[Spoiler] Team slowwalk of the Reservoir Cats (Suleiman/Korea, slowcheetah + Catwalk)

[Ceiliazul]

Since our thread is looking like a bit of a textfest lately I thought I'd put some pictures up:

Yay pictures!

...so when does that cow get improved again?

[slowcheetah]

Yay pictures!

...so when does that cow get improved again?

Lets just say we wont be lapping milk for quite a long time...


(probably around turn 40ish)

[Catwalk]

Diplo with Kuro sounds good, go for it. I kept clicking the windows popup on the last picture, wondering why it didn't respond

It's reliable to complete Oracle on t32 and get the forge on time, you may need to work a forest tile for a few turns. Also, the tile NW of the expansion is a forest, I've changed that manually in the sandbox. You'll be able to chop the final two forests on t31. And yeah, we should revolt to slavery after Oracle finishes. We'll only need to chop two forests for the forge with whipping, we'll have the workers in place to do that on time.

[Catwalk]

Just managed to get hold of xenu, chatting with him now.

[slowcheetah]

Goodo, I sent the message off to Kuro, no reply as of yet though

[Catwalk]

Getting along fine so far, he agreed to share knowledge of horses for our knowledge of copper:

That sort of invalidates our earlier planned position. He also added that his horses were in a similar location. This means we're at risk of being settled on aggressively.

[Catwalk]

Talks so far, will talk to him a bit more later. You're also welcome to chat him up if you like, and feel free to comment on my diplomatic style (or lack thereof).

spacetyrantxenu@gmail.com <spacetyrantxenu@gmail.com> 30. dec. 2011 17.20
Til: catwalkutopia@gmail.com
16.37
mig: Greetings
16.38
spacetyrantxenu: Hello, fellow dictator.

mig: Flattery will get you everywhere

Now if only I could get my wife to acknowledge my title as well

spacetyrantxenu: Of course!
16.39
mig: She's under this misguided impression that she's the boss

spacetyrantxenu: Ha. Well, the Chairwoman cares little for my civ activities and only nods and smiles when I tell her about it.
16.40
mig: If only I could get to that point

spacetyrantxenu: Hang on, let me get logged in on a pc, phone keypad is a pain.
16.41
much better

mig: So, on to diplo stuff
[various PBEM25 stuff]
[spoiler]
I just declared war

spacetyrantxenu: on whom?

mig: Pegasus :P

PBEM25
16.42
spacetyrantxenu: oh. Ha, I thought it was a bit early for war in PBEM 29. Sorry to say I haven't made it to PBEM 25 yet. Casus belli, or did you just want to spice things up?

mig: Cold war for quite a while now

I settled on him aggressively earlier on, and he didn't want to extend our NAP

spacetyrantxenu: I can't imagine why.

mig: He's probably getting ready to attack, may as well beat him to it
16.43
spacetyrantxenu: who is ahead in turn order?

mig: What do you mean?

spacetyrantxenu: which one of you plays the turn first on a given turn?

mig: Hmm, I think I'm ahead of him

spacetyrantxenu: doesn't matter outside a NAP but it has ramifications on who gets to attack first on the first turn of a NAP expiration.
16.44
mig: Yeah, I know about the NAP thing

Saw lots of whining about that in various threads

Make sure to drop by PBEM25g sometime, we're having a blast

spacetyrantxenu: yeah, probably mostly in any thread in PB4 where they got NAP-sniped by Rego

I'm slowly making my way through as many of the PBEM games as I can, there are a lot of good ones. PBEM17 is just fascinating.
16.45
mig: It's my first MP game, making PBEM29 my second one

spacetyrantxenu: yeah, PBEM29 is my first real MP game anywhere. I've MP'ed a bit via LAN with RL friends, but that's different. We usually comp stomp
16.46
I just hope I don't embarrass myself. x-(

mig: I'm sure you'll do fine

Cull did embarrass himself in 25, though

He's been mostly dead since t40
16.47
spacetyrantxenu: whoa, oops!

that will whack the balance of power in a small game like a PBEM for sure. someone is going to get extra land and roll ahead.

mig: Didn't settle his strategic resources, got attacked with chariots while he only had warriors

On that note
16.48
spacetyrantxenu: now I'm curious, who was the attacker?

mig: Ceil and Ad Hoc teamed up against him

I was invited to join in, but decided to keep building

spacetyrantxenu: I couldn't remember if that was the PBEM that TMIT was playing in or not. I figured he'd chariot or HA rush someone.
16.49

mig: Do you have knowledge of horses or copper yet? We know where copper is

I'll have to check with my research bureaucrats, but I believe we can find horse meat if you need it.

mig: sec

spacetyrantxenu: Perhaps a screen exchange, my horse flesh for your copper bits?
16.50
mig: We'd be happy to do such an exchange
16.51
Where have you explored so far? We've gone up our arm away from the tundra, and are also checking out Kuro's lands at the moment

spacetyrantxenu: i have a shot with one horse close to you, hang on a sec:
16.52
https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/RB...w=2683af85

mig: The copper is in the middle of the FP bonanza region

On a desert hill

Will fetch it in a few

Can't access the link you sent me

spacetyrantxenu: That image shows the extent of what our scout Steve Inskeep has managed

doh
16.53
oh, I think I need to copy the public link, oops

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/44346970/RB/PBEM...hLands.JPG

mig: Hmm, tundra horses

spacetyrantxenu: yeah, gross
16.54
mig: I assume your horses are in a similar location?

spacetyrantxenu: you could say that.

one sec, boss key :P

mig: That kind of ruins our dotmap so far, that's great info to have

Now, on to copper
16.55
spacetyrantxenu: just a minute, at work, diplo chat shouldn't be on the screen right now :-o
16.56
mig:
17.00
fetches the microscope to figure out what xenu is researching!
17.01
Hmm

Kind of early for Currency, isn't it?
17.02
rereads

Ohhh....
17.04
Well, fair is fair

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/51943589/Civ4ScreenShot0042.JPG
17.05
I didn't edit out our research on this one either
17.06
Erm

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/51943589/Civ4ScreenShot0043.JPG

This one!
17.07
spacetyrantxenu: sorry, back now

oh, sorry. that research said Superconductor, sorry to make it hard to read.
17.08
I'm going to take Fusion with Liberalism (shh!)

mig: zips lips

spacetyrantxenu: looking at your photos now, do you play on a laptop?
17.09
mig: I do, but those are actually slowcheetah's

spacetyrantxenu: oh. screen resolution is squishy. i hope he knows he can adjust that to run in a better looking more native resolution? (i'll stop my visual snobbery now)

mig: Yeah, I was wondering about that too
17.10
spacetyrantxenu: so you've made contact with Kuro, it looks like.

That would give you a reason to ask him what takes so long to play the turns! :P
17.11
mig: Yeah, we have contact with all 3 now

spacetyrantxenu: going for a religion, huh? that wasn't in my immediate plans, maybe we can setup a deal later for missionaries.

mig: Oh, we should go post a public thread!

spacetyrantxenu: oh, good. you can setup the UN / trash talking thread!

mig: In PBEM25g I named it "The Catnip Cottage"
17.12
spacetyrantxenu: ha. well it is up to you what to name it. I'd probably make it something like the Great Dictators' Club, but I'm also enjoying playing as Mao a bit too much.
17.13
mig: Not bad at all, we might go with that

I was discussing a bit with slowcheetah about your principles against NAPs

My take on it was that you cannot be trusted and should be killed swiftly

His take on it was that you have bowmen, so my plan was stupid
17.14
spacetyrantxenu: Ha. We'd prefer to not war early. As Locke says, early war stupid, but we Republicans do have that war hawk reputation...so good luck!
17.15
I'd like to think trust is more a function of building a relationship and less upon gamey agreements that are often violated anyway, if not in letter than in spirit.

mig: I agree with that principle

However, I think the main consequence of that principle is not to sign long NAPs

As long NAPs do get in the way

Short NAPs are quite different
17.16
PBEM25g saw plenty long NAPs, for example

And some of them were used to settle aggressively

spacetyrantxenu: I think you'll find Mao a fair (enough) trade partner and if I were to attack you I'd do nothing at this stage but create a game-long enemy. No use in that.

mig: I would very much like that
17.17
So you're saying that at this moment in time you have no plans to start building archers against us next turn? :P

[Comment about PBEM28]

spacetyrantxenu: I agree with what you're saying, long NAPs make the game boring (see PB4), short NAPs are very useful and don't tie your hands so much that you can't work around them. But I don't think I've seen a game where someone just didn't want to do them, so I thought I'd give it a try.

mig: PBEM28 seems to turn out that way, actually

17.19
Say, will you be available to chat a bit later? My wife is nagging at me to go shopping

spacetyrantxenu: Well, I don't want to make any promises that may not be kept so I'll say this. We will be building military for defensive purposes, which would be very foolish to not do since we're not NAPping up. We'll probably explore with some of those units since map knowledge is important. And if someone were foolish enough to not guard their territory and we thought we could gain advantage by, you know, guarding their cities for them, we might be inclined to do that at some point, theoretically. But we're not going to be roaming the map with a stack of bows looking for someone's head to crush. Not that I mind doing that, but I think the unit upkeep would kill us

mig: It's 17:19 here, I'm from Denmark
17.20
spacetyrantxenu: I work 8 AM to 5 PM US (GMT -5), but I try to stay logged in on my phone so whenever you want to chat I should be around.

Enjoy the day with your wife!

mig: Sounds good, thanks

Have fun at work!

spacetyrantxenu: what's the Danish word for goodbye?
17.21
mig: Farvel

spacetyrantxenu: then farvel! (sounds like "fare well", I'm sure they're related)

mig: Yeah, from back when vikings rocked the world

Talk to you later

spacetyrantxenu: arrrr! later.[/spoiler]

[slowcheetah]

Looks good I'm satisfied that he's not going to choke us immediately. Next time he's online we could offer him a buddhist missionary at some point down the line, since I think he knows we are researching Med from the screenshots anyway?

I've fiddled with my resolution again now (think it got reset to default when civ randomly uninstalled), so future pictures may look a bit better (although not the ones coming up in my next post).

Btw I am in PBEM28 (when it eventually starts playing again), so you should probably put mentions of it in spoilers in future.

[slowcheetah]

So I was thinking about where to settle our third city so I drew up some potential dotmaps, with what we know now.

Northern Dotmap

Blue dot is our second city

The red and orange dots represent potential third city sites, which I will cover in more detail in a moment.

Purple dot is just a filler to use up some land and may not ever be settled.

The three grey dots are some potential thoughts about the future, but obviously these cities wont be settled for a while.

Southern Dotmap

Yellow dot is the key dot here, with three food resources and reasonable production a city there would probably become one of our strongest (probably a GP farm).

The three greens are positioned defensively in order to gether resources and be able to quickly reinforce one another. I view them as a buffer to prevent attack on our core, their closeness will also assist in cultural control of the area, they can obvioulsy borrow some resources from Yellow to grow although aside from the southernmost green dot there actual economic output will probably be minimal.

Black and white dots, should be settled relatively soon but I don't think they are in the running for 3rd, 4th or 5th cities.


Third city settlement.

My preffered third cities are in the northern part of the map and are Red and Orange dot.

My reasoning for this is these are the two closest sites which are useful without animal husbandry which we probably won't have researched by the time our third settler is produced.

Red dot has the advantage of being coastal and easier to road to than orange dot. The workboat for Red can also be built be our second city for a faster start.

However, I think orange dot is actually my preferred third city site, founding on the copper instantly connects it for defensive purposes admittedly we lose out on a few hammers but the site has lots of hills and food from flooplains so shouldn't be particularly hammer poor. The site also requires only agriculture and mining to utilise. It will require more worker turns to connect and improve than red though.

I then think yellow dot in the south should be the 4th city founded but only if we build the pyramids there for a quick border expansion (all of it's food resources are second ring). We can then produce more workers and settlers for the southern tundra from yellow dot, use orange dot for research (cottages or scientists). More workers and settlers for the north from the capital and red dot, and maybe use ivory site for military.

Techwise I think the key technologies we need to get after the oracle are Fishing, AH, Hunting, Writing and maybe sailing for galleys? Before heading towards currency.

What are your thoughts Catwalk?

[Catwalk]

Lots more diplo with xenu, think I removed all spoiler references from this one:

spacetyrantxenu@gmail.com <spacetyrantxenu@gmail.com> 30. dec. 2011 23.15
Til: catwalkutopia@gmail.com
21.33
mig: Holler
21.34
spacetyrantxenu: Holler back. I'm at someone else's desk, on my cell to chat now (so slooooow typing).

Wife is well satisfied I hope? (Shopping I mean!)

mig: Want to talk later? I'm not in a hurry

Oh, was just shopping for groceries
21.35
Dinner turned into dinner and a movie plus cuddling on the couch

So she's satisfied

spacetyrantxenu: Sure, about 15 minutes I should be done here.

Lol, excellent.

mig: That's a deal then
27 minutter
22.03
spacetyrantxenu: back at my desk, i'll call it 15+13 minutes

I didn't account for how slow her computer was (was installing some software)
11 minutter
22.14
mig: Holler!
22.15
Sorry, late too

spacetyrantxenu: no worries. work goes on for another 45 minutes.

mig: On to business then
22.16
You stated earlier that map knowledge is important to you

spacetyrantxenu: ah, we have more business?

mig: What exactly did you mean by map knowledge?
22.17
spacetyrantxenu: Mostly that it is important to have as few fogged tiles as possible, so that you can see if someone is about to roll a stack of doom through your territory. Defense is the main importance of map knowledge, to me.

The sooner I can see an invasion coming the longer I have to prepare for it, that sort of thing.

mig: Let's say that one of your bowmen happened upon one of our cities with a warrior sitting in it
22.18
You hit up the combat odds for fun, and they say 80%

What would be the most likely outcome?
22.19
spacetyrantxenu: I'd have to check our diplo modifier to see if Mao is "hands full." Kidding, of course. If you've at garrisoned the city I'd call that more of a willful invasion than an opportunistic city steal.
22.20
If you've been mean to us and Mao has had a bad day at work, on the other hand....!

I guess you're trying to feel out how we're going to operate, sans NAP?

mig: Well

I'm trying hard to interpret your messages in a positive non-threatening way

I'm the bad kitty on our team, btw

slowcheetah is the good kitty

I may have done a poor job conveying that so far
22.21
spacetyrantxenu: I do have to stay in character as Chairman Mao, of the Republican Party no less. I have to posture aggressively at all times or the Party may repudiate me.

ah, good to know. I was afraid you guys were going to go "bad cop, worse cop" like Will Ferrell in "The Other Guys"

mig: More like cute kitty - cuddly kitty

spacetyrantxenu: It's good to know I can do business with at least one of you!

mig: We kind of suck at the mean thing

spacetyrantxenu: haha
22.22
mig: My wife loves Will Ferrell movies, btw

I loathe them

spacetyrantxenu: well, if my first email message to you didn't set the character tone correctly, Mao will have no problem slaughtering as many of his own citizens as necessary How we treat other civilizations' people is up to their benevolent dictators.
22.23
really? I used to hate "Elf" but I watched it over the holiday and really liked it this time. Some of the movies are hit and miss, though....

mig: Did I mention she's from Texas? She moved here last August

Quite the culture shock for both of us
22.24
spacetyrantxenu: you had not mentioned that. lucky lady, I'd say. I've not been to Denmark yet, but I've been (fairly) close nearby -- my wife and I traveled through the Netherlands and some of western Europe in 2009, I really liked it. It was in some ways a bit sad to come home.
22.25
example: I was genuinely disappointed the first time I had to get in my car and drive anywhere. No more riding 1st class mass transit and the free time that goes with it.

mig: Europe is very nice

Until it burns down in a decade or so

spacetyrantxenu: I'm hoping that if your Euros keep declining we'll be able to afford going back soon.
22.26
mig: Doesn't look so bright over here at the moment

The global crisis spawned a number of national crises in countries with too much debt and poor budget control
22.27
spacetyrantxenu: aye. I keep apprised of the situation as much as possible. I mean, I don't have a lot of control over what my investments are doing but it would be nice to have a few days advance warning to head to the ATM and get all the cash out I can! (tin foil hat warning)

you guys should kick out Greece. not that it would help much at this point. but what do I know, I'm no economist.

mig: What do you do in your sparetime when you're not busy oppressing people?
22.31
spacetyrantxenu: do you mean Mao or Xenu? with so many personalities I'm supposed to carry on as it gets hard to tell. Mao also likes to ridicule all the barbarian tribes beyond the lands of the Middle Kingdom (his name for the Republican Party), but Xenu, as I'll misleadingly continue to refer to myself, well, I'm not such a bad sport as Mao. I don't have the rank in life to oppress people, so I guess I just do what I can with my free time to amuse myself. In real life that would equate to doing the family thing with my wife and four month old boy, and then with whatever time is left after that I've always been a game player. These days mostly Civ, but I'm also unsuccessfully trying to play Skyrim, too.

Since joining a PBEM game and trying to wrap up our BTS SG, I've not played much Skyrim lately. Not that it's going anywhere. To the point, I lead a fairly dull existence since there isn't much to do where I live.
22.32
mig: I used to play a lot of pool

Got pretty decent, for Danish standards

It's a small sport over here

spacetyrantxenu: you changed your name from Sharkwalk to Catwalk because it made it easier to hustle in the pool halls?

mig: Not much of a hustler, actually

spacetyrantxenu: I don't play pool, I can't keep from scratching tables when I try to play.

mig: I'm the type who'd challenge people to play for a beer without a bet on their end while I play with one hand, just for fun
22.33
spacetyrantxenu: does that ever work?

mig: Having fun? Yes, quite

And I'd usually win

spacetyrantxenu: well, winning the beer.

mig: Oh I didn't win a beer

They'd get one if they win, if I win I just get to avoid losing one

spacetyrantxenu: oh, got it.
22.34
I misread the terms & conditions.

mig: Just showing off, basically :P

spacetyrantxenu: maybe you and I should provide free beer incentives to Kuro to play the turns faster. I can't tell that to him myself since we haven't met, but perhaps you could :P

mig: Yeah

24h+ now

spacetyrantxenu: not that I've ever spoken with him or know if he drinks, etc.

mig: He dropped out of PB6, he seems busy overall
22.35
spacetyrantxenu: dropping out of PB6 seems to have been merciful to the team, not that it has mattered that much with as much turnover as they've had.

mig: Yep
22.36
spacetyrantxenu: I haven't seen the score this turn but he's somehow behind here, too. I wonder if he researched part of a tech and then switched, either out of indecision or by some desire to screw with anyone who may be tracking techs.

do you know much or anything about Sian? I see his thread still only has 2 posts in it, so he isn't much for updating. But he sends the the turns on time so his diplo modifier isn't negative yet.

mig: Well

We've had some dealings with him
22.37
Can you be trusted though, or are you just fishing for info? :P

spacetyrantxenu: Mao is a deep sea fisherman. But you can also trust him.
22.38
mig: The kitties and the Sian are unlikely to be great friends, at least early on

We're both racing for the Oracle

spacetyrantxenu: ruh roh

lol

mig: We offered him minor concessions if he'd back off, he wasn't interested

spacetyrantxenu: he's IND, do you think you can beat him to it?

mig: Pretty sure we can

Unless he's willing to play spoilsport and grab something stupid with it

spacetyrantxenu: i thought for sure he'd make a run for the great lighthouse, being IND/ORG no way anyone could beat him to it

mig: Beakers are the main limiting factor
22.39
Yeah, we offered him non-competes on several wonders in exchange

spacetyrantxenu: I hope you only offered non-competes on wonders you didn't want to build.
22.40
mig: Lighthouse and Colossus

We'd like them, but Oracle would make a big difference to us

spacetyrantxenu: hmm. I don't think I'd like him to sweep lighthouse and colossus.

if he does that he may find open borders a tough sell for us.

mig: That's what we figured If he were to get those, he'd be unlikely to make friends anyway
22.41
spacetyrantxenu: by the way this conversation is private between you, cheetah, me, and whoever is lurking our threads, right?

mig: So it wouldn't be that much of a concession

Of course

spacetyrantxenu: right then. i posted our earlier chat to my thread since i like reading diplo so much. I thought someone else would, too

mig: You're free to post any diplo in your thread, of course

spacetyrantxenu: i did mean to ask you if it was ok first, though

great

mig: We're not worried about lurker security
22.42
RB works out great in that sense

Erm

Except for me accidentally wandering into your thread

spacetyrantxenu: as far as we know

yeah, i saw your PM, no worries

before you got SPOILER edited onto your thread title i always worried i would hit your thread, too

Our warrior is currently off exploring to the NE
22.45
spacetyrantxenu: in the jungle area?

mig: Should we recall it to ward off a friendly Mao scouting expedition with bows?

Yes

spacetyrantxenu: no, we've seen your capital, that's what we wanted in that scouting trip
22.46
the only other peaceful reason i can see coming up to send units that way would be to defog any tiles necessary to establish trade routes when that's possible.

mig: So without making any promises (as usual), it'd be highly unlikely for us to see bowmen lurking around in the foreseeable future?
22.48
spacetyrantxenu: I am not making promises only so I don't end up a liar if something were to happen. My purpose for being vague regarding diplomacy and military "training exercises" is only to force my opponents to have a defensive force of their own. If I check F9 50 turns from now and see that Kuro, Sian, or you guys have built absolutely no military, you guys should be concerned. That's all I can say about it. I'm playing to cover myself in the absence of a NAP or alliance.

mig: I can live with that then

spacetyrantxenu: I guess my background is that I came to RB while the PB4 game was going on and I was endlessly disappointed with how it played out, with LP winning via (skillful, I admit) NAP abuse.
22.49
mig: I agree with that notion, as we talked about earlier

spacetyrantxenu: Your proposals of short NAPs obviously would alleviate those concerns, but I just find a no NAP game to be fun (hopefully) for all of us and the lurkers.

mig: Well, it could also give you the short end of the stick

Although with us and Sian butting heads, maybe you'll luck out

spacetyrantxenu: if you and the other players want to NAP up and come after me that would just be an indication that my diplomacy was a failure and I'd have to learn from that for next time.

mig: We've explored some of the NE arm and are moving into Kuro's lands now

Lost interest in exploration a little bit when we realized the map was mostly symmetrical
22.52
spacetyrantxenu: map exchanges would be fine with me

mig: Where have you been so far?

spacetyrantxenu: yeah, I've thought it was symmetrical ever since I crossed the tundra into your territory.

especially after seeing the FP area in your photo you sent earlier, you can see a rotation or mirror line there as well
22.53
so far, what you've seen in the image I sent to you of your own area that's as far as our scout has gone, and the warrior was very careful about letting the capital stay undefended

so he hasn't gone too far either, but he's now exploring toward the FP area now that we have sufficient city garrison in the capital.
22.54
I deduced that you left your capital undefended for a while, that or you built an earlier 2nd warrior

mig: 2nd warrior coming shortly

We decided early exploration was valuable

I wonder what's at the end of those arms

spacetyrantxenu: ergo capital is/was undefended. our bow stack is 3 tiles out.

:P

mig: Do we have any means of knowing what kind of wrap the map has?
22.55
spacetyrantxenu: I'm fairly sure of the map wrap, have been since T0, unless my method of figuring it is invalid. I worldbuilder tested my theory on different map setups and feel confident of the wrap type
22.56
mig: If it's flat, expect to be seeing about 50 imperialistic cities by t60

Not that you should feel threatened by that in any way, of course

They'll be populated by cuddly kitties out to do no harm
22.57
As long as there's room for more litterboxes somewhere

spacetyrantxenu: we don't need litterboxes, let global warming come. we do not fear it.

brb
22.58
if flat you say that because you'd expect your border with everyone to be in the tundra area, and then you could just spam out cities?
22.59
you are IMP/ ??
23.00
as EXP / PRO, we will be building an army of protective workers. Wait... hmm.

mig: Phi/Imp

Yes, safe border + low city costs

Phi encourages specializing more, though

spacetyrantxenu: would you be disappointed if i told you it was not a flat map?

mig: Not really sure how we're going to play that

Very
23.01
spacetyrantxenu: um...i hate to be the bearer of bad news...

would you like some free map information?

mig: Always!

As long as it's not toroidal

spacetyrantxenu: i believe we have a toroidal wrap.

mig: NOOOOOOOOOOOO

Boo

spacetyrantxenu: i'll show you my weak evidence. it could also be untrue, as i may not be as good with testing these things as i thought i was

mig: Show me your worst!
23.02
spacetyrantxenu: i'm giving up some of my secret sauce here, I hope we end up good friends in this game.

this shot is from T1, it's what i base my toroidal guess upon:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/44346970/RB/PBEM...rldIso.JPG
23.03
i haven't had a lurker tell me if I'm off my medication yet, so maybe this is a valid proof.
23.04
also, disregard the details of my territory...that's free map info i didn't mean to provide

the lines just show the same scout standing on the same tile tile in 3 places
23.05
i tried to work out the map dimensions from that photo but about 45 minutes into it i gave up.
23.07
mig: Nifty!

Sorry, was on another window and this one didn't blink
23.08
spacetyrantxenu: i don't know 100% for sure if that's proof but it looks like both X and Y wrap to me

it would make sense, though, on a 4 player small map for Commodore to have chosen toroidal, otherwise i'd have a hard time getting to Sian and you'd have trouble getting after Kuro
23.09
so Sian's ORG trait is a bit better than it otherwise might have been

mig: Yeah

And Imp/Phi not as awesome as we thought it would be

spacetyrantxenu: but we're only on prince difficulty so it isn't that big a deal

how does it detract from IMP/PHI?

mig: Well, Imp wants low city costs

spacetyrantxenu: you were planning to defend all those cities anyway, right?
23.10
you'll have low cost city settling

maybe you'll need a few more early commerce cities to make up for the maintenance costs, but after CoL you should be fine
23.12
mig: I have to run, wife is demanding increasingly more attention

I can't fend her off with non-answers much longer
23.13
spacetyrantxenu: you should get her to sign a NAP good luck, and good evening. Farvel!
23.15
mig: Godt nytår!

Just lots more chit chat mostly, trying to get a feel for his style. Either he's a really smooth liar, or we can take him to be fairly trustworthy. I did stick my neck out a bit by mentioning our Oracle plans and Sian not liking it, possibly a mistake on my part. But I have revised my earlier suspicion and think that he's our best chance at making a friend, although we'll need to make sure that the friendship stays mutually beneficial.

I'll comment on the dotmap tomorrow! If you feel like grabbing the save tomorrow you're more than welcome to, assuming the turns keep rolling on new year's eve.