[Spoilers] Commodore as Darius of the HRE

[Ceiliazul]

Yep, actually my sim had the barb town providing just enough to allow going full bore for Lit once the Library dropped in Aquilonia.

Great minds think alike. :-)

Upon further reflection, the corn + fish + grassland that can be farmed makes me wonder if the ironically pink site would make a nicely serviceable GP farm location. If so, the national epic might be a good idea there after the basic granary/lighthouse/library. There are certainly enough forests to make it a nice fast build.

That site can be used for commerce... but the triple food site on the southern strand could ONLY be a GP farm.

The jungle tile 1E of the marble grabs gold and marble at the same time, which is awesome...but look at the food situation.

You can farm the FP to work both resources, and otherwise its a fishing village. With windmills, it will b even better.

[Commodore]

Contact! I sent this to both Yuri and Maestro, I think that's the way they wanted it.

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hey guys,

Official greetings and salutations to the great Ottoman Radiolander Empire, from the Hyborians. Our chariot and your work boat have spotted each other, so now we have in-game contact. Just Ranamar left and we'll complete the set. How are thing up in the cold north of the world? Congratulations on landing the Oracle, anything that slows down the RL7 juggernaut getting mints is a good thing for all of us.

We're about as far away from one another as is possible in this map, but nonetheless, I hope we can find good reasons to trade and work together in game. As an initial thought, would you mind if I continued on with my chariot to your "spoke" to contact RL7? If you can OB, naturally, and as with MNG while in your territory I'd agree to follow whatever path you prefer. If not, that fine, as I said, we're about as far from one another as we can be, and I doubt we'll be seeing TRs anytime soon (unless they can route through MNG's territory?)

I hate making contact a twenty-questions game, but in general, what's been your feel for your neighbors? For my part I've been enjoying working with MNG and GES, while far away and a little hostile, at least hasn't been warlike towards me. In any case, I hope things are going well.

Cheers,
-Commodore[/COLOR]

[Ceiliazul]

Actually, you're almost as close as MNG and RL7.

Lyons, by the way, is France's 3rd city, and was indeed a choke. Hooray for good demo guesses.

[Commodore]

Nicely done. Oh, you've also got a confirmation there on your earlier analysis.

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Hi Commodore,

I can confirm that we sure do have trade routes. Not sure how they travel between us, but they are there and that's all I need to know. For now it's a pretty minor thing, but as we each grow and may want resource deals in the future, it'll become a bigger and bigger deal.

I heartily enjoyed the C&D efforts, thank you for that. Really, it was a narcissistic claim, but it was fun to read, knowing the real path my game has taken. Rest assured that Ceiliazul has been doing a good job for you, as his reading of the numbers was almost entirely correct.

As far as wonders are concerned, I really don't know what Yuri's next plans are. He mentions having a lot of room to expand and not needing to expand into "my" piece of the pie but nothing more specific. As far as The Great Library ... that's a great wonder choice for you, especially with marble. I haven't heard anyone else mention it. And I won't be anywhere near it soon. In order to combat increasing happiness issues, I'm going to need to get the religious techs to monarchy and calendar as well soon. That means it will be easily 15 turns before I even think about teching in that direction, at which point you'll probably have already landed it

Oh, and I completely understand what you mean about GES coming on a little strong with the WC comment. His opening comment to me was more or less "don't come any closer or we'll sic war chariots on your warrior". Certainly not a warm welcome.

Well, I should get going. Hope the game is treating you well,
MNG, Hattie of France[/COLOR]

Upshot, MNG isn't interested in wonder-hunting (and rightly so, his REX is working well thus far). Also, GES has manged to piss off another player...why couldn't he have done this with Ranamar? Sigh.

[Commodore]

And in Yuri's land was a warrior from RL7, so I've caught 'em all.

[COLOR="Orange"]Greetings sir,

We've found Solomon Kane on the bridge between Mr Nice Guy and Yuris. Our warrior's name (Gandalf) notwithstanding, you are of course welcome to pass.

How goes life in Hyboria? We see you have already organized a religion. Do you have any duplicate luxuries you might be interested in trading sometime? We will eventually get doubles of gems and whales.

SevenSpirits for team RL7[/COLOR]

I had a generally meaningless reply.

[COLOR="Yellow"]Salutations RL7 (I'm assuming these should be addressed to The Legion, for you are many),

Glad to see the Middle Earthers following the theme of good guys, and Solomon will cheerily knock staffs with Gandalf as he passes by. How has your exploration/contacting been going? I now finally have the complete set, which makes only poor GES unable to post in the hypothetical UN thread.

Life in Hyboria is going very well, our organized religion is a great inspiration to the slaves as they work on our beautiful buildings. Would your own slaves like to become Hindu? In perhaps a thousand years time we might be able to spread it to your distant corner of The Great Wheel. Perhaps we could send it along with an expedition to show our fine silks for your legendary gems.

/rp How's it going in your neck of the woods, guys? I thought it was well done getting a good fast Stonehenge. What are your general reads of your two neighbors? Yuri and I have only just contacted each other, and GES is a long way away for being "near" me.

Hope things continue going well,
-Commodore [/COLOR]

Also got a little back from Maestro for Yuri. We chatted briefly to agree on OB, then he followed up with a letter.

[COLOR="Green"]Hey Commodore,

I know we already chatted a bit, but I thought I'd address some of your other questions. Yuri and I definitely value a spirit of openness and communication and are happy to exchange information. Often times far-away neighbors can be the best allies, as we won't have conflicting goals to cause friction.

You'll meet RL7 quickly, as he has a warrior just inside our borders. Will that give you full contact? Now that we've met you, all we're missing is GES. Relations have been cordial with everybody so far. As you can see, we share a border with MNG. Unfortunately our early scouting efforts have been hampered by 1) The Oracle and 2) A dang bear eating our early warrior. Consequently we have not found our Eastern spoke, which presumably will lead to RL7's lands.

Regarding trade routes, my understanding is that we can have routes through other nations as long as we have open borders. You obviously do with MNG, so you should be able to trade with us through him. Our work boat will continue down the coast and will hopefully find you in short order.

I don't know if I have many questions for you right now. Maybe Yuri will be able to chip in with something insightful :-) Feel free to chat with either of us on google or e-mail. I noticed that you included both of us on this e-mail. If you could keep doing that in future correspondence, we'd be appreciative. Thanks!
[/COLOR]

Which was followed by Yuri himself chiming in.

[COLOR="Green"]Hey Commodore,

We're very happy to welcome you to Radioland! Maestro touched on
almost everything; we will be happy to sign OB with you and give your
scout (you said it's a Chariot? I don't have the game in front of me
right now) a safe passage through our lands if you want to continue
this way

I also wanted to ask you a question if you don't mind: do you know who
founded Judaism?

Talk to you soon, and I hope we will have cordial relations even if
we're at different ends of the world

Best regards
yuris125, Music Director of Radioland[/COLOR]

Looks like they're thinking "natural ally", which is exxxxcellent. I'll let him down easy about the Judaism too, I like these guys.

Damnably, Mr. Nice Guy is living up to his name.

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]Hi Commodore,

I just had a chat with Seven Spirits, and learned one little piece of news. Apparently they missed out on the Oracle. I told them a little fib that I had wanted it, and they commiserated with me say they were trying for the oracle. Although I didn't get any comments from them about Great Library, if they tried for Oracle I'd bet they have marble and were already headed in that direction. I'll let you know if I find out anything more about competition for GL.

Until later,
MNG, Hattie of France[/COLOR]

Dangit. I look at France and I see the only logical place to expand, and Yuri seems to be thinking along the same lines. But I look at MNG and I see a guy I could enjoy working with all game, lack of correct reading of the Oracle try aside.

[Commodore]

Turn Fifty big update coming later today, but for now, be it noted we have GES' graphs!

And in other news GES being Egypt and MNG being Hatty has caused no end of confusion when reading graphs.

[Commodore]

Okay, the way to short city overview post, Turn 50.

Aquilonia:


Aquilonia is my best city easily, with a nice new library and a burly +8 food surplus if it goes to max growth. It's a fairly generous place too, sharing the wheat and floodplain with Ophir in the north, and soon the eastern sheep as well as the east-bank cottages with the next city, seen in settler form in the build que.

Expect to see a lot fewer forests in a few turns as the western hills get mined and the riverside grasslands all get cottaged. These tasks are all being left at 1t for chops to roll into the Great Library, ETA in seven turns. Then for a while it will be missionaries/workers/settlers to start tackling the huge gap between me and the rest of the players.

Ophir:


The growth next turn will be placed onto the floodplain village taken from the capital, and then the huge food+production surplus will go into at least two more workers, possibly more as needed. At the very least the three remaining riverside grasslands need cottaging, currently just waiting on a more permissive happy cap. When growth is desired again a library should be needed.

Nemedia:


This city has an obscene yield for just working three tiles. Once the settler is finished the city will grow +2 pop to work the plains cottage and lake while making a Library and baring more worker love (currently, everything is eastward to help the marble push/new cities) excess pop will go into scientists. Assuming I ever manage to up the poor thing's happy cap.

...and that's it. I'm massively underexpanded, and it shows:



GNP is my current saving grace, but that won't matter a flea's fart in a windstorm if someone decided to come over and play with axes and war chariots. Crop yield will continue sucking for the next few hundred years, and production will probably be at the bottom of the ranks until the gold and the marble are being worked out east. Nothing else for it, though, farmers gambit is the only way to play this right now. The good news is both neighbor's power graphs are now available, so any obscene spikes will be noted and met with all the pathetic whimpering our ambassadors can muster.

[Ceiliazul]

Okay, the way to short city overview post, Turn 50.

Ophir: ...At the very least the three remaining riverside grasslands need cottaging.

I agree that in this stae of the game the farmers gambit is the only way to keep up. That said, ophir is your future production city, right? May I suggest you chop those plains-hill forests in the near term for the workers, and then mine them so Ophir can prvide defenders for your completely naked border cities in the medium term. If this doesn't happen until after the GL, it has to happen immediately after. France could take you out of the running with 3 chariots (taking Nemedia and cutting copper.

I like how your plan is proceeding regarding the library. We know RL7 doesn't have marble (otherwise mng would have a stone monopoly!) Have you felt out Mali's neighbors regarding resource trades with RL7?

[Commodore]

Thus far it seems like nobody is trading with anybody, actually. I did run something by MNG to see how he's feeling RE:a stone trade.

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hey MNG,

Thanks for that, that's huge. I just bumped into an RL7 myself, so I'll try investigating further. The trouble with Ind is that it's a threat for wonders no matter what resources are available. It's awesome to know that, thanks again.

On another note, it's a bit farther in the future, but about what time frame are you expecting to settle/conquer the stone site? I'd be delighted to make a missionary/ 10t stone trade, as in the next fifteen-twenty turns I'll be settling my Moai site. If there are any stone wonders you'd like to get non-competes on, I'd be happy to negotiate for that if you'd prefer.

Cheers,
-Commodore[/COLOR]

To which he replied;

[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]Hi Commodore,

I've already settled the stone site, but haven't had a chance to use it yet. My plan is to use it to get a couple of walls up, and then I can share it - as I'm still a ways off from settling my Maoi city. What do you say to these kinds of terms:

*I give you stone from T65-T75.
*You give me 2 missionaries of the religion of your choice. One to be delivered ASAP, and the other to be delivered during the course of the stone deal.

You will receive a benefit of 83 hammers on Maoi and gold from me spreading your religion of choice (I assume you're working a shrine?)
I will receive a benefit of 52 hammers from not building my own missionaries, and happiness/culture from religion spread.

What do you think?

Until later,
MNG, Hattie of France[/COLOR]

Not quite sure how to reply on this quite yet. I'll probably be honest, which is that my ideal missionary-building place, Nemedia, hasn't gotten Hinduism yet. (Also, the timescale might be a little early, but that's easily dealt with) One interesting thought...building a missionary at Ophir and sending it along to MNG might do a lot better at securing the border than building three spears.

Meaningless pleasantries aside, an oblique fishing line caught a little bit of interesting information from Yuri:

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hi Yuri,

Yes, I believe our chariot will be heading home via Radioland, I'm sure he'll enjoy his stay, and thanks for the hospitality.

I don't mind at all, it was actually us who founded Judaism. I'm sorry if it messed up anything you were planning, but thanks to the utterly terrible starting techs I chose (never again) Bronze Working took so long to research I decided to quickly double revolt into Slavery/OR. I'm still not sure it was the best decision, I'm at -3 relations with GES over it (apparently, he'd been gunning for it). Any other religions you're trying for? I can assure you the only religious tech that's even remotely on our radar now is CoL and if you'd like to make a deal for us to delay it we'd be happy to negotiate. I suppose Theology and the juicy religious wonders look better to you guys in any case.

In any case, hope the game is going well,
-Commodore[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Lime"]Hi Commodore,

We had no plans for Judaism, it was more of a question out of
curiousity. I think you already know that we saw the light of
Buddhism, although the priests still have to convince us that we
should pronounce Buddhism the official religion of Radioland. We may
decide to try for Christianity and AP at some point, but have no
immediate plans for it. I imagine you will be trying to get CoL sooner
rather than later, so I wouldn't be surprised if you got Confu as well
- good luck with it if it's your plan!

Good to know GES was left without an early religion, makes his
Obelisks almost worthless and Spiritual trait weaker

Hope you're getting on well, and do let us know if we can assist you in any way

All the best
yuris125, Music Director of Radioland
[/COLOR]

Upshot:
-Theology is on their radar, but it's a long-distance thing.
-CoL isn't near their current path.
-GES has another mildly adversarial rival.

Finally, reading the tea leaves about their tech; they've got to be hurting for happiness. I've seen wines within borders as of yet unimproved, and they're still not Buddhist. Smart play would probably be to head for temple techs and/or HR. But, if they're ignoring these, they might be making a run up the upper line of techs. Now, there are a number of wonders for them to consider, and I'm hardly convinced the GL is such a high priority wonder that it warrants a beeline in most cases...

Basically, I'm just not sure there.

[Commodore]

Okay, finally got the massive set of screenshots from over the weekend uploaded, so let's review what's been happening in Hyboria.

First of all, the music changed:



Yup, Aesthetics without an issue. Thing is, Literature's time has dropped way more than the actual settlers times, so a diversion to finish both maths and sailing would still not delay the GL.



A reoccurring theme from these shots will be me not hassling the barb city. I need it to grow to size two and then I'll be claiming it. My dotmap has shifted to accommodate the bugger, as will be shown later. With me behind on the city count the free settler/worker is too valuable to discount.

Aquilonia saw the settler being built and started on one more, while another mine was chopped/finished to speed production.



This slows the GL slightly, but I'd rather have the cities than the Great Library. My big worker force pushed ever eastward, roading the way for the next two cities after red dot, now named Koth.



As soon as Magyar is size two I'll be capturing it.



It does have to be two to prevent autorazing, right? One thing not clear at first glance is that the sequence of Marble site > choke city > Magyar will ensure that each new city is instantly connected to the national trade network. Which, while valuable to be, is now even more valuable to MNG:



Sigh. Yes those are BOTH events occurring in France. I expressed some initial skepticism that Hatty of France could keep up. Erm. She sure can. Diplo is already rumbling towards embargoes and wars, which will be covered latter. For now, though, it's still EXPANSION MODE time.



I believe that's all the explanation needed. Still respectable tech rate, but man this is going to mean pain unless I can start leveraging Rathouses soon.