[SPOILERS] Isabella of Carthage, starring Ellimist, SleepingMoogle, and Nicolae

[Ellimist]

Okay, when we send our scouts to the mainland, let the southern scout move counterclockwise through Kuro's land, but make sure the eastern scout lingers around NH's land, just in case he sends a chariot at us. Should we switch our EPs to NH before we get Kuro's graphs, so we have NH's first? I think the former is a sunk cost, we're better off getting the graphs of our scariest rival first.

It is a sunk cost, yes, but if we can get graphs on any one of our opponents, process of elimination will allow us to figure out the others with only a small bit of effort. I'd prefer to finish getting Kuro's graphs first, because we can get them sooner, and then put the EP focus onto NobleHelium/Lewwyn.



NobleHelium/Lewwyn diplo emails, full diplo since contact:

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]It seems that our brave Celestial physicists have finally discovered the first traces of the Elements that make up our universe, and I would like to send warm greetings on behalf of our team. Unfortunately, your earlier efforts at astronomy(Stonehenge) did not manage to locate us, but fortunately our research was able to initiate relations anyway. We are hopeful that we will be able to have a mutually beneficial cooperation between our teams.

Our civilization is located some distance to the west of where you are located, far enough that we don't have to fear aggression from each other. I would therefore like to ask if you are interested in exchanging information with each other(about the map, other teams, or anything else for that matter), and opening borders(when possible) for us both to benefit from trade route income.

Best Wishes,
Ellimist[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Darkred"]And warm greetings to you as well!

The Stonehenge experiment was actually not an attempt at astronomy but rather an on-going investigation as to whether the stone of a certain mixture of calcium, carbon and oxygen can withstand a constant barrage by the elements that make up the winds. It is proving to be remarkably durable so far, but there are still many centuries ahead of us, so we shall see.

I do definitely hope for a mutually beneficial relationship with your fine civilization. I'm sure you already know this based upon your celestial studies, but we appear to each be located on an island offshore a large round landmass. Men styling themselves as "Incans" have been seen to my south, and presumably those who call themselves Alternians are to my southwest and your south.

We'd definitely be interested in open borders for trade routes in the future.

ooc: I prefer straight talk when we're actually negotiating substantial stuff, so I will probably drop the character soon. I hope you don't mind.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]If our themes didn't have such obvious similarities, I would have sent a "normal" message, I definitely don't mind either style of communication.

I would like to propose that our teams agree to confidentiality between us, that neither team will share information gained from the other with a third party.
It sounds like both of us have a pretty good understanding of the map, so this probably won't matter much in the short term.
We have already met Kuro, and hope to meet Jkioan as well soon. It sounds like soon all teams will have met each other.
Kind regards,
Ellimist[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Darkred"]I've included Lewwyn in this reply, please include him in correspondence as well. Although recently he's pretty much ditched me and it takes a lot of effort to catch him for a few minutes to get an opinion on something. :P

Anyhow, honestly, I'm rather hesitant to agree to such a generalist confidentiality clause. It seems to me that with such a general agreement it'd be very easy to accidentally break, and I wouldn't want our working relationship to be harmed because of that. Basically it seems like an odd request, so I don't quite understand what you have in mind. I can definitely say though if there's something specific you'd like me to refrain from passing onto others, I can definitely do that.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]That's fine about the confidentiality thing. I didn't intend to propose anything odd, I just figured I'd throw it out there as there isn't a lot to discuss this early.
Mostly I wanted to avoid what we saw in pitboss 4 where people were forwarding diplo messages to others(such as Parkin's stuff or the Locke proposal.)
At the moment, our teams are far enough apart that there aren't many opportunities for cooperation or competition. The only things that come to mind right now are wonders and religions. Are there any you would prefer we didn't compete on?

Ellimist[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Darkred"]For something like the Locke proposal, it definitely makes sense to get confidentiality for, I wholly agree. No concrete plan for wonders at the moment, the ones we can currently build aren't really worth it even with Industrious. And our future tech path is too uncertain right now to be planning that far ahead. I'd say I'd prefer if you didn't compete on the Oracle, but it's a bit late for that. ;)

I notice that your work boat has not moved. I am not certain but I would guess that 80 GNP is you guys researching Writing with all three prerequisites. To be honest, I wasn't planning to sign Open Borders just yet - I haven't defogged a route to your lands and would unfortunately not get any trade routes. Now I'm obviously not a fan of Parkin's "I must benefit equally or more than you in all deals," and that certainly isn't optimal anyway, but I hope you'll forgive my pragmatism when I say that I'd rather not give you guys something for nothing right now when you're clearly doing the best out of all of us. This has the unfortunate side effect of not allowing your work boat through to meet Jkioan, which isn't really something I intend to impede. I can't think of a good solution for this unfortunately, so I'll definitely try to get out a ship to scout the shore as soon as possible. Unless there's a better solution that I haven't thought of?

-NH.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]From our point of view, we certainly aren't doing the best out of everyone. Yes, we almost have writing, but Kuro had that before we even met him. We sacrificed some critical early expansion to get out the Oracle as quickly as we could. For example, we only have 2 cities and I think you founded your third around T50. Kuro even has 4!
I'm also not a fan of the Parkin/Sullla style of diplomacy(where deals are only considered if they don't help the other side very much), but in this case it doesn't even apply. You don't need to worry about giving us trade income, we already have access to more trade routes than our cities can handle(courtesy of Kuro.) If you prefer, we can cancel open borders after passing through, but right now we would get zero economic benefit(other than meeting jkioan).

Ellimist[/COLOR]

Okay, that's fair. I was actually behind on the C&D and didn't catch up until after I had sent the last message, and didn't realize Kuro had planted his fourth city on turn 54. So I agree with your assessment of the relative rankings of the civilizations. Feel free to propose OB when you get Writing and I'll accept it.

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Thank you. We finished writing this turn, so if you offer OB on your turn we'll be able to begin passing through your territory next turn.

I always prefer straight talk so I'm glad that you seem to as well.

Ellimist[/COLOR]

Okay, I've proposed OB. I think I did it twice to be sure, so if you get two popups saying the same thing don't be alarmed.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Ah good point. I think I mentioned that C&D is easy when you have only 3 rivals, but it's still too much effort for me these days.

[Ellimist]

So do we want to go for code of laws next? I'm split on whether to go for OR(infrastructure) or Caste system, or something else. I favor CoL more.

I put up signs explaining what I think we should do for the next couple turns as far as unit micro.

Here's the summary:
Sirius needed 15 more food to grow and it had a surplus of 7. I swapped one citizen from the mines(1 food) to the whales(2 food) for one turn and set the city to build a lighthouse while growing. Next turn we'll go back to the mine. After growth, we can swap to a settler and finish it with a 2 pop whip.

The exploring warrior found a gap in the mountains with silk. I want to move him through it and then move back west through the fog to our new city.

The settler was unloaded this turn and will settle next turn. The worker finished a pointless road next to the pigs and can start pasturing next turn when the city is founded.

2 scouts are now in Sirius. The galley will be adjacent(SE) to Sirius next turn and both scouts will board it. The following turn, one scout will land on the donut, the galley will move east, and the other scout will also land. My primary goal for both of them is to locate future city sites while using the terrain to maximize the amount of terrain uncovered.

I moved a worker back to the hill we started mining earlier. The other worker is chopping the northern Sirius forest. I'm not sure whether it's a prechop, or whether we'll use it on a settler. If we complete the chop, we can farm or cottage the tile afterwards, Sirius needs more improved tiles. That's one reason I started the lighthouse, it would boost the fish and turn the whales into a decent 3F/2C tile.

[Ellimist]

Wow, big turn.

The center of the donut is water, with an island in the center.

Pollux was founded and the pig pasture was started. The city is building a granary. Code of Laws was started.

Writing is in, and I started passing through Malinese waters with Arctic Dawn.

I didn't ask to scout their lands because I didn't think they'd approve of it from their prior reluctance to even agree to OB. We got visibility on Hydrogen, their capital. They have one newly completed cottage and one that is two turns away from hamlet visible. The trade screen shows that they have clams hooked up but not ivory. I think we're doing better than them, overall, even though they had 3 cities earlier than us.

I redid some of the Sirius micro. I'm putting a turn into the settler so it won't grow into unhappiness, then I'll put another turn into the lighthouse so it will grow as the warrior arrives from Canopus. Meanwhile Canopus finished a second warrior(for itself) and it still needs another 2 turns to grow before starting a worker. I think I'll have it start a forge or a WB.

[Ellimist]

We got another turn in. Commentary is on the images.

Donut exploration:

I decided on a new micro plan for Sirius after I ended turn:

We finally got graphs on Kuro. We need to remember to switch to NobleLewwyn next turn.
Score:

GNP:

Production:

Food:

Culture:

Power:

Full demographics:

[Nicolae Carpathia]

We don't need a lighthouse right now. It's going to be +1F to a single tile, not worth it until we've got Colossus up. Again, if we want to grow, then dump the hammers into a forge. And get those forests chopped and farmed asap, don't bother completing the mine as Canopus has enough tiles to pump workers at size 6.

[SleepingMoogle]

Well it looks like we agree on one thing Nicolae. If Sirius is working on infrastructure right now, it should be working on a Forge.

I would also (again) like to argue that Sirius will benefit far more from Cottages than it will from Farms. It has more than enough of a food surpluss to regrow itself in between whips.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I know city specialisation is an overrated buzzword of sorts, but I really don't think Sirius is the right place to work cottages. If we're going to be whipping, we either whip off cottages, grass hills, or farms. Whipping off grass hills is a bad idea because it's a 1:3 food conversion tile. Whipping off cottages is bad because they'll never grow and will be stuck on 2/0/2. Therefore, if we're going to be whipping off a tile, then we whip off 3/0/1 tiles that can act to speed us towards our next pop point (and 30 hammers).

I vote we work farms in Sirius, whip workers and settlers as fast as possible, and ship them all to the mainland so they can work the riverside cottages there.

[Ellimist]

In the near term, a forge in Sirius will increase our production from 8 to 10 and requires 120 hammers.
A lighthouse requires 60 hammers(34 more at this point), and will increase our food by 2. Right now, we are converting food to hammers at a favorable ratio, so 2 fpt(price 60) is better than 2 hpt(price 120). How does it add 2 food? Well it increases the yield on the fish and turns the whales into a 3F/2C tile. That's an extra improved tile that's better than a grassland farm. We get a tile that's equal in commerce to a riverside cottage(before growth), and equal in food to a farm.

Even if we don't work any other water tiles, that seems worth it. There is the forge multiplier on whip hammers, but the investment into the forge is much greater so we would not get it as soon. To me, the "snowball" concept says that we should build the building that benefits us soonest.

[Ellimist]

At eot, Sirius has 22/32 food in the box with a surplus of 7(19-12). I'd like to swap to the settler(15/100) next turn and whip it for 3 population. That would reduce size of the food box to 26 and bring the surplus to +8(14-6). We'd have 30/26 food at eot for growth.