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[SPOILERS - PBEM19] Huayna Capac of Ottomans - yuris125 & Maestro

Played turn 57. Decisions I made:

Research set to 0% again. With a lib due at Best, we can actually create a few beakers by saving gold until it comes online. I debated about sending the overflow beakers into Iron Working instead of Calendar, but went with Calendar. I thought about IW because 100% of our plantation resources are under jungle frown. Getting IW first is better from a worker efficiency standpoint because workers can clear jungles as Calendar researches and then plantation when it finishes. However, if we want MoM, we might not have time to wait. Either way, we're at 0% for now, and overflow was only ~25 beakers, so it wouldn't hurt us much to change our mind.

Granary finished at Maximum, so I re-tiled for better growth. I inserted another axe into the queue so that city #6 can have MP. Lighthouse doesn't have much value at Maximum, as we'll almost never be working coast.

Best grew into unhappiness at the end of the turn, but that shouldn't matter because the two workers should be able to road gems at Rock FM at the beginning of next turn, and sailing should share them everywhere. Thus we shouldn't actually lose any turns to unhappiness at Best.

I think that City #6 should go to the marble site. If workers have extra actions lying around, we should road in that direction. It'll get the settler and the military there more quickly.

An unnamed worker at Best got renamed Andrew Schwab, after the vocalist for Project 86, one of my favorite bands. I moved him to a grass hill in Best's fat cross, which I think he should mine. Having that tile available will make Best more versatile in switching between production and commerce.

We got graphs on Commodore this turn, so we should fix our EPs to distribute evenly moving forward.
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Some Diplo with Commodore:

Quote:(12:01:18 PM) Commodore: Hey Maestro
(12:19:05 PM) Maestro: Hey hye, looks like I missed you while I was at lunch. Sorry about that.
(1:01:03 PM) Commodore: Le poke.
(1:01:13 PM) Maestro: Heh heh
(1:01:16 PM) Maestro: how's it going?
(1:01:31 PM) Commodore: Pretty good, how's it in Radioland?
(1:02:09 PM) Maestro: Not half bad. I feel like we're playing a pretty good game so far, but I really have no frame of reference
(1:02:35 PM) Commodore: Yeah, know what you're talking about.
(1:03:18 PM) Maestro: I definitely feel like I'm doing better here than I do in SP (the long time to think about each turn helps). But is that actually good compared to others? I have no idea.
(1:03:51 PM) Commodore: Yeah, the slow turns help my game over SP hugely.
(1:04:21 PM) Maestro: We've had other inquiries about Code of Laws. I realized that since you got Hinduism=Judaism, we're the only teams with religion.
(1:05:04 PM) Commodore: Yeah, GES is amazingly paranoid about losing Confu
(1:05:37 PM) Commodore: Fortunately (or sadly) I'll be picking up Currency first, so it's his.
(1:05:43 PM) Maestro: hahahaha
(1:05:49 PM) Maestro: Well, you *are* already at -3 ;-)
(1:05:51 PM) Commodore: Unless (heh) RL7 gets it.
(1:06:15 PM) Commodore: Yeah, I've retarded his growth curve enough.
(1:07:07 PM) Commodore: I'd say current rankings are pretty well reflected by score right now, actually, with MNG ahead by a Lighthouse (big).
(1:07:57 PM) Maestro: yeah, Great Lighthouse should have strong value given how many coastal city site there are
(1:08:10 PM) Commodore: Yep.
(1:08:21 PM) Commodore: Man I underestimated Hatty
(1:08:54 PM) Maestro: Indeed. I've been impressed by MNG
(1:09:09 PM) Maestro: 6 cities plus GLH
(1:09:27 PM) Commodore: Ah well.
(1:09:43 PM) Commodore: At least I'll be picking up more cities soon.
(1:10:11 PM) Maestro: Yeah, your growth should accelerate once Rathauses show up
(1:10:25 PM) Commodore: So. A little awkward, but do you have any wonders you're shooting for? I'd rather not wreck my expansion for missing something..
(1:10:49 PM) Commodore: Heh, need more settlers and workers before Rathauses.
(1:11:50 PM) Maestro: Heh heh, fair enough
(1:12:00 PM) Commodore: I'll keep anything you'd say quiet, naturally.
(1:12:10 PM) Maestro: I don't mind saying that we're making a push for MoM (goodness knows I can't spell it)
(1:12:32 PM) Commodore: Whew.
(1:12:48 PM) Commodore: Considered it, so glad I didn't try.
(1:12:49 PM) Maestro: we'll be settling marble just before calendar hits, so we should get it pretty quick
(1:13:21 PM) Commodore: Yep, my Marble is going into the Great Library.
(1:13:53 PM) Maestro: Groovy. We're not planning to move in that direction early enough to have any shot at it
(1:13:59 PM) Maestro: So help yourself :-)
(1:14:18 PM) Commodore: Sweet. Likewise, good luck on the MoM. ;-)
(1:14:36 PM) Commodore: Taj is also Marble, isn't it?
(1:14:41 PM) Maestro: Correct
(1:14:59 PM) Maestro: Nationalism is a long way away, but if we get MoM then we'd obviously shoot for Taj as well
(1:15:07 PM) Commodore: Right.
(1:15:19 PM) Maestro: So much can change between now and then though :-p
(1:15:22 PM) Commodore: Man, wonders are a lot closer with humans.
(1:15:30 PM) Maestro: No kidding
(1:15:34 PM) Commodore: Yeah, not much point in planning that far ahead.
(1:16:08 PM) Maestro: Out of curiosity, do you know if anybody else actually made an effort for Oracle? I can't help but wonder, since the first 100 posts or so in our thread were about that :-)
(1:16:29 PM) Commodore: I think RL7 (from graphs) were gunning for it.
(1:16:55 PM) Commodore: It's a natural fit, Ind Mali
(1:17:02 PM) Maestro: indeed
(1:17:11 PM) Maestro: We thought maybe they were. Definitely did our best shave off every possible turn
(1:17:30 PM) Maestro: At this point it's mostly just my curiosity. Dang it's hard not being a global lurker!
(1:17:44 PM) Commodore: Yeah, same here.
(1:17:47 PM) Commodore: :P
(1:18:45 PM) Commodore: I'm expecting the Pyramids to fall soon.
(1:19:26 PM) Commodore: It's hard not to get distracted by the wonder race.
(1:19:35 PM) Maestro: Your'e telling me. We're IND!
(1:19:40 PM) Commodore: More cities > more wonders.
(1:19:48 PM) Maestro: Exactly
(1:20:00 PM) Commodore: To me the huge thing about Ind is how strong early fast forges are.
(1:20:28 PM) Maestro: Yeah, I agree
(1:20:50 PM) Maestro: Forges are one of the few buildings that go into every single city, period.
(1:20:51 PM) Commodore: If we ever get to assembly line, I'll be in great shape though. :P
(1:21:56 PM) Commodore: Yeah, I'm trying to leverage the lighthouse advantage, but I have all of one lake tile.
(1:22:03 PM) Maestro: heh heh
(1:22:47 PM) Maestro: I don't know if we even have one. Coast, of course, but lake... <checks screenshot> yeah I don't think we have any
(1:23:22 PM) Commodore: Yeah. Lighthousable lakes are a huge advantage if you can get them.
(1:23:34 PM) Maestro: fact
(1:23:57 PM) Commodore: Ah well.
(1:24:59 PM) Commodore: C'mon GES, get a teammate to play.
(1:25:05 PM) Maestro: heh heh
(1:25:15 PM) Commodore: I actually have my personal laptop with me for once.
(1:25:17 PM) Maestro: I have noticed that he holds the saves longer
(1:26:32 PM) Commodore: Yeah, he works weird hours.
(1:28:08 PM) Commodore: Oh, have you seen any islands?
(1:28:28 PM) Commodore: I've seen a one-tile ice patch without seafood.
(1:29:04 PM) Commodore: Fortunately, it's between GES and I, so no IC TRs for MNG there.
(1:29:37 PM) Maestro: No islands yet, but we do plan have a workboat on his way to scout the outer coastline
(1:30:13 PM) Commodore: Ah, might spot my borders, actually.
(1:30:47 PM) Commodore: Apparently MNG sees RL7's land via 4th ring border pop.
(1:33:18 PM) Maestro: oh really? So that means there's not a lot of ocean out there
(1:33:52 PM) Maestro: We might be in a "what you see is what you get" situation here
(1:33:56 PM) Commodore: Yeah
(1:34:14 PM) Commodore: Or, that land he sees could be an island.
(1:34:38 PM) Commodore: It'd be hand-edited if so, though.
(1:34:52 PM) Commodore: This is a wheel script pretty purely.
(1:35:50 PM) Commodore: Might need to consider future expansion deals in not too many turns.
(1:36:59 PM) Commodore: Of course, not too many probably means forty to sixty more...
(1:52:20 PM) Maestro: heh heh

The big takeaway here is that Commodore wants the Great Library. We know that RL7 want it as well, so we have our first opportunity to make friends. My instinct is to tell Commodore, to get points with him, as he's been the most actively friendly toward us. He said he was researching Currency, so if we tell him soon, he could know before he's made any investment. Is that good? We could stall, and intentionally tell him after he's invested in it, hoping that will slow him down even while getting us diplo points. He's already behind, though, and if he's going to be our ally it might be in our best interests to see him get a little stronger.

On the other hand, we could tell RL7. If they know they have competition, there's really no reason for them to lose it. In fact, knowing that there's competition would hopefully cause them to make sacrifices to hurry the wonder. That would be beneficial for us, if we believe that our tip would weaken them in the long run relative to their position if we said nothing.

Finally, we can do both. Tell Commodore so that he doesn't invest in it, but also tell RL7 so they push harder. Is that how it would shake down? I'm not sure. What are your thoughts on this Yuri?
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I'm still thinking about it, but are we even allowed to tell Commodore? Our agreement with RL7 is:

Quote:4. We keep our agreement secret.
5. We do not in any way encourage other teams to compete for the wonders in question.

Telling Commodore would definitely violate the spirit of the agreement, and I'm not sure about the letter
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The confidentiality agreement is a good point, and I had forgotten about that clause. However, the whole debate has been rendered irrelevant as RL7 finished the Great Library this turn. Definitely sooner than I expected, they must have beelined it even after our agreement. I wonder what their tech situation looks like after prioritizing Literature?
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Last night I put together a few dotmaps for the eastern region. I made sure that each map included a site that had marble in the first ring. Green borders represent cities we have already settled.

[Image: 057-Dotmap1.JPG]
--Number 1 - Pink Settles Marble--
Pros: Teal grabs lots of NE water. White blocks the landbridge and is a canal.
Cons: All 4 cities settle on grass. Rice only available to white after a border pop (can possibly be mitigated by level 3 borders from teal).


[Image: 057-Dotmap2.JPG]
--Number 2 - Teal Settles Marble--
Pros: Pink and Teal found on plains tiles. White blocks the landbridge and is a canal.
Cons: 4 NE water tiles are lost. Settling teal first gives higher maintenance.


[Image: 057-Dotmap3.JPG]
--Number 3 - Teal Settles Marble--
Pros: Pink and yellow get more water. Teal and yellow found on Plains.
Cons: White is not a canal and does not block the landbridge. 4 NE water tiles are lost. Settling teal first gives higher maintenance.

Thoughts, Yuri? Improvements? I think I prefer them in the order listed, but I'm always open to discussions.
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After arguments over IM, we agreed on the marble city 1E of the marble, and the white dot on the rice. The other 2 cities are fillers, we will decide on their location later

RL7 have proven that the world is round yikes
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Yuri and I have had several conversations on Google talk that I thought I should probably recap in the thread.

Firstly, we've started actually building the colossus in Nashe. We'll take it to within a turn of completion and then consider putting a few turns in a Maximum for the failgold. Maximum has 14 base hammers right now, which after copper+ind+forge bonuses means 38.5 fail gold per turn. For perspective, at 0% research we product 37 gpt. The +175% production bonus is simply enormus.

RL7 picked up the circumnavigation bonus last turn. I can see MNG and RL7 in a single screen, so we've seen the width of the the map. The map is toroidal, so RL have also defogged the height of the map. Yuri and I agree that this means there's probably zero additional land to be found. Practically speaking, we have our 'island' and the contested middle area to settle.

RL7 finished Great Library, spurring us to discuss our wonder plans. MoM is definitely on the list, as we have a non-compete agreement with RL7 for it, and will settle marble soon, so we'll get full production bonuses toward it. We've also considered Hanging Gardens. We have Math, and will be building Hammams in lots of places for the +2 happiness bonuses, so the opportunity cost to pursue HG is low. Plus, we actually have the happiness to utilize the extra pop instead of just whipping it all away. We're both concerned about overfocusing on wonders, but we've decided we can build them as long as we're constantly expanding.

In terms of dotmapping, we already have a settler produced and en route to the west, so we've decided to worker scout the NE coast. There are 6 fogged tiles that are reachable and could contain seafood, which would affect our city placement. In the absence of any seafood we'll settle 1E of marble.
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Here is the long-promised empire overview post, as of T60

Maps:
[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0069.JPG]
All of our territory

[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0070.JPG]
Yet unsettled land in the east, with RL7's territory visible

Cities:
[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0071.JPG]
The capital

[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0072.JPG]
Production centre / Holy city

[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0074.JPG]
Ivory city

[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0073.JPG]
Potential GP farm

[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0075.JPG]
Gems and future Horses city

[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0076.JPG]
Marble city

Demos
[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0077_demos.jpg]

Graphs
[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0078_graph_score.jpg]

[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0079_graph_GNP.jpg]

[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0080_graph_MFG.jpg]

[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0081_graph_crop.jpg]

[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0082_graph_power.JPG]

[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0083_graph_culture.jpg]

All in all, while I'm quite happy with the game we played so far, I'm much less happy with the numbers. We don't lead in any primary demos; our GNP and especially crop yield are significantly behind the leaders, and it's disappointing not to lead in MFG even with early Forges. When I start thinking about crop yield, the reason for being so much behind probably is that others work a lot of seafood; we still don't have a single seafood tile worked. Not sure if it's bad though, I think we always settled the best available sites, and it's not our fault that these spots didn't have any seafood. Still, being so much behind in this important stat may well cause our demise later; we're falling far behind in population, without much chance to catch up quickly

Of course, our initial expansion was slowed down by the Oracle. This is why us not being leaders in production is so disappointing. We have Forges in all important cities, and even they don't help us to be in the lead

GNP is of less concern; currently we're not working as many cottages as I'd like to, but this should improve as our cities grow, even more so if we get Colossus, which I believe is very likely

From what I know about other players, I would rank us like this:

1. RL7
2. MNG
3. Us
4. GES
5. Commodore

RL7 played a very impressive game so far. They got two wonders, while also expanding at least as fast as everyone else. This was probably helped by the Expansive trait, which helped them to get the first Workers ahead of everyone else; I think they used both leader traits extremely well

MNG is ahead of us thanks to The Great Lighthouse, which was built very late in this game, so he didn't have to deviate from his path too much to grab it. He also expanded very well, and played a very solid game thus far

GES - we still didn't meet him, so I don't have much info about him. But he's not rushing anyone with War Chariots, which is one of the reasons to take Egypt; and he didn't get an early religion (he founded Confu a few turns ago), which he needed to effectively use his UB and, to lesser degree, his Spiritual trait, so I think it's fair to assume he's currently behind us

Commodore I think is currently last, mainly because of his crappy starting techs, and because he delayed BW and had barb troubles. His position is likely to improve once he gets CoL and starts building Rathauses. Will he be able to catch up? We'll see
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I didn't say anything about diplo in the overview post; here's what I think about our foreign relations

* RL7 - I think we established pretty good relations with them. We have an indefinite NAP with them which can be cancelled with a 10t warning. We coordinate wonder plans with them, thanks to this we get some info about the state of their research. We're currently discussing if they can trade us stone for ivory, and I think it has a high chance of going through; if we sign it, it will help us to build Hanging Gardens and Moai Statues, and solidify our relations, because a loan of a happiness resource will be important for them. I have a slight concern about our closest friend being the leader - this might limit our options if they start to run away. However, I hope it won't prove important, especially because Fin trait is much better than Exp lategame, and our UU with bonuses against everything should help us to get us through midgame, even if we're behind other teams at that point. As long as they don't try to settle in our pseudo-continent, I think and hope we will maintain friendly relations

* MNG - We have solid relations; we aren't close friends, but don't have any disagreements either. MNG doesn't want to sign a NAP, but I don't see him taking any hostile actions any time soon. Long-term, assuming we stay friends with RL7, he is our natural enemy, primarily because he is the closest neighbour, his core is closest to our core, and his cities will look good in green. If we decide to go military route, we're likely to attack him at some point. However, this map doesn't encourage warring, at least until Galleons/Frigates: jungled landbridges don't allow a surprise land attack, and it's nigh impossible to stage one with Galleys/Triremes either. So it might happen that the game will go on without major wars for a long time - we'll see

* Commodore - with him being on the other side of the world, we really don't have anything to argue about at this point. The tone of messages between us has been quite friendly, and there's no obvious reason for our relations to decline any time soon. The formal NAP expires on T65, but I'm sure we won't have a conflict soon even if we don't extend it. He's a natural trade partner for us, at least if we have anything to trade

* GES - as I said earlier, we don't have any relations yet, although our Warrior almost finished going through RL7 territory, so we should meet him soon
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Upon opening the T64 save, I saw this

[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0085_arrow.jpg]

RL7 founded a city in our continent, and the shape of their border + absence of jungle on the rice tile indicates that the city is on the rice

Unfortunately, this city plant conflicts with all city locations we planned in the east. Maestro and I talked for a long time this evening, and agreed that it was unacceptable, and we have to react strongly. Here is the message we sent

Radioland team email Wrote:RL7,

I'm sure you can anticipate what this message is about. Upon opening the latest save, we see that you have founded a city on the rice tile in our continent. We have no choice but to view this as a hostile action, based on two points:

1) That location is on our side of the land bridge. This is undeniably on our 'continent' and thus in our sphere of influence.
2) We specifically mentioned this in our stone negotition, which I will quote "I'm sure you will agree that the landbridge is a natural border between us, and with the good relations we had so far, I wouldn't think you have an intention to cross the landbridge and steal our land."

The city in and of itself wouldn't have been an irrecoverable problem. We would have given you 1E or 2E or even 1S. This site, however, ruins our eastern dotmap, and thus represents a multiple city offense. In light of this, we are forced to invoke the 10-turn cancellation clause in our NAP. The NAP will run up to and including T73, becoming void on T74.

There was no potential for miscommunication. You have knowingly settled a site in our land, without warning. Given your intent and the damage it has caused us, we must ask what reparations you're willing to offer us. We will be unlikely to accept any terms that do not involve a razing and replanting of that city.

We desire to be reasonable, however, and we recognize that your strong play has allowed you to expand to that site. We do not expect you to replant without being compensated, so we will offer you the 20t of ivory we had previosuly discussed. Until this incident, we enjoyed open relations with you, and ideally will be able to find a peaceful solution.

Board of Directors of Radioland

It's extremely annoying that we had to do it, because we really enjoyed relations with RL7 so far. Unfortunately, this plant changes everything

We'll see how it develops
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