 3?
yeah

me: I think I might have five potentially, but I am not entirely certain

Ranamar: oh wow. how many can you see now?

me: Possibly NE, NW, S, and two on the western edge

Ranamar: I think we have 2 or 3 - there's only one tile we haven't revealed from which another could branch off

me: although I suppose one of the western ones could dead-end
See, I didn't follow any of them out, so some might dead end
I figured I can get WCs up in the next couple turns to go scouting

Ranamar: you have horses convenient?
ours are in a crappy spot, but, that's what skirmishers are for

me: Very.

Ranamar: hehe
capital??

me: I could hook them up to the capital pretty much now if I want

Ranamar: ah, nice

me: Which reminds me. Am I rushing you with them or not?

Ranamar: haha
I was going to ask -
exactly which one of us would you want to rush?

me: lol
Probably you, considering how much you outclassed me at 11
I'll build a few settlers this time

Ranamar: good good
oh by the way
insinuating that I am not a noob?
man
I've only played one and a half games
that is a half a game more than you

me: Yes, and you dominated 6 and were the leader in 11

Ranamar: and lewwyn has arguably played more than me, now

me: So don't pull that with me!

Ranamar: fine, fine, fine

me: Do you know anything about any of the others?
I know MNG from WW3, but not anything about civ skill.

Ranamar: nothing

me: Same with Commodore/Sven and Yuris/Maestro
Hopefully there isn't a Kyan lurking there

Ranamar: yeah

me: I actually hope everybody is somewhat evenly matched

Ranamar: yes

me: I mean, I want to win I suppose, but I would prefer an interesting game

Ranamar: IIRC the picks (civs/leaders) were all pretty decent, nothing atrocious
so that's promising

me: Except for these nubs who took Biz, I would agree
Did MNG already finish 'Henge?

Ranamar: haha, why would he do that?

me: I thought I saw someone's score jump in points

Ranamar: oh
is it around t25ish
if so that would be MNG's land points from his border pop
since it's 1t earlier from creative

me: Ah, yeah, that is what it is
I was wondering why the fuck he would build Henge

Ranamar: also the reason he won't build henge, coincidentally
yeah
so, I gotta run

me: OK, well let me know what you decide on moving southward
I would prefer some NAP in place if you are going to start getting that close to my capital

Ranamar: understood

me: Otherwise, my war chariot will have to say hello to your scout I suppose

Ranamar: personally I'd like a NAP and a map trade, and then we don't even have to enter each others' lands

me: yeah, that is ideal from my perspective too

Ranamar: but I am sadly not unilaterally in control
so I will run it by the others

me: I have a few screens already that are bare map that would work, so let me know

Ranamar: k cool

me: later on

Ranamar: k, I'm going to post this and my recommendations in our thread and then leave
hopefully that works well

me: Sounds good, hit me up later

Ranamar: kk

tl;dr: RL7 is to the north of us across that land bridge. They think they have 3 land bridges, so probably not connected to everyone. I proposed a map trade and NAP so we don't have to scout each other and 7 says he will recommend that to his crew. Henge hasn't been built, only the silly border pops from CRE civs. Duh.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Response email from Ranamar:

Hello, GES.

There was much debate, when we saw your e-mail about which direction
you were in, when we found out that we had been discovered. As you
learned from Seven, we have definitively identified two land bridges
and either of them could have spotted us from a long way down the
bridge or off the other end.

Unfortunately, Seven told most of the good jokes I was going to put in
this response because he was impatient and caught you on IM. :-p
Anyway, I'd like to think I'm in the easygoing category of
personalities, and I certainly won't complain about straight talk. I
am a paragon of honor! ;-)

Fortunately, due to our relative placement, it seems reasonable to
establish a flexible NAP. Say, indeterminate length with either party
being able to cancel it with a 10T warning? We can renegotiate it
later, once the game has taken shape. Due to our relative positions
on the map, it seems we won't even need a settling agreement, at this
time, and I'd say a reasonable border would be the land bridge between
us. You'll reach our cultural borders going north about as quickly as
we would reach yours going south.

I have been encouraged to offer an exchange of bare, zoomed-out
satellite-camera maps of our relative territories. If you agree, we
will go about getting the necessary picture(s) to you, but we would
like you to keep them confidential.
(Looking back, I argued against being able to share them before map
trading and then changed my vote when I wasn't paying attention. It
feels gamey to me, but that's about it.)

--Ranamar

My response:

RL7:

Should screens include resource bubbles?

I think I can agree to your proposal. Roland isn't really playing at this point, and everyone else is a DL'er.

In general, I don't like the whole cancellation-NAP arrangements, but I think early game it makes good sense. Especially when I have war chariots and you have skirmishers. If anything, instead of wasting hammers on each other, we should be going out together and ruining someone else's game. Where is Amelia located again? Oh wait . . . wrong games. How is that for lunatic war-mongering?

GES

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Turn 23:

RL7 already have city #2 up, Minas Tirith (LotR fans) and damn is it close to us.

Our first settler finished EOT.

Started teching Mysticism. Still no founded religion.

Unfogged a few more tiles, uncovered whales. Definitely only 2-3 land bridges.

Demos:

Pretty crappy, but who cares this early? I have no early traits. Better get used to it. Since it looks like the land grab might be pretty manageable on this map (everyone may have "their own" land), that would favor my traits. If not, Krill will be around to point out what an idiot I was in leader selection.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Diplo to RL7:

RL7:

So after de-fogging a couple more tiles, I see that I in fact only have two certain land bridges, and possibly a third. My current theory is that we are all in some ring chain of islands, perhaps with a meeting point in a central hub that is largely a tundra shithole. We shall see.

I'll send a screen when you let me know whether to include resource bubbles or not.

GES

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Turn 24:

Road finished, allowing settler to move 3 tiles towards plains hill, speeding up settling by one turn.

Found whales.

RL7 turned around after we agreed to NAP and map trade.


Overview after border pops:

Demos:

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Screen of RL7's lands:



Pretty clear we are all on a ring of islands, with main two paths each. I still figure we get a tundra path to the middle, so settling that tundra fish + plains silk should be a priority.

Not only were they EXP, they also started out with a six food tile and I didn't, so I think their initial city got to grow one turn sooner than mine. Also, I believe their first three tiles yielded 13/4/1 base, while mine only yielded 13/2/2. It appears we both settled on plains hills. Not exactly what I had in mind given their EXP advantage.

On that note, I think RL7 have already founded a second city on the desert tile between the fish. I think our second city of pigs/horse/corn should be a faster developing city #2, so maybe we can make up some ground on their EXP civ since we don't need a workboat to get pigs up and we get the plains hill plant.

I am grumpy that they can get to their gems without iron working.

Also, I see they have stone. I am betting my one fogged hill has either stone or marble.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Turn 25:

Settler is onto the plains hill. Will found next turn. For one turn, I have to fear something coming out of the fog before the warrior gets up there to cover the city.

Worker put one turn into a horse pasture. Will begin pasturing pigs immediately next turn.

Grass hill is finished at the capital and I am working. I can still grow in two turns whenever I decide to, but I go ahead and start on a worker which will take 3 turns.

Mysticism is in. Still no religion founded. Decision needs to be made about whether to tech Meditation or Polytheism. My inclination is Polytheism.

Found a dyes tile on a river, so that will be a 2/0/7 tile once I have Calendar.

Demos:

BTW, we need a naming theme. I am tempted to revisit the bourbon theme from SG4 if nothing better comes to mind.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Turn 26:

Mysticism in. Teching Polytheism. Buddhism was founded this turn. 7 says it was probably yuris, on his way to Oracle.

RL7 finished 'Henge.

Decided to name the cities after local breweries. Capital became Stone, and the pig city became Alpine due to the peaks.

Pasturing the pigs. Going to put a chop into the next settler.

Found marble.

Demos:

That is at least a little better. Not too worried about GNP, since RL7 have Henge and someone else has CRE.

[Brian Shanahan]

Sorry for lack of recent contribution, have been trying to sort out return to college issues and parents have been me at home too (hey cutting an acre of a field is hard work, you know).

As regards naming scheme why not a variation of mine from FfH PBEM7, using Merican funny names. There'll probably be no Muff Diving Schools, but sure there'll be funny enough names, to be sure.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Chat with 7:

me: You there?

Ranamar: here now

me: I saw you guys built Henge

Ranamar: yes

me: Did you found Buddhism too?

Ranamar: that was yuris
probably

me: Ahh, have you met anyone else?
We still haven't

Ranamar: nope

me: What I wanted to ask is if you are trying for Polytheism?
Because I am already teching it

Ranamar: oh, good question
we were thinking about it
but that was before buddhism landed and it seems pretty clear yuris wants oracle

me: Yeah, I knew the early wonders would drop
given two IND civs
and another player who wanted IND
BTW, who am I speaking with?
Probably 7

Ranamar: 7
haha

me: I can tell your style by now'
Oh BTW, I just unfogged marble this tile

Ranamar: ah
where?

me: So the one fogged plains tile
south of my dyes

Ranamar: I don't know where your dyes are

me: Umm, somewhere south of the pigs
not pigs
sorry
peaks near pigs, maybe 3S
or 4S

Ranamar: ok

me: So if you do decide to go Oracle, if it would help, I can loan marble
NOt sure we will have a connection by then though

Ranamar: thanks, but I highly doubt you'll have marble and masonry and trade routes with us by the time yuris builds it

me: Yeah, probably not

Ranamar: we would like to trade for marble though

me: Yeah, as of right now, I have no wonder plans
I've decided to take a bit of a religious path

Ranamar: cool
me: as Egypt, I can get a shrine or two up
and long term, the religious techs have good civics for a SPI civ

Ranamar: definitely
I love doing that
wheres your second city going?
it's a bit less obvious than our situation...

me: Yeah, Caste gives you fake CRE. Pac gives your Phil. OR gives you fake forges.

Ranamar: yup
pretty cool
and then you can get vassalage/nationhood and 1/2 bureacracy too

me: I was wondering why your screen didn't include your desert fish/gems city
Minas Tirith

Ranamar: I took the screenshots right when we arranged to trade them
which was that turn

me: Guess where my second city is going
Or went
already founded now

Ranamar: hm
S of horse?
NW of pig?

me: Second one I believe
plains hill near peaks

Ranamar: yeah
really nice spot, only drawback is not sharing a capital food

me: Yeah, but I will need to share that capital food with some shitty coastal filler cities I think
since there is no seafood on that long straight coast

Ranamar: yeah that's bizarre

me: I was pretty pissy about it

Ranamar: man we have a total of ONE river
so many fewer river tiles than you

me: Yeah, but you got a six food tile start, and an extra two hammers from your first three tiles
When coupled with EXP, I have some catchup to do
Ranamar: our start is a little better than yours yeah

me: He also put jungle on my gems
When I saw you didn't have jungle on your gems

Ranamar: we also needed fishing for city 2, hence why we lose oracle race

me: I was grumpy

Ranamar: don't worry we have another gems that IS jungled

me: that makes me feel SO much better

Ranamar: yeah

me: do you have a tundra path?

Ranamar: it's strange, but apparently the mapmaker thought that rather than improve our shitty northern land, he should just give us one city in the south with a gems and 2 fish
we have a third path
haven't seen tundra yet though
just deserts for us
that is where our copper is btw
from our screenshot, you can see ONE tile on our blob we haven't revealed yet
copper, obviously

me: So likely the map is a ring of islands and we each have some sort of spiral ala 17 into the middle?

Ranamar: yeah
looks that way

me: You think the middle is crap land?
The four tiles I can see on mine are all tundra

Ranamar: I dunno
I'd guess the middle itself is good and just the paths there are bad
after all we haven't seen gold yet, for example

me: True. So I would propose that we plan to aggressively push our other neighbors and basically leave each other be
If it is a ring of some sorts, we could basically work out in opposite directions

Ranamar: sounds good to me

me: But I think between you having skirmishers and me having war chariots, I'd like to think we can avoid any dopey ancient era wars like have gone on in recent games
14 for example is awash in nonsense

Ranamar: good lord, yeah
neither of them beat the other offensively
of course, we could attack you with a bunch of spears to try to stop your copper\
let me run that past lewwyn

me: Yeah, exactly
Run it past Tu-pac

Ranamar:
heh

Ranamar: however, I think there is something to be said for the fact that we have more potential to invade you than vice versa (we even have a city blocking the bridge), and exp for good early game
and you have the 2 best late game traits
meaning that I don't see why we'd want to guarantee you peace without something extra for it

me: Well, you do what you want to do. If you want to start saber rattling, I can have some chariots out in 3-4 turns and we can have fun

Ranamar: sure
I don't want saber rattling personally
but I am about 99% sure that lewwyn and ranamar won't want to sign a longer nap for that reason, so just letting you know

me: Seeing as how I know you don't have copper yet . . .


Ranamar: sh, that is a military secret

me: I'm just saying. I'm about as a pleasant a dude to have as a neighbor as you can find at RB. But if it looks like we cannot be pleasant, then so be it.

Ranamar: I know

Ranamar: do you think you're getting poly soon enough?
like, 2 turns from buddhism being founded?

me: Who knows, I may miss out. If so, I will probably get Mono. Monarchy is a good long term goal anyway.
Ranamar: true

me: From there, I can pull a Krill and nab Fuedalism instead of Bureaucracy
Krill says Bureaucracy is only better if you are doing it wrong

Ranamar: with spi, you want both

me: Yeah, alternating is definitely good
Save gold, then blow it

me: You still there?

Ranamar: yeah

me: So I am editing our chat to post in my thread, and it occurred to me. If I am never going to be more than 10 turns away from war with you guys, when wouldn't I cancel our NAP and just come your way now? You built 'Henge, likely have no archery, cannot get spears in 10 turns, and I can be on your doorstep when the NAP expires. How is that not a better option for me than worrying about psycho boy and his short NAPs?

Ranamar: we will have copper in a few turns
it's really hard to do anything on quick speed
archery is like a 3t tech
you have to attack into a city with cultural defense and can't even choke any tiles
causing your nearest opponent to build an ancient era army has proven repeatedly to be a very bad idea

me: Agreed. Which is why I didn't particularly like the implication that I needed to give something up to get peace. The simple fact that I am as trustworthy as they come on RB oughta be worth something when it comes to picking who you want to agitate and who you don't.
The chances of ever getting Mackoti'd by me is pretty much nil.

Ranamar: yeah
look: same here
ranamar and I can keep lewwyn from going on the offensive too early
it;s more the pitbull revenge thing that may still occur
so I don't think you need to worry

me: Alright, I am just a fairly black and white guy. You won't get a lot of flowery language and backstabbing bullshit from me. I'll take you at your word that you have no current plans.

Ranamar: yeah
we built stonehenge
however, about hinduism
I just talked with ranamar about this
we have also started it
I think we'll get it before you
but, racing is dumb
my preference would be for us each to declare when we'll get it, then the second place player doesn't research it and doesn't lose tempo
what do you think?

me: Well, I am actually fine with missing it, because Monotheism is good for me. I am not sure I would change anyway personally.
I mean, I suspect your C&D is pretty good.
You likely know if you will beat me or not.

me: I'm not trying to be a dick about this or anything, but I pretty much made up my mind to make use of SPI Egypt. I don't really need writing, or fishing, or anything else ATM.

Ranamar: understood
well, huh. I was trying to do you a favor by letting you know we will probably beat you
yet, I am not sure
we really don't want to research poly yet if you are in fact beating us

me: Well, it is due in 1-6 turns for me.
Does that help?


Ranamar: lol
of course not

me: We can do this dance tomorrow by chat. But I have to be up at 5:30am to go to Los Angeles for work tomorrow. I am about two hours past my bedtime.

Ranamar: that's not ideal. we probably have to play the turn again before I'm up :/
why don't you just tell us?

me: Cause I've been trying to decide if there is a way for you to speed it up a turn at this early stage

Ranamar: we know exactly what turn we will get it on

me: I think the answer is probably no
I think it is four turns for me
Ranamar: from when?
me: from EOT

Ranamar: which turn though?
26 just ended, do you mean t30?

me: I think so
Not trying to be coy
There is some tile shifting I can do that changes the math

Ranamar: sure

me: So I am just not sure

Ranamar: same reason I'm not sure about you I guess
we are getting it t30 too (so before you, if you are right)

me: Yeah, I think you will probably beat me by turn order
Anyway, I really have to go

Ranamar: ok

tl;dr: Start out having a nice conversation, 7 pisses me off, and I basically threaten to chariot rush them. They are going to beat us to Hinduism by turn order. I knew I should've teched it before Pottery. Pottery is going to be completely useless for me.

The long story short is, I am totally fucked now. They are going to land Hinduism at our choke point, giving them total cultural control of the land between us. If I had just followed my instincts and teched Polytheism first, we would've landed it EOT 27.